Today, we continued with blog discussions.
-Watergate
- Watergate- office hotel complex
- Home of the democratic headquarters for their campaigns
- 5 people were arrested for breaking into the headquarters to find dirt on the democratic Party
- 2 Washington Post reporters, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, investigated the story
- Bugged the phones so they could listen in on conversations
- The reporters relied on an FBI informant known as “Deep Throat” to link the men to the Nixon White House—“follow the money”
- This became one of a series of scandalous acts involving the Committee to Re-Elect the President
- Nixon downplayed the scandal and denounced the story as biased and misleading
- Nixon was involved by trying to cover up the break- in and eventually resigned from the presidency
- FBI eventually confirmed that Nixon aides had attempted to sabotage the democrats—many began resigning and faced prosecution
- He resigned before they could impeach him
-Gerald Ford
- 38th president
- 1974-1977
- Nixon’s Vice President
- Took over when Nixon resigned
- Only Vice President and president to never be elected
- Had 2 assassination attempts within 3 weeks
-Assassinations Attempts
- First in California
- Shooter didn’t have a chance to fire
- Was a woman
- Second from a crowd across the street
- Bounced off a wall and hit a taxi driver
-Elections
- 1976 election
- Against Carter
- Carter won
- Never really was elected president
- Mainly took over after Nixon’s resignation
- Less than a 1 term President
-Accomplishments
- Pardoned Nixon—a “corrupt bargain”?
- Offered conditional amnesty program from Vietnam War draft dodgers who had fled to countries such as Canada
- “Whip Inflation Now” called for Americans to reduce their spending and consumption in an attempt to stop inflation
- Education for All Handicapped Children Act (1975) established special education in school throughout the US
- Continued détente with the USSR
- Ford wanted to help South Vietnam when North Vietnam invaded in 1974 but Congress refused
- By April 1975, all of Vietnam became communist
- Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act was passed to allow refugees to immigrate to the US
-The Vietnam Conflict 1950- 1975
-About Vietnam War
- First televised war
- Perceived it worse than in was
- A lot of US soldiers killed a lot of innocent people
- Fought in the jungle
- People were hard to tell apart
- Everyone was a part of the war
- The enemy could be anywhere
- People were on edge and a lot of bad things happened
- Press was there documenting almost every move
- Vietnam is still communists today
-Goals of the US
- Stop communism from spreading to the US and around the world
-The French Connection
- France had gained control of Indochina in a series of colonial wars in the mid-late 1800’s
- During WW2, Vichy France worked with Japanese forces in controlling Indochina during WW2
- After the Japanese surrender, the French fought to retain control of their former colony against the Viet Minh independence movement, led by communist party leader Ho Chi Minh
- After the Viet Minh defeated the French colonial army at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the French withdrew, and the colony was granted independence
Comments