Fracture: Vietnam, Watergate, and After, 1968–1980

This is Unit Fifteen, part three, on Cambodia, the war's end, and Watergate. Part two closed with the only soldier convicted for My Lai, and pointed to Cambodia. Carry one question through this part: who checks a president? Watch the press publish a secret history, Congress limit war powers, and reporters stop believing the briefings. Then, in Watergate, the press, the courts and Congress each play a part in removing a president fresh from a landslide. By the end you will be able to explain why Kent State and Jackson State are both taught. To describe how Congress and the press checked the war. To distinguish the war's two endings and state its costs. To trace Watergate from break-in to resignation. And to explain why a landslide gave Nixon no protection.

Two entries: an invasion announced on television, and the shootings on two campuses that followed.

Cambodia.

USH2 2141 Cambodia

On April thirtieth, nineteen seventy, Nixon announced on television that American forces had invaded Cambodia, and protests broke out across the country; the Yawp describes a madman strategy of attacks on communist supply lines in Laos and Cambodia, carried out without public knowledge or congressional approval. Digital History says the incursion helped destabilise Cambodia and bring the murderous Khmer Rouge to power.

Two campuses.

USH2 2142 Kent State and Jackson State

On May fourth, nineteen seventy, at Kent State University in Ohio, National Guard troops fired on protesting students, wounding nine and killing four; two of the dead had been crossing campus on their way to class. On May fifteenth, at Jackson State, a college for African Americans in Mississippi, police fired shotguns into a crowd protesting the invasion of Cambodia outside a women's dormitory, wounding twelve and killing two young men. The Yawp records six students killed in the two protests, and names Kent State as the more famous. The misreading remembers one shooting and forgets the other. The anchor names both; the course teaches both, and the difference in memory is part of what is taught.

Three entries on the checks that came: a secret history published, a law on war powers, and reporters who stopped believing the briefings.

The Pentagon Papers.

USH2 2143 The Pentagon Papers

In June nineteen seventy-one newspapers began publishing the Pentagon Papers, a confidential Defense Department history of American involvement in Vietnam, later leaked, the Yawp says, and Attorney General John Mitchell sought to stop them. On June thirtieth the Supreme Court ruled that publication could not be blocked, the anchor records.

The War Powers Resolution.

USH2 2144 The War Powers Resolution

In nineteen seventy-three Congress passed the War Powers Resolution over Nixon's veto, requiring presidents to obtain its authorisation to engage American forces in combat, Digital History records, and the Yawp judges that it dramatically reduced the president's ability to wage war without congressional consent. The anchor does not carry the Resolution. The Gulf of Tonkin of unit fourteen is the power it answered.

The press in Saigon.

USH2 2145 The Five O'Clock Follies

American journalists in Vietnam, the Yawp says, soon saw the hollowness of official claims of progress, and called the afternoon press briefings in Saigon the Five O'Clock Follies, while editors at home often toned down their pessimism, citing officials' conflicting information. Tet, in unit fourteen, showed the public what the reporters had seen.

Two entries on the end of the war, and its costs.

From Paris to Saigon.

USH2 2146 From Paris to Saigon

On January twenty-seventh, nineteen seventy-three, Henry Kissinger signed an accord with the North Vietnamese negotiator Le Duc Tho, ending American participation in the war. American troops had sixty days to withdraw, and North Vietnam kept its forces where they stood, over one hundred thousand soldiers in the South. On April twenty-ninth, nineteen seventy-five, as North Vietnamese forces reached Saigon, Americans and South Vietnamese who had worked with them were evacuated, and the next morning tanks crashed through the gates of the presidential palace. Two endings belong together: American participation ended in nineteen seventy-three, and the war ended when Saigon fell in nineteen seventy-five. The anchor judges that on the accords' terms the South had no hope of defeating the North.

The war's costs.

USH2 2147 The War's Costs

More than fifty-eight thousand Americans died in the war; Digital History gives fifty-eight thousand one hundred thirty-two, and records more than three million who served, their average age nineteen. The anchor counts over one and a half million Vietnamese dead, combatants and civilians; Digital History says the Vietnamese may have lost two million lives, and bore the war's greatest suffering.

Four entries on the break-in and the cover-up: the arrests, the plumbers, the reporters, and a judge who kept asking.

The Watergate break-in.

USH2 2148 The Break-In

On the night of June seventeenth, nineteen seventy-two, police arrested five men inside the Democratic National Committee's offices in the Watergate complex in Washington, burglars working for the Committee to Re-Elect the President. The Yawp says there is no direct evidence Nixon ordered the break-in, but tapes record him asking for the DNC chairman to be illegally wiretapped.

The plumbers.

USH2 2149 The Plumbers

In nineteen seventy-one the White House had assembled a team of plumbers, former CIA operatives, to stop leaks to the press, Digital History records, and CREEP planned dirty tricks against Nixon's opponents, the anchor says. On June twenty-third, six days after the break-in, Nixon ordered aides to block the FBI's investigation on grounds of national security.

The reporters.

USH2 2150 Deep Throat

Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, guided by anonymous sources, found the White House deeply involved in the break-in, helped by the source known only as Deep Throat, revealed years later as Mark Felt, the FBI's associate director. The press, the courts and Congress each played a part in what followed; the next entries take them in turn.

Judge Sirica.

USH2 2151 Judge Sirica

In January nineteen seventy-three the burglars and their organisers were convicted, but Judge John Sirica doubted that all the guilty had been found, and on March twenty-third read aloud in court a burglar's letter alleging perjury at the trial. Less than two weeks later Jeb Magruder of CREEP admitted lying, the anchor records.

Four entries: the Senate hearings, the tapes, a night of firings, and a vice president's fall.

The Senate hearings.

USH2 2152 The Senate Hearings

Through the spring and summer of nineteen seventy-three the networks broadcast the Senate Watergate hearings, as former officials confessed or denied their roles, and John Dean, the White House counsel, testified that Nixon was involved in the conspiracy, which Nixon denied. Archibald Cox, named special prosecutor in May, pursued the case alongside the Senate, the anchor records.

The tapes.

USH2 2153 The Tapes

On July sixteenth, nineteen seventy-three, Alexander Butterfield testified that a voice-activated system recorded conversations in the Oval Office, Digital History records, and Cox and the Senate subpoenaed the tapes, while Nixon refused, citing executive privilege, the president's claimed right to refuse certain subpoenas. The anchor says the investigation might have ended without Butterfield's testimony.

The Saturday Night Massacre.

USH2 2154 The Saturday Night Massacre

On October twentieth, nineteen seventy-three, Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Cox; Richardson refused and resigned, and so did his deputy, William Ruckelshaus, and Solicitor General Robert Bork, left in charge, fired Cox. The public was enraged, the anchor says, telegrams flooded the White House, and the House began discussing impeachment.

The vice president's fall.

USH2 2155 Agnew Resigns

Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned over a charge of failing to report income that came from bribes he had taken as governor of Maryland, a charge the anchor calls lenient, and Gerald Ford, a longtime congressman from Michigan known for his honesty, was appointed in his place under the Twenty-fifth Amendment.

Three entries on the end of a presidency, and on the landslide that came before it.

Impeachment.

USH2 2156 Impeachment Articles

In July nineteen seventy-four the House Judiciary Committee voted three articles of impeachment, for obstruction of justice, abuse of power and refusal to surrender the tapes, Digital History records, and on August fifth Nixon released the tapes on the Supreme Court's order; they confirmed Dean's testimony. The Yawp notes eighteen and a half minutes missing from one recorded conversation about the break-in.

The resignation.

USH2 2157 Resignation

Nixon resigned before the full House could vote on impeachment, the first and only American president to resign, the Yawp records, and Gerald Ford was sworn in, a president never elected to the presidency or the vice presidency, as the anchor notes. No vice president before Ford, the anchor adds, had succeeded a president who resigned.

The landslide that preceded it.

USH2 2158 From Landslide to Resignation

In nineteen seventy-two Nixon won reelection with five hundred twenty electoral votes; George McGovern carried only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. McGovern's campaign looked disorganised after he dropped his running mate, Thomas Eagleton, and voters, the anchor says, favoured Nixon's Vietnam policy two to one. The break-in had come five months before the vote. Less than two years after the landslide, Nixon resigned. The misreading assumes a president so strongly endorsed could not be forced out. The landslide gave Nixon no protection once the tapes existed: the courts ordered them released, the House Judiciary Committee voted articles of impeachment, and the Yawp says no scandal did more to unravel public trust.

Look at what you can now do. You can explain why both campuses are taught: Kent State's four dead and Jackson State's two, one remembered and one forgotten. You can describe the checks on the war: the Pentagon Papers published, the War Powers Resolution passed over a veto, and the Five O'Clock Follies. You can distinguish the two endings. American participation ended in nineteen seventy-three, and the war at Saigon in nineteen seventy-five, with more than fifty-eight thousand American and over a million and a half Vietnamese dead. You can trace Watergate: the break-in, the cover-up six days later, the reporters, Judge Sirica, the hearings, the tapes, the night of firings, and resignation. And you can explain why a landslide gave Nixon no protection once the tapes existed.