Nixon and the Crisis of Authority

pictures --->

read in Chapter 32

  1. Nixon and Social Upheaval
    • New Left, Mario Savio, Rolling Stones, AIM, UFW, NOW, Stonewall
  2. Nixon, Kissinger, and the War
    • Vietnamization, Kent State, Daniel Ellsberg, William Calley, Le Duc Tho
  3. Nixon, Kissinger and the World
    • Detente, SALT I, Yom Kippur War, oil embargo
  4. Politics and Economics Under Nixon
    • Silent Majority, Warren Court, George Wallace, deindustrialization, inflation, Phase II
  5. The Watergate Crisis
    • CRP, Sam Ervin, Archibald Cox, Elliot Richardson, Leon Jaworski, Gerald Ford
Nixon campaigning 1968, from NA
Woodward and Bernstein watching Nixon on TV 4/30/73, from UT

Television and the Presidency by Theodore White
   

   

   

   

Nixon meets in the Oval Office with Vice President Gerald R. Ford, Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, and Chief of Staff Alexander Haig 1973 (NLF-WHPO-H0033(02)) from NA
Nixons visit the Great Wall of China and the Ming tombs 02/24/1972 (NLNP-WHPO-MPF-C8549(25A)) from NA
Berndt von Staden, Willy Brandt, President Nixon, Henry Kissinger, Gunther van Vell during the visit to the U.S. of Chancellor Brandt of the Federal Republic of Germany 09/29/1973 (NLNP-WHPO-MPF-E1558C(10) ) from NA

Chapter 31 - Why Vietnam?

  1. Orthodox interpretation: to stop communist aggression, prevent other nations from falling victim, defend ideals of freedom, protect legitimate national interests; it was "the most selfless war in all of American history . . . it was simply not to abandon friends." (Ernest R. May)
  2. Revisionist interpretation: to preserve imperialism and capitalism, impose on the world an American model by a leadership deluded with an "arrogance of power" (J. William Fulbright), to win political support for the Great Society
  3. Post-revisionist interpretation: the war was a tragic blunder; it became a "quagmire" caused by the failure to develop any alternative policy to containment.

Outlines:

revised 5/4/06 by Schoenherr