End

• Indochina - Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia


  Countries receive independence from European owners
• Ho Chi Minh - Vietnamese, communist, leader of North Vietnam

  • Army - NVA

  Ngo Dinh Diem - leader of South Vietnam

  • Viet Cong (VCs) - people who lived in the South but didn't support Ngo because he was a dictator, fought for North Vietnam
  • VCs don't like the US because they support Ngo


  Vietnamese is split in half, North is communist and South is not

  • US supports Ngo only because he isn't a communist
• Domino Theory - countries fall to communism like dominoes
• Gulf of Tonkin (coast of Vietnam)

  • Johnson said that American ships were in the gulf and they were fired at by the NVA 


  Gulf of Tonkin Resolution - Congress allowed Johnson to use force in response to North Vietnamese hostility

  • No one knows what the war is about so no one is volunteering
  • Johnson has to start the draft
• William Westmoreland - leader of US army in Vietnam

  • Guerilla Warfare
  • Can't tell the different between VCs and civilians
• Operation Rolling Thunder

  • Bombing of Vietnam (and Laos)
  • Used Napalm - highly flammable, long-term effects
• Everyone who is <25 and qualify for the draft are anti-war

  • Older generation thinks it un-American to criticize war/Johnson
• 1968, Tet (Vietnamese New Year)

  North Vietnam launches Tet Offensive - North Vietnam plants people and weapons in boxes of decorations heading to South Vietnam

  • No soldiers were prepared for battle
  • NVA's pop out of boxes and VCs hide in trees and ambush US troops

  America never recovers
• Anti-War Movement

  • People come home from the war and don't support it, no one knew why the US was at war
  • Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) - Association of Anti-War groups
  • Some people in SDS want to overthrow the government, SDS leaders say no, kooks split and form the Weather Underground (terrorist group)
• Election of 1968 (Richard Nixon v. Hubert Humphrey)

  • JFK doesn't run because he knows he'll lose, his VP Humphrey runs in his place
  • Nixon promise to get out of Vietnam War


  Nixon wins

  • Doesn't stop war, deploys more troops and invades Cambodia
• Vietnamization - the process of the US getting out of Vietnam

  • US will help train S Vietnam army so the US can leave them in a good place when they get out of the war 


  Reality - Nixon takes troops out of Vietnam and send them to Cambodia

  • Rumor that VC headquarter was in Cambodia, true-ish
  • Nixon didn't have to tell anyone because of Resolution
• When people find out that Nixon lied they start organizing protests

  • Kent State, OH - protested the Vietnam War, after the protest a few fights broke out and a riot started, Governor dispense Ohio National Guard
  • Students get mad so they protest again, a riot starts, Guard teargases students
  • Next night, someone set fire to ROTC building, when firefighter arrived protesters tried to cut their fire hoses
• School said that the protest on Monday was cancelled, told students to go to class

  • Thousands more students showed up to the protest than expected
  • Guard comes to try to disperse the students, start to teargas them, students throw teargas canisters at Guard, Guard progresses on students with bayonets


  Kent State Massacre - turns into riot, Guard starts shooting people, 11 students were shot, 4 were killed

  • Guard was investigated but no one was charged
• After Kent State Massacre, SDS organizes largest protests, millions of students stop going to school


  Most Americans dislike the Vietnam War but disapprove of the students' protest
• 100+ war crimes were reported by US troops
• My Lai Massacre - US troops were told VC's were in village, went into village and there were only women, children, and the elderly there, Lt. Calley told them to execute the entire village anyway 


  Suspicion that Lt. Calley was suffering from extreme PTSD
• Election of 1972

  • Nixon runs for reelection
  • Nixon starts actually removing troops from Vietnam, people forget about his lies 


  Nixon wins reelection
• 1973, Paris Peace Accords - US and Vietnam peace agreement

  • Return each other's POW
  • Ceasefire
  • US will remove troops from Vietnam 


  US spends $1 tril. in Vietnam

  • 60k American troops were killed
  • In total 1 mil. people were killed
• N Vietnam wins war, S Vietnam falls to communism
• Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

  Spring is silent because all of the animals are dead

  • Pesticides and chemicals that humans put into the environment are killing animals
  • If its not good for animals then its not good for humans
• April 1970, Earth Day Demonstrations
• Nixon was supportive of Environmental Movement

  • Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) - make environmental regulations, prosecute environment harmers, etc.
  • Clean Air Act - pollution restriction
  • Water Pollution Control Act - controls water pollution
  • Endangered Species Act - conservation efforts, prohibits poaching of endangered species
• Love Canal - a toxic waste dump in the town of Niagara Falls, NY.

  • Hurt aquifers and ground water


  Mortality rate was 100x higher than other cities in NY

  • Had to close down the city because it was uninhabitable
• Three Mile Island (PA) - nuclear reactor almost melted down, radiation poisoned the surrounding areas
• Nixon panders to middle class which gets him 90+ percent of votes 


  Middle class doesn't protest or speak out
• Turn the South Red - plan to turn the South red for this election and all future elections


  Dog Whistle Politics - say something where most people hear one thing but a certain group hears something else

  • Tough on Crime - War on Drugs, forms DEA, makes opponent seem weak on crime, crime was actually already decreasing
  • To the Dixiecrats this means that he's gonna make laws to arrest POC
• Stagflation - wages remain stagnant, but cost of living is inflation

  • Foreign competition become mainstream
  • Domestic businesses have more competition which makes it harder to produce
  • Oil Crisis - OPEC refuses to sell (embargo) on countries that ally with their enemies (Israel)
  • Gas prices shoot up, people can't afford gas and gas is hard to find 


  Nixon wanted to solve this problem but couldn't get congressional approval

  • Family Assistance Program - make minimum wage for families, seen as socialist
  • People saw Nixon as a RINO (Republican in Name Only)
• Spring 1972, break in at the Watergate Complex, where DNC (Democratic National Committee) headquarters are

  • Police catch the burglars, they were caught with audio recorders news barely comments on it
  • On the day of their sentencing, James McCord finally agrees to talk (doesn't want to go to prison)
  • McCord use to be in the CIA and work for Nixon's campaign
  • McCord says that this goes all the way to the top so FBI has to investigate it, blows up on the news
• Watergate Hearings - Congress starts interviewing staff

  • Washington Post Reporters (Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein) keep the story interesting and in the news
  • Source tells them that President is involved in this and covering it up (where illicit rendezvous in spy movies come from)
  • They have to investigate everything he says but he remains anonymous (they call him Deepthroat), "follow the money"
  • Deepthroat was also the name of a very popular pornography film
  • Nixon wants to find and prosecute Deepthroat
• Interviews turn into interrogations and people in Nixon's staff were involved or knew about Watergate

  • Congress finds out that Nixon records everything that happens in the oval office, they request the tapes and Nixon refuses (claims executive privilege)
  • US v. Nixon - US sues for the tapes, SC sides with US and order Nixon to give over the tapes
  • Parts of the tapes are missing, Nixon claims that it was an accident Congress knows that it wasn't
  • Smoking Gun Tape - things that were on the tapes were incrimination too
• Nixon resigns before he can be impeached
• Nixon's VP was Spiro Agnew (Governor of Maryland)

  • But during Watergate Agnew was found to be taking bribes and resigned
  • Because VP resigned, Nixon gets to choose his own VP, he picks Gerald Ford


  1973 - First thing Ford does as president is pardon Nixon of all crimes

  • If this was a premade quid pro quo between Nixon and Ford then it was a crime, but it can't be proven
  • Americans are mad, it seems like a setup
• Election of 1976 - Gerald Ford v. Jimmy Carter

  • No one actually elected Ford to office so Ford loses
• Nixon fades into obscurity
• Gerald Ford

  • WW2 Veteran
  • Football Star in college
  • Moderate
  • No enemies but no friends (until he pardons Nixon)


  People loved his wife, Betty Ford

  • Political Activist
  • Supported women's rights (not Republican)
  • Spoke publicly about her past with Alcoholism
  • Advocated for abortion rights
  • Open about her mastectomy (had breast cancer)
  • She was seen as very relatable
• Ford only had 2 years to make a name for himself

  • Claimed to fight corruption but pardons Nixon
• FBI papers were stolen

  • COINTELPRO was exposed
  • Pentagon Papers - info about Vietnam War


  Congress decides to investigate FBI and CIA

  • When Congress decided to release their investigation FORD removes dozens of papers
• Whip Inflation Now (WIN) - made to decrease stagflation, but failed miserably

  • Unemployment and inflation shot up 


  Republican party agreed to a stimulus package which is very rare
• Ford had an unsuccessful term, he didn't have friends in Congress so he couldn't get much passed
• Squeaky Fromme tried to assassinate Ford

  • She was part of Manson's cult 


  She found him in the street and tried to shoot him but her gun jammed