“Emperor” Nixon

The “silent majority” speaks out: the countercounterculture

Like 1848 in Europe, 1968 was a year of youth in revolt around the world: from the streets of Chicago to Mexico City to Paris to Prague, young Boomers of college age were taking a violent stand against “the establishment.” However, just as was the case with 1848 in most of Europe, the “revolutions” of 1968 failed to have as cataclysmic of an impact as was hoped by the young people—and feared by their parents.

This could be observed in the presidential election of that year. Gov. George Wallace walked away from the door of the University of Alabama a hero to many who opposed desegregation in all its forms, especially the forced busing campaigns of African-American students to “white neighborhoods” and vice versa that had resulted in so much criticism and backlash (and would continue to do so until busing’s failure was accepted by the 1980s). Wallace campaigned as a third-party candidate, wanting to reverse the tide of the Johnson-era progress in the civil rights movement.

The tide had reached its crest in other areas, however, and was starting to fall short of its revolutionary hopes. While the “counterculture” had succeeded in introducing sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll to young people, the political system remained fixed—the “revolution” was not televised because it was not there, after the Chicago Convention. There were radicals like “the Weathermen” who tried to use domestic terrorism to incite widespread change, but many Americans yearned for a return to stability and calm of the pre-assassination years, and perhaps even earlier.

If they yearned for conflict on the big screens of the movies, it was the conflict of yesteryear—World War II genre films came out in great number, but the only big-budget movie about Vietnam during the conflict came out in that tempestuous year of 1968: it was The Green Berets, a pro-war film from noted right-wing actor and director John Wayne. The most acclaimed, Oscar-winning motion pictures of the ‘60s were not the psychedelic film experiments—which tend to make audiences nauseous instead of nostalgic today—but movie musicals. “Blaxploitation” films that emerged by the 1970s gave African-Americans a new voice for developing increasingly-empowered black characters on screen but these did not perform as well as “blockbusters” featuring Caucasian leads. (If I may comment cynically, perhaps the reason that World War II media fared—and fares—so well with “mainstream” audiences is that it depicts military units in America’s last segregated war.)

Even with segregationist George Wallace winning more than a handful of electoral votes from some Republican strongholds, the majority elected Richard M. Nixon to the “emperor” seat in 1968, to the bane of left-leaning younger voters who still did not have a chance to vote before they were drafted. (Nixon, as if to prove them wrong, was re-elected in 1972, which was the first presidential election in which the 18-21 year age bracket could vote.) Nixon publicly credited his victory eight years after his defeat to JFK as a mandate from “the silent majority” for a return to normalcy, to traditional “family values,” to reducing to a simmer the boiling controversies of civil rights at home and Vietnam abroad.

Richard Nixon was a product of the 1940s and 1950s: after having served in the Pacific theater in World War II, he gained fame as a member of HUAC in the late ‘40s, prosecuting the first big-profile charges of the committee (in the Truman-era paranoia over “leaked” atomic bomb secrets), and rose above charges of corruption to become Ike’s VP with the televised “Checkers speech.” However, he now understood that television was a double-edged sword after his sweaty, nervous demeanor during the 1960 debates with Kennedy likely had a large part in his defeat. Nixon’s demeanor had not changed in the intervening eight years—his Cold War paranoia had sharpened his focus on those he viewed as internal “traitors” like hippies and minorities—but he did a better job of keeping stoic on TV.

Nixon, like his predecessors and successors, saw his job as resolving the problems his immediate predecessor had caused: he campaigned on achieving “peace with honor” (a code for “quick victory”) in Vietnam and resolving the economic woes created by the “Great Society” initiatives of LBJ. Kennedy’s dream had come true by Nixon’s first summer as president—the United States had put human beings on the surface of the moon first, in July 1969—but Kennedy’s dreams for the Earth had a more mixed success rate.

“Peace with honor” and Nixon’s private war on the antiwar movement

Nixon and his closest foreign policy adviser Dr. Henry Kissinger began almost immediately in Nixon’s term to institute a policy called “Vietnamization.” The United States would still supply the bulk of the funding and the military technology for the civil war, but the day-to-day fighting would be handed off more and more to the South Vietnamese troops. The decline in the number of young men drafted did help to cool down the ferocity of the antiwar movement in colleges, but Nixon’s next move fanned the flames and brought it back with a vengeance.

To bring about “peace with honor,” Nixon had ordered the supply chains to North Vietnamese forces through Cambodia and Laos—both countries technically neutral in the conflict—bombed. In late April, 1970, Nixon made a televised address announcing his stepping-up of the bombing campaign and, almost overnight, the college antiwar movement fought back: students refused to attend class, occupied their campuses, and it was beginning to look like 1968 Chicago all over again. Though reactionary leaders had turned away troops to enforce desegregation, they sought troops now to cool down the antiwar movement—as Mayor Daley’s response to Chicago had demonstrated. On May 4, 1970, after Ohio Gov. Rhodes’ plea for National Guard support, soldiers opened fire on a large group of students at Kent State University, killing 4 and injuring 9 (some of which were merely caught in the crossfire and not participating in the protests). Ten days later, a similarly violent episode with fatal consequences occurred at Jackson State in Mississippi; the victims in the latter case were African-American students. At its most violent, the protest over the war in Vietnam seemed like a war about Vietnam. The 1971 “Pentagon Papers” publication, exposing the truth of the ’64 Gulf of Tonkin deceit, increased the mistrust in the government.

President Nixon responded with typical paranoid mentality of the Cold War: he sought to discredit those who publicly opposed the war, with FBI assistance—some of which was “extralegal.” Among the most strange episodes of this era was a sleepless night for the president and protesters alike when the at-times unhinged president decided to personally visit those demonstrating at the Lincoln Memorial in the wee hours of the morning. Nixon wanted to have a nice little chat about “the kids’” motives, and had just started talking about seeking an end to the war—stressing the importance of criticizing the president but not the country as a whole—when his aides removed him back to his limo for fear of his personal safety.

Nixon’s paranoia is clear from his “tapes”—recordings made at the president’s orders of Oval Office meetings and Oval Office phone calls during his presidency, mostly all recorded without the knowledge of the person in the room or on the other end of the phone. In true McCarthy-era fashion, perhaps Nixon hoped to use private details to publicly discredit friends should they turn into enemies. His behavior was oddly echoed by the choice of acronym for CREEP (the Committee for the Re-Election of the President), which engaged in similarly extralegal wiretapping of the Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate Hotel in 1972. The Watergate burglars were discovered and arrested, leading to the most damaging scandal the American presidency had yet suffered.

Just in time for the 1972 election, Kissinger declared that he had “peace at hand” with North Vietnamese forces, who were willing to declare a cease-fire. However, those talks broke down shortly after Nixon was re-elected, and Nixon ordered that the bombings resume—the so-called “Christmas Bombings” of ’72. In January of 1973, a cease-fire was finally agreed to in Paris—and Nixon claimed that the bombings had indeed proved effective. The exact terms for the “peace with honor” were vague and noncommittal, but Nixon had at least delivered on his original campaign promise to cease the fighting. But, at what cost to the “empire’s” image—and the “emperor’s”?

The uncharacteristic Cold Warrior; the uncharacteristic Republican

Richard Nixon was a product of the paranoid ’40s and ’50s, seeing the antiwar movement and other radicals as merely a wing of the “Communist menace” that threatened to undermine “the free world” and its commitment to democracy everywhere. Therefore, Nixon’s adviser and later Secretary of State Henry Kissinger performed something almost as miraculous as landing a human on the moon when he conducted secret negotiations with both China and the Soviet Union in 1971, attempting to “soften” Cold War tensions. (The French word “detente” is sometimes used to describe this “cooling” of the Cold War.) In February 1972, President Nixon became the first U.S. president to visit the People’s Republic of China, and met with Chairman Mao Zedong. Both leaders recognized the need for good publicity: Nixon was still embroiled in the Vietnam crisis in Southeast Asia and Mao &co. were still in the midst of the effects of China’s “Cultural Revolution” and the accusations of widespread human rights violations from the West. Even more surprising than this visit, perhaps, was the new relationship between Nixon and Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev, which produced the first Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (or “SALT”), aimed at reducing the massive production and stockpiling of nuclear weapons that had occurred since 1945.

Though it had ended 25 years before, World War II also produced economic consequences into the 1970s, and beyond. Countries that the U.S. had defeated and had occupied militarily after the war—like West Germany and Japan—experienced huge gains in the engineering and manufacturing sectors, in part because the U.S. imposed limits on those former Axis countries’ military budgets in the post-war years.

Now, 25 years later, the “victor” country—which, unlike the countries defeated, had a larger and larger military since WWII—found itself defeated by foreign markets. The post-war boom in U.S. manufacturing was based in no small part on the understanding that, though the wages in union jobs would be lower, the pensions would be higher. Now, as the “Greatest Generation” approached retirement, American companies found that it was more profitable, in the long term if not the short term, to turn to foreign labor. At the same time, U.S. companies realized that foreign manufacturing would not have to hold up to new environmental standards that were becoming law: gaining widespread traction in the ’60s, environmental activists protested watershed events like the 1969 fire on the Cuyahoga River, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was born in 1970. The result for the U.S. was a period of “stagflation” throughout the ’70s—inflation combined with a “stagnant” job market, with Rust Belt cities like Cleveland and Detroit hardest hit.

The stereotypical Republican response would be to increase interest rates and decrease government spending to counter inflation, and let the private sector rebound from recession without government interference. However, during the pivotal year of 1972, Nixon reversed this position, letting federal interest rates drop sharply and increasing government spending to avoid an election year recession. Like the first Republican president, Thomas Jefferson, Nixon also betrayed in some degree his party’s “that which governs best, governs least” response by increasing regulation of national manufacturing to attempt to avoid an over-dependency on foreign markets. (Jefferson went far overboard on this score with his proposal to embargo—or cut off completely— foreign goods.) As with Vietnam, though these decisions gave Nixon the re-election he sought in the short term, they did not solve the root of the problem.

Perhaps a large part of the reason that Nixon was elected again was that so many voters—those who had eagerly campaigned for the lowering of the voting age among them—dropped out of elective politics altogether starting in the ’70s. 1968 was the last time (until 2020) that voter turnout was north of 60%. (In 1996, for the first time since post-World War I, the turnout plunged below 50%.) Though the “counterculture” had succeeded in becoming “hip,” it had not succeeded in becoming a legitimate political force. As a sign of this, and a sign of Nixon learning his lessons about the importance of appearing on TV, the president privately credited his presidential career to a brief 10-second appearance in 1968 on the sketch comedy show Laugh-In (its title a pun on the “sit-ins” and “be-ins” of the ’60s), saying the line “Sock it to me?” It should be noted that Nixon’s opponent in ’68, Hubert Humphrey, was also offered a cameo and refused, feeling that such a vapid appearance was beneath a candidate for president and wanting to stick to serious political issues.

“The revolutions will not be televised”: no left behind?

The “counterculture” had made it to the pop-culture airwaves, but the 1964-65 legislative successes for the civil rights movement proved to be the legal/biggest political impact for the “New Left.” As is often difficult for history textbook writers like me to admit, however, individuals do not just belong to one category. A victory for one marginalized group is not a victory for every member of that group. Just because African-Americans as a group had received basic protections under the law did not eliminate the inequities in housing, education, and economic opportunities, and also did not affect all African-American community members equally. An African-American woman would still face twice the degree of prejudice (at the nexus of her race and gender), and an African American lesbian would therefore face something like marginalization3.

The qualified victory of the civil rights movement inspired historically-marginalized groups and political interests to take increasingly-public and at-times violent stands for their rights, especially after the elections of Richard Nixon demonstrated to the “New Left” that it was being left behind of presidential politicking. The same summer as the U.S. put a human on the moon, a violent response to a police assault on a gay club in New York City named the Stonewall Inn led to the “Stonewall Rebellion,” as “homosexuals” struck back and the LGBTQ+ pride community was born (the plus sign indicates that there are more labels than “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer”). Cesar Chavez organized the historically-ignored labor force of migrant workers throughout California and the Southwest, and Native American activists staged large “re-occupation” events on Alcatraz Island and the site of the Wounded Knee massacre.

After the “first wave” succeeded in giving women the right to vote in 1920, “second wave” feminism sought recognition of women in professional life, as women had composed a third of the workforce starting in WWII. To make explicit such recognition, an Equal Rights Amendment was to be added to the Constitution, which read: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.” The amendment passed Congress in 1972, but stalled when it went through the process of being ratified by the states: even after “Emperor” Carter’s extension to a ten-year wait, not enough states ratified the ERA for it to be added officially and it died in 1982, into the Reagan years.

As the “Reagan Revolution” of the ’80s would later indicate, these civil rights movements, during and after the high-tide of ’60s, met with backlash from many Americans who felt that the national pendulum had swung to the left long enough. Especially where feminism and LGBTQ+ rights were concerned, the “New Right” voiced its protests to the “New Left,” feeling that traditional “family values” were under attack. Even members of the moderate left, vocal in their support of African-American civil rights and some within the African-American community itself, saw issues with such broadening of “a woman’s place” in society. “Second wave” feminism became fractious over questions like, “What if a woman chooses to occupy a traditional role in the home?” or “What if a woman chooses to exhibit her body in pornography?” Most factious of all was the application of the Griswold decision to the realm of abortion. “The Pill” had introduced the potentially-controversial concept of “reproductive rights,” but the Supreme Court argued that such a “right to privacy” as Griswold established in 1967 also applied to abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy, regardless of state laws, in the landmark 1973 case Roe v. Wade.

Civil rights movements had achieved major national successes in arguing for the integration of many public spaces, but the acceptance of private choices, especially in regards to sex and sexuality, remained—and remains—a “civil rights” battle that will likely be far from civil. The “culture wars” had begun. (Ending date… TBA.)

No more “executive privileges”: the president’s words make (him) history

The “emperor” himself was clearly one of the “old guard” in terms of his conservative views in the emerging culture wars, as is resoundingly clear from listening to his recordings of his time in the Oval Office: his views on minorities like African-Americans (or “the Negro,” as he would say), Jews, “homosexuals,” and on a “proper lady’s” behavior (like avoiding swearing if she doesn’t want to be “unattractive”) are quite proudly broadcast in these recordings.

However, the fact that we the people can hear these recordings these days indicates the “emperor’s” fall from grace. Perhaps Nixon would have used some of his more appropriate comments for an autobiography, but Americans—starting with Congress—heard an unedited Nixon cursing, manipulating, and bullying for several hundreds of hours. This would certainly not be the last time that a president’s words in private were used against him, but it did mark the first time that the “curtain” of presidential politics was this forcefully opened to reveal some of the devious inner workings of an “emperor.”

The arrest of the perpetrators of the CREEP break-in of the Watergate Hotel in 1972 revealed a conspiracy. Whether Nixon himself knew of the break-in in advance or not, the tapes revealed his attempts to cover up the scandal and discredit or publicly besmirch anyone who dug up details— which is why the president refused to give his tapes over to Congress. The Supreme Court intervened in a case aptly titled United States v. Nixon, unanimously ruling that Nixon hand over the tapes and that Nixon’s arguments of “executive privilege” did not apply to such a case involving obstruction of justice—grounds for impeachment.

Nixon, as truculent as ever, wanted to see it through to the bitter end in an impeachment trial, but was urged by many Republican leaders to step down to avoid an even-uglier national scandal. Had Nixon been impeached, he would have likely been convicted and removed from office, but—perhaps worse still—the image of the presidency would have been tarnished when the tapes were played on the floor of the Senate at the trial.

As it was, Nixon’s resignation continues to cause the opposite-of-nostalgia among those who witnessed it, increasing an already-skeptical generation’s distrust of professional politics. Nixon’s vice president Spiro Agnew had already resigned shortly into his second term due to charges of corruption and, with Nixon himself following him in August 1974, substitute VP Gerald Ford became the only non-elected “emperor.” As the “empire” neared its bicentennial, internal divisiveness, domestic and foreign embarrassment, and disillusionment would usher in its third century of existence.

79 thoughts on ““Emperor” Nixon”

  1. “the “revolution” was not televised because it was not there” I understand why the higher-ups would do something like that but how could you possibly act like revolts just aren’t happening given the impact such an event should have?

  2. It is obvious that Nixon was very paranoid from living in the post-war era. What specific decisions did he make in his presidency that were in effect of this? Also, although different types, do you think he had any paranoia that he was being recorded and that they would be the later grounds for his impeachment-driven resignation?

  3. President Nixon could be seen as a president who was often abusing his power, and his decisions like not showing the revolutionists on national TV or discrediting those who publicly opposed the war even with FBI assistance did not make him look good. What Nixon did could be controversial, but as we already know, the process of making a country a true superpower takes sacrifices, and in some cases, it’s stifling the voices of people who want to go against the government. 

  4. It’s sad to think that Nixon’s “peace with honor” movement had turned into a bloodbath, where innocent students were killed, because he ordered the military to bomb neutral countries since they had supply chains that belonged to the enemy.

  5. Thinking about the significance of Nixon reaching out to China and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. How did it impact global relations?

  6. It says that The Weathermen attempt to use domestic terrorism to incite change. What role did radical groups like the Weathermen play in the late 1960s social and political landscape, and how did their actions help or harm the counterculture movement’s goals?

  7. What was the significance of Nixon’s visit to China and the new relationship with the Soviet Union, including the impact of the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT). What would this change for America and it’s people?

  8. Suppose the government had seen the rise of sex drugs and put limitations and safeguards in place for young people to avoid addiction and abuse of drugs. Would drugs have become such a large issue in today’s world?

  9. Nixon’s advisor, Henry Kissinger, performed the secret negotiations between China and the Soviet Union. Was Nixon aware of this? If the talks had not gone the way Henry Kissinger hoped they would, would tensions with China and the Soviet Union have increased and resulted in another Cold War?

  10. If Nixon wanted to maintain a positive image, why didn’t he stick to his initial desire to reduce America’s physical involvement in the war? And why did he feel the need to respond to anti-war protestors by privately recording his conversations with others and starting up an organization to listen in on other people’s phone calls?

  11. From what it sounds, Americans longed for stability, which is what they wanted in a president at the time. Is this because of the uproar of the rebellion and “sex, drugs, and rock n roll” culture at the time?

  12. I wonder if President Nixon would have still been an uncharacteristic republican if he had been born in a different time era and had different life experiences than the ones he had.

  13. It is weird how it is always the same in all the revolts, whether it’s the 1848 European ones, the 1968 American ones, or even the 2020 American ones. Young people riot and react violently and the older generations fear the younger ones.

  14. I find it humorous that as much as the younger generation rioted and wanted a lower voting age, after their first election voting (1968) the numbers never reached north of 60% until 2020! If they cared so much about voting and rioted how come in the following elections after 1968 the voting percentages didn’t stay the same or at least increase?

  15. I find it very interesting that Nixon stepped up his bombing campaign overnight and that the college antiwar movement and how students refused to attend class. You would think for somebody trying to win the younger people’s vote(who can’t even vote for him yet) That he would be doing something to do that.

  16. Early comment: I have never understood why Vietnam protests focused so much on skipping college because millions of young adults had already been taken out of college for the war. Of course, it was still important for people to go to college, but Nixon may have been content with these students returning to school after the war like the soldiers. These protests also don’t seem to have affected Nixon’s reputation as he won both terms, so I do not think they were effective in condemning him.

  17. Middle comment: It is admirable that Nixon tried to lower Cold War tensions even while being paranoid and involved in another war. He correctly saw the higher stakes of this war and must have made it a high priority to avoid using nuclear weapons or being attacked with them.

  18. How did Nixon’s Vietnam War policies contribute to escalating antiwar sentiments and tragic events like the shootings at Kent State and Jackson State universities?

  19. what roles did music, film, and TV all play in changing social and political movements of the 60s and 70s?

  20. Have any presidents since Nixon been caught up in a scandal similar to how Nixon was secretly recorded? After all, if future presidents were aware that a US president was being recorded behind the scenes saying something they maybe shouldn’t have said, why would they allow themselves to be put in a similar situation? Was there anyone in particular he may have riled during his time in office who would potentially be out to get him and who would have benefited from these tapes being released?

  21. I wonder if Nixon growing up in an era of paranoia had to do with his seemingly casual bombings of other countries? I believe that the reaction that students had should have become more influential than it did and wonder why Nixon was re-elected if he was so unpopular with some people.

  22. I am still a little confused on how these tapes were even brought into light. Was someone else in the room or on the other side of the phone where they could hear and record what Nixon was saying? These tapes remind me of what social media is today. Whatever is said can be used against you and likely stays there forever.

  23. Even if countries agree to the “SALT” was there any way of knowing whether or not the other countries followed it? How did we know the true scale of their nuclear arsenal?

    Also what does “extralegal mean?

  24. If the scandal hadn’t occurred how would that affect the party system and how it evolved into its current state?

  25. In 1968 so many different places around the world were having young boomers revolting, but I’m surprised that they weren’t able to make such as big of an impact that they could’ve had. With so many people across the world they should be able to make strong impact.

  26. I’m not surprised at all that the younger people back then got influenced by sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll since young people are viewed as very gullible.

  27. I bet people felt a lot safer after hearing about the new relationship between Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev. All those nuclear weapons that were around the world probably installed a lot of fear into people and hearing that a treaty was settled to try to reduce the making of nuclear weapons definitely got rid of the fear in people.

  28. The text mentions the Civil Rights Battle’s ending TBD because clearly the country has an issue with equality whether it STILL be racial equality or sexual and women’s rights. When the U.S. struggles to pass the Equal Rights Amendment it stated “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.” but somehow that has still yet to be brought to life as on average a woman is payed 84 cents for every mans dollar. And not just that but also recently the supreme court overturning Roe V. Wade just shows that this country fails to uphold equality within citizens.

  29. As was mentioned in class, Nixon tends to do his business “under the radar.” Such as attempting to settle previous cold war tension in China. After meeting with Mao Zedong it is said that “Both leaders recognized the need for good publicity” I feel as if this was the start of a new trend among presidents. Although much of the governments work is kept private, politicians tend to “lie” or bend the truth to the country to hide the dirty work. Now, this might seem helpful but in some cases it is important for the citizens to know the whole truth about something because in the end this is a democracy and in order for the people to have a voice it is necessary for them to understand what is going on around them.

  30. Question 1: I was reading about the relationship between Nixon and Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev, which aimed at reducing massive production and stockpiling of nuclear weapons. I feel like they were both trying to do something in their benefit. Any thoughts to what it could be?

    Question 2: On the United State vs Nixon case, (Sorry in advance) what are some possibilities of what could have happened if Nixon wasn’t “forced” to back down on his arguments about the tapes?

  31. I think Nixon knew about the wiretapping in the hotel. It would make sense since he was already wiretapping himself.

  32. Did he resign not just because of the tapes but also because he didn’t want to deal with the new wave of civil rights movements? Throughout his presidency, he never really started anything new but instead finished off what the old presidents had tried to begin.

  33. If most Americans wanted to go back to a sense of normalcy and stability, why was the country continuously over taken by so much chaos?

  34. I think that the different movements (women’s, civil rights, etc.) are what created a lot of divison and backlash. Even though they were so important, many people disagreed.

  35. If everyone was yearning for peace in the nation, what was the point of creating mainly war-based violent movies for the public?
    How did the hippie movement feel about Nixons controversial conservative opinions? How did they act on it?

  36. At the beginning of the reading, it seems to me that Nixon mean strictly business. It tries to settle differences the right way by addressing them for example going to the Lincoln Memorial where he personally talked to the protesters. Still, I don’t think Nixon had the confidence to be president by saying he was fearing for his safety and even his presentation on TV in earlier years. As a president, you have to be strong and ready for anything and he didn’t seem like he had that.

  37. In my previous comment, I expressed that Nixon didn’t have enough confidence in the work that he did, this didn’t take him from accomplishing big things as a president that other presidents couldn’t do. But because he was doing things for our country does this mean we should trust him? Involving the tapes we saw the real side of him and would we still have trust in him if we knew those tapes existed and the things he was doing? This just leaves worry for Americans for future presidents.

  38. How were young boys not allowed to vote, but they were allowed to go to war and fight for the Country? What impact did allowing women to vote have on the rest of the world because it was a big deal?

  39. It may seem like the late 1960s were a period where people started getting too much independence, but due to that independence, there were advancements in many fields of life. However, what amount of personal freedom is right, so that people have rules to follow but also have the independence to express themselves and their ideas? 

  40. How did the protests and social changes of the late 1960s influence the 1968 election and Richard Nixon’s presidency?

  41. A short comment I have on Mr. Watergate. I just want to know what Nixon was thinking when he wanted to hand off the fighting in Vietnam to the South Vietnamese while still secretly supporting them anyway. Did he really want to end the war? Or did he just want to toss the hot potato around due to politics? And we can see that the Shootings at Kent State and Jackson State only fueled the anti-war moment. Like if we think about it, the Vietnam War is so pointless; why are we fighting the war in the first place? I don’t understand his efforts on trying to shut down people against the war using secret FBI stuff it just seems so pointless. Why not just phone-tap everyone you know?

  42. What impact did Nixon’s “Vietnamization” policy and the subsequent expansion of the bombing campaign into Cambodia and Laos have on the antiwar movement?

  43. What did Nixon do as opposed to his competitors to make his campaign more appealing to the “silent majority” that helped him win the election?

  44. Was there anyone Nixon could have been trying to set up by keeping the tapes to plan to eventually release them or was the recorder system solely for memory purposes? Also, do you think people have since lost trust in the president since Nixon’s Watergate scandal?

  45. how did Richard Nixon sail through the stormy political waters during the 1960s – 70s especially during the time of the Vietnam war?

  46. Was Nixon primed to go back to back in re-election due to following kennedys promise and putting a man on the moon

  47. Without Cesar Chavez would working conditions and wages have been changed at all, was him fasting due to violence really needed?

  48. Could future generations may have been different if sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll weren’t introduced into young people’s lives? How would presidential elections shift if the age requirement was lowered during this time.

  49. What effect did Nixon’s decision to step up bombing operations in Laos and Cambodia have on the American antiwar movement, especially on college campuses? How did Nixon’s resignation affect the nation’s view on the government and politics in general?

  50. Did the culture of the early 70s impact the way that Nixon approached the war movement and also the way that he approached the media at the time?

  51. How did the release of the “Pentagon Papers” affect what people thought about the government and the Vietnam War?

  52. How did the failures of the youth revolutions of 1968 impact the political state of the United States?

    What long term effect of nixon’s strategies especially coming from the elaborate plan during the vietnam war have on american future.

  53. If everyone wanted peace, why did they create mainly violent movies for the public?
    Now knowing about the tapes from Nixon, do we think we would still have trusted him if we knew about these when he was President?

  54. In what ways did the demonstrations and societal shifts of the late 1960s impact the 1968 election and the presidency of Richard Nixon? Did the people like him more or less because of these shifts. 

  55. It seems that many of the movements and protests didn’t have many positive impacts, for example, the violence that came from the antiwar movement, and all the controversy and backlash that came from the women’s rights and lgbtq+ movements, etc. It is ironic because the main purpose of these protests and movements is to have a good outcome.

  56. In my previous comment I talked about the large influence that television and pop culture had during that time (which still is the case today), but looking at Nixons history we can see that this new media era can build a person up as quick as they can tear them down. For example, I talked about Nixons successful cameo on the comedy show which helped him gain votes and become president but what we later learn is that after his tapes were released people saw the unedited version of him and the controversial actions of rulers. I feel this opened peoples eyes to the phoniness of people in power and how not everything is how it seams with politicians.

  57. U.S. citizens wanted to go back to the calm and stable country before the assassination of Kennedy, but especially with all of the conflict movies being about WW2, why wouldn’t they want to go back to before the bomb, when there wasn’t constant fear and never knowing when your life might end? Where they too young at this point to know what that would have been like?

  58. I am confused as to what is considered the “new right” and the “new left” in terms of the civil rights. Also who are the Watergate burglars and why did they caused so much damage to the presidency?

  59. Wouldn’t appearing on a comedy show make people think Nixon wasn’t being as serious about being president as Humphrey?

  60. I thought that the anti-war movement initially was protesting because they did not think the U.S. should be sending young men to die for that cause. However, Nixon’s decision to step up the bombing, which wouldn’t result in many American soldier deaths, seemed to be more concerning to them.

  61. Did the youth counterculture become so involved in their “fun” that they distracted themselves from continuing and maybe completing their political goals?

  62. In what ways did Nixon strive to maintain a positive image for himself during this period? And how did Nixon respond to the counterculture movement’s goals?

  63. Nixon was said to be an important member of the HUAC organization. Would this not steer people away from him considering the corruption of this organization or was the corruption not known and
    actually influenced the people towards liking him more?

  64. How did the counterculture movement, emphasizing rebellion against societal norms, influence things like music, fashion, and attitudes toward authority among young people? And how did these changes impact politics and social issues at the time?

  65. Did our debt problem today start in the Nixon years with an expansion of foreign manufacturing and if we never had expanded to foreign manufacturing would we have ever gotten into debt?

  66. second question. How did President Nixon and Henry Kissinger’s diplomatic efforts in the early 1970s reshape U.S. relations with China and the Soviet Union?

  67. I feel that the effects of domestic terrorism and the pushes for racial equality both likely seemed the same to the majority of the Greatest Generation, as they were seeming to be opposed to any change at all. Of course, they took sides in what they supported, but I feel that deep down, they just want things to stay how they were, and couldn’t grapple with such radical change.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *