Why did President Richard Nixon decide to
have secret bombing in Cambodia in 1969?
A. Plan of the investigation:
i. Subject of the investigation:
Why did President Richard Nixon decide to have secret bombing in
Cambodia in 1969?
The purpose of investigating Nixon?s secret bombing of Cambodia is to understand his real intentions. Also, to find out why he had to hide this from the Congress and the media. Wouldn?t it mean that he is abusing his power by keeping it a secret and not getting permission to do so from the Congress? Last, but not least, is to understand how Nixon actually destroyed neutral Cambodia.
ii. Methods:
a. Evidences from the biographical books on Nixon and Henry Kissinger will be used to support my thesis and topic question.
b. The internet will be another source to find out information on the backgrounds of Cambodia and the events that were happening during the period when Cambodia was secretly bombed.
c. Research for real conversations that Nixon had with his other helping mates about the decision to secretly bomb Cambodia.
d. Find out the real issue he had that led him to secretly bomb Cambodia. Especially when he did not get permission from the Congress, and when the public found out, how did they react to Nixon?s actions.
B. Summary of Evidence:
-George McGovern wrote, ?The secret, unconstitutional bombing of [Cambodia] was the clearest ground for a Nixon impeachment. It was a vastly more serious crime than the break-in at Watergate.?#
- ?In 1973, after the bombing was finally discovered, both Nixon and Kissinger maintained?that the secrecy was necessary to protect Sihanouk, who was variously described as? ?allowing? the raids, so long as they were covert. They maintained that the areas were unpopulated and that only Vietnamese Communist troops, legitimate targets, were there.?#
-Nixon had already known that the American ground offensive, from the summer of 1966 to the Tet offensive of 1968, had failed to destroy the North Vietnamese (communists). Therefore he had an offensive against the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Cambodia. The Communists were making an effective use of the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Cambodia. Suddenly, Nixon ordered the bombing of the Cambodian sanctuaries. His instincts were to respond violently to the Communist offensive.
The documentary entitled, Watergate Plus 30: Shadow of History, documents the political decisions and environment within the Nixon Administration from 1969-1974. The documentary specifically details and describes the environment and culture in which the Watergate scandal could occur and the events and abuses of power that lead to its occurrence. Setting the tone and the political climate of the Nixon Administration was the Vietnam War; making him a wartime President, a war that he inherited from his predecessor. The Vietnam War faced a lot of opposition from the general public, with massive protests and political demonstrations by the younger generations and overall general public. Nixon’s presidency was surrounded by this climate amidst the
President Richard Nixon is most commonly known for his involvement with the Watergate Scandal. President Nixon is a very competitive politition who has been finding who his enemys are and what their weak spots are through all of his career. His purpose for doing this is that he wants to win the election so much and he feels that “the only way he can [win] is if he knows something about his opponent that can give himself some secret weapon” (Sussman 201). President Nixon got himself into many problems during his Presidency and used groups such as “The Plumbers” and the Committee to Re-Elect the President, more commonly known as CREEP. While President Nixon was in office, he seemed to feel that he was “above the law” and that he could create undercover groups to spy or even blackmail his opponents. Although Nixon did commit several crimes while in office, which include lying under oath…….., the main crime was in the forming of these groups like the Plumbers, because these groups were formed with a main purpose of breaking laws.
On Thursday, April 30, 1970, President Richard Nixon told the American people that we were sending troops into Cambodia. This upset many Americans because Nixon was brought into office due to his promise to end the war. In his first year of presidency it looked like the end of the war was near, but with this announcement the end of the war was not evident. This pro-war decision by Nixon upset many people and led to riots all over the country. How could the President make the decision to continue war when he promised to end it?
Historians on the opposing side believe that Nixon had a choice, but he choose the wrong one. He wanted to cover up the Watergate Scandal, and that was the turning point of his presidency. Maurice H. Stans explains, “Nixon was not a party to the Watergate break-in. That has been established, especially by the White House tapes beginning in June 1972, which showed his initial consternation at learning about it.” (Nixon 178) He could have turned the guilty party to the police, but he thought that it would end up hurting him.
Nixon’s approach to the war was Birchesque. He campaigned for president in 1968 as a peace candidate by pointing out that he had been raised as a Quaker and promising to bring the troops home. His path to peace, however, entailed an escalated war. After his election as president, he unleashed a ferocious air assault on the Vietnamese and extended the ground war into Laos and Cambodia. When the anti-war movement criticized these measures, Nixon did what any Bircher would do: he decried the anti-war movement as a communist conspiracy that was prolonging the war and that deserved to be treated as an internal security threat.
...r’s mission, people got infuriated with the scandal, and he resigned to get away with his mistakes. He got impeached because he violated of constitutional oath, prevented, obstructed, and impeded administration of justice, and concealed those responsible of prison. He violated the constitutional oath because he did not serve his country the way he is supposed to. He obstructed, prevented and impeded administration of justice because lied that he was not responsible for the scandal. He concealed those responsible of prison because he didn’t tell the authorities who else was involved in the scandal. John Srica, Carl Woodward, and Bob Bernstein did an amazing job uncovering the scandal and who was behind it. Nixon should go to jail because everybody else who was responsible did. However, he escaped the wrath of jail because the next president, Gerald Ford pardoned him.
On April 30, 1970, when Nixon gave a speech announcing his invasion of Cambodia, anti-war factions rose up across the United States. In the speech he stated that, “If, when the chips are down…the world’s most powerful nation, the United States of America, acts like a pitiful, helpless giant, the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy will threaten free nations and institutions around the world. I would rather be a one term president and do what I believe is right than to be a two term president at the cost of seeing America become a second rate power.” Students did not agree with Nixon and protests cropped up on university campuses in the days that followed his speech. Amongst these protesters were students of Kent State University, “The Cambodian invasion defined a watershed in the attitude of Kent students toward American policy in the Indochina War.” At this point, the first two days of May, the students were protesting Nixon’s actions. While the cou...
In the 1960s and 1970s, the most controversial war the United States had ever been involved in during its rich two-hundred year history would engulf the country, ultimately leading to the collapse of a president, and the division of a nation. The Vietnam War was a military struggle fought in Vietnam and neighboring countries from 1959-1975 involving the North Vietnamese and NLF (National Liberation Front) versus the United States and the South Vietnamese ("The Vietnam..."). In 1969, newly elected President Richard M. Nixon, aiming to achieve "peace with honor" in Vietnam, began to put his "Vietnamization" policy into place -- removing the number of American military personnel in the country and transferring combat roles to the South Vietnamese ("Speeches..."). But at the same time, Nixon resumed the secret bombing of North Vietnam and launched B-52 bombing raids over Cambodia, intending to wipe out NLF and North Vietnamese base camps along the border. The intensive secret bombing, codenamed Operation Menu, lasted for four years and was intentionally concealed from the American public; meanwhile, Nixon ordered the invasion of Cambodia by United States troops, arguing that it was necessary to protect the security of American units. This invasion into an allegedly neutral country was cause for much protest in the States, especially on college campuses such as Kent State University, where students rioted and held walk-outs. Ultimately, the secret bombing of neutral Cambodia was deliberately conducted without the consent of Congress, violating the articles outlined in the United States Constitution, and would have been grounds for impeachment had Nixon not resigned under the cloud of the Watergate scandal in August of 1974 ("Richard M....
The question of why Nixon committed The Watergate Scandal, is still being asked today. The reason that questions are still being asked today is because we do still do not have a concrete answer, until today. This essay looks at The Watergate Scandal from a new perspective. An outlook that looks at the situation from a Physiological point of view. This perspective uses empathy to allow someone to put themselves in Nixon’s shoes, and understand what events in his life have contributed to the development of his behavior. After all, Nixon’s behavior and trait are what drove him to committing The Watergate
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