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
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.
Another very important factor was Nixon’s previous experience in politics. After graduating from Duke University, Nixon joined the navy during World War II. After returning from the war Nixon jumped right into politics. He answered a Republican Party call in the newspaper. They were looking for someone to run against the five-term Democratic Congressman Jerry Voorhis. John Ehrlichman once said of Richard Nixon, “He is like a race horse specially trained to run a particular race and no good for pulling wagons. He’s for running the race to be president, and that’s what he lived for (Matusow 1).” That just gives you an idea about Nixon’s attitude. He would do whatever it took in order to win. The style of Nixon’s first campaign for congressman set the tone for the early part of his political career. An example would be that while running against Voorhis he accused him of being a communist. He even had campaign workers make calls to voter...
Vassar College. President Nixons Speech on Cambodia: April 30, 1970. <http://students.vassar.edu/~vietnam/doc15.html> Accessed 28 February 2001.
B. You won’t be alone when you come to the staggering conclusion, that the CIA played a lead role in the death of our 35th President
Bibliography:.. The "Sources Cited" The First Kennedy-Nixon Debate. Information Press.
...mbodia was intentionally carried out without the consent of Congress, which also violated the articles outlined in the United States Constitution. The charged that he faced for that was Unlawful Refusal to Contempt with Congress. After all, having kept the bombing of Cambodia a secret was not a success for President Nixon, carrying out the plan wasn’t successful either. It did not stop Communism from spreading. The media would find out about the bombing and the only person to blame for all of the consequences would be the corrupted President Nixon. His own poor egotistical actions led to his downfalls including the downfall of the great Watergate Scandal. He had put this burden upon himself because he carried out actions so freely without having the issue discussed with the Congress and taking advantage of the power of the presidency and going beyond the boundary.
Woodward and Bernstein print all their findings in their articles in the Washington Post. The tremendous pressure on Nixon through their in-depth articles, along with the FBI’s investigations of him and his cabinet, ultimately led to the President’s resignation.
At first, he was a strong supporter of the Vietnam War but then became a strong opponent. The Department of Defense continued to lie to the people about the hype about the war. The government continued to say that the war was under control. The Pentagon Papers already have statistics on the Vietnam War. As soon as Nixon saw the paper, he went to his Attorney General right away to stop the printing of the New York Times newspaper. Daniel Ellsberg knew that he would get arrested for making copies of the papers.
In The Watergate Crisis, Michael A. Genovese analyzes the factors leading up to the Watergate crisis, what the whole scandal meant to Americans at this time, what the Watergate scandal has come to mean currently, and how it has molded American politics permanently. Genovese offers a detailed psychoanalysis of Richard Nixon, the 37th president of the United States, and the possible motivations behind his actions before, during, and after the Watergate crisis. Genovese provides a thorough and superb record of the events of Watergate in which he includes the ways many members of Nixon’s Administration got their hands dirty and their futile efforts at washing them clean.
Despite the national attention the Watergate scandal had gained President Nixon, he won the second term presidency. The major problem for Nixon would come later. The investigations of the Watergate scandal lead to the discovery of other criminal acts by officials including Nixon. During the investigation many things begin to surface. It was discovered that documents had been destroyed that may have made a link between Nixon and the Watergate scandal. These documents may have shown that he had some acknowledgement in what had happened. There was evidence that people involved in the Nixon campaign had been wire tapping phones illegally for a long time according to “dummies.com”. The greatest issue would come to light during the 1973 Watergate hearings. During testimonies it came to light that every conversation was recorded in the Oval office according to “study.com”. It was demanded that these tapes be reviewed to learn how much involvement President Nixon had in the Watergate burglary. The President felt that he had the right to withhold these tapes through what he referred to as executive privilege. This means that if it is the best interest of the public the president has the right to keep information from the
The years leading up to the 1972 election were filled with new political tactics. Going into the election year, President Nixon seemed like he could never lose the second term election after successfully negotiating with Vietnam, Beijing, and Russia to improve international relations (Emery 4). Raising international toughness made Nixon seem like the most worthy person to stay president. Fred Emery analyses in his novel Watergate: The Corruption of American Politics and the Fall of Richard Nixon, the president was also setting up the first summit meeting in history with Soviet Union Presidents (3). There seemed to be nothing capable of holding the seemingly responsible man back. However, this assurance came with massive consequences. The absolute certainty that Nixon would be reelected fueled the lies and abuse of power by the Nixon government (Emery 195). As the outlook of landslide winnings took over the White House, the moral reasoning, “the end justifies the means” became more prevalent. Nixon was obsessed with winning and being successful. Under his command his staff did whatever possible to ...
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