- First win for Nixon, 43.5% of the popular vote
- Richard Nixon: Accomplishments
- A focus on foreign policy
- “Triangular Diplomacy” was Nixon’s attempt to drive a wedge between USSR and China, the world’s biggest communist powers
- Nixon offers China aid, and eventually a spot in the United Nations
- Nixon was the first president to visit China, and his meeting with Mao Zedong was a shock to the world.
- A focus on foreign policy
- Cold War Winding Down
- Work to know: détente
- Meaning, an ease of tensions
- In this case, between US and USSR
- Meaning, an ease of tensions
- Nixon travels to Moscow (also very rare) to discuss nuclear disarmament
- Soviet leader in the 70;s is Leonid Brezhnev. He and Nixon agree to a light trade agreement, and a joint space exploration mission (US moon landing was in ‘69)
- Nixon had been strongly anti-communism, so the American people trusted him
- Work to know: détente
- Undoing A President
- 1972, five men arrested for breaking into the Democrat political party headquarters at the Watergate hotel in Washington, D.C.
- They were installing wiretaps and taking photos of documents
- Leader was on the committee to re-elect Nixon
- Ironically, this committee was called CREEP
- Ironically, this committee was called CREEP
- They were installing wiretaps and taking photos of documents
- The story comes up again, and Senate committee is set up to investigate
- Spiro Agnew, VP, resigns facing charges of bribery and tax evasion
- Nixon’s own personal counsel (John Dean) testifies to the Senate against Nixon
- Nixon assures the public “I am now a crook”
- Nixon had recorded conversations in the Oval Office, so the Senate asked for these tapes, He refused. The public demanded justice. He released the tapes. With a suspicious 17 minutes missing.
- 1972, five men arrested for breaking into the Democrat political party headquarters at the Watergate hotel in Washington, D.C.