Vietnam Watergate Scandal

Vietnam and the Watergate scandal affected popular trust in the government in immense ways. The Vietnam War was one war that United States had ever lost, and it had proven to be a military, political, and social disaster. By the end of the war 58,000 Americans had been killed, and 3 to 4 million Vietnamese. Vietnam undermined Americans’ confidence in their own institutions and challenged long-standing beliefs about the country and its purpose. However, two decades later former secretary of defense Robert McNamara published a memoir. In his memoir McNamara admitted that the policy he had helped to shape had been “terribly wrong.” He stated that his ignorance of Vietnam’s history and his misguided belief that every communist movement in the

It is still unknown exactly what the burglars were looking for, but it played little role in the 1972 presidential campaign. A pair of Washington Post journalists began publishing investigative stories that made it clear that persons close to the president had ordered the burglary and then tried to “cover up” White House involvement. Further Congressional hearings revealed a larger pattern of wiretapping, break-ins, and attempts to sabotage political opposition. The fact that Nixon had made tape recordings of conversations that took place in his office, caused Archibald Cox to get involved. He was a special prosecutor that the president reluctantly hired to investigate the Watergate affair. Cox demanded that Nixon hand over the tapes, and Nixon refused, but he proposed to allow Senator John C. Stennis review them. Nixon did not was to release the tapes, so when Cox refused to agree to that deal Nixon fired him. However, the Supreme Court unanimously ordered Nixon to provide the tapes. This decision reaffirmed the principle that the president is not above the law. In August 1974, the House Judiciary Committee voted to recommend that Nixon be impeached for conspiracy to obstruct justice. He became the only president in US history to resign. Nixon’s presidency was a classic example of the abuse of political power. The corruption was embedded deep in his administration including his vice president, attorney general, and White House aides.

Both the Vietnam War and Watergate Scandal caused U.S. citizens’ trust to waive