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The use of propaganda in World War 2
The relationship between the media and the government
The use of propaganda in World War 2
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Pentagon Papers;
The Truth to War
On June 31, 1971, President Nixon picked up a copy of his New York Times newspaper and found the 1st story on the Pentagon Papers. The Pentagon Papers was a hidden government document that had information on the Vietnam War. It was also a government study in Southeast Asia. Daniel Ellsberg knew that the government was hiding something. Daniel Ellsberg was a political activist. He was the one who leaked the information to the New York Times. Daniel Ellsberg was morally correct, but what he did was illegal.
Daniel Ellsberg saved a lot of lives sort of speak. He knew that the government was hiding something and discovered it. 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 had 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. He knew that it was illegal. Nixon had to do something to put Ellsberg in jail. Nixon authorized aids to go through Ellsberg’s psychiatry files to discredit him. Since the government had enough information, they put Ellsberg in jail.
During Ellsberg’s trial, Nixon knew he had the case won. But, somebody leaked the Watergate information to the judge. Since it is also illegal to go through private property, the case was dismissed. Ellsberg was set free. In 2002, he published a book called Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers.
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
While Nixon was in office, he used the war to his benefit, helping him win another term in office. Nixon’s plan was to use “Vietnamization,” a process in which American soldiers would train South Vietnamese to fight for themselves and eventually drawing American troops out of the war (Vietnamization). At first, General WestPoint was in charge, raiding Vietcong bases and trying to eliminate them. The original plan was to use the body count to discourage any more NVA troops from fighting, but this strategy backfired because both Vietnamese and American troops had high body counts. General Abraham was appointed as commander and began the “Vietnamization” strategy, which only seemed to work in the public’s eyes. Nixon made a treaty with South Vietnamese President, to have a ceasefire to withdraw American troops and release American POWs while South Vietnam took over the war (The). Nixon planned to use this strategy to withdraw all American troops, however it was “worse, Nixon would leave North Vietnamese troops occupying and controlling much of the South, while withdrawing all remaining American ground forces (Hughes).” Nixon’s use of Vietnamization helped to further his political resolve. He “sacrificed the lives of American soldiers to further his electoral ends (Hughes).” The ...
The “pentagon papers”, officially titled: Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force, was a U.S. government study commissioned, by Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, in 1967. [Robert McNamara served under both John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.] The study traced the United States involvement in Vietnam from World War II to the present. The papers were highly confidential and compiled by many sources. Groups, such as the military, universities, and private organizations, worked on portions of the study. The joint efforts created a 47-volume study; only 38 of the 47 volumes were physically produced. One of the groups which had worked on the study was RAND Corporation. An employee of Rand Corporation, Daniel Ellsberg, used his clearance to gain access to a printed copy of the Pentagon Papers. Ellsberg then began secretly removing and copying volumes o...
When Nixon was inaugurated, he took a sworn oath to protect the people and the country. He lied to his people. He states, “The major problem on the Watergate is simply to clean the thing up by having whoever was responsible admit what happened. Certainly I am satisfied that nobody in the White House had any knowledge or approved any such activity.” (Memoirs 646).
In 1968 Richard Nixon was elected President. One of the promises he made was to end the Vietnam War. When the My Lai massacre was exposed in November of 1969 there was worldwide outrage and reduced public support for the war. Then a month later the first draft lottery was instituted since WWII. In April 1970, Nixon told the public he was going to withdraw large numbers of U.S. troops from Vietnam. So when he made his television address on April 30 to say we had invaded Cambodia the American people reacted strongly. In the speech Nixon addressed not only Cambodia but also the unrest on college campuses. Many young people, including college students, were concerned about the risk of being drafted, and the expansion of the war into another country appeared to increase that risk. Across the country protests on campuses became what Time magazine called "a nation-wide student strike."
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...
Nixon and his administration stepped up and exhibited goodwill during his first term and part of his second term. They reduced U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and brought home 518,000 soldiers from 1969 to 1972. They even made deals to get the POW’s out and home in North Vietnam (DeGregorio 595). Nixon’s administration formed the Environmental Protection Agency to enforce clean air and water laws. Nixon also signed all the Civil Rights Acts passed by Congress (DeGregorio 597).
Nixon was long associated with American politics before his fall from grace. He was along time senator before finally being elected president in 1968. During his first term, his United States went through the Vietnam War and a period of economic inflation. In 1972 he was easily re-elected over Democrat nominee George McGovern. Almost unnoticed during his campaign was the arrest of five men connected with Nixon’s re-election committee. They had broken into the Democrats national head quarters in the Watergate apartment complex, in Washington D.C. They attempted to steal documents and place wire taps on the telephones. By March of 1973, through a federal inquiry, it had been brought to light that the burglars had connections with high government officials and Nixon’s closest aids. Despite Nixon and his lawyers best efforts, it was shown that the president had participated in the Watergate cover-up. On August 8, 1974 Nixon announced, without admitting guilt, that he would resign. He left the Oval Office the next day: an obvious fall from grace.
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 ...
As television exposed the truth of government, so did Journalists. Daniel leaking of the Pentagon Papers that explained in detail the Vietnam War, and the leaking of the information to the New York Times in 1971. Scandals like this played an active role throughout the late 1960’s and into the early 1970’s. This eventually led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974. The critical stand point of the journalists led to the marked contradictory of American politics that grew into turbulent during the 1960s.
President Nixon abused his presidential power by firing Cox without reason. NIxon Fired cox in worry of him gaining evidence against him in the scandal and feared if cox accessed these tapes he would be proven guilty. This proves that these tapes contained
The two men sought help from Bernard Barker and Rolando Martinez both former Bay of Pigs Veterans these men were to be referred to as the plumbers, because there role was to help stop the leaks at the White House. Upon Breaking into the office of the psychoanalyst’s office there was no documentation in regards to Ellsberg within the office. Despite the fiasco regarding the break no one was aware of what had happened. The Ellsberg affair became one of the presidents darkest secrets during this time. It was not Long After a plan was formulated to spy on Nixon’s harshest critic Larry O’Brien. O’Brien Was the head of the democratic party and the chairman for the democratic national committee. It was also known that O’brien was taking substantial payments into his own pocket from Howard Hughes. Nixon was determined to exploit O’Brien’s link to Hughes in order to damage the democrats image. O’Brien’s office for the Democratic National Committee became a key target. His office was located within the Watergate office complex. The plan was to break into and bug O’Brien’s office with electronics so that telephone conversations as well conversations held within O’Brien’s office could be monitored. During the the time of the initial break in Sunday the 28th of May Nixon was in 5000 miles away in Moscow signing documentation agreement that limited nuclear arms production between the United
On June 17, 1972 Two men were arrested in the watergate democratic headquarters the officer that arrested them and held them at gunpoint said that ¨There is a lot more going on here than we know.¨ This shows they were up to something. Investigators found that they had been wiretapping the phones in the top offices. ¨People only do this if they want to know something or what to sabotage something¨ Top officer at the building said.