United States v. Nixon

The Cover-up

1. Regardless of the outcome, should the President of the United States have a right to privacy in regards to the Oval Office tapes? Explain.

No because the tapes belong to the White House and they shouldn't have a right of privacy because of this situation with Nixon and people don't know if another president in the future will try to abuse their power or something.

2. Was President Nixon justified when he fired special prosecutor Archibald Cox? Explain.

No because he knew that Archibald Cox would figure Nixon out about the tapes and he fired Cox to get him out of the way which didn't work at all.

3. Was Nixon creating a Constitutional crisis by refusing to hand-over the tapes? Explain.

Yes because those tapes weren't really his and he was obstructing justice when he refused to hand over the tapes. Since he didn't hand them over when they asked, people automatically knew that he was hiding something. Even if Nixon did hand the tapes over it would have been some what of a crisis because no president has ever done anything like this but it wouldn't have been as big and I think the only reason why this was big is because he knew about and refused to show them his tapes.

Closure

4. Why do you think the American public was so outraged by Watergate?

I think that the American public was so outraged by Watergate because they were being lied to by Nixon and he was using their money to pay the criminals to do his dirty work.

5. Do you think President Nixon should have resigned? Explain.

Yes because I think that everyone would have given him a really hard time with what he did and i don't think that he could have made the situation any better at all.

6. Do you think President Nixon should have been prosecuted? Explain.

Yes because he was in on these plans just like the rest of the guys who were sent to jail and he told them what to do.

Watergate: Nixon's Downfall

Read Chapter 32-2 in your online history textbook

1. How ere the "plumbers" connected to President Nixon?

2. Who was the judge? Why did he hand out maximum sentences?
John Sirica. Because James McCord sent him a letter saying that he lied under the oath.

3. How were Mitchell and Dean connected to Nixon?
Mitchell was Nixon's former attorney general and played a key role in Nixon's 1968 election victory. Dean was the White House counsel.

4. How were Haldeman and Erlichman connected to Nixon?
These two were apart of Nixon's group of three loyal advisors. Haldeman was his White House chief of staff and Erlichman was the chief domestic adviser.

5. What did the following men tell the Senate about Nixon?

a. Dean: Nixon was deeply involved in the cover-up and they had discussed strategies for continuing the deceit.

b. Butterfield: Nixon had taped virtually all of his presidential conversations.

6. Who was fired or forced to resign in the "massacre"?
Archibald Cox

7. Why weren't investigators satisified with the transcripts?
They weren't satisfied because all of the tapes that Nixon was giving them were edited.

8. What did the tapes reveal?
A disturbing 18 1/2 minute gap and Nixon knew about the role of members of his administration in the burglary and had agreed to the plan to obstruct the FBI's investigation.

9. Why did Vice President Spiro Agnew resign?

10. What did the House Judiciary Committee charge President Nixon with?
Obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt of congress for refusing to obey a congressional subpoena to release the tapes.

11. How did the Watergate scandal create a constitutional crisis?

Women Fight for Equality

Read Chapter 31-2 in your The Americans online textbook. (begins on page 982).

Directions: As you read about the rise of a new women’s movement, take notes to explain how each of the following helped to create or advance the movement.

1. Experiences in the workplace: this awakened the women to their unequal status because President Kennedy realized that women were being paid much less than men even when doing the same job. So because of that, women were promoted to management positions, regardless of education, experience, and ability.

2. Experiences in social activism: men lead some of the activities while women were assigned lesser roles and when the women tried to talk to them about it, the men would just brush them aside. Because of this, women decided to create small groups to discuss this problem.

3. "Consciousness raising": this helped to create the movement because now women were becoming more aware of the discrimination and actually decided to do something about it.

4. Feminism: was the theory behind the whole women's movementof the 1960s.

5. Betty Friedan and The Feminine Mystique: it opened women's eyes about their problem and made them stand up for their rights along with the African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans.

6. Civil Rights Act of 1964: gave the movement strength because it prohibited discrimination based on race, religion, national origin, and gender and created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to handle discrimination claims, but they weren't really doing that.

7. National Organization for Women (NOW): this organization helped advance the movement because they were still upset that the EEOC didn't really address their grievances. So they pushed for things to be enforced such as, the ban on gender discrimination in hiring, sex-segregated job ads illegal, and employers could no longer refuse to hire women for traditionally male jobs.

8. Gloria Steinem and Ms. Magazine: in 1971 she helped found the National Women's Political Caucus which encouraged women to seek political office. The Ms. Magazine was designed to treat contemporary issues from a feminist perspective, which let men see what was going on in their minds.

9. Congress: helped by passing a ban on gender discrimination in "any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance," as part of the Higher Education Act. And most all male colleges opened their doors to women. They also expanded the powers of the EEOC and gave working parents a tax break for child-care expenses.

10. Supreme Court: ruled that women have the right to choose an abortion.

11. The Equal rights Amendment would have guaranteed equal rights under the law, regardless of gender. Who opposed this amendment? Why?
Phyllis Schlafly because he felt that the ERA would lead to a parade of horribles such as, drafting of women, end of laws protecting homemakers, end of husband's responsibility to provide for his family, and same-sex marriages.

Why did the USA lose the Vietnam War?

Look back at your answers to your homework that was assigned on April 30, The U.S. struggles against the Communist in Vietnam. Your answers will be very useful for this summary activity.


Why did the USA lose the Vietnam War?

The Americans did not lose purely for military reasons. There were other factors as well.

Write an explanation AND cite a source which shows the importance of the following six factors:

1. US military tactics in Vietnam
The Viet Cong were using the guerrilla war tactics which completely worked because the U.S. wasn't used to it at all and Viet Cong soldiers didn't wear uniforms, the American troops were always fearing every Vietnamese they had seen. The Vietnamese also had a better advantage because they knew the land way better than the Americans did which helped with their sneak attacks. (sources 36 & 37)

2. The unpopularity of the South Vietnamese regime
The Vietnamese people didn't like the way that the South Vietnamese decided to handle things because they were doing things such as search and destroy and all of the chemicals that the U.S. was using so they just decided to support the Viet Cong since they weren't doing anything that was killing the women and children. (source 44)

3. The experience of the Viet Cong and the inexperience of the American soldiers

4. Domestic opposition to the war in the U.S.

5. Chinese and Soviet support for the Viet Cong
They gave the Viet Cong a bunch of weapons and supplies to fight with

6. 'But did they really lose?' Summarize the argument put forward in Source 57, and your view on it.
In source 57 they're saying that just because the Americans left Vietnam before the war was really over and that we had already stopped fighting, meant that we couldn't have lost the war. But I think that that was just some type of excuse that they used because they always have to stay on top.

Add other if you think there are factors you should consider.

Vietnam War Turning Points

1.

Why was the Tet Offensive a turning

point? Explain your answer.

The Tet Offensive was a turning point because the Viet Congs thought that they were going to get South Vietnam to become communists but they didn't support them. Also this was when the Americans actually beat the Viet Congs.

2.

Are Sources 51 and 52 making the

same point about the My Lai Massacre?

No because source 52 says that they were killing for a reason which was to kill communism, and source 51 is saying that no one was there to kill those people and act like Nazis.

3. Why do you think it took 12 months for

anyone to do anything about the

massacre?

They probably didn't see anything wrong with it because it was their own country doing it so maybe they thought that it was alright.

4. Why was the massacre so shocking to

the American public?
The massacre was so shocking to the American public because everything that they finally got to see about the massacre going on in Vietnam was worse than they expected and they had said that the war went wrong.

The U.S. struggles against the Communist in Vietnam

Using pages 356-61 in the Vietnam War Reading, make notes in columns 2 (US Army) and 4 (Viet Cong) to record how far each side had each quality.


1a) Were the armies finely balanced or was the balance strongly weighted to one side or the other?

1b) Which quality was most important in determining who won the war? Was one feature so important that being ahead in that area meant that other advantages or disadvantages did not matter?


2. Now write up your answer. Use this structure:
a. The U.S. weaknesses were:
The guerrilla tactics

b. At the same time, the Communist strengths were:

c. The U.S. forces did have some successes. For example:

d. However, there were some major failures as well. Examples of these were:
Search and destroy, bombing?

e. The Viet Cong had some major successes, such as:

f. However, they also suffered defeats, for example:
The Tet Offensive. They lost around 10,000 experienced fighters and were badly weakened.

g. If I had to identify one major American weakness, it would be strategy because: it seems like whatever they did hurt the innocent villagers more than the communist/viet cong forces and it's like they didn't even think it through all of the way.

h. The key Viet Cong strength was [Insert strength here] because:

The U.S. Enters the Vietnam War

In your Cold War file folder in your Google Docs account, read pages 353 to 355 of Vietnam War.


1. Many neutral observers in Vietnam were critical of US policy. Explain why.
They were similar to France

2. Explain how US politicians would have defended their policies.


3. The following events are not listed in correct date order. Place them in the correct chronological order. (Write the year inside the parenthesis, i.e. (1965). Then note the reason for each U.S. action, and how it brought the U.S. into deeper involvement in Vietnam.
The reasons you can choose from are: No direct involvement; financial support; political involvement; military involvement. Also, note what events triggered the increased involvement.


(1963 ) Assassination of JFK - Johnson becomes president: no direct invlovement
(1955 ) Formation of South Vietnam: no direct involvement
(1964 ) Gulf of Tonkin Incident: no direct involvement
(1962 ) Number of 'advisers' reaches over 11,500: political involment
(1962 ) JFK sends military advisers: military involement
(1965 ) U.S. Marines land at Da Nang: military involvement
(1954 ) U.S. stops elections in Vietnam: political involvement
(1965 ) U.S. supports South Vietnam government after army overthrow Diem: political involvement
(1964 ) Viet Cong attacks on U.S. and South Vietnam bases: military involvement
(1960 ) Viet Cong formed: no direct involvement


4. Choose two events that you think were critical in getting the U.S. involved in a war in Vietnam. Explain
your choice.