at a crucial point, calls for his impeachment reached a fever pitch, particu-
larly since Nixon’s rough language, racist and anti-Semitic remarks, and
cruel observations ruined what was left of his reputation.
On 27 July 1974, the House Judiciary Committee voted to approve
articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon, a decisive move that finally
compelled him to resign on 9 August 1974. Vice President Gerald Ford took
the oath of office that same day, and a month later pardoned Nixon for any
crimes related to Watergate, a controversial act that helped to doom Ford’s
own 1976 campaign for the presidency. Put quite simply, the bitter lesson
of the Watergate scandal was that government officials could not be trusted:
a 1975 national opinion survey revealed that nearly 70 percent agreed that
“over the last ten years, the country’s leaders have consistently lied to the
people” (Berkowitz 6), and confidence in government officials dropped
from 61 percent in 1964 to 22 percent in 1976 (Slocum-Shaffer 57). As
such, the legacy of Watergate was to drive a permanent wedge of doubt
between the public and its elected officials, to reconceptualize the role of
the press in the United States, and to alienate citizens from the very people
they elected to represent their interests.
Like Watergate, the Vietnam War shattered seemingly fundamental
America beliefs, but this protracted, bitter, and divisive conflict resulted in
far more than jail sentences; it exacted a heavy toll in limbs and lives and,
ultimately, lacerated the psyche and spirit of the American public. From its
inception until 1975, a total of 58,022 American soldiers (more than 20,000
during Nixon’s tenure in office, and some 4,000 during the last year of
fighting alone) were killed, as were 924,048 North Vietnamese soldiers and
over 185,000 South Vietnamese soldiers. By conservative estimates, the
United States spent at least $140 billion on the war (see Berkowitz 50). The
end result, despite Nixon’s description of “peace with honor,” could only be
described as a total military and diplomatic failure, as communist regimes
took over throughout the region: the North conquered the South and
united Vietnam under the rule of Ho Chi Minh, the Khmer Rouge con-
trolled Cambodia, and Pathet Lao governed Laos. As Americans learned not
to trust their elected officials during the seventies, so they learned that their
military might was not unlimited.
No foreign military action has ever divided the United States as dra-
matically and pervasively as the Vietnam War. Opposition to the conflict
caused President Lyndon Johnson not to seek another term in office,
ignited massive antiwar protests (including a 1 May 1971 march on Wash-
ington that produced 13,400 arrests over a four-day period) and draft-
resistance activities across the nation, resulted in student deaths at Kent
INTRODUCTION 9