LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Richard Nixon: Wars
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Nixon was a skilled negotiator with a broad understanding of world affairs. He and his adviser Henry Kissinger ended direct U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. They improved relations with China and the Soviet Union. They helped end a war between Israel and its Arab neighbors and worked toward a lasting peace in the Middle East. But the restrictive oil policies of Middle Eastern countries further weakened an American economy that slipped into a recession during Nixon's last year in office.
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By 1972, Nixon and Agnew were seeking reelection, which they later won. Voters had been impressed by the way Nixon handled the Vietnam War. Almost unnoticed during the campaign was the arrest of five men connected with Nixon’s reelection committee. The five had broken into the Democratic Party’s national headquarters in the Watergate apartment complex in Washington, D.C., in an attempt to steal documents and place wiretaps on the telephones. These were one of the many scandals that faced Richard Nixon. His trust was further eroded by the Watergate scandal.
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Nixon was raised as an evangelical Quaker by his mother, Hannah, who hoped he would become a Quaker missionary. His upbringing is said to have been marked by such conservative Quaker observances as refraining from drinking, dancing, and swearing. However, this is doubtful, as the evangelical sect of Quakerism known as Friends Churches, having been largely organized by itinerant Methodists, bore little resemblance to the traditional 'unprogrammed' Quaker religion, with its silent worship, avoidance of paid clergy, and strict adherence to pacifism. In any case, his father was less religious, focusing on the family business, a store that sold groceries and gasoline. There is much debate as to whether Nixon went through the expected Quaker soul-searching attendant on whether to become a conscientious objector in World War II. During the period of his political career... he was not a practicing Quaker.
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In ordering the bombings, Nixon realized he would be extending an unpopular war as well as breaching Cambodia's "official" neutrality. He ... understood that the war was politically un-winnable due to massive demonstrations. Details of the bombing were kept secret even from high ranking officials such as Secretary of State William P. Rogers and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. During deliberations over Nixon's impeachment, his unorthodox use of executive powers over the ordering of these bombings were considered as an article of impeachment, but the charge was dropped. This bombing (and an incursion by US forces into Cambodian territory in April 1970) added to the administration's tacit support for the overthrow of the neutralist royal government of Norodom Sihanouk by the rightist military dictator Lon Nol, created chaos, and drove much of the peasant population of that country into the arms of the Khmer Rouge, a Maoist revolutionary movement that would eventually kill 1.7 million Cambodians after taking power.
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In an astonishing political comeback, Nixon was elected to the presidency in 1968. His administration ended war in Vietnam and forged new relations with China and the Soviet Union . But in 1972, a break-in at the Democratic National Headquarters led to a cover-up by the Nixon administration. By 1974, when the Watergate Scandal threatened his impeachment, Richard Nixon resigned.
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Richard M Nixon [1] and George W Bush both invoked secrecy for national security. Both insisted war - the war in Vietnam, the war on terror - justified impunity. And both offered the reason of secrecy to cover political power-grabs.
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