Enter Nixon

Prelims:

• Research Assignment
• Air Midterm
• For Wednesday, read the Moynihan excerpt on Canvas (will post this afternoon)

Look for foreshadowing of current events...

1968

• March 31: LBJ announces he is not running for re-election.
• April 4: Martin Luther King Jr. assassination. Over the next week, riots in more than 100 cities nationwide leave 39 people dead, more than 2,600 injured and 21,000 arrested.
• April 11: In the wake of Baltimore riots, Maryland Governor Spiro Agnew summons civil rights leaders...to attack them.
• April 23: Students take over five buildings on Columbia University’s campus and briefly hold a dean hostage, calling for the university to cut its ties to military research. Protests are unpopular, especially among people who have not been to college (who account for most adults in 1968).  Fast-forward 47 years to 2025
• June 4: RFK assassination
• August 8, Nixon accepts GOP nomination:

Let us always respect, as I do, our courts and those who serve on them. But let us also recognize that some of our courts in their decisions have gone too far in weakening the peace forces as against the criminal forces in this country and we must act to restore that balance. Let those who have the responsibility to enforce our laws and our judges who have the responsibility to interpret them be dedicated to the great principles of civil rights. But let them also recognize that the first civil right of every American is to be free from domestic violence, and that right must be guaranteed in this country."

• August 28: At the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, police and Illinois National Guardsmen go on a rampage, clubbing and tear-gassing hundreds of antiwar demonstrators, Roper sums up public opinion: "The country certainly appeared to sympathize with the police more than the protestors."

Two years later:  The Hard-Hat Riot and Nixon

Nixon and Law Enforcement

Violent crime rate per 100k population:

• Domestic Surveillance
• The War on Drugs (1971)
• Previously: Controlled Substances Act (1970): A comprehensive federal drug policy that categorized drugs based on their abuse potential and accepted medical use. Under this act, cannabis was in Schedule I, the most restrictive category,.
• Signs executive order creating DEA (1973)
• Ehrlichman, years later: "The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
• But...grassroots support for tough drug policies

But in many ways, Nixon pursues liberal policies

Environment:  Issue-Attention and Policy Window

• “In a flat choice between smoke and jobs, we’re for jobs,” Nixon told Ehrlichman. “But just keep me out of trouble on environmental issues.”
• In 1969, the Cuyahoga River caught fire (again)
• In 1969, an oil spill devastated Santa Barbara beaches

Nixon the Green (Johnson 266-268)

• The National Environmental Policy Act (1969), which among other things required that all federal agencies produce environmental impact statements on the possible negative effects of any and all regulations. It also created the President’s Council on Environmental Quality.
• The Environmental Protection Agency (1970).
• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA, 1970). Proposed by Nixon “...for better protection of life and property from natural hazards…for a better understanding of the total environment…[and] for exploration and development leading to the intelligent use of our marine resources…”
• The Clean Air Act (1970).
• Earth Week (1971). OK, something of a gimmick, but despite private eye-rolling, Nixon endorsed it to commemorate the first anniversary of Earth Day.
• The Clean Water Act (1972). If this is beginning to sound like the green legislation hall of fame, it’s not just you.
• The Endangered Species Act (1973): Even if this was all Nixon had achieved, he would rank among one of our greenest presidents.

Rights

• Support for ERA (Johnon 276-277)
• Signed Title IX
• Supported direct election of the president (Johnson 277-278)
• Supported Native American self-determination (thanks in part to Nixon's football coach)