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We will handle Vietnam in a special section.

President Johnson began what he termed the Great Society which was a bundle of welfare programs designed to pull the poor out of poverty, decrease crime, improve education, and otherwise make the United States into the true workers’ paradise he thought it could be. The megacities continued to grow and during the 1970’s and the urban welfare programs did not alleviate the problems. All these Great Society programs were costly failures. His expensive programs, plus the Vietnam War, led to massive inflation coupled with an economic contraction. Presidents must make good decisions, and Johnson made some of the worst decisions in the history of the US presidency. He failed as few others have.[341]

Nixon: Winning Cold Warrior

1968 to August 1974

The antiwar movement, rallying around Robert F. Kennedy for president, drove Johnson from office; however, after winning the California primary in 1968, which all but guaranteed him the democratic presidential nomination, a Muslim terrorist murdered RFK.[342] In his place the Democratic Party nominated US Senator Hubert H. Humphrey. His opponent was Republican Richard Nixon, John Kennedy’s opponent in 1960. The Republicans won the presidential race, but Congress remained strongly democratic and antiwar. Nixon extracted the United States from Vietnam by 1973; however, South Vietnam fell to an all-out communist invasion from the North in 1975.[343]

Nixon was the first US president to visit China in an attempt to bring about a new relationship between the two nations. China greeted Nixon warmly, but overtly little happened. The real “victory” was sub-rosa because just by visiting the communist nation he put pressure on North Vietnam. Nixon’s visit was a key moment in opening up China to capitalism. Nixon also signed arms limitation treaties with the USSR; thus, lowering atomic war tensions. Nixon was attempting to limit the possibility of atomic war by allowing Red China, and the USSR, an equal place in the world which was the goal of every US president since Truman. What none of them seemed ready to acknowledge was the communist commitment to the destruction of the United States in particular and democracy in general. By following a course of live and let live they were giving the communist unlimited time to destroy the West.

Nixon inherited a contracting economy with enormous new government programs doling out billions of dollars to millions of people and institutions. Nixon, remembered as a conservative, increased these payments until they became the largest part of the federal budget. At the same time, he imposed wage and price controls to hold inflation in check because of the Vietnam War spending—but this came much too late to do any good. Government expansion continued under the Nixon administration. Nixon thought big and attempted significant changes to the world and the nation; however, Nixon could not overcome the hostility of Congress and the weak economy in his search for grand accomplishments. And his wage and price controls did nothing to improve the economic situation.

Nixon ordered the CIA to “spy” on US citizens which was against its charter, but they had previously engaged in many non-charter ventures. Nixon was convinced communist agents sponsored the antiwar movement; however, no proof was found. A break-in at Democratic Headquarters in the Watergate Building in Washington DC was traced back to the Committee To Re-elect the President, a Nixon campaign organization. A Congressional investigation accused Nixon of covering up for his White House staff and impeached him for obstruction of justice. Nixon resigned in 1973 to avoid, he said, putting the nation through an impeachment. The Watergate scandal drove Nixon from office. The new president, Gerald Ford, was not in office long enough to achieve any real change in economic or national policy.[344]

After Nixon left office Gerald Ford, the vice president appointed by Congress after the resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew,