Trump Take Note: That Time Richard Nixon Visited Nebraska
By 1971, President Richard Nixon’s name was mud on most American college campuses. The Watergate scandal that would prove his ultimate undoing was still a year away from its early rumblings. Rather, it was Nixon’s Vietnam policies that had rendered him persona non grata among students. Nixon tried to ease domestic unrest over Vietnam by greatly reducing U.S. ground forces, down from over half-a-million when he took office in 1969 to only 69,000 by the end of 1972. But he also wanted to win the war, so he countered the troop reduction with a massive increase in bombings and other clandestine and special operations. Thus, while fewer Americans were now dying in Vietnam, the bombings, assassination programs, etc. only highlighted the barbarity of American violence on a relatively tiny nation that had committed the “crime” of fighting off French colonial rule to achieve independence and establishing a leftist government. So despite the lessening of the draft during Nixon’s tenure, student protests only increased. As the “Law and Order” president he was displeased. In May of 1970, he called student protestors “bums.” Two days later, 4 students on the campus of Kent State University were murdered by the Ohio State National Guard. On May 15, Mississippi police murdered another 2 students at Jackson State University in Mississippi. By 1971, there were few campuses where Nixon could go without facing massive demonstrations. He had to pick carefully.
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