Abilene Christian College - Prickly Pear Yearbook (Abilene, TX)

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I N R E T R lessons from Gas prices quadrupled; 900 people died in the heat of Guyana; a President betrayed his nation; we lost our first war — these were the If we put all the tragedies together, there would be enough to cry about for a week. The reason for an examination is not to feel guilty, but to learn lessons. When we look at what happened in the 70s, good or bad, we prepare ourselves for coping with, and enjoying the ’80s. In a country as large and free as ours, it’s seldom that the differences in people and their beliefs meet in hatred and violence. But in 1970 at Kent State University, angry students met a group of armed National Guardsmen. Although four students died from the spray of bullets, the confrontation wasn’t one-sided. The anti-war group, those who spoke so much of peace and love, fired no guns, but threw rocks and yelled obscenities. Strange behavior for a group who spoke so much of peace and love. Four students fell, but an entire generation of voices arose. In the week that followed the shootings, 450 colleges and universities were closed down by students. Others, like actress Jane Fonda and Daniel Ellsberg, a former aide to Secretary of Defense McNamara, were more personal in efforts to stop the war. Fonda went to North Vietnam in 1972 to broadcast messages over Radio Hanoi asking American pilots to discontinue the bombing of North Vietnam. Ellsberg stole secret government documents which he gave to the The New York Times. The documents, known as the Pentagon Papers, revealed the Vietnam strategy of Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. Both acts, particularly Ellsberg's, undermined the American effort in Vietnam, yet both were heroes to many. Many people began to see America as the “bad guy”, and the government as the peoples’ enemy. The protesters considered the war wrong, and any means used to stop that effort was somehow justified. Buildings were blown up and people were killed in the name of ending a But the struggle between the young and the old was coming to an end. On the eve of the 72 election Secretary of State Henry Kissinger announced that“peace is at hand.” Shortly after that announcement, we had withdrawn most of our troops and the carefully planned peace of Nixon and Kissinger went into effect. However, in 1974, Congress cut off funding for the bombing of Cambodia, which in effect, terminated U.S. involvement Nixon’s Vietnamization plan, created to enable the South Vietnamese to defend themselves, also soon ended. In 1975 South Vietnam toppled to the forces of Communist North Vietnam. For the first time in several decades an American military endeavor had ended in our loss. There were no parades. But the Vietnam effort showed America things it needed to see. It showed what war was really about and what it really wasn’t about. War isn’t glory and triumph; it’s pain and death. Vietnam was an unsolvable puzzle. The question of who was right and wrong still cannot be determined. One thing was certain, the war drained America. The investment — lives, money, and worry — without gain, was unprecedented. We suf- fered a great loss of prestige and confidence, but at least the bitter struggle, both overseas and in our backyards, was over. Unfortunately,the Vietnam struggle was not the only bleak spot in the American 70s. President Richard Nixon had plenty of enemies. In ’969 his first targets were reporters, but as the 70s opened, the emphasis switched to the anti-war movement. When the 1972 election neared, it was only natural that this abuse would be directed towards the Democrats. In “All the President's Men, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein pointed out that the “President’s men” had in unethical, if not illegal, ways attacked administration On June 16, 1972, a group of men representing the Committee to Re- Elect the President (CREEP) broke into the Democratic party’s cam- paign headquarters. At the time, the event did not seem to be particularly earthshaking. Washington Post reporter, Bob Woodward was not excited when his editor called him on his day off to assign him the Watergate story. If he had known the massive job awaiting him he might have gone back to bed. Carl Bernstein, a college dropout turned reporter, soon joined Woodward on the story. Bernstein was quite different than Woodward, a graduate of Yale. But the Ivy Leaguer and the Drop Out overcame their differences to begin a suc- cessful collaboration. Woodward and Bernstein became “Woodstein”, and history was in the making. The investigation would not be an easy one. The break- fn seemed unnecessary — Nixon’s re-election was all but certain. Ron Ziegler, Nixon’s press secretary, termed the break- in, “A third rate robbery attempt.” John Mitchell, Nixon’s campaign director, said, “We want to em- phasize that this man (James Mc- Cord, the security coordinator of the CREEP of which Mitchell was head) and the other people involved (in the break in) were not operating on either our behalf, or with our con-

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O S P E C T the seventies With these denials, Bernstein and Wood- ward faced the task of finding out why the Watergate robbery had occurred and who was responsible. The first major step made by Woodstein was the discovery of a large, secret fund. Tracing the roots case. The pair would learn that the fund, most of which had been collected illegally, had financed the break in. After considerable research, Woodstein determined that CREEP finance chairman and former Secretary of Commerce Maurice Stans, along with Mitchell, had authorized illegal expenditures from the fund. The Watergate break-in had been funded by one of those illegal expenditures. Woodstein’s allegations were vehemently denied by the White House, while these initial findings started the jour- nalistic tidal wave that drowned Nixon and his men. Through extensive investigation, Woodstein located Peter Segretti. Segretti had been hired by CREEP to sabotage the Democratic cam- paign. To acheive this assignment he used various means. He authorized sending 100 pizzas C.O.D. to a George McGovern rally, and calling voters at 2 a.m. urging them With these discoveries the Watergate story slowly began to unravel. Shocking revelations began to emerge: 1. The FBI investigation of Watergate, which had been termed by director L. Patrick Gray as a “no holds barred” investigation, had actually been controlled by parties sympathetic to the sabotage. 2. The “Canuck Letter” a savage attack at Edmund Muskie, once the Democratic front runner in the '72 campaign, had possibly been penned by a CREEPer. 3. Democratic vice presidential nominee Thomas Eagleton’s health record, which included a history of psychiatric care, forced McGovern to drop the senator as his running mate. The news was leaked to the press by CREEP. 4. And most frightening of all, the tempted assassination of George With these and other facts collected by Woodstein and a group of journalistic comrades, the Watergate story was told and all the president’s men met justice. But Nixon remained in the White House. Tapes of discussions with White House staff members, in which he candidly discussed hush money and authorized the withholding of evidence, clearly implicated the President in the cover-up, and raised questions of White House involvement in the initial break-in. These tapes unveiled the man behind the mask. Nixon swore, rambled and lied; it was not a pleasant revelation to America, especially to the millions who had admired the man. The battle was one Nixon couldn’t win. Aug. 9, 1974, more than two years after the break-in, Nixon resigned. Newly-appointed Vice President Gerald Ford moved into the oval office, encouraging the nation to believe that “Our long national nightmare is over. The constitution worked.” A month later he closed the door on Watergate by giving Nixon a full pardon. There are many ways to look at and feel about Watergate. The or- deal showed the positive power of the press and its credibility. Nixon had repeatedly renounced press reports and many people had was telling the truth. Woodward and Bernstein, working together, literally changed history. As Ford said, the constitution worked; we survived. The most powerful man in the nation had been driven from office, but it was done peacefully. Our whole system shook, but it didn’t break. Watergate illustrated the firm foundation our country was built on. But an ugly disillusionment settled over the country. “He (Nixon) told us he was going to take crime off the streets. He did. He took it to the White House,” Ted Aber- nathy said. Also, a fear and a mistrust of the government sank in, and a strange tolerence of its corruption. The saying, “Nixon just did what everyone else has been doing,” was often heard. Many Americans began to look at their government as a huge monster they couldn’t, or didn’t care to, be a part of. relieve the worry of To relie Waterga the other society Viet listened and looked to the en- tertainment world. The country flocked to blockbuster smaller screen Americans gazed a “Charlie’s Angels,” “Kojak” and “Three’s Company,’’ while American youth listened to Fleet- wood Mac, Peter Frampton and boogied with the Bee Gees. Most of the movies, records and TV shows were escapist fare. They sought to entertain and little else. They were a means of forgetting the dreary, the frightening and the But the best art of the ’70s spoke to people where they were. It was bold and honest, and it will be remem- bered. The movie “Saturday Night Fever” examined Joey (John Travolta), a young Italian- American struggling to do more