Trust Once Gained is Easily Lost:

How President Richard Nixon Lost More Than Just His Credibility

Jenna Jacobik

History 407: U.S. History Since World War II

Professor Kent Germany

April 8th, 2019

 Throughout the entire history of the United States, there has only ever been one president,

as of yet, that has resigned from office: President Richard Nixon. President Nixon came in to

office at a time when America was going through major changes regarding its identity

domestically, and globally. Because of all of the changes, and the circumstances of the time, the

Nixon presidency is one that has some of the most turbulent and noteworthy incidents. While

Nixon was not the first president to be elected during a time of war, he did have to deal with all

of the ramifications that were generated throughout the course of the Vietnam War. Not only did

he have to find a way to end the Vietnam War, like he had promised the American people

throughout his first campaign for the presidency, but he also had to deal with the foreign and

domestic consequences that his deception in Cambodia caused. While his foreign policy was

handled dreadfully, his domestic actions were handled even worse, and it was actually his

mistakes committed in America that were the catalyst to his decision to resign from his second

term as President of the United States. President Nixon’s presidency, including both his foreign

and domestic policies, is fraught with cover-ups and deceptions, such as the Cambodian

Campaign and Watergate, which lead to the major decline of American citizen’s trust in the

federal government.

While there are many questionable occurrences that took place throughout the Vietnam

War, one of the most notable was the Cambodian Campaign. At the time that this war campaign

took place, President Nixon had been promising the United States that he would be ending the

Vietnam War. In his address to the American people, President Nixon claimed that “A majority

of the American people, a majority of you listening to me, are for the withdrawal of our forces

from Vietnam. The action I have taken tonight is indispensable for the continuing success of that
withdrawal program.”1 President Nixon’s entire campaign into office was his promise that he

would end the Vietnam War, and bring all of the soldiers back home to the United States. While

at some point this may have been a true statement, the facts that surround this part of the war

prove otherwise. It is not a lie that President Nixon was in office at the time that the Vietnam

War ended, but his decisions throughout the end of the war do not coincide with the statement

that his only goal was to bring American troops home.

Officially it was first believed that the Cambodian Campaign took place within its legal

time frame, with President Nixon claiming that “American troops were out of Cambodia in 60

days, just as I pledged they would be.”.2 Two years later, it would come to light that not only did

these attacks take place after it had been reported to be over, but the bombings in Cambodia

began the year before it was actually documented.3 These statements revealed that the real

timeframe of the bombings in Cambodia spanned “11 months after the United Stated invasion in

May, 1970.”4 This cover-up mixed with a majority of America’s opinion on the Vietnam War

just fueled the flames. Most Americans at this point in the war were ready for it to be over, and

after learning about Cambodia, it gave the anti-war protestors even more reason to be anti-war.

The country was also at a point in which it was questioning whether the United States should

have been involved in the war at all. After the truth surrounding the bombings in Cambodia was

exposed, the question of whether or not the United States should have been in Asia at all became

even murkier than it originally was with just the information on Vietnam.

1
“139 Address to the Nation on the Situation in Southeast Asia. April 30, 1970.” 2001. American Reference
Library - Primary Source Documents, January, 1.
2
“135 Address to the Nation on the Situation in Southeast Asia. April 7, 1971.” 2001. American Reference
Library - Primary Source Documents, January, 1.
3
Hersh, Seymour M. Special to The New York Times. "U.S. CONFIRMS PRE‐1970 RAIDS ON
CAMBODIA." The New York Times. July 17, 1973.
4
Hersh, Seymour M. Special to The New York Times. "Senators Are Told U.S. Bombed Cambodia Secretly
After Invasion in 1970." The New York Times. August 08, 1973.
 Throughout the time when President Nixon was managing the continuing foreign

disputes, he was also acting covertly on the domestic front to ensure himself an easy reelection.

In one of the most well-known political scandals the United States has ever seen, President

Nixon was thrust into the negative spotlight of a federal investigation. The scandal originally

started with five men being arrested while trying to bug the Democratic National Committee at

the Watergate hotel.5 The connection to the Nixon campaign was made when around two weeks

after the arrest a check worth $25,000 that was designated to the Nixon campaign was found in

one of the Watergate robbers bank accounts.6 This launches a massive investigation into the

Nixon campaign, but before any convictions can be made Richard Nixon is reelected as

President of the United States. Throughout the next year of Nixon’s second term as president, an

investigation ensues to figure out who all was involved in the Watergate case.

It is not just the supposed link between President Nixon and Watergate that causes trust

to be lost between the public and the federal government. What further damaged the public’s

trust was how President Nixon reacted and handled the Watergate case. When dealing with the

committee’s investigation the Watergate case President Nixon was extremely uncooperative and

tried to use his power to get around the system. President Nixon first refused to give the Senate

his presidential recordings that he had from conversations in his office and claimed that he had

executive privilege that protected him from having to hand over to Congress.7 This belief of

executive privilege was overruled when the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that President

Nixon had to turn over the tape recordings he has of his conversations in the White House.8 It is

after President Nixon continues to refuse to turn over his tapes that articles of impeachment are

5
“Watergate Chronology.” Watergateinfo. Accessed April 05, 2019
6
“Watergate Chronology.” Watergateinfo. Accessed April 05, 2019
7
Warren Weaver. Special to The New York Times, Jr. "Nixon Brief Denies Courts Can Force Tapes'
Release." The New York Times. August 08, 1973. Accessed April 08, 2019. 
8
“Watergate Chronology.” Watergateinfo. Accessed April 05, 2019
officially passed for obstruction of justice.9 Even after all of the investigations, and President

Nixon’s eventual resignation from his second term of presidency, President Nixon continually

claimed that he did not commit any offense that he deemed unconstitutional, with one of his

famous quotes being “I am not a crook.”10 President Nixon was also granted a pardon from his

successor, President Gerald Ford, after resigning from office, which only further strengthened

the notion that Nixon had broken the law while in office. With more and more scandals surfacing

throughout President Nixon’s terms in office, and across President Nixon’s foreign and domestic

policies, it is only natural that there be significant impacts to the people of the United States.

It is easy to point out the specific ways that President Nixon lied to the nation, but the

effects of his dishonesty may not be as apparent. While it is unfair to say that President Nixon’s

presidency is the overall cause the dip in public trust in the federal government, it is undoubtedly

a major contributor. Public trust in the government began declining toward the beginning of the

Vietnam War, from October 15th, 1954 to December 1st, 1974.11 Over this length of time, public

trust of the federal government dropped from 77% to 36%, with a majority taking place during

President Nixon’s terms, going from 62% to 36%.12 The major drop of trust in the government is

only one of the effects of President Nixon’s fraudulent actions. Not only did the public lose faith

in their government, but they also lost trust in themselves and others. According to Troy Zimmer,

“this misplaced trust was felt most acutely among those who had formally placed their trust in

Nixon by voting for him in 1972.”13 This major drop in public trust is still impacting current

9
“Watergate Chronology.” Watergateinfo. Accessed April 05, 2019
10
"Nixon Insists That He Is Not a Crook." History.com. November 16, 2009. Accessed April 05, 2019. 
11
"Public Trust in Government: 1958-2017." Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. April 25,
2018. Accessed April 05, 2019.
12
"Public Trust in Government: 1958-2017."
13
Zimmer, Troy A. "The Impact of Watergate On the Public’s Trust in People and Confidence in The Mass
Media." Social Science Quarterly 59, no. 4 (1979): 743-51.
society, seeing as trust in government has never been able to make a consist rise in gaining the

public’s trust.

There have been many people, and presidents, throughout history that have lied to the

public, but it is the majority, and severity, of scandals throughout President Richard Nixon’s

presidency that seems to make them so impactful. There were other factors that contributed to

President Nixon’s lies being so impactful such as, the television broadcasting news faster, and

the fact that his deception was not just with dealing with foreign officials, or private matters, but

fellow Americans. It is possible, that had the television not been graphically showing the effects

of President Nixon’s Cambodian Campaign that more Americans would have less problems with

his decision. It is almost ironic now that President Nixon once claimed that the attack in

Cambodia was “the most successful operation of this long and difficult war.”, when in reality his

drive into Cambodia has become one of his most questionable and underhanded decisions. Even

though President Nixon’s impeachment charges passed in the House, he resigned from office

before he could officially be impeached from office. It will now forever remain a mystery of

whether or not his impeachment would have passed. This mystery, however, does not change

what would have happened if he stayed in the presidency, or what happened when he resigned.

President Nixon lost the American people’s trust not only in himself, but also the trust that

people should have in their federal government as a whole.

 Bibliography

Hersh, Seymour M. Special to The New York Times. "Senators Are Told U.S. Bombed
Cambodia Secretly After Invasion in 1970." The New York Times. August 08, 1973.

Hersh, Seymour M. Special to The New York Times. "U.S. CONFIRMS PRE‐1970 RAIDS ON
CAMBODIA." The New York Times. July 17, 1973.

"Nixon Insists That He Is Not a Crook." History.com. November 16, 2009. Accessed April 05,
2019. 

"Public Trust in Government: 1958-2017." Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.
April 25, 2018. Accessed April 05, 2019.

Warren Weaver. Jr. Special to The New York Times, "Nixon Brief Denies Courts Can Force
Tapes' Release." The New York Times. August 08, 1973. Accessed April 08, 2019. 

“Watergate Chronology.” Watergateinfo. Accessed April 05, 2019

Zimmer, Troy A. "The Impact of Watergate On the Public’s Trust in People and Confidence in
The Mass Media." Social Science Quarterly 59, no. 4 (1979): 743-51.

“135 Address to the Nation on the Situation in Southeast Asia. April 7, 1971.” 2001. American
Reference Library - Primary Source Documents, January, 1.

“139 Address to the Nation on the Situation in Southeast Asia. April 30, 1970.” 2001. American
Reference Library - Primary Source Documents, January, 1.