Name: Obil Samuel Flores Quintanilla

Course: Recent American History

Topic: Final Exam
1. Watergate Scandal
The Watergate Scandal began on June 17th, 1972 after a break-in at Democratic National

Committee headquarters. It was the beginning to find out a series of undercover and illegal

maneuvers that implicated high-hierarch members of Richard Nixon’s administration. Some of

these activities involved dirty tricks as bugging political opponents and suspicious people. Also,

these activities involved harassment political figures and groups, using the Central Intelligence

Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Internal Revenue Service.

Two people who played an important role in this scandal were Bob Woodward and Carl

Bernstein. They were two reporters who worked for the Washington Post and the Post

respectively. Basically, they investigated and exposed a system of political dirty actions and

corruptions under the Nixon’s administration. They put together many pieces of a puzzle that

displayed corruption in the government. Eventually, their investigations led to accusations of

White House and administration executives, and also to the resignation of President Nixon.

Woodward and Bernstein found out that the five suspects who were caught at the break-in event

had really good cameras, electronic devices, and thousands of dollars with them. Moreover, they

had given false names to the police, and all of them had been related to the CIA. Particularly, one

of the guys whose name was James McCord was directly related to the Committee to Re-elect

the President (CREEP). The reporters were able to reveal everything with the collaboration of a

secret source known as “Deep Throat” who systematically cooperated so that illegal movements

like secret illicit fundraising, sabotage of opposition candidates, and authorization of a group

called White House “plumbers” to carry out break-ins to political opponents, and so forth could

be discovered.
 At the beginning, the reports about this scandal were dismissed as an attempt to affect

Nixon’s image. Later, Nixon had to intervene personally; he tried to distract attention from the

burglary crime that represented threaten to his administration. He tried to hide his participation to

cover the burglar incident. Moreover, Nixon planned with his principal assistants to suppress the

Watergate investigation; to achieve this, he told his Chief of Staff, H.R. Haldeman to tell Deputy

CIA director that the FBI investigations would affect sensitive CIA operations. This tactic

worked for some time. Nonetheless, some of the FBI officers who did not believe in the

Haldeman’s argument, continued to leak information to Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward.

Later on, Nixon had chosen a special prosecutor (Archibald Cox) to follow the Watergate

inquiries. However, this prosecutor summoned some critical tapes as evidence. Nixon denied

releasing his tapes, claiming that the conversations recorded in at the White House were

extremely confidential. Besides, he looked for negotiation in the Senate by guaranteeing to let

them to read just transcripts of the tapes provided by the White House. When Prosecutor Cox

rejected, Nixon told Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire him; Richardson refused doing it

and was dismissed. Then, the Second-in-command William Ruckelshaus also refused and was

fired as well. At the end, Nixon had to release the tapes.

On May 1974, the House Judiciary Committee directed by Peter Rodino, opened

impeachment hearings. From the beginning, the focused on the events related to the burglary.

Moreover, they understood the power of consensus because they looked for an alliance with

moderate Republicans, liberal Democrats, and Southern conservatives. They did this to avoid the

idea that the judicial process against Nixon was something ideological. When Nixon released the

types of 54 conversations to the Judiciary Committee, everything was like the end for him.

Nonetheless, he still weaseled asking his colleagues if there was something in the Supreme Court
that he could do to avoid compliance. Basically, it was determined that this case was related to

criminal conspiracy and obstruction of justice, a series of abuses of power, and the

unconstitutional defiance of committee subpoenas. After that, on August 9th, 1974, Nixon

resigned and Vice-President Gerald Ford took his place. On September 1974, Ford granted

Nixon a complete pardon for all wrongdoings he had done or might have done during his

administration.

2. AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome)

This illness spread slowly in Africa during many decades and then to different parts of the

world. The first identified case of contagion was registered in 1959 from a man in Democratic

Republic of the Congo. Later, in 1981, doctors in West Coast noticed immune deficiency

problems. At that time, The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported recurrent cases of rare

Pneumonia and cancer. Firstly, this disease was accredited as a threat only to homosexual men,

but later on this theory was discarded. Moreover, some of the risky factors that influenced the

spreading of this illness were the use of the same needles and recurrent blood transfusion. One of

the things that affected for the spreading of this illness was the slow reaction of the authorities at

that moment. Moreover, there was a lot of discrimination and lack of consideration for gays.

People hated them and blamed them as the responsible for this disease. In addition, little money

went for informative actions.

The reaction of the Reagan’s administration and the congress toward this illness was very

slow. Not until 1985 did Reagan even said a word regarding to this illness. Basically, president

Reagan acted as if no illness existed; even six years after AIDS was discover and more than 4000

people died every year. The Reagan Administration was against any big spending. However, in

1987, Reagan created a special commission to investigate AIDS pandemic. This commission was

commanded by James Watkins and therefore it was known as the Watkins commission. They
gave many recommendations like the creation of federal laws to stop discrimination toward

infected people. Also, in 1988, the Watkins report condemned the administration’s inconsistent

efforts to stop the disease. In addition, this commission obtained good results because in 1988,

The Congress approved to spend $1.3 billion to research and fight AIDS.

This syndrome initially affected the risky groups at that time, gay males and also many black

people. It destroyed the capacity of the immune system to destroy infections and external agents.

Basically, this illness was acquired through sexual intimacy, blood transfusion, and the use of

shared needles.

By 1982, the Centers of Disease Control identified 853 Americans who had died for AIDS.

This number grew up rapidly every year. Thousands of cases were recorded between 1980s and

1990s. For example, by 1983, 3000 AIDS cases were identified. By 1985, 16000 AIDS cases

were known. And by end of 1991, – 200,000 AIDS cases had been diagnosed.

3. The Gulf War (30 points)

According to Saddam Hussein, their neighboring nation Kuwait drew off crude oil from the

Ar-Rumaylah oil fields situated along the common limit of both countries. He blamed them of

conspiring to keep oil prices low to please to Western oil-buying nations. Eventually, Saddam

Hussein ordered the assault and occupation of neighboring Kuwait in early August 1990. The

United States, Britain and the Soviet Union condemned the military aggression. Likewise, The

United Nations Security Council called Iraq to desist; since they did not want to withdraw, the

war began. Many countries were involved, Iraq fought against a coalition of 39 nations counting

the United States, Britain, Egypt, France, and Saudi Arabia; actually, 28 nations sent troops.

At the beginning, the U.S. made a call to Hussein’s troops to go out of Kuwait. When the

diplomatic path was over, Bush looked for the support of the Security Counsel of the United

Nations. When support was approved, he sent 200,000 troops to Saudi Arabia. On the other
hand, Iraq enlarged its occupation armies to some 300,000 soldiers. As a response to the Iraqi

maneuvers, the United Nations assigned economic sanctions to Iraq. Moreover, the UN pressed

for Iraqi army forces removal by15 Jan 1991. On January 16, 1991, a huge U.S. air attack on

Iraq’s air defenses occurred. The coalition, headed by the U.S. targeted communications

networks, weapons plants, oil refineries, etc. Despite the fact that more countries were involved,

the allied forces mostly included: the U.S. Saudi Arabia, UK, Canada, Egypt, France, and

Kuwait.

On February 25th, 1991, the allied forces crossed the border from Saudi Arabia. This coalition

effort was known as Operation Desert Storm. This military strategy was a response to the Iraqi

aggression. Basically, Iraq launched Scud missiles at U.S. force quarters in Saudi Arabia and

Israel. Hussain wanted to persuade the Arab states to join him in his cause. However, the Arab

nations continued in their disapproval toward Iraq. During this operation, war the allied forces

made use of the highest military technology, like Smart bombs with laser-guidance systems and

infrared night-bombing equipment, and Patriot missile defense was used the first time.

Fortunately, on February 29th 1991, Kuwait’s self-government was reestablished. After the war,

Iraq withdrew and Bush agreed to an armistice with Iraq.

There were some consequences of the war. First, Saddam Hussein remained in power due to

the armistice that was granted to him. This was a sign that protecting their interests and their oil

was what the U.S. really looked for. Moreover, this war showed that the U.S. was acting as

police force in the world to keep things under control. Besides, the victory of this war lifted up

the enthusiasm of the U.S. After been unable to win the Vietnam War, the U.S. went through

hard moments. On the other hand, this war motivated anti-Americanism among Islamic radicals.

Furthermore, there were dead soldiers. 146 soldiers were killed out of 500,000 troops that the
U.S sent. Finally, the oil prices were reestablished; on Oct 1991, the price of an oil barrel was

$40, after the war, price went down to $20 a barrel.

http://www.theaidsinstitute.org/education/aids-101/where-did-hiv-come-0

http://www.nytimes.com/1984/01/09/opinion/the-slow-response-to-aids.html

Head of AIDS Commission Pledges Quick Reorganization of Panel". New York Times. October 11, 1987.
Retrieved February 12, 2013.

http://www.history.com/topics/persian-gulf-war

http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/history/persian-gulf-wars.html