11. THE 1970s: AMERICA DIVIDED

THE BRIEF FORD PRESIDENCY (1974-1977)

Thus as Nixon bade farewell, Vice President Gerald Ford took over the U.S. presidency.  Ford would be greatly handicapped as president (which was just fine with Congress) – never actually having gone before the American voter to achieve his presidential position.  However, it would turn out to be a huge blessing to America that the individual left with the responsibility of getting America past this huge mess was an all-around "good guy," able to pull off one of the greatest feats in American political history, which is to get both his Democrat and Republican colleagues in Congress to like and respect him deeply, at least up to this point. 

Ford issues a presidential pardon for Nixon.  Certainly the most important task facing Ford as he took office was bringing America past this one issue that had the country so divided that politically speaking it could do nothing to help the nation itself or the surrounding world.  Thus after a month of pondering the matter, and then a Sunday morning of worship – and of much prayer on the matter – Ford announced to the press that he was extending a presidential pardon to Nixon.  This would exempt Nixon from all charges, all efforts of those eager to continue their crusade to destroy the imperial president, the evil Richard Nixon.

The Democrats (and some Republicans) were furious.  They wanted "social justice" (revenge), not pardon.  But there was little they could do at that point.  Ford had just taken out of their hands a key political weapon – an extensively dragged-out show trial – that they were counting on to destroy not only Nixon (they wanted him behind bars), but the Republican Party in general, in anticipation of the coming November 1974 elections.

But for the well-being of the country, this was absolutely the right decision.  And Ford was able to take this stand because he was a Christian, answering to God first and foremost, and not America's "peace and social justice" warriors.  It would cost Ford dearly, to save America from itself.  But he did, and America moved forward, amazingly quickly afterwards.^[1]

Moral recovery.  It had to have inspired Graham and others who had put so much trust in Nixon, and felt so deeply betrayed by Watergate.  But ultimately Graham and some others moved on, even rebuilt a relationship with the disgraced former president, and Nixon himself moved on, actually to serve as wise counsel to future presidents and political officials.  The social justice warriors, of course, never forgave Nixon, and were able to write that unforgiveness into their history books, even elementary and high school textbooks, ones that would remember Nixon only as that evil president.

But didn't the social justice warriors forgive Ted Kennedy for Chappaquiddick?  No, not really.  They just simply put it out of their minds and thus avoided having to pay some kind of personal price in the matter.  It was simply as if the event never actually happened.  That's not forgiveness.  That's politics.

The Liberal Left was not in a mood to see Nixon's legacy 
survive under any terms ... no matter what it would cost not 
only America but even the larger world.  That cost will 
eventually run high ... very high

In the meantime, the situation in South Vietnam was worsening drastically.  In early 1975 panic set in among the South Vietnamese soldiers who now saw their cause as lost without further American aid.  And at the end of April the world was treated to the spectacle of the last of the American diplomatic mission beating a cowardly retreat from Saigon – with loyal Vietnamese civilians hanging on to the American helicopters in an effort to get out of the country with them.

South Vietnamese and Americans head for the helicopters 
out of Saigon

South Vietnamese and Americans trying to get into the 
American Embassy compound –  April 29, 1975

The Evacuation of Saigon from atop an apartment building housing 
CIA employees – April 29, 1975

Desperate Vietnamese trying to escape Saigon 
with the departing Americans – April 29, 1975

Vietnamese trying to escape Saigon

Vietnamese attempting to escape advancing communists – 
April 1975

North Vietnamese troops welcomed into Saigon

The Communists had completely routed the mighty America in Vietnam.  But this also meant that the political status quo in the entire region of Southeast Asia was going to suffer a huge shift.

The Communist "re-education" camps.  Now the Communist victors in the South began to march multitudes (possibly as many as a million) of Vietnamese off to "re-education" camps – to cleanse them of the "capitalist" ways they might have picked up in those years working with the Americans.  Conditions in these camps were so terrible that huge numbers of them died.

And then to make the situation even worse, the new regime seized the small independent farms and local businesses in order to collectivize or bring them under full governmental control – thus crippling further the economy – to the point of human disaster.

The Vietnamese "boat people."  Consequently, millions of Vietnamese attempted to flee the country – by any means possible.  Some fled across the countryside in an attempt to reach Thailand or Malaysia. 

Others took to boats – or anything that would float – in the hopes of being picked up by passing Western commercial freighters and thus brought to freedom in the West.  Multitudes simply drowned.  Many were picked up by pirates and raped and killed or sold into slavery.  Even then, if they were somehow able to reach foreign lands in the area (the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand) they would spend months, even years, waiting to receive refugee status in the West.  But ultimately, America took in 800,000 of these refugees – and another 250,000 were settled in Europe or England's Commonwealth countries. 

Vietnamese "boat people" seeking escape from Vietnam

But so many of them did not make the journey successfully.  
Tragically, so many of them will die at sea.

Some, however, will be fortunate enough to be picked up
by friendly ships

   
Vietnamese refugees rest as crewmen aboard the guided 
missile cruiser USS FOX (CG-33) give them something to 
drink - 1 June 1982

While Vietnamese were taking to the sea to escape Vietnam, 
many others fled overland to surrounding countries ... 
with similarly tragic results

The "Killing Fields" of Cambodia.  One place the Vietnamese were not headed for in their escape from Vietnam was next door in Cambodia – for there the situation turned even uglier than was even the case for poor Vietnam.   With the withdrawal of the American presence in Vietnam, Communists were also emboldened to end the fiction of Cambodian neutrality and simply take over the country.  But this was a different group of Communists – not of the North Vietnamese type – who mostly took their ideological cues from Russia.  These were Maoists, termed the "Khmer Rouge"^[2] under their leader Pol Pot, taking their cues from the zany Mao Zedong – who, like him, held some kind of romantic view about the purity of rural life in contrast to the corruptions of urban life (supposedly too Western or capitalist in style).  Urban Cambodia thus had to be purged of this evil – with those who had come under its influence either marched off to re-education camps of the Maoist variety – or simply executed on the spot.  No one was keeping population statistics at the time – but the best estimates run in the range of 1.5 to 2 million Cambodians died from either execution or exhaustion/starvation – this holocaust discovered when multitudes of "killing fields" of thousands of skeletal remains were later uncovered – discovered when the Vietnamese Communists next door finally sent troops into Communist Cambodia to end the slaughter.^[3]

The year 1976 was supposed to be a year of celebration – for it marked the 200th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence – considered by most Americans as the birth date of the American nation.  But there was very little to cheer about.  Officially, America put on a happy face.  But the spirit behind that face was lacking.  Fireworks and grand ceremonies attempted to mark the importance of the occasion.  But actually, America was feeling low – very low.

The Carter One-Term Presidency

  Miles H. Hodges