The Cambodian Incursion

In the recorded conversations that Richard Nixon, the 37th President of the United States, had with his White House aides, he reveals his motivations and his assumptions about the American public: “Everybody says we’ve got to protect this one and that one and the other one. The main thing we’ve got to protect is the Presidency”. He felt that the presidency granted him immunity to the law. Under his Presidency, an air of distrust of government gradually grew amongst US citizens. He led a criminal presidency yet was never indicted or prosecuted. If he were not President of the United States, he would have faced greater consequences for his actions. In this light, perhaps he was right when he claimed, in his 1977 interview with David Frost, “When
The public condemned the action, mainly citing the fact that the United States did not have to be involved. The Vietnam War was already heavily disliked by civilians, which was a main reason Nixon was elected. Getting more involved with the invasion, supplying arms and the MENU bombings were not what the public believed they had signed up for by electing Nixon. One of his claims when winning the presidential bid was to pull a hundred thousand troops out of Cambodia and Vietnam, instead, more troops were sent in and the war ended up taking 6 long years. As the negative public opinion grew and Anti-War organizations formed, Nixon took it as his obligation to destroy these organizations, “the White House launched an anti-Moratorium Plan B: leaking word that they were responding to demonstrations. The New York Times printed the testimony of an anonymous ‘critic’ within the administration that there would soon be ‘a temporary suspension of the draft for an unspecified time’ and that when conscription resumed men would only be eligible for a year after their 19th birthday instead of the present six, and only professional soldiers and draftees who volunteered would be sent to Vietnam”. This information was false and Nixon replied with very arrogant comments to reporters. When the public found out that the