Vietnam - Watergate Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Vietnam - Watergate - Essay Example US attacks in Cambodia were one of the fundamental causes of escalation of the Vietnam War. Likewise, the Gulf of Tonkin was another event that paved the way for greater involvement of the US in the Vietnam War. The event caused distrust between the people and the American government because the consequences of the attacks were contrary to what the government had conveyed to the public. While President Lyndon B. Johnson said that the US did not want to expand the war (Hickman), the Gulf of Tonkin actually produced the opposite effects. The media played a very important role in revealing the truth and the real awfulness of the war to the public. This particularly created distrust between the people and the government because the media was showing the opposite picture than what was being shown by the government. Walter Cronkite had made a good reputation as a reporter among the people since the World War II. In his reports about the Vietnam War, Cronkite concluded that after all the ki llings and genocides, the US did not win the war and the war ended in stalemate. â€Å"Cronkites editorial would later be regarded as a critical indice of public opinion of the Vietnam War† (â€Å"The Reporters†). One of the events of the Watergate War that led to the cynicism were the audio recordings of the US President Richard Nixon’s communications along with the recordings of the White House staff and various officials. They were known as the Nixon White House tapes. The recorders were switched off after the public got to hear the recordings. During the 1970s, a political scandal known as the Watergate scandal attracted a lot of public attention and became the cause of resignation of the US President Nixon. On 1 March 1974, numerous former aides of Nixon were indicted by a grand jury because of the conspiracy of impeding the Watergate investigation. â€Å"In 1973, a Senate