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Kissinger played a key role, too, in the year's most significant foreign policy achievement: the negotiated withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from the nation's debilitating involvement in the Viet Nam War. However tardy, the settlement allowed 587 American prisoners of war to return home, the draft to be suspended and the domestic strife that had inspired a rebellious counterculture to be eased. It did not, however, achieve a true peace for Viet Nam itself and at year's end fighting continued almost unabated.
Following directly on the shattering U.S. experience in Viet Nam, it was the turbulent U.S. political crisis that made some of the world worry about the stability of America and question its capacity to play a global role. Variously disbelieving, saddened, sickened and cynical, many Americans, too, lost faith in leaders who had betrayed their trust. One who had most blatantly done so was Spiro T. Agnew, an acerbic apostle of righteousness who had thrived as Nixon's Vice President on strident demands for harsh judgments against all who disagreed with his own rigid concepts of acceptable ideology and permissible—but never permissive—behavior. Then, faced with overwhelming evidence of his own criminal corruptness and petty greed in accepting graft from Maryland contractors, Agnew successively claimed innocence, lashed out at his accusers, copped a plea on income tax evasion, and quit.
A Vice President admitting criminal activity was shocking enough. But with the gradual, string-by-string unraveling of Watergate, the resulting revelations indicated an astonishing pervasiveness of corruption among Nixon's political and official associates. Theirs was a lust for the enhancement of their leader carried far beyond acceptable limits. That made it all the more menacing to democracy, if less alarming to those who insisted that, after all, nothing was stolen and no one was killed. No fewer than twelve of Nixon's former aides or the hands they hired were convicted of crimes. Six others, including two Cabinet members, were indicted. At least seven more Nixon officials seem certain to be indicted when the three federal grand juries now at work in Washington complete their tasks. The total of all those charged with crimes could surpass 30.
Later trials may absolve some defendants, but the range of criminal charges against them is appalling. It includes perjury, burglary, illegal wiretapping, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, fraud, extortion, solicitation of illegal campaign contributions, violation of campaign funding laws, subornation of perjury, illegal distribution of campaign literature, and various forms of conspiracy to commit illegal acts. No such litany of illegality has ever before been officially leveled against the associates of any U.S. President.
The Allegations Against the President
But as the scandal ballooned well beyond a political burglary and its coverup, wide-ranging allegations against Nixon himself became part of the sordid affair. They included contentions that Nixon had: 1) intervened in an antitrust action against ITT in return for political contributions; 2) raised milk support prices and reduced dairy imports for similar considerations; 3)