What if Nixon had not been caught?

Let's assume that the point of divergence is that Nixon either does not wiretap his opponents or more likely is never caught.

How would this influence American policies if Nixon was able to finish his term uninterrupted by impeachment. How would a lack of a President Ford change things.
 
Off the top of my head:

Nixon has the political capital to choose his own replacement for Agnew rather than having to accept Ford - he probably chooses John Connally, who is the obvious successor to Nixon in 1976.

When the NVA began their final offensive against South Vietnam (a full-on thrust using conventional forces and tactics) President Ford tried to take action against them (airstrikes) but because of the fallout from Watergate he was not able to get it through Congress.

If Nixon is still in office and the NVA decides to follow through with this offensive, US air power will be able to decimate their forces in a way that it could not damage the Viet Cong. IMO this probably brings North Vietnam to the negotiating table, where a Korean War-style 'peace' (permanent ceasefire) is likely. On the other hand, it could be argued that the NVA wouldn't launch the offensive if they knew that the US would be politically capable of interdicting that offensive. In that case you probably see low-level conflict continuing for a long time. Can the South Vietnamese state survive under those conditions?

The OTL 1976 election was very close even with the stench of Watergate hanging over the GOP. ITTL, the economy will probably be pretty decent and if a long-lasting conclusion to the Vietnam War has been achieved then that will only help the GOP more. The 38th POTUS is probably John Connally, if not him then Ronald Reagan.

I don't know how all this would affect the calculus with regards to Iran and the late-70s economy, but they are probably not too different, at least in the case of the former. Connally will likely do no better than Carter in responding to the Revolution, he will be ousted in 1980 - probably by a hawkish Democrat (Scoop Jackson) if the Soviets still invade Afghanistan and if anything like the hostage crisis manifests itself.
 
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Firstly, Agnew's resignation was wholly separate from Watergate, so he still resigns. Regardless of political capital, John Connally is a hard sell. Democrats see him as a turncoat. Republicans dislike him for being a former Democrat. And, to quote a problem he had trying to gain the Republican nomination in 1976, he saw problems as a Democrat but his solutions were those of a Republican.

Overall, Nixon basically wanted his second term to undue the "Liberal Nixon" works of his first term. Nixon hated things like the EPA and all the rest, and there is a myth of him as some secret liberal. In reality, these were the works of a lot of good government Republicans in the administration, and they embarrassed Nixon. With political capital, they would go away.

On the whole, Nixon also wanted to build the Republican party into a grand Conservative coalition that would dominate American politics as the Democratic party had since Roosevelt. He was inspired by Churchill in this regard, and wanted to make the Republicans a big tent of the working class, traditional Republicans, Southerners and anyone else he could get. I think Black Americans were included if he could win them. Basically anyone who was the so called "Silent Majority", and much of that did come to pass, although it was not as sweeping and dominating as Nixon would have tried for. Certainly it did not pass in the wake of Watergate, when the Democratic party rallied and the Republican party was weakened, and much of it did come under Reagan some years later.
 
For one thing, there is no Carter, and if there is no Carter there is no Reagan. Probably a more mainstream Democrat wins in 76, and if he handles the Energy Crisis, Hostage Crisis, and Afghanistan more effectively than Jimmy did, wins a second term in 80. The Cold War, and our relations with the Soviets in the 80s, go very differently - hard to say in which way. Too many butterflies... but it would have been very different.

Very, very different direction for the country. Quite a lot of different ways it could have gone...
 
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bguy

Donor
Overall, Nixon basically wanted his second term to undue the "Liberal Nixon" works of his first term. Nixon hated things like the EPA and all the rest, and there is a myth of him as some secret liberal. In reality, these were the works of a lot of good government Republicans in the administration, and they embarrassed Nixon. With political capital, they would go away.

Even if Nixon wanted to get rid of the EPA how would he possibly do that? The 1970 amendment to the Clean Air Act originally passed 73 to 0 in the Senate.

http://www.nytimes.com/1970/09/23/a...-by-senate-73-to-0-a-tough-cleanair.html?_r=0

And when Nixon vetoed the 1972 Clean Water Act (primarily on cost grounds as the bill was expected to cost $24 billion to implement) his veto was overridden 52-12 in the Senate and 247-23 in the House (with 96 Republicans in the House voting to override).

http://blog.legalsolutions.thomsonr...water-act-passed-house-president-nixons-veto/

Thus there's no way he is successfully repealing environmental legislation, and I don't see Nixon going after OSHA or the CPSC either. All this good government legislation enjoyed broad public support and was passed by huge margins in Congress. Nixon would never have enough political capital to repeal it.
 
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