Political Cartoons

Despite public protest from several people against the violence in Vietnam, the gruesome war continued on. This political cartoon depicts the escalating violence in Vietnam. At first the bomb states, "increased bombing will stop infiltration" and continues to express that "increased bombing will break Hanoi's morale" and so on. This shows that those in charge continued to increase the violence instead of changing their harsh tactics and tragic. The cartoonist is satirizing the fact that at first it appeared that the bombs were needed to improve the war. However the next two suggest that there truly was no real reason behind the increase in violence. It's as though those sending the bombs were making up reasons to continue the violence. People were justifying the extreme violence because truly they just wanted to prevail over Vietnam.

President Nixon was an extremely paranoid man. Because of his inability to trust anyone around him or the other officials in his cabinet, Nixon chose to tape conversations to assuage his paranoia. Ultimately, Nixon recorded 3,700 hours of confidential information expressed in phone calls and in executive meetings. This political cartoon portrays Nixon hanging from his tapes. This metaphor of Nixon helpless and alone with only his tapes represents the fact that ultimately Nixon had to resign from his presidency because of these recordings. During the Watergate scandal it was these tapes containing damning evidence against Nixon which led to his resignation. If not for his paranoia and inability to trust others there would be little physical evidence connecting Nixon to the scandal. However, the Supreme Court forced the tapes from Nixon, leading to his resignation.

Nixon was in a bind after the break in at the Watergate. Slowly, after a long investigation propagated by persistent reporters, the facts began to reveal themselves. Nixon was dragged down by others close to him who had also partaken in illegal affairs. This political cartoon depicts a lonely President Nixon at a conference table alone. Clearly he is sitting in a room that was once bustling with people of importance. However, the conference chairs state "GUILTY" under the names of those who used to surround Nixon in office. This shows that several people related to Nixon were found guilty in crimes they committed. Nixon's chair says "co-conspirator" because he was not technically considered guilty but impeachment was still the final course of action. Instead, Nixon resigned.