The Republican Presidents I know

[Beaver Tail]

This is not meant to start a fight but I took a look at a lot of issues that have come back to haunt the United States and was curious to see who was the president at the time that these problems started.

I will not draw conclusions but let others support and/or debunk and/or correct and/or add to as they see fit.

Here is what I found

1953–1961
Dwight David Eisenhower – President
Richard Nixon – Vice President

Problems started during this Presidency that would later haunt America

Shah of Iran become Leader after Coup (arranged by CIA) of democratically elected government
USA Becomes involved in Vietnam Conflict

1969–1974
Richard Nixon – President
Spiro Agnew (1969–1973) – Vice President
Gerald R. Ford (1973–1974) – Vice President

Problems started during this Presidency that would later haunt America

Watergate
Augusto Pinochet becomes leader of Chile after Coup (arranged by CIA) of democratically elected government

1981-1987
Ronald Regan – President
George H. W. Bush – Vice President

Problems started during this Presidency that would later haunt America
Invasion of Central America
Iran-Contra
Support for Mujahideen (Osama bin Laden)
rise of the "Religious Right" added on edit
deregulation added on edit
Armed Saddam added on edit

[bryant69]

1. So if you look at it a certain way, it make George W. Bush look good

I mean, we don't have to wait around for disaster to strike with Bush. He gets right to it!

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Nite Owl]

2. Oh but what don't we

even know yet? Now that's a scarey thought!

[suneel112]

3. Other problems started under Reagan...

the rise of the "Religious Right" and the congressional turnover of the South from our party to the GOP. Also the loss of the strength of Unions, the deregulation in America, the first wave of "outsourcing", destroying Carter's energy plan, and the list goes on. This all lead to today's "Mourning in America".

The DU should regard Reagan, more than Bush, as a curseword to Democracy.

[Beaver Tail]

4. Thank you

I guess you can call this a littel research project for me. I will also be looking at Dem leaders as well. Have to be fair

[navvet]

5. At the risk of a huge flame war

I hasten to point out that according to the "Vietnam war course" I took in college,

It was good old Harry Truman that involved us in Viet Nam by agreeing to help back the French in their attempt to reconquest Viet Nam after WW2.

simple fairness requires honesty.

[Beaver Tail]

6. This is very true

I guess I should say "Direct" involvement as the role with the French as a support involvement.

[B Calm]

8. Eisenhower was the first president to send US troops to Vietnam.

1955 Eisenhower sent troops into Vietnam as advisers. April 1959 President Eisenhower commits the United States to maintaining South Vietnam's independence. July 1959: Two U.S. advisors are the first Americans killed, in guerrilla attack 20 miles north of Saigon.

[punpirate]

9. There wasn't any real reconquering required...

... the British had occupied Vietnam from a few months before the end of WWII, until the end of the war. Control of Vietnam reverted to France at Japan's surrender because of previous arrangements made at Yalta.

The French reoccupied the country, and Ho's troops immediately began trying to drive them out. Truman did provide some monetary help to the French, but there were no US personnel of any note in the country until Eisenhower sent in the CIA after Dien Bien Phu to destabilize the North and the South in order to cause the upcoming 1956 UN-sponsored and supervised elections to fail. The CIA was successful in that effort, and the core of CIA people there would go on to help Diem to power in the South. The first military personnel ("advisers") would be ordered in by Eisenhower in 1958.

That's the way I remember it.

Cheers.

[Felix Mala]

7. Don't forget arming Saddam to the gills so he could fight the Iranians

OVER THERE, so we wouldn't have to fight them over here. It was about this time that Saddam used "weapons of mass destruction (nerve gas) on his own people." Hmmm... how the hell did he get that?

THEN, under Bush I, Paps called on Iraqi's to come out in the open and over throw Saddam, which they do. But Pappy doesn't think it's prudent to give them the air support, so they gut cut down en masse by Saddam. How could it get any better? We invade 11 years later with great loss of civilian lives. Am I the only one who never wonders why they hate us?

[punpirate]

10. Don't forget Ford...

... it was Ford, after all, who brought us the Bobsey Twins, Rumsfeld and Cheney. It was Cheney who recommended George H.W. Bush for Director of Central Intelligence. It was Rumsfeld who first got his chance to use his "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" routine with regard to Soviet weapons systems.

It was Bush who allowed the so-called "Team B" into the back door of the CIA, which is the real start of the politicization of the agency. And, it was William Casey who was on Ford's Presidential Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (along with Edward Teller and John Foster) who sought to greatly inflate the threat posed by the Soviets in an attempt to force the U.S. into a whole new arms race--which they did manage to accomplish during Reagan's term--though that race was largely one-sided.

It was also Ford who made the quid pro quo to pardon Nixon.

Cheers.

[ThomWV]

11. Eisenhower - Cold War Nuclear Arm's Race