Vietnam War

===U.S. domestic controversies===
The [[anti-war movement]] was gaining strength in the United States. Nixon appealed to the "[[silent majority]]" of Americans who he said supported the war without showing it in public. But revelations of the 1968 [[My Lai Massacre]],<ref name=Hastings/>{{Rp|518–521}} in which a U.S. Army unit raped and killed civilians, and the 1969 "[[Green Beret Affair]]", where eight [[United States Army Special Forces|Special Forces]] soldiers, including the 5th Special Forces Group Commander, were arrested for the murder<ref>{{Cite book |last=Stein |first=Jeff |url=https://archive.org/details/murderinwartimeu00stei |title=A Murder in Wartime: The Untold Spy Story that Changed the Course of the Vietnam War |date=1992 |publisher=St. Martin's Press |isbn=978-0-312-07037-3 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/murderinwartimeu00stei/page/60 60–2] |url-access=registration}}</ref> of a suspected double agent,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Bob Seals |date=2007 |title=The "Green Beret Affair": A Brief Introduction |url=http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/20thCentury/articles/greenberets.aspx|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080509150017/http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/20thCentury/articles/greenberets.aspx|archive-date=May 9, 2008}}</ref> provoked national and international outrage.

In 1971, the ''Pentagon Papers'' were leaked to ''The New York Times''. The top-secret history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, commissioned by the [[United States Department of Defense|Department of Defense]], detailed a long series of public deceptions on the part of the U.S. government. The [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]] ruled that its publication was legal.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=[[USA.gov]] |date=February 1997 |title=The Pentagon Papers Case |url=http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itdhr/0297/ijde/goodsb1.htm |url-status=dead |journal=eJournal USA |volume=2 |issue=1 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080112095748/http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itdhr/0297/ijde/goodsb1.htm |archive-date=12 January 2008 |access-date=27 April 2010}}</ref>