No end to conflicts and potential hot spots, this February 23rd in 1975. Southeast Asia eruptions were continuing with the Mekon river blockade now effectively cutting off Phnom Penh and rebel fighting throughout Cambodia. Likewise in South Vietnam where terrorist attacks were inching closer to Saigon. All this activity triggered calls from President Ford to send military aid to the region. Congress wasn't thrilled. We'd been there. We'd done that. We got the bloodstains to prove it. Still, there were some such as Strom Thurmond who thought we should pour nothing but money into the region in exchange for their oil, if and when they found some.

Elsewhere in the Lovely Neighborhood - Secretary of State Henry Kissinger returned from a tour of the Middle East, saying he was "optimistic" that talks-about-talks-about-talks were looking up. Senator Ted Kennedy introduced legislation asking for a cut-off of military aid to the oil producing Persian Gulf nations, saying instability in the region begged for a hold-off on ordinance for at least six months. His crystal ball, it appears, was in much better shape than a lot of his colleagues.

Ethiopia was asking the U.S. for arms in the wake of increased tensions coming from the northern province of Eritrea and the separatist movement gathering steam there. New tensions in Cyprus between Greek and Turkish elements were springing up. Spain, despite a law prohibiting strikes handed down by the somewhat creaky Franco regime, went on strike over dissatisfaction with the decades-old authoritarian rule.

And back home - Judge Sirica handed down sentences for convicted Watergate figures. It went like this: Mitchell, Haldeman and Ehrlichman all got 2 1/2 years in jail and Robert Mardian got 10 months.

All that and a lot more for news ending the week of February 23rd, 1973 as reported on CBS Radio's The World This Week.

Feel better about your day now?

And if memory serves you well, or even partially, there was the little matter of the Middle East Oil Embargo, the 1973 Arab-Isreali War and the sudden, somewhat baffling Tactical Nuclear Alert called by President Nixon late in October.

Bear in mind, this is all hot on the heels of Watergate and the ever-closing circle on President Nixon and his involvement. A few days earlier we had the infamous "I am not a crook" declaration during a Nixon presser and the non-stop questioning of the press over the full-blown scandal.

So what better opportunity to get the heat off than to manufacture a Great National Emergency? It was one that took everyone by surprise, even allies like Great Britain who were informed via newscast that the world was, according to Nixon, in the gravest of all possible danger.

So it was left up to newly installed (as of September 1973) Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to put the spin on things. And frankly, even he didn't really know what the deal was.

Henry Kissinger: “There’s one matter I wanted to raise with you ladies and gentlemen, growing out of my last press conference in which I promised within a week to supply the material or the evidence on which our decision to have or to go on alert was based. It was a statement that, quite frankly I regretted having made in terms of the short deadline immediately afterwards. The reason is; that as we are now moving towards peace negotiations, which we expect to conduct with the cooperation of the Soviet Union, I do not believe any useful purpose would be served if the United States recited confidential communications taking place, and try to recreate an episode of confrontation that hopefully has been transcended.”

A lot of sleight-of-hand going on during these months - and for good reason if you were in the White House.

Here is the Press Conference from November 21, 1973, which ironically was not permitted to be broadcast live, but rather by tape delay, and broadcast by NPR less than an hour after its conclusion.

No explanation for why it wasn't permitted to go live, just "one of those quirks from the State Department".

Oh. I see.

The week in Washington ending this day in 1975 saw Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in an almost perpetual state of motion over negotiating a Middle East Peace Settlement between Egypt and Israel. In lieu of getting any hopes up or giving information out, Kissinger remained non-committal as he left one leg of the mission and picked up another leg, despite rising expectations a settlement was near.

Portugal was another hot spot getting Kissinger's attention. President Ford was threatening to Veto legislation keeping Oil Price Controls in place while Congress was threatening to override Ford's Veto, and there was no chance former President Nixon would be called on to testify during investigations over the death of Chilean President Salvatore Allende and the overthrow of his government.

And it was learned Golf was the preferred game around the White House and had been for several administrations, even though Henry Kissinger scrupulously avoided the game, claiming a preference for Brinksmanship rather than Linksmanship. Another week via the CBS Radio Program The Washington Week with Neil Strawser for August 16, 1975.

Washington and Scandal. The two just go hand in hand, and on May 23rd in 1976 yet another scandal broke. This time via the House Administration Committee, Wayne Hays and his Secretary Elizabeth Ray. It seems the story broke on this particular morning in the Washington Post with tales of favors and lip-locks and steamy innuendos all aimed at the Congressman from Ohio with promises of more to come and careers tearfully dismantled. Oh, the seats of power.

But in other news, the Presidential Primary season for 1976 was heating up with Ford and Reagan engaging in a horse race - the prize projected to be California some days away and the campaign in overdrive with barbs traded and Reagan's infamous quote with regards to President Ford as "the man with prematurely orange hair" sending waves of chuckles throughout the Press Corps. Politics. Meanwhile, relations between the U.S. and Sweden warmed considerably as Henry Kissinger went on a fence-mending trip to see Olaf Palme and clean up some wreckage Nixon left behind. They shook hands and threatened to hug. Fighting continued in Beirut with the PLO actively engaged and the French Peacekeeping overtures actively rejected. The fabled Supersonic Transport (SST) was scheduled to make it's first appearance on U.S. shores after months of wrangling - but flights were restricted to Washington D.C. only. And U.S. Steel threatened to pull up stakes and head to Texas from it's former base in Pittsburgh because . . .well, they were polluting too much and Pennsylvania was getting tired of it and U.S. Steel just hated the idea of regulations.

All in a day, this May 24th 1976 via The CBS World News Roundup.

Considering Nixon's actual resignation didn't take place until August of the following year, it seems incredible to imagine how the Watergate scandal would drag out for another nine months before he did.

But this week in November of 1973, ending on the 24th, it was going full blast.

President Nixon: “People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well I’m not a crook. I’ve earned everything I’ve got”.

Yep, this was the week he said that. And there was also the Energy Crisis to consider, which wasn't going to go away anytime soon. The question of whether to ration gas or hike up the tax was under consideration. Ironically, it would wind up being both after a while.

No winning there. Well, not unless you were an oil company.