The public's trust in the government began to peak in 1963 during JFK's presidency. It soon would fall drastically due to the assassination of president Kennedy and with all the other events surrounding it such as the Watergate scandal (1972), Pentagon papers (1971) and the Gulf of Tonkin (1964, beginning of distrust). Since these scandals, the trust in the Government has been less than 50%leading to the downward spiral of trust leading to other events and scandals in future years. Each drop in the graph is a result of the scandals that happened.