Quiz FourQuiz Four

What is the name of the book you read by What is the name of the book you read by Thomas Frank?Thomas Frank?

Watergate Denouement:Watergate Denouement:

The Conservative Ascendancy The Conservative Ascendancy ForestalledForestalled

Haldeman

Kissinger

Ehrlichman

Some of the President’s Men

Throw-away Nixon and George McGovern Dixie Cups from the 1972 election

The soon-to-be-infamous Watergate Hotel in Washington, DC, home to the Democratic Party Headquarters in 1972

The Watergate scandal moves ever closer to Nixon as John Dean agrees to testify in 1973

Senate Watergate hearings begin in May of 1973

Nixon’s VP, Spiro Agnew, resigns after it is revealed he had accepted bribes as governor of Maryland and cheated on his income taxes, October 10, 1973

Gerald Ford, a senator from Michigan, becomes Nixon’s new VP

August 9, 1974, Nixon resigns the presidency and departs the White House for the last time in the presidential helicopter

August 9, 1974, Gerald Ford is sworn in, promising, “Our long national nightmare is over.”

Watergate in RetrospectWatergate in Retrospect

Demonstrated the importance of a free, vigorous, and independent pressDemonstrated the dangers of allowing extra-constitutional powers, even in emergency situationsDespite a serious threat to constitutional order, the American system of separation of powers did work

A forceful and hopefully enduring reminder of the founding fathers’ fundamental belief that too much secrecy and power in the hands of one man or institution was dangerous

Derailed, temporarily, the conservative ascendancy as the nation reacted to these largely Republican crimes by voting in the Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1976

Ironically, this delay may have made the ultimate triumph of conservativism more radical than if Nixon’s moderate Republicanism had continued

Global Energy:Global Energy:

The Onset of WWIVThe Onset of WWIV

October 6, 1973, Egypt and Syria attack Israel, beginning the 19-day Yom Kippur War

Responding to the American support of Israel in the Yom Kippur war, Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich middle

eastern states form OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries

FDR meets with Ibn Saud, King of Saudi Arabia, in 1945, offering the Saudi’s a promise of security in exchange for

easy American access to cheap Saudi oil

Political cartoon from 1976 expressing the increasing realization that the American lifestyle was built on cheap oil

Long lines and sold-out gas pumps in the wake of the 1973 OPEC embargo

The 1973 Mercury MarquisThe 1973 Cadillac

The 1970s version of the SUV, typically getting less than 10 mpg; overall average for 1973 cars was 13.1 mpg

The sharp increases in oil prices that began with the 1973 OPEC embargo

President Ford stumbles on wet stairs in 1975, seen by some as symbolic of his stumbling economic policies

Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter break with tradition and walk to the inauguration, January 1977

The Three Mile Island nuclear power facility near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Three Mile Island, evening of March 28th 1979

Map illustrating proximity of Three Mile Island nuclear reactors to major population centers

For decades the Middle East and Persian Gulf states had been central to American foreign policy because of their large oil reserves

The American-backed Shah of Iran (Reza Pahlavi) on the cover of Time, 1960. The CIA engineered a coup in 1953 to overthrow the nationalist government of Mohammed Mossadegha, which threatened to nationalize foreign oil investments, replacing him with Pahlavi.

The Iranian Revolution of February, 1979, which deposed the Shah and established an Islamic theocracy under the Ayatollah Khomeini

Student revolutionaries outside American Embassy in Iran, November 1979

Some of the 53 Americans taken hostage in Tehran—they will remain captive for 444 days

Soviet helicopter gun ships during

the disastrous Soviet-Afghanistan

War, 1979-1988

December of 1979, the Soviet Union invades Afghanistan to prop up a faltering Marxist regime, bring them dangerously close to Persian Gulf oil fields

How does Bacevich view these How does Bacevich view these events?events?

Jimmy Carter attempted to convince Americans to wean Jimmy Carter attempted to convince Americans to wean themselves off imported oil, but his request that they themselves off imported oil, but his request that they conserve and do with less fell on deaf earsconserve and do with less fell on deaf earsSubsequently articulated the Carter Doctrine (January Subsequently articulated the Carter Doctrine (January 1980): “An attempt by any outside force to gain control of 1980): “An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.”necessary, including military force.”Argues this began the on-going WWIV, a determination Argues this began the on-going WWIV, a determination to maintain a Middle Eastern supply of cheap oil as the to maintain a Middle Eastern supply of cheap oil as the key to the “American way of life,” which is to day, key to the “American way of life,” which is to day, economic abundance and consumptioneconomic abundance and consumptionToday, a way on terror or a war for oil? Or both?Today, a way on terror or a war for oil? Or both?

February 1991: In the First Persian Gulf War American soldiers removed Saddam Hussein from Kuwait and thwarted his hopes of eventually taking control of much

of the Persian Gulf oil wealth

WW IV

The massive American bombing of Baghdad in March of 2003 that began the Second Persian Gulf War—President Bush’s attempt to transform the Persian

Gulf and its vast oil supplies into a democratic, pro-American region

WW IV

American military bases in the Greater Middle East as of 2004

Conservative Conservative Ascendancy Redux:Ascendancy Redux:

The Reagan Revolution?The Reagan Revolution?

The Carter Anomaly:

Why was one of the most deeply religious and morally decent presidents of the 20th century soundly rejected by social and religious conservatives in favor of a

divorced former Hollywood actor?

How does Frank explain the rise of How does Frank explain the rise of conservativism in the U.S.?conservativism in the U.S.?