The 1970s and 1980sChapter 26

Election of 1868

Richard Nixon

• Domestic Policies

• After winning the election by a very narrow margin, Nixon quickly moved toward the political center

• New Federal agencies

• EPA (Environmental Protection Agency)

• OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration)

• NTSB (National Transportation and Safety Board)

• Family assistance plan

• Most startling part of his domestic agenda

• Program would have placed a guaranteed annual income for families, but did not make it past both houses of Congress

Richard Nixon• Nixon and the Supreme Court

• Wanted to consolidate support in the South

• Nominated two conservative southern jurists for the Supreme Court in order to support a “a Solid South”• Both were not certified by the Senate

• Nixon nominated conservative Warren Burger to the Chief Justice position after Earl Warren announced his retirement

• Warren and his tenure as Chief Justice proved to be more moderate than conservative

• Affirmative action• Actively pursued this to upgrade minority employment

• Whites begin to see affirmative action as reverse discrimination

• In Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, the Supreme Court ruled fixed racial quotas were unconstitutional, but race could be used as a factor for college admission

Integration Riot in Boston, MA

Richard Nixon

• Détente• Lessening of tensions with communist countries such as the Soviet

Union and China• Alternative strategy to rollback (destroying an enemy state) and

containment (preventing expansion of an enemy state)

• Conservatives saw this as dangerously soft to communism• However, Nixon and Henry Kissinger continue their predecessors’

policy of attempting to undermine governments deemed dangerous to American strategic and/or economic interests

• Nixon visits China in 1972• Goes to Moscow to sign the SALT treaty

• Strategic Arms Limitations Talks

• Overall, positive direct relations between the U.S. and the Soviet Union covered increasing tensions between the two superpowers’ influence in the Latin America, S.E. Asia, and the Middle East

Richard Nixon

• The end of the Vietnam War• Nixon ratchets up the war before ending it• War Powers Act of 1973• President can send in troops for up to 60 days to protect

the United States before a declaration of war is needed

• President must notify Congress within 48 hours of deployment and must retract troops within 60 days (30 day extension) if war is not declared

• Paris Peace Agreement made it possible the final withdrawal of troops in 1973

• Overall, the Vietnam war was seen as a political, military, and social disaster

Watergate Complex, Washington, D.C.

Watergate

• Watergate• Nixon was obsessed with secrecy and was paranoid to the core• Could not accept an honest difference of opinion• Nixon sends in men (former CIA operatives) to the Watergate

Complex to break into the Democratic National Committee offices

• Investigation• Nixon’s staff conspires to cover up the break-ins• Former staff members testify against them in a Senate

investigation• Revealed that Nixon had numerous tape recordings in his office

(infrastructure left by LBJ)• One between him and an associate that calls the case a “cancer on

the Presidency”

Watergate

• Impeachment• The Watergate trial placed Nixon in a very bad spot• His presidency is a classic example of the abuse of

political power

• The House of Representatives begins articles of impeachment• Conspiracy to obstruct justice

• Nixon resigned before a conviction was handed down

• Resignation• 8 August 1974• Vice President Gerald Ford becomes president

Decline of Manufacturing

The long period of postwar (WWII) economic expansion and consumer prosperity came to an end

Succeeded by slow growth and high inflation

Costs of the Vietnam War and increased domestic spending accelerated inflation

In 1971, for the first time in the 20th century, the U.S. experienced a merchandise trade deficit

As a result, Nixon took the United States off the gold standard

Known as the “Nixon Shock”

Stagflation

Term: occurs when both the inflation rate and unemployment rate are high. Essentially, inflation and economic stagnation are occurring simultaneously

Despite this, energy production in the United States (and the West at large) increased rapidly

The U.S. also experienced 2 oil shocks in the 1970sOAPEC decided to place an oil embargo on the U.S. after the U.S. committed to re-supplying the Israeli military during the Yom Kippur war

By 1973, the U.S. imported 1/3 of its oil due to its precarious situation with OAPEC

In 1979, oil exports in Iran were severely limited by the Iranian Revolution

Gerald Ford

Gerald Ford

• Pardoning of Nixon• Within a month in office, Ford announces a full and

absolute pardon for Richard Nixon• Ford’s approval ratings drop from 71 to 40 percent

• Domestic Policy• Lacked direction and any significant accomplishment• WIN – “Whip Inflation Now”• Political campaign to make people to respond to inflation

• Seemed more like a political gimmick than a serious measure

Gerald Ford

• Foreign Policy• Helinski Accords of 1975• SALT treaty of Nixon’s administration still in place

• Signs the Helinski Accords with the Soviet Union to ensure compliance of SALT

• Assassination Attempts• 5 September 1975 – follower of Charles Manson

pointed a Colt .45 at Ford• 22 September 1975 – San Francisco, CA; Sara Jane

Moore fires a shot from a crowd. A Marine knocks the gun out of the way.

Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter

Election of 1976• Ford faced issues that made him seem unprepared for the

job, corrupt, and even with his minor successes, most viewed them as weaknesses

• Ford’s presidency took a significant hit when North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam, captured the capital city, and unified the country under a communist government in March 1975

• Jimmy Carter was viewed as a candidate with populist leanings and was perceived as an “outsider” to Washington politics• Seen as an individual who would restore morality and decency to

the president’s role in government

• It takes someone outside the political establishment to stop the corruption

Jimmy Carter

Carter’s Domestic Problems• Runaway inflation• Rising unemployment• Significant energy crisis

Jimmy Carter

Foreign Policy• Treaty to return control of the Panama Canal to Panama• Camp David Accords

• Attempting to reconcile and organize peace between Egypt and Israel

• Iran Hostage Crisis• Iran’s recently deposed Shah was allowed to come to the

U.S. for medical treatment• Angered militants in Iran, they take numerous Americans

hostage• Very publicized rescue attempted failed• Several Americans died• This put an end to Carter’s reelection ambitions

Jimmy Carter

• After Vietnam, most Americans preferred an isolationist foreign policy, but Carter kept getting pulled into intervention abroad

• Most idealistic aspect of Carter’s foreign policy was his emphasis on human rights• Stated it would be supported absolutely throughout

the world• The Soviets used it as a bargaining chip to express

the hypocrisy of the U.S.• As a result, the Soviets refuse to deal with Carter on

disarmament

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan

Reagan’s Appeal• Excellent public speaker, had a reasonably successful

acting career• Optimistic and magnetic to a camera; really appealed to

Americans• Made conservatism seem progressive• A conservative F.D.R.

• Freedom became the watchword of Reagan’s presidency• Reshaped the national agenda and political language to

a conservative tone• Compares to F.D.R in his effectiveness

• Instrumental to the social agenda of the Christian Right

Ronald Reagan

Reaganomics

• Americans need more economic freedom• Curtailing the power of unions• Dismantling regulations• Radically reducing taxes

• Tax cuts are radically different from progressivism

• Supply-side economics• Cutting taxes at all income levels makes people work harder• Thus, they would keep more of the money they earned• The “trickle-down” effect• Initially, caused the most severe recession since the Great

Depression

The Second Gilded Age

• The 1980s and the 1890s were both decades of misplaced values• Are we just coming out?

• National debt rises to $2.7 trillion

• Reagan’s policies, rising stock prices, and deindustrialization leads to another rise in economic inequality• Minority workers hit the hardest due to the lack of union

support

• National unemployment rate in 1981: 8.9 percent• Projected for 2010: 11 percent

Iran-Contra Affair

• Reagan’s administration agrees to sell weapons to Iran (who was under an arms embargo) in exchange for hostages and funding for Nicaraguan contras (counter-revolutionaries)

• Reagan makes numerous TV appearances and acknowledges the events occurred, but he knew nothing about it

• This incident helps undermine confidence in his control over his administration

Reagan and the Cold War

• Reagan comes into office determined to overturn the “Vietnam Syndrome”• Lack of U.S. interventional abroad

• Great bias against the war

• Very limited and lax foreign policy

• Reagan uses military aid rather than American troops to pursue foreign policy objectives

• Reagan meets with Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev in his second term

Reagan and the Cold War

Glasnost• Openness and transparency in the Soviet

government• No more secrets

Perestroika• Economic restructuring in the Soviet Union• Based on a market system rather than command

system• Leads to the fall of communism

Fall of the Berlin Wall (9 November 1989)

Reagan and the Cold War

Reagan’s Challenge to the Soviets• In June 1987, Reagan speaks at the 750th anniversary of Berlin

• At the Brandenburg Gate in West Germany

• Challenges Soviet Premier Gorbechev to “tear down this wall”

• East Germany opens the border on 9 November 1989

Reactions• British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher asked Gorbechev

to stop the destruction of the wall at all costs• Afraid of the implications of a unified Germany

• French President Francois Mitterrand warned Europe that a united Germany could be worse than Hitler’s Third Reich