Transcript Chapter 39

Chapter 39
The Stalemated 70’s
1968-1980
Sources of Stagnation
• Increase in workforce with teenagers
and women. Less likely to take full time
jobs.
• Declining investment in new machinery.
• Government imposed safety and health
standards.
• Shift from production to service;
productivity gains harder to measure.
Impact on economy
• Tax dollars going to war rather than
education.
• Deflected scientific skill and manufacturing.
• Policies of the 60’s funding the War and
Great Society without increasing taxes.
• War and Welfare put dollars in people’s
hands without adding to supply of goods.
• Too many dollars chasing too few goods.
Nixon Vietnamizes the War
• Vietnamization withdraw 540,000 troops out
of S. Vietnam over an extended period of
time.
• S. Vietnamese with American money would
fight. “Nixon Doctrine”
• Honor defense commitments but in future
others would have to fight their own wars.
• Doves still not happy. Massive protest in Oct.
1969 holding a moratorium.
Impact on Americans
• Jan. 1970 longest conflict in U.S. history
• Draft exempted college students and men
with critical civilian skills.
• African Americans made up a high share of
the casualties.
• Morale among soldiers dropped to ultimate
lows.
• Domestic disgust over revelations of the
massacre of women and children at My Lai.
Nixon Changes the War
• Nixon orders bombing of Cambodia without
consulting Congress.
• Attempt to stop supplies along the Ho Chi Minh trail.
• Response “Outrage, Anger”; Kent State University,
National Guard fired into a crowd killing 4. Jackson
State 2 killed.
• Nixon withdrew troops from Cambodia after 2
months. Deeper bitterness between hawks & doves.
• 26th Amendment passed in 1971 (Voting age 18)
• Pentagon Papers released in 1971 by the New York
Times
Détente with China and
Soviets
• Road out of Vietnam through China and the
Soviets.
• 2 sides show hostilities based on philosophy
of Marxism and borders.
• Chance to play one off the other.
• Nixon accepts invitation to China in 1972
arrives. Shanghai Communique-normalize
relations between the 2.
• Travels to Moscow in May. Soviets ready to
deal, 3 years of food trade worth 750 million.
Détente
• Agree to “ABM” treaty - Limits nation to 2 clusters
of defensive missiles.
• SALT- Strategic Arms Limitation Talks- aim at
freezing number of long range nuclear missiles.
• Still development of MIRVs (Multiple
Independently Targeted Reentry Vehicles) by
both sides.
• Nixon opposed election of Chilean communist
Salvador Allende to presidency. Embargo and
CIA used to undermine his regime.
• Allende died during an army attack, and Augusto
Pinochet replaces him.
Nixon’s Court Appointments
• Nixon had 4 conservative appointments
out of the 9.
• Yet Justices are free to think as they
like once on the bench.
• Burger court proved reluctant to
dismantle the liberal rulings.
Supreme Court
• 1960s- Protection of the individual over the
masses.
• Nixon looked to change court’s philosophy.
– Several vacancies looked for people with strict
interpretation of the Constitution.
– Stop meddling in social and political questions.
• Roe v. Wade
– Supreme Court says the right to privacy
created in Griswold means that women
have the right to an abortion because
medical decisions are private choices
Domestic Programs
• Expansion of the welfare programs.
• Approved increased appropriations of the Food
Stamps, Medicaid, and AFDC.
• Automatic cost of living increase of Social Security
when prices rose more than 3% in a year.
• Philadelphia Plan- Require construction unions to
establish goals and timetables for the hiring of African
Americans. Soon extended to all federal contracts.
• Alters the meaning of affirmative action. Conferred
privileges to certain groups.
Domestic Programs
• Created the EPA (Rachel Carson and Silent Spring example of
muckraking.) Mounting concern of the environment for the past
2 decades.
• Clean Air Act of 1970 and Endangered Species Act of 1973.
• Creation of OSHA and CPSC to improve working conditions and
consumer product safety.
• Ensuing decades of reducing automobile emissions and
cleaning up waterways.
• Congress refuses to pay for huge irrigation projects.
• Imposed 90 day wage and price freeze. Worried about rising
inflation. Took U.S. off the gold standard.
Election of 1972
• Southern Strategy-appoint conservative
judges, slow the push for civil rights, and
opposing school busing to achieve racial
balance.
• Mattered little because foreign policy
dominated the campaign.
• Last election Nixon promised to end the war
and win the peace.
• Spring of ‘72 fighting escalated when N.
Vietnamese overran the DMZ.
• Nixon launched bombing attacks on strategic
sites.
Election of 1972
• McGovern (SD) Democrat.
• Promise to pull remaining troops within 90
days. Earn backing of anti war groups.
• Appeal to minorities, feminists, leftists, and
youth alienated traditional working class of
his party.
• VP Eagelton removed from ticket for having
undergone psychiatric care.
• Kissinger announced 12 days before election
that peace is at hand. Agreement in days.
Aftermath of Election
• Nixon landslide victory.
• Why? (Young people don’t vote is one big
reason)
• When fighting in Vietnam escalated again,
Nixon continued heavy bombing hoping to
force them to the table.
• Force a cease fire to save face as peace with
honor.
• U.S to withdraw remaining 27,000 troops and
N. Vietnamese allowed to keep their 145,000
in S. Vietnam.
Question of Cambodia
• Nixon continued bombing of Cambodia
comes under fire. Secretly done.
• Sworn Cambodia neutrality was being
respected.
• Questions about the governments honesty.
• Nixon continued large scale bombing after
the cease fire in order to help the Cambodian
government. Vetoed Congressional efforts to
stop him.
• Leads to Pol Pot’s rise to power and the
killing fields of Cambodia (~2 million killed)
War Powers Act
• Congressional opposition led to the War
Powers Act. Passed over veto.
• Report to Congress within 48 hours after
committing troops or enlarging combat units.
• Have to end within 60 days or extend it for 30
more with Congressional approval.
Middle East eruptions
• October 1973, Syria and Egypt attack Israel in an
attempt to gain back lost territory from Six-Day War.
• Look to restrain Soviets from aiding attackers.
(Kissinger Sec. of State)
• 2 Billion in war materials given to Israel to push back
the attack.
• Penalty: Oil embargo on U.S. for supporting Israel.
Lower thermostats and speedometers, increased
lines at gas stations
• “Energy Crisis” Alaska pipeline, 55 speed limit.
Energy crisis
• Heavier use of coal and nuclear power.
• End era of cheap abundant oil.
• Middle East would be of strategic
interest.
• OPEC quadrupled price for crude oil
after the embargo. Adds to the inflation
crisis.
Watergate
• June 17, 1972; 5 men were arrested at the
Watergate apartment-office complex.
• Bungled effort to plant “bugs” in the
Democratic Party headquarters.
• Group was working for Republican
Committee for Reelection of the President
(CREEP)
• One of many “dirty tricks” forging documents,
IRS to harass citizens, burglarizing
psychiatrists office, using FBI and CIA for
coverups.
Watergate
• Vice President Agnew forced to resign for
taking bribes.
• Congress invoked 25th Amendment and
voted Gerald Ford in.
• Senate Committee begins to conduct
hearings about the Watergate affair in 73-74’.
• John Dean III; former White House lawyer,
accused President and other officials of trying
to cover up the Watergate affair.
• Discovery of a secret taping system in the
oval office.
Watergate
• House Judiciary Committee demands tapes.
• Nixon agrees to give “relevant tapes” with parts
missing. Claims executive privilege.
• Saturday Night Massacre- fires his own special
prosecutor, attorney general, and deputy attorney
general.
• Supreme Court unanimously rules executive privilege
gave him no right to withhold evidence. (U.S. v.
Nixon)
• Smoking gun; tapes reveal his involvement in a cover
up.
• Nixon is forced to resign and Ford becomes
President.
Gerald Ford
• Ford first President not elected to office.
• Pardon’s Nixon of any crimes he may have
committed as President.
• Doubts of his possibility for being elected.
• Sought to enhance to détente with the
Soviets at Helsinki, Finland.
• Recognize Polish border and other E.
European countries.
• Exchange for more liberal exchange of
people and information. Human rights
• Small movements in Eastern Europe
that were put down.
• Détente starts to look like a one way
street.
• Moscow continues human rights
violations (Jews).
Defeat in Vietnam
• Early 1975, N. Vietnam moves forward.
• Ford urged Congress for more weapons in
vain.
• Remaining Americans quickly evacuated by
Helicopter April 29, 1975.
• 140,000 S. Vietnamese also rescued for fear
of backlash. Eventually 500,000 brought to
the U.S.
• Loss of self esteem, confidence in military,
and economic muscle.
Feminist Victories and Defeats
• Congress passes Title IX, prohibits sexual
discrimination in any federal assisted
educational program or activities.
• Push for an Amendment called the ERA
Equal Rights Amendment.
• Ratified in 28 States, lost momentum, Phyllis
Schlafly conservative who saw it as a
negative. Fear of undermining American
Family and require women to serve in
combat.
The Seventies in Black and
White
• Milliken v. Bradley 1974 established you
could not require students to move across
school district lines. Reinforce “white flight”
• Only schools forced to integrate were the
inner city schools.
• Affirmative Action; accusations of reverse
discrimination, Allan Bakke sues for medical
school on grounds of Reverse discrimination.
• Native Americans used courts to assert their
status as semisovereign people. United
States v. Wheeler.
1976 Election
• Gerald Ford/Republicans.
• Jimmy Carter/Democrats.
• Carter wins by narrow margin. Along with
majorities in both houses of Congress.
• Created new Dept. of Energy.
• Pardoned draft dodgers (Campaign promise)
• Campaign against Washington
establishment.
• Critics say he isolated himself, rubbed
Congress the wrong way.
Humanitarian Diplomacy
• Concern for Human Rights. Christian values.
• Camp David Agreement: 1978 between
Egypt & Israel. Israel would withdraw from
Sinai Penninsula and Egypt would respect
Israel borders.
• Formal peace treaty within three months.
• Resumed full diplomatic relations with China
in 1979.
• Treaties to turn over the Panama Canal by
2000.
Economic and Energy Woes
• Inflation rate rose to 13% by 1979.
• Cost of imported oil put us in the red at 40
billion in 1979.
• Can’t consider economic isolation ever again
with our dependency on oil.
• Adjust master foreign language and culture in
order to prosper.
• Americans living on fixed incomes saw the
value of the dollar shrink.
Iran
• Carter sees problem from dependence on oil.
• Proposals for energy conservation fell on
deaf ears.
• Iran 1979 overthrow of the Shah.
• Violent revolution by Muslim fundamentalists
resented Shah’s attempts to westernize the
country.
• U.S. the “Great Satan” because of helping the
Shah.
• Iran’s oil stopped flowing to the U.S. and
OPEC hiked price of oil again.
• Americans grow discontent with
administration.
• Carter isolated at Camp David seeks advice
from countless groups.
• When returns he tells Americans they are too
involved in material goods.
• Fired 4 cabinet secretaries and rallied around
his Georgia group.
• SALT II talks stalled in the Senate with
concern over Soviets.
• Iran; Nov. 4 1979 militants storm the U.S.
embassy and take people hostage.
• Demand America ships back the Shah.
• December Soviets invade Afghanistan;
appears they are moving to control Middle
East.
• Carter embargo on Soviets and boycott of
Olympic games in Moscow.
• Claim to use any means necessary to
protect Persian Gulf against Soviet
incursions.
• Iran hostage situation- economic
sanctions. Waiting for a stable
government to emerge.
• Attempted rescue fails. Underscores
U.S. futility.