A Crisis in Confidence 1968-1981
Chapter 31
What caused Americans to
suffer a crisis of confidence
during the 1970s?
Standards
• SSUSH25
• The student will describe changes in national politics since 1968.
• Element: SSUSH25.a
• Describe President Richard M. Nixon's opening of China, his
resignation due to the Watergate scandal, changing attitudes
toward government, and the Presidency of Gerald Ford.
• Element: SSUSH25.b
• Explain the impact of Supreme Court decisions on ideas about
civil liberties and civil rights including such decisions as Roe v.
Wade (1973 and the Bakke decision on affirmative action).
• Element: SSUSH25.c
• Explain the Carter administrations efforts in the Middle East
including the Camp David Accords, his response to the 1979
Iranian Revolution and Iranian hostage crisis.
Nixon and the Watergate Scandal
Section 1
• What events led to Richard Nixon’s
resignation as President in 1974?
• Vocabulary:
-silent majority
affirmative action
-stagflation
Watergate
-OPEC
southern strategy
-executive privilege
-Twenty-fifth Amendment
Nixon and the Watergate Scandal
Nixon’s Policies Target Middle America
Main Idea: Richard Nixon believed in giving most power to
the states, but did establish some strong federal agencies
while in office.
Nixon Follows a Southern Strategy
Main Idea: Nixon tried to win support of conservative
southerners to expand his popularity.
The Watergate Scandal Brings Nixon Down
Main Idea: When Nixon was linked to the break-in of
Democratic Party headquarters and subsequent cover-up, the
investigation and scandal forced him to resign.
1968
• Antiwar sentiment increases: Tet Offensive, surprise
attack against South Vietnam; North defeated, but
Americans felt victory was impossible
• Martin Luther King, Jr. assassinated April 4, 1968 in
Memphis by James Earl Ray
• Robert Kennedy assassinated on June 6, 1968 in Los
Angeles
• Violence at the Democratic Convention, August, 1968
• Election of 1968: Nixon defeated Hubert Humphrey
Tet Offensive
Assassination of Martin Luther
King, Jr.
Assassination of Robert F.
Kennedy
1968 Democratic Convention
The Nixon Administration
• Grew up in a low-income family in CA
• Experienced in politics; vice president under
Eisenhower
• Reserved and uncomfortable with people
• Wanted to increase the power of the President
• Staff:
H. R. Haldeman, chief of staff
John Ehrlichman, chief domestic advisor
John Mitchell, Attorney General
Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State
Domestic Policy
• Inflation: had doubled before he took office due to
theVietnam War
• High unemployment
• Used deficit spending to stimulate the economy
• Froze wages, prices, and rents for 90 days
• Oil crisis: OPEC imposed an oil embargo on the U.S.
due to war between Israel and the Arab nations of
Egypt and Syria, causing a recession
• Kent State University: four students killed by National
Guard
Kent State
First Moon Landing
• Apollo 11 astronaut Neil A. Armstrong, July 20, 1969
• “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for
mankind”
• Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin, Jr. and Michael Collins were
part of the accomplishment
• Collected rock and soil samples and set up instruments
to monitor conditions on the moon
• Quarantined for 18 days
The First Moon Landing
Nixon Targets Middle America
• “New Federalism” – lessen power in Washington in favor of
more power for states; included revenue sharing with
states
• Silent majority – Middle Americans
• Expands government’s role
-Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
-Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
-Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
-Clean Air Act
• Economy struggles –
-stagflation: stagnating economy and inflation
-Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)
CHART
Inflation and Unemployment Rates, 1970-1980
Southern Strategy
• Controversy rages over busing
-Nixon nominated conservative southerners as
federal judges
-1971, federal courts ordered students bused to
achieve racial balance
-Nixon criticized court ordered busing
-Won the support of those who opposed busing
• Philadelphia Plan – required labor unions and
contractors to submit goals and timetables for
hiring minorities; form of affirmative action
NOTE TAKING
Reading Skill: Identify Main Ideas
GRAPH
Presidential Election of 1972
Nixon’s Foreign Policy
• Henry Kissinger; fled Nazi Germany for U.S.;
realpolitik – practical politics; 1973 Nobel Peace Prize
for ending Viet Nam War
• Détente: relaxing tensions with Soviet Union and China
• 1972, Nixon visited China and met with Mao Zedong
• Visited Soviet Union and met with Premier Leonid
Brezhnev;
• SALT I: held number in ICBMs and submarinelaunched missiles at 1972 levels for five years
Watergate Scandal
• Enemies List
• Wiretaps
• The Plumbers: special White House unit to stop
government leaks
• Election “dirty tricks”
• Watergate break-in: E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon
Liddy headed break-in of Democratic headquarters in
June 1972; five men arrested; Nixon tried to stop the
FBI investigation – coverup; tried to bribe the
defendants
Watergate Burglars
Watergate Trial
• Nixon elected in Nov. 1972
• All five burglars found guilty
• Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl
Bernstein investigated; informer gave them
information – W. Mark Felt, second at the FBI
• Special prosecutor Archibald Cox asked for tapes;
Nixon fired him – “Saturday Night Massacre”
• Leon Jaworski appointed and asked for tapes
• Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned over income taxes
and taking bribes; Gerald Ford is chosen.
NOTE TAKING
Reading Skill: Identify Causes and Effects
TRANSPARENCY
Political Cartoons: The Watergate Scandal
Impeachment?
• House Judiciary Committee voted to impeach the
President
• To avoid impeachment by the House, Nixon resigns on
August 5, 1974; “I am not a crook.”
• Only President to ever resign
• Gerald Ford becomes President with Nelson
Rockefeller as Vice President (neither were elected by
the American people)
• Watergate is the low point in American political history
CHART
Post-Watergate Government Reforms
PM
TRANSPARENCY
Progress Monitoring Transparency
The Ford and Carter Years
Section 2
• What accounted for the changes in
American attitudes during the 1970s?
• Vocabulary:
-Gerald Ford
Jimmy Carter
-pardon
amnesty
-televangelist
-Christian fundamentalist
The Ford and Carter Years
Ford Faces Political and Economic Woes
Main Idea: When Gerald Ford became President he was criticized for
pardoning Nixon and failing to solve inflation and other economic
troubles.
A Washington “Outsider” Becomes President
Main Idea: Jimmy Carter portrayed himself as a “common” President, but
his inexperience hurt him when he had to deal with inflation and an
energy crisis.
Changing Values Stir Unease
Main Idea: Cultural and demographical changes in the 1970s had longlasting effects on politics and society in the United States.
Continued. . .
President Ford
• Spiro Agnew resigned in 1973 as Vice President
• Richard Nixon resigned in 1975; Ford chose Nelson
Rockefeller as his Vice President; neither were elected
• Ford pardoned Nixon; country was against the pardon
• Economy in recession with high inflation and
unemployment; stagflation
• War Powers Act: (1) notify Congress within 48 hours if
send troops (2) troops stay overseas 60 days without
Congressional approval (3) Congress can bring troops
home by passing a concurrent resolution
Ford’s Policies
• Helsinki Accords – nations of Europe on
record in favor of human rights
• SALTII – pledged to limit nuclear arms
• Trouble in Southeast Asia
-U.S. did not intervene in Laos genocide
-South Vietnam fell to communists in 1975
-boat people – largest mass migration by
sea
Foreign Policy
• North Vietnam took
over South Vietnam
• American airlift rescued
thousands of Americans
and Vietnamese
• Helsinki Accords, U.S.,
Canada, Soviet Union,
and 30 European
nations pledge to
cooperate
TRANSPARENCY
Rising Fuel Prices
Carter Administration
•
•
•
•
•
•
Jimmy Carter wins the election of 1976
No national experience; former governor of Georgia
No experience in dealing with Congress
Amnesty, or political pardons for draft evaders
Human rights diplomacy
Camp David Accords; Menachem Begin of Israel and
Anwar El-Sadat of Egypt; Israel returned Sinai
peninsula and Egypt recognized Israel
• Panama Canal – return to Panama by 2000
• Recognition of People’s Republic of China
• SALT II limited nuclear warheads and missiles
Carter’s Domestic Issues
• Inflation was 10 percent
• Created the Department of Energy to help save fuel
• Three Mile Island – partial meltdown of the core
occurred, releasing some radiation
• Nuclear industry suffered
• Amnesty granted to those who had evaded the draft
during the Vietnam War
• Civil Rights
• Affirmative action
Carter’s Foreign Policies
• Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
• Friction with the Soviet Union – SALT II treaty
withdrawn from Senate
• Sanctions – boycott of 1980 Summer Olympic
games held in Moscow
• Mariel boatlift – Cubans allowed to come to U.S.,
some were criminals
• Returned the Panama Canal to Panama in 1999
• Iran seizes American Hostages – Ayatollah
Khomeini
Iran Hostage Crisis
• Soviets invaded
Afghanistan
• United Nations called for
a Soviet withdrawal
• Carter withheld grain
shipments to the Soviets
• SALT II treaty not sent
to Senate
• Carter boycotted the
1980 Olympics in
Moscow
• U.S. had supported the
Shah of Iran, who was
corrupt
• Pahlavi, the Shah, was
overthrown by the
Ayatollah Khomeini, a
fundamentalist Islamic
leader
• 1979, 66 Americans
taken hostage for 444
days
Hostages Freed 1981
• Carter authorized a
commando rescue
mission that ended with
8 American deaths
before reaching the
hostages
• Hostages released the
day Ronald Reagan
became president
NOTE TAKING
Reading Skill: Identify Main Ideas
CHART
Immigration to the United States, 1971-1980
TRANSPARENCY
Moving to the Sunbelt
PM
TRANSPARENCY
Progress Monitoring Transparency
Foreign Policy Troubles
Section 3
• What were the goals of American foreign
policy during the Ford and Carter years,
and how successful were Ford’s and
Carter’s policies?
• Vocabulary:
-Helsinki Accords sanctions
-human rights
developing world
-SALTII
Camp David Accords
-boat people
Ayatollah Khomeini
Foreign Policy Troubles
Ford Continues Nixon’s Foreign Policies
Main Idea: Gerald Ford followed Nixon’s foreign policy
ideas and pursued détente with the Soviet Union and China.
Carter Changes Course
Main Idea: Carter believed that human rights should be a
guideline for foreign policy, affecting relationships with the
Soviet Union and Latin America.
Success and Setback in the Middle East
Main Idea: Carter helped Egypt and Israel negotiate a peace
treaty, but also faced setbacks in the Middle East when Iran
radicals held Americans hostage.
NOTE TAKING
Reading Skill: Identify Supporting Details
TRANSPARENCY
Camp David Accords
PM
TRANSPARENCY
Progress Monitoring Transparency