Chapter 39 Focus Questions:
Essay question: Richard Nixon was both a brilliant and a divisive leader. Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter
were decent men who were unable to effectively deal with the problems of the 1970s.
Assess the validity of these statements with specific reference to Nixon’s actions in foreign and domestic
affairs and the responses of Carter and Ford to the crises of the 1970s.
Objective Questions:
1) What did the drastic decline in worker productivity caused to happen in the 1970s?
2) What impact did wives’ wages have on the median income of American families from the 1970s to the
1990s?
3) What impact did LBJ’s refusal to raise taxes to pay for the Vietnam War and the Great Society
programs have on the inflation rate?
4) The poor economic performance of the 1970s brought an abrupt end to what liberal dream?
5) What was the Nixon Doctrine and what name does it give to Nixon’s policy in Vietnam?
6) Who did Nixon harbor deep and bitter resentments against?
7) What was Nixon’s most valuable asset when he became president?
8) What was “Vietnamization” of the Vietnam War?
9) Describe in detail (at least 4 things) that Richard Nixon’s Vietnam policy included.
10) The American armed forces in Vietnam were composed largely of what socio/economic group?
11) In 1971, what did a group of Vietnam War veterans do in front of the Capital building to protest the war?
12) What did Nixon’s 1970 invasion of Cambodia lead to at home?
13) What was the 26th Amendment?
14) What did the Pentagon Pagers expose?
15) Who was President Nixon’s chief foreign policy adviser?
16) What was détente?
17) How did Nixon’s administration deal with Chile and why?
18) What was the case of Griswold v. Connecticut dealing with? What was the decision?
19) Why were the Supreme Court’s decisions in the Miranda and Escobedo cases under attack by many
conservatives?
20) How did Chief Justice Earl Warren cause religious conservatives to be upset in 1962-1963?
21) What did Richard Nixon think about welfare programs?
22) What impact did Nixon’s legislation guaranteeing the Social Security raises would be indexed to
guarantee against inflation actually have on inflation?
23) What was the Philadelphia Plan?
24) What was the difference between Nixon’s and Johnson’s affirmative action programs?
25) What governmental agencies where created during Nixon’s presidency?
26) Why did the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) and OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health
Administrations) arouse bitter opposition among many business people?
27) How did Nixon control creeping inflation?
28) What was Richard Nixon’s “southern strategy”?
29) How did McGovern alienate the traditional working class backbone of the Democratic party?
30) Who did McGovern appeal most strongly to?
31) Describe the cease-fire agreement in Vietnam in 1973?
32) What shocked the American public in 1973 that the US Air Force had been doing since 1969?
33) What did Nixon do when Congress attempted to stop him from continuing the bombing of Cambodia?
34) What was the 1973 War Powers Act?
35) What happened as a result of US support for Israel in 1973 when it was attacked by Egypt and Syria?
36) When the Watergate scandal was uncovered there was a list of illegal activities that Nixon’s
administration did – what were at least 4 of those?
37) What is Executive privilege?
38) What was the most controversial action of Gerald Ford’s presidency?
39) What is the 25th Amendment?
40) What were the Helsinki accords?
41) What all had the US given to South Vietnam during the war?
42) What happened to South Vietnam shortly after the North Vietnamese launched a full scale invasion in
1975?
43) Who were “boat people”?
44) What social movement born in the 1960s remained and even gathered momentum in the 1970s?
45) What was Title IX?
46) What specifically did the ERA say?
47) Define Roe v. Wade.
48) What did the ERA fail (Phyllis Schlafly)?
49) What did the most explosive domestic controversy of the 1970s center around?
50) What impact did Milliken v. Bradley have on the cities?
51) What did the Supreme Court decide in the Bakke case?
52) How did American Indian activists try to bring attention to their cause in the 1970s?
53) The “first wave” of feminism grew out of the ______________ movement in the 1840s, the “second
wave” of feminism grew out of the __________ movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
54) On which issue did nearly all “second wave” feminists agree?
55) Who were the Presidential candidates for the bicentennial presidential campaign?
56) Why was Jimmy Carter popular when he won the presidency?
57) Why did Jimmy Carter find himself in political trouble?
58) What was the guiding principle of President Carter’s foreign policy?
59) What was Jimmy Carter’s spectacular foreign policy achievement?
60) What was the first major trouble to afflict Carter’s foreign policy?
61) What did Carter believe was the fundamental problem of the American economy of the late 1970s?
62) What was the first major trouble to afflict President Carter’s foreign policy?
63) What did “oil shocks” show the American public?
64) What caused SALT II to fail in the Senate?
65) What was the main theme behind Carter’s malaise speech?
66) What was the most humiliating failure during the Iran hostage crisis?