The Stalemated Seventies
Chapter 42
Sources of Stagnation
What caused the slump?
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Unskilled women and teenagers
Declining investments in new machinery
Heavy cost imposed by government
Shift from manufacturing to service
Vietnam distorts economy
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Drained tax dollars from improvements
Inflation
Rising oil prices
Simultaneous funding of Vietnam and
Great Society
– Both military spending and welfare spending
are inflationary
Too much money not enough
goods
• Cost of living triples
• Inflationary cycle
Other weaknesses
• American business lost its competitive
edge over the rest of the world
– No reason to improve
– Japan and Germany advance
• Dominated certain industries
End of self confidence
• Frustrated policy makers and citizens
• Unpopular war
• Unresponsive economy
Nixon “Vietnamizes” the War
Nixon and foreign policy
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Solitary
Suspicious
Angry at liberal establishment
Did have broad knowledge of foreign
affairs
Vietnamization
• Withdraw 540,000 troops over period
• South Vietnam would take over fighting
– With American money and training
Nixon Doctrine
• US would honor its commitments in
existing defense
• They would have to fight their own wars in
the future
Nixon wants to win the war
• Without more American lives
• Doves still upset
• Anti war moratorium in 1969
– Washington
Nixon’s counter attack
• Appeal to silent majority who support the
war
– Wants constituency to back his policies
– Unleashes Agnew on
– Media
– Snobs
– Nabobs of negativism
January 1970
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Longest war in US history
Costly
Unpopular
Armed forces consist of underprivileged
– Moral in army at all time low
My Lai Massacre
• Lt. William Caley
• 500 killed
Cambodianizing the Vietnam War
North Vietnamese attacking and
escaping thru Cambodia
• Nixon orders US troops to attack and
clean out communists there
• Cambodia neutral
Kent State
• Students nation wide protest
• Kent State national guard shoot into
student protesters killing four and
wounding more
• Jackson State highway patrol kill two
Nixon withdraws troops
• Congress looks for ways to limit Nixon’s
power
• Hawks and Doves become violent
• Draft list shortened
• 26th Amendment passes
– Right to vote for 18 year olds
Pentagon Papers - 1971
• Top secret study on American involvement
– Daniel Ellsberg
– Leaks to NY Times
– Shows deception of Johnson in Tonkin Gulf
Nixon’s Détente with Beijing and
Moscow