Chapter 39
The Stalemated Seventies
1968-1980
Stagflation

Stagflation economy (stagnant economy
and inflation) Nixon attempted tax
increases and budget cuts
– Deficit spending
– Japan and West Germany= industrial
producers outpacing US
– Larger labor market, less jobs
– Embargo on oil by OPEC
– Shifting to post industrial economy

Nixon took US off gold standard
Vietnamization
 Vietnamization=
Nixon’s plan for
war “peace with honor”
 Support from the Silent Majority
 My Lai massacre= outraged public at
horrors and cover-up
 April 30, 1970: bombing raids and
invasion into Cambodia= riots at
colleges
– Kent State May 4, 1970
– Jackson State University May 14, 1970
Vietnamization
 Congress
responded to escalation by
repealing the Tonkin Gulf Resolution
 The Pentagon Papers leaked to
media June 1971
 26th amendment passed 1971
Détente
 Henry
Kissinger= policy of realpolitik
 Realistically, can’t deny mainland
China!
 Promoted a policy of détente
 1972: Nixon “opened China”
 Met with Leonid Brezhnev in USSR in
1972
 SALT I Treaty and ABM treaty to ease
Cold War tensions
Reaction to Warren Court
 Liberal
Warren Court= judicial
activism
– Griswold vs. Connecticut 1965
– NY Times vs. Sullivan 1964
– Baker vs. Carr 1962
– Limits on religion in schools, rights for
accused expanded (Miranda Warning)
 Reaction
by Nixon (conservative)= 4
new justices Burger Court (Roe vs.
Wade!)
Environmentalism
 Silent
Spring by Rachel Carson
1962= ban on DDT
 Environmental Protection Agency
1970
 Clean Air Act 1970
 Endangered Species Act 1973
1972 Election
 Democrats=
George McGovern
(withdrawal from Vietnam within 90
days)
 Republicans= Richard Nixon
 Southern Strategy
 At Paris Peace Conference days
before election, Kissinger= “peace is
at hand”
Watergate
 Balance
of power skewed toward
president
 The President’s Men- win at any cost
 June 17, 1972 break in at Democratic
headquarters at Watergate complex
– Plumbers
– Committee to Reelect the President
(CREEP)
 Bob
Woodward and Carl Bernstein
 Testimony to Congress= release the
tapes!
Watergate
 Saturday
Night Massacre- Special
Prosecutor Cox ordered tapes
 VP Spiro Agnew resigned (bribes as
governor of Maryland)
 25th amendment= Gerald Ford
confirmed as new Vice President
War Powers Act
 1973:
bombing raids on Cambodia!
 Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot after
Cambodian Civil War
 War Powers Act November 1973
Watergate
 President’s
Men= indicted March
1974
 Nixon= tapes are executive privilege!
 Supreme Court ordered release of
tapes implicated president in break
in and cover up by FBI
 August 8, 1974: Nixon resigned
Gerald Ford assumed presidency
(appointed)
– Nixon pardoned by Ford
End to Vietnam
 War
between North and South
Vietnam continued to 1975
 Military aid to South Vietnam ended
as North advanced on Saigon
 Evacuation April 29, 1975
 Lasting effects: 58,000 KIA,
365,000 wounded, “baby killers”,
PTSD, suicide for veterans
The Last Days of Saigon
Violence often attended the frantic American evacuation from Vietnam in 1975.
 2nd
Feminism
wave Feminism= Betty Friedan
(NOW) and Gloria Steinem (Ms.
Magazine)
 Title IX 1972
 Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) 1972
stalled by conservatives (Phyllis Shlafly)
 Supreme Court challenged sex
discrimination in legislation and
employment
 Roe vs. Wade 1973
 Conservative backlash against feminism
A multiethnic and multiracial group of women, accompanied by noted “second-wave” feminists Bella
Abzug (in hat) and Betty Friedan (far right), helped to carry a torch from Seneca Falls, New York,
birthplace of the feminist movement, to Houston, Texas, site of the National Women’s Conference.
Antifeminist Phyllis Schlafly (b. 1924)
Schlafly traveled the country promoting her “STOP ERA” campaign. She argued that ratification of
the Equal Rights Amendment would undermine the American family by violating “the right of a wife
to be supported by her husband,” requiring women to serve in combat, and legalizing homosexual
marriage.
Minorities
 Busing
to end de facto segregation
limited by Milliken vs. Bradley 1974
 Regents of University of California vs.
Bakke 1978 Affirmative Action
 American Indian Movement (AIM)civil disobedience and media to
promote message
– Standoff at Wounded Knee, seizure of
Alcatraz and Bureau of Indian Affairs
Jimmy Carter
 1976
Election: Ford (Republican) vs.
Carter (Democrat) Washington
outsider
 Camp David Accords 1978 between
Egypt and Israel
 Carter presidency= rising inflation
(13% by 1979), oil prices, interest
rates, deficits= economic problems
Celebrating the Camp David Agreement, September 1978
Anwar Sadat of Egypt (left) and Menachem Begin of Israel (right) join U.S. president Jimmy Carter in
confirming the historic accord that brought the hope of peace to the war-torn Middle East.
Jimmy Carter
 1979:
Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran
(anti-US) Iranian oil shut down,
OPEC ↑ prices
 Carter= Malaise speech
 SALT II treaty with Brezhnev in
1979 not ratified because of
Afghanistan invasion
 Americans at embassy in Teheran
taken hostage November 1979 for
444 days
Two-Way SALT Talks
The grim specter of nuclear holocaust haunted the SALT II talks between
President Carter and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in Vienna in June 1979.
Iranians Denounce President Jimmy Carter, November 1979
Scenes like this one appeared almost nightly on American
television during the 444 days of the Iranian hostage crisis,
humiliating Carter and angering American citizens.