Nixon, Ford and
Carter
Administrations
• Democratic candidate: Hubert H.
Humphrey (liberal)
•Republican candidate: Richard
M. Nixon (more conservative)
- Nixon won 302 electoral
votes and the election
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Nixon’s re-election
Ran against George McGovern
Nixon sabotaged his opponents
This is now known as “dirty tricks”
Nixon won by a landslide
• He was..
-a lawyer
-Naval officer in WWII
-anti-communist
-republican congressman
-vice president under Eisenhower
-He lost the 1960 Presidential election to JFK
• Ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1962
• First Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty
• 5 year agreement that froze number of
missiles made
• It was between the United States and the
Soviet Union
• Former FBI agent a part of the
“Plumbers”
- Plumbers is Nixon’s approved
organization group to stop government
leaks
• Involved in Watergate Scandal
• List of prominent people who were seen as
unsympathetic to the Nixon Administration
• List includes
- politicians, actors, comedians, etc.
• National Security Advisor and Secretary of
State under Richard Nixon
• He admired realpolitik – a policy to make
decisions based on maintaining own
strength rather than following moral
principles
• Impeachment is
- to charge a public official with
wrong doing in office
• Congress had begun the process to
determine if they should impeach
Nixon because of the Watergate.
• Nixon resigned before being
impeached
CREEP
• Committee to re-elect
the president through
legal and illegal
methods
• Nixon’s funding
organization
• Actively involved in the
Watergate scandal
Deep Throat
• Under cover source
Bernstein and
Woodward used to
confirm information on
Watergate
• Deep Throat’s identity
was a mystery up until
a few years ago when
Mark Felt admitted to
being deep throat
Détente
• A French word
meaning relaxation
in tensions
• China and Soviet
Union both had this
type of relationship
with the U.S.
beginning in the
early 70s
Embargo
• A ban on Arab
countries shipping
oil to the United
States
• This was quite
harmful to the
economy in the
U.S.
Oil Crisis
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
U.S. oil production declined
OPEC imposed an embargo on U.S.
Used natural gas, meaning less oil concocted
Oil prices rose
Population in America increased
U.S. was very dependent on other country’s
oil
James McCord
• A suspect of the
Watergate break in
• Former CIA
employee was
working on CREEP
H.R. Haldeman
• Advertising
executive for
Nixon’s campaign
• Became Chief of
Staff for Nixon
• One of Nixon’s
close friends that
he would turn to in
troubling times
John Dean
• John Dean was the legal counsel to
President Nixon.
• He was involved in Watergate and his
testimony led many people to believe that
Nixon was involved in Watergate.
Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
• Two reporters assigned to the Watergate
story.
• Confirmed their information from their
under cover source “Deep Throat”
• Linked the break in to the White House
Neil Armstrong
• First man to walk on the moon.
• Played golf on the moon.
• Because he walked on the moon it
showed that America was right there with
the Soviet Union in the space race.
War Powers Act of 1973
• Passed during the Vietnam War, and
Watergate.
• Gave a basis of how U.S. troops could
enter a war abroad.
• It prescribes procedures on consulting,
reporting and terminating deployment of
U.S. armed forces.
• Limited the President's ability to send US
troops into combat
Warren Burger
• Was appointed Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court by President Nixon.
Huston Plan
• A 43 page report and outline of proposed
security operations put together by White
House aid Tom Huston. First showed in
1973 during the Watergate scandal.
• Legal and Illegal methods to get Nixon
reelected and “protect” the U.S.
Watergate
• Break in at the Democratic headquarters
• Led to Nixon’s downfall
• Members of the Executive branch
organized political espionage.
• People were charged with violation of
public trust, bribery, contempt of
Congress, and attempted obstruction of
justice.
Alexander Butterfield
• Deputy assistant to Nixon from 1969-1973.
He was a key figure in the Watergate
scandal.
August 8, 1974
• Richard Nixon announced his resignation
and that he will leave office the next day.
• Vice President Gerald Ford would take
over the presidency effective noon on
August 9th.
John Ehrlichman
• Chief
Domestic
Advisor
• Nixon’s
personal
lawyer
• A lawyer who
managed Nixon’s
presidential
campaigns
John Mitchell
• Nixon asked him to
be Attorney
General after 1968
election
Inner Circle
• Nixon’s informal
cabinet of trusted
officials
•Henry Kissinger,
John Ehrlichman,
Richard Nixon, H.R.
Haldeman
New Federalism
• Nixon called for a
new partnership
between the
federal and state
governments
• He did this by
appointing more
responsibilities
to states for the
well-being of
citizens
Nixon’s Supreme Court
• They made the Court
more conservative
• Nixon named new
members of the
Supreme Court
who were less
liberal and harder
on the criminals
Nixon’s Visit to China
• Nixon meets with leader,
Mao Zedong and
• It was significant
Premier Zhou Enlai to
because he was
discuss problems and
the first president
ways to deal with them
to visit the
Communist China,
and recognize it as
“The People’s
Republic of China”
Nixon’s Visit to USSR
• Nixon meets with
Premier Leonid I
Brezhnev
• They negotiated
cooperation with space
exploration, trade limits,
and to limit nuclear arms
Oil Embargo
• In 1973, Israel and the
Arab nations of Egypt
and Syria went to war
• Arab members of
OPEC imposed a ban
on the shipping of oil to
the U.S. because they
sided with Israel
OPEC
• Organization of
Petroleum
Exporting
Countries
• As a result of the oil
embargo, enforced
by OPEC, the prices
of foreign oil
quadrupled in the
U.S.
Plumbers
• Created to eliminate
leaks from the White
House
• They hoped to find
• A group of Nixoninformation
on
his
approved
private life to
government
punish him for
members who broke
leaking the
into the office of
Daniel Ellsberg.
Pentagon Papers
Realpolitik: a German term for actual politics
Headed the senate select committee that
investigated Nixon’s role in the Watergate
cover-up
Ford goes on national television and
pardons former President Nixon for his
actions in Watergate enraging the
American people.
Nixon wanted to win white vote and ensure
that he won by stopping busing as a way
to desegregate. He restored federal
funding to districts that were still
segregated.
Agnew was the only vice president to resign
while under investigation during
Watergate.
Served as chief justice of the Supreme
Court from 1986 until his death in 2005.
Gerald Ford was born Leslie Lynch King Jr.
He was in the US House of Representatives,
the Vice President of the US, and the
President of the US.
Ford wanted to replace the confidence in the
American public.
In the 1976 election Ford would run against
Carter.
Carter would win by a small margin.
Fall of Saigon
• In 1973 President Nixon signed a cease
fire agreement ending U.S military
involvement in Vietnam
• Without American Military aid Saigon was
unable to fight off North Vietnamese
attacks
Helsinki Accords
• President Ford signed the Helsinki
accords
• It is a series of agreements of European
security made at a 1975 summit meeting
in Finland.
• U.S, Canada, S.U, 30 other European
countries pledged to cooperate
economically, respect existing national
boundaries and promote existing human
rights.
Stagflation/ Inflation
• Stagflation-Inflation and
unemployment both rise, while the
economy remained the same.
• Inflation- a rise in the level of prices in
goods and services.
• Carter had trouble controlling inflation
without hurting economic growth
• Tried to stimulate economy by
Government deficit spending to
prevent a recession
Carters Background
• Southerner, family from rural south
• No national political experience
• Different from recent predecessors in
White House
• Graduate of U.S naval academy
• Engineer officer on nuclear submarines
• Took over family’s peanut farm and
warehouse when his father died
• Entered politics in 1962
Carter’s Foreign Policy
• Support for human rights
• Relations with the Soviet Union
• Solutions to problems in Middle East
Carter’s Judicial appointments
• Appointed a record number of women and
minorities to government positions
1980 Moscow Olympics
• A part of a package of actions to protest
the Soviet war in Afghanistan
• Carter issued and ultimatum that the U.S
would boycott the Olympics if the Soviet
troops had not withdrawn from the country
by 12:01 A.M 2/20/1980
• Carter was joined in the boycott by Japan,
West Germany, China, the Philippines,
and Canada
3 Mile Island
• Occurred on March 28th, 1979 in
Harrisburg Pennsylvania
• An accident where a partial meltdown
occurred in a Nuclear generating station
that gave off radioactive
• Most significant accident in American
History in the Nuclear power generating
industry
Camp David Accords
• When the middle east was having
problems, and Israel and Arab nations
were fighting in a war, Carter sent his
Secretary of State to Camp David which
was a Presidential retreat to make peace
• He was a peacemaker and got them to
agree on a framework for peace that
became known as the Camp David
Accords
Draft amnesty programs
• Carter granted amnesty (general
pardon) to those who had evaded
the draft during the Vietnam War.
Iran Hostage Crisis
• Revolution that broke out in Iran on
January 1979.
• Led by Muslim fundamentalists
• For 444 days, revolutionaries imprisoned
52 American hostages in different
locations.
• Prisoners were blindfolded and moved
from place to place.
• Carter send a rescue mission to retrieve
the hostages
Leonid Brezhnev
• Soviet Leader
• Nixon and Brezhnev
agreed to work together
to explore space, eased
longstanding trade
limits, and complete
negotiations on a
weapons pact.
Love Canal
• Located in Niagara Falls,
New York
• Chemical company
dumped 21,000 tons of
toxic waste
• A school was built over the
area despite the
knowledge of the toxic
waste.
• It spawned a huge
controversy.
Malaise Days
• Carter’s “Crisis of Confidence” and
“Malaise” speech.
• Carter talked about the confidence
loss in the American people, which
basically means that the American
people did not trust the government.
National Energy Act
• Carter Established it in 1978.
• It affected oil and gas.
Included these directives:
1. Tax sales of inefficient, “gas-guzzling,” cars.
2. Convert new utilities to fuels other then oil or
natural gas.
3. Deregulate prices for domestic oil and natural
gas.
4. Provide tax credits or loans to homeowners for
using solar energy.
5. Fund research for alternative energy sources
Panama Canal
• Built in 1914
• Used transport goods from Atlantic to
Pacific
• Carter agreed to turn control over to the
Panamanians at the end of the 20th
century
Salt II
• Negotiations between Carter and
Brezhnev
• It was an agreement to limit nuclear
weapons between US and Soviet Union
• Never ratified- fell apart when Soviets
invade Afghanistan
Affirmative Action
• It took race, ethnicity, and gender into
consideration to promote equality
• Benefits diversity in all levels of society.
• People were against it because they felt
like people were chosen because of their
ethnic background
Regents of the University of
California v. Bakke
• Court case involving Bakke and University
of California.
• Slots were opened for disadvantaged
minority groups. There was no rule for
disadvantaged Caucasians.
• The court ruled in favor of Bakke June 23,
1978