A5ACVA The U.S.

from the 1930s to the present

Lecture n° 7 (summary)

The United States in the 1970s

I. CONSERVATIVE REACTION TO THE MOVEMENTS OF THE 1960S

In the midst of the upsurge of social and political movements described in the two
previous lectures, a wave of reaction to this tide of protest was already developing. It gained
momentum in the 1970s and was further confirmed in the 1980s under president Ronald
Reagan.

Strife in U.S. society and within the Democratic Party

Lyndon Johnson’s support for the war in Vietnam provoked much discord within the
Democratic Party and within U.S. society as a whole. The war not only provoked strong
moral objections, but also contributed to a chronic balance of payments deficit, rising inflation
and a growing federal deficit, placing the administration’s “Great Society” social policies in
danger.
The Democrats suffered greatly from the image of a divided party. Conservatives
tended to perceive the Democrats as a dangerously “leftist” party that had been “taken over”
by social movements. The Democratic Convention, held in Chicago in August 1968, took
place as the streets surrounding the event were engulfed in protest and acts of police brutality.
Johnson came to understand that his support for the war handicapped his 1968 re-
election chances. He preferred to abandon the race, leaving the field open to two rising
antiwar candidates: Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy and New York Senator Robert F.
(Bobby) Kennedy, brother of John and former Attorney General. Vice President Hubert
Humphrey, representing the mainstream – and pro-war – wing of the Democratic Party,
captured the nomination, boosting his chances by taking some distance from the bombing of
North Vietnam.
Republican nominee Richard Nixon, two-term vice president under Eisenhower, sent
mixed signals about his vision and intentions. On the one hand, he sought to project himself
as a man who could unite the nation and bring peace; on the other hand, he was a partisan of
“law and order” and accused liberals of coddling criminals. He claimed to represent what he
called the “silent majority” of “non-shouters” and “non-demonstrators”.
George Wallace, third-party candidate, ran strongly in several southern states, gaining
13% of the popular vote. He was a well-known former governor of Alabama who had taken a
vehement stand against federal desegregation plans. He tried to transform his message of
racial division and states’ rights into a broader conservative appeal, but he hurt himself by
naming as his running mate former U.S. Army General Curtis LeMay, who proposed to bomb
Vietnam “back to the Stone Age”.
Nixon’s share of the popular vote was only 43.4%, but if one adds the Wallace and
Nixon votes together, the message of the 1968 election could be read as one of conservative
reaction by a clear majority of voters to the movements for social change of the 60s. Yet the
Democrats retained strong majorities in both houses of Congress.

II. FROM THE RISE AND DOWNFALL OF RICHARD M. NIXON (1969-1974) TO

THE INTERIM PRESIDENCY OF GERALD R. FORD (1974-77)
 In his domestic policy, Nixon did not govern as a hard-line conservative but rather as a
centrist who took over portions of the liberal agenda and made them look like his own. At the
same time, his rhetoric played well to white conservatives. Vice President Spiro T. Agnew
made repeated verbal attacks on student protestors and liberal elites.
Nixon’s foreign policy record, in tandem with Henry Kissinger, is equally
contradictory. Its main legacies were the policy of détente with the Soviet Union, the opening
of relations with the Republic of China, and the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam.
However, the Watergate scandal (see below) resulted in Nixon’s disgrace and resignation in
1974.

Nixon and domestic politics: a study in contradiction

Despite Nixon’s conservative stance, federal spending actually rose under his
administration with respect to Kennedy and Johnson.
Nixon was able to appoint four new justices in his first term, including Warren E.
Burger, who replaced the more liberal Chief Justice Earl Warren in 1969.
In the area of environmental protection, Nixon was much more of a partisan of
government action than one might have expected from a conservative. The administration
enacted several laws, and created, in 1970, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
However, business lobbyists and many labor unions began, however, to organize resistance to
environmental regulation, causing the position of the administration to shift.
The early Nixon administration founded the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA), but did not give it the means to make decisive progress in
enforcing workplace standards.
Publicly Nixon opposed federal intervention to end de facto school segregation, but
in practice his Justice Department at first made extensive use of litigation to force school
districts to desegregate, before abandoning such efforts.
Under Nixon, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), founded
in 1964, saw its funding cut. As a result, class action suits, based on statistical evidence to
demonstrate patterns of discrimination, came to the fore. The federal government soon
found another method to open jobs to excluded categories. Access to federal contracts had
been conditioned since the Johnson administration on demonstrating efforts to hire minority
workers. This use of targets in combating discrimination came to be known as “affirmative
action”. Nixon at first backed the Philadelphia Plan, which required federally funded
contractors to respect detailed targets for the hiring of minority workers. He believed that
promoting economic opportunities for African Americans was better than desegregation. He
advocated “black capitalism”, a conservative variant of Black Power. He later withdrew
support for the Philadelphia Plan, but federal agencies had begun including affirmative action
plans in their routine contracting procedures.
A campaign of repression and sabotage of social activist movements was pursued by
the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover’s Counter-intelligence Program (COINTELPRO).

Nixon’s Foreign Policy: Cold War, Détente, Withdrawal from Vietnam

Despite his anti-communism, Nixon and his chief advisor Henry Kissinger promoted
détente with the Soviet Union – that is, peaceful coexistence and routinized diplomatic
relations instead of the permanent hostility of the Cold War. Kissinger, a German-born former
Harvard professor of international relations, was a partisan of Realpolitik who analyzed the
international system as a multipolar chessboard in which the U.S., instead of assuming
complete hegemony, needed to find its place – still dominant, to be sure – in a complex
balance of power.
In 1972 Nixon made an historic opening to China. As many noted, only a staunch anti-
communist could have managed such a policy without being suspected of being “soft” on
communism. This move caused the Soviet Union in turn to seek better relations with the U.S.
With Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, Nixon negotiated the first Strategic Arms Limitation
Treaty (SALT I), whose symbolic important was greater than its practical effect.
Nixon put an end to massive U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, following a
tortuous path in which escalation and negotiations went together. By August 1969, Kissinger
was involved in secret talks in Paris with the North Vietnamese. In February 1970 Nixon
he extended U.S. bombing and the ground war into the neighboring countries of Laos and
Cambodia, in an effort to cut off communist supply lines, sparking a major surge of antiwar
protest in the U.S. and worldwide. On May 4th Ohio National Guardsmen killed four students
at Kent State University, which intensified the mobilizations.
Although broad, the antiwar mobilizations did not reflect a complete national
consensus. Construction workers in New York, known as “hard hats”, became openly hostile
to antiwar demonstrators and became the symbol of a backlash which caused Nixon’s
popularity ratings to rise.
Nixon dampened the effect of protest by moving from the draft to a lottery system
and then announced his intention to instate an all-volunteer army.
Détente did not mean a complete end to the Cold War. In the Americas, Nixon and
Kissinger supported the right-wing military coup against the freely elected socialist president
Salvador Allende of Chile in September 1973.
U.S. troop strength in Vietnam was at 543,000 when Nixon took office and fell to
24,400 by 1972. In the spring of 1972, Vietnamese communist troops waged a major
offensive in the northern part of South Vietnam. As tape recordings later revealed, Nixon was
angry that a small peasant country could challenge the might of the U.S. Intensive bombing
continued, but the war was still a stalemate, with no decisive military victory in sight. In
October 1972 an agreement was reached for an immediate cease-fire in South Vietnam, and
end to U.S. bombing of the North, a withdrawal of U.S. troops within sixty days, the release
of American prisoners of war, and a commitment to the peaceful reunification of Vietnam.
When 1972 elections took place, Nixon did not yet have a peace treaty to show, but he
could point to diplomatic achievements in China and the U.S.S.R. He was re-elected easily
against Senator George McGovern of South Dakota, who represented the antiwar left of the
Democratic Party. Nixon took over 60% of the popular vote and won every state but one.
Democrats maintained their majority in both houses, however.

The Watergate scandal and Nixon’s resignation from office

Nixon’s psychological “dark side” – his inability to trust others – turned out to be an
important factor in his downfall. On June 17, 1972, a few months before his re-election,
police in Washington, D.C. arrested five men as they broke into the Democratic National
Committee headquarters in a building known as Watergate. They had been hired by the Nixon
campaign as part of a large-scale effort to spy on and disrupt the Democratic Party. It is not
take long for police to connect the burglars to the Committee to Re-Elect the President
(CREEP), managed directly from the White House. Nixon attempted an elaborate cover-up,
but it failed. A special prosecutor for the Watergate case was appointed, while the Senate also
held hearings.
In the meantime, Vice President Spiro Agnew was forced to resign because of several
corruption charges. It emerged as well that Nixon too had taken large tax deductions for
which he was not qualified. Nixon chose as Agnew’s replacement the House minority leader
Gerald R. Ford, a Congressman from Michigan.
Nixon resisted the authority of the special prosecutor by refusing to give up his taped
White House conversations as evidence, but he was finally forced to do so. The tapes were
full of vulgarity and revealed a president obsessed with enemies and clearly involved in a
cover-up of illegal activities. Nixon’s credibility collapsed and he was forced to resign.
Although his style of presidency reflected his individual character, it was also clearly
the product of an expanded national security state in which covert operations tended to
become the norm.

Economic crisis and Nixon’s shock

During Nixon’s first term, both inflation and unemployment began to rise beyond the
low levels to which the country had become accustomed. Organized labor was still powerful
enough to respond to rising prices by pressing for wage increases and other gains. The year
1970 was marked by the highest levels of strike activity since the 1950s.
In 1971, for the first time since the 19th century, the U.S. imported more goods than it
exported. This balance of payments crisis resulted in great part from the rise of new
competitors such as Germany and Japan, who were gaining in productivity.
Nixon resorted in August 1971 to a “New Economic Policy”, also known as “the
Nixon shock”, which included a tax cut and wage and price controls, which in practice
meant a check on labor. To deal with the balance of payments problem, he put an end to the
dollar’s link to the gold standard, as stipulated in the Bretton Woods agreements of 1944,
which had allowed holders of dollars abroad to redeem them at a fixed price. This opened the
way for a devaluation of the dollar in August 1971. The administration further imposed a
10% surcharge on imported goods. It temporarily discarded free-trade economics in order to
combat the vicious cycle of inflation and stagnation (known as “stagflation”). The formula
worked in time to revive the economy for the 1972 elections.

Gerald R. Ford, interim president (1974-1977)

Nixon left his office to Gerald R. Ford, the appointed successor of the disgraced vice
president Spiro T. Agnew. Ford’s initial popularity ratings were high, but he lost support very
quickly by granting a full pardon to Richard Nixon only a month after taking office.

The Fall of Saigon

Watergate made any new re-escalation of the war impossible. After the signing of the
Paris treaty, U.S. continued to support to the South Vietnamese government but in June 1973,
Nixon had to agree to Congress’ cutoff of all funds for the war. A few months later Congress
passed the War Powers Act, which required the president to provide Congress with 60 days’
notice for any armed action. The law turned out to be mostly symbolic in impact.
In early 1975, under Ford, the South Vietnamese army and government collapsed. The
last Americans flew out of Saigon in helicopters on April 30, 1975 as communist forces
entered the city. The two halves of Vietnam were reunified.
The “domino theory”, according to which one communist victory would lead to
another and another, proved to be an illusion which led to a sound political defeat for the U.S.
in the international arena.

U.S. leadership role challenged

 U.S. power was not in full decline, but clearly the U.S. could no longer police the
world as its leaders pleased. This message was driven home again in May 1975 with the
capture of the crew of a U.S. cargo ship, the Mayagüez, by agents of the new communist
government of Cambodia. The mission sent to rescue them failed, but the crew was soon set
free unharmed.
The 1973 Israeli-Arab war, in which Israel was caught by surprise and suffered
setbacks at the hands of Egypt and Syria with Soviet aid, also appeared as a sign of
diminished U.S. control. Arab oil-producing states, led by Saudi Arabia, imposed a reduction
of output in an attempt to force Israel to return to its 1967 borders, and then an embargo of oil
shipments to countries supporting of Israel. The oil embargo led to a quadrupling of crude oil
prices in a year and a major gasoline shortage in the U.S.. Consumers used to inexpensive
gasoline as part of their life style were shocked and sobered by the new conditions.

Continuing economic crisis

In early 1974 the worst recession since the 1930 began. Historically, rising prices and
unemployment moved in opposite directions but in this crisis they rose together, baffling
economists and policymakers. U.S. economic decline relative to other countries was
confirmed. The U.S. had long ranked first in terms of per capita GDP, but by 1980 it had
fallen to 11th place. The years in which the U.S. international hegemony was linked to rising
material abundance were over.
Ford made inflation his priority, blaming surging prices on excessive government
spending and the federal deficit and proposed a program of voluntary belt-tightening. Ford’s
ideas were opposed by the Democratic Congress, which still had strong ties to organized labor
and gave higher priority to fighting unemployment. However, the ambitious Humphrey-
Hawkins full employment bill, introduced in 1974, was passed only in 1978, in watered-
down form.

The end of détente

Under Ford, détente with the Soviet Union began to stall. Some leading conservatives,
including some Democrats, criticized what they saw as accommodation with the enemy. They
were among the first “neoconservatives,” whose influence would later grow under Reagan
and George W. Bush. Senator Henry Jackson, a Cold War Democrat from the state of
Washington, proposed to resist détente by deny the privileged trade status to the Soviet Union
unless it increased the number of Jews it allowed to emigrate. U.S.-Soviet trade declined, as
did possibilities for a new arms control agreement.
Defense officials under Ford advocated rebuilding U.S. military power and asserting
“core moral values” in foreign policy. By 1976 détente had all but ended. Congress did not
move on a new arms limitation treaty.

III. THE PRESIDENCY OF JAMES CARTER (1977-1981): A CRISIS OF NATIONAL

CONFIDENCE?

Carter was the first elected president after Nixon’s departure in mid-term in 1974. He
was nearly unknown to the public outside his home state. A former governor of Georgia, he
had no previous political experience in Washington. He owed his narrow victory to his native
South – not only southern blacks, who voted massively for the Democrats, but also many
southern whites, who identified with this devout Christian. Carter sought to bring the
presidency symbolically closer to the people, making its exercise less formal. He insisted on
being called “Jimmy” and wore ordinary clothes in public. He brought his practice of religion
into public view in an unprecedented manner. He also appointed an unprecedented number of
African Americans and women to important federal positions.

Carter’s slide toward conservatism

Carter moved toward a policy of economic deregulation and moved his own party
away from a New Deal-type social vision. Paul Volcker, appointed chairman of the Federal
Reserve by Carter in 1979, made fighting inflation his main goal, even at the cost of a
recession. He adopted a policy of monetarist inspiration by exercising tight central bank
control over the money supply. Interest rates shot up to nearly 20%, leading to a sharp drop
in consumer spending and, in 1980, the steepest fall of the GNP ever recorded. Inflation
continued nonetheless to rise. Massive layoffs took place in automobile and steel plants,
initiating a decade of intense deindustrialization of the U.S. economy, especially in the area
of the Midwest and Northeast that came to be known as the “Rust Belt”. Carter began
opposing this Federal Reserve policy during the 1980 election, but it was too late to avoid
defeat in his bid for re-election.
Carter’s administration tried to forge a comprehensive energy policy that encouraged
conservation, reduced consumption, lessened dependence on foreign oil, and promoted
renewable resources. The measures proposed had contradictory impacts in different parts of
the country and spurred militant opposition to nuclear energy, which was part of the package.
By the time he obtained an energy law, the Iranian revolution of 1979 and the OPEC oil
embargo were provoking new gasoline shortages and consumer discontent. Under Carter, the
portion of the GDP devoted to energy spending rose sharply.
The gasoline shortages of the summer of 1979 prompted Carter to give an important
televised speech. On July 15, 1979 told the nation that it was suffering from a “crisis of
confidence” and “growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and less of a unity of
purpose for our Nation”. He denounced the “self-indulgence” of a consumer society.
However, he proposed little in practical terms to overcome the crisis, other than his complex
proposals on energy. His inability to galvanize the nation or the Congress around a clear
project was manifest.

Carter’s foreign policy: human rights and Realpolitik

Several major developments in foreign affairs marked Carter’s presidency: a U.S.-

sponsored Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, the definitive breakdown of détente following Soviet
intervention in Afghanistan, and the Iran revolution, which caused a key U.S. ally in the
Middle East to become an enemy. The ensuing hostage crisis played a role in his electoral
defeat at the hands of Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980.
In 1978 in gained Senate ratification for Carter-Torrijos treaties, which ceded to
Panama control over the Panama Canal and Canal Zone, thus relieving a serious problem in
U.S.-Latin American relations.
After the overthrow of Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza by the Sandinista
National Liberation Front in 1979, Carter tried without success to promote a moderate-led
government, but also refrained from military action against the revolutionaries, unlike his
successor.
A serious attempt was made in 1977 to improve diplomatic relations with Cuba. No
embassy was established there, but a U.S. “interest section” housed by the Swiss embassy was
founded. This brief relaxation of a hostile relationship was soon undermined both by the
deterioration of détente with the Soviet Union and by Cuban military intervention in Africa.
Carter sought to place his administration under the sign of “human rights”, in
symbolic rupture with Henry Kissinger’s Realpolitik. The administration did indeed reduce or
end aid to military regimes in Latin America, but Iran, under the rule of the Shah, which was
perceived as key to U.S. interests, was not subject to sanctions.
For neoconservatives, the human rights orientation of the Carter administration
coincided with their opposition to détente with the Soviet Union. The administration’s
denunciation of human rights violations and its support for Soviet dissidents placed obstacles
in the way of new disarmament talks.
When the U.S.S.R. sent troops into Afghanistan in 1979 to aid a pro-Soviet regime,
Carter reverted to a Cold War stance, imposing an embargo on grain sales to the USSR and
declaring a U.S. boycott of the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow. The SALT II treaty was
withdrawn from discussion in the Senate and the U.S. stepped up its covert action in parts of
of Africa and Asia.
With the 1978 Camp David agreement, Carter induced Israel and Egypt to sign a
lasting peace treaty involving the return of the occupied Sinai Peninsula to Egypt. The treaty
also resulted in substantial increases in U.S. military aid to both countries.
After the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, the administration made no effort to
return the Shah to power, but under pressure from Henry Kissinger, it admitted the deposed
dictator into the U.S. for cancer treatment. This became the pretext for a group of militant
Iranian students to take over the U.S. embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979, and take more
than 50 American hostages, with the approval of the new leader, Ayatollah Khomeini. In the
ensuing months Carter made several unsuccessful attempts to secure the hostages’ release. In
April 1980, an attempt to liberate them through military force turned into a spectacular failure
when the helicopters sent on the mission broke down. The hostage crisis was resolved only
when the shah died and the new Iranian government, anxious to secure funds for its war
against Iraq (1980-1988), agreed to release the hostages after Carter’s departure, in exchange
for having Iranian assets in the U.S. unfrozen.
The Carter years saw continuing economic stagnation at home and serious challenges
to U.S. hegemony abroad. Despite some diplomatic breakthroughs, the administration
appeared weak in the eyes of many voters. Carter’s met defeat in 1980 at the hands of
Republican Ronald Reagan, who promised to return self-confidence to the country. The social
movements of the 1960s had not disappeared but were too dispersed to represent a serious
challenge to the status quo. The drift toward conservatism was never complete and varied by
region, but it gained momentum and was strongly confirmed as the 1980s began.