Transcript The Nixon Years: A Crisis of Authority

The Nixon Years: A Crisis of Authority
Mr. Ermer
U.S. History
Miami Beach Senior High
The Youth Culture
 “Liberation”
 The New Left
 Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
 University of California at Berkeley
 The Free Speech Movement
 People’s Park
 The Counterculture
 Hippies & Haight-Ashbury
 Communal Living
 Rejection of traditional values
 Drugs & “Free Sex”
 Rock & Roll
 The Beatles
Mobilization of Minorities
 Native Americans
 Eisenhower’s “Termination”
 Federal government attempts to move Native Americans into mainstream
 Tribes deprived of legal status, remanded to the state governments, ended in 1958
 Indian Civil Rights Movement/American Indian Movement (AIM)
 Declaration of Indian Purpose fights anti-Native prejudice
 Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968
 United States v. Wheeler (1978) calls termination unconstitutional
 Occupation movements
 Latino Activism
 Flood of new immigrants from Latin America after WWII
 “Chicano Activism” and La Raza Unida
 Cesar Chavez and migrant workers’ rights
Feminism
 1960s-70s: Feminism emerges as powerful force in American society
 Kennedy’s President’s Commission on the Status of Women
 Equal Pay Act
 Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
 1963: Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique
 National Organization for Women (NOW)
 1972: Congress approves Equal Rights Amendment to Constitution
 Is not ratified by the states, backlash against feminism
 1973: Roe v.Wade decision invalidates all laws prohibiting early term
abortions
 Based on the newly established “right to privacy” resulting from Griswold
v. Connecticut (1965)
Nixonian Foreign Policy
 National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger dominates foreign policy of
Nixon Administration
 Belief in a “multi-polar” world, new international order
 1969: Nixon meets Soviet leaders in Helsinki, Finland for talks
 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I)
 1972: Nixon visits China and “opens” Chinese to trade
 Helps Communist China’s government enter United Nations
 Nixon Doctrine
 Defend allies in Third World, aid development, but leave “basic responsibility” of
the future of those “friends” to nations themselves
 Six-Day War (1967)
 Israel vs. Egypt, Syria, Jordan—Israel gains new territories
 Palestinian refugee count increases in Jordan and Lebanon
 Yom Kippur War (1973)
 Arab Oil Embargo of 1973
 United States presses Israel to accept ceasefire in order to keep Arab allies
The Nixon Years at Home
 Defends the interests of the “Silent Majority”
 Reduce federal “interference” in local affairs
 Slowed the pace of school integration by bussing
 Attempt to dismantle Great Society & New Frontier legislation
 Abolishes Office of Economic Opportunity
 Attempt to replace welfare system with Family Assistance Plan
 Does not pass the Senate, welfare reform tabled
 Election of 1972
 Nixon vs. George McGovern (ultra-liberal democrat)
 Nixon wins in landslide
Nixon and the Supreme Court
 Warren Court of 1950s and 60s seen as too liberal
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Roth v. United States (1957): limits states’ ability to ban pornography
Engle v.Vitale (1962): School prayer violates First Amendment
Gideon v.Wainwright (1963): right to a trial attorney
Escobedo v. Illinois (1964): right to an attorney before questioning
Miranda v. Arizona (1966): authorities must inform suspects of his rights
Baker v. Carr (1962): Apportioning of voting districts to ensure equality
 Chief Justice Earl Warren retires in 1969, Nixon appoints conservative federal
judge Warren Burger
 Another justice spot opens, Senate rejects two conservative nominations
 Nixon nominates Harry Blackmun, a moderate
 Nixon also appoints two more justices, Lewis Powell and William Rehnquist
 Burger Court not as conservative as Nixon hoped
 Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Eduacation (1971): forced bussing
 Furman v. Georgia (1972): strict test for capital punishment law
 Roe v.Wade (1973)
 More moderate decisions include Milliken v. Bradley (1974) and Bakke v. Board of
Regents of California (1978)
Nixon & the Economy
 Funding 1960s social programs and Vietnam without raising taxes brings
increased deficit spending—leads to inflation
 Dollar begins to lose value relative to other currencies
 Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)
 After Arab Oil Embargo, OPEC raises price of oil by 400%
 Deindustrialization
 Industrial jobs being replaced by “knowledge based jobs”
 Rising income inequality
 Stagflation: rising cost of living with decreased economic performance
 Nixon tries to tackle inflation by decreasing money supply, raising interest
 Wage and price controls for federal agencies
 Value of dollar continues to slide
Watergate & the Presidency
 Changes to Presidency
 Nixon seeks, sometimes illegally, to exercise power
 June 17, 1972: seven men arrested for breaking into the Democratic
National Committee office at the Watergate building
 Washington Post connects Committee for the Reelection of the President
 More illegalities, cover-up discovered
 Senate calls for release of Oval Office Recording System tapes
 “Executive Privilege”
 “Saturday Night Massacre”
 United States v. Richard M. Nixon, court rules tapes must be turned over
 Vice President Spiro Agnew resigns for his own scandal
 Replaced by Gerald Ford
 August 8, 1974: Nixon resigns office, Ford sworn in as president
 Ford pardons Nixon, “Our long national nightmare is over”
Work on it:
 On page 442, write and answer questions 1-5