unit 8 key terms

Affirmative Action

Program designed to redress historic racial and gender imbalances in jobs and education. The term grew from an executive order issued by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965 mandating that projects paid for with federal funds take concerted action against discrimination based on race in their hiring practices. In the late 1960s, President Nixon's Philadelphia Plan changed the meaning of it to require attention to certain groups, rather than protect individuals against discrimination.

School Bussing (1970's)

The desegregation/integration of public school bussing decided by the landmark 1971 Supreme Court decision Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education. Resulted in many white families moving to suburbs of large cities, or enrolling their children in private schools, hurting the movement.

California v. Bakke

Ruled that a university's use of racial "quotas" in its admissions process was unconstitutional, but a school's use of "affirmative action" to accept more minority applicants was constitutional in some circumstances.

Henry Kissinger

National security adviser and secretary of state during the Nixon and Ford administrations. He was responsible for negotiating an end to the Yom Kippur War as well as for the Treaty of Paris that led to a cease-fire in Vietnam in 1973.

Détente

The period of Cold War thawing when the United States and the Soviet Union negotiated reduced armament treaties under Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter. As a policy prescription, it marked a departure from the policies of proportional response, mutually assured destruction, and containment that had defined the earlier years of the Cold War.

Yom Kippur War (1973)

War fought by Israel and neighboring Arab nations where the Arabs launched a surprise attack during Yom Kippur. U.S. support for Israel during the war led to the OPEC oil embargo on the U.S. and other countries supporting Israel, creating a global oil shortage.

OPEC

Cartel comprising Middle Eastern states and Venezuela first organized in 1960. It aimed to control access to and prices of oil, wresting power from Western oil companies and investors. In the process, it gradually strengthened the hand of non-Western powers on the world stage.

OPEC Oil Embargo

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries that placed an embargo on oil sold to Israel's supporters. Caused worldwide oil shortage and long lines at gas stations in the US.

Philadelphia Plan

Program established by Richard Nixon to require construction trade unions to work toward hiring more black apprentices. The plan altered Lyndon Johnson's concept of "affirmative action" to focus on groups rather than individuals.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

A governmental organization signed into law by Richard Nixon in 1970 designed to regulate pollution, emissions, and other factors that negatively influence the natural environment. The creation of this agency marked a newfound commitment by the federal government to actively combat environmental risks and was a significant triumph for the environmentalist movement.

Southern Strategy

Nixon reelection campaign strategy designed to appeal to conservative whites in the historically Democratic South. The president stressed law and order issues and remained noncommittal on civil rights. This strategy typified the regional split between the two parties as white southerners became increasingly attracted to the Republican party in the aftermath of the civil rights movement.

Rachel Carson

American conservationist whose 1962 book Silent Spring galvanized the modern environmental movement that gained significant traction in the 1970s.

Stagflation

Term referring to the simultaneous occurrence of low employment growth and high inflation in the national economy. The phenomenon characterized the economic troubles of the 1970s and posed both an intellectual challenge to economists and a policymaking challenge to government officials.

Watergate

Series of scandals that resulted in President Richard Nixon's resignation in August 1974 amid calls for his impeachment. The episode sprang from a failed burglary attempt at Democratic party headquarters during the 1972 election.

Nixon Tape (the "Smoking Gun" Tape)

Recording made in the Oval Office in June 1972 that proved conclusively that Nixon knew about the Watergate break-in and endeavored to cover it up. Led to a complete breakdown in congressional support for Nixon after the Supreme Court ordered he hand the tape to investigators.

Nixon v. U.S.

The 1974 case in which the Supreme Court unanimously held that the doctrine of executive privileges was implicit in the Constitution but could not be extended to protect documents relevant to criminal prosecutions.

Gerald Ford

38th president of the United States, 1974-1977. A long-serving congressman from Michigan, he was appointed vice president when Spiro Agnew resigned in the fall of 1973. He succeeded to the presidency upon Nixon's resignation in August 1974 and focused his brief administration on containing inflation and reviving public faith in the presidency. He was defeated narrowly by Jimmy Carter in 1976.

Phyllis Schlafly

A grassroots conservative and antifeminist leader in postwar American politics. She wrote a best-selling campaign book for the 1964 Barry Goldwater campaign and, a decade later, led the successful mobilization against the Equal Rights Amendment through her organization STOP ERA.

Jimmy Carter

39th president of the United States, 1977-1981. A peanut farmer and former governor of Georgia, he defeated Gerald Ford in 1976. As president, he arranged the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel in 1978 but saw his foreign-policy legacy tarnished by the Iranian Revolution and hostage crisis in 1979. Domestically, he tried to rally the American spirit in the face of economic decline but was unable to stop the rapid increase in inflation. After leaving the presidency, he achieved widespread respect as an elder statesman and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.

New Right

Term for a loose network of conservative political activists and organizations that emerged in the 1970s and 1980s. More populist in tone than previous generations of conservatives, the New Right emphasized hot-button cultural issues like abortion, busing, and prayer in school. They also espoused a nationalist foreign policy outlook that rejected détente and international treaties.

Milton Friedman

A Nobel Prize-winning economist who helped to spearhead the public revival of pro-free-market thought in the later twentieth century. His neoclassical critique of Keynesian economics made him one of the most influential practitioners in his field. His popular writings on markets, democracy, and the dangers of big government, meanwhile, made him an intellectual giant of American conservatism.

Malaise Speech

National address by Jimmy Carter in July 1979 in which he chided American materialism and urged a communal spirit in the face of economic hardships. Although Carter intended the speech to improve both public morale and his standing as a leader, it had the opposite effect and was widely perceived as a political disaster for the embattled president.

Camp David Accords

This camp was the site where President Jimmy Carter brokered a series of agreements between Israel and Egypt in 1978, by which Israel agreed to return some of the territory obtained during the 1967 war, Egypt agreed to honor Israel's borders, and both hostile powers pledged to sign a peace treaty within three months. They were seen as a diplomatic triumph in President Carter's otherwise underwhelming term.

SALT II

Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty agreement between Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and American president Jimmy Carter. Despite an accord to limit weapons between the two leaders, the agreement was ultimately scuttled in the U.S. Senate following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

Iranian Hostage Crisis

The 444 days, from November 1979-January 1981, in which American embassy workers were held captive by Iranian revolutionaries. The Iranian Revolution began in January 1979 when young Muslim Fundamentalists overthrew the oppressive regime of the American-backed shah, forcing him into exile. Deeming the United States "the Great Satan," these revolutionaries triggered an energy crisis by cutting off Iranian oil. The hostage crisis began when revolutionaries stormed the American embassy, demanding that the United States return the shah to Iran for trial. The episode was marked by botched diplomacy and a failed rescue attempt by the Carter administration. After permanently damaging relations between the two countries, the crisis ended with the hostages' release the day Ronald Reagan became president, January 20, 1981.

Vietnamization

Military strategy launched by Richard Nixon in 1969. The plan reduced the number of American combat troops in Vietnam and left more of the fighting to the South Vietnamese, who were supplied with American armor, tanks, and weaponry.

Nixon Doctrine

President Nixon's plan for "peace with honor" in Vietnam. The doctrine stated that the United States would honor its existing defense commitments but, in the future, countries would have to fight their own wars.

Silent majority

Nixon administration's term to describe generally content, law-abiding, middle-class Americans who supported both the Vietnam War and America's institutions. As a political tool, the concept attempted to make a subtle distinction between believers in "traditional" values and the vocal minority of civil rights agitators, student protesters, counterculturalists, and other seeming disruptors of the social fabric.

My Lai

Vietnamese village that was the scene of a military assault on March 16, 1968, in which American soldiers under the command of 2nd Lieutenant William Calley murdered hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese civilians, mostly women and children. The atrocity produced outrage and reduced support for the war in America and around the world when details of the massacre and an attempted cover-up were revealed in November 1969.

Kent State University

Scene of massacre of four college students by National Guardsmen on May 4, 1970, in Ohio. In response to Nixon's announcement that he had expanded the Vietnam War into Cambodia, college campuses across the country exploded in violence. On May 14 and 15, students at historically black Jackson State College in Mississippi were protesting the war as well as the Kent State shooting when highway patrolmen fired into a student dormitory, killing two students.

Pentagon Papers

Secret U.S. government report detailing early planning and policy decisions regarding the Vietnam War under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. Leaked to the New York Times in 1971, it revealed instances of governmental secrecy, lies, and incompetence in the prosecution of the war.

War Powers Act

Law passed by Congress limiting the president's ability to wage war without congressional approval. The act required the president to notify Congress within forty-eight hours of committing troops to a foreign conflict. An important consequence of the Vietnam War, this piece of legislation sought to reduce the president's unilateral authority in military matters.