APUSH Period 8: America in the 1970s

Detente

An easing of tensions between the United States on the one hand and China and the USSR on the other by President Nixon, who traveled to China in 1972 to meet with Mao.

SALT I/II

Treaties drafted by the U.S. and USSR to limited nuclear weapons capacity and arsenals.

New Federalism

Nixon's attempt to decentralize decision-making about how federal funds should be spent, it distributed block grants to states for them to use as they saw fit.

Stagflation

A unique economic situation faced by political leaders of the early 1970s, where inflation and recession occurred simultaneously. Previously, in times of inflation, the economy was improving and vice versa. Nixon responded to this situation with wage and price controls and increased government spending, but this economic problem continued through the 1970s, prompting President Reagan to advocate for lower taxes and lower government spending in the 1980s.

Title IX

Federal law banning sex-based discrimination most often associated with equal access to athletics for students.

Southern strategy

Nixon's campaign plan in the election of 1972 which resulted in a landslide defeat of George McGovern after segregationist George Wallace was wounded by an assassin's bullet.

silent majority

Nixon's term for the many Americans who did not vocally, and violently, protest in the 1960s against social ills.

Spiro Agnew

Nixon's Vice President who attacked liberals and the media at Nixon's behest but was ultimately forced to resign due to corruption.

Warren Burger

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court after Earl Warren's death, he presided over the Roe v. Wade decision, much to surprise of conservatives.

Pentagon Papers

Documents leaked to the New York Times that formed the basis of an explosive expose uncovering government lies about the war in Vietnam.

CREEP

Nixon reelection campaign group that became implicated in the Watergate scandal.

Watergate scandal

A break-in into Democratic campaign headquarters was part of a series of dirty tricks carried out by the campaign to re-elect Richard Nixon. Efforts were made to cover up these actions. In the end, numerous officials went to jail for this and President Nixon was forced to resign. Nixon was ultimately forced to resign from the Presidency facing an impeachment after he conspired to obstruct justice and cover up the break in at the Watergate complex.

United States v. Nixon

Nixon was forced to turn over recordings of secret taped conversations as a consequence of this Supreme Court rulings. The recordings implicated him in the Watergate cover up.

Gerald Ford

Nixon's Vice President after Spiro Agnew resigned in the wake of corruption allegations, he later pardoned Nixon to end what he described as a "national nightmare."

War Powers Act

Legislation passed by Congress in 1973 to restrict the ability of the President as Commander-in-Chief to escalate undeclared wars overseas.

October War

1973 conflict initiated by Syria and Egypt targeting Israel to reclaim lands lost in 1967. The conflict prompted Nixon to send military aid to Israel, which triggered an oil embargo by Arab members of OPEC.

Oil embargo

Instituted by OPEC in 1973 to target U.S. support for Israel, this policy led to an economic crisis in the U.S. marked by high unemployment, loss of manufacturing, and attempts to improve efficiencies in transportation.

OPEC

A cartel that controlled the majority of the world's oil production capacity in the 1970s. It used its economic power to implement an embargo against the United States in the wake of the 1973 October War.

Archibald Cox

Special prosecutor investigating the Watergate scandal who was fired on Nixon's orders during the "Saturday Night Massacre," after two Nixon officials resigned instead of fire the special prosecutor.

George H.W. Bush

Congressman from Texas who became head of the C.I.A. and later Vice President and President himself. He was appointed to lead the CIA in the wake of revelations by the Church Committee about CIA interference, including assassination plots, in foreign countries and targeting U.S. citizens.

Khmer Rouge

Radical Communist group in Cambodia that overthrew the U.S.-backed government and instituted a harsh and violent relocation program that developed into a genocide.

Bicentennial Celebration

America turned 200, sort of, in 1976, and Americans used it as an opportunity to celebrate two centuries of American progress in spite of the calamities of the 1970s.

Jimmy Carter

Obscure Georgia Governor who won the 1976 presidential election but was criticized for his naive foreign policy. He won the Nobel Peace Prize, along with Sadat and Begin, for sponsoring negotiations between Egypt and Israel.

Andrew Young

Civil Rights leader and former mayor of Atlanta who Carter selected to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Camp David Accords

Peace negotiations facilitated by President Jimmy Carter that laid the ground work for Egypt's recognition of Israel and Israel's transfer of the Sinai peninsula to Egypt. Egypt was the first Arab state to recognize Israel. Signed in early 1979, Israel agreed to give back territory in the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt, while Egypt agreed to recognize Israel's right to exist as a nation.

Anwar Sadat

Egyptian leader at the Camp David Accords.

Menachim Begin

Israeli leader at the Camp David Accords.

Ayatollah Khomeini

Leader of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran.

Islamic Revolution

The overthrow of the U.S.-backed Shah in Iran, who had been installed in 1953 with CIA support. Ayatollah Khomeini and other clerics sought to roll back western influences in Iran.

Iranian Hostage Crisis

Precipitated by the Islamic Revolution and the U.S. unwillingness to return the Shah to Iran for trial, thousands of students and other protesters in Tehran seized the U.S. Embassy in 1979 and held Americans for more than a year until Ronald Reagan successfully negotiated their release.

1980 Moscow Olympics

Boycotted by the U.S. in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the U.S. refusal to attend this quadrennial event helped mark the end of detente between the U.S. and Soviet Union which began in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

"taxpayers' revolt"

Instigated in the wake of interest rate hikes intended to reduce inflation, this loose political movement or wave in 1980 helped sweep Ronald Reagan to power. Many Americans had seen their standard of living sag during the economic malaise of the 1970s, which they attributed to excessive government spending.

"Nixon shock"

A series of economic measures instituted by President Nixon in 1971 to stimulate the economy, including moving the U.S. off of the gold standard and instituting a 90 day wage and price freeze.

Church Committee

U.S. Senate committee in the mid-1970s that investigated abuses by the FBI, NSA, IRS, and CIA going back to the 1940s. The abuses included subversion and assassination plans targeting foreign leaders like Patrice Lumumba in the Congo, and secret data collection on U.S. citizens.

Fall of Saigon

Culmination in 1975 of a renewed offensive by North Vietnamese forces after the Paris Peace Accords (1973) that saw the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese government fall and Vietnam re-unified under Communist control.

Three Mile Island incident

Nuclear accident narrowly averted at power plant in Pennsylvania precipitated by the partial meltdown of the power plant's nuclear reactor. The accident prompted a temporary voluntary evacuation and investigations into the safety of the U.S. nuclear power industry.

"Smoking Gun"

During the Watergate scandal, President Nixon's opponents searched for something that linked him to criminal activity. After a court battle, Nixon was forced to release tapes of conversations in the Oval Office that showed him plotting a cover-up. This revelation led to his resignation and severely damaged the presidency and establishment Republicans in the eyes of American votes. It helped secure Democratic victories in Congress in the 1970s but also give rise to the populist right-wing conservatism of Ronald Reagan.

Opening to China

During the 1950s and 1960s the U.S. refused to diplomatically recognize the People's Republic of China ("Red China"). Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger decided that this new approach to China was necessary. In 1972, Nixon visited China, beginning a new era in Sino-American relations. President Reagan supported this policy during his 1980 campaign, and he supported the "One-State" solution despite also offering "assurances" to Taiwan, including the sale of military hardware.

Religious Right

This primarily Protestant Christian movement grew greatly in the 1970s and pushed to return "morality" to the forefront in American life. The movement is especially active in opposing abortion, and since the 1980s has extended its influence into the political sphere by endorsing and campaigning for candidates.

Affirmative Action

Policies that began in the 1970s to make up for past discrimination. Gave minorities and women advantages in applying for certain jobs and in applying for admission to certain universities. The Supreme Court, however, struck down racial quotas in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978) as a violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

New Right

Conservative movement that began in the 1960s and triumphed with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. Able to attract many middle-class and southern voters to the Republican Party by emphasizing the themes of patriotism, smaller government, and "traditional values."

WIN (Whip Inflation Now)

President Gerald Ford and his administration wrestled unsuccessfully with the unemployment and inflation that plagued the U.S. in the 1970s. This acronym represented a push for tax and spending cuts, and Ford supporters tried to build confidence by wearing buttons emblazoned with this acronym, with little success. These economic problems continued through the Carter administration and into Reagan's early presidency.

'Saturday Night Massacre"

On October 20, 1973, Richard Nixon ordered the firing of Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor in the Watergate case. Attorney General Elliot Richardson and several other Justice Department officials refused to carry out this order and resigned, further damaging Nixon's popularity.

Special Prosecutor

Official appointed to investigate specific government wrongdoing. Archibald Cox was assigned to investigate Watergate, while Kenneth Starr investigated the connections between President Clinton and Whitewater.

Plumbers

These intelligence professionals worked for the committee to reelect Nixon in 1972. They were to stop "leaks" and perform "dirty tricks" on political opponents. They broke into the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist looking for damaging information against Ellsberg.