Gerald Ford – 1974-1977

• Political Party – Republican

• Assumed office upon the resignation of President Nixon in August of 1974

• Only president to never be elected to position of president or vice president

Domestic Policy

• Pardons Richard Nixon on September 8, 1974, led to protests• Nelson Rockefeller nominated to serve as vice president• Economic issues major crisis during presidency• Called for tax on domestic oil producers – upset conservatives• Busing issue - Boston judge ordered the city school system to

integrate immediately schools that were segregated and in close proximity by busing black students to predominantly white schools, and vice versa – riots, violence break out

• Ford does not use the federal government to intervene in Boston – demonstrates view that less federal government is key

Domestic Policy

• New York City – bankruptcy issues in 1975 • Ford against federal bailout of New York,

ultimately agrees to $2.3 billion• Reversal upsets conservative Republicans• Ronald Reagan, Governor of California,

challenges Ford during the Republican primary of 1976

• Ford re-nominated, loses general election to Jimmy Carter

Economic Issues• Rise in unemployment and inflation• Economic difficulties connected to Vietnam and the rise in spending of

the federal government (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid)• Rise in oil prices connected to Yom Kippur War of 1973• Unemployment connected to increased competition from foreign

manufacturing• “Stagflation”• “Whip Inflation Now” – WIN• Ford proposes higher taxes, reduction in government spending, then

proposes a tax cut – political issue• Battles with Congress over tax cuts and government spending• Revenue Adjustment Act of 1975 – tax cut, Congress would limit further

government spending

Foreign Affairs

• George H.W. Bush – head of CIA• Henry Kissinger – Secretary of State• Vietnam – deterioration of South Vietnam, Ford makes

case for more military aid, Congress rejects• Ford orders the withdrawal of all American personnel in

April 1975• Continued policy of détente with the Soviet Union

– Criticism of continued easing of tensions with the Soviet Union

– Helsinki Accords – recognized boundaries in Europe post – WWII, support human rights

Jimmy Carter – 1977-1981

• Political Party - Democrat

Domestic Policy

• “Outsider” image – focus on ending the “imperial” presidency

• Pardoned Vietnam draft resisters• Difficult relationship with Congress• Emergency Natural Gas Act• Department of Energy• OPEC crisis – increase in gas prices – long gas lines in

the summer of 1979• Focused on decreased reliance on foreign oil• “Malaise” speech – decreased public support

Foreign Policy

• Focus on securing human rights abroad• Issues with Panama Canal intervention• Camp David Accords – agreement between Egypt

and Israel – agreement not to attack one another – most significant foreign policy achievement of Carter’s presidency

• Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 – U.S. cut off grain sales, boycotted the 1980 Summer Olympics

• Formal diplomatic recognition of China

Iran Hostage Crisis

• Iranian Revolution of 1979 – religious fundamentalist movement that replaced western supported Shah Pahlavi

• Carter allowed the Shah to come to the United States for medical treatment – this upset fundamentalist forces in Iran

• Radicals storm American embassy in Tehran, capture 66 American citizens

• Carter froze Iranian assets in the U.S.• Carter attempts negotiations to release hostages, not successful• Failed rescue missions• Reaches an agreement at the end of his term, hostages are

released on the day Ronald Reagan is inaugurated as president

Ronald Reagan – 1981-1989

• Political Party – Republican

• Oldest elected president in U.S. history, he was 69 at the time of his inauguration

Economic Policy• Tax reductions and budget cuts• Focused on increasing military spending, decreasing spending on social

services• Supply-side economic policy• Higher interest rates to borrow money• 25% reduction in taxes• “Reagan Recession” – 1983, increase in unemployment, restriction of money

supply• Tightening of Social Security costs – raised retirement age, increased payroll

taxes• “Reaganomics” – tax cuts for the wealthy, supply-side economics• Following the recession, a rapid increase in economic performance of the

United States began• Increased national debt and deficit

1984 Election

• Ronald Reagan (Republican) vs. Walter Mondale (Democratic), vice president under Jimmy Carter

• The Reagan-Bush ticket won an overwhelming victory on election day, carrying every state but Mondale's Minnesota and the District of Columbia, and defeating Mondale in the Electoral College by 525 to 13.

• Reagan's popular vote total was even more impressive—54 million votes to Mondale's 37 million—a margin exceeded only by Nixon's win over George McGovern in 1972.

1984 Election

Foreign Affairs

• Increased military spending to confront the Soviet Union

• Backed away from policy of détente• “Evil empire”• Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) “Star Wars”• Soviets shot down Korean civilian airplane in

1983

Foreign Affairs

• Air strikes against Libya• Invasion of Grenada in 1983• Involvement in Lebanon in 1983– The most deadly attack against the United States

occurred on October 23, 1983, when terrorists blew up the Marines' barracks at the Beirut airport, killing 241 U.S. servicemen, most of them Marines.

Foreign Affairs

• Reagan Doctrine - the soldiers and insurgents struggling against Communism on battlefields throughout the world were "freedom fighters," a description applied to the Contras opposing the Sandinista government in Nicaragua.

• In his February 6, 1985, State of the Union message, Reagan called for support of anti-Communist forces "from Afghanistan to Nicaragua" and proclaimed that "support for freedom fighters is self-defense."

Foreign Affairs – Iran Contra

• "Iran-Contra," short-handed in history to a single scandal, actually involved two separate initiatives.

• The first was the sale of a small amount of U.S. military equipment—primarily anti-tank missiles—to Iran in contradiction of the Reagan administration's public policy of remaining neutral in the Iran-Iraq War.

• The Contra part of the affair was the attempt by a small group of National Security Council staff members and former military men to funnel proceeds from the sale of these weapons to the Contra rebels opposing the Nicaraguan government.

U.S.S.R.

• In November 1985, Reagan and Gorbachev met for the first time in Geneva; they held additional summits in each of the succeeding years of the Reagan presidency.

• The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) emerged at the Geneva summit as a key sticking point in the U.S.-Soviet relationship but also as leverage for a potential arms agreement.

George H.W. Bush – 1989-1993

• Political Party – Republican

• Served as Vice President under President Ronald Reagan

Domestic Policy

• Federal debt at $2.8 trillion at the time of inauguration

• Focus on preservation of Reagan’s policies• Campaign pledge of “no new taxes” made it

difficult to raise revenue for government programs

• Agrees in 1990 to cut government spending, raise taxes to close deficit – very unpopular decision

Americans with Disabilities Act

• Forbid discrimination based on disability in employment, public accommodations, and transportation.

• The bill made it illegal for employers to discriminate against the disabled, guaranteed the disabled adequate access to places of business and public venues, expanded access to transportation, and provided for equivalent access to telecommunications.

Clean Air Act

• March 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker ran aground, and more than 10 million gallons of oil spilled into Prince William Sound in Alaska. The Exxon Valdez disaster made the public more receptive to the need for environmental protection.

• The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 built on the first bill passed in 1963 and subsequent bills in 1970 and 1977. The 1990 amendments focused on three aspects of clean air: reducing urban smog, curbing acid rain, and eliminating industrial emissions of toxic chemicals.

Foreign Affairs

• Limited sanctions toward China during Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989

• Panama– In December 1989, the Bush administration was notified

that Manuel Noriega's military forces had killed a U.S. serviceman and attacked another serviceman and his wife. The administration now believed that it had the justification it needed to remove Noriega from power. On December 20, the U.S. military launched "Operation Just Cause" with about 10,000 forces landing in Panama and joining the 13,000 already there to quickly overtake the Panamanian military.

End of Cold War

• When East Germany opened its borders and Germans tore down the Berlin Wall separating East and West Berlin in early November 1989, it marked a symbolic end to Communist rule in Eastern Europe. In the minds of many, the Cold War was over.

End of Cold War

• In a December 1989 summit between Bush and Gorbachev in Malta, the two leaders discussed arms reductions and strengthening their relations.

• At a summit in Washington, D.C., in June 1990, the two men signed a broad arms reduction agreement in which the United States and Soviet Union consented to decreasing their nuclear arsenals.

• In July 1991, Bush met Gorbachev in Moscow and signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, known as START.

• German reunification 1990

Persian Gulf War

• On August 2, 1990, Iraq invaded its neighbor Kuwait. Saddam Hussein, the President of Iraq, had long held designs on Kuwait's land, wealth, and oil.

• Although intelligence agencies had watched Iraq's military buildup along its border with Kuwait, both the United States and Iraq's Arab neighbors did not believe that Hussein had plans to invade the small country to its south.

• The invasion violated international law, and the Bush administration was alarmed at the prospect of Iraq controlling Kuwait's oil resources.

Persian Gulf War• "Operation Desert Storm" began on January 17, 1991, when U.S.-led

coalition forces began massive air strikes against Iraq. The coalition launched the ground war on February 24 and quickly overwhelmed the Iraqi forces. Coalition troops reached Kuwait City by February 27, and a ceasefire was declared the next day.

• On March 3, General Norman Schwarzkopf, commander in chief of the U.S. forces, met with the Iraqi leadership to dictate the terms of the ceasefire.

• The war had ended in less than two months, and the Bush administration had successfully committed to the largest military action since the Vietnam War without getting bogged down or suffering high casualties.

• On March 6, President Bush addressed a joint session of Congress and declared, "tonight Kuwait is free."

Bill Clinton – 1993-2001

• Political Party – Democrat

• 2nd president in American history to be impeached

Domestic Policy

• Upper class tax increases• Budget surplus by 1999• NAFTA – 1994• Attempted health care reform – not successful• Difficulty dealing with Republican controlled

Congress

Republican Revolution

• 1994 – Republicans control Congress (Newt Gingrich)• By 1998, the Republican offensive that captured both

houses of Congress in 1994 had run out of steam. Not only did the Republicans lose the presidential election of 1996 but they also lost public support by overplaying their hands in the impeachment of a popular President during times of prosperity.

• As a result, the nation settled for compromise or deadlock for the last two years of the Clinton presidency. During this period, the administration decided that it could best achieve some of its policy goals through executive order.

Foreign Affairs - Somalia

• Somalia - What started out as a humanitarian mission to combat famine grew into a bloody military struggle, with the bodies of dead American soldiers dragged through the streets of the Somalian capital of Mogadishu in October 1993.

• Public support for the American mission waned, and Clinton announced a full withdrawal of U.S. forces, which took place in March 1994; United Nations (UN) peacekeeping troops remained in the country until the spring of 1995.

Foreign Affairs - Somalia

• In April 1994, a vast killing spree broke out in Rwanda, a nation located in central Africa. An estimated 800,000 Tutsi and their defenders were murdered in a government-sponsored genocide.

• With the failure in Somalia still very much in the minds of American policymakers, neither the United States nor the United Nations moved aggressively to stop the slaughter. Both Clinton and the world community were criticized for not acting quickly and decisively to stop the violent deaths of Rwandans.

• In 1998, the Clintons embarked on an extensive six-nation tour of Africa, during which the President stopped briefly in Rwanda to meet with survivors of the civil war and to issue an apology for actions not taken.

Foreign Affairs - Serbia• In 1999, Clinton moved with NATO to begin a massive bombing

campaign against the Serbian government to end its "ethnic cleansing" of Albanians in the Kosovo region.

• Specially trained forces from the Serb Interior Ministry, along with paramilitary forces that had been active in Bosnia years before, had created hundreds of thousands of refugees through the application of this policy; Serb forces also murdered thousands of ethnic Albanians.

• But the bombing worked and, with the help of Russian diplomacy, forced the Serbian government to withdraw from the region.

• With no American battle casualties during the fighting, U.S. troops joined British, French, and other NATO forces to occupy Kosovo as peacekeepers under an agreement worked out with Yugoslavia.

George W. Bush – 2001-2009

• Political Party – Republican

• 1 of only 2 sons of presidents to serve as presidents themselves (John Q. Adams)

Domestic Policy

• Huge tax cuts• No Child Left Behind Act– The legislation mandates student testing and ties

federal funding to the results; low performing schools won't have their funding withdrawn, but must take concrete steps to improve.

• Criticism over government funding for mandated programs.

Foreign Affairs

• September 11, 2001 – attacks on New York city and Washington, D.C.

• October 7 2001 – invasion of Afghanistan, overthrow of the Taliban regime

• March 2003 – invasion of Iraq, overthrow of Saddam Hussein, search for weapons of mass destruction (WMD’s) – pre-emptive war

Iraq

• March 19 2003 – invasion of Iraq• In October 2002, presented Congress with a

resolution authorizing him to invade Iraq if Saddam Hussein did not surrender what everyone on both sides of the debate assumed to be a reality: its arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.

• Capture and execution of Saddam Hussein• Criticism of involvement and search for weapons of

mass destruction

Barack Obama – 2009-2017

• Political Party – Democrat

• 1st African American in U.S. history to become president of the United States

Domestic Policy

• “Team of Rivals” cabinet appointments• Endorsed bailout package of the Bush

administration• American Recovery and Reinvestment Act -

$800 billion stimulus package• March 23, 2010, Obama signed the Patient

Protection and Affordable Care Act into law. One week later he signed the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act

Foreign Policy

• Troop withdrawals in Iraq and Afghanistan• Execution of Osama Bin Laden – May 2011