the stalemated seventies€¦ · the stalemated seventies 1968–1980 in all my years of public...

946

40

The StalematedSeventies

��

1968–1980

In all my years of public life, I have never obstructed justice. Peoplehave got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I’m

not a crook; I earned everything I’ve got.

RICHARD NIXON, 1973

As the 1960s lurched to a close, the fantastic quarter-century economic boom of the post–

World War II era also showed signs of petering out.By increasing their productivity, American workershad doubled their average standard of living in thetwenty-five years since the end of World War II. Now,fatefully, productivity gains slowed to the vanishingpoint. The entire decade of the 1970s did not wit-ness a productivity advance equivalent to even oneyear’s progress in the preceding two decades. At thenew rate, it would take five hundred more years tobring about another doubling of the averageworker’s standard of living. The median income ofthe average American family stagnated in the twodecades after 1970, and failed to decline onlybecause of the addition of working wives’ wages tothe family income (see the chart on p. 947). The ris-ing baby-boom generation now faced the depress-ing prospect of a living standard that would be lower

than that of their parents. As the postwar wave ofrobust economic growth crested by the early 1970s,at home and abroad the “can do” American spiritgave way to an unaccustomed sense of limits.

Sources of Stagnation

What caused the sudden slump in productivity?Some observers cited the increasing presence in thework force of women and teenagers, who typicallyhad fewer skills than adult male workers and wereless likely to take the full-time, long-term jobs where skills might be developed. Other commen-tators blamed declining investment in new ma-chinery, the heavy costs of compliance withgovernment-imposed safety and health regulations,and the general shift of the American economy from

manufacturing to services, where productivity gainswere allegedly more difficult to achieve and mea-sure. Yet in the last analysis, much mystery attendsthe productivity slowdown, and economists havewrestled inconclusively with the puzzle.

The Vietnam War also precipitated painful economic distortions. The disastrous conflict inSoutheast Asia drained tax dollars from needed im-provements in education, deflected scientific skilland manufacturing capacity from the civilian sec-tor, and touched off a sickening spiral of inflation.Sharply rising oil prices in the 1970s also fed infla-tion, but its deepest roots lay in government policiesof the 1960s—especially Lyndon Johnson’s insis-tence on simultaneously fighting the war in Vietnamand funding the Great Society programs at home, allwithout a tax increase to finance the added expen-ditures. Both military spending and welfare spend-ing are inherently inflationary (in the absence ofoffsetting tax collections), because they put dollarsin people’s hands without adding to the supply ofgoods that those dollars can buy.

When too many dollars chase too few goods,prices rise—as they did astonishingly in the 1970s.The cost of living more than tripled in the dozenyears following Richard Nixon’s inauguration, in thelongest and steepest inflationary cycle in Americanhistory.

Other weaknesses in the nation’s economy werealso laid bare by the abrupt reversal of America’sfinancial fortunes in the 1970s. The competitiveadvantage of many major American businesses had

Economic Woes 947

Current

Inflation -adjusted (1970 dollars)

1970 1975 1980 1985 1995 2000(est.)

1990

U.S.

Dol

lars

(in

thou

sand

s)55

50

45

40

35

30

25

20

15

10

5

0

Median Family Income, 1970–2000During the long post–World War II economic boom(from about 1950 to 1970), family incomesincreased dramatically, but after 1970 “real,” orinflation-adjusted, incomes stagnated. Prosperity atthe end of the twentieth century has led to recentincreases. (Sources: U.S. Census Bureau and Bureauof Labor Statistics.)

been so enormous after World War II that they hadsmall incentive to modernize plants and seek moreefficient methods of production. The defeated Ger-man and Japanese people had meanwhile clawedtheir way out of the ruins of war and built whollynew factories with the most up-to-date technologyand management techniques. By the 1970s theirefforts paid handsome rewards, as they came todominate industries like steel, automobiles, andconsumer electronics—fields in which the UnitedStates had once been unchallengeable.

The poor economic performance of the 1970shung over the decade like a pall. It frustrated bothpolicymakers and citizens who keenly rememberedthe growth and optimism of the quarter-centurysince World War II. The overachieving postwar gen-eration had never met a problem it could not solve.But now a stalemated, unpopular war and a stag-nant, unresponsive economy heralded the end ofthe self-confident postwar era. With it ended the lib-eral dream, vivid since New Deal days, that an afflu-ent society could spend its way to social justice.

Nixon “Vietnamizes” the War

Inaugurated on January 20, 1969, Richard Nixonurged the American people, torn with dissensionover Vietnam and race relations, to “stop shouting atone another.” Yet the new president seemed anunlikely conciliator of the clashing forces thatappeared to be ripping apart American society. Soli-tary and suspicious by nature, Nixon could be brittleand testy in the face of opposition. He also harboredbitter resentments against the “liberal establish-ment” that had cast him into the political darknessfor much of the preceding decade. Yet Nixonbrought one hugely valuable asset with him to theWhite House—his broad knowledge and thoughtfulexpertise in foreign affairs. With calculating shrewd-ness he applied himself to putting America’s foreign-policy house in order.

The first burning need was to quiet the publicuproar over Vietnam. President Nixon’s announcedpolicy, called “Vietnamization,” was to withdraw the540,000 U.S. troops in South Vietnam over anextended period. The South Vietnamese—withAmerican money, weapons, training, and advice—could then gradually take over the burden of fight-ing their own war.

The so-called Nixon Doctrine thus evolved. Itproclaimed that the United States would honor itsexisting defense commitments but that in thefuture, Asians and others would have to fight theirown wars without the support of large bodies ofAmerican ground troops.

Nixon sought not to end the war, but to win it byother means, without the further spilling of Ameri-can blood. But even this much involvement was dis-tasteful to the American “doves,” many of whomdemanded a withdrawal that was prompt, com-plete, unconditional, and irreversible. Antiwar pro-testers staged a massive national Vietnammoratorium in October 1969, as nearly 100,000 peo-ple jammed the Boston Common and some 50,000filed by the White House carrying lighted candles.

Undaunted, Nixon launched his own home-front counteroffensive. On November 3, 1969, hedelivered a dramatic televised appeal to the great“silent majority,” who presumably supported thewar. Though ostensibly conciliatory, Nixon’s appealwas in fact deeply divisive, as he sought to carve outa political constituency that would back his policies.His intentions soon became clear when heunleashed tough-talking Vice President Agnew toattack the “misleading” news media, as well as the“effete corps of impudent snobs” and the “natteringnabobs of negativism” who demanded quick with-drawal from Vietnam. Nixon himself in 1970

948 CHAPTER 40 The Stalemated Seventies, 1968–1980

sneered at the student antiwar demonstrators as“bums.”

By January 1970 the Vietnam conflict hadbecome the longest in American history and, with40,000 killed and over 250,000 wounded, the thirdmost costly foreign war in the nation’s experience. Ithad also become grotesquely unpopular, evenamong troops in the field. Because draft policieslargely exempted college students and men withcritical civilian skills, the armed forces in Vietnamwere largely composed of the least privileged youngAmericans. Especially in the war’s early stages,African-Americans were disproportionately repre-sented in the army and accounted for a dispropor-tionately high share of combat fatalities. Black andwhite soldiers alike fought not only against the Viet-namese enemy but also against the coiled fear offloundering through booby-trapped swamps andsteaming jungles, often unable to distinguish friendfrom foe among the Vietnamese peasants. Drugabuse, mutiny, and sabotage dulled the army’s fight-ing edge. Morale appeared to have plummeted torock bottom when rumors filtered out of Vietnamthat soldiers were “fragging” their own officers—murdering them with fragmentation grenades.

Domestic disgust with the war was furtherdeepened in 1970 by revelations that in 1968 Ameri-can troops had massacred innocent women andchildren in the village of My Lai. Increasingly des-perate for a quick end to the demoralizing conflict,

Nixon widened the war in 1970 by ordering anattack on Vietnam’s neighbor, Cambodia.

Cambodianizing the Vietnam War

For several years the North Vietnamese and VietCong had been using Cambodia, bordering SouthVietnam on the west, as a springboard for troops,weapons, and supplies. Suddenly, on April 29, 1970,without consulting Congress, Nixon ordered Ameri-can forces to join with the South Vietnamese incleaning out the enemy sanctuaries in officiallyneutral Cambodia.

Restless students nationwide responded to theCambodian invasion with rock throwing, windowsmashing, and arson. At Kent State University inOhio, jumpy members of the National Guard firedinto a noisy crowd, killing four and wounding manymore; at Jackson State College in Mississippi, thehighway patrol discharged volleys at a student dor-mitory, killing two black students. The nation fellprey to turmoil as rioters and arsonists convulsedthe land.

Nixon’s Vietnam Policies 949

A Marine Corps officer expressed the dis-illusion that beset many American troops inVietnam:

“For years we disposed of the enemy dead likeso much garbage. We stuck cigarettes in themouths of corpses, put Playboy magazines intheir hands, cut off their ears to wear aroundour necks. We incinerated them with napalm,atomized them with B-52 strikes, shovedthem out the doors of helicopters above theSouth China Sea. . . . All we did was count,count bodies. Count dead human beings. . . .That was our fundamental military strategy.Body count. And the count kept going up.”

Nixon withdrew the American troops fromCambodia on June 29, 1970, after only two months.But in America the Cambodian invasion deepenedthe bitterness between “hawks” and “doves,” asright-wing groups physically assaulted leftists. Disil-lusionment with “whitey’s war” increased omi-nously among African-Americans in the armedforces. The Senate (though not the House) over-whelmingly repealed the Gulf of Tonkin blank checkthat Congress had given Johnson in 1964 and soughtways to restrain Nixon. The youth of America, stillaroused, were only slightly mollified when the gov-ernment reduced draft calls and shortened theperiod of draftability, on a lottery basis, from eightyears to one year. They were similarly pleased,though not pacified, when the Twenty-sixth Amend-ment in 1971 lowered the voting age to eighteen (seethe Appendix).

In the spring of 1971, mass rallies and marchesonce more erupted from coast to coast. New com-bustibles fueled the fires of antiwar discontent inJune 1971, when The New York Times published atop-secret Pentagon study of America’s involvementin the Vietnam War. These Pentagon Papers,“leaked” to the Times by former Pentagon officialDaniel Ellsberg, laid bare the blunders and decep-tions of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations,

especially the provoking of the 1964 North Viet-namese attack in the Gulf of Tonkin.

Nixon’s Détente with Beijing (Peking) and Moscow

As the antiwar firestorm flared ever higher, Nixonconcluded that the road out of Vietnam ran throughBeijing and Moscow. The two great communistpowers, the Soviet Union and China, were clashingbitterly over their rival interpretations of Marxism.Nixon astutely perceived that the Chinese-Soviettension afforded the United States an opportunityto play off one antagonist against the other and toenlist the aid of both in pressuring North Vietnaminto peace.

Nixon’s thinking was reinforced by his nationalsecurity adviser, Dr. Henry A. Kissinger. Bespecta-cled and German-accented, Kissinger had reachedAmerica as a youth when his parents fled Hitler’santi-Jewish persecutions. In 1969 the former Har-vard professor had begun meeting secretly onNixon’s behalf with North Vietnamese officials inParis to negotiate an end to the war in Vietnam. Hewas meanwhile preparing the president’s path toBeijing and Moscow.

Nixon, heretofore an uncompromising anti-communist, announced to a startled nation in July1971 that he had accepted an invitation to visitChina the following year. He made his historic jour-ney in February 1972. Between glass-clinking toastsand walks on the fabled Great Wall of China, hepaved the way for improved relations betweenWashington and Beijing.

Nixon next traveled to Moscow in May 1972 to play his “China card” in a game of high-stakesdiplomacy in the Kremlin. The Soviets, hungry forAmerican foodstuffs and alarmed over the possibil-ity of intensified rivalry with an American-backedChina, were ready to deal. Nixon’s visits ushered inan era of détente, or relaxed tension, with the twocommunist powers. Détente resulted in several sig-nificant agreements. One product of eased relationswas the great grain deal of 1972—a three-yeararrangement by which the food-rich United Statesagreed to sell the Soviets at least $750 million worthof wheat, corn, and other cereals.

Far more important were steps to stem the dan-gerously frantic competition in nuclear arms. The


first major achievement was an anti–ballistic missile(ABM) treaty, which limited each nation to two clus-ters of defensive missiles. The second significant pactwas an agreement, known as SALT (Strategic ArmsLimitation Talks), to freeze the numbers of long-range nuclear missiles for five years. These accords,both ratified in 1972, constituted a long-overdue firststep toward slowing the arms race. Yet even thoughthe ABM treaty forbade elaborate defensive systems,the United States forged ahead with the developmentof “MIRVs” (multiple independently targeted reentryvehicles), designed to overcome any defense by “sat-urating” it with large numbers of warheads, several toa rocket. Predictably, the Soviets proceeded to“MIRV” their own missiles, and the arms race ratch-eted up to a still more perilous plateau, with over six-teen thousand nuclear warheads deployed by bothsides by the end of the 1980s.

Nixon’s détente diplomacy did, to some extent,deice the Cold War. Moreover, by checkmating andco-opting the two great communist powers, thepresident had cleverly set the stage for America’sexit from Vietnam. But the concluding act in thatwrenching tragedy still remained to be played.

A New Team on the Supreme Bench

Nixon had lashed out during the campaign at the“permissiveness” and “judicial activism” of theSupreme Court presided over by Chief Justice EarlWarren. Following his appointment in 1953, thejovial Warren had led the Court into a series of deci-sions that drastically affected sexual freedom, therights of criminals, the practice of religion, civilrights, and the structure of political representation.The decisions of the Warren Court reflected its deepconcern for the individual, no matter how lowly.

High-Stakes Diplomacy in China and the Soviet Union 951

In Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), the Courtstruck down a state law that prohibited the use ofcontraceptives, even among married couples. TheCourt proclaimed (critics said “invented”) a “right ofprivacy” that soon provided the basis for decisionsprotecting women’s abortion rights.

In 1963 the Court held (Gideon v. Wainwright)that all defendants in serious criminal cases wereentitled to legal counsel, even if they were too poorto afford it. More controversial were the rulings intwo cases—Escobedo (1964) and Miranda (1966)—that ensured the right of the accused to remainsilent and to enjoy other protections when accusedof a crime. In this way safeguards were erectedagainst confessions extorted under the rubber hoseand other torture. Critics of these decisions wereloud in their condemnation of “crook coddling” anddemanded that the courts handcuff criminals, notthe “cops.”

Freedom of the press was also emphaticallyendorsed by the Warren Court in the case of NewYork Times v. Sullivan (1964). The Court ruled unan-imously that public figures could sue for libel only ifthey could prove that “malice” had motivated theirdefamers. The decision opened a wide door for free-wheeling criticism of the public actions as well asthe private lives of politicians and other officials.

Nor did the Court shy away from explosive reli-gious issues. In two stunning decisions, Engel v.Vitale (1962) and School District of Abington Town-ship v. Schempp (1963), it voted against requiredprayers and Bible reading in the public schools.These rulings were based on the First Amendment,which requires the separation of church and state,but to many religious believers they seemed to putthe justices in the same bracket with atheistic com-munists. Cynics predicted that the “old goats inblack coats” would soon be erasing “In God WeTrust” from all coins.

Infuriating to many southerners was the determination of the Court, following the school-desegregation decision of 1954, to support blackpeople in civil rights cases. Five southern state legislatures officially nullified the “sociological”Supreme Court decision, but they in turn were over-ruled by the high tribunal. In general, it held that thestates could not deny to blacks the rights that wereextended to whites. Conservatives maligned theWarren Court for not interpreting the Constitutionbut rewriting it, at the expense of states’ rights andother constitutional guarantees. It was acting, they

charged, too much like a legislature and not enoughlike a judicial body.

The Warren Court also struck at the overrepre-sentation in state legislatures of cow-pasture agricul-tural districts. Adopting the principle of one-man-one-vote, the Court in Reynolds v. Sims (1964) ruledthat the state legislatures, both upper and lowerhouses, would have to be reapportioned according tothe human population, irrespective of cows. States’righters and assorted right-wingers raised anew thebattle cry “Impeach Earl Warren.” But the legislaturesgrudgingly went ahead with reapportionment.

From 1954 on, the Court came under relentlesscriticism, the bitterest since New Deal days. Its foesmade numerous but unsuccessful efforts to clip itswings through bills in Congress or through constitu-tional amendments. But for better or worse, theCourt was grappling with stubborn social problemsspawned by midcentury tensions, even—or espe-cially—if duly elected legislatures failed to do so.

Fulfilling campaign promises, President Nixonundertook to change the Court’s philosophical complexion. Taking advantage of several vacancies,he sought appointees who would strictly interpretthe Constitution, cease “meddling” in social andpolitical questions, and not coddle radicals or crimi-nals. The Senate in 1969 speedily confirmed hisnomination of white-maned Warren E. Burger ofMinnesota to succeed the retiring Earl Warren aschief justice. Before the end of 1971, the Courtcounted four conservative Nixon appointments outof nine members.

Yet Nixon was to learn the ironic lesson thatmany presidents have learned about their SupremeCourt appointees: once seated on the high bench,the justices are fully free to think and decide accord-ing to their own beliefs, not according to the presi-dent’s expectations. The Burger Court that Nixonshaped proved reluctant to dismantle the “liberal”rulings of the Warren Court; it even produced themost controversial judicial opinion of moderntimes, the momentous Roe v. Wade decision in 1973,which legalized abortion (see p. 989).

Nixon on the Home Front

Surprisingly, Nixon presided over significant expan-sion of the welfare programs that conservativeRepublicans routinely denounced. He approved


increased appropriations for entitlements like FoodStamps and Medicaid, as well as for the largest fed-eral welfare program, Aid to Families with Depend-ent Children (AFDC), which especially targetedsingle mothers of young children. Nixon also imple-mented a new federal program, Supplemental Secur-ity Income (SSI), which gave generous benefits to theindigent aged, blind, and disabled. He signed legisla-tion in 1972 that raised Social Security old-age pen-sions and provided for automatic increases when thecost of living rose more than 3 percent in any year.Ironically, though designed to protect the elderlyagainst the ravages of inflation, this “indexing” actu-ally helped to fuel the inflationary fires that ragedout of control later in the decade. Yet in the shortrun, Nixon’s generous expansion of Great Societyprograms—along with continuing economicgrowth—helped reduce the nation’s poverty rate to11 percent in 1973, its lowest level in modern history.

Amid much controversy, Nixon also did theGreat Society one better in his attack on racial dis-crimination. His so-called Philadelphia Plan of 1969required construction-trade unions working on fed-eral contracts in Philadelphia to establish “goals andtimetables” for the hiring of black apprentices. Nixonmay have been motivated in part by a desire toweaken the forces of liberalism by driving a wedgebetween blacks and trade unions. But whatever hisreasoning, the president’s new policy had far-reach-ing implications. Soon extended to all federal con-tracts, the Philadelphia Plan in effect requiredthousands of employers to meet hiring quotas or toestablish “set-asides” for minority subcontractors.

Nixon’s Philadelphia Plan drastically altered themeaning of “affirmative action.” Lyndon Johnsonhad intended affirmative action to protect individu-als against discrimination. Nixon now transformedand escalated affirmative action into a program thatconferred privileges on certain groups. The SupremeCourt went along with Nixon’s approach. In Griggs v.Duke Power Co. (1971), the black-robed justices pro-hibited intelligence tests or other devices that hadthe effect of excluding minorities or women fromcertain jobs. The Court’s ruling strongly suggestedthat the only sure protection against charges of dis-crimination was to hire minority workers—or admitminority students—in proportion to their presencein the population.

Together the actions of Nixon and the Courtopened broad employment and educational oppor-tunities for minorities and women. They also

opened a Pandora’s box of protest. Critics assailedthe new style of affirmative action as “reverse dis-crimination.” They objected especially that such asweeping policy had been created by executiveorder and judicial decision, not by democraticallyelected representatives in the legislature. Yet whatother remedy was there, defenders asked, to offsetcenturies of prejudice and opportunity denied?

Among the other major legacies of the Nixonyears was the creation in 1970 of the EnvironmentalProtection Agency (EPA) and a companion body, theOccupational Health and Safety Administration(OSHA). Their births climaxed two decades ofmounting concern for the environment, beginningwith the establishment in Los Angeles of the Air Pollution Control Office in 1950. Author Rachel Carson gave the environmental movement a hugeboost in 1962 when she published Silent Spring, anenormously effective piece of latter-day muckrakingthat exposed the poisonous effects of pesticides.

Nixon’s Domestic Policies 953

Legislatively armed by the Clean Air Act of 1970, theEndangered Species Act of 1973, and similar laws,EPA and OSHA stood on the frontline of the battlefor ecological sanity. They made notable progress inthe ensuing decades on reducing automobile emis-sions and cleaning up befouled waterways and toxicwaste sites. Impressed by the new environmentalistmood, Congress refused after 1972 to pay for anymore of the huge irrigation projects that hadwatered—and ecologically transformed—much ofthe arid West over the preceding half century.

Worried about creeping inflation (then runningat about 5 percent), Nixon overcame his distaste foreconomic controls and imposed a ninety-day wageand price freeze in 1971. To stimulate the nation’ssagging exports, he next stunned the world by tak-ing the United States off the gold standard anddevaluing the dollar. These moves effectively endedthe “Bretton Woods” system of international cur-rency stabilization that had functioned for morethat a quarter of a century after World War II.

Elected as a minority president, with only 43percent of the vote in 1968, Nixon devised a cleverbut cynical plan—called the “southern strategy”—toachieve a solid majority in 1972. His Supreme Courtnominations constituted an important part of hisscheme. The southern strategy emphasized anappeal to white voters by soft-pedaling civil rightsand openly opposing school busing to achieve racialbalance. But as fate would have it, the southernstrategy became superfluous as foreign policy dom-inated the presidential campaign of 1972.

The Nixon Landslide of 1972

Vietnam continued to be the burning issue. Nearlyfour years had passed since Nixon had promised, asa presidential candidate, to end the war and “win”the peace. Yet in the spring of 1972, the fightingescalated anew to alarming levels when the NorthVietnamese, heavily equipped with foreign tanks,burst through the demilitarized zone (DMZ) sepa-rating the two Vietnams. Nixon reacted promptly bylaunching massive bombing attacks on strategiccenters in North Vietnam, including Hanoi, the cap-ital. Gambling heavily on foreign forbearance, healso ordered the dropping of contact mines toblockade the principal harbors of North Viet-nam. Either Moscow or Beijing, or both, could have

responded explosively, but neither did, thanks toNixon’s shrewd diplomacy. The North Vietnameseoffensive finally ground to a halt.

The continuing Vietnam conflict spurred therise of South Dakota senator George McGovern tothe 1972 Democratic nomination. McGovern’spromise to pull the remaining American troops outof Vietnam in ninety days earned him the backingof the large antiwar element in the party. But hisappeal to racial minorities, feminists, leftists, andyouth alienated the traditional working-class back-bone of his party. Moreover, the discovery shortlyafter the convention that McGovern’s running mate,Missouri senator Thomas Eagleton, had undergonepsychiatric care forced Eagleton’s removal from theticket and virtually doomed McGovern’s candidacy.

Nixon’s campaign emphasized that he hadwound down the “Democratic war” in Vietnam fromsome 540,000 troops to about 30,000. His candidacyreceived an added boost just twelve days before the election when the high-flying Dr. Kissingerannounced that “peace is at hand” in Vietnam andthat an agreement would be settled in a few days.

Nixon won the election in a landslide. His lop-sided victory encompassed every state except Mas-sachusetts and the nonstate District of Columbia.He piled up 520 electoral votes to 17 for McGovernand a popular majority of 47,169,911 to 29,170,383votes. McGovern had counted on a large number ofyoung people’s votes, but less than half the 18–21age group even bothered to register to vote. Nixon’sclaim that the election gave him an unprecedentedmandate for his policies was weakened by Republi-can election losses in both the House and Senate.

Bombing North Vietnam to the Peace Table

The dove of peace, “at hand” in Vietnam just beforethe balloting, took flight after the election, whenNixon refused to be stampeded into acceptingterms pocked with obvious loopholes. After thefighting on both sides had again escalated, helaunched a furious two-week bombing of NorthVietnam in an ironhanded effort to force the NorthVietnamese back to the conference table. Thisattack was the heaviest of the war and resulted insubstantial losses of America’s big B-52 bombers.But this merciless pounding drove the North Viet-


namese negotiators to agree to cease-fire arrange-ments on January 23, 1973, nearly three monthsafter peace was prematurely proclaimed.

Nixon hailed the face-saving cease-fire agree-ments as “peace with honor,” but the boast ranghollow. The United States was to withdraw itsremaining 27,000 or so troops and could reclaimsome 560 American prisoners of war. The govern-ment of South Vietnam would be permitted to con-tinue receiving limited U.S. support but no moreU.S. fighting forces. An election was eventually to beheld to determine the future of the country. TheNorth Vietnamese were allowed to keep some145,000 troops in South Vietnam, where they couldbe used to spearhead a powerful new offensivewhen the time seemed ripe. Ominously, the NorthVietnamese still occupied about 30 percent of SouthVietnam. The shaky “peace” was in reality little morethan a thinly disguised American retreat.

Watergate Woes

Nixon’s electoral triumph was soon sullied by theso-called Watergate scandals. On June 17, 1972,some two months before his renomination, a bun-gled burglary had occurred in the Democratic head-quarters, located in the Watergate apartment-office

complex in Washington. Five men were arrestedinside the building with electronic “bugging” equip-ment in their possession. They were working for theRepublican Committee for the Re-election of thePresident—popularly known as CREEP—which hadmanaged to raise tens of millions of dollars, often by secretive, unethical, or unlawful means. CREEPhad also engaged in a “dirty tricks” campaign ofespionage and sabotage, including faked docu-ments, directed against Democratic candidates inthe campaign of 1972.

The Watergate break-in was only the tip of an iceberg in a slimy sea of corruption that madethe Grant and Harding scandals look almostrespectable. Several prominently placed WhiteHouse aides and advisers were forced to resign.Many were involved in the criminal obstruction ofjustice through tangled cover-ups or payments ofhush money. By early 1974 twenty-nine people hadbeen indicted, had pleaded guilty, or had been con-victed of Watergate-related crimes.

The scandal in Washington also provoked theimproper or illegal use of the Federal Bureau ofInvestigation and the Central Intelligence Agency.Even the Internal Revenue Service was called uponby Nixon’s aides to audit or otherwise harass politi-cal opponents and others who had fallen into disfa-vor. A White House “enemies list” turned up thatincluded innocent citizens who were to be hounded

The Watergate Scandal 955

WASH.9

ORE.6

CALIF.45

NEV.3

IDAHO4

MONTANA4

WYO.3

UTAH4 COLO.

7

ARIZ.6

ALASKA3

S.D.4

KANSAS7

OKLA.8

MICH.21

N.Y.41

N.D.3 MINN.

10

IOWA8NEBR.

5

MO.12

ARK.6

LA.10

TEXAS26

N.M.4 MISS.

7

ALA.9 GA.

12

FLA.17

TENN. 10N.C.13

S.C.8

VA.12

W.VA.6

MD. 10

PA.27

OHIO25IND.

13ILL.26

WISC.11

KY.9

ME.4

N.H.4

VT.3 MASS.

14

R.I. 4CONN. 8

N.J. 17DEL. 3

HAWAII4

D.C. 3

Nixon—RepublicanMcGovern—Democratic

Presidential Election of 1972 (with electoral vote by state)Nixon buried McGovern in thiselection, but when his admini-stration soon thereafter began to sink in a swamp of scandals,bumper stickers appeared in Bos-ton proclaiming, “Don’t blameme, I’m from Massachusetts.”

or prosecuted in various ways. In the name ofnational security, Nixon’s aides had authorized aburglary of the files of Dr. Daniel Ellsberg’s psychia-trist, so great was the determination to destroy theman who had “leaked” the Pentagon Papers. Thiswas the most notorious exploit of the White House“plumbers unit,” created to plug up leaks of confi-dential information.

A select Senate committee, headed by the agingSenator Sam Ervin of North Carolina, conducted aprolonged and widely televised series of hearings in1973–1974. John Dean III, a former White Houselawyer with a remarkable memory, testified gliblyand at great length as to the involvement of the topechelons in the White House, including the presi-dent, in the cover-up of the Watergate break-in.Dean in effect accused Nixon of the crime ofobstructing justice. But the committee then hadonly the unsupported word of Dean against weightyWhite House protestations of innocence.

The Great Tape Controversy

A bombshell exploded before Senator Ervin’s com-mittee in July 1973 when a former presidential aidereported the presence in the White House of “bug-ging” equipment, installed under the president’s

authority. President Nixon’s conversations, in per-son or on the telephone, had been recorded on tapewithout notifying the other parties that electroniceavesdropping was taking place.

Nixon had emphatically denied prior knowl-edge of the Watergate burglary or involvement inthe cover-up. Now Dean’s sensational testimonycould be checked against the White House tapes,and the Senate committee could better determinewho was telling the truth. But for months Nixonflatly refused to produce the taped evidence. Hetook refuge behind various principles, includingseparation of powers and executive privilege (confi-dentiality). But all of them were at least constitu-tionally dubious, especially when invoked to coverup crime or obstruct justice.

The anxieties of the White House deepenedwhen Vice President Agnew was forced to resign inOctober 1973 for taking bribes or “kickbacks” fromMaryland contractors while governor and also asvice president. President Nixon himself was now indanger of being removed by the impeachmentroute, so Congress invoked the Twenty-fifth Amend-ment (see the Appendix) to replace Agnew with atwelve-term congressman from Michigan, Gerald(“Jerry”) Ford. His record in public life was politi-cally respectable and his financial affairs proved tobe above suspicion at a time when unquestionedhonesty was in short supply.


Ten days after Agnew’s resignation came thefamous “Saturday Night Massacre” (October 20,1973). Archibald Cox, a Harvard law professor ap-pointed as a “special prosecutor” by Nixon in May,issued a subpoena for relevant tapes and other doc-uments from the White House. A cornered Nixonthereupon ordered the firing of Cox and then ac-cepted the resignations of the attorney general andthe deputy attorney general because they refused tofire Cox.

The Secret Bombing of Cambodia and the War Powers Act

As if Watergate were not enough, the constitutional-ity of Nixon’s continued aerial battering of Cambo-dia came under increasing fire. In July 1973 Americawas shocked to learn that the U.S. Air Force hadalready secretly conducted some thirty-five hun-dred bombing raids against North Vietnamese posi-tions in Cambodia. They had begun in March 1969and had continued for some fourteen months priorto the open American incursion in May 1970. Themost disturbing feature of these sky forays was thatwhile they were going on, American officials,including the president, were avowing that Cambo-dian neutrality was being respected. CountlessAmericans began to wonder what kind of represen-tative government they had if the United States wasfighting a war they knew nothing about.

Defiance followed secretiveness. After the Viet-nam cease-fire in January 1973, Nixon openly car-ried on his large-scale bombing of communist forcesin order to help the rightist Cambodian government.This stretching of presidential war-making powersmet furious opposition from the public and from aclear majority in both houses of Congress, whichrepeatedly tried to stop the bombing by cutting offappropriations. But Nixon’s vetoes of such legislationwere always sustained by at least one-third-plus-onevotes in the House. Finally, with appropriations run-ning short, Nixon agreed to a compromise in June1973 whereby he would end the Cambodian bomb-ing six weeks later and seek congressional approvalof any future action in that bomb-blasted country.

The years of bombing had inflicted grislywounds on Cambodia. Incessant American air raidshad blasted its people, shredded its economy, andrevolutionized its politics. The long-suffering Cam-bodians soon groaned under the sadistic heel of PolPot, a murderous tyrant who dispatched as many as2 million of his people to their graves. He was forcedfrom power, ironically enough, only by a full-dressVietnamese invasion in 1978, followed by a militaryoccupation that dragged on for a decade.

Congressional opposition to the expansion ofpresidential war-making powers by Johnson andNixon led to the War Powers Act in November 1973.Passed over Nixon’s veto, it required the president toreport to Congress within forty-eight hours aftercommitting troops to a foreign conflict or “substan-tially” enlarging American combat units in a foreign

The Bombing of Cambodia 957

country. Such a limited authorization would have toend within sixty days unless Congress extended itfor thirty more days.

Compelling Nixon to end the bombing of Cam-bodia in August 1973 was but one manifestation ofwhat came to be called the “New Isolationism.” Thedraft had ended in January 1973, although it wasretained on a standby basis. Future members of thearmed forces were to be well-paid volunteers—achange that greatly eased tensions among youth.Insistent demands arose in Congress for reducingAmerican armed forces abroad, especially becausesome 300,000 remained in Europe more than a quar-ter of a century after Hitler’s downfall. The argumentoften heard was that the Western European coun-tries, with more population than the Soviet Union,ought by now to be willing and able to provide fortheir own defense against the forces of communism.But President Nixon, fearful of a weakened hand inthe high-stakes game of power politics, headed offall serious attempts at troop reduction.

The Arab Oil Embargo and the Energy Crisis

Adding to Nixon’s problems, the long-rumbling Mid-dle East erupted anew in October 1973, when therearmed Syrians and Egyptians unleashed surpriseattacks on Israel in an attempt to regain the territorythey had lost in the Six-Day War of 1967. With theIsraelis in desperate retreat, Kissinger, who hadbecome secretary of state in September, hastily flew toMoscow in an effort to restrain the Soviets, who were

arming the attackers. Believing that the Kremlin waspoised to fly combat troops to the Suez area, Nixonplaced America’s nuclear forces on alert and ordered agigantic airlift of nearly $2 billion in war materials tothe Israelis. This assistance helped save the day, as theIsraelis aggressively turned the tide and had stormedto a stone’s throw from Cairo when American diplo-macy brought about an uneasy cease-fire.

America’s policy of backing Israel against its oil-rich neighbors exacted a heavy penalty. Late inOctober 1973, the Arab nations suddenly clampedan embargo on oil for the United States and forother countries supporting Israel. Americans had tosuffer through a long, cold winter of lowered ther-mostats and speedometers. Lines of automobiles atservice stations lengthened as tempers shortenedand a business recession deepened.

The “energy crisis” suddenly energized a num-ber of long-deferred projects. Congress approved acostly Alaska pipeline and a national speed limit offifty-five miles per hour to conserve fuel. Agitationmounted for heavier use of coal and nuclear power,despite the environmental threat they posed.

The five months of the Arab “blackmail”embargo in 1974 clearly signaled the end of an era—the era of cheap and abundant energy. A twenty-year surplus of world oil supplies had masked thefact that since 1948 the United States had been a netimporter of oil. American oil production peaked in1970 and then began an irreversible decline. Bliss-fully unaware of their dependence on foreign sup-pliers, Americans, like revelers on a binge, had morethan tripled their oil consumption since the end ofWorld War II. The number of automobiles increased250 percent between 1949 and 1972, and Detroit’sengineers gave nary a thought to building morefuel-efficient engines.

By 1974 America was oil addicted and extremelyvulnerable to any interruption in supplies. Thatstark fact colored the diplomatic and economic his-tory of the 1980s and 1990s. The Middle East loomedever larger on the map of America’s strategic inter-ests, until the United States in 1990 at last founditself pulled into a shooting war with Iraq to protectits oil supplies.

The Middle Eastern sheiks, flexing their eco-nomic muscles through OPEC (Organization ofPetroleum Exporting Countries), approximatelyquadrupled their price for crude oil after lifting theembargo in 1974. Huge new oil bills wildly disruptedthe U.S. balance of international trade and addedfurther fuel to the already raging fires of inflation.


The Washington Post (July 19, 1973) carriedthis news item:

“American B-52 bombers dropped about104,000 tons of explosives on Communistsanctuaries in neutralist Cambodia during aseries of raids in 1969 and 1970. . . . Thesecret bombing was acknowledged by thePentagon the Monday after a former AirForce major . . . described how he falsifiedreports on Cambodian air operations anddestroyed records on the bombing missionsactually flown.”

The United States took the lead in forming the Inter-national Energy Agency in 1974 as a counterweightto OPEC, and various sectors of the economy,including Detroit’s carmakers, began their slow,grudging adjustment to the rudely dawning age ofenergy dependency. But full reconciliation to thatuncomfortable reality was a long time coming.

The Unmaking of a President

Political tribulations added to the nation’s cup ofwoe in 1974. The continuing impeachment inquirycast damning doubts on Nixon’s integrity. Respond-ing at last to the House Judiciary Committee’sdemand for the Watergate tapes, Nixon agreed inthe spring of 1974 to the publication of “relevant”portions of the tapes, declaring that these wouldvindicate him. But substantial sections of thewanted tapes were missing, and Nixon’s frequentobscenities were excised with the phrase “expletivedeleted.” Confronted with demands for the rest ofthe material, Nixon flatly refused. On July 24, 1974,the president suffered a disastrous setback whenthe Supreme Court unanimously ruled that “execu-tive privilege” gave him no right to withhold fromthe special prosecutor portions of tapes relevant tocriminal activity. Skating on thin ice over hot water,Nixon reluctantly complied.

The House Judiciary Committee pressed aheadwith its articles of impeachment. The key vote came

late in July 1974, when the committee adopted thefirst article, which charged obstruction of “theadministration of justice,” including Watergate-related crimes. Two other articles were laterapproved by the committee accusing Nixon of hav-ing abused the powers of his office and of havingshown contempt of Congress by ignoring lawfulsubpoenas for relevant tapes and other evidence.

Seeking to soften the impact of inevitable dis-closure, Nixon voluntarily took a step, on August 5,1974, that had a devastating effect on what re-mained of his credibility. He now made public threesubpoenaed tapes of conversations with his chiefaide on June 23, 1972. One of them had him givingorders, six days after the Watergate break-in, to usethe CIA to hold back an inquiry by the FBI. NowNixon’s own tape-recorded words convicted him ofhaving been an active party to the attempted cover-up, in itself the crime of obstructing justice. Morethan that, he had solemnly told the American peo-ple on television that he had known nothing of theWatergate whitewash until about nine months later.

The public backlash proved to be overwhelming.Republican leaders in Congress concluded that theguilty and unpredictable Nixon was a loose cannonon the deck of the ship of state. They frankly in-formed the president that his impeachment by thefull House and removal by the Senate were foregoneconclusions. They made it clear that he would bestserve his nation, his party, and himself by resigningwith honor, or a semblance of it. If convicted by theSenate, he would lose all his normal retirement

The Fall of Nixon 959

benefits; if he resigned he could retain them—morethan $150,000 a year—and retire in royal splendor.

Left with no better choice, Nixon choked backhis tears and announced his resignation in a dra-matic television appearance on August 8, 1974. Fewpresidents had flown so high, and none had sunk solow. In his Farewell Address, Nixon admitted havingmade some “judgments” that “were wrong” butinsisted that he had always acted “in what I believedat the time to be the best interests of the nation.”Unconvinced, countless Americans would changethe song “Hail to the Chief” to “Jail to the Chief.”

The nation had survived a wrenching constitu-tional crisis, which proved that the impeachmentmachinery forged by the Founding Fathers couldwork when public opinion overwhelmingly de-manded that it be implemented. The principles thatno person is above the law and that presidents mustbe held to strict accountability for their acts werestrengthened. The United States of America, on theeve of its two-hundredth birthday as a republic, hadgiven an impressive demonstration of self-disciplineand self-government to the rest of the world.

The First Unelected President

Gerald Rudolph Ford, the first man to be made pres-ident solely by a vote of Congress, entered thebesmirched White House in August 1974 with seri-ous handicaps. He was widely—and unfairly—suspected of being little more than a dim-witted for-mer college football player. President Johnson hadsneered that “Jerry” was so lacking in brainpowerthat he could not walk and chew gum at the sametime. Worse, Ford had been selected, not elected,vice president, following Spiro Agnew’s resignationin disgrace. The sour odor of illegitimacy hungabout this president without precedent.

Then, out of a clear sky, Ford granted a completepardon to Nixon for any crimes he may have com-mitted as president, discovered or undiscovered.Democrats were outraged. They wanted iron-toothed justice, even vengeance. They heatedlycharged, without persuasive evidence, that Ford wascarrying out a “buddy deal” that had been cooked upwhen Nixon nominated him for the vice presidency.Ford explained that he only wanted to end Nixon’sprivate agony, heal the festering wounds in the body


Examining the Evidence 961

The “Smoking Gun” Tape, June 23, 1972,10:04–11:39 A.M. The technological capability torecord Oval Office conversations combined withRichard Nixon’s obsession with documenting hispresidency to give the public—and the Senatecommittee investigating his role in the break-in ofthe Democratic National Committee headquartersin the Watergate Office Tower—rare access to per-sonal conversations between the president and hisclosest advisers. This tape, which undeniablyexposed Nixon’s central role in constructing a“cover-up” of the Watergate break-in, was made onNixon’s first day back in Washington after thebotched burglary of June 17, 1972. In this conver-sation with White House Chief of Staff H. R. Halde-man, Nixon devised a plan to block a wideningF.B.I. investigation by instructing the director ofthe C.I.A. to deflect any further F.B.I. snooping onthe grounds that it would endanger sensitive C.I.A.operations. Nixon refused to turn over this andother tapes to Senate investigators until so orderedby the Supreme Court on July 24, 1974. Within fourdays of its release on August 5, Nixon was forced toresign. After eighteen months of protesting hisinnocence of the crime and his ignorance of anyeffort to obstruct justice, Nixon was finally undoneby the evidence in this incriminating “smokinggun” tape. While tapes documented two straightyears of Nixon’s Oval Office conversations, otherpresidents, such as Franklin Roosevelt, John F.Kennedy, and Lyndon Baines Johnson, recordedimportant meetings and crisis deliberations. SinceWatergate, however, it is unlikely that any presi-dent has permitted extensive tape recording,depriving historians of a unique insight into theinner-workings of the White House. Should tapedWhite House discussions be part of the publicrecord of a presidency, and if so, who should haveaccess to them? What else might historians learnfrom a tape like this one, besides analyzing theWatergate cover-up?

Haldeman: . . . yesterday, they concluded itwas not the White House, but arenow convinced it is a CIA thing,so the CIA turn off would . . .

President: Well, not sure of their analysis,I’m not going to get thatinvolved. I’m (unintelligible).

Haldeman: No, sir. We don’t want you to.

President: You call them in.

President: Good. Good deal! Play it tough.That’s the way they play it andthat’s the way we are going toplay it.

Haldeman: O.K. We’ll do it.

President: Yeah, when I saw that newssummary item, I of course knewit was a bunch of crap, but Ithought ah, well it’s good to havethem off on this wild hair thingbecause when they start buggingus, which they have, we’ll knowour little boys will not know howto handle it. I hope they willthough. You never know. Maybe,you think about it. Good!

President: When you get in these peoplewhen you . . . get these peoplein, say: “Look, the problem isthat this will open the whole, the whole Bay of Pigs thing, andthe President just feels that” ah,without going into the details . . .don’t, don’t lie to them to theextent to say there is noinvolvement, but just say this is sort of a comedy of errors,bizarre, without getting into it,“the President believes that it is going to open the whole Bay of Pigs thing up again. And, ah because these people areplugging for, for keeps and thatthey should call the FBI in andsay that we wish for thecountry, don’t go any furtherinto this case,” period!

politic, and let the country get on with its business,undistracted by a possibly sensational trial. But lin-gering suspicions about the circumstances of thepardon cast a dark shadow over Ford’s prospects ofbeing elected president in his own right in 1976.

Ford at first sought to enhance the so-calleddétente with the Soviet Union that Nixon hadcrafted. In July 1975 President Ford joined leadersfrom thirty-four other nations in Helsinki, Finland,to sign several sets of historic accords. One group ofagreements officially wrote an end to World War IIby finally legitimizing the Soviet-dictated bound-aries of Poland and other Eastern European coun-tries. In return, the Soviets signed a “third basket” ofagreements, guaranteeing more liberal exchanges ofpeople and information between East and West andprotecting certain basic “human rights.” TheHelsinki accords kindled small dissident move-ments in Eastern Europe and even in the USSRitself, but the Soviets soon poured ice water on thesesputtering flames of freedom. Moscow’s restrictionson Jewish emigration had already, in December1974, prompted Congress to add punitive restric-tions to a U.S.-Soviet trade bill.

Western Europeans, especially the West Ger-mans, cheered the Helsinki conference as a mile-stone of détente. But in the United States, criticsincreasingly charged that détente was proving to bea one-way street. American grain and technology

flowed across the Atlantic to the USSR, and little ofcomparable importance flowed back. And Sovietships and planes continued to haul great quantitiesof arms and military technicians to procommunistforces around the globe.

Despite these difficulties, Ford at first clungstubbornly to détente. But the American public’sfury over Moscow’s double-dealing so steadilymounted that by the end of his term, the presidentwas refusing even to pronounce the word détente inpublic. The thaw in the Cold War was threatening toprove chillingly brief.

Defeat in Vietnam

Early in 1975 the North Vietnamese gave full throttleto their long-expected drive southward. PresidentFord urged Congress to vote still more weapons forVietnam, but his plea was in vain, and without thecrutch of massive American aid, the South Viet-namese quickly and ingloriously collapsed.

The dam burst so rapidly that the remainingAmericans had to be frantically evacuated by heli-copter, the last of them on April 29, 1975. Also res-cued were about 140,000 South Vietnamese, most ofthem so dangerously identified with the Americansthat they feared a bloodbath by the victorious com-


munists. Ford compassionately admitted these peo-ple to the United States, where they added furtherseasoning to the melting pot. Eventually some500,000 arrived (see “Makers of America: The Viet-namese,” pp. 964–965).

America’s longest, most frustrating war thusended not with a bang but a whimper. In a technicalsense, the Americans had not lost the war; theirclient nation had. The United States had fought theNorth Vietnamese to a standstill and had then with-drawn its troops in 1973, leaving the South Viet-namese to fight their own war, with generousshipments of costly American aircraft, tanks, andother munitions. The estimated cost to America was$118 billion in current outlays, together with some56,000 dead and 300,000 wounded. The people ofthe United States had in fact provided just abouteverything, except the will to win—and that couldnot be injected by outsiders.

Technicalities aside, America had lost morethan a war. It had lost face in the eyes of foreigners,lost its own self-esteem, lost confidence in its mili-tary prowess, and lost much of the economic mus-cle that had made possible its global leadershipsince World War II. Americans reluctantly came torealize that their power as well as their pride hadbeen deeply wounded in Vietnam and that recoverywould be slow and painful.

Feminist Victories and Defeats

As the army limped home from Vietnam, there waslittle rejoicing on the college campuses, wheredemonstrators had once braved tear gas and billyclubs to denounce the war. The antiwar movement,like many of the other protest movements that con-vulsed the country in the 1960s, had long sincesplintered and stalled. One major exception to thispattern stood out: although they had their differ-ences, American feminists showed vitality andmomentum. They won legislative and judicial victo-ries and provoked an intense rethinking of genderroles. (On the roots of this movement, see “Makersof America: The Feminists,” pp. 968–969.)

Thousands of women marched in the Women’sStride for Equality on the fiftieth anniversary ofwoman suffrage in 1970. In 1972 Congress passedTitle IX of the Education Amendments, prohibitingsex discrimination in any federally assisted educa-tional program or activity. Perhaps this act’s biggestimpact was to create opportunities for girls’ andwomen’s athletics at schools and colleges, giving birthto a new “Title IX generation” that would reach matu-rity in the 1980s and 1990s and help professionalizewomen’s sports as well. The Equal Rights Amendment(ERA) to the Constitution won congressional approval

Women’s Fight for Equality 963

The Vietnamese

At first glance the towns of Westminster andFountain Valley, California, seem to resemble

other California communities nearby. Tract homesline residential streets; shopping centers flank thebusy thoroughfares. But these are no ordinaryAmerican suburbs. Instead they make up “LittleSaigons,” vibrant outposts of Vietnamese culture inthe contemporary United States. Shops offer exoticAsian merchandise; restaurants serve such delica-cies as lemongrass chicken. These neighborhoods,living reminders of America’s anguish in Vietnam,are a rarely acknowledged consequence of that sor-rowful conflict.

Before South Vietnam fell in 1975, few Viet-namese ventured across the Pacific. Only in 1966did U.S. immigration authorities even designate“Vietnamese” as a separate category of newcomers,and most early immigrants were the wives and chil-dren of U.S. servicemen. But as the communists

closed in on Saigon, many Vietnamese, particularlythose who had worked closely with American orSouth Vietnamese authorities, feared for theirfuture. Gathering together as many of theirextended-family members as they could assemble,thousands of Vietnamese fled for their lives. In a fewhectic days in 1975, some 140,000 Vietnameseescaped before the approaching gunfire, a few dra-matically clinging to the bottoms of departing helicopters. From Saigon they were conveyed tomilitary bases in Guam and the Philippines.Another 60,000 less fortunate Vietnamese escapedat the same time over land and sea to Hong Kongand Thailand, where they waited nervously for per-mission to move on. To accommodate the refugees,the U.S. government set up camps across thenation. Arrivals were crowded into army barracksaffording little room and less privacy. These wereboot camps not for military service but for assimila-tion into American society. A rigorous programtrained the Vietnamese in English, forbade childrenfrom speaking their native language in the class-room, and even immersed them in American slang.Many resented this attempt to mold them, to stripthem of their culture.

Their discontent boiled over when authoritiesprepared to release the refugees from camps andboard them with families around the nation. Theresettlement officials had decided to find a sponsorfor each Vietnamese family—an American familythat would provide food, shelter, and assistance forthe refugees until they could fend for themselves.But the Vietnamese people cherish their traditionalextended families—grandparents, uncles, aunts,and cousins living communally with parents andchildren. Few American sponsors would accommo-date a large extended family; fewer Vietnamese fam-ilies would willingly separate.

The refugees were dispersed to Iowa, Illinois,Pennsylvania, New York, Washington, and Califor-

964

nia. But the settlement sites, many of them tuckedaway in rural districts, offered scant economicopportunities. The immigrants, who had heldmainly skilled or white-collar positions in Vietnam,bristled as they were herded into menial labor. Assoon as they could, they relocated, hastening toestablished Vietnamese enclaves around San Fran-cisco, Los Angeles, and Dallas.

Soon a second throng of Vietnamese immi-grants pushed into these Little Saigons. Fleeingfrom the ravages of poverty and from the oppressivecommunist government, these stragglers hadcrammed themselves and their few possessions intolittle boats, hoping to reach Hong Kong or getpicked up by ships. Eventually many of these “boatpeople” reached the United States. Usually less edu-cated than the first arrivals and receiving far lessresettlement aid from the U.S. government, theywere, however, more willing to start at the bottom.Today these two groups total more than half a mil-lion people. Differing in experience and expecta-tions, the Vietnamese share a new home in a strangeland. Their uprooting is an immense, unreckonedconsequence of America’s longest war.

965

in 1972. It declared, “Equality of rights under the lawshall not be denied or abridged by the United States orby any State on account of sex.” Twenty-eight statesquickly ratified the amendment, first proposed by suf-fragists in 1923. Hopes rose that the ERA might soonbecome the law of the land.

Even the Supreme Court seemed to be on themovement’s side. In Reed v. Reed (1971) and Fron-tiero v. Richardson (1973), the Court challenged sexdiscrimination in legislation and employment. Andin the landmark case of Roe v. Wade (1973), the Courtstruck down laws prohibiting abortion, arguing thata woman’s decision to terminate a pregnancy wasprotected by the constitutional right of privacy.

But the feminist movement soon faced a formi-dable backlash. In 1972 President Nixon vetoed aproposal to set up nationwide public day care, say-ing it would weaken the American family. Antifemi-

nists blamed the women’s movement for the risingdivorce rate, which tripled between 1960 and 1976.And the Catholic Church and the religious rightorganized a powerful grassroots movement tooppose the legalization of abortion.

For many feminists, the most bitter defeat wasthe death of the ERA. With ratification by thirty-eight state legislatures, the amendment would havebecome part of the Constitution. Conservativespokeswoman Phyllis Schlafly led the campaign to stop the ERA. Its advocates, she charged, werejust “bitter women seeking a constitutional cure for their personal problems.” In 1979 Congressextended the deadline for ratification, but ERAopponents dug in their heels. The amendment diedin 1982, three states short of success.

The Seventies in Black and White

Although the civil rights movement had fractured,race remained an explosive issue in the 1970s. TheSupreme Court in Milliken v. Bradley (1974) blind-sided school integrationists when it ruled thatdesegregation plans could not require students tomove across school-district lines. The decisioneffectively exempted suburban districts from shoul-dering any part of the burden of desegregatinginner-city schools, thereby reinforcing “white flight”from cities to suburbs. By the same token, the deci-sion distilled all the problems of desegregation intothe least prosperous districts, often pitting the poor-est, most disadvantaged elements of the white andblack communities against one another. Boston andother cities were shaken to their foundations byattempts to implement school-desegregation plansunder these painful conditions.

Affirmative action programs also remainedhighly controversial. White workers who weredenied advancement and white students who wererefused college admission continued to raise the cryof “reverse discrimination.” They charged that theirrights had been violated by employers and admis-sions officers who put more weight on racial or eth-nic background than on ability or achievement.

One white Californian, Allan Bakke, made head-lines in 1978 when the Supreme Court, by the nar-rowest of margins (five to four) upheld his claim thathis application to medical school had been turneddown because of an admissions program that par-tially favored minority applicants. In a tortured deci-


sion, reflecting the troubling moral ambiguities andinsoluble political complexities of this issue, theCourt ordered the University of California at Davismedical school to admit Bakke, and declared thatpreference in admissions could not be given tomembers of any group, minority or majority, on thebasis of ethnic or racial identity alone. Yet at thesame time, the Court said that racial factors might betaken into account in a school’s overall admissionspolicy. Among the dissenters on the sharply dividedbench was the Court’s only black justice, ThurgoodMarshall. He warned in an impassioned opinion thatthe denial of racial preferences might sweep awayyears of progress by the civil rights movement. Butmany conservatives cheered the decision as affirm-ing the principle that justice is colorblind.

One of the most remarkable developments ofthe 1970s was the resurgence of Native Americanpolitical power. Inspired by the civil rights move-ment, American Indians learned to use the courtsand well-planned acts of civil disobedience toadvance their aims. But while blacks had foughtagainst segregation, Indians used the tactics of thecivil rights movement to assert their status as sepa-rate semisovereign peoples. Indian activists cap-tured the nation’s attention by seizing the island ofAlcatraz in 1970 and the village of Wounded Knee,South Dakota, in 1972. A series of victories in thecourts consolidated the decade’s gains. In the caseof United States v. Wheeler (1978), the Supreme

Court declared that Indian tribes possessed a“unique and limited” sovereignty, subject to the willof Congress but not to individual states.

The Bicentennial Campaign and the Carter Victory

America’s two-hundredth birthday, in 1976, fell during a presidential election year—a fitting coinci-dence for a proud democracy. Gerald Ford en-ergetically sought nomination for the presidency inhis own right and won the Republican nod at theKansas City convention.

The Democratic standard-bearer was fifty-one-year-old James Earl Carter, Jr., a dark-horse candi-date who galloped out of obscurity during the longprimary-election season. Carter, a peanut farmerfrom Plains, Georgia, had served as his state’s gover-nor from 1971 to 1975. Flashing a toothy smile andinsisting on humble “Jimmy” as his first name, thisborn-again Baptist touched many people with hisdown-home sincerity. He ran against the memory ofNixon and Watergate as much as he ran againstFord. His most effective campaign pitch was hispromise that “I’ll never lie to you.” Untainted by tieswith a corrupt and cynical Washington, he attractedvoters as an outsider who would clean the disor-derly house of “big government.”

The Election of 1976 967

The Feminists

A well-to-do housewife and mother of seven, Eliz-abeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) was an unlikely

revolutionary. Yet this founding mother of Americanfeminism devoted seven decades of her life to thefight for women’s rights.

Young Elizabeth Cady drew her inspiration fromthe fight against slavery. In 1840 she married fellowabolitionist Henry Stanton. Honeymooning in Lon-don, they attended the World Anti-Slavery Con-vention, where women were forced to sit in ascreened-off balcony above the convention floor.This insult awakened Stanton to the cause thatwould occupy her life. With Lucretia Mott and otherfemale abolitionists, Stanton went on to organize theSeneca Falls Convention in 1848. There she pre-

sented her Declaration of Sentiments, modeled onthe Declaration of Independence and proclaimingthat “all men and women are created equal.” Shedemanded for women the right to own property, toenter the professions, and, most daring of all, to vote.

As visionaries of a radically different future forwomen, early feminists encountered a mountain ofhostility and tasted bitter disappointment. Stantonfailed in her struggle to have women included in theFourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,which granted African-Americans equal citizenship.She died before seeing her dream of woman suffragerealized in the Nineteenth Amendment (1920). Yet byimagining women’s emancipation as an expansion ofAmerica’s founding principles of citizenship, Stanton

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charted a path that other feminists would follow acentury later.

Historians use the terms “first wave” and “sec-ond wave” to distinguish the women’s movement ofthe nineteenth century from that of the late twenti-eth century. The woman most often credited withlaunching the “second wave” is Betty Friedan (b.1921). Growing up in Peoria, Illinois, Friedan hadseen her mother grow bitter over sacrificing a jour-nalism career to raise her family. Friedan, a subur-ban housewife, went on to write the 1963 best-sellerThe Feminine Mystique, exposing the quiet despera-tion of millions of housewives trapped in the “com-fortable concentration camp” of the suburbanhome. The book struck a resonant chord and cata-pulted its author onto the national stage. In 1966Friedan cofounded the National Organization forWomen (NOW), the chief political arm of second-wave feminism.

Just as first-wave feminism grew out of aboli-tionism, the second wave drew ideas, leaders, andtactics from the civil rights movement of the 1960s.Civil rights workers and feminists alike focused onequal rights. NOW campaigned vigorously for anEqual Rights Amendment that in 1982 fell just threestates short of ratification.

Second-wave feminism also had an avowedly rad-ical wing, supported by younger women who wereeager to challenge almost every traditional male andfemale gender role and to take the feminist cause to

the streets. Among these womenwas Robin Morgan (b. 1941). As acollege student in the 1960s, Mor-gan was active in civil rights orga-nizations like the Congress ofRacial Equality (CORE) and theStudent Non-Violent Coordinat-ing Committee (SNCC). Civilrights activism provided Morganwith a model for crusadingagainst social injustice. It alsoexposed her to the same sexismthat plagued society at large.Women in the movement whoprotested against gender discrim-ination met ridicule, as in SNCCleader Stokely Carmichael’s fa-mous retort, “The only positionfor women in SNCC is prone.”Morgan went on to found WITCH(Women’s International Terrorist

Conspiracy from Hell), made famous by its protest atthe 1968 Miss America pageant in Atlantic City, NewJersey. There demonstrators crowned a sheep MissAmerica and threw symbols of women’s oppression—bras, girdles, dishcloths—into trash cans. (Contrary tonews stories, they did not burn the bras.)

As the contrast between WITCH and NOW sug-gests, second-wave feminism was a remarkablydiverse movement. Feminists in the late twentiethcentury disagreed over many issues—from pornog-raphy and marriage to how much to expect fromgovernment, capitalism, and men. Some feministsplaced a priority on gender equality, for example,full female service in the military. Others defended afeminism of gender difference—such as maternityleaves and other special protections for women inthe workplace.

Still, beyond these differences feminists hadmuch in common. Most advocated a woman’s rightto choose in the battle over abortion rights. Mostregarded the law as the key weapon against genderdiscrimination. By century’s end radical and moder-ate feminists alike could take pride in a host ofachievements that had changed the landscape ofgender relations beyond what most people couldhave imagined at midcentury. Yet, like ElizabethCady Stanton, second-wave feminists also sharedthe burden of understanding that the goals of gen-uine equality would take more than a lifetime toachieve.

Carter squeezed out a narrow victory on elec-tion day, with 51 percent of the popular vote. Theelectoral count stood at 297 to 240. The winnerswept every state except Virginia in his native South.Especially important were the votes of African-Americans, 97 percent of whom cast their ballots forCarter.

Carter enjoyed hefty Democratic majorities inboth houses of Congress. Hopes ran high that thestalemate of the Nixon-Ford years between aRepublican White House and a Democratic CapitolHill would now be ended. At first Carter enjoyednotable political success. Congress granted hisrequest to create a new cabinet-level Department ofEnergy. Calling the American tax system “a disgraceto the human race,” Carter also proposed tax reformand reduction. Congress eventually obliged him, inpart, with an $18 billion tax cut in 1978. The newpresident’s popularity remained exceptionally highduring his first few months in office, even when hecourted public disfavor by courageously keeping hiscampaign promise to pardon some ten thousanddraft evaders of the Vietnam War era.

But Carter’s honeymoon did not last long. Aninexperienced outsider, he had campaigned againstthe Washington “establishment” and never quitemade the transition to being an insider himself. He

repeatedly rubbed congressional fur the wrong way,especially by failing to consult adequately with theleaders. Critics charged that he isolated himself in ashallow pool of fellow Georgians, whose ignoranceof the ways of Washington compounded the prob-lems of their greenhorn chief.

Carter’s Humanitarian Diplomacy

As a committed Christian, President Carter dis-played from the outset an overriding concern for“human rights” as the guiding principle of his for-eign policy. In the African nations of Rhodesia (laterZimbabwe) and South Africa, Carter and his elo-quent U.N. ambassador, Andrew Young, champi-oned the oppressed black majority.

The president’s most spectacular foreign-policyachievement came in September 1978 at CampDavid, the woodsy presidential retreat in the Mary-land highlands. Relations between Egypt and Israelhad deteriorated so far that another blowup in themisery-drenched Middle East seemed imminent. Sograve was the danger that Carter courageouslyrisked humiliating failure by inviting President


Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Men-achem Begin of Israel to a summit conference atCamp David.

Skillfully serving as go-between, Carter afterthirteen days persuaded the two visitors to sign anaccord (September 17, 1978) that held considerablepromise of peace. Israel agreed in principle to with-draw from territory conquered in the 1967 war, andEgypt in return promised to respect Israel’s borders.Both parties pledged themselves to sign a formalpeace treaty within three months. The presidentcrowned this diplomatic success by resuming fulldiplomatic relations with China in early 1979 after anearly thirty-year interruption. Carter also success-fully proposed two treaties turning over completeownership and control of the Panama Canal to thePanamanians by the year 2000.

Despite these dramatic accomplishments, trou-ble stalked Carter’s foreign policy. Overshadowingall international issues was the ominous reheating

of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Détente fellinto disrepute as thousands of Cuban troops,assisted by Soviet advisers, appeared in Angola,Ethiopia, and elsewhere in Africa to support revolu-tionary factions. Arms control negotiations withMoscow stalled in the face of this Soviet militarymeddling.

Economic and Energy Woes

Adding to Carter’s mushrooming troubles was thefailing health of the economy. Prices had been risingfeverishly, increasing at a rate of more than 10 per-cent a year by 1974 (“double-digit” inflation). Crip-pling oil-price hikes from OPEC in that same yeardealt the reeling economy another body blow. Astinging recession during Gerald Ford’s presidencybrought the inflation rate down temporarily, but vir-tually from the moment of Carter’s inauguration,prices resumed their dizzying ascent, driving theinflation rate well above 13 percent by 1979. Thesoaring bill for imported oil plunged America’s bal-ance of payments deeply into the red (an unprece-dented $40 billion in 1978), as Americans paid morefor foreign products than they were able to earnfrom selling their own goods overseas.

The “oil shocks” of the 1970s taught Americans apainful but necessary lesson: that they could neveragain seriously consider a policy of economic isola-tion, as they had tried to do in the decades betweenthe two world wars. For most of its history, America’sforeign trade had accounted for no more than 10percent of gross national product (GNP). But hugeforeign-oil bills drove that figure steadily upward inthe 1970s and thereafter. By the century’s end, some27 percent of GNP depended on foreign trade. Thenation’s new economic interdependence meant thatthe United States could not dominate internationaltrade and finance as easily as it had in the post–World War II decades. Americans, once happilyinsulated behind their ocean moats, would have tomaster foreign languages and study foreign culturesif they wanted to prosper in the rapidly globalizingeconomy.

Yawning deficits in the federal budget, reachingnearly $60 billion in 1980, further aggravated theU.S. ecomony’s inflationary ailments. Americansliving on fixed incomes—mostly elderly people orworkers without a strong union to go to bat for

Carter’s Foreign and Economic Policies 971

them—suffered from the shrinking dollar. Peoplewith money to lend pushed interest rates everhigher, hoping to protect themselves from beingrepaid in badly depreciated dollars. The “prime rate”(the rate of interest that banks charge their very bestcustomers) vaulted to an unheard-of 20 percent inearly 1980. The high cost of borrowing moneyshoved small businesses to the wall and strangledthe construction industry, heavily dependent onloans to finance new housing and other projects.

From the outset Carter diagnosed America’s economic disease as stemming primarily from thenation’s costly dependence on foreign oil. Accord-ingly, one of the first acts of his presidency was a dra-matic appeal to embark on an energy crusade that hecalled “the moral equivalent of war.” The presidentcalled for legislation to improve energy conservation,especially by curtailing the manufacture of large, gas-guzzling automobiles. But these proposals, in April1977, ignited a blaze of indifference among the Amer-ican people, who had already forgotten the longgasoline lines of 1973. Public apathy and congres-

sional hostility smothered President Carter’s hopes ofquickly initiating an energetic energy program.

Events in Iran jolted Americans out of theircomplacency about energy supplies in 1979. Theimperious Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, installed asshah of Iran with help from America’s CIA in 1953,had long ruled his oil-rich land with a will of steel.His repressive regime was finally overthrown in January 1979. Violent revolution was spearheadedin Iran by Muslim fundamentalists who fiercelyresented the shah’s campaign to westernize and sec-ularize his country. Denouncing the United Statesas the “Great Satan” that had abetted the shah’sefforts, these extremists engulfed Iran in chaos inthe wake of his departure. The crippling upheavalssoon spread to Iran’s oil fields. As Iranian oil stoppedflowing into the stream of world commerce, short-ages appeared, and OPEC again seized the opportu-nity to hike petroleum prices. Americans once morefound themselves waiting impatiently in long linesat gas stations or buying gasoline only on specifieddays.


Annual percentage change, all items (right scale)

Average price of consumer goods (CPI )

30

25

20

15

10

5

0

170

160

150

140

130

120

110

100

90

80

70

60

50

40

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Con

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1984

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Annu

al P

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1967 1969 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2000

The History of the Consumer Price Index, 1967–2000 This graph shows both the annual percentageof inflation and the cumulative shrinkage in the dollar’s value since 1967. (By 2000, it took more than fivedollars to buy what one dollar purchased in 1967.) (Sources: Bureau of Labor Statistics and StatisticalAbstract of the United States, relevant years.)

As the oil crisis deepened, President Cartersensed the rising temperature of popular discon-tent. In July 1979 he retreated to the presidentialmountain hideaway at Camp David, where heremained largely out of public view for ten days.Like a royal potentate of old, summoning the wisemen of the realm for their counsel in a time of crisis,Carter called in over a hundred leaders from allwalks of life to give him their views. Meanwhile, thenation waited anxiously for the results of theseextraordinary deliberations.

Carter came down from the mountaintop onJuly 15, 1979. He revealed his thoughts to the Amer-ican people in a remarkable television address,which amounted to a kind of old-fashioned “jere-

miad.” He chided his fellow citizens for falling into a“moral and spiritual crisis” and for being too con-cerned with “material goods.”

While Carter’s address stunned and even per-plexed the nation, he let drop another shoe a fewdays later. In a bureaucratic massacre of almostunprecedented proportions, he fired four cabinetsecretaries. At the same time, he circled the wagonsof his Georgian advisers more tightly about theWhite House by reorganizing and expanding thepower of his personal staff. Critics began to wonderaloud whether Carter, the professed man of the peo-ple, was losing touch with the popular mood of thecountry.

Foreign Affairs and the Iranian Imbroglio

Hopes for a less dangerous world rose slightly inJune 1979, when President Carter met with Sovietleader Leonid Brezhnev in Vienna to sign the long-stalled SALT II agreements, limiting the levels of

Crises at Home and Abroad 973

President Jimmy Carter (b. 1924) deliveredwhat became known as his “malaise” speech(although he never used the word) ontelevision in 1979. In time culturalconservatives would take up his theme tosupport their call for a return to “traditionalvalues”:

“In a nation that was proud of hard work,strong families, close-knit communities, andour faith in God, too many of us now tend toworship self-indulgence and consumption.Human identity is no longer defined by whatone does, but by what one owns. But we’vediscovered that owning things andconsuming things does not satisfy ourlonging for meaning. We’ve learned thatpiling up material goods cannot fill theemptiness of lives which have no confidenceor purpose. . . . The symptoms of this crisis ofthe American spirit are all around us.”

lethal strategic weapons in the Soviet and Americanarsenals. But conservative critics of the president’sdefense policies, still deeply suspicious of the SovietUnion, which they regarded as the Wicked Witch ofthe East, unsheathed their long knives to carve upthe SALT II treaty when it came to the Senate fordebate in the summer of 1979. Their hand wasstrengthened when news reports broke that a Soviet“combat brigade” was stationed in Castro’s Cuba.

Political earthquakes in the petroleum-rich Per-sian Gulf region finally buried all hopes of ratifyingthe SALT II treaty. On November 4, 1979, a howlingmob of rabidly anti-American Muslim militantsstormed the United States embassy in Teheran, Iran,and took all of its occupants hostage. The captorsthen demanded that the American authorities shipback to Iran the exiled shah, who had arrived in theUnited States two weeks earlier for medical treat-ment. The shaky Iranian government, barely visiblethrough the smoke of revolution and religiousupheaval then rocking the country, refused to inter-vene against the militants. Ayatollah RuhollahKhomeini, the white-bearded Muslim holy manwho inspired the revolutionaries, even accused theUnited States of masterminding an attack on thesacred Muslim city of Mecca, in Saudi Arabia.

World opinion hotly condemned the diplomaticfelony in Iran, while Americans agonized over boththe fate of the hostages and the stability of the entirePersian Gulf region, so dangerously close to theSoviet Union. The Soviet army then aroused theWest’s worst fears on December 27, 1979, when itblitzed into the mountainous nation of Afghanistan,next door to Iran, and appeared to be poised for athrust at the oil-jugular of the gulf.

President Carter reacted vigorously to thesealarming events. He slapped an embargo on theexport of grain and high-technology machinery tothe USSR and called for a boycott of the upcomingOlympic Games in Moscow. He proposed the cre-ation of a “Rapid Deployment Force” to respond tosuddenly developing crises in faraway places andrequested that young people (including women) bemade to register for a possible military draft. Thepresident proclaimed that the United States would“use any means necessary, including force,” to pro-tect the Persian Gulf against Soviet incursions. Hegrimly conceded that he had misjudged the Soviets,


and the SALT II treaty became a dead letter in theSenate. Meanwhile, the Soviet army met unexpect-edly stiff resistance in Afghanistan and boggeddown in a nasty, decade-long guerrilla war thatcame to be called “Russia’s Vietnam.” But thoughthe Soviets were stalled in Afghanistan, the crisis inIran ground on.

The Iranian hostage episode was Carter’s—andAmerica’s—bed of nails. The captured Americanslanguished in cruel captivity, while the nightly tele-vision news broadcasts in the United States showedhumiliating scenes of Iranian mobs burning theAmerican flag and spitting on effigies of Uncle Sam.

Carter at first tried to apply economic sanctionsand the pressure of world public opinion against theIranians, while waiting for the emergence of a stablegovernment with which to negotiate. But the politi-cal turmoil in Iran rumbled on endlessly, and the

president’s frustration grew. Carter at last ordered adaring rescue mission. A highly trained commandoteam penetrated deep into Iran’s sandy interior.Their plan required ticktock-perfect timing to suc-ceed, and when equipment failures prevented somemembers of the team from reaching their destina-tion, the mission had to be scrapped. As the com-mandos withdrew in the dark desert night, two oftheir aircraft collided, killing eight of the would-berescuers.

This disastrous failure of the rescue raid provedanguishing for Americans. The episode seemed tounderscore the nation’s helplessness and even in-competence in the face of a mortifying insult to thenational honor. The stalemate with Iran dragged onthroughout the rest of Carter’s term, providing anembarrassing backdrop to the embattled president’sstruggle for reelection.

Chronology 975

Chronology

1970 Nixon orders invasion of CambodiaKent State and Jackson State incidentsEnvironmental Protection Agency (EPA)

createdClean Air Act

1971 Pentagon Papers publishedTwenty-sixth Amendment (lowering voting age

to eighteen) passed

1972 Nixon visits China and the Soviet UnionABM and SALT I treaties ratifiedNixon defeats McGovern for presidencyEqual Rights Amendment passes CongressTitle IX of Education Amendments passed

1973 Vietnam cease-fire and U.S. withdrawalAgnew resigns; Ford appointed

vice presidentWar Powers ActArab-Israeli war and Arab oil embargoEndangered Species ActFrontiero v. RichardsonRoe v. Wade

1973-1974 Watergate hearings and investigations

1974 Nixon resigns; Ford assumes presidencyFirst OPEC oil-price increaseInternational Energy Agency formedMilliken v. Bradley

1975 Helsinki accordsSouth Vietnam falls to communists

1976 Carter defeats Ford for presidency

1978 Egyptian-Israeli Camp David agreementUnited States v. Wheeler

1979 Iranian revolution and oil crisisSALT II agreements signed (never ratified by

Senate)Soviet Union invades Afghanistan

1979-1981 Iranian hostage crisis

For further reading, see page A27 of the Appendix. For web resources, go to http://college.hmco.com.

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