Unit 12 Review Flashcards
(42 cards)
Nixon’s experience with foreign affairs up to 1969.
Nixon brought one hugely valuable asset with him to the White House - his broad knowledge and thoughtful expertise in foreign affairs.
Detente policy of Nixon.
Nixon’s visits ushered in an era of detente, or relaxed tension, with the two communist powers (Soviet Union and China).
Components of Nixon’s southern strategy.
Nixon devised a clever but cynical plan - called the southern strategy - to achieve a solid majority in 1972. Appointing conservative Supreme Court justices, soft-pedaling civil rights, and opposing school busing to achieve racial balance were all parts of the strategy.
Nixon’s refusal to give up his taped conversations…why? (It is constitutional)
But Nixon, stubbornly citing his “executive privilege”, refused to hand over the tapes.
How did Gerald Ford end up President?
Gerald Rudolph Ford, the first man to be made president solely by a vote of Congress. Ford had been selected, not elected, vice president following Spiro Agnew’s resignation in disgrace.
Ford’s most controversial act as President?
Ford granted a complete pardon to Nixon for any crimes he may have committed as president discovered or undiscovered. Democrats were outraged, and lingering suspicions about the circumstances of the pardon cast a dark shadow over Ford’s prospects of being elected president in his own right in 1976.
Components of Ford’s economic policy - WIN?
Ford went on a war against inflation, “Whip Inflation Now” - WIN. Ford encouraged personal savings, but inflation remained a threat to the economy.
Which of the social movements from the Civil Rights era gained momentum in the 1970s?
One major exception to this pattern stood out: American Feminists.
Title IX Components?
In 1972 Congress passed Title IX of the Education Amendments, prohibiting sex discrimination in any federally assisted educational program or activity. Biggest impact was to create opportunities for girls’ and women’s athletics at schools and colleges.
Why did Americans like (and vote) for Jimmy Carter?
This born-again Baptist touched many people with his down-home sincerity. He ran against the memory of Nixon and Watergate as much as he ran against Ford. His most effective campaign pitch was his promise “I’ll never lie to you.” He attracted voters as an outsider who would clean the disorderly house of “big government”.
President Carter’s foreign policy was guided by his interest in…?
As a committed Christian, President Carter displayed from the outset an overriding concern for “Human Rights” as the guiding principle of his foreign policy.
Camp David Agreement - what is it?
September 1978, President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel met at Camp David. Carter persuaded the two visitors to sign an accord that held considerable promise of peace. Israel withdrew, had to sign formal peace treaty within 3 months.
Oil shocks of the 1970s - what did it tell us about our economy?
The “oil shocks” of the 1970s taught Americans a painful but necessary lesson: that they could never again seriously consider a policy of economic isolation, as they had tried to do in the decades between the two World Wars.
Operation Eagle Claw - why a problem for Carter?
The Iranian hostage crisis caused Carter to apply economic sanctions. When that did not work, he sent in a daring rescue mission (Operation Eagle Claw). Two aircraft collided, killing eight. This failure proved anguishing for Americans and provided an embarrassing backdrop to the president’s struggle for reelection.
The New Right of the 1980s - most concern about?
Many New Right activists were far less agitated about economic questions than about cultural concerns - the so-called social issues.
The New Right - source of influence (power)?
The “old Right” where many residents harbored suspicions of federal power. The conservative cause drew added strength from the emergence of a “New Right” movement, partly in response to the counterculture protests of the 1960s.
President Carter was most well-known after his Presidency for his work in what?
Though unsuccessful in the White House, Carter earned much admiration in later years for his humanitarian and human rights activities. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.
President Reagan’s domestic goals…?
He sought nothing less than the dismantling of the welfare state and the reversal of the political evolution of the preceding half-century.
President Reagan’s economic policies? Results?
In late 1981, Congress approved a set of far-reaching tax reforms that lowered individual tax rates, reduced federal estate taxes, and created new tax-free savings for small investors. Reagan’s supply-side economics advisers assured him that the combination of budgetary discipline and tax reduction would stimulate new investment, boost productivity, foster dramatic economic growth, and eventually even reduce the federal deficit. The economy slid into its deepest recession since the 1930s, causing the supply-side economics to wait.
Reagan’s tax cuts? Impact?
Fuming and frustrated Democrats angrily charged that the president’s budget cuts slashed especially cruelly at the poor and the handicapped and that his tax cuts favored the well-to-do. In reality, the anti-inflationary “tight money” policies led to the so-called “Reagan recession” were started on Carter’s watch.
Income gap in the 1980s?
The supply-siders seemed to be vindicated when a healthy economic recovery finally got under way in 1983. Yet the economy of the 1980s was not uniformly sound. For the first time in the twentieth century, income gaps widened between the richest and the poorest Americans. The poor got poorer and the very rich grew fabulously richer, while the middle-class incomes largely stagnated.
“The focus of evil in the modern world” according to Reagan?
He claimed that the Soviets were “prepared to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat,” in pursuit of their goals of world conquest. He denounced the Soviet Union as the “focus of evil in the modern world.”
Glasnost and Perestroika - contributing to end what?
Gorbachev announced two policies with remarkable, even revolutionary, implications. Glasnost, or “openness”, aimed to ventilate the secretive, repressive stuffiness of Soviet society by introducing free speech and a measure of political liberty. Perestroika, or “restructuring”, was intended to revive the moribund Soviet economy by adopting many of the free-market practices - such as the profit motive and an end to subsidized prices. This brought an end to the Cold War.
Iran-Contra Affair - components? Impact?
Trade between money back to Contras in Nicaragua. The Iran-Contra affair cast a dark shadow over the Reagan record on foreign policy, tending to obscure the president’s outstanding achievement in establishing a new relationship with the Soviets. Out of the several Iran-Contra investigations, a picture emerged of Reagan as a lazy president.
