Nixon eventually ended U.S. involvement in Vietnam by
gradually withdrawing American troops and appealing to
the “silent majority” of Americans for patience in bringing
the conflict to an end. A slowdown in racial desegregation
appealed to southern whites, who ordinarily
tended to vote Democratic. The Republican strategy also
gained support among white Democrats in northern
cities, where court-mandated busing to achieve racial integration
had produced a white backlash. Nixon was less
conservative on other issues, notably when, breaking
with his strong anti-Communist past, he visited China in
1972 and opened the door toward the eventual diplomatic
recognition of that Communist state.
However, Nixon was paranoid about conspiracies and
began to use illegal methods of gaining political intelli-
gence about his political opponents. One of the president’s
advisers explained that their intention was to “use
the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.”
Nixon’s zeal led to the infamous Watergate scandal—
the attempted bugging of Democratic National
Headquarters. Although Nixon repeatedly lied to the
American public about his involvement in the affair, secret
tapes of his own conversations in the White House
revealed the truth. On August 9, 1974, Nixon resigned
from office, an act that saved him from almost certain impeachment
and conviction.
After Watergate, American domestic politics focused
on economic issues. Gerald B. Ford (b. 1913) became
president when Nixon resigned, only to lose in the 1976
election to the Democratic former governor of Georgia,
Jimmy Carter (b. 1924), who campaigned as an outsider
against the Washington establishment. Both Ford and
Carter faced severe economic problems. The period from
1973 to the mid-1980s was one of economic stagnation,
which came to be known as stagflation—a combination
of high inflation and high unemployment. In 1984, median
family income was 6 percent below that of 1973.
The economic downturn stemmed at least in part from
a dramatic rise in oil prices. Oil had been a cheap and
abundant source of energy in the 1950s, but by the late
1970s, half of the oil used in the United States came from
the Middle East. An oil embargo imposed by the Organization
of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cartel
as a reaction to the Arab-Israeli War in 1973 and OPEC’s
subsequent raising of prices led to a quadrupling of the
cost of oil. By the end of the 1970s, oil prices had increased
twentyfold, encouraging inflationary tendencies
throughout the entire economy. Although the Carter administration
produced a plan for reducing oil consumption
at home while spurring domestic production, neither
Congress nor the American people could be persuaded to
follow what they regarded as drastic measures.
By 1980, the Carter administration was facing two
devastating problems. High inflation and a noticeable decline
in average weekly earnings were causing a perceptible
drop in American living standards. At the same time,
a crisis abroad had erupted when fifty-three Americans
were taken and held hostage by the Iranian government
of Ayatollah Khomeini. Although Carter had little control
over the situation, his inability to gain the release of
the American hostages led to the perception at home
that he was a weak president. His overwhelming loss to
Ronald Reagan (b. 1911) in the election of 1980 brought
forward the chief exponent of conservative Republican
policies and a new political order.
World History
