Nixon: Background/Views:

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Nixon Background/Views

• Background WWII vet (Navy)
• 1946 - House of Reps. (HUAC)
• 1950 Senate race against Helen Douglas
• 1952 1956 - VP w/ Eisenhower
• View of Presidency - strong presidents (TR FDR)
• Passive President ? simpler past Now ?
  activist role

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Major Domestic Events

• 1) Supreme Court Appointments (4)
• Chief Justice Warren Burger - strict
  constitutional interpretations replaced Earl
  Warren (liberal)
• Reluctant to dismantle liberal rulings of the
  Warren Court
• Roe v. Wade (1973) passed by conservative court

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Warren Burger
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Major Domestic Events

• 2) Nixon funds the Great Society
• Expansion of welfare programs
• Food Stamps, Medicaid, AFDC (Aid to Families w/
  Dependent Children)
• New program SSI (Supplemental Security Income)
  assist the indigent aged, blind, disabled
• 1972 legislation ? automatic Social Security cost
  of living increases

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Major Domestic Events

• 3) Nixons Philadelphia Plan
• Requires construction trade unions to establish
  goals timetables for hiring black apprentices
• Expanded to all federal contracts
• affirmative action now means hiring quotas
• 4) Nixon the Supreme Court
• Many educational employment opportunities
  opened to women minorities

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Major Domestic Events

• 5) The Environment
• 1970 ? EPA OSHA
• Clean Air Act of 1970
• Endangered Species Act of 1973
• Combated pollution car emissions, cleaned up
  waterways toxic waste sites
• Modern muckraker ? Rachel Carsons Silent Spring

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Major Domestic Events

• 6) Combating Inflation and the Trade Deficit
• 1971 imposed a 90 day wage price freeze
• To stimulate sagging exports US taken off the
  gold standard devalued the dollar

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The United States Bullion Depository
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The Nixon landslide of 1972

• Candidates
• (1) Nixon/ Agnew (R) campaign on record
• foreign affairs w/draw from Vietnam (500,000)
• Peiking Moscow trips
• SALT Pacts (Soviets)
• domestic affairs efforts ? inflation
• opposition to busing (for integration)
• Watergate break-in

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The Nixon landslide of 1972

• (2) George McGovern (D) Convention reform
  greater representation for minorities women
• VP - Sargent Shriver
• campaign immediate peace in Vietnam
• sharp military cuts
• drastic social reforms
• (3) George Wallace (I) assassination attempt!!

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Nixon 1972 Election
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The Nixon landslide of 1972
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Energy Problems

• (1) Arab Oil Embargo (1973)
• 4th Arab-Israeli War (Yom Kippur War) OPEC
  (raise prices US embargo)
• (2) Immediate Long Range Programs
• Immediate conservation adjust temperatures
  speed limits car pools
• Long Range conservation electric nuclear
  plants Alaska pipeline explore US natural gas
  petroleum ? offshore

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• In this 1974 photo, a man at a service station
  reads about the gas rationing system in an
  afternoon newspaper a sign in the background
  states that no gas is available

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Flags gas rationing stamps
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Other Issues

• Resignation of Agnew
• No contest kickbacks, fraud, income tax
  evasion
• Gerald Ford becomes VP
• Watergate (see handout)

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Senator Robert Griffin (MI) shakes hands with
President Richard M. Nixon while Vice
Presidential nominee Gerald R. Ford chats with a
well-wisher at a reception in the Blue Room
following Nixon's announcement of Ford as his
choice to succeed Spiro T. Agnew. October 13,
1973.
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The complex. The Kennedy Center is visible in the
background. The boxy building at middle left is
the former Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge, used
during the 1972 Watergate burglaries to monitor
the break-ins and wiretaps across the street.
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Nixon Resigns
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Nixon Foreign Affairs

• A. Vietnam Nixon promises peace with honor
  Vietnamization
• The Nixon Doctrine proclaimed that the US would
  honor its existing defense commitments but that
  in the future, Asians and others would have to
  fight their own wars w/out the support of large
  bodies of US troops
• 1973 - Kissinger negotiates a truce

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Nixon Foreign Affairs (contd)

• B. Middle East US pledges support ? Israel
  (right to exist)
• US role in Yom Kippur War (energy crisis results)
  
• Kissinger (disengagement agreements)
• C. Detente w/ Russia Nixon Brezhnev
• D. Arms Limitations 1972 - SALT I treaties
  signed in Moscow
• E. Improved Relations w/ China 1972 - visit to
  China journey for peace

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Nixon Foreign Affairs (contd)

• F. Congress Foreign Affairs
• (1) Cambodian (Khmer) Bombing Cutoff despite
  truce w/ Vietnam war in Cambodia continues
  Congress w/holds funds Nixon suspends bombing
  (Aug. 73)
• (2) War-Powers Resolution of 1973
• JFK LBJ Nixon ? war w/out declaration
  (Congress)
• War Powers limits Presidents power