A. President Ford

Ford / Carter

A. President Ford

1. Gerald Ford is the only man in U.S. History to become President without having been elected as either President or Vice-President. He had become Nixon’s Vice-President when Spiro Agnew resigned over corruption charges; Nixon appointed Ford to be his new Vice-President. When Nixon resigned, Ford became President for the remaining two years of Nixon’s second term.

2. One of Ford’s first acts as President was to pardon Nixon for any crimes he may have committed in office.

B. President Carter

1. Domestic problems

a. Energy crisis. OPEC continues to raise oil prices, which caused devastating inflation.

b. Carter used a variety of approached to combat the energy crisis: voluntary conservation of oil, tax on gas- guzzling cars, tax credits to companies developing new energy sources that would reduce our reliance on imported oil.

c. None of Carter’s actions seemed to work, and he seemed like a man without a plan.

d. Manufacturing jobs continued to decline, leaving blue- collar workers with few options in the job market.

2. Foreign policy

a. The conerstone of Jimmy Carter’s foreign policy was the advancement of human rights- the rights and liberties guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution. b. Carter negotiated a controversial treaty to return control of the Panama Canal to the Panamanians.

c. To protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Carter refused to allow U.S. athletes to compete in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.

d. By far the greatest foreign policy success of the Carter Administration was the Camp David Accords. The marked the first time that an Arab nation recognized Israel’s right to exist, and was considered a great step toward achieving peace in the Middle East.

e. The greatest foreign policy disaster of the Carter Administration was the Iran Hostage Crisis. A Muslim fundamentalist revolution, led Ayatollah Khomeini, had ousted the U.S.- friendly Shah of Iran from power. When the U.S. allowed the Shah to enter the U.S. for medical treatment, Muslim fundamentalists seized the U.S. embassy in Iral and took 2 Americans hostage. Carter refused to return the Shah to Iran, and the hostages were kept for well over a year. Several American soldiers were killed in an ill-fated attempt to rescue tem. The hostages were not released until the day Ronald Regan took office.

C. Effect of the 1970’s

1. The 1970’s were not a good time for America.

a. The U.S. withdrew and accepted defeat in Vietnam.

b. The U.S. economy suffered from inflation and unemployment.

c. The U.S. seemed incapable of imposing its will abroad.

2. The setbacks of the 1970’s set the sage for the conservative revolution led by Ronald Reagan. D. Environmentalism and Consumerism

1. There was renewed interest in protecting the environment and protecting consumers from harmful products in the 1960’s and 1970’s. In some ways this was continuation of the Progressive policies earlier in the century.

2. Protecting the environment.

a. Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring warned hat te use of pesticides to control insects was poisoning food supply of birds and fish. If the use of pesticides was not controlled, birds would die out (hence the title of her book)

b. The Clean Air Act (part of the Great Society) regulated automobile and industrial emissions.

c. The pesticide DDT was banned in 1972.

d. The Environmental Protection Agency was established in 1970 to set and enforce pollution laws. New regulations regarding wauo emissions led to the introduction of the catalytic converter to reduce pollution.

e. The development of nuclear energy was highly controversial, especially after the accident at Three Mile Island.

f. Environmental issues that continue to be debated today include the deterioration of the ozone layer, which protects he earth from harmful rays from the sun, and global warming, the theory that the burning of fossil fuels (oil and coal) is causing the earth’s temperature to rise, which could eventually result in polar icecaps melting and widespread flooding of costal areas. E. Consumer Protection

1. Ralph Nader started a new consumers protection movement with his books, Unsafe At Any Speed. He demonstrated how Detroit knowingly manufactured cars that were unsafe (example- the Pinto, whose rear gas tank was positioned in such a way that it was likely to explode on rear impact). He argues that car manufacturers pursued profits at the expense of public safety.

2. Nader’s work in this field, as well as others, led to increased government regulations and imposition of safety standards on many different industries.