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Chapter 24 quiz

Terms in this set (28)

New Federalism
One of the main items on President Nixon's agenda was to
decrease the size and influence of the federal government. Nixon believed that
Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs, by promoting greater federal involvement
with social problems, had given the federal government too much responsibility.

Nixon's plan, known as New Federalism, was to distribute a portion of
federal power to state and local governments
Revenue Sharing
To implement New Federalism, Nixon proposed a plan to give more financial
freedom to local governments. Normally, the federal government told state and
local governments how to spend their federal money. Under revenue sharing,
state and local governments could spend their federal dollars however they saw
fit within certain limitations.
welfare reform
Nixon was not as successful, however, in his attempt to overhaul
welfare, which he believed had grown cumbersome and inefficient.
In 1969,
the president advocated the so-called Family Assistance Plan (FAP). Under the
FAP, every family of four with no outside income would receive a basic federal payment
of $1,600 a year, with a provision to earn up to $4,000 a year in supplemental
income.
This was not enough for many poor families

Nixon presented the plan in conservative terms—as a program that would
reduce the supervisory role of the federal government and make welfare recipients
responsible for their own lives.
Liberal
legislators considered the minimum payments too low and the work requirement
too stiff, while conservatives objected to the notion of guaranteed income. The
bill went down in defeat.
law and order politics
As President Nixon fought
with both houses of Congress, he also battled the more
liberal elements of society, including the antiwar movement.
Won on the promise of ending the war and mending the divisiveness in America that the war created.
Oversaw peace Negotiations and began law and order policies
To accomplish this, Nixon used the full resources of his office—sometimes
illegally. Nixon and members of his staff ordered wiretaps of many left-wing individuals
and the Democratic Party offices at the Watergate office building in
Washington, D.C. The CIA also investigated and compiled documents on thousands
of American dissidents—people who objected to the government's policies.
The administration even used the Internal Revenue Service to audit the tax
returns of antiwar and civil rights activists. Nixon began building a personal "enemies
list" of prominent Americans whom the administration would harass.
Southern Strategy
wanted to win the 1972 election.
Southern strategy, Nixon tried to attract Southern
conservative Democrats by appealing to their unhappiness with federal desegregation
policies and a liberal Supreme Court. He also promised to name a
Southerner to the Supreme Court.
racist policies
Nixon wanted the southern voters who were white southern racists
To attract white voters in the South, President
Nixon decided on a policy of slowing the country's desegregation efforts.

Throughout his first term, President Nixon worked to reverse several civil
rights policies. In 1969, he ordered the Department of Health, Education, and
Welfare (HEW) to delay desegregation plans for school districts in South Carolina
and Mississippi.
violated brown vs board of education; In response to an NAACP suit, the high court ordered Nixon to
abide by the second Brown ruling. The president did so reluctantly, and by 1972,
nearly 90 percent of children in the South attended desegregated schools—up
from about 20 percent in 1969

Nixon opposed the
extension of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In 1971, the Supreme Court
ruled in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of
Education that school districts may bus students to
other schools to end the pattern of all-black or all-white
educational institutions
Nixon also opposed integration through busing and
went on national television to urge Congress to halt the
practice.

During Nixon's first term, four justices,
including chief justice Earl Warren, left the bench through
retirement. President Nixon quickly moved to put a more
conservative face on the Court. In 1969, the Senate
approved Nixon's chief justice appointee, U.S. Court of
Appeals judge Warren Burger.
the newly shaped Court did not always take
the conservative route—for example, it handed down the
1971 ruling in favor of racially integrating schools through
busing
stagflation
Between 1967 and 1973, the United
States faced high inflation and high unemployment—a situation
economists called stagflation.
OPEC
Reasons behind stagflation
result of Lyndon
Johnson's policy to fund the war and social programs
through deficit spending. Also, increased competition in
international trade, and a flood of new workers, including
women and baby boomers, led to stagflation.
heavy dependency on foreign oil.

OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries).
OPEC is a cartel
During the 1960s, America received much of
its petroleum from the oil-producing countries of the OPEC cartel
OPEC gradually raised oil
prices. Then in 1973, the Yom Kippur War broke out, with
Israel against Egypt and Syria. When the United States sent
massive military aid to Israel, its longtime ally, the Arab
OPEC nations responded by cutting off all oil sales to the
United States. When OPEC resumed selling its oil to the
United States in 1974, the price had quadrupled. This sharp
rise in oil prices only worsened the problem of inflation.
real politik
The architect of Nixon's
foreign policy was his adviser for national security affairs,
Henry Kissinger. Kissinger, who would later become
Nixon's secretary of state, promoted a philosophy known
as realpolitik, from a German term meaning "political realism."
According to
realpolitik, foreign policy should be based solely on consideration of power, not
ideals or moral principles. Kissinger believed in evaluating a nation's power, not
its philosophy or beliefs.
Realpolitik marked a departure from the former confrontational policy of
containment, which refused to recognize the major Communist countries. On
the other hand, Kissinger's philosophy called for the United States to fully
confront the powerful nations of the globe.
détente
Nixon shared Kissinger's belief in realpolitik, and together the two men
adopted a more flexible approach in dealing with Communist nations. They
called their policy détente—a policy aimed at easing Cold War tensions. One of
the most startling applications of détente came in early 1972 when President
Nixon—who had risen in politics as a strong anti-Communist—visited
Communist China
China policy
Since the takeover of mainland
China by the Communists in 1949, the United States had
not formally recognized the Chinese Communist government.
In late 1971, Nixon reversed that policy by announcing
to the nation that he would visit China "to seek the
normalization of relations between the two countries."
China had long criticized the Soviet Union as
being too "soft" in its policies against the West. The two
Communist superpowers officially broke ties in 1960.
Nixon had thought about exploiting the fractured relationship
for several years. "We want to have the Chinese with
us when we sit down and negotiate with the Russians,"

Nixon's visit also
was a huge success with the American public. Observers
noted that it opened up diplomatic and economic relations
with the Chinese and resulted in important agreements
between China and the United States. The two nations agreed that neither would
try to dominate the Pacific and that both would cooperate in settling disputes
peacefully. They also agreed to participate in scientific and cultural exchanges as
well as to eventually reunite Taiwan with the mainland
SALT I
Nixon's trip to the Soviet Union received
wide acclaim. After a series of meetings called the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks
(SALT), Nixon and Brezhnev signed the SALT I Treaty. This five-year agreement
limited the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and submarine launched
missiles to 1972 levels.
foreign policy success got Nixon reelected in 1972
imperial presidency/ consolidation of power
When Richard Nixon took office, the executive
branch—as a result of the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War—
had become the most powerful branch of government.

Nixon expanded the power of the presidency with little thought to constitutional checks, as when he impounded funds for federal programs that he opposed, or when he ordered troops to invade Cambodia without congressional approval.
Watergate scandal
The Watergate scandal centered on the Nixon administration's attempt to cover
up a burglary of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the
Watergate office and apartment complex in Washington, D.C.
president's men
Nixon confided in a small and fiercely loyal group of advisers. They included
H. R. Haldeman, White House chief of staff; John Ehrlichman, chief domestic adviser; and John Mitchell, Nixon's former attorney general.

These men also shared President
Nixon's desire for secrecy and the consolidation
of power.

Critics charged
that these men, through their personalities
and their attitude toward the
presidency, developed a sense that
they were somehow above the law.
This sense would, in turn, prompt
President Nixon and his advisers to
cover up their role in Watergate, and
fuel the coming scandal
Committee to Reelect the President
Richard Nixon lived with the overwhelming fear
of losing elections. By the end of the 1972 reelection campaign, Nixon's campaign
team sought advantages by any means possible, including an attempt to
steal information from the DNC headquarters.

DNC democratic national co committee

The committee to reelect the president is a group of individuals working to out Nixon in office

At 2:30 A.M., June 17, 1972, a guard at the Watergate
complex in Washington, D.C., caught five men breaking into the campaign headquarters
of the DNC.
burglars planned to photograph documents outlining
Democratic Party strategy and to place wiretaps, or "bugs," on the office telephones.

The press soon discovered that the group's leader, James McCord, was a former CIA
agent. He was also a security coordinator for a group known as the Committee to
Reelect the President (CRP)

The president of CRP is John Mitchell who used to be the attorney general

Coverup
Workers shredded all
incriminating documents in Haldeman's office. The White
House, with President Nixon's consent, asked the CIA to
urge the FBI to stop its investigations into the burglary on
the grounds of national security. In addition, the CRP
passed out nearly $450,000 to the Watergate burglars to buy
their silence
Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein/ Washington Post
Throughout the 1972 campaign, the Watergate burglary
generated little interest among the American public
and media. Only the Washington Post and two of its
reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, kept on the
story. In a series of articles, the reporters uncovered information
that linked numerous members of the administration
to the burglary. The White House denied each new Post
allegation.

Despite their efforts, Nixon was still elected because he was able to successfully cover up the scandal during the election
cover-up unravels
In January 1973, the trial of the Watergate burglars began.
The trial's presiding judge, John Sirica, made clear his
belief that the men had not acted alone. On March 20, a
few days before the burglars were scheduled to be sentenced,
James McCord sent a letter to Sirica, in which he
indicated that he had lied under oath. He also hinted that
powerful members of the Nixon administration had been
involved in the break-in.
Judge John Sirica
Judge during the watergate scandal trial
Senate investigation
McCord's revelation
of possible White House involvement in the burglary
aroused public interest in Watergate

On April 30,
1973, Nixon dismissed White House counsel John Dean and
announced the resignations of Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and
Attorney General Richard Kleindienst, who had recently
replaced John Mitchell following Mitchell's resignation.

The president's reassurances, however, came too late. In May 1973,
the Senate began its own investigation of Watergate. A special committee,
chaired by Senator Samuel James Ervin of North Carolina, began to
call administration officials to give testimony
John Dean
the presidential counsel
among President Nixon's inner council and involved with the watergate scandal

John Dean
delivered the first bomb. In late June,
during more than 30 hours of testimony,
Dean provided a startling answer to
Senator Howard Baker's repeated question,
"What did the president know and
when did he know it?"
Dean referred to one meeting
in which he and the president, along
with several advisers, discussed strategies
for continuing the deceit

The White House strongly denied
Dean's charges. The hearings had suddenly
reached an impasse as the committee
attempted to sort out who was
telling the truth.
Saturday Night Massacre
A year-long battle for the "Nixon tapes" followed. Archibald Cox, the special
prosecutor whom Elliot Richardson had appointed to investigate the case, took
the president to court in October 1973 to obtain the tapes.
Nixon refused and
ordered Attorney General Richardson to fire Cox. In what became known as the
Saturday Night Massacre, Richardson refused the order and resigned
The
deputy attorney general also refused the order, and he was fired. Solicitor General
Robert Bork finally fired Cox.
Cox's replacement, Leon Jaworski, proved
equally determined to get the tapes. Several months after the "massacre," the
House Judiciary Committee began examining the possibility of an impeachment
hearing.

days before the Saturday
Night Massacre, Vice President Spiro Agnew had resigned after it was revealed that he
had accepted bribes from engineering firms while governor of Maryland
Nixon nominated the House minority leader, Gerald R. Ford, as his
new vice-president. Congress quickly confirmed the nomination.
The Tapes!!!
Alexander Butterfield stunned the committee
when he revealed that Nixon had taped
virtually all of his presidential conversations.
Butterfield later claimed that the
taping system was installed "to help
Nixon write his memoirs." However, for
the Senate committee, the tapes were
the key to revealing what Nixon knew
and when he knew

In the spring
of 1974, President Nixon told a television audience
that he was releasing 1,254 pages of edited
transcripts of White House conversations
about Watergate. Nixon's offering failed to satisfy
investigators, who demanded the unedited
tapes.
Nixon refused, and the case went before
the Supreme Court. On July 24, 1974, the high
court ruled unanimously that the president
must surrender the tapes. The Court rejected
Nixon's argument that doing so would violate
national security.
articles of impeachment
The committee eventually voted to recommend the impeachment of
Richard Nixon for his role in the Watergate scandal. However, before Congress
could take further action against him, the president resigned.

Even without holding the original tapes, the House
Judiciary Committee determined that there was enough evidence to impeach
Richard Nixon. On July 27, the committee approved three articles of impeachment,
charging the president with obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt
of Congress for refusing to obey a congressional subpoena to release the tapes.
Constitutional crisis
...
resignation
On August 5, Nixon released the tapes. They
contained many gaps, and one tape revealed a
disturbing 181/2-minute gap.
According to the
White House, Rose Mary Woods, President
Nixon's secretary, accidentally erased part of
a conversation between H. R. Haldeman and
Nixon. More importantly, a tape dated June 23,
1972—six days after the Watergate break-in—
that contained a conversation between Nixon
and Haldeman, disclosed the evidence investigators
needed. Not only had the president
known about the role of members of his administration
in the burglary, he had agreed to the
plan to obstruct the FBI's investigation.

The evidence now seemed overwhelming.
On August 8, 1974, before the full House vote on
the articles of impeachment began, President
Nixon announced his resignation from office.
Gerald Ford
A short time
later, Gerald Ford was sworn in as the 38th president of the
United States.
long-term impact
Eventually,
25 members of the Nixon Administration were convicted
and served prison terms for crimes connected to
Watergate. Along with the divisive war in Vietnam,
Watergate produced a deep disillusionment with the
"imperial" presidency. In the years following Vietnam
and Watergate, the American public and the media developed
a general cynicism about public officials that still exists
today
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