History of the USA

state, he began a kind of balance-of-power diplomacy. He preferred to keep

the United States free of lasting commitments (even to former allies) so

that it could move back and forth between the other four power centers--

Europe, the USSR, China, and Japan--and maintain world equilibrium.

Nixon soon announced his "Vietnamization" policy, which meant a slow

withdrawal of American forces and a heavy building up of the South Vietnam

army. Nonetheless, in the 3 years 1969-71, 15,000 more Americans died

fighting in Vietnam. In April 1970, Nixon launched a huge invasion of

Cambodia in a vain attempt to clear out communist "sanctuaries."

Then, most dramatically, he deflected world attention by ending the long

American quarantine of Communist China, visiting Peking in February 1972

for general discussions on all matters of mutual concern--a move that led

to the establishment (1979) of diplomatic relations. At the same time, he

continued the heavy bombing attacks on North Vietnam that he had

reinstituted in late 1971. He brushed aside as "without binding force or

effect"the congressional attempt to halt American fighting in Vietnam by

repealing the TONKIN GULF RESOLUTION of 1964, which had authorized Johnson

to begin military operations. Nixon asserted that as commander in chief he

could do anything he deemed necessary to protect the lives of American

troops still in Vietnam.

In May 1972, Nixon became the first American president to consult with

Soviet leaders in Moscow, leaving with major agreements relating to trade,

cooperation in space programs and other fields of technology, cultural

exchanges, and many other areas. He became more popular as prosperity waxed

and as negotiations with the North Vietnamese in Paris seemed to be

bringing the Vietnam War to a halt. In 1972 the Democrats nominated for the

presidency Sen. George MCGOVERN of South Dakota, a man who for years had

advocated women's rights, black equality, and greater power for the young.

With the nation's increasingly conservative cultural mood and the trend in

Vietnam, Nixon won a massive landslide victory. In January 1973, Nixon

announced a successful end to the Vietnamese negotiations: a cease-fire was

established and an exchange of prisoners provided for.

Watergate

Few presidents could ever have been more confident of a successful second

term than Richard Nixon at this point. But before the year 1973 was out,

his administration had fallen into the gravest scandal in American history.

By March 1974 the stunning events of the WATERGATE crisis and associated

villainies had led to the resignation of more than a dozen high officials--

including the vice-president (for the acceptance of graft)--and the

indictment or conviction of many others. Their criminal acts included

burglary, forgery, illegal wiretapping and electronic surveillance,

perjury, obstruction of justice, bribery, and many other offenses.

These scandalous events had their roots in the long Democratic years

beginning with Roosevelt, when the American presidency had risen in a kind

of solitary majesty to become overwhelmingly the most powerful agency of

government. All that was needed for grave events to occur was the

appearance in the White House of individuals who would put this immense

power to its full use. Lyndon Johnson was such a man, for he was driven by

gargantuan dreams. One result was America's disastrous war in Vietnam.

Richard Nixon, too, believed in the imperial authority of the presidency.

He envisioned politics as an arena in which he represented true Americanism

and his critics the forces of subversion.

At least from 1969, Nixon operated on the principle that, at his direction,

federal officials could violate the law. On June 17, 1972, members of his

Special Investigations Unit (created without congressional authorization)

were arrested while burglarizing the national Democratic party offices in

the Watergate office-and-apartment complex in Washington, D.C.

A frantic effort then began, urged on by the president, to cover up links

between the Watergate burglars and the executive branch. This cover-up

constituted an obstruction of justice, a felony. This fact, however, was

kept hidden through many months of congressional hearings (begun in May

1973) into the burglaries. Televised, they were watched by multitudes. The

American people learned of millions of dollars jammed into office safes and

sluiced about from hand to hand to finance shady dealings, of elaborate

procedures for covering tracks and destroying papers, and of tapes

recording the president's conversations with his aides.

With Watergate eroding Nixon's prestige, Congress finally halted American

fighting in Indochina by cutting off funds (after Aug. 15, 1973) to finance

the bombing of Cambodia, which had continued after the Vietnam Peace

Agreement. Thus, America's longest war was finally concluded. In November

1973, Congress passed, over the president's veto, the War Powers Act,

sharply limiting the executive's freedom of action in initiating foreign

wars. When Vice-President Spiro T. AGNEW resigned his office on Oct. 10,

1973, Nixon, with Senate ratification, appointed Gerald R. Ford to replace

him.

On July 24, 1974, the Supreme Court ordered Nixon to deliver his Oval

Office tapes to Congress. This order, in turn, led to the revelation that

he had directly approved the cover-up. Informed by Republican congressional

leaders of his certain conviction in forthcoming impeachment proceedings,

Richard Nixon resigned the presidency on Aug. 9, 1974.

The Third Century Begins

As the nation approached its bicentennial anniversary under President

Gerald R. FORD (1974-77), it was reassured that the Constitution had

worked: a president guilty of grave offenses had been made peacefully to

leave his office. The American people had become aware, however, in the

Vietnam conflict, of the limits to their nation's strength and of questions

as to the moral legitimacy of its purposes. They had also learned, in the

Watergate scandal, of the danger of corruption of the republic's democratic

values. The nation's cities were in grave difficulties; its nonwhite

peoples still lagged far behind the whites in income and opportunity;

unemployment seemed fixed at a level of more than 6 percent, which, for

minorities and the young, translated into much higher figures, and

inflation threatened to erode the buying power of everyone in the country.

Most of these problems continued to plague the American nation during the

presidency (1977-81) of Jimmy CARTER, Democrat of Georgia, who defeated

Ford in the 1976 election. Carter brought to the presidency an informality

and sense of piety. He arranged negotiations for an Egyptian-Israeli peace

treaty (signed in 1979) and guided the Panama Canal treaty through narrow

Senate approval (1978). Carter also had to deal with shortages of petroleum

that threatened to bring the energy- hungry U.S. economy to a standstill,

with soaring inflation and interest rates, with the taking (1979) of U.S.

hostages by Iranian militants (see IRANIAN HOSTAGE CRISIS), and with an

international crisis precipitated by Soviet intervention (1979) in

Afghanistan. His popularity waned as problems remained unsolved, and in

1980 the voters turned overwhelmingly to the conservative Republican

candidate, Ronald REAGAN.

Robert Kelley

The Reagan Era

The release of the U.S. hostages in Iran on the same day as Reagan's

inauguration launched the new administration on a wave of euphoria. Aided

by a torrent of goodwill following an attempt on his life in March 1981,

Reagan persuaded the Congress to cut government spending for welfare,

increase outlays for defense, reduce taxes, and deregulate private

enterprise. His "supply side" economic policy (dubbed "Reaganomics" by the

media) anticipated that lower taxes and a freer market would stimulate

investment and that a prosperous, expanding economy would increase

employment, reduce inflation, and provide enough government revenue to

eliminate future budget deficits.

The "Reagan Revolution," combined with the tight money policies of the

Federal Reserve System, initially dismayed those who hoped for a reversal

of the economic stagnation of the 1970s. Although high interest rates

helped cut inflation from more than 12 percent in 1980 to less than 7

percent in 1982, unemployment rose from 7 percent to 11 percent--the

highest rate since 1940--and the annual federal deficit soared to $117

billion, almost twice as high as it had ever been. The United States

experienced its worst recession since the 1930s. Beginning in 1983,

however, the economy rebounded sharply. By the end of 1986, 11 million new

jobs had been created, the consumer price index had dropped from 13.1

percent in 1979 to just 4.1 percent, and the Dow-Jones average had climbed

to an all-time high.

The Reagan recovery did little for rural America or for the declining

industrial regions of the Midwest. In the first half of the 1980s, 8.4

million people joined the ranks of the poor, an increase of 40 percent.

Nearly 33 million Americans--one out of every seven--were reported as

living below the poverty line. But the bulk of middle-class America, buoyed

by low inflation and its own prosperity, gave the president high marks for

his economic program. Conservatives were pleased with his appointments to

the federal bench, his declarations of faith in traditional values, and his

proud patriotism.

In practice, and often in response to congressional pressure, Reagan

balanced his ardent anti-Communist rhetoric with generally restrained

foreign-policy actions. He denounced the USSR as an "evil empire" but ended

the embargo on grain sales to the Soviets imposed by President Carter after

the invasion of Afghanistan. While presiding over the largest peacetime

military buildup in U.S. history, he observed the still- unratified SALT II

arms control treaty negotiated by his predecessor. He sent American troops

to Lebanon as part of a peacekeeping force but withdrew them after 241

marines were killed in a bomb attack in October 1983.

Only in Central America and the Caribbean did the president's actions match

his rhetoric. To quash a Communist revolt in El Salvador, Reagan committed

military advisors and furnished financial aid to the Salvadoran government.

Determined to oust Nicaragua's pro-Communist Sandinista government, he gave

covert aid to antigovernment rebels--known as the contras--in defiance of a

congressional ban on such aid. In 1983 he used military force to topple a

pro-Cuban regime on the Caribbean island of Grenada.

Reagan and his running mate, George Bush, easily defeated their Democratic

opponents, Walter MONDALE and Geraldine FERRARO, in 1984, but the Democrats

maintained control of Congress and the president offered fewer domestic

initiatives during his second term. Partisan wrangling over what parts of

the budget to cut in order to reduce the staggering federal deficit led to

passage of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act (1985), which mandated automatic,

across-the-board spending cuts over a period of years. The Supreme Court

declared the automatic cuts unconstitutional in 1986, however, and repeated

failure by the president and Congress to agree on budget reductions kept

the deficit at record levels. Disputes over the control of trade policy

also worsened the imbalance of imports over exports, which rose to $161

billion in 1987.

Tax reductions and defense spending, however, kept the economy booming.

Reagan boosted defense spending 35 percent above the 1980 level, and in

1986 he secured congressional approval for a major INCOME TAX reform law

that further cut taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals and also

reduced by 6 million the number of poorer taxpayers.

At the end of Reagan's tenure the GOP could boast that his administration

had helped create 16.5 million new jobs, bring down the unemployment rate

to a 17-year low, cut double-digit inflation down to about 4 percent, and

raise the gross national product by one-third. Democrats, on the other

hand, could criticize "Reaganomics" for promoting prosperity at the expense

of the poor and the nation's future well-being. The number of people below

the poverty line rose by 8 million, and their lot was made worse by cuts of

nearly $50 billion in social-welfare programs. Reductions in subsidized

housing from $30 billion in 1981 to $7 billion in 1988 made HOMELESSNESS

part of the national lexicon, and the number of Americans without any

health-care insurance rose to 37 million. By borrowing rather than taxing

to rearm, Reagan mortgaged the financial future. The cost of servicing the

national debt rose from 8.9 percent of all federal outlays in 1980 to 14.8

percent in 1989. Moreover, persistent trade and budget deficits made the

country a debtor nation for the first time since 1914.

During its eight years in office, the administration had a significant

impact on the composition of the federal judiciary. President Reagan

appointed three conservatives to the Supreme Court and elevated

conservative William Rehnquist to the position of chief justice. Overall,

he filled about half of the 700 federal judgeships, most of them with

conservative appointees.

A major scandal of Reagan's second term was the IRAN-CONTRA AFFAIR, in

which national security advisor John M. Poindexter, Marine Lt. Col. Oliver

North, and other administration officials were involved in a secret scheme

to sell arms to Iran, diverting some of the proceeds to the contra rebels

in Nicaragua. Investigation of this affair by Congress in 1987 led to the

prosecution of Poindexter and North, and damaged the administration's

image.

Ironically, developments in foreign affairs during Ronald Reagan's second

term led this most anti-Communist of presidents into a new, harmonious

relationship with the Soviet Union and to sign the first superpower treaty

that actually reduced nuclear armaments. Soviet leader Mikhail GORBACHEV,

determined to relax tensions with the West, met with Reagan in 1985 and

1986; in 1987 they signed the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, and in

1988 a triumphant Reagan traveled to Moscow for a fourth summit and further

arms-reduction talks.

The Bush Administration

The remarkable reduction in cold-war tensions, combined with the promise of

continued prosperity with no increase in taxes, carried Republicans George

BUSH and Dan QUAYLE to victory over Democratic candidates Michael DUKAKIS

and Lloyd BENTSEN in 1988. Lacking his predecessor's strong personal

following and facing a Democratic-controlled Congress, Bush sought to

govern in a more moderate, middle-of-the-road way than Reagan. The rapid

demise of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989-90 and upheaval in the USSR

in 1991 provided him with an opportunity to lessen international tensions

and to reclaim the primacy of the United States in world affairs. Bush

intervened militarily in Panama in 1989 to overthrow its president, Manuel

NORIEGA. In mid-1990, responding to Iraq's invasion and annexation of

Kuwait, he ordered more than 400,000 American troops to the Persian Gulf

region to defend Saudi Arabia. When Iraqi troops refused to withdraw from

Kuwait in January 1991, demanded by Bush in an ultimatum, he authorized a

massive bombing, and then ground assault, on Iraq and its forces in Kuwait,

and won a swift victory. (See PERSIAN GULF WAR.)

Decisive in acting abroad, Bush failed to evolve a domestic program that

adequately addressed a persistent recession starting in 1990. That year,

despite the recession, he and congressional leaders agreed to a deficit-

reduction package that raised federal taxes, thereby breaking his "no new

taxes" 1988 election campaign pledge. He also failed on his promise to be

both "the environment president" and "the education president," and angered

many women by nominating Clarence THOMAS to the Supreme Court and

continuing to support him despite allegations of sexual harassment.

Concerned about the economy and demanding change, many conservative

Republicans backed political columnist Patrick J. Buchanan's effort to

contest Bush's renomination while moderates rallied to the independent

candidacy of H. Ross PEROT. Also focusing on the nation's economic woes and

promising change, William Jefferson "Bill" CLINTON, governor of Arkansas,

beat several rivals in the Democratic primaries and chose as his running

mate Tennessee senator Albert GORE--like Clinton, a baby-boomer, a white

Southern Baptist, and a moderate. Capitalizing on a slumping economy and

increasing unemployment, the Clinton-Gore ticket won 43 percent of the

highest voter turnout (55 percent) since 1976 and 370 electoral votes. The

Republicans Bush and Quayle tallied just 37 percent of the popular vote and

168 electoral votes, while Perot garnered 19 percent.

The Clinton Administration

Despite the movement into Washington of new people with fresh ideas, the

Clinton administration got off to a slow, unsteady start. Crises in Bosnia,

Haiti, Somalia, and Russia forced the president to focus on the volatile,

multipolar world of the post-cold war era. At the same time, Clinton backed

down from his promise to prohibit discrimination against gays in the

military and reneged on his pledge, for lack of revenue, to cut middle-

class taxes. Defeated by Congress on his proposals to stimulate the

economy, Clinton then won by the narrowest of margins a highly compromised

federal budget plan to reduce the deficit. The president had more success

in persuading Congress to enact family-leave, "motor voter" registration

(see VOTER REGISTRATION), and campaign finance reform bills, to approve the

NORTH AMERICAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT, and to consent to his nomination of

Ruth Bader GINSBURG to the Supreme Court. Clinton's future effectiveness

and reputation rested largely on the fate of his plans to reform the health-

care system and to provide effective solutions to the problems of economic

insecurity and social disorder haunting middle-class Americans.

Harvard Sitkoff

Bibliography:

General:

Ahlstrom, Sydney E., A Religious History of the American People (1972);

Banner, Lois W., Women in Modern America, 2d ed. (1984); Barth, Gunther,

Fleeting Moments: Nature and Culture in American History (1990); Blum, John

M., et al., The National Experience: A History of the United States, 7th

ed. (1989); Cohen, Warren I., ed., The Cambridge History of American

Foreign Relations, 4 vols. (1993); Curti, Merle Eugene, The Growth of

American Thought, 3d ed. (1964; repr. 1981); Ferrell, Robert H., American

Diplomacy, 3d ed. (1975); Garraty, J. A., The American Nation, 7th ed.

(1991); Heilbroner, R. L., and Singer, Aaron, The Economic Transformation

of America: 1600 to Present, 2d ed. (1984); Hofstadter, Richard, The

American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It, 2d ed. (1973);

Huckshorn, R. J., Political Parties in America, 2d ed. (1983); Morison, S.

E., and Commager, H. S., The Growth of the American Republic, 2 vols., 7th

ed. (1980).

To c.1860:

Bailyn, Bernard, The Peopling of British North America (1986); Boorstin,

Daniel Joseph, The Americans: The National Experience (1965; repr. 1985);

Elkins, Stanley, and McKitrick, Eric, The Age of Federalism (1993);

Genovese, Eugene, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (1974).

From c.1860:

Biles, Roger, A New Deal for the American People (1991); Foner, Eric,

Reconstruction (1988); Higham, John, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of

American Nativism, 1860-1925, 2d ed. (1965; repr. 1988); Hodgson, Godfrey,

America in Our Time (1976); Hofstadter, Richard, The Age of Reform: From

Bryan to F. D. R. (1955); Leffler, Melvin, A Preponderance of Power (1992);

Leuchtenburg, William E., Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932-1940

(1963); and In the Shadow of FDR: From Harry Truman to Ronald Reagan

(1985); McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era

(1988); Nevins, Allan, Ordeal of the Union, 8 vols. (1947-71); Painter,

Neil I., Standing at Armageddon: The United States 1877-1919 (1987);

Preston, Daniel, Twentieth Century United States History (1992); Schlereth,

Thomas J., Victorian America (1988); Schlossstein, Steven, The End of the

American Century (1990); Sitkoff, Harvard, The Struggle for Black Equality,

1954-1992 (1993); Wiebe, R. H., The Search for Order, 1877-1920 (1967;

repr. 1980); Winkler, Allan, Modern America (1991).

See also: AMERICAN ART AND ARCHITECTURE; AMERICAN LITERATURE; AMERICAN

MUSIC; UNITED STATES.

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