Unit 5 US History ll complete
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Richard Nixon was the 37th president of the United States, and he was considered one of the most complex presidents in history. Nixon became president in America, during a major division because of the Vietnam War. He soon ended the fighting, and regained peace within America (Freidal, F., Sidey, H, 2006). Nixon ended the draft. ` Nixon also improved relations with the Soviet Union. Nixon responded to problems with a great attitude, and a strong drive that came from years of resentment against what he saw as “the Eastern Establishment” which was bankers, politicians, and businessmen (Schultz, K., 2010). Nixon thought these people had controlled the American life for years. He believed the Democratic establishment was out to ruin him.
President Nixon was best known for his Foreign Policy, and he strived for world stability. He began removing American troops from Vietnam in 1972, and continued removing them until the last troops were removed in 1973 (Freidal, F., Sidey, H, 2006). He reduced the tension with China and the Soviet Union. The first step to recover with China was when he accepted an invitation to send the American table tennis team to China to play a friendly international event (Schultz, K., 2010). This foreign policy became done has Ping-Pong Diplomacy (Schultz, K., 2010). Eventually Nixon went to China and the two nations increased trade agreement.
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) was when Nixon and the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev agrees to freeze the number of long-range missile launchers, and build certain new missions only after they had destroyed the same number of older missiles (Schultz, K., 2010). But this was not the end of the Cold War. Things were still heating up in Latin America and Africa but Nixon did not want to send any American troops over there because of the Vietnam situation.
References
Freidel, F., & Sidey, H. (2006). 37. Richard M. Nixon. Www.whitehouse.gov. Retrieved February 1, 2014, from http://whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/richardmnixon
Schultz, K. (2010). Chapter 26. Cengage Learning
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The 1970s was a time that the social activism ran into many road blocks, unlike the 60s. The economic boom came to an end, in 1973. Poverty was on a rise, and unemployment causing many serious issues. American politicians were leaning there was limits to politics. American Industries was slowing down, and foreign completion was increasing. The U. S. had to borrow money to balance the budget, and this led the dollar to decrease in value. And this meant it took more dollars to pay for things, and this condition is called inflation. In 1971, Nixon initiated the first time ever peacetime wage and price freeze. He was facing reelection and he was trying whatever it took to turn the economy around. And so in 1972, Nixon got reelected. The economic boom came to an end, in 1973. The oil embargo of 1973, was huge. The Middle East was set on punishing the US for supporting Israel by embargo on oil, and this was known has the Yom Kippur War of 1973. This economic cycle of prices going up while the economy is losing jobs is called stagflation (Schultz, K., 2010). Stagflation was extremely had to fight, because the only tools the government has to the economy, and this meant regulating the interest rate from the Federal Reserve banks. We cannot lower inflation while growing the economy, these tools do not exist.
President Ford fought the Democratic congress his first year in office. He fought inflation first, then shifted to stimulating the economy. Ford still feared inflation, and so he vetoed many non-military subsidy bills that would have increased a higher budgetary deficit (Freidal, F., Sidey, H, 2006). Ford lost his reelection to James Carter.
President Carter worked hard on the economic inflation and unemployment (Freidal, F., Sidey, H, 2006). His administration increased almost eight million jobs, and the budget deficit decreased. However,