Fracture: Vietnam, Watergate, and After, 1968–1980

This is Unit Fifteen, part four, on the pardon, the Ford and Carter years, and the unit's two closing questions. Part three closed with Nixon's resignation, the only one in the nation's history, and pointed to the pardon. Carry one discipline through this part: questions with more than one true answer. The pardon has two readings. Carter's presidency holds a peace at Camp David and a crisis in Tehran. And the unit closes by asking why the United States lost in Vietnam, and what Watergate meant. By the end you will be able to weigh the two readings of Ford's pardon. To describe how Congress restrained the presidency. To describe Carter's economy, energy policy and crisis of confidence. To describe his foreign policy, from Camp David to the hostages. And to answer the unit's two closing questions.

Four entries: the pardon, Ford in office, Congress restraining the presidency, and the election of nineteen seventy-six.

The pardon.

USH2 2159 The Pardon

On September eighth, nineteen seventy-four, Ford granted Nixon a full pardon, the anchor records, and the Yawp notes that Nixon never publicly apologised, accepted responsibility or faced charges. Two readings stand on the record. Carter, at his inauguration, thanked Ford for helping heal Watergate's scars, the anchor says; the Yawp says the pardon damaged Ford's chances in nineteen seventy-six.

Ford's presidency.

USH2 2160 Ford in Office

Ford continued Nixon's policy of détente, and with Secretary of State Kissinger made further progress in a second round of arms talks, the anchor records, while the Yawp describes large Democratic gains in the midterms of nineteen seventy-four. Digital History records that Soviet missiles outnumbered American ones by half by nineteen seventy-five, feeding doubts about détente.

Congress and the intelligence agencies.

USH2 2161 Restraining the Imperial Presidency

Congressional investigators found in the nineteen seventies that the CIA and FBI had broken into homes, tapped phones and infiltrated antiwar groups, and that the CIA had joined plots to assassinate foreign leaders, Fidel Castro among them, Digital History records. Congress curbed the CIA at home, set strict FBI guidelines and created a joint committee to oversee the CIA.

The election of nineteen seventy-six.

USH2 2162 The Election of 1976

In nineteen seventy-six the Democrat Jimmy Carter defeated Ford with fifty percent of the popular vote to forty-eight, and two hundred ninety-seven electoral votes to two hundred forty, carrying every southern state except Virginia and Oklahoma. The Yawp describes Carter as a nuclear physicist and peanut farmer, one of a younger, racially liberal generation of New South Democrats.

Three entries on Carter at home: the economy, energy, and a crisis of confidence.

Carter's economy.

USH2 2163 Carter's Economy

Carter faced unemployment of seven and a half percent and inflation that rose into double digits, the anchor records, and his efforts were only marginally effective; the Yawp names the combined measure the misery index. It adds that the Iranian revolution brought another oil crisis as Iran's oil fields shut down.

Energy.

USH2 2164 Energy

Carter created the Department of Energy and urged conservation, appearing on television in a sweater to tell Americans that all of us must learn to waste less energy, the Yawp records. Energy, the anchor says, was the problem Carter set out to meet through the new department.

A crisis of confidence.

USH2 2165 A Crisis of Confidence

In a televised address Carter warned of a crisis of confidence that, in his words, strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will, describing the country's troubles as a loss of faith rather than a list of problems. The confidence in government built in unit eleven was fraying; unit sixteen follows the turn.

Five entries on Carter abroad: human rights, the canal, Camp David, Afghanistan, and a boycott.

Human rights.

USH2 2166 Human Rights

In nineteen seventy-seven Congress began requiring reports on human rights in countries receiving American aid, Digital History records, and Carter improved relations with China and ended military support for Nicaragua's dictator, Anastasio Somoza, the anchor records. Digital History records that Carter came to office determined to cut military spending and call for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

The Panama Canal.

USH2 2167 The Panama Canal

Carter helped arrange for the Panama Canal to pass to Panamanian control in nineteen ninety-nine, the anchor records, handing back the canal Theodore Roosevelt had secured in unit seven. The anchor counts the canal's return among Carter's foreign policy successes, alongside improved relations with China.

Camp David.

USH2 2168 Camp David

In nineteen seventy-seven Egypt's president, Anwar el-Sadat, decided to seek peace with Israel, but by the year's end his mission had run aground, Digital History records. In September nineteen seventy-eight Carter brought Sadat and Israel's prime minister to Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, and after thirteen days of secret negotiations, in the Yawp's count, they signed the Camp David Accords. The Yawp calls it the first time an Arab state recognised Israel and the first time Israel promised Palestinians self-government, and notes that the accords had limits for both. Digital History gives the talks as two weeks, the Yawp as thirteen days. The anchor counts the accords among Carter's foreign policy successes.

Afghanistan.

USH2 2169 Afghanistan

In nineteen seventy-nine the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, and Carter made what the anchor calls a more controversial decision in response, as détente frayed and more Americans came to believe, Digital History says, that Soviet hard-liners used it as a tactic. In January nineteen eighty Carter warned that unless the Soviets withdrew, the United States would boycott the Moscow Olympics.

The boycott.

USH2 2170 The Olympic Boycott

The Soviet forces stayed, and no American team went to the nineteen eighty Summer Olympics in Moscow, a decision only about half the public, the anchor says, supported. Carter asked other nations to join the boycott; very few did, the anchor records.

Three entries on Iran: the shah's fall, the hostage crisis, and four hundred forty-four days.

The shah of Iran.

USH2 2171 The Fall of the Shah

The shah of Iran had let the United States place listening posts on the Soviet border and kept selling it oil through the Arab embargo, Digital History records, and Carter visited Iran in late December nineteen seventy-seven to show American support. By the fall of nineteen seventy-eight, Digital History says, the revolution against the shah was gaining force.

The hostage crisis.

USH2 2172 The Hostage Crisis

On November fourth, nineteen seventy-nine, Iranian students and activists stormed the American embassy in Tehran and took sixty-six employees captive; fifty-two remained in captivity, and nightly news programmes, in the Yawp's account, reminded Americans of the hostages. Among the captors, the anchor says, were fundamentalists opposed to Iran's Westernisation; the Yawp adds another oil shock.

The hostages' release.

USH2 2173 Four Hundred Forty-Four Days

The fifty-two hostages were freed on January twentieth, nineteen eighty-one, the day Ronald Reagan took office, the anchor records, flying home on the day a new president was sworn in. The Yawp counts four hundred forty-four days of captivity. Unit sixteen opens on that inauguration day.

Two entries to close the unit: why the United States lost in Vietnam, and what Watergate meant.

Why the United States lost in Vietnam.

USH2 2174 Why the United States Lost in Vietnam

The question has military, political and domestic answers, and the sources give evidence for each. The military answer begins with the enemy's persistence: Tet failed on the battlefield yet showed, the Yawp says, that the enemy could strike anywhere after years of war, and the Paris accords left over one hundred thousand North Vietnamese soldiers in the South. The political answer concerns the government the United States defended: Digital History records that South Vietnamese generals overthrew and murdered President Diem in nineteen sixty-three, with Kennedy's sanction. The domestic answer is the one the anchor dwells on: Tet cut approval of Johnson's handling of the war from forty to twenty-six percent, the briefings became the Five O'Clock Follies, the Pentagon Papers and My Lai eroded trust, and Kent State and Jackson State brought the war onto campus. Two misreadings sit on either side. One says the war was lost at home alone; the anchor's judgement that the South had no hope against the North contradicts it. The other says it was unwinnable from the start, which the sources do not claim. The course states the three explanations and does not reduce them to one.

What Watergate meant.

USH2 2175 What Watergate Meant

The anchor's sequence leaves this open, and the course states both readings. The case for a system that worked runs through every branch and the press: two reporters and an FBI source exposed the cover-up, Judge Sirica refused an incomplete verdict, the Senate hearings reached every living room, the Supreme Court ordered the tapes released, the House Judiciary Committee voted articles of impeachment, and the president resigned. Afterward Congress restrained the presidency itself. The case for a system that failed is also on the record: Nixon ordered the investigation blocked six days after the break-in, eighteen and a half minutes of tape went missing, and after the pardon, in the Yawp's words, Nixon never publicly apologised, accepted responsibility or faced charges. The Yawp says no scandal did more to unravel public trust. Two misreadings sit on either side: that the system worked perfectly, which the pardon and the lost trust contradict; and that it failed entirely, which a president forced from office contradicts. The course holds both: the institutions removed a president, and the pardon spared him judgement.

Look at what you can now do. You can weigh the pardon's two readings: healing the nation's scars, as Carter thanked Ford for, or sparing Nixon any reckoning and costing Ford in nineteen seventy-six. You can describe how Congress restrained the presidency and the intelligence agencies after investigators found break-ins, wiretaps and assassination plots. You can describe Carter at home: the misery index, a new Department of Energy, and a crisis of confidence. You can describe Carter abroad: human rights, the canal returned, Camp David, the Olympic boycott, and four hundred forty-four days of hostages. And you can answer the two closing questions. The war was lost for military, political and domestic reasons together, and Watergate showed institutions removing a president and a pardon sparing him.