The 1970s and 1980s
After the turbulence of the 1960s, Americans faced political scandal, economic troubles, and a conservative resurgence.
Nixon's foreign policy
Richard Nixon pursued détente, easing tensions with the Soviet Union through arms control agreements such as SALT I (1972), and opened relations with communist China with a historic visit in 1972. National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger played a central role.
Watergate
In 1972, burglars linked to Nixon's re-election campaign broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex. Investigations by journalists, Congress, and a special prosecutor revealed a cover-up involving the president. After the Supreme Court ordered release of White House tapes, Nixon resigned in August 1974, the only US president to do so. Gerald Ford pardoned him.
Economic troubles
The 1970s brought stagflation: high inflation combined with high unemployment. The 1973 oil embargo by Arab members of OPEC quadrupled oil prices, causing petrol shortages. Manufacturing jobs began moving abroad or to the South and West, and the industrial 'Rust Belt' declined.
Carter's presidency
Jimmy Carter brokered the Camp David Accords (1978), a peace agreement between Egypt and Israel. But high inflation, energy crises, and the Iran hostage crisis, in which 52 Americans were held for 444 days after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, weakened his presidency.
The conservative resurgence
Ronald Reagan won the 1980 election with a coalition of economic conservatives, religious conservatives (including the 'Moral Majority'), and anti-communists. He cut taxes, reduced some regulations and domestic programmes, and greatly increased defence spending. Supporters credit 'Reaganomics' with growth after a 1981-1982 recession; critics point to large budget deficits and rising inequality.
The end of the Cold War
Reagan called the Soviet Union an 'evil empire' and expanded the military, but also negotiated with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, whose reforms of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) changed the USSR. They signed the INF Treaty (1987) eliminating a class of nuclear missiles. The Berlin Wall fell in 1989, and the Soviet Union dissolved in December 1991.
Social change
The 1970s and 1980s saw Roe v. Wade (1973) legalising abortion nationwide (later overturned by Dobbs v. Jackson in 2022), debates over the Equal Rights Amendment, which failed to be ratified, growth of the environmental movement (the first Earth Day was in 1970 and the EPA was created that year), and the emergence of the AIDS epidemic in the early 1980s.
Worked example
In 1979, an American family faced petrol queues during the second oil shock, inflation above 11%, and mortgage rates heading toward the high teens. These pressures help explain why voters in 1980 turned to Reagan's promises of tax cuts and a stronger economy. After the Federal Reserve's tight money policy under Paul Volcker, inflation fell sharply by 1983, though at the cost of a deep recession.
Key takeaways
Nixon pursued détente and opened relations with China. Watergate led to Nixon's resignation in 1974. The 1970s brought stagflation, the 1973 oil embargo, and deindustrialisation. Carter achieved the Camp David Accords but suffered the Iran hostage crisis. Reagan led a conservative resurgence with tax cuts and military spending. Reagan and Gorbachev's diplomacy helped end the Cold War; the USSR dissolved in 1991. Roe v. Wade, the ERA debate, environmentalism, and AIDS shaped society.
Flashcard
Easing of Cold War tensions
Check your understanding
What was the Watergate scandal?