Chapter 39

The Stalemated Seventies 1968–1980

During the long post-World War II economic boom (from about 1950 to 1970), family incomes increased dramatically, but after 1970 “real,” or inflation-adjusted, incomes stagnated. Prosperity in the late 1990s led to a slight upward trend, though adjusted median family income began to decline in the early years of the twenty-first century.

Median Family Income, 1970–2001

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2003, and John J. McCusker, “Comparing the Purchasing Power of Money in the United States (or Colonies) from 1665 to 2003,” Economic History Services, 2004.

The Nixon WaveDuring Richard Nixon’s presidency, Americans experienced the first serious inflation since the immediate post-World War II years. The inflationary surge grew to tidal-wave proportions by the late 1970s, when the consumer price index rose at an annual rate of more than 10 percent.

New York Daily World

Reversing Kennedy’s inaugural plea to “bear any burden,” Nixon told Congress in February 1970, “America cannot--and will not--conceive all the plans, design all the programs, execute all the decisions and undertake all the defense of the free nations of the world.”

President Richard M. Nixon

Constantine Manos/ Magnum Photos

Cold War? Not for SomeThis poignant cartoon reminds its audience that while the rhetoric of the day might have been about a "Cold War," as America pursued its anti-communist policies around the world, some Americans were paying a very real price.

Portland Oregonian

The War at HomeAntiwar students clash with police in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1970.

Black star/ Stockphoto.com

Some Chicken, Some Egg, 1975This cartoon pokes fun at Henry Kissinger as a global statesman. Serving first as President Nixon’s national security adviser and then as secretary of state in the Nixon and Ford administrations, the German-born Kissinger brought with him to Washington a sophisticated--some said cynical--view of the world honed during his nearly two decades as a political science professor at Harvard.

The Economist

Balancing ActNixon treads delicately between the two communist superpowers in 1973, holding some of the wheat with which he enticed both into detente.

Ranan R. Lurie/ Cartoonnews International

Nixon buried McGovern in this election, but when his administration soon thereafter began to sink in a swamp of scandals, bumper stickers appeared in Boston proclaiming, “Don’t blame me, I’m from Massachusetts.”

Presidential Election of 1972 (with electoral vote by state)

Copyright (c) Houghton Mifflin Company. All Rights Reserved.

When Dean’s testimony was later corroborated by tape recordings of presidential conversations, President Richard Nixon was forced to resign. Behind Dean is his wife, Maureen.

John Dean Testifies at the Watergate Hearings

© Bettmann/ CORBIS

Nixon, the Law-and-Order-ManWhile Nixon had successfully campaigned on a platform of conservative "law and order," the American public was about to find out a very different reality.

New York Newsday

How Long Will Nixon Haunt the GOP?Doubts about Ford’s pardon of Nixon clouded his brief presidency.

Joseph Smith

A satirical view of where responsibility for the Vietnam debacle should be laid.Passing the Buck

Copyright Jules Feiffer

The Last Days of SaigonViolence often attended the frantic American evacuation from Vietnam in 1975.

© Bettmann/ CORBIS

Boat PeopleVietnamese refugees flee to freedom.

Black Star/ Stockphoto.com

A Vietnamese American boy learns classical calligraphy from his grandfather.Preserving the Past

Lawrence Migdale

Anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly (b. 1924)Schlafly traveled the country promoting her “STOP ERA” campaign. She argued that ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment would undermine the American family by violating “the right of a wife to be supported by her husband,” requiring women to serve in combat, and legalizing

Joan Roth/ Archive Photos/ Getty Images

In 1976 America’s bicentennial year, anti-busing demonstrators convulsed Boston, the historic “cradle of liberty.” White disillusionment with the race-based policies that were a legacy of Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” programs of the 1960s helped to feed the conservative, antigovernment movement that elected Ronald Reagan in 1980.

A Sad Day for Old Glory

Stanley Forman

Anwar Sadat of Egypt (left) and Menachem Begin of Israel (right) join U.S. president Jimmy Carter in confirming the historic accord that brought hopes of peace to the war-torn Middle East.

Celebrating the Camp David Agreement, September 1978

Black Star/ Stockphoto.com

Historical Double TakeMany Americans who looked back reverently to Theodore Roosevelt’s “Rough Rider” diplomacy were outraged at the Panama “giveaway.” But the Carter administration, looking to the future, argued persuasively that relinquishing control of the canal would be healthy for U.S.-Latin American relations.

©Valtman/Rothco

The grim specter of nuclear holocaust haunted the SALT II talks between Carter and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in Vienna in June 1979.

Two-Way SALT Talks

Uluschak/ Edmonton Journal/Rothco

Iranians Denounce President Jimmy Carter, November 1979Scenes like this one appeared almost nightly on American television during the 444 days of the Iranian hostage crisis, humiliating Carter and angering American citizens.

Henri Bureau/ Corbis-Sygma