Topic #28 Overview Sheet
 
  Assignment #1
 

Sources:
 

Questions:
  1. How was Richard Nixon able to use "Vietnamization" and the draft lottery to defuse much of the opposition to the war?
  2. Why did Nixon keep the bombing of Cambodia secret from Congress and the American people?  What happened in the United States when the invasion of Cambodia was revealed?
  3. What did the Pentagon Papers reveal about the true nature of the Vietnam War?
  4. What did the bombings and negotiations from March 1972 to January 1973 accomplish?  What was the main stumbling block to final agreement?
  5. What were the main provisions of the Paris Accords?  Did they constitute "peace with honor?"
  6. What was the goal of d้tente?
  7. What were the effects of d้tente on the U. S. dealings with communist countries?   on the American public?
  8. Identify President Nixon's most important foreign policy achievements.
  9. Why could only Nixon "go to China?"
  10. What was the thrust of the Nixon Doctrine?  What were its implications on Chile?
  11. What dilemma of American Middle East policy did the Yom Kippur War make clear?  What other lessons did the war teach?
  12. Why did we come so close to global thermal nuclear war with the Soviet Union in 1973?
  13. To what constituency was Nixon trying to appeal with his attacks on liberal programs?
  14. Why did President Nixon appoint Warren Burger to the Supreme Court?
  15. What major decisions of the Warren Court most outraged conservatives?
  16. What successes and rebuffs did Nixon meet in his attempts to reshape the Supreme Court? 
  17. How did the Court, with four Nixon appointments, perform, in the opinion of the President?
  18. What advantages did Nixon have going into the 1972 election?  What were George McGovern's liabilities?
 

Terms:
 
  Assignment #2
 

Sources:
 

Questions:
  1. What were the proximate and fundamental causes of the creeping inflation of the late 1960s and 1970s?
  2. What were the causes and consequences of America's de-industrialization?
  3. Describe the general outlines of Nixon's economic policy. How effective was it?
  4. Why did President Nixon's own personality contribute to his downfall?
  5. What role did President Nixon's key advisors play in the Watergate scandal?
  6. What steps did the Nixon White House make to cover-up its involvement in the Watergate break-in?
  7. Why did Vice President Agnew resign?  How did his removal and the appointment of Gerald Ford as Vice President actually increase the pressure on Nixon?
  8. What role did Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein play in the Watergate scandal?
  9. Why was the revelation that President Nixon had taped his conversations so significant to the Sam Ervin Committee in the Senate?
  10. What did President Ford mean when he said that "Our long national nightmare is over?"
  11. Why did President Ford pardon former President Nixon?
  12. Is the Watergate scandal best understood as a product of an increasingly imperial presidency, a real radical threat, or the nature of Richard Nixon's own personality?
 

Terms:
 
  Assignment #3
 

Sources:
  • textbook:  pg. 885 to mid-pg. 895.    [11th ed. --> pg. 893 to mid-pg. 902]
  • film clips:  "The Century--America's Time."
 

Questions:
  1. How did his pardon of Richard Nixon affect Gerald Ford's political standing?
  2. How did President Ford attempt to get the nation's economy back in shape?  What was the purpose of the W.I.N. buttons?
  3. How did the energy crisis complicate Ford's problems?
  4. What factors played a significant role in Jimmy Carter's narrow victory in the 1976 presidential election?
  5. How did the approach that Jimmy Carter used to win the presidency hamper him AS president?
  6. How did Carter manage to help bring about a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel?
  7. What problems did critics have with President Carter's foreign policy philosophy?
  8. How was President Carter's treatment of the Shah of Iran inconsistent with his foreign policy philosophy?
  9. What led to the Iranian hostage crisis?  What political affects did it have on the Carter administration?
  10. Why did detente collapse with the Soviet Union during the Carter administration?
  11. Why did President Carter's popularity drop so dramatically by 1980?
  12. Describe the basis of Christian evangelicalism.  How could it lead to both social liberalism, as in Jimmy Carter, and, more typically, cultural conservatism, as in Jerry Falwell?
  13. List some of the issues stressed by the "Christian right."
  14. How did activists build the "New Right?"  What was Ronald Reagan's role in the emergence of the movement?
  15. To what extent was the tax revolt of the 1970s and 1980s as much an attack on government programs in principle as it was a frustration with high taxes?
  16. Why did Ronald Reagan win such a decisive victory in 1980?  What happened in the congressional races?
 

Terms:
 
 
              
 
Quizzes:
  1. Textbook Quizzes -->  chapter 32      chapter 33
  2. My Quizzes -->  A   B   C   D
Outlines / Lecture Notes / Review Sheets:
  1. Giant AHAP Review Sheet by a student from the class of '04, Horace Greeley HS
  2. Lecture outline --> "Watergate and a Return to Normalcy" (Prof. David McGee, Central Virginia Community College)
  3. Note Cards --> 1551-1603
  4. Presidential Election Data --> 1972     1976     1980
  5. Cram Sheets --> Dwight D. Eisenhower through Ronald W. Reagan

 

 

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