Gerald Ford became the first man to be President without ever having to run for the office of either President or Vice President. He took office at a very troubled time in American history. Vice President Spiro Agnew and President Richard Nixon had resigned in disgrace. The war in Vietnam had ended but in a way that many people considered a defeat for the United States. The nation was badly divided, and faith in the federal government was badly shaken. One of Ford's first acts as President was to grant a full pardon to former President Nixon. Ford knew that without the pardon Nixon might well be brought to trial for having obstructed justice in the Watergate scandal. Such a trial would have gone on for months or possibly years, keeping the country in turmoil. He hoped a quick pardon would end the matter and he could get on with restoring the country's self-respect. Instead, the pardon made many people angry at Ford. They felt that Nixon had committed crimes and should have been punished like any other citizen. Even so, most Americans realized that Ford himself was an honest and honorable man. First Lady Betty Ford was even more popular than her husband, as she was well-known for speaking her own mind and championing equal rights for women.
However, the nation's economy was a mess. Prices were going up almost every day, and many people were out of work. Although almost everyone respected President Ford, many people wanted a President who could solve the problems of unemployment and inflation. He was defeated in the election of 1976 by Jimmy Carter.
Jimmy Carter was helped by the fact that he was largely unknown. Though Gerald Ford was an honest man, he had been chosen by Nixon to be Vice President. In many people's minds that tainted him. They wanted someone new, someone who didn't belong to the D.C. in-group. In his inaugural address, Carter called for an end to all racial discrimination. "Our commitment to human rights must be absolute," he said. He then spoke of "Our ultimate goal - the elimination of all nuclear weapons from this Earth." Despite his high hopes, his crusade for human rights both at home and in other countries angered the Soviet Union. Many people in the United States and abroad opposed his goal of eliminating nuclear weapons. Carter and Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev did sign a treaty somewhat limiting the creation of new nuclear weapons, but the treaty was never approved by the U.S. Senate because some senators believed it gave the Russians an unfair advantage.
Under President Theodore Roosevelt, the U.S. had leased the land for the Panama Canal by a combination of trickery and force. The canal passed right through Panama but was under U.S. control. Many Panamanians and other Latin Americans resented this. Carter pushed a treaty through Congress that would eventually give ownership of the canal to Panama. He realized the U.S. couldn't constantly defend the canal from sabotage, and he believed that the good will of Latin America was worth more than technical control of the canal. He was right, but many people were angry with him for "giving our canal to Panama."
Carter was also blamed for the bad economy. The oil-producing countries of the Middle East raised their prices, and as a result, the price of almost everything else rose too. Carter seemed uncertain of what measures to take, and the laws he did ask for were rarely passed by Congress. To make matters worse, there was a revolution in Iran, one of America's sources of foreign oil. The old government had long been friendly to the U.S., but now a group of religious militants supported by the new Iranian government stormed the U.S. Embassy and held American employees hostage for 444 days. The U.S. refused to pay any ransom, but there didn't seem to be any way to rescue the hostages either. When it looked as if they might be murdered anyway, Carter ordered the military to try a secret rescue. Unfortunately, this failed when several helicopters crashed in a desert dust storm early in the attempt and eight marines were killed. There was very little that Carter could do, but many people blamed him for both the economic problems and for allowing the hostages to remain imprisoned for over a year.
However, Carter did triumph in another part of the Middle East. Egypt and Israel had been at war off and on for many years. It was a dangerous situation that might have exploded into a larger war involving the United States and the Soviet Union. Carter played a leading role in negotiating the Camp David Accord, signed on March 26, 1979 by President Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt and Premier Menachem Begin of Israel. The treaty guaranteed peace between the two countries. It was the high point of Carter's presidency, but he remained unpopular despite this agreement and the fact that diplomats had at last worked out a peaceful way for the American hostages to be released. When he ran for re-election in 1980, he was overwhelmingly defeated by Ronald Reagan.
During WWII, Ronald Reagan served in the Army Air Force. He wasn't in combat but he made training films in California. After the war, he went back to Hollywood. Up until then he had been a liberal Democrat, but now, as a member of the Screen Actors Guild, he became involved in a dispute between his union and other unions in the movie-making business. Some members of some unions had attended Communist party meetings. Reagan became convinced that Communists were trying to take over the American movie business. Eventually the dispute was settled, but Reagan remained certain that the Soviet Union was constantly secretly trying to destroy noncommunist governments all over the world. Gradually, his own political thinking became more and more conservative. He began to believe that the U.S. government had become too big and that it interfered too much with private business.
At the time of his presidency, the country was having serious economic problems. The cost of living was going up, and interest rates were so high that few people could borrow money to buy houses or cars or to start a business. Reagan promised to cut taxes and to save money by cutting government expenses. However, he said that Russian military power had grown greater than that of the U.S., and he promised to build up the military and still save money. He pushed several tax cuts through Congress. Many people said these helped the rich more than the poor. Reagan felt sure the tax cuts would improve business, which in turn would help everybody. His money-saving tactics were to ask Congress for heavy cuts in programs to aid the poor, the aged, the environment, and the national parks, among others. He was only partly successful. At the same time, he asked for and received record amounts of money for the military. Convinced of the worldwide threat of Communism, he sent military advisors and millions of dollars to help defend the Central American governments of El Salvador and Honduras against rebels and to oppose the communist-influenced government of Nicaragua. He sent U.S. troops to Lebanon. Along with small numbers of British, French, and Italian soldiers, they were supposed to act as a "peace-keeping force" in the Middle East.
Reagan kept reminding voters that under his administration the rate of inflation had dropped sharply. Prices were still going up, but not nearly as rapidly as a few years before. Interest rates were still high but lower than they had been. Taxes for some people were lower. On the whole, the economy had improved. His opponent, Walter Mondale, who had been Vice President under Carter, pointed to the huge amounts Reagan continued to spend on weapons while cutting back on government-sponsored programs to help the poor and the aged. Because of Reagan's increased military spending with no new taxes, the country was going deeper into debt. The 1984 federal budget deficit was estimated at more than 180 billion dollars. However, Mondale's criticisms of the administration didn't seem to influence the voters, and Reagan was easily re-elected. Reagan began to press for funds to develop the Strategic Defensive Initiative, a space-based antimissile shield to protect the U.S. against nuclear attack. The newspapers called it "Star Wars." In addition, he asked Congress to rewrite the tax laws to create a new, simplified tax system. He also met with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and discussed arms reduction and cultural exchanges.
Reagan also reacted firmly to increasing terrorist attacks all over the world. After confirming that Libyan leader Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi had been behind many of the acts of terrorism directed at America, he ordered air strikes against military targets in Libya in April 1986. When he requested more money to support the rebel Contra forces fighting the pro-Communist regime in Nicaragua, Congress resisted. They thought it would mean getting involved in another Vietnam. Reagan refused to give up or abandon the Americans kidnapped by terrorists in Beirut. He was sure that Iran was behind it. He'd repeatedly stated that he couldn't make any bargains for the release of the hostages, so it was a shock when a Beirut magazine reported that former National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane had been in Iran negotiating an arms shipment in exchange for the hostages' release and that the profits would go to the Contras in Nicaragua. Reagan was later cleared of any direct involvement in the matter, but he had obviously let his staff get out of hand.
In early October 1987 the value of U.S. stocks plunged. Reagan's financial policies were in trouble. The increased social and military spending backed by him and Congress had resulted in huge budget deficits. The U.S. was now the biggest debtor nation in the world. By the time he left office, however, the stock market was performing well. People talked less about the Iran-Contra Affair and more about the dramatic "thaw" taking place in Gorbachev's Soviet Union. According to the polls. Reagan was once again one of the most popular Presidents in many years.
The election of George Bush marked the 200th anniversary of the election of George Washington. Bush was also the first President since Martin Van Buren to be elected while filling the office of Vice President. Until the administration if Harry Truman, Vice Presidents had had very little to do. They presided over the Senate, but otherwise they were mostly ignored unless something happened to the President. When Bush became Vice President, he was given an office in the White House (the same one Jimmy Carter had set aside for his Vice President Walter Mondale; prior to that, Vice Presidents hadn't had an office at the White House) in addition to responsibilities delegated to him by Reagan.
Bush strongly believed in free trade and in continued American leadership in world affairs. Most of his own experience in government service was in the field of foreign affairs. This time period, 1988-1992, brought dramatic developments around the globe, the most important being the collapse of world Communism. At first, President Bush tried to work with Gorbachev to improve relations between the U.S. and the Soviet Union and reduce the number of nuclear weapons held by both countries. In August of 1990, however, Gorbachev was driven from power, and by the end of the year the Soviet Union itself had fallen apart. Bush now had to deal with Boris Yeltsin, President of the Republic of Russia, and the leaders of the other newly independent republics. The second major crisis of Bush's presidency began suddenly at the same time. Saddam Hussein, the dictator of Iraq, invaded the tiny, oil-rich country of Kuwait. Bush convinced a group of nations including Britain, France, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt that it was necessary to force Saddam to withdraw his army. After weeks of bombing raids, the combined armies of all these nations swept across the desert and freed Kuwait in February 1991.
The swift victory in the Persian Gulf War made Bush tremendously popular, and it seemed like he could easily win re-election, but problems were building up at home. The boom of the Reagan years had ended. An economic recession, which had also officially begun in August 1990, proved to be the deepest in decades. Businesses went bankrupt at record rates, and about ten million Americans were out of work. Moreover, during the Reagan years, the federal government had tripled the national debt. The recession made it impossible to get the budget in balance again. Many of these problems weren't really Bush's fault. The recession, for example, was worldwide. Still, when it came to dealing with troubles at home, the President seemed like a different person from the strong leader who'd engineered the Gulf War. In handling foreign affairs, he had clear goals and stuck to them, even if it meant making controversial decisions. At home, he was unable to get Congress to cooperate with the few proposals he did make.
Many Americans were deeply worried about the rising cost of health care, but Bush proposed only minor changes to the system. His unwillingness to make defense cuts in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War made it doubly hard to do anything about the government's rising budget deficit. Bust was forced to break his promise to the voters by asking Congress to pass new taxes. Bush claimed to feel strongly about one domestic issue. He believed that abortions should be against the law. However, abortion was a subject that divided supporters of both parties. Even First Lady Barbara Bush said she thought abortion was a personal question, not a political one. In the end, the voters decided it was time for a change. After presiding over the end of the Cold War and an overwhelming victory in the Gulf War, George Bush was turned out of office after a single term.
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