S1: Welcome to the Hillsdale College Online Courses podcast. I'm Jeremiah Regan.
S2: And I'm Juan Davalos. We are back with the great
S2: American story, land of Hope. We're looking at lectures 22
S2: and 23, Rise and Fall.
S1: Parts one and two. So we get in in sequence
S1: the presidencies of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, with the
S1: domestic domestic issues, including the Great Society and foreign policy,
S1: most notably Vietnam.
S2: Yeah, this is a very tumultuous time in American history.
S2: A lot of violence. This is the period in which
S2: MLK is killed. Robert Kennedy, then the Watergate problem, the problems, stagflation,
S2: a lot of problems in American history that will be
S2: covered by Doctor McClay in these two lectures.
S1: We also come to the probably furthest reach of the
S1: grand progressive vision with Johnson's Great Society, which followed up
S1: the New Deal and creates an inflection point in which
S1: Americans are going to test whether they wish to continue
S1: moving towards these grand government projects or look to reset
S1: and move in either a new direction or back towards
S1: the principles of the founding.
S2: If you're enjoying this course, I encourage you to go
S2: to hillsdale.edu/course. That's hillsdale.edu/course and enroll. You'll be able to
S2: watch the video lectures, as well as access all of
S2: the additional resources that we have, including study guides and
S2: additional readings, as well as Doctor McClain's book that follows
S2: the course as well.
S1: Now let's turn to Doctor McClay for lectures 22 and
S1: 23 of the Great American Story A land of Hope,
S1: rise and Fall, parts one and two.
S3: Hello and welcome back to this lecture entitled Rise and Fall.
S3: Lyndon Johnson was a peculiar, complicated man and a complicated follower.
S3: After Kennedy's administration. But one of the things that clearly
S3: motivated him was that he wanted to succeed Kennedy. He
S3: wanted to be even more of a reformer. He wanted
S3: to have an even more ambitious program, both of domestic
S3: policy and foreign policy. So he gave a speech at
S3: Ohio University and then later the University of Michigan, announcing
S3: his plans for what he called the Great Society a society,
S3: as he said, well, where no child will go unfed,
S3: no youngster will go unschooled society that would remake the cities,
S3: preserve the nation's natural beauty and countless other things. How
S3: was he going to do all of these things at once? Well,
S3: one of the things he had to do first was
S3: to get himself elected in his own right. And this
S3: he managed to do by a walloping margin, the popular
S3: vote margin that was actually the widest in American history
S3: to this point, 61.1% of the vote running against the
S3: hapless Republican candidate, Barry Goldwater. The results of the Electoral
S3: College were a little less overwhelming. And there's actually an
S3: interesting point about that Electoral College total that I want
S3: to make in a moment. Um, but Johnson felt he
S3: had an enormous mandate and intended to make use of
S3: that mandate by introducing to the 89th Congress an overwhelming
S3: agenda of legislation. And he, as a master of the
S3: legislative process process, having been majority leader in the Senate
S3: for some time, was just the man to oversee that.
S3: the point I wanted to make about the Electoral College
S3: is that, in fact, Goldwater got 47 of the 52
S3: electoral votes that Goldwater received came from the Deep South.
S3: Why is that important? Because the Deep South had never
S3: given its electoral votes to a Republican before. The South
S3: had been the solid South since the Civil War, solidly Democratic.
S3: So this was an indicative of. And in fact, Johnson
S3: was running for office as a Southerner. So it makes
S3: it all the more surprising. And this is indicative of
S3: the fact that the South was in the process of
S3: changing its electoral partisan affiliation, or at least a suggestion
S3: that that might be happening and that there might be
S3: good news ahead for Republicans coming out of the South,
S3: which had shut them out for the entire history of
S3: the Republican Party. And there were other constellations of this
S3: otherwise humiliating defeat. One thing that came out of it
S3: was a clear conservative movement within the Republican Party that
S3: had never been as strong and then didn't dissipate just
S3: because of Goldwater's electoral defeat. And in fact, it would
S3: soon produce a conservative star in the person of Ronald
S3: Reagan and more on him in a little while. So
S3: the 89th Congress settles in, and Johnson has a whole
S3: quiver of proposals to bring forward. It's an endless list, seemingly.
S3: I'll read some of it to you. The expansion of
S3: the federal food stamp program, creation of the National Endowment
S3: for the Humanities and National Endowment for the Arts, Medicare,
S3: health insurance for the elderly. That's the big one. Medicaid
S3: funding for the poor, the elementary and Secondary Education Act.
S3: The Higher Education Act. This is the federal government moving
S3: briskly into the area of education, which had been formerly
S3: a state and local responsibility. The Immigration Act, which abandoned
S3: discriminatory quotas based on national origins. The Child Nutrition Act.
S3: Funding for mass transit. Public housing. Rent subsidies. Two new
S3: cabinet departments. Transportation and housing. And for good measure, the
S3: Highway Beautification Act. And very importantly, there was the Voting
S3: Rights Act of 1965, which followed upon the Civil Rights Act,
S3: passed in 1964 before the election, and removing obstacles to
S3: African Americans ability to register and vote in southern elections,
S3: where they'd been effectively disfranchised. More than 250,000 new voters
S3: had been registered on the list by the end of 1965,
S3: so the effect was immediate and profound. But what about
S3: these other programs? How effective was the Great Society? The
S3: jury is still out on this. This is actually a
S3: point where you could get almost any gathering of, of
S3: political junkies to, to argue about. I'll present a few
S3: data points in its favor in the favor of the
S3: Great Society. The fact that the nation's poverty rate dropped
S3: from 22% to 13% between 1963 and 1970. That's somewhat
S3: overlaps the period in question, but it's a reasonable and
S3: useful measure. The drop in the African-American poverty rate was
S3: even greater. On the other side of the ledger, the
S3: war on poverty in general was not very successful. Medicare
S3: was a program that addressed the health needs of the elderly,
S3: but enormous costs. It did not contain costs. It greatly
S3: expanded them and were living with the results of that today.
S3: Welfare programs address the needs of the poor, but did
S3: so in ways that foster dependency and promoted dependence on
S3: cash supports, and not on moving people into productive work
S3: or moving them back into the economy. Indeed, in some cases,
S3: the program of aid for families with dependent children. The
S3: net effect was to weaken families by Disincentivizing marriage and
S3: family intactness. That was a development that would have especially
S3: disastrous effects in minority families in inner city settings. So
S3: in general, the gap between the great society's promises and
S3: its results was considerable. And that was a gap that
S3: fueled skepticism, particularly among conservatives and Republicans, about the efficacy
S3: of the whole. The Great Society also suffered from unfortunate timing,
S3: and in two respects, it came at precisely the moment
S3: when the civil rights movement, which had enjoyed a period
S3: of extraordinary dignity and respectfulness of national institutions and of
S3: the national heritage and the the precepts of the great
S3: national documents, changing its tone, losing its unity as well
S3: as its commitment to dignified nonviolence. In August of 1965,
S3: riots broke out in the Watts section of Los Angeles,
S3: lasting for six days of highly destructive rioting in that
S3: predominantly African American neighborhood and other similar urban riots followed
S3: in many northern cities Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, Omaha, Newark, Washington, D.C., Baltimore. Uh,
S3: this epidemic of riots, of urban riots represented, among many
S3: other things, a repudiation of Martin Luther King's strategy of
S3: emphasizing nonviolence and weakened the cause of nonviolent resistance, weakened
S3: the cause of civil rights more generally in the minds
S3: of some Americans. The other impediment to the success of
S3: the Great Society was the steadily escalating American commitment in
S3: Southeast Asia and a steadily deteriorating Situation again. We don't
S3: have time to go into all the details, except to
S3: say that long standing support for the South Vietnamese government
S3: from the United States was seeming increasingly an investment that
S3: was ill placed. Uh, um, finally, uh, an incident in
S3: the Gulf of Tonkin where, uh, a three Vietnamese, North
S3: Vietnamese torpedo boats had fired on an American destroyer. Um,
S3: Johnson used this incident as a as a as a pretext,
S3: as a basis for receiving a open ended authorization from
S3: Congress to use whatever measures he deemed necessary to guard
S3: American interests and, uh, to take all necessary steps, including
S3: that of armed force, to assist the non-Communist states of
S3: Southeast Asia. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was regarded by
S3: critics as a blank check and not without reason a
S3: blank check to prosecute a war in Vietnam without limit.
S3: And that is what Johnson went on to do, again,
S3: more than more detail in the book. But by the
S3: end of 1965, there were already almost 200,000 American troops
S3: in Vietnam. This is just a little less than a
S3: year into Johnson's second, his first full term in office. Um,
S3: and by 1969, that number would reach an astonishing 542,000 troops.
S3: 1 in 4 of those serving in Vietnam had been drafted.
S3: Often young men barely out of high school, lifted out
S3: of their hometowns to fight in a war that many
S3: Americans could not understand. Why did Johnson put such value
S3: on this tiny nation? This tiny nation that was that
S3: was marked by instability and corruption in its governance. Well,
S3: the thinking of Johnson had been shaped by the doctrine
S3: of containment that had been developed since the late 40s, um,
S3: since the United States had pledged to resist the expansion
S3: of communism everywhere. Uh, certainly Vietnam should be included in that.
S3: That the view was that the fall of Vietnam, of
S3: South Vietnam would be the first step in a communization
S3: of all of Southeast Asia, uh, that, uh, countries like
S3: Thailand and Burma would, quote, fall like dominoes one after
S3: the other. Um, but the same problem with the containment
S3: theory that arose in the McCarthy era, uh, the one
S3: that MacArthur had identified um, in arguing unpopularly with his, uh,
S3: his commander in chief, that there was no substitute for
S3: victory also applied in the case of Vietnam. Despite the
S3: overwhelming superiority of American forces in men and materiel, political
S3: considerations dictated the war had to be fought in a
S3: highly limited way, not an all out war, because it
S3: was essential to keep the Soviets and Chinese from intervening.
S3: So the doctrine of limited war became the regnant doctrine
S3: in the conduct of the Vietnam War. The problems with
S3: such an approach approach are, I think, fairly obvious. They
S3: should have been obvious at the time. When one telegraphs
S3: to the enemy that there always are limits beyond which
S3: one will not go. The determination of a combatant who
S3: lacked the will to win, could always be overcome by
S3: the determination of an enemy who lacked the will to surrender.
S3: And this is particularly true in a democratic society like
S3: the United States, where popular support for the actions of government,
S3: particularly in wartime, is indispensable. It can only be sustained
S3: without that popular support for a very finite length of time,
S3: and in this case, really, for the first time in
S3: American history, the carnage of the war, of the conflict
S3: and the the cost in human lives and human woundings
S3: and bleeding was visible on television in real time, up
S3: close and personal. And many viewers were appalled by what
S3: they saw. Um, a steady diet of these images started
S3: to wear away at the American commitment to continue on
S3: in the fight. And it didn't help that many of
S3: the administration's claims of progress in the war were often
S3: found to be exaggerated or even false, certainly based on
S3: faulty data. So there's a growing anti-war sentiment in the country.
S3: An anti-war sentiment that, along with the unhappiness about the
S3: difficulty of addressing racial inequalities, led to a more general
S3: disaffection with the country, to the rise of radical movements
S3: like the students for a Democratic Society on college campuses
S3: and and other such forms of opposition to the establishment.
S3: The emergence of a counterculture, which was an apolitical form
S3: of resistance that showed itself in a variety of ways,
S3: including alternative lifestyles, alternative approaches to sexuality, long hair, rock music,
S3: the use of mind altering drugs, and so on and
S3: so forth. Um uh. Interestingly, although a product of American affluence,
S3: it was critical of American materialism and of pinched middle
S3: class life and middle class ambitions. Um, in a strange way,
S3: it had a spiritual side to it too, that, that, um,
S3: strangely recalled some of the remarks that Eisenhower made in
S3: his farewell address. This notion that, uh, of, uh, the
S3: devotion to innovation and progress and change and the accumulation
S3: of wealth was not a sufficient and adequate end for
S3: human life. The concerns about Johnson, uh, and the war
S3: crystallized finally into political opposition in the form of of
S3: opposition to his renomination for the for the presidency. Eugene McCarthy,
S3: senator from Minnesota, ran against Johnson and astonishingly shockingly in
S3: the New Hampshire primary. Early in 1968, very nearly beat him.
S3: The margin of the vote was 48% for Johnson to 42%
S3: for McCarthy, which was far, far too much for an
S3: incumbent president in his own running for renomination in his
S3: own party. President who had an unparalleled record of legislative accomplishments,
S3: including all of the legislation I listed that went to
S3: make up the Great Society, something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.
S3: Johnson was so rattled by this and by other forms
S3: of opposition that he made the choice in March of
S3: 1968 that he would not run for re-election. Uh, how
S3: the mighty had fallen. He'd gone from the largest electoral
S3: margin in American history in the popular vote to deciding
S3: that he could not even contend for the renomination of
S3: his own party. And as if that weren't enough, there
S3: was another wave of violence and assassinations. Martin Luther King
S3: was assassinated in Memphis, where he'd come to organize a
S3: sanitary workers strike. This was shocking. So, too, was the
S3: shocking effect of a few months later, the assassination of
S3: Robert Kennedy, who had announced his candidacy for the Democratic
S3: nomination and seemed very likely in the end to to
S3: have gotten it. Had he lived. Uh, to to contend
S3: for it. Uh, so this wave of assassinations, of violence.
S3: The urban violence and all leading up to a real
S3: calamity for the Democratic Party. Their national convention in Chicago
S3: in 1968, in which Hubert Humphrey Johnson's vice president, was nominated, uh,
S3: for the the Office of Presidency. But his nomination was
S3: contested by youthful protesters who swarmed the streets of Chicago
S3: and created a riot, uh, clashing often with the Chicago police.
S3: And all of that, of course, was televised as well.
S4: And the chair declares that Vice President Hubert Humphrey is
S4: the Democratic president candidate of the United States.
S3: A debacle for the Democratic Party. It would have taken
S3: a miracle for Humphrey to be elected. Meanwhile, the Republicans
S3: had turned back to Richard Nixon. A new and improved
S3: Richard Nixon, tanned, rested and ready, as they said, uh,
S3: who had a fresh image and also offered something the
S3: nation very badly wanted, which was a honorable peace and
S3: withdrawal from Vietnam. He didn't want to present himself as
S3: a candidate who would turn tail and run. Peace with
S3: honor was his slogan, and it was a winning slogan
S3: for him. Um, he didn't win by an overwhelming margin,
S3: but he won the election easily. Um, and, uh, the,
S3: a certain portion of the vote went to the third
S3: party candidacy of George Wallace, who had attracted Democratic and
S3: Republican voters who were upset with the positions of the
S3: mainstream parties. So most of those voters would have almost
S3: certainly gone to Nixon if they had not had the
S3: Wallace alternative. So Richard Nixon becomes president after a time
S3: in the wilderness. All the presidents of the 20th century,
S3: Richard Nixon, is probably the hardest to assess, and the
S3: one about which opinion is still most unsettled. Uh, Nixon
S3: himself predicted that that would be the case. He is
S3: a lot like Truman in the sense that he left
S3: office reviled by many with very low approval ratings. Um,
S3: he's unlike Truman in other respects that I'll come to
S3: in a moment. Uh, like Johnson, he didn't have any
S3: of the charm or charisma of a figure like John
S3: Kennedy or FDR. Uh, and he suffered from it. He
S3: was an unloved leader who seemed almost uncomfortable in his
S3: own skin, uh, and who was made fun of for
S3: his rather odd lurching gestures, uh, and his awkwardness in the,
S3: in his speech patterns. But with the fullness of time, uh,
S3: we're able to see ways in which Nixon actually was
S3: a very effective president who, um, who deserves a A
S3: significant reappraisal. He was born in a lower class, lower
S3: middle class Quaker family in California, Southern California. His father
S3: was a grocer, struggled economically. Nixon had to work very
S3: hard as a young man, both going to school and
S3: getting up early in the morning to work in his
S3: father's grocery. And this hard school of experience for him
S3: fueled his ambition, his drive, and, truth to be told,
S3: his sense of resentment towards those who had it easier,
S3: who were more entitled. Conrad Black as his biographer, I
S3: think his best biographer says, even when he achieved positions
S3: too exalted for general attention to the less fortunate, his
S3: heart and his thoughts were always for those who had little,
S3: who struggled, who had been short changed, he identified with them.
S3: It's a little bit of Lyndon Johnson in that statement, too.
S3: Nixon went to law school at Duke, practiced law, served
S3: in the Navy during the Second World War, came back
S3: to California and got involved in politics, made a name
S3: for himself as a hardball anti-communist politician, rose through the
S3: ranks of the party. Eventually, of course, became the vice
S3: president under Eisenhower's two terms, but had a disappointing defeat
S3: in 1960 to Kennedy and then an even more disappointing
S3: defeat running for governor of California. It seemed after that defeat,
S3: that latter defeat, that his career was over. But in
S3: 1968 he had come back. He had risen from the
S3: ashes and become the president of the United States, reached
S3: the pinnacle of his political ambition, but he had a
S3: very hard road ahead of him. He had to figure
S3: out a way to wind down the Vietnam War in
S3: an honorable way. He. The solution that he settled upon
S3: was the policy he called Vietnamization, which was to draw
S3: down forces in the same proportion that the United States
S3: was able to train South Vietnamese army members to take
S3: their places and. And it worked to that end. He.
S3: The the. There was a a systematic drawdown to the
S3: point that by the end of 1972, you know, just
S3: as he's finishing his first term, about to begin his
S3: second term, the total number of American personnel in Vietnam
S3: was fewer than 25,000. That's beginning with approximately 550,000 soldiers
S3: in Vietnam. So that's pretty, pretty amazing feat. And meanwhile,
S3: he achieved a settlement on the diplomatic front, which he
S3: addressed himself to with equal energy, with and with the
S3: help of his brilliant and suave German born secretary of State,
S3: started out as national security adviser, eventually became Secretary of
S3: State Henry Kissinger. Kissinger conducted secret meetings with the North Vietnamese. Eventually,
S3: these meetings became public. The Paris Peace Accords of 1973
S3: allowed the United States finally to withdraw its troops and
S3: to get back prisoners of war. It had some flaws,
S3: which I talk about a little in the book, but
S3: still it was. It represented Nixon's fundamental goal, the achievement
S3: of his fundamental goal. The last American combat troops left
S3: Vietnam in on March 29th, 1973. Kissinger and Le Duc
S3: to the North Vietnamese negotiator were awarded the 1973 Nobel
S3: Peace Prize for their efforts. The ceasefire, as I explained
S3: in the book, seemed unlikely to hold. But that was
S3: a problem for another day. But that was not all
S3: that Nixon was able to achieve diplomatically. He was a
S3: master diplomatist. He made a breakthrough that almost nobody else
S3: could have made, and that has been the consensus of
S3: even his most bitter enemies. He capitalized on the growing
S3: rift between the Soviet Union and China. The Sino-Soviet split,
S3: as it was called, and used that split to play
S3: his communist opposition off against one another. Nixon opened secret
S3: talks with the Chinese and then in 1971 made the
S3: stunning announcement that he would go to China himself and
S3: meet with Chinese officials. In the following February, this was
S3: a stunning announcement. Nixon was known to be and despised
S3: by many to be an ardent cold warrior, an ardent
S3: opponent of communism for Nixon of all people, to open
S3: relations with the Red Chinese, as the Chinese Communists were called,
S3: was was a stunning gesture, and he brought a whole
S3: battalion of press with him to record this highly choreographed
S3: but nevertheless very effective, path breaking event. And Nixon followed
S3: up by a similar visit to Moscow. Uh, having gotten
S3: the attention of the Russians, uh, about his improving relations
S3: with China, he used that as leverage to, to improve
S3: relations with the Russians. This grand playing off of communist
S3: enemies worked. Uh, it's rightly been said that only a
S3: president with Nixon's conservative credentials could have managed this. Uh,
S3: but there's more to it than that. There was a
S3: kind of diplomatic philosophy involved. Nixon and Kissinger were exponents
S3: of what's called realism in, uh, in political theory, foreign
S3: policy theory. And their position was involved some moving away
S3: from the containment doctrine and a reversal of Kennedy's exuberant,
S3: world spanning ambition, uh, in which he promised to pay
S3: any price, bear any burden, etc.. Nixon disagreed with that.
S3: The United States could not be the world's policeman. It
S3: could not, to quote him, undertake all the defense of
S3: the free nations of the world, the Nixon doctrine, which
S3: undertook a philosophy that explained Vietnamization and other aspects of
S3: his foreign policy, said the United States would continue to
S3: assist in the support of allied nations, but not to
S3: the extent of committing its own military forces. The deciding
S3: factor in any foreign policy decision was what was in
S3: the national interest of the United States. Our interests, he said,
S3: must shape our commitments rather than the other way around.
S3: So the effort to improve relations with the Soviet Union
S3: and China was not occasioned by an idealistic effort to
S3: achieve universal brotherhood. It flowed from that view, from a
S3: view of what was in the national interest. On the
S3: domestic front, Nixon was not nearly as effective. He had
S3: less of a settled philosophy. He often lurched from left
S3: to right in economic policy and in a period in which,
S3: because of oil shocks and other disturbances to the. The
S3: price system and the economy. He was founded very difficult
S3: to control inflation. Finally, in 1971, in an act of
S3: utter desperation, he abandoned the free market entirely and imposed
S3: wage and price controls on the economy, something he had
S3: previously vowed he would never do. And that was certainly
S3: beyond the pale for any conservative or any Republican for
S3: that matter. It didn't work. It didn't have the effect
S3: long term of of, of curbing inflation. In fact, the
S3: economy sank into what became known as stagflation, an ugly
S3: term for an ugly phenomenon. Economic stagnation accompanied by inflation.
S3: It had been thought by economists that you couldn't have
S3: the two things at once that that low economic growth
S3: and inflation were mutually inconsistent with one another. Well, Nixon
S3: showed them that it wasn't, and not that he meant to.
S3: So economic conditions were very poor in Nixon's administration. Um,
S3: and they didn't enjoy the same success on the domestic
S3: front that he did in foreign policy. However, when he
S3: came up for re-election in 1972, he won a resounding
S3: victory over George McGovern, the anti-war Democratic candidate, uh, gaining 60.8%
S3: of the popular vote, very nearly johnsonian margins. And in fact,
S3: he won by more in the Electoral College than Johnson
S3: had won by McGovern only got 17 electoral votes, compared
S3: to 520 for Nixon. Um, and the party realignment that
S3: I described a moment ago, uh, Clearly seem to be
S3: taking shape that the Sunbelt states, the southern states, deep
S3: South states that had gone for Goldwater were continuing in
S3: a Republican vein. So that that shift seemed to be
S3: becoming more permanent. Unfortunately for Nixon and for the country,
S3: his penchant for hardball politics got the better of him.
S3: And during the campaign, it was intimated by McGovern and
S3: others that Nixon's campaign had used dirty tricks, that is,
S3: planting a forged documents, allegations of adulteries and things like
S3: that to attributed to opponents as a way of discrediting them.
S3: This was mostly brushed off, but there was one incident
S3: that didn't go away. There was a break in at
S3: the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate office complex
S3: in Washington, and five men were caught using bugging devices
S3: to try to gain information from the Democratic National Committee headquarters.
S3: And it turned out that one of the men, one
S3: of the burglars, James McCord, had ties to Nixon's re-election campaign.
S3: And this led to a lengthy investigation that details of
S3: which we don't have time to go into, but revealing
S3: not just the very real possibility that high up people
S3: in the Nixon campaign were aware of these activities and
S3: were willing to pay hush money to cover up that knowledge,
S3: that that information, but that there might have been other,
S3: more disturbing abuses of power within the white House, including
S3: the use of federal agencies like the FBI, the CIA
S3: and so on, or the Internal Revenue Service to harass
S3: or derail political Opponents. In the course of the investigations,
S3: it came to light that the white House had used
S3: a taping system in which all the president's conversations, uh, with, uh,
S3: both in person communications and telephone communications had been recorded.
S3: And that the taping of this, these conversations was available. Um,
S3: a fight ensued in which the white House fought bitterly, uh,
S3: having to turn over the tapes eventually lost that fight.
S3: And rather than endure the humiliation of impeachment and removal
S3: from office, that seemed very likely to come. Nixon chose
S3: instead the path of resignation and resigned the office of
S3: the presidency on August 9th, 1974, the only American president
S3: so far to have done this.
S5: America needs a full time president and a full time Congress,
S5: particularly at this time with problems we face at home
S5: and abroad to continue to fight through the months ahead,
S5: for my personal vindication would almost totally absorb the time
S5: and attention of both the president and the Congress in
S5: a period when our entire focus should be on the
S5: great issues of peace abroad and prosperity without inflation at home. Therefore,
S5: I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow. Vice
S5: President Ford will be sworn in as president at that
S5: hour in this office.
S3: It was a very sad ending for a promising presidency.
S3: Nixon certainly had his detractors of the much of the press,
S3: the Washington Post and other major newspapers felt this way
S3: about him. Um, and, uh, it was occasion for reflection
S3: about what had become of the American presidency. Um, Arthur
S3: Schlesinger Jr, who had been an adviser to, to John
S3: F Kennedy and was hardly a neutral party, uh, nevertheless
S3: wrote a thoughtful book called The Imperial Presidency in which
S3: he argued this was actually published in 1973, before Nixon
S3: left office. But he argued the American presidency had exceeded
S3: the mandate that was set for it by the Constitution,
S3: by the framers of the Constitution. It was, uh, like
S3: a metastasizing cancer. And that, uh, it was important to
S3: rein in the presidency, restore the structure of constitutional democracy, and, um, uh,
S3: remove from, American presidents, the temptation to engage in global interventions,
S3: or what he called messianic globalism. This was, I think,
S3: in many ways a valid point, one that spoke to
S3: concerns of the moment. It actually spoke as much to
S3: the rhetoric of John F Kennedy, John F Kennedy's inaugural
S3: address as it did to Lyndon Johnson, and maybe less
S3: to Richard Nixon. But still, the point about the growth
S3: in the presidency was a a valid one. There was
S3: another school of thought that arose, not unrelated, but different.
S3: And that was that perhaps the presidency had become too
S3: daunting a task for any one man. Other observers worried
S3: that Nixon's resignation might have left the presidency permanently diminished
S3: in something like the way that the Andrew Johnson presidency
S3: had done so. There were worries on all sides about
S3: the future of the American presidency. Fortunately for the nation,
S3: his successor, his vice president, Gerald Ford, a former congressman
S3: from Michigan who had not been elected to the vice presidency,
S3: was a modest, humble, unassuming man, he said. I'm a Ford,
S3: not a Lincoln. And his demeanor did much to heal
S3: the country, to settle it down and to regain a
S3: sense of composure and optimism. However, there were things going
S3: on all around him that were grievous and depressing. With
S3: regard to their portents for the future of the country.
S6: Therefore, I feel it is my first duty to make
S6: an unprecedented compact with my countrymen. Not at an inaugural address.
S6: Not a fireside chat. Not a campaign speech. Just a
S6: little straight talk among friends. And I intended to be
S6: the first of many. I am acutely aware that you
S6: have not elected me as your president by your ballots.
S6: So I ask you to confirm me as your president
S6: with your prayers. And I hope that such prayers.
S3: One way that the price of Watergate ended up being
S3: paid was in the loss of South Vietnam. They. The
S3: Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress had swelled in
S3: response to the Watergate mess and. And to the continued
S3: stagflation Um. In the by elections of 1974, the Democrats
S3: picked up a whopping 49 seats, and they were in
S3: no mood to accommodate Republicans in the white House. Even
S3: nice guys like Gerald Ford and 1974, the South Vietnamese
S3: government was under intense attack from Communist forces desperately in
S3: need of American aid. But Congress refused to give the
S3: requested aid a request of 2.8 billion in fiscal 73
S3: to 300 million in 75. Once the aid had been cut,
S3: it took the North Vietnamese only 55 days to finish
S3: off the South Vietnamese and reunify the country under Communist rule.
S3: In other words, the Vietnam effort had failed completely and miserably,
S3: and at the same time, the US supported government in
S3: Cambodia was overthrown by communists and a particularly virulent Maoist
S3: influenced faction led by Pol Pot, which proceeded to massacre
S3: a million of its people in an effort to eliminate
S3: Western influences. The result was a a flood of refugees,
S3: many coming to the United States, leaving these devastated lands.
S3: It was a dark time for America's standing in the world,
S3: and American morale at home was at rock bottom. Um.
S3: The fall election of 1976 presented a somewhat more hopeful
S3: aspect coming out of these bitter disappointments. Uh, one candidate
S3: that caught the eye of many Americans and received the
S3: Democratic nomination was the former governor of Georgia, peanut farmer
S3: naval officer Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter was a man of simplicity.
S3: of evangelical faith, which he avowed quite openly. He was
S3: probably the most openly religious candidate since William Jennings Bryan,
S3: and he was a moderate, a liberal, really, on race,
S3: so that he could attract both white and black southern
S3: votes and maybe get those states back from the Republicans.
S3: Carter won the election. It was a close election, probably
S3: closer than Ford had any right to hope that it
S3: would be so. But a narrow victory for Carter and Carter, um,
S3: set out very self-consciously to repeal the Imperial presidency. He'd
S3: been affected by Schlesinger's book, although Schlesinger was a supporter
S3: of Carter, to put it mildly. Um Carter insisted on
S3: carrying his own luggage. He mimicked Thomas Jefferson, who walked
S3: up Pennsylvania Avenue after his inauguration to the white House.
S3: So did Carter. Holding hands with his wife, Rosalynn Carter.
S3: It was an immensely affecting gesture at the time, but
S3: over a period of time, Carter's penchant for gestures began
S3: to wear on the public, and large scale initiatives that
S3: weren't amenable to gesturing seemed to escape him. He took
S3: on the problem of energy policy, which was in the 70s.
S3: Job one on the domestic front for any American president.
S3: But he failed completely by trying to marshal the public
S3: to believe that his energy policy was, as he put it,
S3: the moral equivalent of war, a very tried and true
S3: Democratic Party trope. Um. Carter had failed utterly, in fact
S3: failed far worse than Nixon and Ford had in controlling inflation,
S3: which rose from an already high 5.2% when he took
S3: office to a terrifying 14.76% in March of 1980, the
S3: year he had to run for re-election. Unemployment was around 8%,
S3: but stayed stuck there without improving the combination of the two.
S3: Sometimes called the Misery Index, was at an all time high. Um, Carter. Uh,
S3: but Carter's final undoing came in foreign policy from Iran.
S3: The Iranians had resented American meddling in Iranian affairs, going
S3: all the way back to the 1950s. And when Jimmy
S3: Carter allowed the cancer ridden Shah of Iran, who was
S3: very much an ally of the United States, but, uh,
S3: roundly disliked by his people when he allowed him to
S3: come to the United States for medical treatment. This produced
S3: a galvanic reaction. The shock had already been deposed by
S3: a revolution led by Shiite Muslim clerics, and they orchestrated
S3: a response to this action of letting the Shah into
S3: the United States for medical treatment. The seizure of the
S3: United States Embassy. That was a gesture to. And it
S3: proved to be a gesture of long standing and hemorrhaging
S3: of impact on Carter. Day after day for 444 days,
S3: television crews filmed the American hostages in the embassy in
S3: Iran and harped on it. And with every Nightline television show,
S3: Carter's image. Carter's standing with the public dropped a little
S3: bit more, uh, a steady erosion of his credibility as
S3: a leader. He tried a number of things to turn
S3: the situation around. He tried economic sanctions. He tried, uh,
S3: military action, a commando raid, which failed miserably. Um, nothing
S3: seemed to work. And then, on top of everything else,
S3: in 1979, December, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Um, which
S3: was a slap in the face to Carter's accommodationist policies
S3: toward the Soviet Union. He had come into his administration
S3: indicating he would be much more soft and generous and
S3: dove like with the Soviets. And for this he gets
S3: the thanks of a Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. So, um,
S3: all of these things led to a, well, a last
S3: minute turned toward hawkish policy on Carter's part, but it
S3: came too late. Speculation began to rise that maybe Carter
S3: was not up to the job. Maybe somebody else needed
S3: to be found. And political science began to think, well,
S3: maybe the problem was not Carter. Maybe the problem was
S3: the presidency itself. Maybe the presidency was an impossible office,
S3: or maybe we just had the wrong kinds of leaders.
S3: James MacGregor Burns, political scientist, wrote a book called leadership,
S3: which was clearly directed at the moment, at that moment
S3: of the 1970s and the flailing of American leadership as
S3: several successive leaders. Really, you could go all the way
S3: back to Kennedy. But certainly Johnson left office as a failure.
S3: Nixon left office as a failure. Ford left office as
S3: a failure. Carter was about to leave office as a failure.
S3: What had gone wrong that we had this series of
S3: failed presidencies, Burns said. The problem is we need a
S3: transformational leader. There are two kinds of presidents. There are
S3: transactional ones who work within the system, within the bounds
S3: of the available options, and transforming ones who create new options,
S3: who boldly go where no policy, at least recently, has
S3: gone before us. And he said it was time for
S3: transforming leader rather than another transactional leader. It was a
S3: call for a different kind of democratic politician, perhaps one
S3: in the vein of Franklin Roosevelt or the late Robert Kennedy.
S3: Burns actually got his wish, except that the the candidate
S3: in question was not a Democratic candidate. It would be
S3: the Republican Ronald Reagan. More about that in our next lecture.
S3: Thank you.
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