Jerry Goure

History 17C
12 December 2013
Reading Notes - Faragher Ch. 30

I. Stagflation – rising prices & unemployment, low economic growth

A. The oil crisis of 1973-1974
1. OPEC embargoed Israel’s allies
2. Texaco Oil withheld natural gas
3. Gulf Oil inflated prices
B. Effect and response
1. Nixon appointed William Simon “energy czar”
2. Energy conservation measures – 10% air travel cut; lowered speed limit of
55mph; reduced heating, nonessential lighting and hours of service in public
buildings
3. Inflation increased to 11% in 1974 and 13.5% in 1980 and became a “major
worry”
C. Floundering industries in the U.S.A.
1. American autos, steel and electronics fell behind foreign-made counterparts
a) Automakers began outsourcing work to Mexico, Taiwan, South Korea
and the Philippines
b) Some adopted Japanese management techniques but met resistance from
workers
2. U.S. farmers overproduced… again.
a) Grain shortages in the U.S.S.R., Egypt and the “Third World” rose prices
b) When overseas sales declined, many farmers defaulted on loans
D. Workers make few gains, many setbacks
1. NLRB favored management, union membership dropped
2. Teachers, health workers and civil servants made small gains
3. More women worked, but clustered in lower-paying clerical and service jobs
a) Title VII helped black women rise to technical, sales and administrative
roles
4. Growing disparity between the waxing Sunbelt and the waning Snowbelt.
II. Ford and Carter (Lean Years)
A. Ford’s presidency
1. Pardoning Nixon eroded the public’s trust in Ford
2. Whip Inflation Now – a failed voluntary anti-inflation program
3. The Democratic Congress passed most of the many bills he vetoed
4. “Ford to [New York] City: Drop Dead”

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5. Betty Ford – championed the ERA, supported abortion rights and consenting
premarital sex, discussed her mastectomy candidly, voluntarily entered a
substance abuse program
B. 1976 election
1. Reagan’s conservatism allowed incumbent Ford to be the Republican candidate
2. Carter as the anti-politician, outsider and born-again Christian
3. 46.7% of eligible voters did not vote
C. Carter’s presidency
1. Lacked a political “vision” and gradually shifted to the right
2. Tended to seek technological solutions and got caught up in trivial detail
3. Hired more women, African Americans and Latinos, and created the Superfund.
4. Deregulated airlines and removed banks from congressional control.
5. Social welfare atrophied, defense spending increased; exposes of military
spending fraud further eroded public confidence
6. Inflation, inflation, inflation
III. The trend away from a higher overall standard of living
A. The gap between the rich and the poor widened
1. A disproportionate number of African Americans lived below the poverty line;
residential segregation increased
2. Quotas in education led to reverse discrimination charges and were deemed
unconstitutional
B. Female poverty increased – no-fault divorce laws, defaulted child-support payments, teen
pregnancy
C. Media warned of the urban poor “underclass.”
1. 60% of African Americans lived in central cities with high unemployment
2. Violent crimes increased dramatically in poor neighborhoods; serious crimes by
children increased
3. Native Americans suffered higher death rates than the national average – 6x from
tuberculosis and 22x from alcohol-related causes
IV. Grass-roots politics increased while national elections faced apathy
A. Cities elected former activists, African Americans, Mexican Americans, but fiscal crises
prevented sweeping reform.
B. City and neighborhood improvement aided by federal grants
1. Community Development Corporations
2. Carter’s National Commission on Neighborhoods’ 1979 report recommended
local advocacy groups
C. The environmental movement grew stronger
1. Love Canal, the damming of the Everglades, the energy crisis

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2. Traditional groups – Audubon Society, Sierra Club – grew and new ones formed
D. Urban problems led to the growth of small towns.
1. E.F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful (1973)
2. Size limitations adopted
V. Increase in conservatism – resentful taxpayers, resentful poor whites
A. The New Right
1. Evangelical Christians in the National Conservative Political Action Committee
and the Moral Majority.
2. Direct mail and televangelism get the word out
3. Jesse Helms in the Senate
4. Focused on defeating the ERA, which died in 1982 – Phyllis Schlafly
5. Focused on defeating the right to abortion
B. The “Me Decade” (Tom Wolfe, 1976)
1. Health foods, diet crazes, physical fitness, therapy – The Culture of Narcissism:
American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations (1978)
2. The human potential movement, transcendental meditation
3. Religious cults – the Unification Church (Moonies) and Jim Jones’s People’s
Temple
VI. The world after Vietnam
A. A brief thaw in the Cold War
1. The U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. suffered the huge, escalating costs of sustaining the
cold war
2. Deficit spending led to a $908 billion federal debt in 1980.
3. SALT II (1979), which failed in the Senate after the U.S.S.R. invaded
Afghanistan
B. “Moral principles” and human rights in foreign policy
1. Anti-apartheid sentiments
2. In nations considered vital to U.S. interests, repressive regimes were supported in
the name of stability
3. Restoration of formal relations with China
4. Temporary reforms in the CIA
5. Self-determination in the Panama Canal Zone
C. The Camp David Accords – peace between Egypt and Israel
1. Egypt recognized Israel’s right to exist and regained control of the Sinai
Peninsula; Israel secured a guarantee of enhanced U.S. military support
2. Begin and Sadat shared the Nobel Peace Prize (1979)

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3. The Palestinian problem that never went away, and the question of what to do
with Jerusalem, undermined the peace
VII. Carter whines about the public’s “crisis of confidence”
A. Surprises and mistakes in foreign policy
1. Cyrus Vance (moderate) and Zbigniew Brzezinski (anti-Communist) gave Carter
contradictory advice
2. Overthrow of Somoza’s Nicaraguan dictatorship by Sandanistas – Congress
wouldn’t help the Sandanistas, but aided their enemies once they turned to the
U.S.S.R. for support
3. The stalemate that began with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan led to Carter
protecting American interests in the Persian Gulf and “heating up” the cold war
B. The Iran hostage crisis (1979-1981)
1. U.S. support of the corrupt Pahlavi regime resulted in successful revolution led
by Islamic fundamentalist Ayatollah Khomeini.
2. Carter allowed Pahlavi into the U.S. for health care, and Khomeini’s followers
stormed the U.S. embassy and took the staff as hostages
3. Carter’s nighttime rescue mission failed; Cyrus Vance resigned over political
differences.
C. The 1980 election
1. The problem of the Marielitos – Cuban political prisoners and petty thieves
seeking refuge and asylum
2. Reagan and Bush became the Republican candidates, supported by the Moral
Majority and Jesse Helms.
3. Republicans won the White House and the Senate
4. Voter apathy continued.

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