Unit 7: Chapter 25

Although Republicans traditionally aimed for a balanced budget, Nixon began to consider deficit spending, or spending more money in a year than the government receives in revenues.

In response, Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) imposed an embargo, or ban, on the shipping of oil to the United States.

Nixon called for a new partnership between the federal government and the state governments known as the New Federalism.

Kissinger's studies in European history gave him an admiration for realpolitik, a German term meaning "practical politics."

Nixon and Kissinger's greatest accomplishment was in bringing about détente, or a relaxation in tensions, between the United States and the world's two Communist giants.

In response, Nixon ordered Henry Kissinger to install wiretaps, or listening devices, on the telephones of several members of his own staff.

A special prosecutor works for the Justice Department but conducts independent investigation of claims of wrongdoing by government officials.

After the "Saturday Night Massacre," Congress had begun the process to help them determine if they should impeach the President—to charge him with misconduct while in office.

Now, however, inflation and unemployment both rose, while the economy remained stalled and stagnant. Economists named this new situation stagflation.

On another foreign policy front, President Ford signed the Helsinki Accords, a series of agreements on European security made at a 1975 summit in Finland.

Americans held a nationwide birthday party to mark July 4, 1976, the bicentennial, the 200th anniversary of the approval of the Declaration of Independence.

Even though Ford was the incumbent—the current office holder—he faced strong opposition from conservative fellow Republicans inside his own party.

Carter had more success in the area of deregulation—the reduction or removal of government controls in several industries.

Soon after taking office, he carried out his promise to grant amnesty—a general pardon—to those who had evaded the draft during the Vietnam War.

In 1978, the Supreme Court ruled on a civil rights case that would have important effects on affirmative action policies.

The Soviets were especially annoyed when the President spoke in support of Soviet dissidents—writers and other activists who criticized the actions of their government.