| A | B |
|---|
| Richard Nixon | Elected president in 1968 on Republican ticket; had vast foreign affairs knowledge; elected on a policy of Vietnamization; opened the door to China |
| Spiro Agnew | VP during Nixon administration; eventually forced to resign because of questions about tax evasion |
| Daniel Ellsberg | Former Pentagon employee who released the Pentagon papers detailing the misinformation that the armed services had been passing out as fact concerning the Viet Nam conflict |
| Henry Kissinger | National security advisor; set up many meetings for Nixon to negotiate peace; a supporter of Realpolitik - practical and pragmatic way of addressing a nation's foreign policy. |
| Earl Warren | Supreme Court Chief Justice; led the court in the passing of sexual freedoms, the rights of criminals, religious practices, civil rights, and political representation. |
| Warren Burger | Replaced Earl Warren, appointed by Nixon because of his conservative views |
| George McGovern | Democratic nominee in 1972 election; lost to Nixon in a landslide. |
| Sam Erwin | Member of the House committee investigating the Watergate break-in. In July 1973 a former White House aid pointed out that there were oval office tapes to Erwin; when Erwin discovered them proved mortally damaging to Nixon’s innocent image. |
| Gerald Ford | Replaced Agnew as Nixon’s VP after Agnew was indicted; Became president when Nixon resigned; first president chosen by congress solely and not elected by the people. |
| Jimmy Carter | Democratic nominee in 1976 presidential campaign; big humanitarian, won in 1976 as a reaction against what many perceived to be "deception-politics." |
| Shah of Iran | Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, a strong supporter of American interests in the Middle East through the 1970's. He was overthrown by the Ayatollah Khomeini and fled to exile in the United States. |
| Ayatollah Khomeini | Led a fundamentalist revolution in Iran, deposing the American-supported Shah of Iran. He approved of the take over of the American Embassy, which led to Carter's downfall. |
| John Dean | During the Watergate scandal he testified that Nixon had helped to cover up the White House involvement in the break-in, thereby allegedly obstructing justice. "There's a cancer growing on the Presidency." |
| Detente | relaxed tension |
| Vietnamization | Nixon would slowly pull out 540000 troops over an extended period |
| My Lai Massacre | soldiers massacred women and children when looking for Viet Cong’s in My Lai village |
| Cambodian incursion | Cambodia supplied the Viet Cong with a springboard into South Vietnam; America went in to clean out Cambodia but Nixon withdrew troops after two weeks |
| Kent State Killings | Upset at the Cambodia incursion riots broke out and National killed some protesters Guard at Kent State University; upset the nation |
| 26th Amendment | lowered voting age to 18 |
| Pentagon Papers | papers about Vietnam; looked bad upon the white house; traced the Vietnam conflict all the way back to the Kennedy presidency; upset the people against the government and its lies |
| ABM Treaty | Anti Ballistic Missile treaty; limited each country to two defensive missile clusters |
| SALT | Strategic Arms Limitation Talks; was first major step to stopping the arms race; would decrease arms over next five years |
| MIRVs | Multiple Independent Re-entry Vehicles. These were warheads that could be launched with one platform (missile) but hit many targets. They became the new focus for arms reduction talks. |
| Southern strategy | a plan by Nixon to gain enough support for next election; by soft pedaling civil rights and openly opposing school busing, Nixon was able to fragment the Democratic Party's base of African Americans and blue-collar workers. |
| Watergate scandal | June 17, 1972; bungled burglary occurs at the Democratic Headquarters; had electronic bugging equipment in their hands; one of the dirtiest and far reaching scandals of all time; many of the aides, advisors and committee heads had to resign |
| CREEP | Acronym for the Republican Committee to Re-Elect of the President |
| Enemies list | List of Nixon’s enemies and opponents; many of them were honest business men and citizens |
| Saturday Night Massacre | Fired special prosecutor Archibald Cox because of his insistence to subpoena the Oval Office tapes. Just prior, Nixon had accepted resignations from attorney general and deputy attorney general for not firing Cox. |
| War Powers Act | Required President to report to Congress 48 after committing troops to a foreign conflict |
| Energy Crisis | lack of oil from the Middle east sent America into energy crisis |
| Helsinki Accords | kindled small dissident movements in eastern Europe; opened up Europe and started the end of the Cold War |
| executive privilege | privileges as president; Supreme Court deemed that this privileges gave Nixon no right to hold evidence dealing with criminal activity |
| OPEC | Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries |
| Iranian hostage crisis | During the Carter Administration, American embassy officials were held hostage by Islamic fundamentalists who had led the revolution against the Shah of Iran. |
| impoundment | Attempt by the Nixon administration to not spend monies allocated by Congress. The monies were "impounded," not used. |
| revenue sharing | Under Nixon's New Federalism, revenues collected by the national government would be shared more broadly with states. |
| Nixon Doctrine | would hold up to our existing commitments but that Asians and others would have to fight their own wars without the support of large bodies of troops |
