Nixon! Ford! Carter! And a special guest appearance by Ronald Reagan Chapter 30

We're getting closer and closer to our own times -- you may have family members who've told you stories about these fabled times. And you may have ignored them. Pay more attention to those old folks! As one of those old folks I remember Nixon and Reagan (and the guys in between), watching Watergate hearings and "Morning in America." commercials, the Kent State shootings and the endless coverage of the Tehran hostage crisis. And still, always, the fear of the Cold War going nuclear. In more recent times, I have come to appreciate how the perspective of time and the rigor of historical analysis turn memory into something more expansive and multilayered, more objective and useful. "The past is another country," the novelist L.P. Hartley famously said. It's a past I lived in, and I recognize it from afar -- but I understand it now better than I ever could when I was living in it. The same will be true, someday, of this strange present we're living in.

If you want my personal takes on the various personalities of that era, you'll have to join the Zoom conversation -- I'm trying to retain my neutrality here.

My slides:

Chapter 30 slides - the 1970s.pdf

OPTIONAL MEDIA

THE SEVENTIES

From ABC's series "The Century: America's Time." The first deals with the early Seventies, including the Watergate scandal; the second rounds out the decade to the Carter years, the Iran hostage crisis, and the 1980 election.

The Century: America's Time - 1971-1975: Approaching the Apocalypse

The Century: America's Time - 1976-1980: Starting Over

DETENTE

From CNN's "Cold War" documentary series, Richard Nixon tries to dial down the tension with the Soviet Union with his "detente" policy:

https://youtu.be/2bwcobw2KJ0

And from the same series, if you would like more context for what was going on with China during the Cold War, this does a good job. It touches on the US only briefly -- Nixon's visit to China in 1972 comes at the end -- but it's always better to know things than not to know things.

https://youtu.be/gSPIonMrLq0