New National Direction (1970-1990)

RICHARD NIXON

Richard Nixon

RESEARCH

Richard Nixon's six years in the White House remain widely viewed as pivotal in American military, diplomatic, and political history. In the two decades before Nixon took office, a liberal Democratic coalition dominated presidential politics, and American foreign policy was marked by large-scale military interventions; in the two decades after, a conservative Republican coalition dominated presidential politics, and direct military intervention was by and large replaced with aid (sometimes covert, sometimes not) to allied forces. Nixon intended his presidency to be epochal and, despite being cut short by Watergate, it was.

QUOTE

Always remember others may hate you but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.

When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal.

Defeat doesn't finish a man, quit does. A man is not finished when he's defeated. He's finished when he quits.

GERALD FORD

Gerald Ford

RESEARCH

America’s 38th president, Gerald Ford (1913-2006) took office on August 9, 1974, following the resignation of President Richard Nixon (1913-1994), who left the White House in disgrace over the Watergate scandal. Ford became the first unelected president in the nation’s history. A longtime Republican congressman from Michigan, Ford had been appointed vice president less than a year earlier by President Nixon. He is credited with helping to restore public confidence in government after the disillusionment of the Watergate era.

QUOTE

A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.

Truth is the glue that holds government together.

My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over. Our constitution works.

JIMMY CARTER

Jimmy Carter

RESEARCH

mes Earl Carter's ancestors had lived in America since the 1630's. They were residents of Georgia since just after the Revolution. “Jimmy” Carter’s parents, Earl and Lillian Carter, owned a peanut farm and warehouse and a store outside the small town of Plains, Georgia. Earl was bright, hardworking, and a very good businessman. "Miz" Lillian had been trained as a nurse, but abandoned her career when she became pregnant soon after marriage. She named the first of her four children James Earl, for his father. Jimmy's mother, well read and curious about the world around her, crossed the then-strict lines of segregation in 1920's Georgia by counseling poor African American women on matters of health care.

QUOTE

America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense human rights invented America.

We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children.

We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.

RONALD REAGAN

RESEARCH

Ronald Wilson Reagan was a transformational President. His leadership and the symbiotic relationship he forged with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev during their four summit meetings set the stage for a peaceful resolution of the Cold War. As the Soviet Union disappeared into the mists of history, Reagan's partisans asserted that he had "won" the Cold War. Reagan and Gorbachev more prudently declared that the entire world was a winner. Reagan had reason to believe, however, that the West had emerged victorious in the ideological struggle: as he put it, democracy had prevailed in its long "battle of values" with collectivism. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, his staunch ally, wrote that Reagan had "achieved the most difficult of all political tasks: changing attitudes and perceptions about what is possible. From the strong fortress of his convictions, he set out to enlarge freedom the world over at a time when freedom was in retreat—and he succeeded." This is true as far as it goes—the number of democratic nations as well as the reach of free-market ideology expanded on Reagan's watch. But, as Russia's recent autocratic path suggests, the permanence of these advances remains in doubt.

QUOTE

Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

Tear down this wall!

The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.

Credits:

Created with images by Florida Keys--Public Libraries - "MM00002298x" • cliff1066™ - "Gerald Ford, Time cover August 9, 1976, "Ford Closes In"" • commonwealth.club - "2013.02.24 RITGER_Jimmy Carter_041" • The Official CTBTO Photostream - "Reagan & Gorbachev Arrive"

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