Chapter 39 Terms and Definitions

Richard Nixon: Republican president (1969–1974) who pursued Vietnamization, opened relations with China, and resigned in disgrace over the Watergate scandal.
Silent Majority: Nixon's term for the ordinary, largely conservative Americans he believed were tired of antiwar protest and social upheaval, and quietly supported his policies.
Vietnamization: Nixon's policy of gradually withdrawing American troops from Vietnam while transferring combat responsibility to the South Vietnamese army.
Paris Peace Accords: The January 1973 agreement ending direct American military involvement in Vietnam and providing for the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
Fall of Saigon: The April 1975 collapse of South Vietnam as North Vietnamese forces captured the capital, forcing a chaotic American evacuation and ending the Vietnam War.
Detente: Nixon and Kissinger's policy of easing Cold War tensions with the Soviet Union through diplomacy, trade, and arms control agreements.
Nixon's Visit to China: Nixon's historic February 1972 trip to Beijing, which opened diplomatic contact with communist China after more than two decades of hostility.
SALT I: The 1972 Strategic Arms Limitation Talks agreement between the United States and Soviet Union that capped the growth of certain nuclear arsenals.
Watergate Scandal: The political scandal arising from the 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters and the ensuing White House cover-up, which led to Nixon's resignation.
CREEP: The Committee to Re-Elect the President, Nixon's 1972 campaign organization, whose operatives carried out the Watergate break-in.
Saturday Night Massacre: The October 1973 episode in which Nixon ordered the firing of special prosecutor Archibald Cox, prompting the resignations of the attorney general and his deputy.
"Smoking Gun" Tape: A June 1972 Oval Office recording proving Nixon had directed the Watergate cover-up almost from the beginning, which led directly to his resignation.
25th Amendment (Ford's Appointment): Constitutional provision used in 1973 to install Gerald Ford as vice president after Spiro Agnew's resignation, and again in 1974 to elevate Ford to the presidency.
Gerald Ford: Nixon's appointed vice president who became the thirty-eighth president in 1974; he pardoned Nixon and battled stagflation with limited success.
Nixon Pardon: Gerald Ford's controversial September 1974 grant of a full pardon to Richard Nixon for any crimes committed as president.
Jimmy Carter: Democratic governor of Georgia elected president in 1976 on a platform of honesty and human rights, whose term was later dominated by the Iran hostage crisis.
Camp David Accords: The September 1978 peace agreement brokered by Carter between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin.
OPEC: The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, whose Arab members imposed the 1973 oil embargo against the United States.
Oil Embargo of 1973: OPEC's embargo on oil shipments to the U.S. in retaliation for American support of Israel, causing gas shortages and price spikes that worsened stagflation.
Iran Hostage Crisis: The 444-day ordeal (1979–1981) in which Iranian militants held American embassy staff hostage in Tehran, crippling the Carter presidency.
Ayatollah Khomeini: The Shiite Muslim cleric who led the 1979 Iranian Revolution and established a fundamentalist Islamic government hostile to the United States.