FOCUS QUESTIONS
• What were the major policies of the Nixon administration on social and
economic issues?
• How did Vietnam and the Watergate scandal affect popular trust in the
government?
• In what ways did the opportunities of most Americans diminish in the 1970s?
• What were the roots of the rise of conservatism in the 1970s?
• How did the Reagan presidency affect American aims at home and abroad?THE TRIUMPH OF
CONSERVATISM
★ CHAPTER 26 ★
1969–1988
B
eginning with the dramatic 1960 contest between John F. Kennedy
and Richard M. Nixon, the journalist Theodore White published best-
selling accounts of four successive races for the presidency. Covering
the 1964 election, White attended civil rights demonstrations and rallies for
Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee. White noticed something that
struck him as odd: “The dominant word of these two groups, which loathe
each other, is ‘freedom.’ Both demand either Freedom Now or Freedom for All.
The word has such emotive power behind it that... a reporter is instantly
denounced for questioning what they mean by the word ‘freedom.’” The United1030 ★