He became the first and only unelected president in the nation’s history up to date. One of the first things that Ford did when he became president was to pardon Nixon. His decision caused a lot of controversy across the American public, but he claimed that he needed to pardon Nixon in order for the nation to move on from the Watergate Scandal as quickly as possible. President Ford faced a variety of problems throughout the remaining two years of his presidency. He faced the continued effects of OPEC’s decision as well as high rates of unemployment. He tried to get Congress to allow him to help Vietnam, but Congress refused to approve any further help to the Vietnamese, and so he was left to watch Vietnam fall to communism in 1975. Later that same year, President Ford tried to lessen the tensions with the Soviet Union by signing the Helsinki Accords, which were basically created in an attempt to improve domestic and international relations between the Soviet Union and the Western countries. The Helsinki Accords weren’t classified as a treaty, though, so they didn’t really do …show more content…
They were happy that Carter, an Evangelical Christian, had won the presidency. They assumed that he would be supporting many of the organization’s political goals, but they were disappointed. From the beginning of his presidency, Carter was faced with a multitude of national problems, including high rates of inflation, unemployment, and stagflation. During his presidency, the first GPS was launched on February 22, 1978. As Carter continued through his presidential term, he tried to be a leader in foreign countries as well. Later that same year, President Carter oversaw the signing of the Camp David Accords, which ended the state of war that Egypt and Israel had been in since Israel had been founded 30 years earlier. In 1979, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was admitted into the U.S to be treated for cancer after he was overthrown from his reign in Iran. The Iranians became enraged at this, and when the U.S refused to return Pahlavi to Iran, the Iranians took hostages in the U.S Embassy, an event known as the Iran Hostage Crisis. Towards the end of Carter’s presidential term, The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in an attempt to set up a communist government in the country. Carter reacted by enacting a grain embargo upon the Soviet Union. The Soviets, being able to obtain grain from other sources, were minimally