Your Initial Post is worth 3 points and should be 250 words in length, which is equal to about 1 page of double-spaced writing in Arial, Calibri, or Times New Roman 12 point font in a Word document.

President Gerald Ford introduced himself to the nation as a “humble Ford, not a Lincoln” but despite his fundamental human decency, the challenges facing the nation appeared to overwhelm it.

Visitors to the nation’s capital in the mid-1970s were invariably introduced to the hideous Watergate complex. It cast a pall over more substantive achievements and controversies. The war in Vietnam raged on although Ambassador Bunker, the chief representative in what was then called Saigon noted, President Nixon was largely successful in changing the color of the bodies. Essentially, it meant reducing ground forces and weekly reiteration of casualty lists and relying primarily upon offshore naval and air force power to attempt to thwart the ongoing infiltration of North Vietnamese troops and supplies into the south. Nixon also expanded upon prospects to improve diplomatic relations with China and the former Soviet Union, a policy often associated with his duplicitous and blatantly deceitful national security adviser and secretary of state Henry Kissinger. Events in the Middle East also dramatically changed the nation’s perspective and involvement in the complexities of that portion of the world. Israeli military superiority resulted in Palestinian nationalists turning to acts of terrorism to capture public attention and galvanize support for their calls for an independent state. Islamic militants overthrew the Shah of Iran, a considerable investor in American defense technology. The oil embargo created “stagflation” which baffled American economists and led to Jimmy Carter’s woeful bafflement about the “malaise” gripping the nation. Looking back on the era, international nuclear weapons limitations were first introduced. Emerging political powers India and China were challenging the hegemony previously monopolized by the United States and Soviet Union. Europe was emerging from the political shadow of the United States and the nations of Latin America and Africa were expounding upon the aspirations and developmental needs of their respective regions.