Period 8

Cold War

The political, economic, and military conflict, short of direct war on the battlefield, between the United States and the Soviet Union between 1945 and 1991.

Containment

Belief that the Soviet Union desired the spread of communism throughout the world. To prevent this spread U.S. diplomat George Kennan advocated a strict policy of containing communism where it already existed and preventing its spread.

Iron Curtain

Term coined by Churchill that described the ideological and political divide between the Communist Soviet Union and the non-Communist western world.

totalitarianism

Type of government that puts the state first, with all other parts of life designed to support and sustain the government first and foremost.

Truman Doctrine

U.S. pledge to contain the expansion of communism around the world. Based on the idea of containment, the Truman Doctrine was the cornerstone of American foreign policy throughout the Cold War.

Marshall Plan

Post World War II European economic aid package developed by Secretary of State George Marshall. The plan helped rebuild Western Europe and served American political and economic interests in the process.

Imperial Presidency

Term used to describe the growth of presidential powers during the Cold War, particularly with respect to war-making powers and the conduct of national security.

National Security Council

Council created by the 1947 National Security Act to advise the president on military and foreign affairs. The NSC consists of the national security adviser and the secretaries of state, defense, the army, the navy, and the air force.

CIA

Intelligence organization established by the 1947 National Security Act. The CIA is part of the executive branch and is responsible for gathering and conducting espionage in foreign nations. Originally created to counter Soviet spying operations.

Berlin Airlift

The mass-scale transport of food and supplies to West Berlin by U.S. and British government air forces during the Soviet blockade of Berlin from 1948 to 1949.

NATO

Cold War military alliance intended to enhance the collective security of the United States and Western Europe.

Warsaw Pact

Russian military alliance with seven satellite nations in response to the U.S. Marshall Plan and establishment of NATO.

NSC- 68

April 1950 National Security Council document that advocated the intensification of the policy of containment both at home and abroad.

Korean War

Conflict fought between the northern Communist, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the United Nations-backed southern Republic of Korea between 1950 to 1953.

House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)

U.S. House of Representatives Committee established in 1938 to investigate domestic communism. After World War II, HUAC conducted highly publicized investigations of Communist influence in government and the entertainment industry.

Smith Act

Law signed by Franklin Roosevelt in 1940, which prohibited teaching or advocating for the destruction of the United States government.

Second Red Scare

Fear of Communist influence infiltrating the United States and threatening national security in the 1940s and 1950s. Such fears resulted in the creation of government-controlled programs and entities such as the House Un-American Activities Committee and the Federal Employee Loyalty Program.

Federally employee loyalty program

Program established by President Truman in 1947 to investigate federal employees suspected of disloyalty and Communist ties.

Dennis V United States

1951 Supreme Court decision upholding the conviction of Communist leaders on the grounds they posed a “clear and present danger,” despite the absence of any evidence of an immediate uprising or plot.

McCarran Internal Security Act

1950 Republican-supported legislation proposed by Senator Pat McCarran, which required Communist organizations to register with the federal government, established detention camps for radicals, and denied passports to American citizens who had communist affiliations. Truman vetoed the bill, but Congress overrode his veto making the act law.

McCarthyism

erm used to describe the harassment and persecution of suspected political radicals. Senator Joseph McCarthy was one of many prominent government figures who helped incite anti-Communist hysteria in the early 1950s.

Yates v United States

1957 Supreme Court ruling establishing that the Justice Department could not prosecute someone for merely advocating an abstract doctrine favoring the violent overthrow of the government. The ruling was seen as a severe blow to the enforcement of the 1940 Smith Act.

Servicemen’s readjustment act

1944 act that offered educational opportunities and financial aid to veterans as they readjusted to civilian life. Known as the GI Bill, the law helped millions of veterans build new lives after the war.

Taft Harley Act

1947 law that curtailed unions’ ability to organize. It prevented unions from barring employment to non-union members and authorized the federal government to halt a strike for eighty days if it interfered with the national interest.

Dixiecrats

Southern Democrats who created a segregationist political party in 1948 as a response to federal extensions of civil rights. Dixiecrats advocated for a state’s right to legislate segregation. The Dixiecrat Party ran Strom Thurmond in an unsuccessful bid for the presidency in 1948 against Truman.

Babyboom

Sharp population increase between 1946 and 1964 as a result of the end of World War II, increased economic prosperity, improvements in healthcare, and a trend toward marriage at younger ages.

Federal Housing Administration

Agency created in 1934 by the Franklin Roosevelt Administration to devise housing construction standards and provide long-term mortgages to qualified buyers at low interest rates.

Levittown

Suburban subdivision built in Long Island, New York in the 1950s in response to the postwar housing shortage. Subsequent Levittowns were built in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Sun Belt

The southern and western part of the United States to which millions of Americans moved after World War II. Migrants were drawn by the region’s climate and jobs in the defense, petroleum, and chemical industries.

Beats

A small group of young poets, writers, intellectuals, musicians, and artists who challenged mainstream American politics and culture in the 1950s.

To secure these rights

Report issued by President Harry Truman’s Committee on Civil Rights in 1947 that advocated extending racial equality. Among its recommendations was the desegregation of the military, which Truman instituted by executive order in 1948.

Brown v Board

Landmark 1954 Supreme Court case that overturned the “separate but equal” principle established by Plessy v. Ferguson and applied to public schools. Few schools in the South were racially desegregated for more than a decade.

Montgomery Bus Boycott

Thirteen-month bus boycott that began with the arrest of Rosa Parks for refusing to give up her seat to a white man. The successful protest catapulted Martin Luther King, Jr., a local pastor, into national prominence as a civil rights leader.

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Organization founded in 1957 by Martin Luther King Jr. and other black ministers to encourage nonviolent protests against racial segregation and disenfranchisement in the South.

Little Rock Nine

Nine students who, in 1957, became the first African Americans to attend Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Federal troops were required to overcome the resistance of white officials and the violence of white protesters.

White Citizens’ Council (WCC)

Organization created in protest following the Brown v. Board decision. The WCC consisted primarily of businessmen and professionals who intimidated black members of the community by threatening their jobs, denied bank loans to African Americans, and rejected rock ’n’ roll music.

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

Civil rights organization that grew out of the sit-ins of 1960. The organization focused on taking direct action and political organizing to achieve its goals.

Great Migration

Population shift of more than 400,000 African Americans who left the South beginning in 1917–1918 and headed north and west to escape poverty and racial discrimination. During the 1920s another 800,000 black people left the South.

McCarran-Walter Immigration Act

1952 legislation that made it possible for Japanese non-citizens to become U.S. citizens. However, the act still maintained a race-based system of discriminatory national-origin quotas.

New Look

The foreign policy strategy implemented by President Dwight Eisenhower that emphasized the development and deployment of nuclear weapons in an effort to cut military spending.

mutually assured destruction (MAD)

Defense strategy built around the threat of a massive nuclear retaliatory strike. Adoption of the doctrine of mutually assured destruction contributed to the escalation of the nuclear arms race during the Cold War.

Kitchen Debate

July 24, 1959 impromptu debate during the Cold War at the American National Exhibition in Moscow in front of a display of an American kitchen between Nixon and the Soviet Union’s First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev about the merits of capitalism and communism.

Bandung Conference

A conference of twenty-nine Asian and African nations held in Indonesia in 1955, which declared their neutrality in the Cold War struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union and condemned colonialism.

Eisenhower Doctrine

A doctrine guiding U.S. intervention in the Middle East. In 1957 Congress granted President Dwight Eisenhower the power to send military forces into the Middle East to combat Communist aggression. Eisenhower sent U.S. marines into Lebanon in 1958 under thiFirst artificial satellite, launched in 1957 by the Soviet Union.s doctrine.

Modern Republicanism

The political approach of President Dwight Eisenhower that tried to fit traditional Republican Party ideals of individualism and fiscal restraint within the broad framework of the New Deal.

National Interstate and Defense Highway Act

1956 act that provided funds for construction of 42,500 miles of roads throughout the United States.

National Defense Education Act

1958 Cold War era act in response to the Soviet launch of Sputnik, which provided aid for instruction in science, math, and foreign language, and grants and fellowships for college students.

Sputnik

First artificial satellite, launched in 1957 by the Soviet Union.

Bureau of Indian Affairs

Established in 1824, the BIA is responsible for management of American Indian lands and implementation of federal policy towards American Indian nations.

Operation Wetback

Forced deportation of 250,000 to 1.3 million undocumented Mexican immigrants during the Eisenhower administration.

Bay of Pigs Invasion

Unsuccessful 1961 attempt under the Kennedy administration to overthrow the Castro regime in Cuba.

Berlin Wall

Physical and ideological barrier between East and West Berlin which existed from 1961 until 1989. The wall was designed to prevent Soviet controlled East Berliners from fleeing to the West.

Vietcong

The popular name for the National Liberation Front (NFL) in South Vietnam, which was formed in 1959. The Vietcong waged a military insurgency against the U.S.-backed president, Ngo Dinh Diem, and received support from Ho Chi Minh, the leader of North Vietnam.

Domino Theory

Prevalent belief during the Cold War maintaining that if one country fell under the influence of communism, other surrounding countries would soon similarly fall under the influence of communism, like a row of falling dominoes.

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

1964 congressional resolution giving President Johnson wide discretion in the use of U.S. forces in Vietnam. The resolution followed reported attacks by North Vietnamese gunboats on two American destroyers.

escalation

Johnson administration policy of continuously increasing the numbers of ground troops in Vietnam and bombing campaigns.

Vietnam War

Conflict between the Communist nationalist government in North Vietnam backed by the Soviet Union and China, against the United Nations and U.S. backed South Vietnam government. The war is seen as part of a series of proxy wars as a result of Cold War tensions between the U.S. and Soviet Union between 1954 to 1975.

My Lai Massacre

March 16, 1968 unprovoked U.S. massacre of nearly 500 of the elderly, women, and children in the South Vietnam area of My Lai during the Vietnam War.

Tet Offensive

January 31, 1968 offensive mounted by Vietcong and North Vietnamese forces against population centers in South Vietnam. The offensive was turned back, but its ferocity shocked many Americans and increased public opposition to the war.

Vietnamization

President Richard Nixon’s strategy of turning over greater responsibility for the fighting of the Vietnam War to the South Vietnamese army.

Kent State Massacre

The killing of four students and wounding of nine others by the National Guard during a 1970 Kent State campus protest about the U.S. invasion of Cambodia as part of the Vietnam War. The incident sparked further anti-war sentiment and massive protests.

Pentagon Papers

Classified report on U.S. involvement in Vietnam leaked to the press in 1971. The report confirmed that the Kennedy and Johnson administrations had misled the public about the origins and nature of the Vietnam War.

War Powers Act

1973 act that required the president to consult with Congress within forty-eight hours of deploying military forces and to obtain a declaration of war from Congress if troops remained on foreign soil beyond sixty days.

Freedom Rides

Integrated bus rides through the South organized by CORE in 1961 to test compliance with Supreme Court rulings on segregation.

March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

August 28, 1963 rally by civil rights organizations in Washington, D.C. that brought increased national attention to the movement.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Wide-ranging civil rights act that, among other things, prohibited discrimination in public accommodations and employment and increased federal enforcement of school desegregation.

Freedom Summer

1964 civil rights project in Mississippi launched by SNCC, CORE, the SCLC, and the NAACP. Some eight hundred volunteers, mainly white college students, worked on voter registration drives and in freedom schools to improve education for rural black youngsters.

Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP)

Political party formed in 1964 to challenge the all-white state Democratic Party for seats at the 1964 Democratic presidential convention and run candidates for public office. Although unsuccessful in 1964, MFDP efforts led to subsequent reform of the Democratic Party and the seating of an interracial convention delegation from Mississippi in 1968.

Voting Rights Act

1965 act that eliminated many of the obstacles to African American voting in the South and resulted in dramatic increases in black participation in the electoral process.

Black Panther Party

Organization founded in 1966 by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale to advance the black power movement in black communities.

affirmative action

Programs meant to overcome historical patterns of discrimination against minorities and women in education and employment. By establishing guidelines for hiring and college admissions, the government sought to advance equal opportunities for minorities and women.

school bussing

Mandatory nationwide initiative to integrate schools, begun in 1971 to comply with the 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board. The practice of school busing continued in the U.S. well into the 1990s. Also known as “busing” or “desegregation busing.”

New Frontier

President John F. Kennedy’s domestic agenda. Kennedy promised to battle “tyranny, poverty, disease, and war,” but, lacking strong majorities in Congress, he achieved relatively modest results.

Great Society

President Lyndon Johnson’s vision of social, economic, and cultural progress in the United States.

Students for a Democratic Society

Student activist organization formed in the early 1960s that advocated the formation of a “New Left” that would overturn the social and political status quo.

Port Huron Statement

Students for a Democratic Society manifesto written in 1962 that condemned liberal politics, Cold War foreign policy, racism, and research-oriented universities. It called for the adoption of “participatory democracy.”

Free Speech Movement

Movement protesting policies instituted by the University of California at Berkeley that restricted free speech. In 1964 students at Berkeley conducted sit-ins and held rallies against these policies.

counterculture

Young cultural rebels of the 1960s who rejected conventional moral and sexual values and used drugs to reach a higher consciousness.

Commission on the Status of Women

Commission appointed by President Kennedy in 1961. The commission’s 1963 report, American Women, highlighted employment discrimination against women and recommended legislation requiring equal pay for equal work regardless of sex.

National Organization for Women

Feminist organization formed in 1966 by Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, and other like-minded activists.

Equal Rights Amendment

A proposed amendment that prevented the abridgment of “equality of rights under law … by the United States or any State on the basis of sex.” Not enough states had ratified the amendment by 1982, when the ratification period expired, so it was not adopted.

Roe v. Wade

The 1973 Supreme Court decision that affirmed a woman’s constitutional right to abortion.

La Raza Unida (The United Race)

A Chicano political party, formed in 1969, that advocated job opportunities for Chicanos, bilingual education, and Chicano cultural studies programs in universities.

American Indian Movement (AIM)

An American Indian group, formed in 1968, that promoted “red power” and condemned the United States for its continued mistreatment of American Indians.

Stonewall Riots

1969 uprising after New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gathering place for gay men, and tried to arrest patrons. The uprising helped inspire the gay liberation movement of the 1970s.

Young Americans for Freedom (YAF)

A group of young conservatives from college campuses formed in 1960 in Sharon, Connecticut. The group favored free market principles, states’ rights, and anticommunism.

Twenty-sixth Amendment

1971 amendment lowering the voting age to eighteen in federal, state, and local elections.

detente

An easing of tense relations with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. This process moved unevenly through the 1970s and early 1980s but accelerated when the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the mid-1980s.

Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I)

1972 agreement between the United States and Soviet Union to curtail nuclear arms production during the Cold War. The pact froze for five years the number of anti ballistic missiles (ABMs), intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and submarine-based missiles that each nation could deploy.

realpolitik

Foreign policy based on practical economic and strategic needs of the U.S. rather than any ideological or human rights goals.

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)

Organization formed by oil-producing countries to control the price and supply of oil on the global market.

Watergate

Scandal and cover-up that forced the resignation of Richard Nixon in 1974. The scandal revolved around a break-in at Democratic Party headquarters in 1972 and subsequent efforts to conceal the administration’s involvement in the break-in.

deindustrialization

Decline of industrial activity in a specific town, region, or nation. In the U.S. it led to significant drops in union membership and population shifts across the country as people moved in search of new types of economic opportunity.

stagflation

Period of economic instability in the 1970s as the rising cost of living occurred in conjunction with an increase in unemployment.

National Energy Act

Legislation signed into law by President Jimmy Carter in 1978, which set gas emissions standards for automobiles and provided incentives for installing alternative energy systems, such as wind and solar power.

SALT II

1979 strategic arms limitation treaty agreed on by President Jimmy Carter and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. After the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, Carter persuaded the Senate not to ratify the treaty.

mujahideen

Religiously inspired Afghan rebels who resisted the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

Camp David Accords

1978 peace accord between Israel and Egypt facilitated by the mediation of President Jimmy Carter.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Federal agency established by Richard Nixon in 1971 to regulate activities that resulted in pollution or other environmental degradation.

Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act

(known as the EPA’s Superfund) to clean up sites contaminated with hazardous substances.