[APUSH 2] Vietnam + 70s and 80s + Modern Times Vocabulary

Dien Bien Phu

last site of French occupation in Vietnam; the US called for elections

• US wants to cut Vietnam in half, and in 1 year the US wants to reunite North Vietnam (Communist Vietnam) and South Vietnam through elections

  • North Vietnam Candidate: Ho Chi Minh

Ho Chi Minh

Communist leader of North Vietnam, nicknamed the “George Washington” of Vietnam

• Guy who read from the US Declaration of Independence

• Spent his life fighting for Vietnamese independence

• Met with Wilson to ask for self determination for Asian people in Versailles in 1919

Ngo Dinn Diem

“Democratic” leader of South Vietnam that was killed by his own people in 1963 (sort of)

• Catholic, but was in charge of a country that was majorly Buddhist

• Tried to outlaw Buddhism

• US canceled the election, keeping the line between North & South Vietnam existent

  • Their reasoning for cancelling the election was that there would never be a “fair election” between Minh and Diem

• Buddhist monk sits in the middle of Saigon, pours gasoline on him, and sets himself on fire silently due to Diem’s policies

• If LBJ let Vietnam be taken over by Communism, he feared that he would lose reelection

• North Vietnam was launching continuous raids on South Vietnam to try to take it over

17th Parallel

line that divides North and South Vietnam

National Liberation Front (NLF)

Communist Guerillas who attack the US in South Vietnam (also called Vietcong/VC)

• Also called Vietcong, VC, Victor Charlie, Chuck

• “We own the night, Charlie owns the day”

• By day, people in the NLF lived normal lives

• Had tunnels all over Vietnam and dug air vents when necessary

• Set up traps that caused HVAC helicopters to come into a clearing to pick up the wounded, where they were shot down and forced to vacate the area

• Young children were known to run to American soldiers with grenades on them, which killed many of them

NVA

North Vietnamese Army

• Carried modern weapons as they were given them by the Soviets and China

  • At this time, Vietnam didn’t have electricity in many areas

• If the US was fighting just the NVA, we could’ve won, but having this paired with the VC made the war essentially impossible to win

USS Maddox

American ship that was allegedly attacked twice in the Tonkin Gulf in 1964

• Johnson lied and said that the Maddox was attacked to garner more war support

• “For all I know, our navy was shooting at whales out there” - Lyndon B. Johnson

Tonkin Gulf Resolution

Congressional resolution that gives Johnson all authority to protect American interests in Southeast Asia

• Approved by vote of 504 to 2 (the 2 people that voted against it were against war)

• NOT a declaration of war

• Congress does this because if the war goes bad, it falls on the President, but if the war goes well, Congress gets more of the credit for it

  • Ever since Pearl Harbor, war hasn’t been declared due to these “authorization votes”

William Westmoreland

Supreme Commander of all US forces in Vietnam that shaped Vietnam Policy with Secretary of Defense Robert MacNamara

• Equivalent to the roles Eisenhower and MacArthur had in WWII

• Robert MacNamara: CEO of Ford Motor Company prior to being Secretary of Defense

  • He was really smart

• Westmoreland is kind of subordinate to MacNamara

• MacNamara claims that the war would be won with math, and he says that if they have a 5-1 kill-death ratio, they win Vietnam

• Hard to tell apart North Vietnamese & South Vietnamese when counting death tolls, 

• American casualties were 59,000, but Vietnam lost an estimated 1.5 million, but Vietnam won the war

Operation Rolling Thunder

US bombing campaign of Hanoi in North Vietnam (the US dropped more bombs in Vietnam than in all of WWII)

• Bombs are measured in tonnage (how many tons of bombs you dropped)

• North Vietnam is carpet bombed (bomb everything)

• In an effort to remove foliage, Agent Orange was used so that the enemy had less cover

  • Had lasting implications on the health of soldiers that fought due to the harmful chemicals used (carcinogen)

Ho Chi Minh Trail

supply lines used by the NVA and VC from North Vietnam to South Vietnam through Laos and Cambodia that was bombed by Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon

• Laos and Cambodia want to shut down these supply lines, but couldn’t

• Supply lines couldn’t be shut down because Laos & Cambodia had weak central governments and therefore didn’t have the power to do so

• America needed to decide between bombing these supply lines or not

• After Cambodia was bombed, Cambodia’s weak monarchy was taken over by Communists after the people revolt

  • Cambodian Genocide: killing of everyone that lived in cities and intellectuals (anyone with a college degree, doctors, lawyers, etc.)

  • Cambodian Genocide had a death toll of 5-8 million

Tet Offensive

coordinated nationwide attack by the NVA and VC against American forces in South Vietnam where the US wins virtually every major engagement and US public opinion turns against the war

• In 1968, LBJ goes on TV and says that the war is almost over and that the enemy is in their last phase of their revolt

• Tet is the biggest holiday in Vietnam, and to respect South Vietnam, the US didn’t fight

• NVA uses this as an advantage, and unleash a barrage of attacks around Tet

• NVA takes over the US embassy in Saigon

• US wins back everything, yet US public opinion turned against the war because LBJ claimed that the enemy was almost done, yet this happened, so they distrust the presidency

  • “Hey hey LBJ how many kids did you kill today?” was a chant the people said

• Johnson refuses to run for presidency if Vietnam continues to be like this

• Americans refuse to send their children to war to be the bad guys

Credibility Gap

difference between what the government says and the truth

Hubert Humphrey

LBJ’s Vice President that lost to Richard Nixon in the Election of 1868

• LBJ was likely to win prior to the Tet Offensive

• RFK runs for Democratic presidential nomination and won the California primary, and was murdered after his “victory” speech

• Protesters were chanting to the police “the whole world is watching” as they were being beaten on live television

• 1968 is arguably the worst year in American history

Vietnamization

when the US replaces American soldiers with South Vietnamese soldiers in an effort to win the war

• Nixon was elected to end the Vietnam War, not extend it by bombing North Vietnam more

• Nixon needs to find a way to exit the war without looking weak to Russia & China, and these were his options

  • Get out immediately

  • Vietnamization (Nixon picks this)

  • Go all in and try to win the war

• If you looked weak, you would end up needing to wait 

• US continues the draft during Vietnamization as drafts lasted 1 year, and this lasted a couple

Neil Armstrong

first man to walk on the moon on July 20, 1969

• “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”

• This was one of the very few good events that happened during this era

Kent State Massacre

when 4 college students were killed at Kent State University, Ohio by the National Guard while protesting the Vietnam War

• Protesters got uncomfortably close to the National Guard, and a gun accidentally went off, so the Guard opened fire

• Bad look for America because they were expressing their constitutional rights, yet were killed just for doing so

• Vietnam veterans don’t like this because the killing of 4 people causes such public outrage, yet the multiple lives lost in Vietnam aren’t recognized more

Henry Kissinger

Nixon’s Secretary of State that was an NSA (National Security Advisor) who controlled US foreign policy in the 70s

Real Politik

Kissinger’s pragmatic (practical) foreign policy to deal with countries as they are, not as we wish them to be

• Stop wishing Communism away, deal with the Communism as-is

Detenté

the “cooling off” of the relationship between the US and the Soviet Union in the 1970s

• Didn’t happen with Truman & Stalin or with JFK and Khrushchev

Watergate (1972)

worst political scandal in US history that led to the resignation of Nixon in 1974, investigated by the Washington Post

• There was a break-in from the Republicans of the Watergate hotel in 1972, since one of its offices was owned by the Democrats

• Two reporters from the Washington Post ask why anyone would invade the Democratic offices in the Watergate hotel and notice that they have a lot of money in their bank accounts, realizing that their money came from people a part of CREEP

  • CREEP: Committee to Re-elect the President

• All burglars from Watergate ended up with CREEP money in their bank accounts

• Nixon says he knows nothing about this

• In 1973, a congressional panel was held, where the president’s lawyer knew about this affair and ordered it

• Nixon again claims that he knows nothing, but the White House Council knew about it, saying that it was also taped (due to LBJ’s taping in the Oval Office)

  • Nixon says that they don’t get the tapes

• The court asks for the tapes, and Nixon submits them with gaps

• Nixon calls for meeting of all Congressional Republicans and asks for Barry Goldwater to save him, and he says that he wouldn’t even if he could, and two days later he resigned

• No president has ever been removed from office from impeachment, but Nixon would have been impeached and removed from office if he didn’t resign

Pentagon Papers

study about the Vietnam War ordered by MacNamara “leaked” to the New York Times, exposing the government’s lies

• MacNamara ordered study in 1968

  • Study was from 1945-1968

• NY Times publishes this one story at a time in 1971

• Government goes to the Supreme Court and the NY times win as long as they don’t publish information that could get an American killed

• Nixon hires a group of people he calls the “Plumbers” to find the “leak,” which was Daniel Ellsberg, and “shut him the hell up”

Paris Peace Agreement (1973)

treaty that ended the Vietnam War

• Draft was stopped in 1972 because it was an election year

• Most Americans don’t want to hear about Vietnam anymore by 1973

• Claimed that all American forces would be out of Vietnam by June 1973, so in July 1973, the NVA attacked South Vietnam, and by 1974, the NVA was advancing to Saigon

  • US Embassy is in Saigon

• NVA killed Vietnamese that they knew helped Americans

• Gerald Ford was Nixon’s VP and succeeded his presidency

  • Asked Congress for 500,000 Marines to help Vietnam, and they declined

Fall of Saigon

refers to the evacuation of Saigon by the United States by helicopter as the NVA approached

• Awful for US reputation

Gerald Ford

took over for and pardoned President Richard Nixon in 1974

• Wasn’t supposed to be VP, but he had a lot of integrity

• Pardons Nixon because he said that Nixon had suffered far more than the average man

  • Doesn’t win reelection in 1976 due to this belief

• Ford screwed up his debates against Jimmy Carter, claiming that Poland wasn’t under Soviet Control

Whip Inflation Now (WIN)

Ford’s ineffective plan to stop inflation through conservation

• Ford asks Americans to ride a bike to work, plant gardens, etc. to get people to spend less money

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)

Middle-East cartel that controls much of the world’s oil supply

• A lot more oil was used in the 70s, as oil was used in the production of plastic

• As the US kept trying to get the lowest price for oil from various Middle Eastern countries, they banded together and refused to sell oil unless it was at a higher price

• When the price of oil goes up, the price of everything goes up, leading to inflation in the 70s

• Solar panels and alternative renewable energy sources started to come out in the 70s

Stagflation

economic condition where prices rise and wages stay the same

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

federal agency created by Nixon to stop pollution

Energy Crisis

refers to the oil shortages of the 70s caused by OPEC

• Gas needed to be rationed as cars were extremely inefficient when using oil in the 70s

• In today’s money, gas was $7-8 per gallon

• Carter says to turn down the heat in your home and wear a sweater

Leonid Brezhnev

leader of the Soviet Union in the 70s and early 80s

• Brezhnev presides over the USSR for 20 years

• USSR prospers during this time due to the Vietnam War as the US was weakened when fighting the war

• Known for his gigantic eyebrows

SALT/START

nuclear disarmament treaties signed by the US and USSR in the 70s and early 80s

• SALT stands for Strategic Arms Limitation Talks

• START stands for Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty

Camp David Accords

peace treaty between Israel and Egypt mediated by President Carter who won the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize

• Israel established in 1947 and has on-off religious war with Egypt

• Religious wars are faith-based, which makes them last an extremely long time because no one gives up

• Jimmy Carter was the 3rd President to win the Nobel Peace Prize for the Camp David Accords

  • 1 - Teddy Roosevelt won it for the Treaty of Portsmouth

  • 2 - Woodrow Wilson won it for the Treaty of Versailles

  • 4 - Barack Obama won it for the hell of it

• Camp David = Carter’s Presidential Retreat

Anwar Sadat

president of Egypt that was murdered by his own people for the Camp David Accords

• Assassinated at an army parade by his own military

Afghanistan

middle-eastern country invaded by the Soviet Union in 1979 that turns into the Russian “Vietnam”

• Afghanistan consists mainly of mountains & desert

• Carter bans US Athletes from attending the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, which leads the Soviets to only send in 1 team for the Winter Olympics

Iran Hostage Crisis (1979)

when Iran took over the US Embassy, held American hostages, and Carter failed to rescue them

• Shah (King) of Iran isn’t a Communist, but was horrible to his people

  • US supports him because he wasn’t a Communist

• The Shah escapes to the US once the people revolt and Iran’s government asks for him back

• US doesn’t turn him in because they were allied before, and this would leave a bad image on the US if they “betray” the Shah

• Iran takes hostages, and if America traded in the Shah for their hostages, this would lead to more countries taking American hostages to get what they wanted

  • If America went to war

• Carter decides to lead an extremely unsuccessful rescue mission and leads helicopters into Iran, as intelligence is bad and the helicopters end up crashing

  • Iran now has access to American military technology due to the helicopters

• Carter ends up paying billions of dollars to Iran instead, and the hostages are released upon Reagan’s inauguration

Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)

proposed constitutional amendment that would make women equal under federal law that was defeated by southern women’s groups

• Phyllis Schafly: “Women have babies and men provide support. If you don’t like the way we’re made you’ve got to take it up with God.”

  • She believed that women were superior to men because women’s bodies had the ability to create life, not men

  • Believed that if women’s paychecks were raised, men’s paychecks would go down

  • This would lead to women needing to provide for the house

25th Amendment

sets up presidential succession and disability and changes the line of succession

• President, Vice President, Speaker of the House, Head of the Senate (longest-serving senator), Secretary of State, Defense, Treasury, etc.

• If the president is mentally disabled, the vice president can claim that the president is incapacitated

26th Amendment

dropped the voting age from 21 to 18

• Happened as a result of the Vietnam War

Moral Majority

conservative religious group started by Jerry Falwell that voted on social issues and helped start the “New Right”

• 3 Big Ideas: Education, Abortion, Gay Rights

“Malaise”

refers to a 1979 speech by Jimmy Carter where he said America was suffering “a crisis of confidence”

• Iran-Hostage Crisis, Energy Crisis, Stagflation, and USSR-Afghanistan invasion are all going on

Ronald Reagan

won the election of 1980, and was the first conservative president in a generation (since Hoover)

• His first campaign slogan was “Make America Great Again”

• Wants Soviet Assured Destruction

Reaganomics

also known as “supply-side economics,” which says the best way to increase tax revenue is to cut taxes

Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)

Reagan’s plan to eliminate the Soviet’s first strike capability

• MAD turns into SAD and Reagan wants to put a satellite into space to shoot down any nukes that the Soviets want to shoot at the US, and the Soviets don’t like this

• Soviets question if the US will be able to build this

• SDI was nicknamed “Star Wars” due to its ambitious, futuristic nature

Iran-Contra Affair

worst scandal of the Reagan administration where he traded arms for hostages

• Nicaragua is going under a civil war between drug dealers & Communists

• Reagan wants to give money to the Nicaraguan drug dealers, and Congress says no

  • Congress is afraid of another Vietnam situation

• Reagan calls up Iran as they’re engaged in a war with Iraq, asking for weapons in exchange for a couple of hostages and money to fund the Nicaraguan drug dealers

  • This wasn’t legal for Reagan to do

• Oliver North is put on trial in Congress, as he was “authorized” to do everything he did, and Reagan eventually goes on TV and admits that he was wrong to do this

  • Reagan’s approval rating goes up after he admits his guilt

Mikhail Gorbachev

last leader of the Soviet Union

• The US and USSR were building nukes, and since the USSR can’t

• Perestroika: opening of the Soviet economy (gives people freedom)

• As the USSR allows some freedom, the USSR falls apart as the people want more freedom

  • Begins due to the collapse of the Berlin Wall

“Velvet” Revolutions

refers to the mostly peaceful revolutions in the late 80s and early 90s that brought down Soviet Communism

• Reagan told Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall, as Reagan believed in American supremacy

• This movement passes through Poland and Ukraine, and eventually into the USSR, leading to its downfall, and the USSR’s name being changed back into Russia

Operation Desert Storm (1990)

refers to the US invasion of Kuwait to liberate it from Iraq

• George H.W. Bush makes war speech and says “This operation once and for all finally buries the ghost of Vietnam”

Nelson Mandela

president of South Africa who was jailed under apartheid for 25 years, and when he became president, he called for peace

• Apartheid: term used specifically to refer to a system of legalized racial segregation and discrimination in South Africa

  • South Africa is made of 97% black people and 3% white people, yet the whites rules over the blacks

• Mandela speaks out against apartheid which causes the government to jail him, and causes a revolution in South Africa

• “If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.” -Nelson Mandela

Brett Kavanaugh/Clarence Thomas

two Supreme Court justices confirmed in 1990 and 2018 despite sexual harassment allegations

• Woman claims that Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed her, and testifies against him

  • Thomas asked her out twice, and claimed to never sexually harass her

  • Woman claims that he chased her around the office and would have pornography playing in the background as he did so

• Brett Kavanaugh is accused by a woman that in 1984, they were at a high school party (he was a senior, she was a freshman), and that she was forced on a bed

  • Kavanaugh was drunk, and claims to not remember anything

• There’s no evidence to prove that these men were guilty of these allegations (innocent until proven guilty)

Bill Clinton

first baby boomer to be president, the first democrat since Carter, and the second president to be impeached

• Bill Clinton’s campaign was directed towards a younger voter demographic

• Woman says she has a 12 year affair with Bill Clinton, where he denies it

  • Bill Clinton’s voice message to her is shown at a press conference

• Got sued by Paula Jones for sexual harassment upon assuming his presidency

  • Her lawyers were republican, and wanted to find dirt on Clinton

• Linda Trip claimed that her best friend, Monica Lewinsky, was having an affair with Clinton

  • Lewinsky denied having an affair, but they did have an affair

• Upon learning about this, Hillary Clinton (his wife), makes Bill Clinton to swear he didn’t do this on Chelsea’s life (his daughter)

• Lewinsky decided to testify against Clinton after watching his denial of an affair on television, claiming that she felt like a whore

• Had a surplus instead of a deficit during his presidency, proving that his presidency wasn’t unsuccessful, but was heavily looked down upon due to this affair

Information Revolution

refers to the early 90s, with the “invention” and the popularizing of the internet

Rwanda

central African nation that suffered a genocide in the mid 1990s that killed half a million people

• Genocide is PLANNED and thoughtful, not spontaneous (cannot be negotiated out of)

• Rwanda was an independent country and wanted to put a government together, but had ethnic difficulties (darker-skinned v. lighter-skinned Rwandans)

  • Darker-skinned Rwandans viewed themselves as more African

• UN tells peacekeepers in Rwanda to fly home (essentially doing nothing)

• Half a million deaths in 100 days

“Workfare” / Crime Bill

two conservative reforms started by Clinton in the mid 1990s that helped him win re-election in 1996

• Both were extremely controversial, but as this brought Clinton towards a more centrist political stance, this got him more votes in the 1996 election

• Mandatory Work Requirements: for you to get welfare as an able-bodied person, you need to work 20 hrs a week and must have proof for it

• Pregnancy Prevention/Teen Parent Requirements: included money for condom distribution in American high schools, as teen pregnancy is detrimental to a young adult’s life

• Crime Bill: “3 strikes and in” - if you were on your 3rd felony, you couldn’t escape going to jail, which was detrimental to those who didn’t commit severe crimes

Timothy McVeigh

domestic terrorist who destroyed part of a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995

• Came from an upper-class family, and joined the Michigan militia

  • Believed that the government was going to come and take their guns one day

  • Disliked Affirmative Action, and believed the government was anti-white

• McVeigh rented a U-Haul and got a lot of drums of gasoline with a remote detonator to bomb Oklahoma City

• There was a daycare in the building that he bombed, and upon knowing that he murdered multiple children, he said he didn’t care

• Asked for the death penalty because it would show how unfair the government is for it to resort to killing its own citizens

  • He received the death penalty

Columbine

most infamous school shooting in American history in the late 1990s that killed nearly 20 students in Colorado

• Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold (the perpetrators) called themselves the “Trenchcoat Mafia”

• Harris and Klebold waited until lunch, and opened fire in the cafeteria & library to maximize casualties

Bush v. Gore (2000)

Supreme Court case that ended the Florida recount and declared Bush the winner

• Al Gore was VP under Clinton

• Al Gore beat Bush by 1.5 million votes in the popular vote

George W. Bush

president during the 2000s, and was the president during 9/11

Al Qaeda

terrorist organization responsible for 9-11, formerly led by Osama Bin Laden

• Manhunt for him lasted roughly a decade after 9/11 and was he found in Pakistan

9/11/2001

date of the worst terrorist attack in American history

• World Trade Center was bombed in 1993 because it was a symbol of American opulence and overreach

  • Learned that if it was hit at the top, there would be more destruction to the buildings

• The Pentagon consisted of 5 layers, with most people living within the 2nd to the 5th layers

Bush Doctrine

foreign policy where the US reserves the right to attack terrorists or any country harboring terrorists

• Made in the wake of 9/11

PATRIOT Act

gives the government additional authority to look into your private life

• Passed for 10 years and was renewed by Obama, where it was authorized for 10 more years, and was also renewed by Trump

Iraq War

refers to the 2003 invasion of Iraq that devolved into a civil war

• Obama won 2008 election due to running for ending the Iraq War

• Obama removed all American forces on January 1, 2010, and ISIS is established by the terrorists in the Middle East

The “Great Recession”

refers to the 2009 economic slowdown that took place because of a real estate bubble

• Bush Administration says that if people are close enough to getting a home, they were given the home

• Home prices rise due to more people buying homes, which make them harder to afford

• People start selling houses which makes housing prices drop a lot

• People file for bankruptcy, which cuts off what banks received

• 10.5% to 11% unemployment at the time of Obama’s inauguration

Barack Obama

president in the early 2010s that passed the first national healthcare system

• Known as “Barry” Obama in high school

• First priority as president was healthcare motivated due to his mom dying from cancer

Affordable Care Act / “Obamacare”

extends Medicaid and makes private insurance easier to buy

Benghazi

refers to the US Embassy in Libya which was destroyed by terrorists in September of 2012, and was lied about by the administration

• Worst moment of Obama’s presidency

• This happens 2 months prior to the Election of 2012, and hurts Obama’s campaign as he couldn’t claim that he’s kept the country safe for the past 4 years

  • Despite this, Obama still wins re-election in 2012

• September 12, 2012, the US Embassy in Libya is set on fire

• First time since 1979 that an American embassy was destroyed

• Obama claims that this was a protest that went too far (although it was technically a terrorist attack)

• Hillary Clinton was Obama’s Secretary of State, and Congress gave her a hard time

Obergefell v. Hodges (2015)

Supreme Court case that legalized same-sex marriage using the 14th Amendment

• 14th Amendment: passed to get rid of the idea passed in the Dred Scott Decision, where slaves were viewed not as citizens, but as property

• States should have control over marriage laws, because you don’t want people marrying people/things they shouldn’t be

• Opposition to same-sex marriage was more about protecting the sanctity of traditional marriage rather than gay rights

• Chief Justice Roberts’ voted against the legalization of same-sex marriage despite supporting it due to the fact that it was never mentioned in the Constitution

Donald Trump

businessman that became president in 2016, and was the 2nd president to be elected to 2 non-consecutive terms

• Trump was sent off to a military academy

• Beat out expectations during the 2016 election, as he wasn’t into politics even in 2015

• Billionaire president that was supported mainly by people that don’t have a college education and were making less money

Coronavirus

2020 pandemic that killed over 1 million Americans

George Floyd

African-American man murdered by police in 2020 and caused a national protest

• Floyd hands cashier a fake $20 bill

• Police officer asks Floyd to get out of his car as he’s about to leave the area (not trying to flee, just leave)

• Officer kneels on Floyd’s neck and suffocates him to death, which causes nationwide protest in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic

January 6, 2021

date of the riot on the US Capitol by Trump’s supporters who thought the 2020 election was stolen

• Worst thing from this was that 40% of Americans believed that the 2020 election was rigged

• Trump pardoned all people involved in the January 6th riots upon his 2nd term

2024 Election

first election in American history where a sitting president won his party’s nomination, and didn’t run for president

• Joe Biden stepped down from running for president, and nominated his vice president, Kamala Harris, to be the Democratic Party’s Vice President