Unit 8 APUSH

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.

Potsdam conference

Meeting in July of 1945 in Germany, between Truman and Stalin. The two leaders agreed to free elections in Eastern Europe, Soviet withdrawal from Northern Iran, and creation of four Allied occupation zones in Germany

Harry Truman

1884-1972; thirty-third president of the United States; he became president upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. He led the U.S. through the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War.

Joseph Stalin

the Soviet leader who succeeded Lenin, established a totalitarian state by suppressing opposition, and oversaw the Soviet Union's rapid industrialization and collectivization of agriculture through Five-Year Plans and terror

George Kennan

an American diplomat and historian, is known for his influential role in shaping U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War, particularly through his advocacy for the strategy of "containment" to counter Soviet expansion. 

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. NSC-68 proposed that the United States develop an even more powerful nuclear weapon, the hydrogen bomb; increase military spending; and continue to negotiate NATO-style alliances around the globe.

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. The war permitted Truman to expand his powers as commander in chief and augmented the strength of the national security state over which he presided. As a result of the Korean conflict, the military draft became a regular feature of American life for young men over the next two decades. The expanded peacetime military was active around the globe, operating bases in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. During the war, the military budget rose from $13.5 billion to $50 billion, strengthening the connection between economic growth and permanent mobilization to fight the Cold War. The war also permitted President Truman to reshape foreign policy along the lines sketched in NSC-68, including the extension of U.S. influence in Southeast Asia. Consequently, he authorized economic aid to support the French against Communist revolutionaries in Vietnam.

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. HUAC really wanted the accused to confess their Communist sympathy publicly and to show remorse by naming their associates. Those who did not comply were considered “unfriendly” witnesses and were put on an industry blacklist that deprived them of employment.

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.

 Federal Employee Loyalty Program

Program established by President Truman in 1947 to investigate federal employees suspected of disloyalty and Communist ties. Was meant to focus on espionage but concentrated its attention on individuals who espoused dissenting views on a variety of issues.

Dennis v. US

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 the Democratic Congress overrode his veto making the act law.

Douglass MacArthur

Commanding officer of the US troops sent to help South Korea. Wanted to invade North Korea after kicking them out of South Korea but this failed allowing South Korea to fall to communism. After the UN pushed North Korea back again, MacArthur still wanted to invade, risk war with China, and use atomic weapons, but Truman said no and took him out of leadership

Joseph McCarthy

Although McCarthy bullied people, exaggerated his military service, drank too much, and did not pull his punches in making speeches, his anti-Communist tirades fit into mainstream Cold War politics for a time. Chair of the Permanent Investigations Subcommittee on Government Operations. Senator McCarthy used his position to harass current and former government officials and employees who, he claimed, collaborated with the Communist conspiracy. Made false accusations and smear witnesses with anti-Communist allegations. McCarthy accused the army of harboring Communists. The army-McCarthy hearings showed many viewers for the first time how reckless McCarthy had become. A documentary came out that also showed his unflattering behavior. In December 1954 the Senate voted to censure McCarthy for conduct unbecoming a senator, having violated senatorial etiquette by insulting colleagues who criticized him. McCarthy retained his seat on the subcommittee, but he never again wielded substantial power. In 1957 he died from acute hepatitis, a disease related to alcoholism.

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. The New Look may have saved money and slowed the rate of defense spending, but it had serious flaws. First, it placed a premium on “brinksmanship,” taking Communist enemies to the precipice of nuclear destruction, risking the death of millions, and hoping the other side would back down. Second, massive retaliation did not work for small-scale conflicts. For instance, in the event of a confrontation in Berlin, would the United States launch nuclear missiles toward Germany and expose its European allies in West Germany and France to nuclear contamination? Third, the buildup of nuclear warheads provoked an arms race by encouraging the Soviet Union to do the same

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 this doctrine. In actuality, the Eisenhower administration proved more concerned with protecting access to oil fields from hostile Arab nationalist leaders than with any Communist incursion

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. Caused Eisenhower to create the previous 2 acts to try to catch up

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. Between 1952 and 1960, the BIA encouraged more than 30,000 American Indians to move from their reservations to cities. Although thousands of American Indians took advantage of the relocation program, many had difficulty adjusting to urban life and fell into poverty. Resulted in termination of their federal benefits and transfer of their tribal lands to state and local governments. The National Congress of American Indians fought unsuccessfully against this program

Bay of Pigs Invasion

Unsuccessful 1961 attempt under the Kennedy administration to overthrow the Castro regime in Cuba. The operation ended disastrously. On April 17, 1961, the invasion force of between 1,400 and 1,500 Cuban exiles, trained by the CIA, landed by boat on Cuba’s southwest coast, launching the Bay of Pigs invasion. Kennedy refused to provide backup military forces for fear of revealing the U.S. role in the attack. Castro’s troops defeated the insurgents in three days. CIA planners had underestimated Cuban popular support for Castro, falsely believing that the invasion would inspire a national uprising against the Communist regime. The Kennedy administration had blundered into a bitter foreign policy defeat.

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. Kennedy persuaded Congress to increase the defense budget, dispatch additional troops to Europe, and bolster civil defense. In August, the Soviets responded by constructing the Berlin Wall, making it more difficult for refugees fleeing poverty and oppression in East Berlin to escape to West Berlin.

Cuban Missile Crisis

Despite the Bay of Pigs disaster, the United States continued its efforts to topple the Castro regime. Such attempts were unsuccessful. In response, Castro invited the Soviet Union to install short- and intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Cuba to protect the country against any U.S. incursion. After their discovery by American U-2 spy planes, Kennedy went on national television on October 22, 1962 to inform the American people that the Soviets had placed missiles in Cuba. The Kennedy administration decided to blockade Cuba to prevent Soviet ships from supplying the deadly warheads that would make the missiles fully operational. If Soviet ships defied the blockade, the president would order air strikes and an invasion to destroy the missiles and overthrow Castro. Ordinary Americans nervously contemplated the very real possibility of nuclear destruction as Soviet ships sailed toward the blockade. On the brink of nuclear war, both sides chose compromise. Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles, and Kennedy pledged not to invade Cuba and secretly promised to dismantle U.S. missile sites in Turkey aimed at the Soviet Union. The world breathed a sigh of relief, and Kennedy and Khrushchev, having stepped back from the edge of nuclear holocaust, worked to ease tensions further. In 1963 they signed a Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty — which prohibited atmospheric but not underground testing — and installed an electronic “hot line” to ensure swift communications between Washington and Moscow

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight D. Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961, and is best known for his leadership during the Cold War era, including his approach to the Vietnam War. His administration emphasized a policy of containment against communism, which influenced U.S. involvement in Vietnam as well as other regions in Southeast Asia, setting the stage for the escalation of conflict in later years.

5 Must Know Facts For Your Next Test

1. Eisenhower's administration committed to providing military and economic aid to South Vietnam, fearing that the spread of communism would undermine U.S. interests in Southeast Asia.

2. In 1954, Eisenhower introduced the 'Eisenhower Doctrine,' which aimed to counteract Soviet influence in the Middle East but also had implications for U.S. policies towards Southeast Asia.

3. Under Eisenhower, the U.S. increased its military presence in Vietnam by supporting the French colonial forces during their war against Vietnamese nationalists.

4. The concept of 'brinkmanship,' where Eisenhower threatened nuclear retaliation to deter communist aggression, played a role in shaping U.S. actions in Vietnam and beyond.

5. Eisenhower's presidency set a foundation for increased U.S. involvement in Vietnam, with decisions made during his time leading directly to later escalation under subsequent administrations

John F. Kennedy

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, commonly referred to as JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from January 1961 until his assassination in November 1963. His presidency is closely associated with significant events and policies, particularly the push for civil rights and the creation of ambitious programs aimed at addressing poverty and inequality, which resonate with the ideals of the Great Society.

5 Must Know Facts For Your Next Test

1. JFK was the youngest person ever elected as President at age 43 and was known for his charisma and inspiring speeches.

2. His administration faced several critical events, including the Cuban Missile Crisis and the beginning of U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

3. JFK's commitment to civil rights led to federal support for desegregation and civil rights legislation, paving the way for future reforms.

4. The Peace Corps, established during his presidency, aimed to promote world peace and friendship by sending American volunteers abroad to help with development projects.

5. JFK's assassination on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, shocked the nation and had a lasting impact on American politics and society

Richard Nixon

Richard Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. He is particularly known for his controversial policies regarding the Vietnam War, where he sought to end U.S. involvement while simultaneously implementing strategies such as Vietnamization and secret bombings in Cambodia. Nixon's approach to the Vietnam War reflected broader themes of American foreign policy during a time of significant social and political upheaval.

5 Must Know Facts For Your Next Test

1. Nixon announced his plan for 'Vietnamization' in 1969, which aimed to reduce American troop levels while increasing support for South Vietnamese forces.

2. Despite the withdrawal of troops, Nixon secretly authorized bombing campaigns in neighboring Cambodia, which escalated anti-war protests in the U.S.

3. The public's perception of Nixon worsened due to revelations from the Pentagon Papers, leading many to distrust his administration's handling of the war.

4. Nixon's presidency was marked by significant anti-war protests, including events like the Kent State shootings in 1970 that highlighted growing public dissent.

5. The Watergate Scandal ultimately overshadowed Nixon's foreign policy achievements, culminating in his resignation in 1974, making him the first U.S. president to do so.

Notes on Egypt I don’t want to write down

Such was the case in Egypt, which achieved independence from Great Britain in 1952. Two years later, under General Gamal Abdel Nasser, the country sought to modernize its economy by building the hydroelectric Aswan Dam on the Nile River. Nasser welcomed financial backing from the United States and the Soviet Union, but the Eisenhower administration refused to contribute so long as the Egyptians accepted Soviet assistance. In 1956 Nasser, falling short of funds, sent troops to take over the Suez Canal, the waterway run by Great Britain and through which the bulk of Western Europe’s oil was shipped. He intended to pay for the dam by collecting tolls from canal users. In retaliation, Britain and France, the two European powers most affected by the seizure, invaded Egypt on October 29, 1956. Locked in a struggle with Egypt and other Arab nations since its creation in 1948, Israel joined in the attack. The invading forces — all U.S. allies — had not warned the Eisenhower administration of their plans. Coming at the same time as the Soviet crackdown against the Hungarian revolution, the British-French-Israeli assault placed the United States in the difficult position of condemning the Soviets for intervening in Hungary while its anti-Communist partners waged war in Suez. Instead, Eisenhower cooperated with the United Nations to negotiate a cease-fire and engineer a pullout of the invading forces in Egypt. Ultimately, the Soviets proved the winners in this Cold War skirmish. The Suez invasion revived memories of European imperialism and fueled anti-Western sentiments and pan-Arab nationalism (a sense of unity among Arabs across national boundaries), which worked to the Soviets’ advantage.

Congo notes I don’t want to take

Just before Eisenhower left office in January 1961, his administration intervened in a civil war in the newly independent Congo. This former colony of Belgium held valuable mineral resources, which Belgium and the United States coveted. After the Congo’s first prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, stated his intentions to remain neutral in the Cold War, President Eisenhower and CIA director Allen Dulles declared him unreliable in the conflict with the Soviet Union. With the support of Belgian military troops and encouragement from the United States, the resource-rich province of Katanga seceded from the Congo in 1960. After the Congolese military, under the leadership of Joseph Mobuto, overthrew Lumumba’s government, the CIA launched an operation that culminated in the execution of Lumumba on January 17, 1961. Several years later, Mobuto became president of the country, changed its name to Zaire, and allied with the West.

Iran notes I don’t want to take

The U.S. government took a dim view of the Bandung Conference and refused to send representatives. Especially worrisome to the U.S., the Communist Chinese government made serious overtures to form closer relations with these nations. The United States frequently took a heavy handed approach when it suspected newly decolonized nations were edging to the side of the Soviets. In a manner first suggested in NSC-68, the Eisenhower administration deployed the CIA to help topple governments considered pro-Communist as well as to promote U.S. economic interests. For example, after Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh of Iran nationalized foreign oil corporations in 1953, the CIA engineered a successful coup that ousted his government and installed the pro-American shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in his place. Mossadegh was not a Communist, but by overthrowing him American oil companies obtained 40 percent of Iran’s oil revenue.

Cuba notes I don’t want to take

The success of the CIA’s covert efforts in Guatemala prompted the Eisenhower administration to plan a similar action in Cuba, ninety miles off the coast of Florida. In 1959 Fidel Castro led an uprising and came to power in Cuba after overthrowing the American-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista. A Cuban nationalist in the tradition of José Martí, Castro sought to regain full control over his country’s economic resources, including those owned by U.S. corporations. He appropriated $1 billion worth of American property and signed a trade agreement with the Soviet Union. To consolidate his political rule, Castro jailed opponents and installed a Communist regime. In 1960 President Eisenhower authorized the CIA to design a clandestine operation to overthrow the Castro government, but he left office before the invasion could occur

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. Diem’s death, however, did little to improve the worsening war against the Communists. The Vietcong had more support in the rural countryside than did the South Vietnamese government. The rebels promised land reform and recruited local peasants opposed to the corruption and ruthlessness of the Diem regime. The Kennedy administration committed itself to supporting Diem’s successor, but by late November 1963 Kennedy seemed torn between sending more American troops and finding a way to negotiate a peace. The United States confronted a challenging guerrilla war in Vietnam. The Vietcong often fought at night and blended in during the day as ordinary residents of cities and villages. They did not provide a visible target, and they recruited women and men of all ages, making it difficult for U.S. ground forces to distinguish friend from foe. Although U.S. military commanders realized the necessity of “winning hearts and minds” in Vietnam, in the end, the U.S. military effort alienated the population it was designed to safeguard.

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

That moment came in August 1964. On August 2, North Vietnamese gunboats attacked a U.S. Navy destroyer sixty miles off the North Vietnamese coast in the Gulf of Tonkin in response to South Vietnamese naval raids along the coast. Two days later, another U.S. destroyer reported coming under torpedo attack, but because of stormy weather the second ship was not certain that it had been fired on. Despite the considerable uncertainty about what actually happened and the lack of damage, Johnson seized the opportunity to urge Congress to authorize military action. On August 7, 1964 Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which provided the president with unlimited power to make military decisions regarding Vietnam. 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

Responding to the need to protect American air bases and the persistent ineffectiveness of the South Vietnamese military, Johnson deployed ever-increasing numbers of ground troops to Vietnam. 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. Frustrated by rising casualties from an enemy they could not see, in March 1968 an American platoon killed several hundred unarmed Vietnamese civilians in an event that came to be known as the My Lai massacre. Although dozens of U.S. military personnel participated in the massacre and subsequent coverup attempt, only one soldier was ever convicted of a crime.

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. The My Lai carnage came in the aftermath of the Tet Offensive. On January 31, 1968, the Buddhist New Year of Tet, some 67,000 Communist forces mounted a surprise offensive throughout South Vietnam that targeted major population centers and even included a dramatic attack on the U.S. Embassy in Saigon (Map 8.4). U.S. forces finally repelled the Tet Offensive, but the battle proved psychologically costly to the United States. Following it, the most revered television news anchor of the era, Walter Cronkite of CBS, turned against the war and expressed the doubts of a growing number of viewers when he announced: “To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only reasonable, yet unsatisfactory conclusion.” His report heralded a growing change in public sentiment against the war demonstrating the impact of the Tet Offensive in the United States.

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.

Ho Chi Minh

By the 1950s, Vietnamese revolutionaries (the Vietminh) had been fighting for independence from the French for decades. They were led by Ho Chi Minh, a revolutionary who had studied Communist doctrine in the Soviet Union but was not controlled by the Soviets. In fact, he modeled his 1945 Vietnamese Declaration of Independence on that of the United States. Despite sizable U.S. economic assistance for the French military effort, in 1954 the Vietminh defeated the French at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. With the backing of the United States, the Soviet Union, and China, both sides agreed to divide Vietnam at the seventeenth parallel and hold free elections to unite the country in 1956

Lyndon Johnson

lthough Johnson privately harbored reservations about fighting in Vietnam, he feared appearing soft on communism and was concerned that a demonstration of weakness would jeopardize congressional support for his domestic plans. Although Johnson eventually concluded that more U.S. forces had to be sent to Vietnam, he waited for the right moment to rally Congress and the American public behind an escalation of the war.

Lyndon B. Johnson was the 36th President of the United States, serving from 1963 to 1969, and is best known for his ambitious domestic agenda called the Great Society. This program aimed to eliminate poverty and racial injustice, expanding the federal government's role in education, healthcare, and civil rights. His leadership style and policies significantly shaped modern American society, addressing both social and economic issues.

5 Must Know Facts For Your Next Test

1. Johnson became president following the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963 and was known for his ability to work with Congress to pass legislation.

2. Under Johnson's leadership, Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965, providing health insurance to the elderly and low-income individuals.

3. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was a crucial part of Johnson's Great Society, aimed at overcoming barriers to voting for African Americans.

4. Johnson's presidency was marked by significant escalation in the Vietnam War, which eventually overshadowed his domestic accomplishments.

5. He famously described his vision for America as a 'Great Society,' where every citizen would have access to education, healthcare, and opportunities for prosperity.

Richard Nixon

Richard Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. He is particularly known for his controversial policies regarding the Vietnam War, where he sought to end U.S. involvement while simultaneously implementing strategies such as Vietnamization and secret bombings in Cambodia. Nixon's approach to the Vietnam War reflected broader themes of American foreign policy during a time of significant social and political upheaval.

5 Must Know Facts For Your Next Test

1. Nixon announced his plan for 'Vietnamization' in 1969, which aimed to reduce American troop levels while increasing support for South Vietnamese forces.

2. Despite the withdrawal of troops, Nixon secretly authorized bombing campaigns in neighboring Cambodia, which escalated anti-war protests in the U.S.

3. The public's perception of Nixon worsened due to revelations from the Pentagon Papers, leading many to distrust his administration's handling of the war.

4. Nixon's presidency was marked by significant anti-war protests, including events like the Kent State shootings in 1970 that highlighted growing public dissent.

5. The Watergate Scandal ultimately overshadowed Nixon's foreign policy achievements, culminating in his resignation in 1974, making him the first U.S. president to do so.

GI Bill

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-Hartley 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. Republicans won control of Congress. Stung by this defeat, Truman sought to repair the damage his anti-union policies had done to the Democratic Party coalition. In 1947 Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act, which hampered the ability of unions to organize and limited their power to strike if larger national interests were seen to be at stake. Seeking to regain labor’s support, Truman vetoed the measure. Congress, however, overrode the president’s veto, and the Taft-Hartley Act became law.

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.

Baby Boom

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 age.

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

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. The Beat writers frequently read their poems and prose to the rhythms of jazz, reflecting both their affinity with African American culture and the innovative explorations taking place in music

The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit

Many writers denounced the conformity and shallowness they found in suburban America. Novelist Sloan Wilson wrote about the alienating experience of suburban life in The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1955)

Catcher in the Rye

In J. D. Salinger’s novel Catcher in the Rye (1951), the young protagonist, Holden Caulfield, mocks the phoniness of the adult world while ending up in a mental institution.

Dr. Spock

Dr. Benjamin Spock’s best-selling Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care(1946) advised mothers that their children would reach their full potential only if wives stayed at home and watched over their offspring

Billy Graham

The Reverend Billy Graham, from Charlotte, North Carolina, preached about the unhappiness caused by personal sin at huge outdoor crusades in baseball parks and large arenas, which were broadcast on television.

Dr. Alfred Kinsey

Homosexuals also attempted to live nonconformist lifestyles, albeit secretly. According to studies by researcher Dr. Alfred Kinsey of Indiana University, homosexuals made up approximately 10 percent of the adult population. Despite growing gay and lesbian communities during World War II, homosexuality remained taboo and states outlawed gay and lesbian sexual relations. In 1951, politically radical gay men formed the country’s first gay rights organization, the Mattachine Society, which was followed three years later by the founding of the country’s first lesbian civil rights organization, the Daughters of Bilitis. Because of police harassment and public prejudice, most homosexuals refused to reveal their sexual orientation, which made sense practically but reduced their ability to counter anti-homosexual discrimination.

Dr. Kinsey also shattered myths about conformity among heterosexuals. In two landmark publications examining sexual behavior, he revealed that 85 percent of men and 50 percent of the women he interviewed had had sexual intercourse before marriage, and 25 percent of women had had extramarital affairs. Kinsey’s findings were supported by other data. Between 1940 and 1960, the frequency of out-of-wedlock births among all women rose from 7.1 newborns to 21.6 newborns per thousand women of childbearing age. The sexual experiences that Kinsey documented reflected what many Americans practiced but did not talk about.

J.D. Salinger

Journalists and scholars joined in the criticism. Such critics often overstated the conformity that characterized the suburbs by minimizing the ethnic, religious, and political diversity of their residents. Yet they tapped into a growing feeling, especially among a new generation of young people, of the dangers of a mass culture based on standardization, compliance, and bureaucratization.

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. After extensive deliberations, the committee, which consisted of both black and white people, as well as northerners and southerners, issued its report, To Secure These Rights, on October 29, 1947. Placing the problem of “civil rights shortcomings” within the context of the Cold War, the report argued that racial inequality and unrest could only aid the Soviets in their global anti-American propaganda efforts. “The United States is not so strong,” the committee asserted, “the final triumph of the democratic ideal not so inevitable that we can ignore what the world thinks of us or our record.” A far-reaching document, the report called for racial desegregation in the military, interstate transportation, and education, as well as extension of the right to vote. The following year, under pressure from African American activists, the president signed an executive order to desegregate the armed forces.

Brown vs Board of Education

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. This ruling undercut the legal foundation for segregation and officially placed the law on the side of those who sought racial equality. Nevertheless, the ruling did not end the controversy; in fact, it led to more battles over segregation. In 1955 the Court issued a follow-up opinion calling for implementation with “all deliberate speed.” But it left enforcement of Brownto federal district courts in the South, which consisted mainly of white southerners who espoused segregationist views. As a result, southern officials emphasized “deliberate” rather than “speed” and slowed the implementation of the Brown decision.

Montgomery bus boycott

Rosa Parks, a black seamstress and an NAACP activist, refused to give up her seat to a white man. Parks’s arrest rallied civic, labor, and religious groups and sparked a bus boycott that involved nearly the entire black community. Instead of riding buses, black commuters walked to work or joined car pools. White officials refused to capitulate and fought back by arresting leaders of the Montgomery Improvement Association, the organization that coordinated the protest. Other whites hurled insults at black people and engaged in violence. After more than a year of conflict, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the complete desegregation of Montgomery’s buses. 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.

SCLC

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 disfranchisement 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. Segregationists responded forcefully to halt black efforts to eliminate Jim Crow. In 1956, 101 southern congressmen issued a manifesto denouncing the 1954 Brown opinion and pledging to resist it through “lawful means.” Other southerners went beyond the law. In 1957 a federal court approved a plan submitted by the Little Rock, Arkansas school board to integrate Central High School. However, the state’s governor, Orval Faubus, obstructed the court ruling by sending the state National Guard to keep out nine black students chosen to attend Central High. Faced with blatant state resistance to federal authority, President Eisenhower placed the National Guard under federal control and sent in the 101st Airborne Division to restore order after a mob blocked the students from entering the school. These black pioneers, who became known as the Little Rock Nine, attended classes for the year under the protection of the National Guard but still encountered considerable harassment from white students. In defiance of the high court, other school districts, such as Prince Edward County, Virginia, chose to close their public schools rather than desegregate. By the end of the decade, public schools in the South remained mostly segregated.

White Citizens Council

Organization created in protest following the Brown v. Boarddecision. 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.

SNCC

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. The organization’s young members sought not only to challenge racial segregation in the South but also to create interracial communities based on economic equality and political democracy. This generation of black and white sit-in veterans came of age in the 1950s at a time when Cold War democratic rhetoric and the Supreme Court’s Brown decision raised their expectations for racial equality. Yet these young activists often saw their hopes dashed by southern segregationist resistance, including the murder of Emmett Till, which both horrified and helped mobilize them to fight for black equality.

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

McCarren-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.

Jackie Robinson

Jackie Robinson became the first black baseball player to enter the major leagues. This accomplishment proved to be a sign of changes to come.

Orval Faubus

In 1957 a federal court approved a plan submitted by the Little Rock, Arkansas school board to integrate Central High School. However, the state’s governor, Orval Faubus, obstructed the court ruling by sending the state National Guard to keep out nine black students chosen to attend Central High

Freedom Rides

Integrated bus rides through the South organized by CORE in 1961 to test compliance with Supreme Court rulings on segregation. CORE alerted the Justice Department and the FBI of its plans, but the riders received no protection when Ku Klux Klan–dominated mobs in Anniston and Birmingham, Alabama attacked two of its buses, seriously wounding several activists. After safety concerns forced CORE to forgo the rest of the trip, members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) rushed to Birmingham to continue the bus rides. The Kennedy administration urged them to reconsider, but Diane Nash, an SNCC founder, explained that although the group realized the peril of resuming the journey, “we can’t let them stop us with violence. If we do, the movement is dead.” When the replenished busload of riders reached Montgomery on May 20, they were brutally assaulted by a mob. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. subsequently held a rally in a Montgomery church, where white mobs threatened the lives of King and the Freedom Riders inside the building. Faced with the prospect of serious bloodshed, the Kennedy administration dispatched federal marshals to the scene and persuaded the governor to call out the Alabama National Guard to ensure the safety of everyone in the church. The president and his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, worked out a compromise to let the rides continue with minimal violence, and with minimal publicity. The Cold War worked in favor of the protesters. With the Soviet Union publicizing the violence against Freedom Riders in the South, the Kennedy administration attempted to preserve America’s image abroad by persuading the Interstate Commerce Commission to issue an order prohibiting segregated transportation facilities. Still, southern whites resisted. When Freedom Riders encountered opposition in Albany, Georgia in the fall of 1961, SNCC workers remained in Albany and helped local leaders organize residents against segregation and other forms of racial discrimination. But even with the assistance of Dr. King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Albany movement stalled

March on Washington

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. Capitalizing on public sympathy over Kennedy’s assassination and his own backroom deal-making skills honed as the former Senate Majority Leader, Johnson marshalled a bipartisan coalition to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The law prohibited discrimination in public accommodations, increased federal enforcement of school desegregation and the right to vote, and created the Community Relations Service, a federal agency authorized to help resolve racial conflicts. The act also contained a final measure to combat employment discrimination on the basis of race and sex.

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. White supremacists fought back against what they perceived as an enemy invasion. In the summer of 1964, the Ku Klux Klan, sometimes in collusion with local law enforcement officials, killed three civil rights workers and attacked over thirty black churches. These tragedies focused national attention and energized civil rights workers who continued to encounter white violence and harassment throughout Freedom Summer.

Mississippi freedom democratic party

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. Banned the use of literacy tests for voter registration, authorized a federal lawsuit against the poll tax (which succeeded in 1966), empowered federal officials to register disfranchised voters, and required seven southern states to submit any voting changes to Washington, D.C. before they went into effect.

Black panther party

Organization founded in 1966 by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale to advance the black power movement in black communities. Dressed in black leather, sporting black berets, and carrying guns, the Black Panthers appealed mainly to black men. They did not, however, rely on armed confrontation and bravado alone. The Black Panthers established day care centers and health facilities, often run by women, which gained the admiration of many in their communities. Much of this good work was overshadowed by violent confrontations with the police, which led to the deaths of Black Panthers in shootouts and the imprisonment of key party officials. By the early 1970s, government crackdowns on the Black Panthers had destabilized the organization and reduced its influence.

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.”

The issue of school busing highlighted the persistence of racial discrimination. In the fifteen years following the landmark 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, few schools had been integrated. Starting in 1969, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that genuine racial integration of the public schools must no longer be delayed. In 1971 the Court went even further in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Educationby requiring school districts to bus pupils to achieve integration. Cities such as Charlotte, North Carolina; Lexington, Kentucky; and Tampa, Florida, embraced the ruling and carefully planned for it to succeed.

However, the decision was more controversial in other municipalities around the nation and it exposed racism as a national problem. In many northern communities racially discriminatory housing policies created segregated neighborhoods and, thus, segregated schools. When white parents in the Detroit suburbs objected to busing their children to inner-city, predominantly black schools, the Supreme Court in 1974 departed from the Swann case and prohibited busing across distinct school district boundaries. This ruling created a serious problem for integration efforts because many whites were fleeing the cities and moving to the suburbs where few black people lived.

As the conflict over school integration intensified, violence broke out in communities throughout the country. In Boston, Massachusetts, busing opponents led by Louise Day Hicks tapped into the racial and class resentments of the largely white working-class population of South Boston, which was paired with the black community of Roxbury for busing, leaving mainly middle- and upper-class white communities unaffected. In the fall of 1974, battles broke out inside and outside the schools. Despite the violence, schools stayed open, and for the next three decades Boston remained under court order to continue busing.

University of California vs Bakke

Along with busing, affirmative action generated fierce controversy, as the case of Alan Bakke showed. Bakke, a white male in his thirties, was twice denied admission to the medical program at the University of California at Davis in the early 1970s. Bakke sued the university after learning it awarded sixteen of its one hundred spots to minorities, as part of its affirmative action policy to recruit a more racially and ethnically diverse student body. In court, he contended that the policy violated his constitutional rights of equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment and amounted to “reverse discrimination.” He provided evidence that he had higher qualifications than some of the minority students accepted into the medical school. “I realize that the rationale for these quotas is that they attempt to atone for past racial discrimination,” Bakke stated. “But insisting on a new racial bias in favor of minorities is not a just situation.” In 1978, in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the use of strict racial quotas in college admissions but allowed for the continued consideration of race as one of many factors.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr

Martin Luther King Jr. emerged as the civil rights movement’s most charismatic leader. His personal courage and power of oratory could inspire nearly all segments of the African American community. Twenty-six years old at the time of Parks’s arrest, King was the pastor of the prestigious Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. Though familiar with the nonviolent methods of the Indian revolutionary Mohandas Gandhi and the civil disobedience of the nineteenth-century writer Henry David Thoreau, King mainly drew his inspiration and commitment to these principles from the black church and secular leaders such as A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin. King understood how to convey the goals of the civil rights movement to sympathetic white Americans, but his vision and passion grew out of black communities.

Malcolm X

he had engaged in a life of crime, which landed him in prison. Inside jail, he converted to the Nation of Islam, a religious sect based partly on Muslim teachings and partly on the belief that white people were devils (not a doctrine associated with orthodox Islam). After his release from jail, Malcolm rejected his “slave name” and substituted the letter X to symbolize his unknown African forebears. Minister Malcolm helped convert thousands of disciples in black ghettos by denouncing whites and encouraging black people to embrace their African heritage and beauty as a people. Favoring self-defense over nonviolence, he criticized civil rights leaders for failing to protect their communities. After 1963, Malcolm X broke away from the Nation of Islam, visited the Middle East and Africa, and accepted the teachings of traditional Islam. He moderated his anti-white rhetoric but remained committed to black self-determination. He had already influenced the growing number of disillusioned young black activists when, in 1965, members of the Nation of Islam murdered him, apparently in revenge for challenging the organization.