Vietnam LT quiz

Cuban Missile Crisis

• caused by: bay of pigs disaster and USSR’s support of Castro

• a U-2 reconnaissance aircraft was shot down over Cuba as he was secretly photographing the sites being built

• when the USSR placed nuclear missiles in Cuba to scare the US

• the closest the Cold War came to escalating into full-scale nuclear war between

• since Cuba is close the Florida, US it scared many Americans

• JFK puts a naval quarantine and then Khrushchev said work on the missile sites would be halted and the missiles in Cuba would be returned to the USSR

• Secretly JFK promised to withdraw the nuclear-armed missiles that the US had stationed in Turkey

• the Soviet Union and the United States

• Cuban = communist

What special tactics were used during the Cuban Missile Crisis

What was represented by the Cuban Missile Crisis and how?

MAD, if either side fired a missile the other would do the same, therefore mutually assured destruction

Effects of Cuban Missile Crisis

• Bombs removed from Turkey

• Hotline between White House and Moscow

• Cooling of tensions (lessened threat to the world)

• JFK redeemed and his image strengthened

8 Programs of the Great Society

• Head Start

• Job Corps

• Education Acts

• VISTA: Volunteers in Service to America

• Medicare and Medicaid

• Immigration and Nationality Act

• Water Acts

• Housing and Urban Development

Head Start

provides early childhood education, health, nutrition, and parent involvement services to low-income families

• proved to improve high school completion and health outcomes

• educational program designed to better prepare low-income preschoolers for primary school

Job Corps

no cost education system and vocational training system created by the US Department of Labor

• ages 16-24 were targeted

• wanted youths to become more employable

• trains young adults for meaningful careers and assists them with obtaining employment

Education Acts

Strengthened resources for elementary and secondary education

• provided financial assistance to school districts with high percent of students from low-income families

• improve learning and teaching by giving a national framework for education and to provide additional resources for students

• succeeded

VISTA: Volunteers in Service to America

volunteers were sent throughout America to help fight poverty

• strengthen efforts in low-income communities to eliminate poverty by engaging volunteers

• still around today

Medicare

established Medicare and health insurance for elderly (65+)

• still in effect today and affects 20% of Americans

Medicaid

a federal and state program that helps with health costs for the people who have low income

• managed by state and based on income

• provides free health insurance to low income and disabled

• THEN: offer cash assistance health care coverage

• NOW: more people and benefits

Immigration and Nationality Acts

ended quota system of immigration

• focused on reuniting immigrant families

• attracted skilled labor workers

• abolished racial restrictions found in the Naturalization Act of 1790 and following acts

• resulted in rise of legal and illegal immigration (Asia and Latin America)

Water Acts

Water quality act- 1965

• direct states to develop water quality standards

• provide research and development grants for sewage treatments

• established Federal Water Pollution Control center

Clean Water restoration act- 1966

• reduced pollution in rivers/lakes from “point source” pollution

Housing and Urban Developement

• HUD: provided low interest loans to private companies that provided housing

• rent subsidies to make up difference between rent and what people could pay

How did The Great Society try to fight poverty and racial inequality?

By creating 8 programs that helped those with low income (many African Americans) by providing them with the needs that the other income groups were getting.

What came about from the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

• President can bypass Congress and has no restrictions on making war decisions

• gets broad war powers

• any necessary measures and prevent further aggression

this eventually led to LBJ increasing the US involvement in the war between North and South Vietnam

What were the elements of war in Vietnam

• Search and Destroy (troops search for Vietcong weapons and burn villages)

• New Chemical Agents (Agent Orange: defoliant)

• Guerilla Warfare (don’t know where enemy is)

• No clearly defined enemy (didn’t know who was an enemy or innocent civilian)

• No clear objective (cant provoke China or USSR so complete military victory is impossible) → goal becomes to prevent Vietcong from winning

Know the difference between hawks and doves

Doves:

• questioned war

• liberal politicians, college kids, civil rights leaders, pacifists

• Vietnam was a civil war and not about us

• war was draining resources from Great Society

• African Americans fight for democracy but still face inequality

• Johnson’s policies were too extreme

Hawks:

• supported Johnson’s war policies

• conservatives, traditionalists

• Containment Policy and Domino Theory

• US role in the world should be to spread and protect democracy

• accepted escalation of troops, costs, and casualities

• war was the answer

Know Johnsons strategy of Americanization for the Vietnam War

• orders sustained bombing “Operation Rolling Thunder” to demo the American determination to support South Vietnam (doesn’t work)

• have superior war tech (helicopters) and superior fire power (weapons)

Know Nixons strategy of Vietnamization

• Peace with Honor

• returned ground war to South Vietnam

• increased air war over North Vietnam

• he undid LBJ’s Americanization

Vietnamization: a military strategy that allowed for the gradual replacement of US troops with South Vietnamese troops during the Vietnam Wars

List the specific events of the Vietnam War goings-on in the US (Pick a specific event to talk about)

Kent State, Cambodia, My Lai, Pentagon Papers

Kent State killing

• antiwar protesting on Kent State campus

• National Guard comes in and shoots 4 protesters

Invasion of Cambodia

• secret bombing to end supply lines going from Cambodia to Vietnam

• after: Nixon launches invasion (unsuccessful)

My Lai Massacre

• US troops killed 400-500 innocent Vietnam civilians

• was hidden for 3 years

Pentagon Papers

released and said Johnson and Nixon were lying to the people and Congress about how the war was going

What were effects of the Vietnam War

• The Fall to Communism

• Southeast Asia

• US military

• US domestic and foreign policies

• US economy

The Fall to Communism

• for 2 years South Vietnam staves off collapse

• then communist forces captured Saigon

• Vietnam today → united, communist

Southeast Asia

• Communist regime in Vietnam

• Domino Theory does not hold true

  • Communism nationalistic, not global

• Cambodia and Khmer Rouge

• SEATO disbanded

• Vietnam invaded Cambodia, deposed Pol Pot

US military

• Veterans not celebrated

  • suckers or losers

• Military seen as corrupt and dishonorable

• Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 1982

US domestic and foreign policies

• Great Society dead

• 26th Amendment (voting age is 18)

• War Powers Act (Congress and President must agree together)

US economy

• Close to 1 trillion dollars in total debt to date

• end of post- WWII prosperity

• Warped American industry

  • produced for war, not consumers

• 1970’s marked by economic crises