APUSH- Unit 3 Notes

Yalta Conference

• In February 1945, Allied forces got together at YALTA (southern Russia at the time)

  • FDR, Churchill, and Stalin got together to discuss post-WW2 plans

    • the decisions they make at Yalta shape the entire rest of the 20th century

    • Yalta establishes the basis for what becomes the “Cold War”

• 1st priority was to Re-establish order in European nations that the Axis had controlled for so long

  • FDR, Churchill, and Stalin agree to restore self-government

    • this allows the people to decide what government they want to lead their country →DEMOCRACY

      • Stalin later changed his mind in the late 1940s and forced Eastern European countries to become communist

        • He wants an empire

  • The only nation that will not be allowed to determine their government is Germany (they were afraid of how that vote would go)

    • Germany is divided into 4 zones of occupation to keep it under allied control and prevent future agression

      • The allied powers will govern each zone; USA, England, USSR, and, France

      • Berlin was also divided into 4 zones

        • drove Stalin crazy because we had a “little piece of his land”

          • to get Stalin to agree to the division of Berlin, Half of the $20 billion war reparations collected by Germany were to go to the USSR.

• Poland was greatly affected by WW2 so, Chrichhil and FDR wanted to Expand the Polish borders and give the country a larger coastline on the Baltic Sea

• At the time of Yalta, the war in the Pacific was still going on but the atomic bombs had not been launched yet. Stalin agreed to enter the war within 6 months. Russian troops never had to fight because at the time the US dropped the 2 atomic bombs on Japan.

  • In exchange for his help in the Pacific, the US and the USSR returned the islands they had lost to Japan 40 years earlier.

• Lastly, Woodrow Wilson’s League of Nations ideas were revisited and renamed “United Nations”

  • Every country was invited, and every country had a voice

  • The UN could raise a military to enforce its “peaceful’ objectives

  • The allied countries gave themselves more power than other countries in the UN “Security Council” (the committee in charge of raising and sending an army)—> 15 countries that decide whether to send troops into battle

    • The “Big Five” nations have absolute veto power meaning those 5 countries have to agree to send forces, disagree, and it doesn’t happen!

    • Those “Big Five” nations are: USA, USSR, France, England, and, China

Cold War 1945-1991

• period of great tension between capitalism and communism, short of actual war

• Stalin moved troops into Eastern Europe to spread communism

  • US response: The Truman Doctrine

    • US foreign policy based on the containment of communism

      • Containment: to stop something from spreading

    • How??

      • economically/militarily

        • Economically Containment: The Marshall Plan

          • The US offers money to European nations to help rebuild Europe ($13 billion, supplies, food, etc..)

          • USSR & Eastern European countries refuse aid (Western Europe accepts aid)

  • 1948: West German sectors unite

    • 1949: Berlin Blockades

      • USSR blocks all access to West Berlin

      • US response: Berlin Airlift

        • drop in supplies to aid the people of West Berlin; food, medicine, clothing, etc.

        • after 10 months, the Soviets took down the blockade and allowed access to West Berlin.

        • N.A.T.O Treaty: The US realizes it needs a military presence in Europe, especially Germany, to prevent Soviet expansion

        • Warsaw Pact: Communist countries come up with their alliance

• Cold War In Asia

  • China, 1949: Communist Revolution!

    • Mao Zedong defeats Chaing Kai-shek

    • Chaing flees to Taiwan because Mao is going to kill him

      • U.S decides to ignore the takeover and believes that Chaing Kaishek is still the leader—> led to a belief that Taiwan is now “China”

      • U.N. recognizes Taiwan as the official “CHINA”

        • The “Big Five” changes to: the USA, Russia, England, France, Taiwan

        • Stalin did not like that change, so he left the United Nations—> no communist countries

        • s in the U.N, meaning they could try and contain the spread of communism

  • The Korean War

    • WW2: Japan controlled Korea

    • Divided after WW2: North= USSR, South= USA

      • “38th Parallel”

    • June 1950: North invades South

    • United Nations Security Council votes 14-0 to send troops to aid South Korea

      • Soviets are not there to veto

      • American General Douglas MacArthur put in charge of troops

      • 1st time US troops are sent into battle without the approval of Congress

      • UN pushes Communists back across the “38th parallel”

    • Truman orders MacArthur to pull back to the “38th parallel”

      • MacArthur denies—> he did this because he didn’t have to listen to Truman because he was working for the UN not America

      • He begins to criticize Truman

      • He sends a letter to Mao threatening to invade China

      • China enters the War and pushes UN troops back into South Korea

      • Truman fires MacArthur—> Matthew Ridgeway is put in charge

        • He follows orders and advances back to the “38th parallel” and the War slows down—> “Stalemate”

      • Meanwhile, MacArthur comes home a “hero”

        • people like the fact that he’s tough on communism

        • many people wanted him to run for president in 1952—> he ends up retiring

  • Election of 1952: Dwight D. Eisenhower became president

    • promises the people: “I will go to Korea”

    • He negotiated an armistice in 1953—> ends the war

  • Results of the Korean Conflicts

    • No border changes

    • 2 million killed, 54,000 US soldiers dead

    • The United Nations worked!

    • Cold War intensifies

The 1950s

• Eisenhower Politics: “We Like Ike”

  • hard-line Anti-Communist stance

• Stalin dies in 1953

  • New leader in Russia: Nikita Khruschev

  • wants to build a relationship with the Americans

    • called it: “Peaceful Coexistence”

    • his actions were completely different

• Ike’s Cold War Policies

  • The Domino Theory states that if one nation falls to communism, it will produce a chain reaction leading to neighboring countries' fall.

  • Brinkmanship: Belief that it was necessary to go to the brink of war to maintain peace

    • Massive Retaliation: threatening nuclear counter-attack in response to any soviet aggression

  • M.A.D= Mutual Assured Destruction

  • Arms Race: a race to see which country has more weapons

• Space Race

  • Soviets beat the U.S. with Sputnik launch on October 4, 1957

  • U.S. created a space program called NASA

• Paranoia at home

  • Cold War fear-people think the Russians could send missiles at any time

  • 1950s School bomb drills

• Red Scare: “McCarthyism”

  • Senator Joe McCarthy

  • wanted to become more popular for re-election and made a speech about communist spies!—> fake news!

• CIA-crafted as a network for covert actions (communism overseas)

  • foreign affairs

  • if they do their job right, the U.S. can get away with things without causing a war

• The U-2 incident

  • U-2: spy plane (spied on Russians)

    • U-2 shot down by Russians

    • Pilot: Francis Gray Powers

      • breaks agreement to “peaceful coexistence”

      • the Cold War becomes more tense

• 1960 Presidential Election

  • Eisenhower served two terms, people liked him

  • Republican side: Richard Nixon

  • Democrat side: John F. Kennedy

    • John F. Kennedy won!!

      • Kennedy looked more appealing on television therefore Nixon lost votes

      • rumors that both candidates cheated because they had connections with the mafia

  • John F. Kennedy Background

    • Democrat

    • Boston, Mass

    • Wealthy Family

    • Catholic

    • WW2 Naval Hero

    • Senator

    • Author

  • People liked the Kennedys

  • He was the youngest President-43

  • “The New Frontier”- Kennedy policies

• Top advisor: Attorney General- Robert Kennedy

• Foreign Policy: Containment of Communism

  • Bay of Pigs Invasion (1961)

    • Castro took over Cuba with communism

  • The Berlin Wall (1962)

    • different from the Berlin blockade, this was intended to stop people from escaping the communist East to free west.

  • Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)

    • Blockade - Quarantine set up around Cuba to stop any new missiles from entering Cuba

    • stop Soviet ships from entering Cuba

      • The high point of the war, the world was seconds from nuclear obliteration

      • Khrushchev orders ships to turn back at the least possible moment

      • 2 messages from Khrushchev:

        • 1. USA promise never to invade Cuba

        • 2. USA removes its NATO missiles from Turkey

        • JFK ignores the second and only responds to the first letter on national television—> ends Cuban missile crisis—> big win for Kennedy

        • Russia removed its missiles and Cuba remains a communist country today

The Vietnam Era

• Southeast Asia:1945-54

  • Vietnam was in Indo-China

    • Indo-China was a French colony

    • People did not like it!

  • Vietminh fought against the French for independence

    • Leader—> Ho Chi Minh

  • The Geneva Conference

    • France gives up all claims to Southeast Asia

    • let Vietnam determine what their government will look like—> elections held in 1956

      • Ho Chi Minh is a communist!—> won the election

      • His opponent NGO DINH DIEM—> Capitalist

    • The US gets worried because it looks like the Domino Theory is taking effect.

    • The US sends ADVISORS to Vietnam to cancel elections—> invading the country because the people did not ask for our help. The elections never take place.

    • Supporters of Ho Chi Minh (communists) are upset and begin fighting against the Americans

    • North Vietnam: Communists, Ho Chi Minh, backed by China and the USSR

    • South Vietnam: Capitalist, Ngo Dinh Diem, US soldiers backed by the USA

    • Vietnam-different kind of warfare

      • Jungle warfare

      • Vietcong

        • National Liberation front

        • communists who lived in the SOUTH but fought for the NORTH, the US didn’t know who they were because they looked like average citizens

• August 1964: The Gulf of Tonkin Incident

  • North Vietnam bombs American ship and it sunk

  • The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution: granted the President (Lyndon B. Johnson) power “to take all the necessary measures” to win the war in Vietnam—> aka “blank check”

    • congress gives up power to run the war

  • LBJ can escalate the war by sending an overwhelming number of soldiers over to Vietnam—> more American lives lost the public starts to take notice

• Anit-War Movement (hippies)

  • emerged in the 1960s, nonconformist, wanted to be different, change

  • Why protest Vietnam?

    • Vietnam did not want America’s help

      • They elected a communist official and were okay with it

    • from Vietnam’s POV America is invading their country

      • Americans felt that those were not good reasons to go to war

    • Americans were getting drafted

    • Vietnam was on TV—> a constant reminder of how bad it was

• 1968

  • Heaviest US troops in Vietnam; 536,100

  • War costs $25 million PER YEAR

  • Turning point of the war—> The TET Offensive

    • Communists launch a series of surprise attacks on over 30 cities in South Vietnam

    • US/ARVN(Army of South Vietnam) forces caught unaware

    • Communists start to win the war

  • On the Homefront: Assignations

    • Martin Luther King, JR. April 4, 1968

    • Robert F. Kennedy June 6, 1968

      • he was also running for president

• 1968 Presidental Election

  • Lyndon Johnson(DEM.) decides not to run again

  • Richard Nixon- Republican

  • Democrats are torn between two candidates- Herbert Humphery (Lyndon Johnson’s VP) and Eugene McCarthy

    • Protests and riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago because of Lyndon Johnson’s way of handling Vietnam

  • Democrats nominate: Humphery

  • Richard Nixon wins!

• Nixon’x Policy

  • Vietnamization: the process of gradual US withdrawal to turn the war over to Vietnam, to let them fight their war.

• 1969

  • Nixon still wants to win the war

    • Increased bombing of North Vietnam

    • “Secret War” invasion of Cambodia & Laos

      • to cut off the Vietcong supply line

  • The Pentagon Papers-1971

    • Secret State Department documents of all activities in Southeast Asia since 1954 were leaked to the American public

      • Daniel Ellsworth—> A veteran who served in Vietnam and now works in the Pentagon, he sold the paper to the New York Times.

      • Nixon- re-elected in 1972

• 1973

  • Paris Peace Agreement —> US agrees to withdraw from Vietnam

  • South Vietnam are left to fight on their own

  • The war continues for 2 more years between North and South Vietnam

• April 1975

  • Saigon falls to communists

  • Vietnam war ends

• Post War Wounds

  • America Damaged

  • Country divided

    • Veterans developed PTS syndromes

      • viewed differently by the public

        • they were not considered heroes

      • became addicted to substances

      • had a hard time getting back to normal life

      • suicide rates raised

Lyndon Baines Johnson’s “Great Society” 1963-1969

• Democrat

• Texas

• Teacher

• House of Reps 1937-42

• Senate 1948-60

• V.P. 1961-63

  • Became president after JFK’s Assassination in 1963

• “The Great Society”

  • Main goals: end poverty, and inequality, reducing crime, and improving the environment

    • War On Poverty

      • Tax cuts

      • food stamps

      • job crops/youth crops

      • money to education

      • work—study

      • department of transportation

      • Department of Housing and Urban Development

      • loans to farmers and small businesses

      • medicare/Medicaid

    • Relaxed Immigration Quotas

    • Consumer Protection

      • Safety on roads—> Highway Safety Act

        • Seatbelts in cars, windshields, and road markers. etc..

      • Cigarette Labeling/ Warning

      • Air Quality Act

    • Civil Rights Act of 1964

      • banned discrimination in private facilities open to the public

      • Affirmative Action 1965

      • 24th Amendment

        • Outlawed poll taxes

      • Voting Rights Act of 1965

        • outlawed literacy tests

Civil Rights Background

• Plessy v. Ferguson 1896

  • Plessy Homer was arrested for riding in the wrong train car because people found out about his ancestry

  • “Separate But Equal”—> this case led to segregation to be legal

• Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas 1954

  • overturn the Plessy decision

    • separate facilities are not equal—> got rid of segregation