Period 8: 1945–1980: Redefining Democracy in the Era of Cold War and Liberal Ascendancy

Timeline

• 1944: G.I. Bill passed
• 1946: Baby and Child Care by Dr. Benjamin Spock published
  • Largest strike wave in U.S. history
• 1947: Publication of the “X Article” (“Sources of Soviet Conduct”) by George Kennan
  • Truman Doctrine (Communist containment) announced $400 million in military aid to Greece and Turkey
  • House Un-American Activities Committee begins Hollywood investigations
  • Taft-Hartley Act
• 1948: Founding of the state of Israel
  • Beginning of the Berlin Blockade
  • President Truman issues Executive Order 9981 desegregating the military
  • Election of Harry S. Truman
• 1949: Formation of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
  • Chinese Communist Party and Mao Zedong proclaim the Peopleʼs Republic of China
• 1950: Senator Joseph McCarthy gains public spotlight on issue of anti-Communism
  • NSC-68 adopted
  • Korean War begins Passage of McCarran Internal Security Act
• 1951: Truman fires General Douglas MacArthur
  • United States tests worldʼs first hydrogen bomb
• 1952: Execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
  • Army-McCarthy hearings
  • Election of Dwight D. Eisenhower
• 1954: Interstate Highway Act
  • Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka
• 1955: Creation of Warsaw Pact
• 1956: Rosa Parks arrested for not giving up her seat; Montgomery Bus Boycott
  • Reelection of Eisenhower
• 1957: Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite
  • Crisis in Little Rock, Arkansas over school desegregation
  • On the Road by Jack Kerouac published
• 1960: Soviet Union shoots down U-2 spy plane
  • Lunch counter sit-in movement begins
  • Election of John F. Kennedy
• 1961: Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba
• 1961: The Freedom Rides begin
• 1962: Cuban Missile Crisis
• 1963: Campaign to desegregate Birmingham, Alabama
  • President John F. Kennedy assassinated
  • March on Washington, D.C., where Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers “I Have a Dream” speech
• 1964: Civil Rights Acts passed
  • Murder of Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman, participants in Mississippi “Freedom Summer”
  • Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
  • Election of Lyndon Johnson
• 1965: Malcolm X assassinated
  • Marches from Selma to Montgomery (Alabama)
• 1966: Founding of the Black Panthers
• 1967: “Summer of Love”
  • Rioting in Detroit, Newark, and other cities
• 1968: Tet Offensive
  • Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
  • Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy
  • Violence at Democratic Convention in Chicago
  • Election of Richard Nixon
  • Founding of American Indian Movement
• 1969: Woodstock Festival
  • Stonewall Riot in New York City, sparking birth of the gay liberation movement
  • Apollo 11 lands on the moon
• 1970: President Nixon widens Vietnam War to Cambodia
  • Four students killed by Ohio National Guard at Kent State protest
• 1971: Publication of Pentagon Papers in The New York Times
• 1972: President Nixon visits both the Peopleʼs Republic of China and the Soviet Union
  • Arrest of burglars at the Watergate Complex
  • Reelection of Richard Nixon
• 1973: Congressional hearings on Watergate
• 1974: Nixon resigns presidency; Gerald Ford assumes presidency
  • Ford grants Nixon complete pardon
• 1976: Election of Jimmy Carter
• 1977: Supreme Court decision in Bakke v. University of California
• 1978: Panama Canal Treaty
  • Camp David Accords
• 1979: Three Mile Island nuclear accident

The Cold War from 1945 to 1980

Forging a New Foreign Policy in the Postwar World

• Origins of the Cold War
  • Tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union have existed since the Russian Revolution (1917).
  • The U.S.-Soviet World War II alliance against the Nazis brought them together, but the Cold War began when the Soviet Union left its Red Army troops occupying Eastern Europe and installed a puppet regime in Poland.
  • The United States worried the Soviets would try to push into Western Europe, but Joseph Stalin was wary of the West due to a history of attacks from Western powers.
• Containment and the Truman Doctrine
  • President Harry S. Truman issued the Truman Doctrine (1947) to contain the Soviet Union.
  • The article "Sources of Soviet Conduct, " published in Foreign Affairs (1947), was written by George Kennan, a diplomat who had served in the U.S. embassy in Moscow (1944–1946).
  • Although Kennan later lamented the militaristic approach of American foreign policy and recommended dialogue with the Soviets, the Cold War had begun and military containment of Communism remained the cornerstone of American policy for decades to come.
• Military Aid to Greece and Turkey
  • The United States extended military aid to Greece and Turkey in 1947 as part of its policy of containment, which helped the Greek monarchy put down a Communist-influenced rebel movement and improved President Truman's standing in public opinion polls.
• The Marshall Plan
  • Developed by Secretary of State George Marshall, allocated almost $13 billion for war-torn Europe to rebuild.
  • 17 nations received aid between 1948 and 1951, with West Germany, France, and Britain receiving the bulk of it.
  • The plan stabilized the capitalist economies of Western Europe and contributed to remarkable growth, providing a viable alternative to Soviet-style Communism.
• The Berlin Blockade and the Berlin Airlift
  • In 1948, the United States challenged the Soviet blockade of the Western-occupied section of Berlin, a free enclave deep within Soviet-occupied East Germany.
  • President Truman sent more than 278,000 flights to supply western Berlin, known as the "Berlin Airlift".
  • This action prevented the Soviet Union from taking over the city, and western Berlin became part of West Germany.
• The Formation of NATO
  • The formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949 was a response to the crisis over the fate of Berlin.
  • It was the first time the US joined a formal peacetime alliance, and NATO played an important role in resisting Soviet advances.
  • It admitted Greece and Turkey in 1952 and West Germany in 1955, and continues to exist in the post-Cold War period, admitting many countries that had been part of the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War.

Carrying Out the Policy of Containment

• NSC-68

  • A National Security Council Paper, known as NSC-68, called for a more aggressive defense policy for the United States, asserting that the United States must assume a sole leadership position among the non-Communist nations.
  • It recommended raising taxes and devoting more funds to military spending, and was drafted by a committee chaired by State Department official Paul Nitze.
  • This document shaped U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War through the 1960s.

• The Cold War in Asia

  • America's Cold War policies in Asia had mixed results, with the United States successfully ushering Japan and granting independence to the Philippines, but the Communist-ruled People's Republic of China proved a difficult problem for President Truman.

• Communism in China

  • The 1930s saw a civil war in China between the Nationalist side and the Communist Party, led by Mao Zedong.
  • Mao's forces won in 1949 and the People's Republic of China was established, shocking many Americans.
  • Republicans accused Truman of "losing" China, but there was little that could have been done to prevent the eventual outcome.

• The Korean War (1950–1953)

  • The Korean peninsula was divided at the 38th parallel in 1948, with the United States administering the southern half and the Soviet Union administering the northern half.
  • In 1950, North Korean troops invaded South Korea, prompting President Truman to commit troops to support South Korea and secure United Nations sponsorship.
  • United Nations forces, led by U.S. General Douglas MacArthur, pushed the North Korean troops back and then marched into North Korea.
  • When the UN forces got within forty miles of the border between North Korea and China, China sent large numbers of troops over the Yalu River to push them back.
  • After intense fighting, the two sides settled into defensive positions.

• The Firing of General MacArthur

  • General Douglas MacArthur argued that the United States could successfully invade China and roll back Communism, but Truman was convinced that initiating a wider war would be disastrous and fired him for insubordination and unauthorized activities.

• Armistice in Korea

  • The Korean War ended as it began—with North Korea and South Korea divided at the 38th parallel. By 1953, an armistice was reached, although a formal treaty ending the war was never signed.

• President Eisenhower, the “New Look” in Foreign Policy, and “Massive Retaliation”

  • The "New Look" policy of President Dwight D. Eisenhower emphasized the development of strategic nuclear weapons as a deterrent to potential threats from the Soviet Union.
  • Defense Secretary Charles Wilson argued that a strong nuclear arsenal would provide the United States with a "bigger bang for the buck."
  • Secretary of State John Foster Dulles proposed the policy of "massive retaliation" to deter Soviet strikes.
  • Dulles also proposed the idea of "brinksmanship" to make the Soviet Union aware that the United States was willing to "go to the brink" of war with its nuclear arsenal.
  • The ensuing nuclear standoff between the Soviet Union and the United States came to be known as "mutually assured destruction."

  The Launching of Sputnik

  • The Cold War began in the late 1950s with the launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik, which alarmed U.S. government officials due to its potential to deliver atomic weapons to any location on Earth.

• The Space Race

  • NASA was created in 1958 to carry out the nation's space program, and President John F. Kennedy announced the goal of landing a man on the moon before the close of the 1960s.
  • This was accomplished in 1969, making the US the first nation to successfully land a spacecra and men on the moon.

• Espionage and the U-2 Incident

  • During the Cold War, the United States maintained an extensive program of spying on the military capabilities of the Soviet Union.
  • At first, the government denied the program existed, but in 1960 a high-altitude U-2 spy plane was shot down over Soviet territory.
  • President Dwight D. Eisenhower admitted the program existed and defended its goals.
  • These actions all demonstrated that the United States would take a more active role in challenging the Soviet Union.

• Cuban Missile Crisis

  • The Cuban Missile Crisis occurred in 1962 when a U-2 spy plane discovered that Cuba was preparing bases for installing Soviet nuclear missiles.
  • President John F. Kennedy declared these missiles, in such close proximity to the United States, amounted to an unacceptable provocation and demanded that the Soviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev, halt the operation and withdraw the missiles. Khrushchev insisted on the right of the Soviet Union to install the missiles.
  • For days, the world stood on the brink of nuclear war. Finally, a deal was reached in which the Soviet Union would abandon its Cuban missile program and the United States would agree to honor the sovereignty of Cuba.
  • Quietly, the United States also agreed to remove missiles from Turkey.

The Cold War—from Confrontation to Détente

• Eisenhower and Khrushchev Pursue Coexistence
  • After the death of Joseph Stalin and the emergence of the more moderate Nikita Khrushchev, President Dwight D. Eisenhower held out hope for a warming of relations with the Soviet Union and a reduction in the threat of nuclear war.
  • Eisenhower and Khrushchev held a summit meeting in Geneva in 1955, but no substantive agreements came out of it.
  • The launching of Sputnik and the first Soviet test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) pushed the two nations further apart.
  • However, a new round of meetings between Khrushchev and Vice President Richard Nixon occurred in 1959, including the famous "kitchen debate" with Khrushchev while they toured an American model-home display at an international exhibition in Moscow.
  • Later in 1959, Khrushchev visited the United States and met with Eisenhower at Camp David, and the two countries were on the verge of signing a nuclear test ban.
  • However, an American U-2 spy plane was shot down, scuttling any potential agreement.
• U.S.-Soviet Relations Under Kennedy
  • The Partial Test Ban Treaty was signed by the United States, the Soviet Union, and Britain in 1963 to reduce atmospheric testing.
  • It exempted underground nuclear tests, but it did not halt the arms race. Concerns about radioactive fallout from above-ground testing had intensified after the Castle Bravo hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll in 1954.
• Détente with China and the Soviet Union
  • President Richard Nixon's policy of détente led to a thawing in the Cold War and improved relations with the Soviet Union. In 1971, Nixon initiated an agreement with the Soviets whereby they accepted the independence of West Berlin and the United States recognized East Germany.
  • In 1972, Nixon visited China, making it the first time an American president visited the People's Republic of China. This visit was an important step in normalizing relations with the Communist government of China.

The Red Scare

Containment and the Domestic Red Scare

• The Strike Wave of 1946 and the Taft-Hartley Act (1947)
  • The "red scare" of the post-World War II period targeted organized labor as well as supposed Communists.
  • This was evident during the largest strike wave in American history (1946), as five million workers walked off their jobs.
  • The Taft-Hartley Act (1947) was passed by a conservative, Republican-dominated Congress and imposed restrictions on unions, such as banning union shops and requiring union leaders to pledge that they were not members of the Communist Party.
  • The strike wave was largely successful, boosting wages for factory workers and allowing them to partake in the consumer culture of the era.
• Federal Employee Loyalty and Security Program (1947)
  • Truman's Executive Order 9835 barred Communists and fascists from serving in federal government positions and allowed for investigations into political affiliations of current employees, requiring them to uphold the Constitution and swear they were not members of subversive organizations.
• The McCarran Internal Security Act (1950)
  • This mandated that Communist groups in the United States register with the government.
  • It also allowed for the arrest of suspected security risks during national emergencies.
  • Truman saw this act as a grave threat to civil liberties and vetoed it. However, Congress passed it over his veto.
• Senator Joseph McCarthy
  • Senator Joseph McCarthy was a Republican from Wisconsin who rose to national prominence in 1950 when he announced a list of 205 known “Communists" working in the State Department.
  • This created a mindset of suspicion and set the stage for a host of measures to halt the perceived threat.
  • The anti-Communist movement of the 1950s is often referred to as McCarthyism because McCarthy was so closely identified with it.
• The Attack on Hollywood
  • Senate and House anti-Communists investigated the film and broadcast industries, leading to the blacklisting of the "Hollywood Ten" in the 1950s.
  • They refused to cooperate, citing their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and assembly.
• The Threat of Nuclear War
  • The threat of nuclear war was a constant presence in American life during the Cold War, with both sides investing in nuclear weapons programs.
  • Americans built bomb shelters in their basements and backyards, and local authorities established civil defense programs to prepare the population for a nuclear emergency.
• “Duck and Cover”
  • The government took a series of actions in regard to the threat of nuclear war.
  • One action taken by the government was air-raid drills in public schools.
  • When an alarm sounded, students would either be ushered to a fallout shelter in the basement of the school or would be ordered to “duck and cover” under their desks.
• Accusations of Espionage
  • Anti-Communists in the post-World War II era asserted that American Communists were more loyal to the Soviet Union than they were to their own country.
  • This claim gained traction in 1948 when Whittaker Chambers told the House Un-American Activities Committee that Alger Hiss had passed secrets to the Soviets in the 1930s.
  • When the United States learned that the Soviet Union had built and tested a nuclear bomb, many were convinced that American Communists had provided the Soviets with essential information.
  • Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, an American couple, were accused of passing secrets of the nuclear bomb and were sent to the electric chair in 1953.
  • Evidence has emerged since the end of the Cold War that strongly suggests that Julius had been involved in some sort of espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union.
• The Smith Act and the Communist Party
  • Government prosecutors used the World War II–era Smith Act to arrest leading members of the Communist Party in several states on the grounds that they “conspired” to “organize” and “advocate” the overthrow of the government by force.
  • Between 1949 and 1957, more than 140 Communists were arrested, including the leader of the party, Eugene Dennis.
• The Fall of McCarthyism
  • Critics argued that anti-Communist measures of the 1950s violated people's constitutional rights to freedom of speech.
  • Senator Joseph McCarthy went too far, and the Senate voted to censure him in 1954. In 1957, the Supreme Court overturned the convictions of members of the Communist Party under the Smith Act.

The Economy After 1945

The Growth of the Middle Class

• The G.I. Bill
  • The Servicemen's Readjustment Act (1944) provided low-interest loans for veterans to purchase homes and attend college.
  • By 1956, nearly eight million veterans had used the bill's educational benefits, and the Veterans Administration backed over 4.3 million home loans under the G.I. Bill.
  • The program was less successful in extending benefits to African-American veterans, as Southern states set high barriers for African Americans to receive benefits.
  • In 1947, only two of the 3,200 Veterans Administration-backed home loans went to African American veterans.
• The Baby Boom
  • The spike in birthrates from 1946 through the early 1960s caused a baby boom that had lasting repercussions in American society, requiring states to spend more money on public education and college enrollment.
  • This was due to the return of veterans and the dislocation and physical separation caused by World War II.
• Childrearing in the 1950s
  • The most influential book of the baby-boom generation was Benjamin Spock's Baby and Child Care (1946).
  • It encouraged parents to treat their children as individuals, let them develop at their own pace, and focus less on discipline and more on affection.
  • When baby boomers joined the counterculture in the 1960s, conservative critics cited Spock's book as having stimulated antisocial behavior.

Suburban Growth and the Rise of the Sun Belt

• The Growth of Suburbia
  • The growth of suburbs in the postwar period was driven by the housing crunch created by returning World War II soldiers.
  • Race also played a factor in the development of suburbs, as many white people did not want to live in the urban neighborhoods that had become racially integrated after many southern, rural African Americans had moved north to work in war industries.
  • African Americans were often barred from moving to the suburbs by restrictive racial covenants, such as a 1940s covenant from a suburban development outside of Kansas City, Kansas.
• Levittown and Suburban Development
  • William Levitt, president of Levitt & Sons, was an innovative developer who took large tracts of land outside major cities and built huge developments of nearly identical, modest houses.
  • Levittown, on Long Island, New York, became synonymous with these mass-produced communities, but they were not without their critics, such as Malvina Reynolds' song "Little Boxes" (1962).
• The Interstate Highway Act
  • The National Interstate and Defense Highways Act (1956) created the interstate highway system, allowing for the rapid movement of military equipment and personnel and allowing Americans to leave cities and enjoy a small piece of land to call their own.
• “White Flight” and the Decline of Older Cities
  • The 1950s saw a decline in the abundance of the 1950s, with middleclass families leaving urban centers to move to the suburbs.
  • This caused cities to cut back on basic services such as policing and education, leading to crime and deteriorating city schools.
  • Additionally, the practice of "redlining" blocked the flow of federally-backed loan money from African American neighborhoods, with banks creating maps with red lines and labeling them "investment hazards."
  • The Federal Housing Administration also contributed to housing segregation by refusing to insure mortgages in "redlined" neighborhoods. By the 1960s, entire sections of cities had become slums.
• Urban Renewal
  • The Urban Renewal Program was a set of initiatives developed by the federal government to address the decline of older cities.
  • Title I of the Housing Act of 1949 provided federal financing for slum clearance programs, encouraging city administrations to declare areas blighted and then to demolish vast swaths of inner cities.
  • The program displaced thousands of urban residents, and nothing was built to replace the demolished neighborhoods.
  • Low-income urban housing projects were built with Title I funds, but often fell into disrepair.
  • Title I was often used to clear land to build highways, leaving cities in worse shape than before the programs were initiated.

Culture After 1945

Cultural Conformity and Its Discontents

• Conformity in a Conservative Decade
  • The 1950s saw a push toward conformity due to the Cold War and McCarthyism.
  • Sociologists David Riesman, Nathan Glazer, and Reuel Denney noted that Americans were more eager to mold their ideas to societal standards than to think independently.
  • William H. Whyte's book, The Organization Man, described the stultifying atmosphere of the modern corporation.
  • J. D. Salinger's bestselling novel, The Catcher in the Rye, railed against the "phonies" who had achieved success in mainstream 1950s society.
• Television
  • TV became an extremely popular medium in the postwar period, with 90% of American homes owning a television set by the end of the 1950s.
  • After an initial burst of creativity, television programming settled into safe, predictable genres, such as suburban situation comedy, Westerns, and daytime dramas.
  • The Ed Sullivan Show, a variety show, became a cultural touchstone, watched by over ten million Americans every Sunday evening.
• Rock ʼnʼ Roll Music
  • Rock ʼnʼ roll was popular among young people in the 1950s, but was often deemed "race music" by mainstream white commentators.
  • Elvis Presley, a white singer from Memphis, Tennessee, became a huge cultural force in America, following in the footsteps of numerous African-American performers.
  • It was part of a distinct youth culture ushering in a generational divide in American society.
• Beat Generation Literature
  • The beat literary movement of the 1950s was a rejection of mainstream social values, exemplified by Jack Kerouac's On the Road (1957) and Allen Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems (1956).
  • Ginsberg's poem "Howl" took direct aim at the foundations of Cold War American society.
• Abstract Expressionism
  • Abstract expressionism was an important artistic movement of the 1950s, emphasizing spontaneity, emotion, and intensity over studied reproductions of the visible world.
  • It was led by Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Mark Rothko.

Early Steps in the Civil Rights Movement

Origins, Strategies, and Tactics of the Civil Rights Movement

• The Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s
  • The civil rights movement in the 1950s was a major reform movement in American history, challenging the legal basis of segregation and the pervasive racism of American society.
  • It was the result of years of organizing and effective leadership, and was influenced by the Supreme Court decision in the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka case (1954).
  • The movement forced America to examine its most cherished institutions and reevaluate ingrained patterns of thought, while also generating an intense backlash among whites in the South and shaping political discourse in the decades to come.
• World War II and the Origins of the Civil Rights Movement
  • World War II was a transformative experience for many African American men and women, who felt a sense of empowerment and engagement they had not previously felt.
  • These veterans had taken part in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People' s "Double V" campaign, which won them victory against fascism and racism at home.
  • The migration of many African-American men and women from rural southern life to the new challenges of urban, industrial America whetted their appetite for change and justice.
  • This generation would become the leaders of the civil rights movement in the decades after the war.
• Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955–1956)
  • The Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott of 1955 and 1956 was sparked by the arrest of Rosa Parks, a local civil rights activist who refused to give up her seat to a white person on a Montgomery city bus in December 1955.
  • Parks had been active in the Montgomery branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for several years and was its secretary at the time of her arrest.
  • Her defiance of segregationist bus rules was not the first in Montgomery, but local civil rights leaders thought the time was right and that Parks had an ideal public persona for a campaign against segregation.
  • The boycott was supported by the African American community and led to the bus company ending its policy of making African Americans give up their seats to whites.
• Martin Luther King Jr. and Nonviolent Civil Disobedience
  • The Montgomery bus boycott was led by a young reverend, Martin Luther King Jr., from Atlanta. Kingʼs leadership during the boycott made him a well-known figure.
  • He soon became the central figure in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
  • King advocated the tactic of nonviolent civil disobedience to directly challenge unjust practices.

Government Responses to Civil Rights Activism

• Truman and Civil Rights
  • Harry S. Truman was an early supporter of civil rights, creating the Committee on Civil Rights in 1946 and pushing Congress to enact its recommendations in 1948.
  • He also issued Executive Order 9981 to ban segregation in the military, but failed to implement it until the Korean War due to fear of losing support from southern Democrats.
• A Favorable Supreme Court
  • Early civil rights activists sought to bring the issue of segregation before the Supreme Court, which was more liberal than the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision.
  • In 1953, President Dwight Eisenhower appointed a new, more liberal chief justice, Earl Warren, and the NAACP and its lead lawyer, Thurgood Marshall, decided to bring a key civil rights case to the Court.
• The Case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954)
  • In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, the Supreme Court combined five similar cases, all dealing with school segregation.
  • The Brown in the case was the Reverend Oliver Brown, whose eight-year-old daughter, Linda Brown, had to go to an African-American school more than a mile from her house.
  • The Court heard a variety of types of evidence, including studies on the psychological impact of segregation on young people.
  • The Court ruled unanimously that the "separate but equal" doctrine established by the Plessy decision had to end, declaring that "separate educational facilities" are inherently unequal.
  • This decision set in motion a major upheaval in American society, encouraging the civil rights movement. However, violence soon erupted from southern whites who tried to prevent school integration.

Challenges for the Civil Rights Movement

• Southern whites reacted violently to the civil rights movement in 1957 and 1958, leading to mob action and violence outside the high school in Little Rock, Arkansas.
• Governor Orville Faubus initially mobilized the National Guard to block the African-American students from entering the school, but later removed all state authorities.
• The violence and national news coverage of the flouting of federal authority convinced President Dwight D. Eisenhower to send federal troops, but his administration was reluctant to take action in regard to civil rights for African Americans.

America as a World Power

United States Actions in Latin America

• Regime Change in Guatemala
  • The United States orchestrated the ouster of the democratically elected government of Jacobo Árbenz (1954) in Guatemala, which was a reform-minded leader who began a land redistribution program.
  • He offered to buy the land from United Fruit Company at the value the company had declared it for tax purposes, but the company refused.
  • The CIA then organized a plan to overthrow the government and trained and armed an opposition army.
  • This led to a civil war in Guatemala that lasted into the 1990s.
• Hostilities with Cuba
  • President John F. Kennedy's brief tenure as president saw Cuba become a hotspot in the Cold War, as Fidel Castro led a successful guerrilla movement to overthrow the dictatorship.
  • In the final months of the Eisenhower administration, advisors planned for the United States to train, arm, and aid a group of Cuban exiles opposed to the Communist government.
  • Kennedy adopted the plan and green-lighted its implementation in 1961.
  • The exiles landed at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba in April 1961 but were quickly captured by Cuban forces.
  • This incident was the first of several attempts to oust the Communist regime from Cuba.
• Intervention in the Dominican Republic
  • President Lyndon Johnson intervened in the affairs of the Dominican Republic in 1965, after the assassination of General Rafael Trujillo and the struggle for control of the country.
  • He sent 30,000 Marines to the country, claiming that Juan Bosch was a Communist in the mold of Cuba's Fidel Castro.

The “Military–Industrial Complex” and the Arms Race

• The “Military-Industrial Complex”
  • The term "military-industrial complex" was popularized by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his 1961 farewell address, implying a close-knit relationship between government officials, leaders of the military, and corporate interests.
  • This implies that important decisions about policy are made to advance the interests of the military-industrial complex, which may be at odds with other foreign policy goals.
• Challenging Americaʼs Nuclear Policy
  • In the 1950s and 1960s, many Americans began challenging the country's military priorities, including protesting military involvement in Vietnam.
  • Critics of nuclear proliferation formed the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy in 1957 to challenge the ongoing nuclear tests conducted by the Eisenhower administration, and the Women's Strike for Peace in 1961 inspired more than 50,000 women in sixty cities to march for peace.
  • By the early 1960s, the United States had produced enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world several times over, and policymakers accepted the policy of mutually assured destruction, or MAD.
  • The 1964 dark comedy, Dr. Strangelove, depicted MAD policy gone wrong.

Decolonization, Nationalism, and U.S. Policy in the Middle East and Africa

• Decolonization and U.S. Foreign Policy
  • The two decades after World War II saw a wave of nationalist movements in Asia and Africa. U.S. foreign policy evolved in the face of these movements, with the United States professing support for self-determination and having strong ties with many of the European powers.
  • As the Cold War intensified, the Truman and Eisenhower administrations encouraged the European powers to negotiate with their colonies to ensure peaceful paths to independence, and took measures to keep them from aligning with the Soviet Union.
  • The Peace Corps, established in 1961, served this goal, as did military force and covert operations.
• Iran and the CIA
  • The United States engaged in covert operations during the Cold War to oust regimes that were deemed insufficiently friendly to American interests.
  • In 1953, the CIA instigated a coup against Mohammad Mosaddegh, who had nationalized oil fields and refineries and challenged the power of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi.
  • The Iranian army restored the Shah's power, but the events of 1953 came back to haunt the US a generation later in the aftermath of the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
• The Eisenhower Doctrine
  • President Dwight D. Eisenhower became increasingly concerned about events in the Middle East after Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser took power in Egypt in 1954.
  • Nasser established close relations with the Soviets and seized control of the Suez Canal. Eisenhower and the leaders of the U.N. and the Soviet Union pressured the three powers to withdraw, and Eisenhower pledged to support any Middle Eastern countries threatened by Communism.
  • The Eisenhower Doctrine was invoked in 1958 when a rebel movement friendly to Nasser emerged in Lebanon, and U.S. Marines were quickly dispatched to support the Lebanese president, Camille Chamoun.

The Vietnam War

The War in Vietnam

• Background to American Involvement in Vietnam
  • Vietnam is a small country along the eastern edge of the Indochina peninsula in Southeast Asia.
  • From the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, it was a French possession, but was occupied by Japan during World War II.
  • In 1954, French forces were defeated at the northern town of Dien Bien Phu, and France withdrew.
  • Vietnam was divided at the 17th parallel between a Communist-controlled North Vietnam, led by Ho Chi Minh, and a Western-allied South Vietnam.
  • Rebel fighters, known as the Vietcong, fought to defeat a corrupt and dictatorial South Vietnamese government.
  • American observers concluded that without outside help, the government of South Vietnam could fall to the Communists.
• The “Domino Theory”
  • American involvement in Vietnam was influenced by the "domino theory" which states that when a nation adopts a Communist form of government, its neighbors are likely to follow.
  • This theory suggests that Communism is imposed from the outside, not due to internal conditions.
• The United States Sends Advisors to Vietnam
  • The United States' interest in Vietnam began during World War II, when it sent military advisors and assistance to support anti-Japanese fighters.
  • After the country was divided in 1954, U.S. aid went to South Vietnam to fight anti-government rebels.
  • In 1963, the Diem regime brought about a crisis by repressing the Buddhist community, leading to large protests and incidences of Buddhist monks publicly ending their lives by self-immolation.
  • The Kennedy administration gave approval to a plot to kill Diem and stage a coup, leading the United States to increase its military presence in South Vietnam.
• The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
  • The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (1964) was passed by Congress to give President Lyndon Johnson broad latitude to pursue "conventional" military actions in Southeast Asia.
  • In August 1964, Johnson announced that American destroyers had been fired upon by North Vietnamese gunboats off the coast of North Vietnam.
  • This incident led to Congress giving Johnson a "blank check" to engage in military operations without a formal declaration of war, which was the beginning of the Vietnam War.
• The Escalation of the Vietnam War
  • The US military actions in Vietnam escalated rapidly in the aftermath of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, with the U.S. sending more than 100,000 troops to the country by 1967 and nearly 500,000 by 1968.
  • The bombing campaign of North Vietnam intensified, and the military pursued a policy of "pacification" of villages, resulting in the uprooting of entire villages and creating millions of refugees.
  • Domestic opposition to the war grew more intense as Americans began to question the wisdom and morality of American action in Vietnam.
• The Tet Offensive
  • In January 1968, the Vietcong and North Vietnamese forces launched the Tet Offensive, a major attack on South Vietnamese, U.S., and allied bases and towns.
  • This offensive left over 9,000 U.S., South Vietnamese, and allied troops dead (1,600 Americans), while the North Vietnamese and Vietcong suffered more than 40,000 deaths.
  • The offensive was defeated, but it demonstrated the ability of the Vietnamese to organize a coordinated strike throughout South Vietnamese territory.
• The My Lai Massacre
  • In 1968, a company of American troops killed nearly every inhabitant of the Vietnamese village of My Lai, despite finding no enemy forces there.
  • The U.S. Army covered up the massacre for more than a year. In 1971, a U.S. military court found the commander of the company, Lieutenant William Calley, guilty of the massacre.
  • The incident led many Americans to question the morality of the war in Vietnam.
• “Vietnamization” of the Vietnam War
  • Nixon promised "peace with honor" in the Vietnam War, but instead widened the war to Cambodia and Laos. He began the policy of "Vietnamization" in 1969, replacing American troops with South Vietnamese troops, but this did not lead to American victory.
  • The United States pulled out of Vietnam in 1973, and by 1975, South Vietnam was defeated and reunited as a Communist country.
• The War Powers Act (1973)
  • This was an attempt to check presidential power and strengthen the legislative branch during the Vietnam War.
  • It required the president to report any troop deployments to Congress within forty-eight hours and gave Congress the ability to force the withdrawal of U.S. troops within sixty days.

The Great Society

Poverty Amid Affluence

• Abundance in Postwar America
  • The post-World War II years saw unprecedented growth of the economy and a rise in the living standard for millions of Americans.
  • The gross domestic product of the country rose from $200 billion to $500 billion, and the middle class was able to achieve many of the markers of middle-class life, such as home and car ownership, college education, and a comfortable income.
• The Other America
  • Michael Harrington's book, The Other America: Poverty in the United States (1962), highlighted the extent and tenacity of poverty in American society.
  • It estimated that 40 to 50 million Americans lived in poverty, many in decaying urban slums and isolated rural towns.
  • Harrington's work helped shape the domestic agendas of Kennedy and his successor, Lyndon Johnson.

The Liberal Agenda in the 1960s

• The Elements of 1960s Liberalism
  • The 1960s liberalism was characterized by a belief in the efficacy of government initiatives in addressing social problems.
  • This belief was traced back to the Progressive movement of the 1900s and 1910s, as well as to the New Deal of the 1930s.
  • The liberal coalition that coalesced in the mid-century also included moderates within the labor movement, such as Walter Reuther of the United Automobile Workers, and civil-society groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and Americans for Democratic Action.
  • In terms of foreign policy, mid-century liberalism was decidedly anti-Communist, embracing the cause of containing international Communism.
  • This was articulated in a book by Harvard historian Arthur Schlesinger, The Vital Center: The Politics of Freedom (1949).
• Liberalism in the White House—From Kennedy to Johnson
  • John F. Kennedy's election in 1960 symbolized a break with conservatism and an embrace of liberalism.
  • His presidency was cut short when he was assassinated in Dallas, Texas less than three years into his presidency.
  • The Peace Corps was established by Kennedy in 1961 to assist underdeveloped countries in Africa, Latin America, and Asia.
  • To mend frayed relations with the developing world, Kennedy created the Agency for International Development and the Alliance for Progress.
  • Lyndon B. Johnson took office following the assassination of Kennedy and was a remarkably effective president, passing a host of domestic programs.
  • However, his hopes for a "Great Society" were damaged by a costly and unpopular war in Vietnam.

The Great Society Advances the Liberal Agenda

• President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society program aimed to end poverty in the US, including the development of Medicare and Medicaid, welfare programs, and public housing.
• However, these programs had limited success and the war in Vietnam diverted billions of dollars from antipoverty programs.
• The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 eliminated the quota system based on national origins.

Immigration Reform and the Great Society

• The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (also known as the Hart-Celler Act) changed the approach to immigration that had been in place since the 1920s.
• It abolished the national quota system and replaced it with overall limits on immigration into the United States.
• This limited Western Hemisphere immigration to 120,000 per year and set a limit for immigration from the Eastern Hemisphere to 170,000.
• Exemptions were set for family members and preference was given to immigrants with particular skills. This opened the door to increased immigration and has altered the demographic composition of the US.

The African-American Civil Rights Movement (1960s)

Civil Rights Activism in the 1960s

• The Lunch Counter Sit-ins (1960)
  • In 1960, students in Tennessee and North Carolina began a campaign of "sit-ins" at lunch counters to protest segregation.
  • The sit-ins began in Greensboro, North Carolina, when four African-American students challenged the "whites only" policy of a Woolworth's lunch counter.
  • They spread to other cities, including Nashville, and eventually pressured companies to end the practice.
• The Freedom Rides (1961)
  • The Freedom Rides occurred in 1961, when the Supreme Court ruled that state laws separating the races on interstate transportation facilities were unconstitutional.
  • The Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) organized a series of bus rides through the South, with African-American passengers riding alongside white passengers.
  • Despite resistance, President John F. Kennedy sent federal marshals to protect the Freedom Riders and enforce federal law.
• “Bull” Connor and the Birmingham Campaign (1963)
  • Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference launched a major campaign in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963 to protest racial segregation.
  • The public safety commissioner of Birmingham, Eugene "Bull" Connor, used fire hoses, police dogs, and other forms of physical force to put down the campaign.
  • Images of police brutality brought the Birmingham campaign to the attention of the nation and helped to bring public sympathy to the side of the civil rights movement.
  • King was arrested and wrote his famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail," which argued that the Black community had waited long enough for change.
  • This letter paved the way for the passage of the Civil Rights Act a year later.
• The March on Washington (1963)
  • The March on Washington was a major event in the civil rights movement in August 1963, when 200,000 people gathered in Washington, D.C. to march, sing, and hear speeches, including Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream."
  • However, tensions were evident, as the leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, John Lewis, was told to tone down his fiery rhetoric.
  • The original draft of his speech, which urged the movement to march "through the heart of Dixie the way Sherman did," foreshadowed the growth of a more militant, direct-action-oriented tendency within the movement in the coming years.
• The Selma to Montgomery March (1965)
  • The Civil Rights Act of 1964 led to a campaign to challenge restrictions on African-American voter registration in Selma, Alabama, led by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
  • Martin Luther King Jr. put himself in a position to get arrested in order to gain publicity, and President Lyndon Johnson spoke in favor of the Selma voting rights campaign.
  • In response to the shooting of Jimmie Lee Jackson, movement leaders organized a major march in March 1965, which was blocked by county and state police and attacked with clubs and tear gas. The incident was broadcast on national television and aroused indignation.
  • The march was finally completed later in the month.

Debate Within the Civil Rights Movement

• From “Freedom Now!” to “Black Power!”
  • The civil rights movement achieved success in ending legal segregation, but pervasive problems persisted, such as poverty, substandard housing, and lack of decent jobs.
  • In 1966, the Black Panther Party took up the call for a "Black Power" movement, embracing self-defense and militant rhetoric.
• Malcolm X
  • Malcolm X was a leader of the Nation of Islam, an African-American group that advocated for African Americans to organize among themselves, separate from whites.
  • After making a pilgrimage to Mecca, he revised his views about Black separatism and was killed by assassins, but his words continued to inspire the civil rights movement.
• Urban Rioting
  • Frustrations within the African-American community reached a boiling point in the 1960s, as many cities experienced rioting between African American residents and predominantly white police forces.
  • The first major disturbances of the decade occurred in Harlem in 1964, followed by major rioting in Watts, Los Angeles, Detroit, and Newark, New Jersey.
  • The riots in Detroit in 1967 left forty-three people dead, and President Lyndon Johnson formed the Kerner Commission to investigate the causes of rioting.
  • The commission issued its report in 1968, citing poverty and segregation as root causes of the unrest, and noted that America was moving toward separate societies.
• The Assassination of King (1968)
  • Martin Luther King Jr. was killed by an assassin on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee.
  • Kingʼs assassination was both a source of national mourning and a harbinger of the decline of the African-American civil rights movement of the era.
  • The movement had accomplished much, but was unable to provide a solution for many of the problems facing the African-American community.

Major Federal Legislative Victories for the Civil Rights Movement

• Kennedy, Johnson, and the Politics of Civil Rights
  • The Democratic Party had a difficult balance to strike when it came to civil rights for African Americans.
  • Many Democratic leaders believed that extending civil rights to African Americans was the correct and just thing to do, but did not want to alienate its southern wing.
  • In June 1963, President John F. Kennedy gave a national address in which he called civil rights a "moral issue" and pledged to support civil rights legislation.
  • After Kennedy's assassination in November 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson took up the cause of civil rights legislation with vigor, pressuring reluctant Democratic legislators to support it.
  • This led to an exodus of many white southern Democrats out of the party, some of whom supported the presidential candidacy of George Wallace in 1968.
  • The vast majority of southern white Democrats who left the party in the 1960s (and since) ended up in the Republican Party.
• Civil Rights Act (1964)
  • This act was passed by Congress and signed by President Lyndon Johnson in the summer of 1964.
  • The act was intended to end discrimination based on race and gender. .
  • The Civil Rights Act guaranteed all Americans equal access to public accommodations, public education, and voting. Another section banned discrimination in employment based on race or gender.
• The Voting Rights Act (1965)
  • This was passed in August 1965, authorized the federal government to oversee voter registration in counties with low African- American registration.
  • The act also outlawed literacy tests and poll taxes—means of preventing African Americans from voting.
  • The Supreme Court limited the scope of the Voting Rights Act in 2013, weakening Section 5, which required states with a history of discrimination to obtain federal preclearance before implementing changes to their voting laws.

The Warren Court and the Expansion of Civil Rights

• The Warren Court
  • Earl Warren was chief justice of the Supreme Court from 1953 to 1969, leading the Court in a liberal direction.
  • His first case was the landmark Brown case, which established the rights of minorities, reinforced the separation of church and state, established an individual's right to privacy, and protected the rights of those accused of crimes.
  • Liberals welcomed his decisions, while conservatives accused him of judicial activism.
• Expanding the Rights of the Accused
  • The Warren Court decisions expanded the rights of those accused of crimes, including Mapp v. Ohio (1961), Gideon v. Wainwright (1963), Escobedo v. Illinois (1964), and Miranda v. Arizona (1966).
  • In Mapp, evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment protection against "unreasonable searches and seizures" must be excluded from criminal prosecutions in state courts as well as federal courts.
  • In Gideon, the states must provide impoverished defendants with court-appointed attorneys, and Escobedo ruled that defendants had a right to have a lawyer present during police interrogations.
  • In Miranda, the Court ruled that arrested people must be read basic rights, including the right to remain silent and have a lawyer.
• The Right to Privacy
  • The Warren Court asserted that the right to privacy is implicit in the Constitution, ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) that laws forbidding the use of birth-control devices were unconstitutional.
  • This would become important in Roe v. Wade (1973), which required states to allow abortions during the first two trimesters of pregnancy.
• Free Speech
  • The Supreme Court ruled that a school board prohibition against students wearing black armbands in protest of the Vietnam War was unconstitutional.
  • In Brandenberg v. Ohio, the Court ruled that the government cannot restrict inflammatory speech unless it is likely to incite imminent unlawful action.
  • This decision set the precedent of protecting anti-government and provocative speech.
• Freedom of the Press
  • In New York Times v. Sullivan (1964), the Supreme Court overturned a lower court libel award of $500,000 to L. B. Sullivan, a public safety commissioner in Montgomery, Alabama.
  • Sullivan had sued The New York Times for running an ad calling attention to the violence being committed in the South against civil-rights demonstrators.
  • White southern officials frequently used plaintiff-friendly libel laws to curb reporting of civil rights issues.
  • The Court set a higher standard for libel, insisting that public officials must show that a publication exhibited "actual malice."
  • This decision has been the Court's most forceful defense of press freedom.
• Reapportionment and “One-person, One-vote”
  • In Baker v. Carr (1966), the Supreme Court ruled that states must periodically redraw legislative districts so that districts have roughly equal numbers of people.
  • At the time, Tennessee had not redrawn its legislative districts for more than sixty years.
  • Urban areas such as Memphis had grown much faster than rural districts.
  • Without reapportionment, urban areas would be underrepresented, violating the principle of “one-person, one-vote.”
• Prayer in Public Schools and the Separation of Church and State
  • In Engel v. Vitale (1962), the Supreme Court ruled that the Regentsʼ Prayer, a state-mandated prayer that was recited by public school children in New York State, was unconstitutional because it violated the doctrine of separation of church and state

The Civil Rights Movement Expands

Latinos, American Indians, and Asian Americans Press for Justice

• American Indians Resistance to “Termination”
  • American Indians in the post-World War II period became increasingly bitter toward federal policies in regard to American Indian tribes.
  • In 1953, the federal government passed legislation that established a policy known as "termination" to encourage American Indians to assimilate into white culture and terminate recognition of tribes as legal entities.
  • This policy weakened the influence of tribal authorities and led to resistance on the part of many American Indians.
  • In 1961, representatives of sixty-seven tribes met in Chicago to address common concerns and wrote a manifesto called the "Declaration of Indian Purpose."
• The American Indian Movement (1968)
  • In 1972, nearly a thousand American Indians occupied the headquarters of the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C.
  • The following year, Oglala Lakota members of AIM staged the most significant protest of this period at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, calling for a change in the administration of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and demanding that the United States government honor its treaty obligations.
  • In 1978, the Supreme Court affirmed the legal status of American Indian tribes and ruled that Congress could not "terminate" tribes.
  • However, many of the goals of the movement were not achieved.
• Political Activism in the Latino Community
  • In the 1960s, Latinos became more active in fighting for their civil rights.
  • Many young Mexican Americans, calling themselves "Chicanos", organized La Raza Unida political party in 1970.
  • Cesar Chavez and Delores Huerta founded the United Farm Workers in 1962 to protect the interests of migrant farmers, including many Mexican Americans.
  • The UFW organized a nationwide boycott of grapes in 1965 to pressure farm owners to pay their workers a decent wage.
  • This resulted in a significant victory in 1970, when several major growers in California signed a contract with the UFW and agreed to raise farm wages.
• The Asian-American Civil Rights Movement
  • Asian Americans became increasingly active in fighting for civil rights in the 1960s and 1970s, focusing on the creation of ethnic studies programs in universities, an end to the Vietnam War, and reparations for Japanese Americans forced into internment camps during World War II.
  • Amy Uyematsu's essay "The Emergence of Yellow Power" was a catalyst for Asian Americans to examine their own lives and fight to redress injustices.
  • Student strikes at San Francisco State University and the University of California, Berkeley led to the implementation of ethnic-studies programs.
  • In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed legislation in which the federal government formally apologized for the internment of Japanese Americans and distributed $20,000 in reparations to each internee or his or her family.

Movements for Womenʼs Rights and Gay Liberation

• The Womenʼs Liberation Movement
  • The 1960s saw a women's liberation movement that challenged inequities in the job market, representations of women in the media, violence against women, and an ingrained set of social values.
  • Many women were inspired by Betty Friedan's 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique, which challenged the traditional options in life offered to middle-class women.
  • The movement gave birth to the National Organization for Women (1966) and magazine, Ms., founded by Gloria Steinem, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, and others.
  • Many women in the movement had come out of New Le activist organizations, but were frustrated with the treatment they received.
• Protest at the Miss America Pageant
  • Many Americans heard about the womenʼs liberation movement for the first time from news reports of a protest at the 1968 Miss America pageant.
  • The pageant exemplified, to the protesters, societyʼs attitude toward women in which women were valued for their looks above all else.
  • Women were expected to parade in bathing suits and give vacuous answers to questions in order to win male approval.
• Title IX (1972)
  • Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 banned gender discrimination in education, which has had a major impact on funding for female sports activities.
• The Gay Liberation Movement
  • The gay liberation movement was born in 1969 when patrons at the Stonewall Inn in New York's Greenwich Village resisted a police raid and fought back, exposing discrimination against gay men and women in many walks of life, including in government civil-service jobs.
  • Many gays attempted to avoid such discrimination by hiding their sexual identity and remaining "in the closet."

Feminism, the Counterculture, and the Rethinking of Gender Norms

• The Sexual Revolution
  • The 1960s saw the development of more tolerant attitudes towards sexual behavior due to the introduction of the birth control pill and the Supreme Court's ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) that laws forbidding the use of birth control devices were unconstitutional due to their violation of privacy rights.
• Roe v. Wade (1973)
  • The most important issue of the women's liberation movement was a woman's right to control reproduction, including whether to have an abortion.
  • The Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade (1973) declared that states shall not prohibit women from having an abortion during the first two trimesters of pregnancy.
  • This decision echoed the reasoning of the earlier decision, Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) in affirming an individual's right to privacy.
  • The issue of abortion proved to be one of the most contentious issues in America in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
• The “Quiet Revolution”
  • The percentage of women in the workforce has grown significantly since the 1970s due to the women's liberation movement, the availability of the birth control pill and of abortions, and the decision to focus on a career first.
  • Historians note a "quiet revolution" of women entering the workplace from the late 1970s until the present.

Youth Culture of the 1960s

Youth Culture and the Movement Against the Vietnam War

• The Draft
  • The percentage of women in the workforce has grown significantly since the 1970s due to the women's liberation movement, the availability of the birth control pill and of abortions, and the decision to focus on a career first.
  • Historians note a "quiet revolution" of women entering the workplace from the late 1970s until the present.
• A “Living Room War”
  • The Vietnam War was the first American war to occur in an era when most Americans owned television sets, allowing them to view graphic images of warfare for the first time.
  • A report by Morley Safer in 1965 showed Marines evacuating Vietnamese civilians from their homes and then setting them on fire, leading to public opinion questioning the wisdom and justness of the war.
• A Working-Class War
  • The war in Vietnam was a working-class war, with 80% of the troops being working class and poor. Middleclass youths were able to get college deferments or National Guard positions, and Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech condemning the war's impact on the underclass.
• The Unraveling of the Vietnam War
  • The war in Vietnam became increasingly unpopular in the 1960s, with the Tet Offensive in January 1968 and the My Lai Massacre in 1969 eroding faith in the war effort.
  • Opponents of the war became increasingly vocal in the final years.
• The Antiwar Movement
  • The antiwar movement began in the early 1960s with small peace groups questioning the purpose of the armed advisors sent to Vietnam.
  • By the late 1960s, several important antiwar groups had emerged, including Students for a Democratic Society and the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam.
  • The movement organized large demonstrations against the war, including two massive gatherings in Washington, D.C. in 1969 and 1971.
• Vietnam Veterans Against the War
  • The Vietnam Veterans Against the War was an influential antiwar group formed in 1967, harnessing the frustrations of returning veterans of the conflict to question the tactics and purpose of the war, leading to incidents of soldiers attacking commanding officers and throwing grenades at them.
• The Shootings at Kent State and Jackson State
  • Four students were killed at Kent State University in May 1970 during a demonstration against President Richard Nixon's decision to invade Cambodia.
  • Eleven days later, two African American student demonstrators were shot and killed by state police at Jackson State University in Mississippi.
• Publication of the Pentagon Papers
  • The publication of the Pentagon Papers revealed a pattern of official deception and secrecy in the Vietnam War, which was leaked to the press by Daniel Ellsberg.
  • The Nixon administration sought an injunction against publication, but the Supreme Court overruled it and upheld the right of the newspapers to publish the information.

The New Left

• Individuals and groups on the le criticized the liberal agenda of the 1960s for doing too little to significantly challenge the economic and racial inequalities at home and for pursuing an immoral foreign policy.
• Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was an important organization in the antiwar movement of the 1960s, with chapters at major college campuses across the country.
  • It held its first national convention in 1962 and adopted the Port Huron Statement, which stressed participatory democracy and direct action.
  • SDS continued to grow until 1969, when it splintered into factions and disbanded in 1974.

Countercultural Values and American Culture

• Bob Dylan and the Folk Revival
  • Bob Dylan was an influential figure in the 1960s, expressing the fears and hopes of the younger generation.
  • He cultivated a vocal approach that paid homage to the untrained, indigenous music of rural America, and his early songs became anthems of the protest movements.
  • He went electric in 1965, and his wide-ranging poetic lyrics earned him the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature.
• The British Invasion
  • The 1960s saw the rise of British bands, most notably the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, who took inspiration from African-American music and infused it with a youthful energy.
  • The Beatles inspired a manic following in the US known as "Beatlemania" and generated a backlash in the US due to their long hair, veiled allusions to drug use, interest in Eastern religions, and challenges to traditional notions of propriety.
  • John Lennon's comment that the band had become more popular than Jesus Christ added to the backlash.
• The “Hippie Movement” and Haight-Ashbury
  • The "hippie" movement emerged in the late 1960s in neighborhoods such as San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury and New York's Greenwich Village.
  • The apogee of the movement was the "Summer of Love" (1967), which represented a rejection of materialistic conformity.
  • Activities associated with the movement included urban and rural communal living, a "do-it-yourself" approach to life, mystic spiritual experiences, drug use, experimental music, and avant-garde art.
  • Be-ins were also organized, combining political protest and spiritual and artistic festival.
• Woodstock and Altamont
  • The counterculture of the 1960s reached its peak in 1969 with the Woodstock Festival, which attracted half a million attendees to a farm in upstate New York.
  • In December, promoters attempted to duplicate the success of Woodstock with a giant music festival at the Altamont Speedway in California, but the event was marred by violence, with one concertgoer being stabbed to death by a member of the Hell's Angels Motorcycle Club.

The Environment and Natural Resources from 1968 to 1980

The Middle East, Oil, and National Energy Policy

• The United States, Israel, and the Arab World
  • Tensions have existed in the Middle East since 1948, with four wars between Israel and its neighbors.
  • In 1973, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cut off exports to the US and increased the price of oil in retaliation for U.S. support of Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
• The Camp David Accords (1978)
  • President Jimmy Carter succeeded in providing a foundation for a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, known as the Camp David Accords.
  • In 1977, Egyptian president Anwar Sadat broke with the other leaders of the Arab world and flew to Israel to meet with Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin.
  • President Carter invited them to the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland and the three men met for thirteen days.
  • The treaty resulted in an end to hostilities between Israel and Egypt, but tensions continued to exist between Israel and its other neighbors.
• The Energy Crisis and the Limits of Growth
  • The OPEC oil embargo in 1973 caused fuel prices to rise dramatically in the 1970s, leading to a realization that there was a limit to the amount of fossil fuels available in the world, particularly petroleum, and much of it came from the Middle East.
  • This led to a spike in petroleum prices and higher prices at gas pumps.
• The Iranian Revolution and the Iran Hostage Crisis
  • In 1979, the U.S.-supported leader of Iran, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, was ousted by a revolution led by the Muslim religious leader, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
  • When the United States admitted the deposed Shah to the United States for medical treatment, angry Iranian students took over the embassy and held the personnel hostage.
  • President Jimmy Carter finally secured their release in 1980, but they were not released until thirty-three minutes into the administration of President Ronald Reagan in 1981.
• The Carter Doctrine
  • President Jimmy Carter asserted a more active role in the Middle East in 1980, with the Carter Doctrine stating that the United States would repel any outside force that attempted to gain control of the Persian Gulf region.
  • This was due to the Iranian Revolution and Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, which began in 1979.
  • Carter saw the presence of Soviet forces near the Middle East as a threat to American interests in the region.
• Toward a National Energy Policy
  • President Jimmy Carter encouraged conservation measures such as turning down thermostats and turning off lights when not in use, and encouraged investment in renewable sources of energy, but Americans were resistant to adopting conservation measures.
  • Americans are the largest consumers of energy, consuming nearly twice as much as the average resident of the UK or France.
• The Fifty-five Miles Per Hour Speed Limit and the Truckersʼ Rebellion
  • In response to the energy crisis, President Richard Nixon proposed a reduced national speed limit for highways in late 1973.
  • Congress passed the National Maximum Speed Law in January 1974, requiring states to cap speed limits on highways at fifty-five miles per hour.
  • The law was unpopular with many drivers, and truckers organized in ad hoc groups to spread the word of stoppages to other truckers. The law stayed in place until 1995.
• Nuclear Energy
  • Nuclear power is an alternative to fossil fuels, but there are problems associated with it, such as radioactive waste and the possibility of catastrophic accidents.
  • Only half of the planned 253 generators were ever built, resulting in just under 20% of U.S. electricity being generated by nuclear power.

The Growth of the Environmental Movement

• The Environmental Movement
  • The environmental movement in the 1960s and 1970s was a national phenomenon that led to changes in laws and social awareness.
  • It was sparked by the 1950s controversy over federal plans to dam the Green River and flood the Echo Park Valley in the Dinosaur National Monument.
  • Rachel Carson's 1962 book Silent Spring highlighted the environmental impact of the agricultural pesticide DDT, and the movement was connected to the counterculture of the 1960s.
  • The first Earth Day was celebrated in April 1970, and the Nixon Administration created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and approved the Clean Air Act to set standards for air quality.
• Love Canal and the Establishment of the Superfund
  • The late 1970s saw calls for greater federal environmental regulation of the environment as evidence emerged of toxic pollutants at Love Canal, a waterway near Niagara Falls, New York.
  • Residents complained of foul odors and black fluids emanating from the canal, and noticed unusually high levels of birth defects and miscarriages.
  • President Jimmy Carter declared a state of emergency at Love Canal in 1978, leading to the creation of the federal Superfund program to investigate and clean up sites contaminated with hazardous substances.
• The Dangers of Nuclear Energy and Three Mile Island
  • The environmental movement focused on the dangers of nuclear energy in the 1970s, with groups such as the Clamshell Alliance in New England and the Abalone Alliance in California attracting thousands of activists.
  • In 1979, a partial meltdown of the core in one of the reactors at the Three Mile Island power plant in Pennsylvania resulted in the release of radioactive gases and radioactive materials into the environment.
  • In 1986, a catastrophic accident occurred at a nuclear plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine, leading to the release of large quantities of radioactive material.
  • In 2011, an earthquake and tsunami led to three nuclear meltdowns at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan.
  • The Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters are the first and second worst, respectively, of over one hundred serious accidents or incidents at nuclear power plants around the world.

Society in Transition

The Conservative Response to Rapid Social and Economic Change

• The Origins of the Conservative Movement
  • The modern conservative movement emerged in the 1960s due to the protests against the Vietnam War, the permissive attitudes of the counterculture, and the changing nature of the American family.
  • White southerners grew hostile to the civil rights movement, leading to divisions within the movement.
  • This led to the growth of an angry, paranoid conservatism, evident in the "massive resistance" movement in the South, the John Birch Society, and the 1968 candidacy of George Wallace.
  • On the other hand, a more mainstream conservatism was evident in the influential magazine, National Review, and the candidacy of Barry Goldwater for president in 1964.
• Young Americans for Freedom
  • It was founded in the 1960s by conservatives to promote free markets, anti-Communism, and limited government.
  • The Sharon Statement was developed at a meeting at the estate of William F. Buckley.
• Barry Goldwater and the Origins of the “New Right”
  • Activists associated with Young Americans for Freedom were active in Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign, which ended in defeat, but generated a great deal of grassroots enthusiasm and the beginning of a conservative movement that would become a force later in the twentieth century.

The Decline of Public Trust in the 1970s

• Stagflation
  • The economy of the US had remained strong throughout the 1960s, but as the 1970s began, it began to contract due to high unemployment and inflation.
  • This phenomenon was dubbed "stagflation" and continued throughout the 1970s.
• Whip Inflation Now
  • Gerald Ford attempted to address the economic malaise of the 1970s by promoting the Whip Inflation Now (WIN) campaign, which encouraged people to be more disciplined with their money.
  • He also signed a series of tax and spending cuts into law, but his approval rating remained low and he lost his bid for reelection to Jimmy Carter.
• Foreign Policy “Failures” of the 1970s
  • President Jimmy Carter's foreign policy was mixed, with a major victory in the Middle East and mixed results in the Panama Canal Zone and Iran hostage crisis.
• The Panama Canal (1977)
  • President Jimmy Carter negotiated two treaties with Panama in 1977, the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, which turned control of the Panama Canal Zone over to Panama by December 31, 1999.
  • The other agreement asserted that the canal shall remain neutral and open to shipping of all nations, with the United States reserving the right to intervene if any country challenged this neutrality.
  • The treaties were ratified by the Senate in 1978, but were criticized by conservatives for surrendering control of a major strategic asset.

Clashing Political Values

• Watergate, the Undoing of President Nixon, and the Limits of Presidential Power
  • The Watergate scandal began in June 1972 when five men were caught breaking into the headquarters of the Democratic Party at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. Persistent reporting by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward of the Washington Post drew connections between the burglars and President Richard Nixon's reelection committee and the White House.
  • In 1974, the Supreme Court ordered Nixon to turn over the tapes, and the House Judiciary Committee voted in favor of impeachment.
  • However, Nixon resigned before the question of impeachment could be addressed by the entire House, eroding people's trust in governing institutions and leading to a decline in voter turnout rates.
• Clashes over Equal Rights
  • The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was approved by both the House and Senate in 1972, but failed to get the required thirty-eight states to ratify it, resulting in its not becoming part of the Constitution.
• Clashing Views of Affirmative Action
  • The movement for affirmative action was part of the civil rights movement, aiming to end segregation and rectify past discrimination.
  • In 1961, President Kennedy issued an executive order mandating that projects using federal funds take "affirmative action" to make sure that employers do not discriminate based on race.
  • In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson went further, mandating that federal contractors and subcontractors make efforts to hire "protected class, underutilized" candidates. Many public universities began taking race into consideration when looking at applicants, but this caused resentment among some white applicants.
  • In Bakke v. University of California (1978), the Supreme Court decided that specific quotas for underrepresented minorities violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
  • Justice Lewis Powell's decision asserted that race could be one of the many factors that universities may look at in the admissions process, since diversity in higher education was a "compelling interest."

Christian Fundamentalism and the Religious Right

• Opposition to Roe v. Wade
  • The issue of abortion propelled religious conservatives from the margins to prominence, leading to the creation of a broad Christian conservative movement.
  • In 2021, the Supreme Court took up Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, a challenge to an extremely restrictive abortion law in Mississippi. Based on comments from the bench, the six conservative justices seemed ready to invalidate the Roe v. Wade decision.
• The “Moral Majority” and Focus on the Family
  • The New Right found voice in several grassroots organizations, including the "Moral Majority" founded by Reverend Jerry Falwell in 1979 and Focus on the Family founded by psychologist James Dobson in 1977.
  • The Moral Majority is interdenominational and promotes an abstinence-only approach to sex education, the reintroduction of prayer into the schools, and reinforcement of traditional gender roles.
  • The organization has stood against the expansion of rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people and is one of the leading voices in the movement against abortion.

Period 9: 1980-Present Political and Foreign Adjustments in a Globalized World