Period 8 U.S History 

The Korean War

  • UN forces, mostly American, led troops into South Korea
  • Truman based his actions on the containment Policy
  • Did not declare war. Truman called it a police action
  • At first the U.S was losing
  • That changed when General MacArthur sent troops behind enemy lines and started winning
  • Truman wanted to unite the North and South under democracy
  • U.S commander Douglas MacArthur took charge
  • U.S army was pushed back by North Korean and Chinese troops
  • MacArthur pushed Truman to approve attacks on China
  • Truman decided against MacArthur
  • Later fired MacArthur for insubordination
  • 1952- Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, war hero, won the presidential election, war ended under his administration

A consensus of values in the 1950’s

  • Americans believed the U.S was the best country
  • Communism was evil
  • Age where conformity was in
  • Rep. Dwight D. Eisenhower won the 1952 election

Wanted to bring back conservative values

Domestic Polices under Eisenhower

  • A fiscal conservative: wanted to cut spending and balance the budget
  • Also ease up on the regulations on business
  • Still had to spend money on the military so he cut troops and built more weapons
  • Called the New look Army built up the interstate highway system
  • For moving troops and missiles

The Native Americans

  • Eisenhower wanted to bolster the power of the states
  • Developed a policy called termination
  • Get rid of reservations and federal support for Native Americans
  • Make them subject to state law
  • caused massive poverty
  • Stopped in the 1960s

The Civil rights movement during Eisenhower

  • 1954- Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka
  • Brought on by the NAACP
  • Supreme court ruled 9-0 that segregation was unconstitutional
  • Ordered desegregation with “all deliberate speed”
  • 1957- Arkansas Governor, Orval Faubus , blocked the little rock 9 from entering school
  • Eisenhower did not intervene until forced by the courts

The Civil rights movement

  • 1955- Montgomery bus boycott
  • Rosa parks- arrested for refusing to give up her seat
  • Dr. Martin Luther king led the boycott of all buses
  • Supreme Court ruled for integration of city buses
  • King encouraged others to organize peaceful protests
  • 1960- Greensboro N.C. sit-in, of 19 students, at the Woolworth’s lunch counter
  • Sit-in movements spread across the nation

Civil rights organizations

  • NAACP- used the courts to pursue civil rights improvements
  • SCLC- Southern Christian Leadership conference, started by Martin Luther King Jr. in 1957 to mobilize black churches
  • SNCC- Student non violent coordinating committee started in 1960 to fight for equal treatment in public places and in voting.

Under Eisenhower

  • Secretary of State John Dulles

  

  1. Changed the name of the policy of “Containment” to “Liberation”
  2. established the concept of massive retaliation, described a nuclear attack that would be launched on soviets if they do anything too daring
  • Meant as a deterrent

Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)

  • One can’t fire nuclear warheads at the other without fear of retaliation
  • Dulles allowed brinkmanship- where confrontations with the soviets would escalate almost to the point of war
  • Eisenhower continued to protect S.E Asia

Feared the Domino Theory- if 1 country fell to communism, the others would nearby follow

The arms race

  • 1953- Stalin dies and is replaced by Nikita Khrushchev
  • Crushed rebellions in Poland and Hungary
  • Soviets blew up their first H-bomb 1 year after the Americans did
  • 1957- Soviets launched the satellite Sputnik 1
  • U.S.A started National Aeronautics & Space administration (NASA)

Third World Countries

  • After WWII, the European empires broke up
  • Colonies in Africa, Asia, & South America formed independent countries
  • A strong sense of nationalism grew in each new country
  • The U.S & U.S.S.R wanted allies in the third world
  • third world countries distrusted both sides
  • The CIA launched covert operations to spread U.S influence abroad
  • Fed disinformation to newspapers in third world countries to make the U.S look good
  • Bribed political officials
  • Helped overthrow governments in Iran & Guatemala and replace them with Pro-American governments
  • Also tried to assassinate Castro

  ## 1960 Election

  • 1960- John F. Kennedy won the presidential election with Lyndon Johnson as his vice president
  • Ran against Nixon
  • Some suspected voter fraud

Kennedy and Foreign Policy

  • JFK believed communism to be the greatest threat to freedom
  • His first 2 years would include dealing with the Bay of Pigs
  • The Cuban Missile Crisis
  • The Berlin wall

Cuba

  • 1959- Fidel Castro overthrew the American friendly dictator and established communism
  • Eisenhower imposed a partial embargo

Cuba: The bay of pigs

  • 1960- JFK becomes president
  • 1961- The CIA offers a plan called the Bay of Pigs
  • send trained Cuban exiles back to Cuba to fight
  • local Cubans would hopefully rise up against Castro
  • JFK approved the plan but did not send enough military support

the invasion failed

The Berlin Wall

  • 1961- Soviet Premier Khrushchev built the Berlin Wall to stop East Berliners from fleeing to the West
  • Came to symbolize 2 things

  1. the repressive nature of communism

  2. the global divide between the East and the West

1962 Cuban Missile Crisis

  • The Bay of Pigs pushed Castro to ally himself with the U.S.S.R
  • Allowed Soviets to station nuclear warheads in Cuba and aim them at Florida
  • They were detected by American spy planes
  • JFK ordered a blockade of Cuba to prevent further shipments
  • The soviets made two demands

  

  1. the U.S.A must promise never to invade Cuba again
  2. remove missiles from Turkey
  • Publically, JFK said “No”
  • Privately, he agreed so Khrushchev removed the missiles
  • JFK looked strong
  • Khrushchev looked weak and was removed from power by Soviet officials

Containment Policy

  • Inspired the creation of the Peace Corps
  • Provided teachers, doctors, farming specialist to Third World nations
  • Built transportation and communications
  • Encouraged American-style progress
  • Government called it nation building

Woman’s Rights

  • new left was dominated by men
  • Betty Friedan wrote the Feminine Mystique
  • restarted the women’s movement
  • founder of national organization for women (NOW)
  • fought against discrimination in hiring, pay, admissions and scholarships
  • 1973- Rode v. Wade gave women rights to abortion

Counterculture

  • Hippies fought “the establishment” through nonconformity
  • Had long hair, tie-dyed shirts and promoted drug use and “free love”

Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, the rolling stones and the Beatles

The Vietnam War (1964-1975)

  • Vietnam was a French colony
  • 1946- wanted independence after WWII
  • French & U.S said no
  • 1954 Vietnam won
  • At the Geneva Accords, Vietnam divided in 2
  • The North would be communist, the South democratic
  • Agreed to reunite and vote later
  • The North was led by communist Ho Chi Minh
  • The U.S.A feared Minh would take over the south and spread communism

  

  1. The U.S sabotaged reunification and put Ngo Dinh Diem in charge of South Vietnam
  2. sent commandos to raid the north and provoke a response
  3. formed SEATO to protect South Vietnam from a communist takeover
  • 2 unexpected problems
    • Diem turned out to be a vicious dictator
  • the Vietcong- South Vietnamese who supported communism

Gulf of Tonkin

  • August 1954
  • 2 American destroyers were fired upon in the Gulf
  • U.S blamed North Vietnam
  • President Lyndon Johnson got congress to pass the Gulf of Tokin Resolution
  • Gave the president the power to take any measures to protect the U.S interest in the region
  • 1st American troops landed in Vietnam 1965

The “Americanization” of the Vietnam War

Opposition

  • Many Americans opposed the war
  • protest rallies at home grew
  • Young men started ignoring the draft or leaving the country
  • 30,000 fled to Canada

The Tet Offensive

  • January 1968, during the Vietnamese new year TET
  • North Vietnamese soldiers & Vietcong from the South launched attacks on 27 cities in the South
  • Lost the fight but did serious damage to U.S forces and morale
  • Turned most of America against the war effort

The My Lai Massacre

  • 1968- frustrated American soldiers attacked, tortured and murdered between 350 and 500 villagers including women and children
  • turned more American civilians against war, the soldiers, and Lyndon Johnson
  • Same year, Johnson announced he would not run for reelection

The Election 1968

  • Robert Kennedy ran but was shot by an Arab immigrant
  • Democrats held a convention in Chicago
  • Protesters rallied outside & attacked police
  • Police responded with clubs and tear gas
  • Republican Richard Nixon won the election
  • Appealed to the “Silent Majority”- those who did not fully embrace the new culture
  • 1972, won reelection

Vietnamization

  • Handing responsibility for the war over to the south Vietnam
  • 1973- Sec. of State Henry Kissinger negotiated peace
  • 1973- War Powers Resolution passed
  • the president could not engage troops in combat for more than 60 days with out congressional approval
  • 1975- South Vietnam fell and reunified with the North becoming communist

Nixon’s Détente

  • A policy of openness
  • countries would respect each other’s differences and cooperate
  • relaxed tensions with the U.S.S.R
  • improved relations with China
  • This helped the U.S.S.R in check, the Soviets and Chinese hated each other

The Nixon Doctrine

  • Nixon announced that the U.S would remove many of its troop from around the world and rely more on alliances to keep communism in check

The Pentagon Papers

  • 1971- government official Daniel Ellsberg released secret papers to 2 major news papers
  • Revealed lies about Vietnam told by the U.S government to the public
  • Nixon was not implicated but tried to block publication
  • Nixon lost the fight in court

The Plumbers

  • A team of investigators for Nixon
  • Sabotaged Democrat campaigns and tried to bug offices of the Democrat party at the Watergate hotel
  • They were discovered and arrested

The Watergate Scandal

  • Senate hearings started- 1973
  • Many of Nixon’s advisors were convicted of perjury and destruction of evidence
  • more evidence was revealed by journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein
  • 1974- Nixon resigned and Vice President Gerald Ford became president and pardoned Nixon

Jimmy Carter

  • Gerald Ford was defeated in the 1976 election by Jimmy Carter

Achievements

  • Created the Department of Energy when gas prices soared
  • Looked into nuclear energy until the plant at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania failed
  • Brokered a piece agreement at Camp David between Egypt and Israel in 1978

Problems

  • Couldn’t stop the U.S.S.R from invading Afghanistan
  • Flip flopped on his allegiance with the Sandinista government in Nicaragua
  • Was unable to retrieve American hostages from Iran
  • Ronald Reagan got them back after winning the 1980 election