APUSH Class Notes UNIT 8

UNIT 8.2

1945 - end of WWII, Potsdan conference, Truman becomes pres, atomic bomb, civil war in china

1946 - satellite states, iron curtain, long telegram

1947 - containment policy, Marshall, Truman doc

1948 - Berlin blockade, air lift

1949 - Soviet develop atomic bomb, NATO, china falls to communism,

1950 - NSC 68,

1945 - defeat of french in indo china

1949 - coining of Iron Curtain

• Truman Doctrine - $400 mill for Greece and Turkey because of insurrections with communists there

• Marshall Plan - European Recovery Program, loans,

  • Prevent countries from becoming communists

  • New markets

• Blockade of berlin 1948 - stalin wanted to starve them out to take city because the american and french sectors were strong

• Berlin airlift - huge PR coup for U.S.

• Containment - american foreign policy of keeping communism from spreading

• Key figures of U.S. foreign policy in ‘40s and ‘50s:

  • George kennan - long telegram, psychographic look at soviets, goal is to spread communism

  • Dean acheson - idea of containment

  • George marshall - names idea

• National security act 1947

  • Gets rid of war department and transformed into DOD

  • Created National Security Council, advisors to president

  • Created CIA

  • NSC-68: 1950 U.S. has to quadruple its military budget and modernize forces; arms race leads to space race

• Chinese revolution happening at the same time

• 1949 NATO forms - berlin blockade convinced Truman to join NATO an anti-communist military alliance with Western Europe

• Warsaw pact - military alliance later formed by soviet union with communist eastern europe

• U.S. continues to slowly send troops to help french in Vietnam

• U.S. loses supremacy over others when Russia gets atomic bomb

• October 1949 china falls to communism

• Brinkmanship - game of chicken 2 nuclear powers going as close as possible to all out war turns into M.A.D. Mutually Assured Destruction

• Korean war 1950-1953: in 1950 communist north K sponsored by Soviet Union invaded south K crossing the border at the 38th parallel which challenged containment policy

  • UN votes on sending contingencies to south K

  • 1951 Chinese are going to come in and push UN forces back to 38th parallel to prevent invasion by the U.S.

  • U.S. sees this as a successful containment of communism in North K

• U.S. did not recognize communist China until Nixon

• Eisenhower becomes president, ramps up positive public opinion of french forces fighting in Vietnam

  • Sputnik in 1957

  • 1953 U.S. successfully tests hydrogen bomb

  • U-2 Incident

  • Douglas is secretary to Eisenhower comes up with brinkmanship

  • Interstate Highway System in 1956

  • National defense education act 1958

• 1953 Stalin dies and Nikita Krushchev successes him; leads to anti-communist movements throughout Europe when Krushchev denounced Stalin, this pissed off Mao of China

• “Spirit of Geneva” - start of arms limitation talks, Eisenhower suggests open sky policy

• 1959 Krushchev comes to the U.S. to camp david and disneyland

  • U-2 spy plane is shot down over Soviet Union which crashes any plans of mutual respect

• U.S. is going to increase aid and support to south vietnam just like it did with south korea

• Sputnik - 1st man made satellite 1957, takes U.S. by surprise

  • 1958 U.S. creates NASA in response

• In 1959 Fidel Castro leads revolution in Cuba, gets close with Kremlin

  • U.S. trains exile cubans and send them back with the hope that they will overthrow Cuban government in 1960s contingent upon air support

• President Kennedy promised to protect West Berlin and Khrushkev backs down

  • And khrushchev wants to blockade berlin again and builds a wall splitting Berlin in half and around

• 1961 Kennedy is elected, Krushchev is going to test Kennedy

  • Basically leaves Cuban exiles to die by not sending air support

  • Failure of Bay of Pigs

• Castro was getting nervous that the U.S. would invade Cuba so asked K to send missiles after a failed attempt to overthrow Castro

  • The U.S. successfully blockaded Cuba and K removed the ICBMs in exchange for the removal of American ICBMs in Europe

• Nuclear test ban 1963

• Flexible response policy; Kennedy creates green berets, small group of skilled fighters

  • Hot spots in africa and southeast asia

  • Move away from Dulles massive retaliation

  • Idea of avoiding all out nuclear conflict

  • Reliance on conventional military

• In the 1970s Nixon’s policy of detente replaced brinkmanship

• In 1972 nixon became the first us president to visit and recognize communist china to put a bridge between china and soviet union

• Detente ends in 1974 when Nixon resigns because of scandals

• In 1972 nixon met with soviet leader Brezhnev to discuss arms reduction and usa and ussr signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) which limited the number of ICBMd each nation could have

• Detente ended in 1979 when the ussr invaded afghanistan to put down an anti-communist uprising

  • Under reagan starts a proxy war with ussr

UNIT 8.3

• The Second Red Scare - time in the U.S. of high fear of communism and nuclear war during the cold war

  • Led by Senator McCarthy from Wisconsin

• Fear of Communist Spies

  • Loyalty review board 1947 - background checks on 3M federal workers

  • Smith act of 1940 made it illegal to advocate or teach the overthrow of the U.S. gov’t

  • McCarran Internal Security Act 1950 -

    • Unlawful to advocate or support totalitarian govs

    • Restricted travel of those joining communist parties

    • Creation of detention camps

  • HUAC (House of Un-American Activities Committee) - group in Congress investigated communist spies

  • Alger Hiss - HUAC exposed this high-ranking gov’t official as a communist spy

  • Julius and Ethel Rosenburg - couple executed after Julius was exposed as a Manhattan Project spy

  • McCarthyism begins - rise of Americans’ fear of communist spies increase the Red Scare hysteria

    • In 1950 mcCarthy gained power by accusing Americans of being communists

    • Later lost credibility by accusing army officials on live television and was exposed as a fraud in 1954

UNIT 8.4

• Truman vs. republicans:

  • He promoted policies that expanded federal power, but congress has grown more conservative

  • Taft-Hartley Act: a law that limited labor union sand was passed despite Truman’s veto

  • As a democrat passed policies to give federal government more control

  • The Fair Deal - Truman’s reform program that included expanding Social Security, higher minimum wage, national health insurance, and civil rights laws

    • Congress blocked most Fair Deal reforms

  • Splitting of democratic party - southern democrats and northern democrats

• Truman vs. southern democrats

  • In 1948 truman ended segregation in military

  • Pushed congress to end lynching and abolish poll taxes

  • Truman’s civil rights agenda was blocked by southern democrats

• GI Bill -

UNIT 8.8

• 1954 French defeat at dien bien phu by Ho Chi Minh

• Paris Accords - split Vietnam into N and S whoever’s gov’t performs better gets all the land to rule; south is ruled by Catholic U.S. backed Diem, who is very anti-Buddists

• Domino Theory

• 1963-64 South Vietnam destabilizes

  • Kennedy is assassinated and South Vietnam is extremely unstable

  • Diem is executed

• Vietcong - south vietnamese communists who fought with the help from north vietnam

  • They attack, destabilizing south vietnam, especially after Diem’s assassination

• August 1964 Vietnam War Begins

  • Gulf of Tonkin incident - Pres. LBJ announced that North Vietnamese gunboats had fired on American warships

  • Gulf of Tonkin Resolution - uses this to get congress to give LBJ power to take “all measures necessary” to fight North Vietnam

  • No declaration of war from congress, LBJ was given power to wage war himself

  • Cold war tensions rose as U.S. again entered war to stop communism

• 1965-67 Fighting Escalates

  • Operation Rolling Thunder - bombing campaign

  • 549,000 U.S. soldiers in vietnam

  • North vietnam smuggled supplies to the vietcong through Laos and Cambodia along the Ho Chi Minh Trail

  • Vietcong used guerilla tactics, including booby traps and ambushes

  • U.S. relied on “search and destroy” missions and just bombed anything that was related to the Vietcong

• Nixon is elected in 1969 with the promise to end the war; begins detente

• Antiwar movements:

  • “Hawks” were Americans who supported the war as necessary to contain communism

  • “Doves” opposed the war, especially as it cost more lives, money and time

  • Cost of war diverted funds from the Great Society and “war on poverty”, which cost LBJ support from many americans including mlk

• 2. Credibility gap - public loses trust with government, president, and war effort

  • Most televised war in american history

  • General westmoreland and other officials claimed that the war was being won and almost over

• 3. The draft: two million young Americans, targeted the poor

• Defining Years:

  • 1968 The Tet Offensive

    • By 1968 govt officials said vietcong were near defeat

    • Tet offensive - viet cong launched a massive coordinated attack on almost every city and american base in south vietnam

    • Increases credibility gap, LBJ cant recover from it

• Robert Kennedy, JFK’s brother, grew popular as antiwar democratic candidate; shortly before election was assassinated

• Democratic National Convention protesters gathered to demand another antiwar candidate and violent riots broke out

• 1968 Nixon runs for presidency on promise of ending war “peace with honor”

• 1969 vietnamization - nixon gradually withdrawing troops and returning fighting responsibility to the south vietnamese

• 1970 nixon expands the war, vietnamization, but secretly expanding war into Cambodia without consulting congress

• Kent State massacre - student protests on college campuses

• My Lai Massacre - American soldiers kill 420 civilians in a south vietnamese village

• Pentagon Papers - secret govt documents leaked to the public in 1971 of all of the failures of the U.S. in Vietnam

• 1972 Detente with China and the Soviet Union

  • Taking advantage nixon visited china to improve relationship and future trade relations

  • Fearing a close American-Chinese relationship the Soviet Union also welcomed a visit from Nixon

• 1973 Paris Peace Accords - U.S. exits from South Vietnam

• 1975 fall of Saigon - Nixon pledged support to South Vietnam but can't because of resignation from watergate scandal

  • Going to hurt cold war; and increase mistrust of U.S. govt

• LBJ (gulf of tonkin resolution) and nixon (bombing cambodia) had stretched the president's power to wage war

  • War powers act - limited the president's war power, more given to congress

UNIT 8.9

Truman - square deal

FDR - new deal

Truman - fair deal

JFK - new frontier

LBJ - Great Society

• LBJ’s domestic agenda that expanded fed power to create reforms; expanded Square Deal, New Deal, Fair Deal, and New Frontier

• 1. Issue of poverty

  • “War on Poverty”

  • Reformed welfare system, free daycare

  • Job Corps - educational program for at risk youth obtain jobs

  • VISTA - peace corps type work in poor areas

  • Fed govt began issuing food stamps to help poor afford food

• 2. Issue of Civil Rights

  • Civil Rights Act of 1964 stopped segregation in public places

  • Voting rights act of 1965 protected black suffrage

• 3. Issue of Healthcare

  • Medicare - healthcare to those over 80

  • Medicaid - social security expanded healthcare to poor and disabled

• 4. Issue of Education

• 5. Issue of Immigration

  • Immigration act of 1965 ended quota limits that had discriminated against certain immigrants since the 1920s

  • Immigration from asia and latin america increased dramatically

• 6. Issue of Environment

  • Environmental protection agency to provide fed action and regulations to protect environment

• Warren court: chief justice earl warren presided over many significant supreme court rulings

  • Brown v. Board of Education - ruled that school segregation was unconstitutional

  • Right of Due Process

    • Mapp v. Ohio - 1961 ruled that evidence in court must be obtained with a warrant

    • Gideon v. Wainwright - 1963 everyone is entitled to a lawyer

    • Miranda v. Arizona - 1966 those being arrested must be informed of their constitutional rights

  • Rights of Free Expression

    • Engel v. Vitale - 1962 ruled against state required prayer in schools

    • Yates v. U.S. - 1957 1st amendment protected radical and revolutionary speech

    • Griswold v. Connecticut - 1965 citizen’s right to privacy, state could not prohibit the use of contraceptives by adults

  • Morgan v. Virginia 1946 made state laws requiring segregation on buses illegal for interstate travel; supreme court decision, not enforced

• CORE Congress of Racial Equality founded in 1942

  • Sponsored “Freedom Rides” on busses throughout the South

  • Testing enforcement of Morgan

• Desegregating the Armed Forces

  • Committee on Civil Rights in 1946 - strengthened civil rights division of the justice department

  • Executive Order 9981 signed July 1948 FDR created the Fair Employment Practices Commision to end discrimination in defense industries

  • The “Double V” campaign - black leader promoted fighting against

• Dixiecrats want to uphold segregation and Jim Crow, opposed to Truman’s civil rights policies, started split of south from democratic party

• Brown v. Board of Education Topeka, Kansas

  • 1951 NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall begins to fight segregation in schools

  • Linda brown wanted to attend an all white school

  • Argued that their 14th amendment rights were violated

  • “Equal protection” - equal educational opportunities

  • Decision in 1954 Warren overturned Plessy v. Ferguson “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. It has no place in public education.”

  • 80% of southerners were against Brown decision - Southern Manifesto signed by 101 congressmen that the decision contradicted the constitution

• Crisis in Little Rock, AK 9 african american students enrolled in a school in 1957 Eisenhower had to send 1,000 fed troops to forcibly integrate schools

• Montgomery bus boycott 1955-56 - december 1st rosa parks is arrested for refusing to give up her seat

• MLK emerged as the leader of the civil rights movement; civil disobedience campaign

  • Southern christian leadership conference in 1957, led by ministers

• Student nonviolent coordinating committee in 1960

  • Sit-ins, 1st began in Greensboro, NC on Feb. 1 1960

  • Kennedy was forced to act, ordered fed marshalls to bus depots

  • Robert kennedy petitions the ICC to issue an order for integration in Nov 1961

• Showdown in birmingham, AL, MLK is arrested and writes letter

  • Birmingham closed parks, playgrounds, pools to avoid desegregation

  • SCLC began using children in a “Children’s Crusade”

  • Images shown on national tv, public is outraged

  • Several bombings, 3,000 fed troops sent to end violence

• JFK announces a civil rights bill on June 11 sent to Congress

• March on Washington 1963, 250,00 protestors, “I have a dream” speech

• 24th amendment ratified january 1964 abolished poll tax in national elections

• Civil Rights Act of 1964

  • Forbid segregation in any public facilities, government, education, and invalidated Jim Crow laws

  • Created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to enforce the law

  • Government could deny money to states who were not following the law

• Mississippi: Freedom Summer Project

  • SNCC wants to register black voters

  • Less than 5% of the African-American community was registered

  • Over 900 volunteers (mainly while college students) went to the South to try to register votes

  • Violence: 6 brutally murdered, 80 beatings, 35 shootings, 30 bombings, over 1,000 arrests

  • Registered over 60,000 african americans

• March from selma to montgomery 1965

  • Met with violence

• Voting Rights Act of 1965

  • Authorized fed supervision of voter registration

  • Outlawed all literacy and other discriminatory tests for voter registration

• Affirmative action 1965 - policy that take race, ethnicity, or gender into consideration in an attempt to promote equal opportunity or increase ethnic diversity, results in more minorities enroll in college

• June 1967 Thurgood Marshall

• Nation of Islam, Malcolm X, Black Panther movement

• Stokely carmichael, leader of SNCC in the late 1960s, believed in “black power”; transformed SNCC into an all black organization

• The long hot summers 1964-68 racial riots in major cities

  • Watts riot (LA) august 1965 for 6 days