7.14: WW2 & Postwar Diplomacy

Casablanca: In January 1943, Roosevelt and Churchill agreed on the grand strategy to win the war, including to invade Sicily and Italy and to demand “unconditional surrender” from the Axis powers.

Tehran: The first wartime Big Three conference brought together Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill at Tehran, Iran in 1943. They agreed that Britain and America would begin their drive to liberate France and the Soviets would invade Germany and eventually join the war against Japan. 

Yalta: The Big Three met again in February 1945 at the Yalta Conference. There agreement at Yalta would prove the most historic of the three meetings. After victory in Europe was achieved, they agreed that:

• The Allies would divide Germany into occupation zones

• Liberated countries of Eastern Europe would hold free elections

• Soviets would enter the war against Japan, which they did on August 8, 1945 *just as Japan surrendered

• Countries would hold a conference in San Francisco to form a new world peace organizations (the future United Nations)

Potsdam: In late July, after Germany’s surrender, only Stalin remained as one of the Big Three. Truman was the US president and Clement Attlee had just been elected the new British prime minister. The three leaders met in Potsdam, Germany and agreed:

1. demand Japan to surrender unconditionally

2. Germany and Berlin would be divided into 4 Allied occupation zones controlled by the US, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union

The War’s Legacy

Human and Economic Costs: After defeating the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) in WWII the United States was on top of the world. It was the only major war power to not have suffered fighting on its land, plus it had lost a relatively smaller number of soldiers (418,000) compared to some of its allies. On the other hand, The USSR probably lost around 10,000,000 soldiers and an equal number of civilians. The war left the US in huge national debt.

Postwar Agreements: The United States dominated war-ravaged Asia and Europe politically and economically and used this power to shape much of the post-war world and agreements. 

The Paris Peace Treaties were a series of international agreements signed in the French capital, Paris, in 1947 and 1948, that officially ended World War II and established the post-war order in Europe.

• The Treaty of Peace with Italy stripped Italy of its colonies, its empire, and its territories, and reduced its military capabilities.

• The Treaty of Peace with Japan imposed restrictions on Japan's military and territorial holdings and required reparations to be paid to the countries that had been occupied by Japan during the war. In some countries, these agreements were seen as harsh and punitive, and they did not bring the peace and stability that was expected.

One of the most important agreements was the Nuremberg Trials. The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals meant to prosecute prominent leaders of Nazi Germany for war crimes, crimes against peace, and crimes against humanity. The trials included representatives from the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and France, Many were found guilty of systematically killing Jews - known as the Holocaust.

The United Nations: Unlike its rejection of the League of Nations following WW1, the US accepted and joined the United Nations. The UN was established after WW2, in the wake of the atrocities of the Holocaust and the devastation of the war.

The UN Charter, which was signed by 51 nations in San Francisco on June 26, 1945, sets out the organization’s purposes and principles, including the promotion of human rights, the peaceful resolution of disputes, and the provision of humanitarian assistance.

The UN also adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which set out the fundamental rights and freedoms that are entitled to all human beings, regardless of race, gender, religion, or any other status.

Expectations: Americans had concerns about what world order might emerge after WW2, but they also shared hopes that life would be more prosperous. The US had emerged as a dominant global power in 1945 and people looked forward with some optimism in both a more peaceful and more democratic world.

However, the spectors of the Soviet Union dominating Eastern Europe and gaining the A-bomb would soon dim expectations for cooperation. In 1946, the US presented a plan to the United Nations for the control of atomic weapons and disarmament, but the Soviet Union vetoed the plan and developed its own atomic weapons. The breakdown in cooperation with the Soviet Union ushered in a period of Cold War between the democracies and capitalist economies of the West and the Communist political and economic ideologies of the East.

8.2: The Cold War from 1945-1980

Origins of the Cold War

The Cold War dominated international relations from the late 1940s to the collapse of the Soviet Union (USSR) in 1991. The Cold War conflict centered around the intense rivalry between 2 superpowers: Communist Soviet Union vs the US (the leading Western democracy)

Superpower competition was usually through diplomacy and indirectly through armed conflicts among allies (but rarely through direct military actions against each other). However, in some instances, the Cold War took the world dangerously near nuclear war.

US-Soviet Relations to 1945: The wartime alliance btwn the US and the USSR against the Axis Powers was actually a temporary halt in their bad relations of the past.

Since the Bolshevik Revolution that established a Communist government in Russia in 1917, Americans had viewed the Soviets as a threat to all capitalistic countries. In the US, it led to the Red Scare of 1919.

Allies in World War 2: During WW2 (in 1941), Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union & Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor led to US-Soviet alliance out of convenience (NOT mutual trust)

Postwar conflicts over Central & Eastern Europe were evident in the negotiations at Yalta & Potsdam. Even though, Roosevelt hoped that personal diplomacy might keep Stalin in check, Truman quickly became suspicious of the Soviets.

Postwar Cooperation & the United Nations: The founding of the United Nations (UN) was created to provide representation to all member nations.

• The UN’s Security Council was given the priary responsibility within the UN for maintaining international security and authorizing peacekeeping missions.

  • The US, Great Britain, France, China, & The Soviet Union were granted permanent seats and veto power in the UN Security Council

  • Optimists hoped that these nations would be able to reach agreement on international issues

Satellite States in Eastern Europe: Soviet forces remained in occupation of the Central and Eastern European countries. Despite promising holding free election in the Yalta agreement, elections were bent in favor of Communist candidate and Communist dictators started to come to power in Eastern European countries. Russia believed it needed buffer states (or satellite states: nations under the control of a great power) as a protection barrier against another Hitler-like invasion from the West

US & British govs were alarmed by Soviet influence in Eastern Europe and believed that the Soviets’ actions were a violation of self-determination, democracy, and open markets.

Occupation Zones in Germany: At the end of WW2, the division of Germany & Austria into Soviet, French, British, and US occupation zones was only meant to be temporary. However, in Germany, the eastern zone under Soviet occupation gradually evolved into a Communist state.

• Conflict over Germany was a conflict over differing views of national security & economic needs

  • Soviets wanted a weak Germany for security reasons and large war reparations for economic reasons

  • US and Great Britain refused to allow reparations from their western occupation zones b/c they viewed the economic recovery of Germany as important to the stability of Central Europe

The Soviets began to tighten their control over Eastern Germany, fearing a restored Germany. Berlin, Germany being a part of the Soviets’ zone, caused Soviets to try to force Western powers to give up their sectors of the city.

Iron Curtain: On March 1946, in Fulton, Missouri, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill declared that “an iron curtain has descended across the continent” of Europe.

• The Iron Curtain metaphor was later used throughout the Cold War to refer to the division btwn the US allies in Western Europe & the Soviet allies in Eastern Europe.

  • Churchill’s “iron curtain” speech called for a partnership between Western democracies to stop the spread of communism

Containment in Europe

In 1947, President Harry S. Truman adopted a containment policy which was designed to prevent Soviet expansion without starting a war. This policy would guide US foreign policy for the next couple of decades

• Truman’s containment policy was formulated by: George Marshall (Secretary of State), Dean Acheson (Undersecretary of State), & George F. Kennan.

  • Kennan believed that containment of the expansion of communism would eventually cause the Soviets to back off their plan to spread communism and to live in peace with other nations

Critics of the containment policy argued that it was too ambitious and considered some areas vital to US security and others more peripheral. Further, some governments deserved US support but other did not. American leaders did not want to appease dictators and felt that Communist aggression must be challenged.

The Truman Doctrine

Truman first implemented the containment policy in response to 2 threats:

1. A Communist-led uprising against the government in Greece

2. Soviet demands for some control of a water route in Turkey, the Dardanelles

In the Truman Doctrine, Truman asked Congress for $400 million in economic and military aid to assist the “free people” of Greece & Turkey against “totalitarian”regimes and it gained support by Republicans & Democrats in Congress.

The Marshall Plan

After the end of WW2, Europe laid in ruins, short on food and deeply in debt, demoralizing Europeans. Discontent encouraged the growth of the Communist Party and the Truman administration feared that the Western democracies might vote the Communists into power.

In June 1947, George Marshall created a program of US economic aid to help European nations revive their economies and strengthen democratic governments, called the Marshall Plan. The plan was approved for distribution to Western European countries by Congress in 1948 after Truman submitted it to them. The US offered Marshall Plan aid to the Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellite states but the Soviets refused it, believing that it would lead to dependence on the US.

The Marshall Plan worked exactly as Marshall & Truman thought it would. It helped Western Europe achieve self-sustaining growth by the 1950s and ended any real threat of Communist political successes.

• It also bolstered US prosperity by increasing US exports to Europe but also caused more tensions between the democratic West and Communist East.

Berlin Airlift

In June 1948, the Soviets cut off all access by land to Berlin. Truman did not want to withdraw from Berlin but also did not want to use force to open up any entrances to the Soviet controlled eastern zone.

Instead, Truman ordered US planes to fly in supplies for the people of West Berlin and send 60 bombers capable of carrying atomic bombs to bases in England.

Stalin decided not to challenge the airlift while the world was waiting nervously for the outbreak of war.

By May 1949, Soviets finally opened up entrances to Berlin, bringing their 11-month blockade to an end.

• One major long-term consequence of the Berlin crisis was the creation of 2 Germanys: the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany, a US ally) and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany, a Soviet satellite) and Berlin (located within the Eastern side of Germany aka GDR) was divided into sectors that were either allied with the US or Soviets.

NATO

The US joined 10 other European nations and Canada in creating NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), a military alliance for defending all members from outside attack.

Truman appointed General Dwight D. Eisenhower as NATO’s first Supreme Commander and stationed US troops in Western Europe as a deterrent against Soviet invasion. Thus, the containment policy led to a military buildup and major commitments abroad.

The Soviet Union would counter this in 1955 by forming the Warsaw Pact, a military alliance for the defense of the Communist states of Eastern Europe.

National Security Act (1947)

The US started to modernize its military capability thru the National Security Act of 1947 which provided:

1. a centralized Department of Defense (replacing the War Department) to coordinate the operations of the army, navy, & air force

2. the creation of the National Security Council (NSC) to coordinate foreign policy

3. creation of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to gather info on foreign govs

In 1948, the Selective Service System and peacetime military draft were instituted.

Atomic Weapons

After the Berlin crisis, scientists of the Soviet Union and the US were in an arms race to develop superior weapons systems.

From 1945-1949, the US was the only nation that had the atomic bomb and also developed long-range bombers for delivering nuclear weapons.

The Soviets tested their 1st atomic bomb in 1949 and Truman approved the development of a bomb 1000x more powerful than the Hiroshima A-bomb. In 1952, the H-bomb (hydrogen bomb) was added to the US’ arsenal of weapons.

In 1950, National Security Council recommended in the secret report, NSC-68, that the following measure were necessary to fight the Cold War:

• quadruple US gov defense spending to 20% GNP

• convince the American public that a costly arms buildup was important for the nation’s defense

• form alliances with non-Communist countries around the world

Evaluating US Policy: Critics of NATO and the defense buildup argued taht teh Truman administration intensified Russian fears and started an unnecessary arms race.

NATO became one of the most successful military alliances in history. In combo with the deterrent power of nuclear weapons, NATO effectively checked Soviet expansion in Europe and thereby maintained an uneasy peace until the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

Cold War in Asia

The succesful containment policy that was happening in Europe did not go as well in Asia. After WW2, the old imperialist system in India/Southeast Asia crumbled as former colonies became new nations. Because they had different cultural and political traditions and bitter memories of Western colonialism, they resisted US influence. Ironically, the Asian nation that became most closely tied to the US defense system was its former enemy, Japan.

Japan

Japan was solely under the control of the US. General Douglas MacArthur took charge of the reconstruction of Japan.

7 Japanese generals, including Premier Hideki Tojo, were tried for war crimes and executed. Under MacArthur’s guidance, the new constitution adopted in May 1947 set up a parliamentary democracy.

• It retained Emperor Hirohito as the ceremonial head of state, but the emperor gave up his claims to divinity.

• It also renounced war as an instrument of national policy and provided for only limited military capability. As a result, Japan depended on military protection from the US

US-Japanese Security Treaties: With the signing of the treaties of 1951, Japan gave up its claims to Korea and some Pacific Islands. The US ended its occupation of Japan, but US troops remained in military bases in Japan for its protection against external enemies, particularly Communists. Japan became a strong ally and prospered under the American shield.

The Phillippines & the Pacific

On July 4, 1946, the Phillippines became an independent republic, but the US retained important naval and air bases there throughout the Cold War. These bases, together with US control of the UN trustee islands taken from Japan at the end of the war, made the islands in the Pacific Ocean area more American.

Chinese Civil War

Since coming to power in the 1920s, Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jie-shi), commander of the Chinese Nationalist or Kuomintang Party controlled China’s central government. During WW2, the US had given massive military aid to Chiang to prevent all of China from being conquered by Japan. As soon as the war ended, a civil war was renewed betwen Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists and Mao Zedong’s Chinese Communists. The Nationalists were losing the loyalty of millions of Chinese due to inflation and widespread corruption, while the well-organized Communists successfully appealed to poor, landless peasants.

The Truman administration sent George Marshall to China to negotiate an end to the civil war, but his compromise didn’t work. By 1947, Chiang’s armies were retreating and after ruling out a large-scale American invasion to rescue Chiang, Truman wasn’t sure what to do. In 1948, Congress voted to give the Nationalist government $400 million in aid, but 80% of the US military supplies ended up in Communist hands because of corruption and the collapse of the Nationalist armies.

By the end of 1949, all of mainland China was controlled by the Communists. Chiang and the Nationalists had retreated to Taiwan. The US continued to support Chiang and refused to recognize Mao Zedong’s regime in Beijing (The People’s Republic of China) until 1979.

In the US, Republicans blamed Democrats for the loss of China to communism. In 1959, Stalin and Mao Zedong signed the Sino-Soviet Pact, adding fears of a worldwide Communist conspiracy.

Korean War

After the defeat of Japan, its former colony, Korea was divided along the 38th Parallel. Soviets occupied the Korean territory that was north of the 38th parallel while US forces occupied the Korean territory south of the 38th parallel. By 1949, both armies were withdrawn, leaving the North in the hands of Communist leader, Kim Il Sung, and the South under the conservative nationalist, Syngman Rhee.

Invasion: On June 25, 1950, the North Korean army invaded South Korea. Truman took immediate action by applying his containment policy. He called for a special session of the UN Security Council and taking advantage of a temporary boycott by the Soviet delegation, the Security Council under the US leadership authorized a UN force to defend South Korea against North Korean invaders. Commanding the UN force was General Douglas MacArthur. Congress supported the use of US troops in Korea but failed to declare war, accepting Truman’s characterization of US intervention as a “police action”.

Counterattack: At first the war in Korea was going bad as North Koreans pushed South Korean & US forces to the peninsula. However, General MacArthur changed this through an assault at Inchon behind North Korean lines. UN forces then preceded to destroy much of the North Korean army, advancing northward, close to the Chinese border. MacArthur failed to listen to China’s warnings that it would resist threats to security. In November 1950, masses of Chinese troops crossed the border into Korea, overwhelming UN forces and driving them out of North Korea.

Truman vs. MacArthur: MacArthur stabilized the fighting near the 38th parallel and called for expanding the war, including bombing and invading China. As commander in chief, Truman cautioned MacArthur about making public statements that suggested criticizing US policy but MacArthur spoke out anyway. In April 1951, Truman and the Joint Chiefs Staff recalled MacArthur for insubordination. MacArthur returned from war as a hero and most American understood his statement of “there is no substitute for victory” better than the president’s containment policy and concept of “limited war”. Critics attacked Truman and the Democrats as appeasers for not trying to destroy Communism in Asia.

Stalemate: Neither side in Korea seemed able to win and fighting was stalled along a front north of the 38th parallel. In Panmunjom, peace talked began in July 1951.

Political Consequences: Truman’s containment policy in Korea worked as it stopped Communist aggression without allowing the conflict to develop into a world war. The Truman administration used the Korean War as justification for dramatically expanding the military, funding a the B-52 jet bomber, and stationing more US troops overseas.

However, Republicans were not satisfied. The stalemate in Korea and the success of Mao Zedong in China led Republicans to characterize Truman and the Democrats as “soft on communism”. The Republicans went on to win the presidential race in 1952 with General Dwight Eisenhower.

Eisenhower & The Cold War

President Dwight D. Eisenhower focused on foreign policy and international crises arising from the Cold War. Eisenhower’s Secretary of State, John Dulles, helped shape US foreign policy throughout Eisenhower’s presidency.

Dulle’s Diplomacy: Dulles thought that Truman’s containment policy was too passive and advocated US foreign policy that took iniative in challenging the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China. Dulles talked of “liberating captive nations” of Eastern Europe and encouraging the Chinese Nationalist Gov of Taiwan to assert itself against “Red” (Communist) China. Dulles believed that by declaring that if the US pushed Communist powers to the brink of war, they would back down because of American nuclear superiority (aka brinkmanship). In the end, however, Eisenhower prevented Dulles from carrying out his ideas to an extreme.

Massive Retaliation: Dulles advocated relying more on nuclear weapons and air power and spending less on conventional military forces because this might save money, help balance the federal budget, and increase pressure on potential enemies.

In 1953, the US developed the first H-bomb (hydrogen bomb) but within a year, the Soviets caught up to the US with an H-bomb of their own. To some, the policy of massive retaliation looked more like a policy of mutual annihilation. Nuclear weapons were a powerful deterrent against the superpowers fighting an all-out war between themselves.

However, nuclear weapons didn’t prevent superpower involvement in smaller wars that erupted in Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. With the US and Soviet Union supporting opposing sides, these conflict could expand, resulting in hundreds of thousands of casualties, but the superpowers, fearing escalation, refused to use even small nuclear weapons in these wars.

Korean Armistice: Diplomacy, the threat of nuclear war, and the death of Stalin in March 1953 led China and North Korea to agree to an armistice and an exchange of prisoners in July 1953. The fighting stopped and most US troops were withdrawn. Korea remained divided near the 38th parallel, without a permanent peace treaty.

US-Soviet Relations

US diplomatic relations with its chief political and military rival, the Soviet Union was crucial to US security and throughout Eisenhower’s presidency, their diplomatic relations fluctuated between periods of calm and extreme tension.

Spirit of Geneva: After Stalin’s death, Eisenhower called for a slowdown in the arms race and presented to the UN an “atoms for peace” plan. The Soviet showed signs of wanting to reduce Cold War tensions and withdrew their troops from Austria and established peaceful relations with Greece & Turkey.

By 1955, a desire for improved relations on both sides resulted in a summit meeting in Geneva, Switzerland between Eisenhower and new Soviet premier, Nikolai Bulganin. At this conference, the US president proposed an “open-skies” policy over each other’s territory where it was open to aerial photography by the opposing nation in order to eliminate the chance of a surprise nuclear attack. The Soviets rejected the proposal but nevertheless the “spirit of Geneva” conference produced the first thaw in the Cold War. Even more encouraging from the US POV, was a speech made by new Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev in early 1956 when he denounced the crimes of Joseph Stalin and supported “peaceful coexistence” with the West.

Hungarian Revolt: The relaxation in the Cold War encouraged workers Ii in East Germany and Poland to demand reforms from their Communist governments. In October 1956, a popular uprising in Hungary succeeded in overthrowing a government backed by Moscow. The new, more liberal leaders wanted to pull Hungary out of the Warsaw Pact, the Communist security organization. This was too much for the Kremlin, and Khrushchev sent in Soviet tanks to crush the freedom fighters and restore control over Hungary. The United States took no action in the crisis. Eisenhower feared that sending troops to aid the Hungarians would touch off a major war in Europe. In effect, by allowing Soviet tanks to roll into Hungary, the United States gave de facto recognition to the Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe and ended Dulles's talk of "liberating" this region. Soviet suppression of the Hungarian revolt also ended the first thaw in the Cold War.

Sputnik Shock: In 1957, the Soviet Union shocked the United States by launching the first satellites, Sputnik I and Sputnik II, into orbit around Earth. Suddenly, the technological leadership of the United States was open to question. To add to American embarrassment, U.S. rockets designed to duplicate the Soviet achievement failed repeatedly.

Critics attacked American schools for their math and science instruction and failure to produce more scientists and engineers. In 1958, Congress responded with the National Defense and Education Act (NDEA), which authorized hundreds of millions of federal dollars for schools for math, science, and foreign language education.

Also in 1958, Congress created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to direct the U.S. efforts to build missiles and explore outer space. Billions were appropriated to compete with the Russians in the space race.

Fears of nuclear war were intensified by Sputnik. The missiles that launched the satellites could also deliver thermonuclear warheads anywhere in the world in minutes, and there was no defense against them.

Second Berlin Crisis: With new confidence and pride based on Sputnik, Khrushchev pushed the Berlin issue in 1958 by giving the West six months to pull its troops out of West Berlin before turning over the city to the East Germans. The US refused to yield and to defuse the crisis, Eisenhower invited Khrushchev to visit the US in 1959 and the two agreed to put off the crisis and scheduled another summit conference in Paris for 1960.

U-2 Incident: Two weeks before the planned meeting in Paris, the Russians shot down a high-altitude U.S. spy plane (the U-2) over the Soviet Union. The incident exposed a secret U.S. tactic for gaining information. After its open-skies proposals had been rejected by the Soviets in 1955, the United States had decided to conduct regular spy flights over Soviet territory to find out about its enemy's missile program. Eisenhower took full responsibility for the flights- after they were exposed by the U-2 incident but his honesty proved to be a diplomatic mistake. Khrushchev denounced the United States and walked out of the Paris summit, temporarily ending the thaw in the Cold War.

Communism in Cuba

Perhaps more alarming than any other Cold War development during the Eisenhower presidency was the emergency of Cuba as a Communist country. Cuban revolutionary, Fidel Castro, overthrew the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959. At first, nobody knew whether Castro’s politics would be better or worse than the former dictator he overthrew but once in power, Castro nationalized American-owned businesses and properties in Cuba. Eisenhower retaliated by cutting off US trade with Cuba.

Castro then turned to the Soviets for support and also revealed that he was a Marxist and set up a Communist totalitarian state. Fearing communism being so close to the Florida border, Eisenhower authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to train anti-Communist Cuban exiles so they could invade Cuba and overthrow Castro. However, the decision to go ahead with the invasion would be up to the next president, John F. Kennedy.

Eisenhower’s Legacy

After leaving the White House, Eisenhower took credit for checking Communist aggression and keeping peace without the loss of American lives in combat. He also started the process of relaxing tensions with the Soviet Union. In 1958, he initiated the first arms limitations by voluntarily suspending aboveground testing of nuclear weapons.

"Military-Industrial Complex": In his farewell address as president, Eisenhower spoke out against the negative impact of the Cold War on U.S. society. He warned the nation to "guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence by the military-industrial complex." He feared the arms race was taking on a momentum and logic all its own. It seemed to some Americans in the 1960s that the United States was in danger of going down the path of turning into a military or imperial state.

John F. Kennedy’s Presidency

Bay of Pigs Invasion: Shortly after entering office, Kennedy approved a plan to use Cuban exiles to overthrow Castro’s regime. In April 1961, CIA-trained force of Cubans landed at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba but failed to set off a general uprising as planned. Anti-Castro Cubans surrendered after Kennedy rejected the idea of using US forces to save them. Castro used the failed invasion to get more aid from the Soviet Union and to strengthen his grip on power.

Berlin Wall: Kennedy agreed to meet Khrushchev in Vienna in the summer of 1961. Khruschev seized the opportunity to threaten the president by renewing Soviet demands that the US pull its troops out of Berlin but Kennedy refused. In August, East Germans, with Soviet backing, built a wall around West Berlin; its purpose was to stop East Germans from fleeing to West Germany. As the wall was being built, Soviet & US tanks faced off in Berlin. Kennedy called the reserves but did not try to stop the completion of the wall. In 1963, Kennedy traveled to West Berlin to assure its residents of continuing US support in his Ich Bin ein Berliner speech. The Berlin Wall stood as a symbol of the Cold War until it was torn down in 1989.

Cuban Missile Crisis (1962): In response to the Bay of Pigs Invasion, Castro invited Soviets to build underground missile sites that could launch missiles capable of reaching the US in minutes and the Soviet agreed. US reconnaissance planes soon discovered evidence of the construction and Kennedy responded by announcing to that he was setting up a naval blockade of Cuba until the weapons were removed. If Soviet ships challenged the US naval blockade, a full-scale nuclear war between the superpowers might result.

After 13 days of tension, Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles from Cuba in exchange for Kennedy’s promise not to invade Cuba.

The Cuban Missile Crisis affected both sides tremendously. Both sides established a telecommunications hotline between Washington and Moscow so the countries’ leaders could talk directly during a crisis. In 1963, the Soviet Union and US signed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty to end the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere. This first step in controlling the testing of nuclear arms was disrupted by a new round in the arms race for developing missile and warhead superiority.

Lyndon B. Johnson’s Presidency

After Kennedy’s assassination, his VP, Lyndon B. Johnson continued the containment policy that got the US to stop Communist expansion, especially in Vietnam. Johnson’s escalation of the Vietnam War came to dominate the foreign policy of his administration.

Despite the Vietnam War, President Johnson did negotiate agreements with the Soviet Union to control nuclear weapons.

• In the later 1960s, as a result of the costly arms race and its worsening relationship with-China, the Soviet Union sought closer relations with the United States. The Johnson administration signed the Outer Space Treaty and laid the foundation for the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks.

In July 1968, the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, where they agreed not to help other countries develop or acquire nuclear weapons. A planned U.S.- Soviet nuclear disarmament summit was cancelled after Soviet forces violently suppressed the Prague Spring, an attempt to democratize Czechoslovakia.

Nixon’s Presidency

President Nixon promised to bring Americans together after the turmoil of the 1960s. He was interested in international relations instead of domestic policy. Nixon and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, created a realist/pragmatic foreign policy that ended the Vietnam War and reduced Cold War tensions.

Detente: Nixon & Kissinger strengthened the US’ position in the world by taking advantage of the rivalry between China & Soviet Union. Their diplomacy brought about a detente (a deliberate reduction of Cold War tensions).

• Nixon had been a long critic of Communism and because of this he could improve relations with the Communist Regime in China without being called “soft on communism”. Nixon travelled to China to meet with Mao and his visit initiated diplomatic exchanges that led to US recognition of the Communist government in 1979.

Arms Control with the USSR: Nixon used his new relationship with China to pressure the Soviets to agree to a treaty limiting antiballistic missiles (ABMs).

• US diplomats got Soviet consent to freeze the number of ballistic missile carrying nuclear warheads. Even though this didn’t end the arms race, it was a significant step toward reducing Cold War tensions and bringing about detente.

Carter’s Presidency

After Nixon’s Watergate Scandal and the fall of South Vietnam, Nixon resigned from office and many Americans lost their trust in their government. Presidents faced strong opposition in Congress against further military interventions.

Soviets Invade Afghanistan: President Jimmy Carter attempted to continue the Nixon’s policy of detente with China and the Soviet Union. In 1979, the US ended its recognition of the Chinese Nationalist government in Taiwan as the official government of China and completed the first exchange of ambassadors with the People’s Republic of China.

At first, the detente moved ahead with the SALT II Treaty between the US and the Soviet Union in 1979, which limited the size of each superpower’s nuclear delivery system. The Senate never ratified the treaty due to the renewal of the Cold War tensions with the Soviet Union over Afghanistan.

In December 1979, Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan (this led to an end of a decade of improving US-Soviet relations). The US feared that the invasion might lead to Soviets controlling the oil-rich Persian Gulf. Carter reacted to this by:

1. Placing an embargo on grain exports and the sale of high technology to the Soviet Union

2. Boycotting the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.

After campaigning for arms reduction, Carter ended up switching to building up arms. At the end of Carter’s administration, relations with the Soviet Union were back to being hostile and confrontational.

8.3: The Red Scare

Rooting Out Communists

The Red Scare was a period of fear and persecution in the United States that occurred twice in the 20th century, first from 1917 to 1920 and again in the 1950s. It was fueled by a fear of communism and radical leftist ideologies and resulted in widespread government repression and the persecution of individuals and groups believed to be associated with these ideologies.

In 1947, the Truman administration, under pressure from Republican critics, set up a Loyalty Review Board to investigate the background of more than 3 million federal employees. They wanted to identify and remove individuals who were thought to be security risks or had ties to communist or other subversive organizations.

• The program was run by the and was supported by the FBI, which allowed them to conduct extensive background checks on federal employees.

• As a result of the program, hundreds of federal employees were dismissed from their jobs or resigned under pressure.

Prosecutions Under the Smith Act: In addition, leaders of the American Communist Party were jailed for advocating the overthrow of the US. government.

• In the case of Dennis et al. v. United States (1951), the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Smith Act of 1940, which made it illegal to advocate or teach the overthrow of the government by force or to belong to an organization with this objective.

McCarran Internal Security Act (1950): Over Truman’s veto, Congress passed the McCarren Internal Security Act, also known as the Internal Security Act of 1950, which aimed to protect the country from communist subversion through the following methods:

1. By making it unlawful to advocate or support the establishment of a totalitarian government.

2. By restricting the employment and travel of those joining Communist organizations

3. By authorizing the creation of detention camps for subversives.

House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC): In the House of Representatives, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), originally established in 1939 to seek out Nazis, was reactivated in the postwar years to find Communists. The committee not only investigated government officials but also looked for communist influence in such organizations as the Boy Scouts and in the Hollywood film industry. Actors, directors, and writers were called before the committee to testify. Those who refused were tried for contempt of Congress.

• Many of those investigated, including artists and government employees as well, were blacklisted and lost their jobs as a result of their association with the committee.

Espionage Cases

The fear of a Communist conspiracy bent on world conquest was supported by a series of actual cases of Communist espionage in Great Britain, Canada, and the United States.

• The methods used to identify Communist spies, however, raised serious questions about whether the government was going too far and violating civil liberties in the process.

Hiss Case: Whittaker Chambers, a confessed Communist, became a star witness for the HUAC in 1948. His testimony, along with the investigative work of a young member of Congress from California named Richard Nixon, led to the trial of Alger Hiss, a prominent official in the State Department who had assisted Franklin Delano Roosevelt at the Yalta Conference. Chambers testified that he had given classified government documents to Hiss while they were both members of the Communist party in the 1930s; however, Hiss denied the accusations. In 1950, however, he was convicted of perjury and sent to prison. Many Americans could not help wondering whether the highest levels of government were infiltrated by Communist spies.

Rosenberg Case: When the Soviets tested their first atomic bomb in 1949, many Americans were convinced that spies had helped them to steal the technology from the United States. Klaus Fuchs, a British scientist who had worked on the Manhattan Project, admitted giving A-bomb secrets to the Russians.

An FBI investigation traced another spy ring to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in New York. After a controversial trial in 1951, the Rosenbergs were found guilty of treason and executed in 1953.

Civil rights groups charged that anti-Communist hysteria was responsible for the conviction and execution of the Rosenbergs. Some saw the Rosenbergs as traitors who deserved the death penalty, while others saw them as victims of a government overreach and a violation of civil liberties.

Rise & Fall of Joseph McCarthy

Joseph McCarthy, a Republican senator from Wisconsin, used the growing concern over communism to advance his political career.

In a speech in 1950, he claimed to have a list of 205 Communists who were working for the State Department. (In other speeches the number varied.) As the press publicized this sensational, though unproven, accusation, McCarthy became one of the most powerful leaders in America. Other politicians feared the damage McCarthy could do if he pointed his accusing finger toward them.

The speech triggered a 4 ½ year crusade to hunt down alleged Communists in government. This sensationalism became known as McCarthyism and is the reason why the Second Red Scare is also referred to as the McCarthy Era.

McCarthy’s Tactics: McCarthy used a steady stream of unsupported accusations about Communists in government to keep the media focus on himself and to discredit the Truman administration.

Army-McCarthy Hearings: In 1954, McCarthy's "reckless cruelty" was finally exposed on television. A Senate committee held televised hearings on Communist infiltration in the army, and McCarthy was seen as a bully by millions of viewers. In December, Republicans joined Democrats in a Senate censure of McCarthy. The "witch hunt" for Communists (McCarthyism) had played itself out. Three years later, McCarthy died a broken man.

Downfall of Red Scare: The Red Scare after World War II ran out of steam as it became clear that the fear of a Communist takeover of the United States was overblown.

However, the language, tactics, and threats of McCarthyism remained a concern for democracy whenever politics became bitter and partisan. Americans also pushed the fear of communism into the background after the Korean War armistice as average Americans enjoyed the booming economy of the 1950s

8.4: Economy after 1945

Postwar Economy

President Harry S. Truman (1945-1953) attempted to continue the New Deal economic policies after FDR but faced growing conservative opposition.

• Employment Act of 1946: Truman urged Congress to enact a series of progressive measures such as: national health insurance, increased minimum wage, and government commitment to maintaining full employment. After debate, the Employment Act of 1946, was enacted, creating the Council of Economic Advisers to advise the president and Congress on promoting national economic welfare. However, over the years, Republicans and conservative Southern Democrats stopped passage of Truman’s domestic program.

• GI Bill (Help for Veterans): The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 (aka the GI Bill) gave support during the transition of veterans to a peacetime economy. By focusing on a better educated workforce and promoting new construction, the federal government stimulated postwar economic expansion.

  • Veterans also received more than $16 billion in low-interest, government-backed loans to buy homes and farms and to start businesses.

  • Helped millions of GIs attend college and receive post-high school education & training —> led to a postwar boom in post-high school education

    • However, these government benefits helped White veterans far more than Black veterans. Most African American veterans returned to their homes in the South and most universities in the South did not admit Black students, so they couldn’t use educational benefits. Many banks also refused to make loans to African Americans.

    • While the GI Bill did help the economy overall, it also increased the racial wealth gap.

Baby Boom: There was an explosion of marriages and births after the war, as earlier marriages and larger families resulted in a population (baby boom) between 1945-1960. As the baby boom generation grew up, they profoundly affected US social institutions and economic life in the last half of the 20th century.

• The baby boom was initially focused on women’s attention to raising children and homemaking but more women continued to enter the workforce. By 1950, 1/3 of all married women worked outside the home.

Suburban Growth: The high demand for housing after the war led to a construction boom.

• William J. Levitt led in the development of postwar suburbia with his building/promotion of Levittown, a project of 17,000 mass-produced, low-priced family homes in Long Island, New York.

  • Levittown, however, was for White families only. African American families were not allowed to buy homes there. At that time, federal government policies, which subsidized loans for people purchasing homes, supported segregation in housing.

  • For many older inner cities, the effect of the mass movement to suburb was disastrous as by the 1960s, cities such as Boston and LA became increasingly poor and racially divided.

• Low interest rates on mortgages that were government insured and tax deductible made the move from the city to the suburb more affordable, leading a majority of middle-class Americans becoming suburbanites.

Rise of the Sun Belt: Due to the war, Americans moved more often in the postwar era. Warmer climate, lower taxes, and economic opportunities in defense-related industries attracted many GIs and their families to the Sun Belt states (Florida to California).

• By transferring tax dollars from the Northeast and Midwest to the South and West, military spending during the Cold War helped finance the shift of industry, people, and political power from one region to another.

Inflation & Strikes: Truman urged Congress to continue the price controls of wartime in order to hold inflation in check. Instead, Southern Democrats and Republicans relaxed the controls of the Office of Price Administration, resulting in an inflation rate of almost 25% during the 1st year and a half of peace.

• Workers and unions wanted wages to catch up after years of wage controls and more than 4.5 million workers went on strike in 1946. Strikes by railroad and mine workers threatened national safety and Truman seized the mine by using soldiers to keep them operating until the United Mine Workers finally called off its strike.

Truman vs. Republican Congress

Due to inflation & strikes, voters elected more Republican majorities in both houses of Congress in 1946. Congress, under Republican control, attempted to pass 2 tax cuts for upper-income Americans, but Truman vetoed both of them. Republicans tried to amend the Constitution and roll back some of the New Deal gains for labor.

• 22nd Amendment (1951): Going against the election of FDR as president 4 times, Republican-dominated Congress proposed a constitutional amend to limit a president to a max of 2 full terms in office.

• Taft-Hartley Act (1947): Congressed passed the pro-business Taft-Hartley Act. Truman vetoed this as a “slave-labor” bill but Congress overrode his veto. The purpose of this Republican law was to check the growing power of unions and its provisions included:

  • outlawing closed shop (requiring workers to join a union before being hired)

  • permitting states to pass “right to work” law outlawing the union shop (requiring workers to join a union after being hired)

  • outlawing secondary boycotts (the practice of several unions supporting a striking union by joining a boycott of a company’s products)

  • giving the president the power to invoke an 80-day cooling-off period before a strike endangering national safety could be called

• Years after the passage of this act, unions unsuccessfully tried to the Taft-Hartley Act repealed and it became a major dividing issue between Republicans and Democrats.

Truman continued to grow more and more unpopular, especially among Republicans but still won over Dewey in the election of 1948.

The Fair Deal: Truman launched the reform program, The Fair Deal, where he urged Congress to enact national health insurance, federal aid for education, civil rights legislation, public housing funds, and a new farm program but conservative in progress blocked most of those reforms except for the one that increased minimum wage and the inclusion of more workers under Social Security.

Most of the Fair Deals bill were defeated due to 2 reasons:

1. Truman’s political conflicts with Congress

2. Foreign policy concerns of the Cold War

Nevertheless, liberals praised Truman for trying to maintain New Deal reforms and making civil rights part of his liberal agenda.

Eisenhower in the White House (1953-1961)

Election of 1952: In the last year of Truman’s presidency, Americans wanted relief from the Korean War and an end to the mess in Washington and Republicans were hoping for a victory and nominated Dwight D. Eisenhower and Senator Richard Nixon as his running mate. Eisenhower pledge to end the Korean War helped Republicans win the election.

As president, Eisenhower emphasized the delegation of authority and filled his cabinet with successful corporate executives who made his administration more businesslike.

Modern Republicanism: Eisenhower was a fiscal conservative and his 1st priority was balancing the budget after years of deficit spending. He accepted most of the New Deal program as a part of modern life and expanded some of them.

• Social Security was extended to 10 million more citizens, minimum wage was increased, and additional public housing was built during Eisenhower’s presidency.

• Eisenhower consolidated welfare programs thru the creation of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW)

• A soil-bank program was initiated for farmers as a means to reduce farm production, thereby increasing farm income.

• Eisenhower opposed federal health insurance and federal aid to education.

  • As the 1st Republican president since Hoover, Eisenhower called his balanced/moderate approach “modern Republicanism”

Interstate Highway System: Eisenhower passed the Highway Act of 1956 which authorized the construction of 42,000 miles of interstate highways that linked all of the US’ major cities.

• The justification for new taxes on fuel, tires, and vehicles was to improve national defense by facilitating movements of troops and weapons.

• The construction of the Interstate Highway System created jobs, promoted the trucking industry, accelerated the growth of the suburbs, and contributed to a more homogenous national culture

• Emphasis on cars, trucks, and highways hurt railroads and the environment and little attention was paid to public transportation, which the poor and old depended on.

Prosperity: Eisenhower’s domestic legislation was modest and during his years in office, the US had steady economic growth. American income was much higher than it was compared to the 1920s and the postwar economy gave Americans the highest standard of living in the world at the time.

Economy under the Democrats (1961-1969)

John F. Kennedy promised to lead the US into a “New Frontier”.

New Frontier Programs: Kennedy called for aid to education, federal support of healthcare, urban renewal, and civil rights but his domestic programs were weak in Congress and most of them would be passed under Johnson. However, Kennedy did have some success in passing legislation for economic issues.

• Trade Expansion Act (1962): authorized tariff reductions with the new European Economic Community (Common Market) of Western European nations.

  • The economy was stimulated by increased spending for defense and space exploration, as Kennedy was committed to getting Americans to land on the moon by the end of the 60s

Johnson’s Domestic Reforms: After Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, VP Lyndon B. Johnson became president. Johnson promoted domestic programs that Kennedy had failed to get through Congress. He persuaded Congress to pass:

1. an expanded version of Kennedy’s civil rights bill

2. Kennedy’s proposal for an income tax cut —> this would cause an increase in consumer spending and jobs, leading to more economic expansion.

Johnson also implemented his Great Society reforms. Johnson use of the power of federal programs to attack the ills of society proved to be the high point of liberalism in the 20th century.

Nixon’s Domestic Policy

The election of Richard Nixon gave Republicans control of the White House but Democrats continued to hold the majority in both houses of Congress and Nixon, being a Republican had to deal with this reality through moderation and compromise. Nixon laid the foundation for a shift in public opinion toward conservatism and for Republican gains that would challenge and overthrow the Democratic control of Congress in the 1980s & 1990s.

The New Federalism: Nixon tried to slow the growth of Johnson’s Great Society programs thru the Family Assistance Plan, which would have replaced welfare by providing guaranteed annual income for working Americans but the Democratic majority in Congress defeated it.

Nixon succeeded in shifting responsibility for social programs from federal to the state and local levels thru:

• revenue sharing (or the New Federalism) where Congress gave local governments $30 billion in block grants over 5 years to address local needs as they saw fit (instead of using federal money according to priorities set in Washington)

  • Republicans hoped revenue sharing would check the growth of the federal government and return responsibility to the states.

Nixon tried to bypass Congress by not spending funds meant for social programs but Democrats protested that this was an abuse of executive power and the courts agreed, arguing that it was the president’s duty to carry out the laws of Congress, whether the president agreed with them or not.

Nixon’s Economic Policies: The recession in 1970 caused the US economy to face economic slowdown and high inflation aka stagflation.

To slow inflation, Nixon tried to cut federal spending but this contributed to recession and unemployment. Then he adopted Keynesian economics and deficit spending to not alienate the middle-class and blue-collar Americans.

• In August 1971, Nixon imposed a 90-day wage and price freeze. Then, he took the dollar off of the gold standard, which helped to devalue it relative to foreign currencies and imposed a 10% surtax on all imports.

These actions costed consumers but made US-produced goods more competitive with those made in other countries.

By 1972, the recession ended and Congress approved automatic increase for Social Security benefits based on annual rise in cost of living, which would protect seniors, the poor and the disabled from the worst effects of inflation but also contributed to the increasing costs of these programs in the future.

Ford & Carter Confront Inflation

In the 1970s, the biggest economic issue was the growing inflation rate.

President Gerald Ford (1974-1977) urged voluntary measures from businesses and consumers to fight inflation by minimizing price and wage increases. Inflation continued and the economy sank deeper into recession. Ford finally agreed to a Democratic package to stimulate the economy but vetoed most of the other Democratic Bills.

At first, President Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) tried to check inflation with measured aimed at conserving energy (particularly oil) and reviving US coal industry but Congress’ compromises failed to reduce the consumption of oil or to check inflation. By 1979-1980, inflation seemed to be completely out of control, reaching a rate of 13%.

Troubled Economy: Inflation slowed economic growth as consumers and businesses could no longer afford the high interest rates that came with high prices. Inflation also pushed middle-class taxpayers into higher tax brackets, leading to a taxpayers’ revolt.

Federal Reserve Board chairman, Paul Volcker, believed that breaking inflation was more important than reducing unemployment so the Federal Reserve pushed interest rates on loans even higher, hurting the automobile and building industries. However, it worked to reduce inflation.

Economic Shift in the 1970s: High inflation, high interest rates, and high unemployment in the 1970s changed the way Americans viewed the economy.

• The postwar economy of the 1940s & 1950s benefitted from booming private sector, strong unions, and high federal spending, the baby boom, and technological developments.

  • However, recovery of Japan, Germany, and other war-torn nations challenged the US’ position as the strongest economy in the world.

  • Less-expensive and better-built automobiles and other consumer products from factories overseas competed with American-made products and new technology required fewer workers; this combo led to an undercut of the high-paying manufacturing jobs that had expanded the middle class in the 50s and early 60s.

8.5: Culture after 1945

Learning Objective: Explain how mass culture has been maintained or challenged over time.

Consumer Culture & Conformity

Television, advertising, and the middle-class movement to the suburbs contributed mightily to the growing homogeneity of American culture.

Television became the center of American family homes. Programming was dominated by 3 national networks that presented viewers with bland menus of situation comedies, westerns shows, quiz shows, and sports.

The culture portrayed on TV (especially for 3rd & 4th gen White ethnic Americans) provided a common content for their common language. TV shows reinforced conservative values by depicting a stereotype of a suburb and families that had a father working a white-collar job and a mother who didn’t work outside of the home and everyone was white and middle class.

Advertising: In all media types, advertising name brands promoted common material wants, and the introduction of shopping centers in suburbs and plastic credit cards in the 1950s, which provided a quick way to satisfy these wants.

New marketing techniques led to the success of fast food restaurants and standardized products as Americans began to prefer franchise operations over mom and pop stores.

Paperback and Records: Paperback books were popular in the 1950s. Popular music was revolutionized by mass marketing of inexpensive LP (long-playing) record albums and teenagers liked rock and roll music (which was a blend of African American rhythm and blues sounds with White country music, which was popularized by Elvis Presley)

Corporate America: Conglomerates with diverse holdings began to dominate industries (i.e. food processing, hotels, transportation, insurance, banking). More American workers had white-collar jobs than blue-collar jobs, as working for a top comapny seemed to the road to success.

Large corporations promoted teamwork and conformity (such as dress codes for workers). Big unions became more powerful and conservative as blue-collar workers began to enjoy middle-class incomes.

• Social scientist, William Whyte documented the loss of individuality in The Organization Man (1956) —> key point was the people believed that organizations could make better decisions than individuals and serving an organization became preferable to developing one’s individual creativity.

For most Americans, conformity was a small price they were willing to pay for affluence, a suburban home, a new car every few years, good schools, and vacation.

Religion: Organized religions expanded after WW2 as new churches and synagogues were being built.

• Will Herberg’s book Protestant, Catholic, Jew (1955), commented on the new religious tolerance of the times and the lack of interest in doctrine, as religious membership became a source of individual identity and socialization.

Women’s Roles

The baby boom and being able to run a suburban home became a main job of American women. The traditional view of a woman’s role as caring for the children and the home was reaffirmed in mass media.

Dissatisfaction was growing at the time however, especially among well-educated middle class women. More married middle age women entered the work force but male employers primarily saw female employees as wives and mothers and women were paid lower wages compared to their male coworkers.

Social Critics

• The Lonely Crowd (1958): Harvard psychologist, David Riesman criticized the replacement of “inner-directed” individuals in society with “other-directed” conformities.

• The Affluent Society (1958): economist, John Kenneth Galbraith wrote about the failure of wealthy American to address the need for increased social spending for the common good.

• White Collar (1951) & The Power Elite (1956): sociologist William C. Wright Mills portrayed dehumanizing corporate worlds and threats to freedom

Popular novels at the time wrote about the individual’s struggle against conformity. Beatniks, a group of rebellious writers and intellectuals led by Jack Kerouac and poet Allen Ginsberg advocated spontaneity, use of drugs, and rebellion against societal standards.

• The beatniks would later become models for the youth rebellion of the 1960s

Assassination & the End of the Postwar Era

President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963 by Lee Harvey Oswald. The Warren Commission, headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren concluded Oswald as the assassin but unanswered questions about the events led to conspiracy theories pointing to possible involvement by organized crime, Fidel Castro, the Soviet Union, CIA, FBI.

The tragedy of Kennedy’s Assassination and doubts of the Warren Commission led to the beginning of a loss of credibility in government.

• The failure of the Vietnam War, conspiracy theories, and civil rights conflicts and shallow materialism of the 1950s raised more doubts about American society and culture leading to the development of counterculture.

8.6: Early Steps in the Civil Rights Movement (40s & 50s)

Origins of the Movement

African Americans had been fighting against racial discrimination since the 17th century. However, progress was slow until after World War II. As the 1950s began, African Americans in the South were still segregated by law from Whites in schools and in most public facilities. They were also kept from voting by poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses, and intimidation. Social segregation left most of them poorly educated, while economic discrimination kept them in a state of poverty.

Presidential Leadership Harry S. Truman (1945-1953) was the first modern president to use the powers of his office to challenge racial discrimination. Bypassing Southern Democrats who controlled key committees in Congress, the president used his executive powers to establish the Committee on Civil Rights in 1946.

• He also strengthened the civil rights division of the Justice Department, which aided the efforts of Black leaders to end segregation in schools.

  • Most importantly, in 1948 he ordered the end of racial discrimination throughout the federal government, including the armed forces. The end of segregation changed life on military bases, many of which were in the South.

• Recognizing the odds against the passage of civil rights legislation, Truman nevertheless also urged Congress to create a Fair Employment Practices Commission that would prevent employers from discriminating against the hiring of African Americans.

  • Southern Democrats blocked the legislation.

Desegregating Schools and Public Places

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) had been working through the courts for decades trying to overturn the Supreme Court's 1896 decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, which allowed segregation as long as facilities were "separate but equal." In the late 1940s, the NAACP won a series of cases involving higher education.

Brown Decision: One of the great landmark cases in Supreme Court history was argued in the early 1950s by a team of NAACP lawyers led by Thurgood Marshall. In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, they argued that segregation of Black children in public schools was unconstitutional because it violated the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal protection of the laws." In May 1954, the Supreme Court agreed with Marshall and overturned the Plessy decision. Writing for a unanimous Court, Chief Justice Earl Warren ruled that

1. separate facilities are inherently unequal and hence, unconstitutional

2. school segregation should end

Resistance in the South: Opposition to the Brown decision erupted throughout the South. 101 members of Congress signed the "Southern Manifesto" condemning the Supreme Court for a "clear abuse of judicial power."

States fought the decision several ways, including temporarily closing public schools and setting up private schools.

• The Ku Klux Klan made a comeback, and violence against African Americans increased.

Little Rock Nine: In Arkansas in 1956, when a federal court ordered school desegregation, Governor Orval Faubus used the state's National Guard to prevent 9 African American students from entering Little Rock Central High School.

• President Eisenhower then intervened.

• While the president did not actively support desegregation or the Brown decision, he understood his constitutional duty to uphold federal authority.

• Eisenhower ordered federal troops to stand guard in Little Rock and protect Black students.

• Resistance remained stubborn.

• In 1964, ten years after the Supreme Court decision, fewer than 2% of Black students in the South attended integrated schools.

Montgomery Bus Boycott

In 1955, as a Montgomery, Alabama, bus took on more White passengers, the driver ordered a middle-aged Black woman to give up her seat to one of them.

• Rosa Parks, an active member of the local chapter of the NAACP, refused.

• The police were called and arrested her for violating the segregation law.

• This arrest sparked a massive African American protest in the form of a boycott of the city buses.

The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., minister of a Montgomery Baptist church, soon emerged as the inspirational leader of a nonviolent movement to end segregation.

• The protest touched off by Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott resulted in the Supreme Court ruling that segregation laws were unconstitutional.

• The boycott also inspired other civil rights protests that reshaped America over the coming decades.

Nonviolent Protests

In 1957, Martin Luther King Jr. formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), which organized ministers and churches in the South to get behind the civil rights struggle.

In February 1960, college students in Greensboro, North Carolina, started the sit-in movement after being refused service at a Whites-only Woolworth's lunch counter.

• To call attention to the injustice of segregated facilities, students would deliberately invite arrest by sitting in restricted areas.

• Within a few months, young activists, including 23-year-old John Lewis, organized the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to promote voting rights and to end segregation.

• In the 1960s, African Americans used sit-ins to integrate restaurants, hotels, libraries, pools, and transportation throughout the South.

The results of the boycotts, sit-ins, court rulings, and government responses to pressure marked a turning point in the civil rights movement.

• Progress was slow, however. In the 1960s, a growing impatience among many African Americans would be manifested in violent confrontations in the streets.

Federal Laws

While President Eisenhower was skeptical about the Brown ruling, he did sign civil rights laws in 1957 and 1960.

• These were the first such laws to be enacted by the U.S. Congress since Reconstruction.

• They were modest in scope, providing for a permanent Civil Rights Commission and giving the Justice Department new powers to protect the voting rights of African Americans.

• Despite this legislation, southern officials still used an arsenal of obstructive tactics to discourage black citizens from voting.

The Court rulings and federal laws of the 1950s were only the beginning in the fight for racial justice.

• The movement for racial justice continued with decades of protests, legislation, and court decisions to win African Americans access to schools, public places, voting rights, housing, and employment.

• The effort took a state-by-state, county-by-county, city-by-city struggle against the entrenched traditions of segregation and discrimination in both the South and the North.

8.7: America as a World Power

Between 1947-1960, new nations emerged from colonies in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Most of them were former colonies of European empires. These new developing nations of the “Third World” (in contrast to the industrialized nations of the Western bloc and the Communist bloc) often lacked stable political and economic institutions and their need for aid from either the US or Soviet Union made them pawns of the Cold War.

Foreign Aid: The US used foreign aid to win over developing Third World nations during the Cold War. Some foreign aid was grant money with no strings attached but most of the time it was in the form of low-interest loans that came with restrictions, which poorer nations came to resent.

Despite foreign aid, many nations that were recipients, such as India & Egypt, refused to choose side in the Cold War and followed a policy of “nonalignment”

The Middle East

In the Middle East, the US tried to maintain friendly ties with oil-rich Arab states while also supporting the new state of Israel.

• Israel was created in 1948 under the UN after a civil war in the British mandate territory of Palestine left the land divided between the Israelis and Palestinians.

Covert Action: President Eisenhower’s administration conducted US foreign policy that increased the use of covert action because undercover invention in the politics of other nations was less likely to be objected by voters and was less expensive.

In 1953, the CIA helped overthrow a government in Iran that tried to nationalize the holding of foreign oil companies, which allowed for the return of Reza Pahlavi as shah (monarch) of Iran and in return, the shah gave the West favorable oil prices and made enormous purchases of American arms.

Suez Crisis: Led by Arab nationalist General Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egypt asked the US for funds to build the Aswan Dam on the Nile River but the US refused because Egypt threatened Israel’s security. Nasser then turned to the Soviet Union to help build the dam and the Soviets agreed to provide limited financing for it.

Looking for another source of funds, Nasser seized and nationalized the British & French-owned Suez Canal that passed thru Egyptian territory, causing an international crisis. Loss of the canal threatened Western Europe’s supply of Middle Eastern oil. In response to this threat, Britain, France, and Israel carried out a surprise attack against Egypt and retook the Canal.

In response, Eisenhower sponsored a UN resolution condemning the invasion of Egypt and under pressure from the world and the US, the invading force withdrew.

Eisenhower Doctrine: The US replaced Britain and France as the leading Western influence in the Middle East but faced growing Soviet influence in Egypt & Syria.

• The Eisenhower Doctrine (1957) pledged economic and military aid to any Middle Eastern country threatened by communism.

OPEC & Oil: Saudia Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, & Iran joined with Venezuela to form the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

• Members of OPEC hoped to expand their political power by coordinating their oil policies.

• Western dependence on Middle Eastern oil, Arab nationalism, and conflict between Israelis and Palestinians would lead to critical foreign policy issues.

Yom Kippur (October) War & Oil Embargo: On October 6, 1973, (on Yom Kippur, a Jewish holy day), Syrians and Egyptians launched a surprise attack on Israel in an attempt to recover the lands lost in the Six-Day War of 1967. Nixon ordered US nuclear forces on alert and sent arms to Israel. The battle ended with Israelis winning.

The US paid a huge price for supporting Israel.

• Arab member of OPEC placed an embargo on oil sold to Israel’s supporters, causing a worldwide oil shortage and long lines at gas stations in the US

  • This impacted the US economy terribly, causing US economy to suffer from runaway inflation, loss of manufacturing jobs, and lower standard of living

  • Consumers switched to smaller, more fuel-efficient Japanese cars from bigger American-made cars, costing US automobile workers’ jobs

• Congress responded to this by enacting a 55 mph speed limit to save gasoline and approving the construction of an oil pipeline to tap American oil reserves in Alaska.

  • This didn’t help boost the economy or reduce high inflation rates, which lasted until the end of the decade.

Camp David Accords: In 1977, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat visited Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in Jerusalem, taking the first step toward Middle East peace. President Carter followed this initiative by inviting Sadat and Begin to meet in Camp David, Maryland. With Carter acting as an intermediary, Sadat & Begin negotiated the Camp David Accords (September 1978), which provided a framework for a peace settlement between Egypt and Israel.

As a result of the Camp David Accords, Egypt became the 1st Arab nation to recognize Israel. In return, Israel withdrew its troops from the Sinai territory taken from Egypt in the Six-Day War of 1967.

• The treaty was opposed by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and most of the Arab world but it was a step toward negotiated peace in the Middle East

Iran & Hostage Crisis: In Iran, anti-American sentiment had been strong ever since the US helped overthrow Iran’s leader in 1953 and installed a dictatorship under the shah.

The shah provided the West with oil during the 1970s but his autocratic rule and policy of westernization had alienated a large part of the Iranian population.

In 1979, Islamic fundamentalists in Iran, led by the Ayatollah Khomeini, overthrew the shah. The shah escaped but Iranians demanded his return to stand trials for crimes against his people.

With the ayatollah and fundamentalists in power, Iranian oil exports came to a halt, causing a 2nd worldwide oil shortage and more price increases.

When the US allowed the shah into the country for medical treatment, Iranian militants seized the US embassy in Teheran and held more than 50 American staff members as prisoners/hostages.

This hostage crisis lasted until the end of Carter’s presidency. In April 1980, Carter approved a rescue mission but the US was forced to abort the mission. For Americans, Carter’s unsuccessful attempts to free the hostages symbolized a failed presidency.

Latin America

In 1954, Eisenhower approved a CIA covert action to overthrow a leftist government in Guatemala that threatened American business interests. US opposition to communism often drove the government to support corrupt and ruthless dictators (especially in Latin America). This kind of intervention in Latin American politics fueled Anti-American feelings in Latin America.

Kennedy’s Policies: President Kennedy set up the Peace Corps, an organization that recruited young American volunteers to give technical aid to developing countries.

• In 1961, Kennedy created the Alliance for Progress, a US program that promoted land reform and economic development in Latin America

  • However, CIA operations fueled Anti-American feelings in Latin America (such as: the Bay of Pigs Invasion that failed to overthrow Fidel Castro and plots to assassinate Communist/leftist leaders in Latin America)

Return of the “Big Stick”: President Johnson’s administration judged Western Hemisphere countries by their commitment against communism rather than their commitment to democracy.

• Johnson’s policy toward Latin America became more interventional, leading to the deployment of US soldiers to the Dominican Republic to prevent another Communist takeover in the Caribbean.

• In 1964, the US backed a right-wing military coup in Brazil.

• When Panamanians rioted against US control of the Panama Canal Zone, Johnson dealt with the violence firmly, but later agreed to negotiatoins that would eventually lead to the return of the Panama Canal Zone to Panama in 1999.

Johnson’s interventionist doctrine was the US would singlehandedly prevent any Communist government from coming to power in the Western Hemisphere (reminds some of Theodore Roosevelt’s “Big Stick” Policy)

Panama Canal: The Carter administration promoted human rights policy by trying to correct the inequities of the original Panama Canal Treaty of 1903 by negotiating a new one.

• In 1978, the Senate ratified a treaty that would gradually transfer operation and control of the Panama Canal from the US to Panama

Policies in Africa

The difficulties of nation building were especially challenging for newly created nations in Africa. Shortly after Belgium abruptly gave independence to the Congo in 1960, civil war broke out. Fearing a Communist victory, the United States helped the United Nations stop the insurrection. While the threat of a Communist takeover was overblown, the Kennedy administration's intervention into the shaky politics of the Congo caused resentment among African nationalists as another example of White colonialism.

Remnants of Colonialism: The Nixon administration strengthened ties with the White minority governments of Portuguese Angola, Rhodesia, and South Africa.

When Black rebels tried to overthrow colonial control in Angola, the CIA spent millions of dollars on covert actions to prevent the Communist-backed rebels from gaining power. Congress pulled funding from this scheme after Nixon’s resignation.

In 1976, The Soviet & Cuban backed party took control of Angola. After the Angola experience, the US decided to no longer back White minority governments with segragationist policies (apartheid) in Africa.

Human Rights Diplomacy: President Carter pushed human rights in his foreign policy and appointed Andrew Young, an African American, to serve as US ambassador to the UN. Carter and Young championed the cause of human rights around the world, opposing oppression of Black majorities in South Africa and Zimbabwe by all-White governments. In Latin America, human rights violations by the military governments of Argentina & Chile caused Carter to cut off US aid to those countries.

Limits of a Superpower

Economic Challenges: Increased foreign economic competition, oil shortages, rising unemployment, and high inflation made Americans aware that even the world’s leading superpower would have to adjust to a fast-changing and less manageable world.

• The US was cutting back on its foreign aid to developing nations. Overall in the world economy, the US seemed to be losing its competitive edge, which had been the foundation of its unrivaled political and military strength since WW2.

8.8: The Vietnam War

Eisenhower’s Domino Theory

By 1950, anticolonial war in Indochina became a part of the Cold War rivalry betweeen Communist and anti-Communist powers. Truman’s government started to give US military aid to the French, while China and Soviet Union aided the Viet Minh guerillas led by Ho Chi Minh.

In 1954, a large French army at Dien Bien Phu was trapped and forced to surrender. After this disastrous defeat, the French tried to convince Eisenhower to send in US troops but he refused.

At the Geneva Conference of 1954, France agreed to give up Indochina, which was divided into the Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam.

Division of Vietnam: By the terms of the Geneva Conference, Vietnam was to be temporarily divided at the 17th parallel until a general election could be held. However, Vietnam remained divided as 2 hostile governments took power on each other side of the 17th parallel.

• In North Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh established a Communist dictatorship.

• In South Vietnam, a government emerged under Ngo Dinh Diem, who supporters were largely anti-Communist, Catholic, and urban Vietnamese who fled from Communist rule in North Vietnam.

• The general election to unite Vietnam was never held because the South Vietnamese government feared that the Communists would win.

From 1955-1961, the US gave over economic and military aid to South Vietnam in an effort to build a stable anti-Communist state. President Eisenhower justified this aid through his domino theory, where if South Vietnam fell under Communist control, one nation after another in Southeast Asia would also fall, until Australia & New Zealand were in danger.

SEATO: To prevent South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from falling to communism, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles put together the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), a regional pact where the each country in the organization agreed to defend one another in case of an attack within the region.

• Countries involved were: US, Great Britian, France, Australia, New Zealand, the Phillippines, Thailand, and Pakistan

Escalation of the Vietnam War in the 1960s

The issue of Vietnam grew larger over time throughout the 60s.

Buildup under Kennedy: President Kennedy adopted Eisenhower’s domino theory and continued US military aid to South Vietnam, increased the number of military advisers to train the South Vietnamese army, and guarded weapons and facilities.

• However, Ngo Dinh Diem was not popular as he and his government lost a lot of support of peasants in the countryside and in the capital city of Saigon, Buddhist monks were setting themselves on fire in protest of Diem’s policies. Diem was later overthrown and killed by South Vietnamese generals, shortly after Kennedy’s assassination.

Tonkin Gulf Resolution: Lyndon Johnson became president just as things started to fall apart in South Vietnam. In August 1964, allegedly, North Vietnamese gunboats had fired on US warships in the Gulf of Tonkin.

• In response, President Johnson persuaded Congress that this act of aggression was a viable reason for a US military response.

• Congress approved the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which gave the president (as commander in-chief) a blank check to take “all necessary measures” to protect US interests in Vietnam. Johnson used this small, obscure naval incident to secure congressional authorization to send US forces into combat.

  • Critics said that full-scale US military response in Vietnam was an illegal war bc Congress never officially declared war (as the Constitution requires) but Congress did not withdraw the resolution.

• Until 1968, most Americans supported the effort to contain communism in Southeast Asia but Johnson was caught in a political dilemma where there was no good solution.

  • He could not find a way to defeat the weak,unpopular South Vietnamese government without making it into an American war, which would threaten his Greaty Society programs. However, if he pulled out of the war, he would be seen as weak on communism and lose public support.

America’s War

In 1965, the U.S. military and most of the president's foreign-policy advisers recommended expanding operations in Vietnam to savethe Saigon government.

After a Vietcong attack on the U.S. base at Pleiku in 1965, Johnson authorized Operation Rolling Thunder, a prolonged air attack using B-52 bombers against targets in North Vietnam. In April, the president decided to use U.S. combat troops for the first time to fight the Vietcong. By the end of 1965, more than 184,000 U.S. troops were in Vietnam, and most were engaged in a combat role.

Johnson continued a step-by-step escalation of U.S. involvement in the war. Hoping to win a war of attrition, American generals used search-and-destroy tactics, which only further alienated the peasants. By the end of 1967, the United States had more than 485,000 troops in Vietnam (the peak was 540,000 in March 1969), and 16,000 Americans had already died in the conflict. Nevertheless, General William Westmoreland, commander of the U.S. forces in Vietnam, assured the American public that he could see "light at the end of the tunnel."

Credibility Gap: Misinformation from military and civilian leaders combined with Johnson's reluctance to speak openly to the American people about the scope and the costs of the Vietnam War created a credibility gap.

Johnson hoped that more military pressure would bring the North Vietnamese to surrender for peace.

• The most damaging knowledge gap, however, may have been within the inner circles of government. Years later, Robert McNamara in his memoirs concluded that the leaders in Washington had failed to understand both the enemy and the nature of the war.

Hawks vs. Doves:

• Supporters of the war (hawks) believed that the war was an act of Soviet-backed Communist aggression against South Vietnam and that it was part of a master plan to conquer all of Southeast Asia.

• Opponents of the war (doves) viewed the conflict as a civil war fought by Vietnamese nationalists and some Communists who wanted to unite their country by overthrowing a corrupt Saigon government.

Some Americans opposed the war because of its costs in lives and money.

• They believed the billions spent in Vietnam could be better spent on the problems of the cities and the poor in the United States.

  • The greatest opposition came from students on college campuses who, after graduation, were eligible to be drafted to go fight in Vietnam.

  • In November 1967, the antiwar movement gained a political leader when scholarly Senator Eugene F. McCarthy of Minnesota became the first antiwar advocate to challenge Johnson for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination.

Tet Offensive: On Viet Lunar New Year (Tet) in January 1968, the Vietcong launched a surprise attack on almost every provincial capital and American base in South Vietnam. Although the attack took a fearful toll in the cities, the U.S. military counterattacked and inflicted much heavier losses on the Vietcong, and recovered the lost territory. As a military attack, the Tet Offensive failed

• The Tet Offensive, despite its failure, had a big impact in the US as millions of Americans who watched TV news footage of the destruction saw the attacks as a setback for Johnson’s Vietnam policy and that victory was not imminent.

• For the Vietcong and North Vietnamese, the Tet Offensive was a political victory in demoralizing the American public

Johnson responded to Tet by requesting 200,000 more troops to win the war. However, Johnson’s advisors were against further escalation of the war.

On March 31, 1968, President Johnson went on TV and told the American people that he would limit the bombing of North Vietnam and negotiate peace and that he would not run for reelection.

In May 1968, peace talks between North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and the US started in Paris but were deadlocked over minor issues. The war continued but the escalation of the number of US troops stopped but under the next administration it would be reversed.

In the New Hampshire primary in February, the antiwar McCarthy took 42 percent of the vote against Johnson.

Coming Apart at Home, 1968

The Tet Offensive and the withdrawal of Johnson from the presidential race were followed by the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. and destructive riots in cities across the country led to American apprehension over whether their nation was coming apart due to internal conflicts over the war issue, race issue, and the growing generation gap between the baby boomers and their parents.

Election of 1968: In 1964, Kennedy's younger brother,RobertF.Kennedy, became a senator from New York and later decided to enter the presidential race after McCarthy's strong showing in New Hampshire. Bobby Kennedy was more effective than McCarthy in mobilizing the traditional Democratic blue-collar and minority vote.

On June 5, 1968, he won a major victory in California's primary, but immediately after his victory speech he was shot and killed by a young Arab nationalist who opposed Kennedy's support for Israel. After Robert Kennedy's death, the election of 1968 turned into a three-way race between two conservatives- George Wallace and Richard Nixon and one liberal, Vice President Hubert Humphrey.

Democratic Convention in Chicago: When the Democrats met in Chicago for their party convention, it was clear that Hubert Humphrey had enough delegates to win the nomination.

• As vice president, he had loyally supported Johnson's domestic and foreign policies.

  • Humphrey controlled the convention, but the antiwar demonstrators were determined to control the streets. Chicago's mayor Richard Daley had the police out en masse, and the resulting violence was portrayed on television across the country as a "police riot”.

  • umphrey left the convention as the nominee of a badly divided Democratic party, and early polls showed he was a clear underdog in a nation sick of disorder and protest.

White Backlash & George Wallace: The growing hostility of many Whites to federal desegregation, antiwar protests, and race riots was tapped by Governor George Wallace of Alabama.

• Wallace was the first politician of late-20th-century America to marshal the general resentment against the Washington establishment ("pointy-head liberals," as he called them) and the two-party system.

• He ran for president as the self-nominated candidate of the American Independent Party, hoping to win enough electoral votes to throw the election into the House of Representatives.

Return of Richard Nixon: Many observers thought Richard Nixon's political career had ended in 1962 after his unsuccessful run for governor of California.

In 1968, however, a new, more-confident, and less-negative Nixon announced his candidacy and soon became the front-runner in the Republican primaries and easily secured his nomination at the Republican convention.

• Nixon was a hawk on the Vietnam War and ran on the slogans of "peace with honor" and “law and order”

Results: Wallace and Nixon started strong, but the Democrats began to catch up, especially in northern urban centers, as Humphrey preached to the faithful of the old New Deal coalition.

On election night, Nixon defeated Humphrey by a very close popular vote but took a substantial majority of the electoral vote (301 to 191), ending any threat that the three-candidate election would end up in the House of Representatives.

The significance of the 1968 election is clear in the combined total of Nixon's and Wallace's popular vote of almost 57 percent.

• Apparently, most Americans wanted a time-out to heal what they saw as the wounds inflicted on the national psyche by the upheavals of the 1960s.

• Supporters of Nixon and Wallace had had enough of protest, violence, permissiveness, the counterculture, drugs, and federal intervention in social institutions. Elections in the 1970s and 1980s would confirm that the tide was turning against New Deal liberalism in favor of the conservatives.

Nixon’s Vietnam Policy

In his January 1969 inaugural address, President Nixon promised to bring Americans together after the turmoil of the 1960s. However, suspicious and secretive by nature, Nixon soon began to isolate himself in the White House and create an “imperial presidency”.

• Nixon's first interest was international relations, not domestic policy. Together with his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger (who became secretary of state during Nixon's second term), Nixon fashioned a pragmatic foreign policy that reduced the tensions of the Cold War.

Vietnamization: Nixon’s principal objective was to find a way to reduce US involvement in the war while at the same time avoiding appearing like the US is admitting defeat.

Nixon began the process of Vietnamization, where he would gradually withdraw US troops from Vietnam and give the South Vietnamese the money, weapons, and training they needed to take over the fighting in the war.

• Under Nixon’s Vietnamization policy, US troops in South Vietnam went from more than 540,000 in 1969 to under 30,000 in 1972.

• Nixon extended the idea of disengagement in other parts of Asia in the Nixon Doctrine which declared that in the future, Asian allies would receive US support but without the extensive use of US ground forces

Opposition to Nixon’s War Policies: Nixon’s gradual withdrawal of forces from Vietnam reduced the number of antiwar protests.

However, in 1970, the president expanded the war by using US forces to invade Cambodia in an effort to destroy Vietnamese Communist bases in Cambodia.

• This led to nationwide protest on college campuses against this action which resulted in the killing of 4 youths by National Guard troops at Kent State University in Ohio and 2 students at Jackson State University in Mississippi.

  • In response to the escalation of the Vietnam War, the US Senate voted to repeal the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

Also in 1970, the American public was appalled after learning about the 1968 My Lai Massacre, where US troops massacred Vietnamese women and children in the Vietnamese village of My Lai.

The New York Times publication of the Pentagon Papers, a secret government study documenting the mistakes and deceptions of government policymakers in dealing with Vietnam, which were leaked to the press by Daniel Ellsberg, a former Defense Department analyst also further fueled the antiwar sentiment.

Peace Talks, Bombing Attacks, & Armistice: On the diplomatic front, Nixon had Kissinger conduct secret meetings with North Vietnam's foreign minister, Le Due Tho. Kissinger announced in the fall of 1972 that "peace is at hand," but this announcement proved premature.

When the two sides could not reach a deal, Nixon ordered a massive bombing of North Vietnam (the heaviest air attacks of the Vietnam War) to force a settlement.

• After several weeks of B-52 bomber attacks, the North Vietnamese agreed to an armistice, where the US would withdraw the last of its troops and get back more than 500 prisoners of war (POWs).

• The Paris Accords of January 1973 also promised a cease-fire and free elections.

  • In practice, however, the armistice did not end the war between the North and the South and left tens of thousands of enemy troops in South Vietnam. Before the war ended, the death toll probably numbered more than a million.

The armistice allowed the United States to remove itself from a war that had claimed more than 58,000 American lives. The $118 billion spent on the war began an inflationary cycle that racked the U.S. economy for years afterward.

War Powers Act: Nixon was politically damaged by the news that he had authorized 3,500 secret bombing raids in Cambodia (which was a neutral country)

• Congress used the public uproar over this information to attempt to limit the president's powers over the military.

• In November 1973, Congress finally passed the War Powers Act over Nixon's veto.

  • This law required Nixon and any future president to report to Congress within 48 hours after taking military action.

  • It further provided that Congress would have to approve any military action that lasted more than 60 days.

• After the long and unpopular war in Vietnam, Congress and the American people were ready to put the brakes on future presidents leading the nation into a war without a thorough debate.

Defeat in Southeast Asia

In 1974, South Vietnam continued to face strong attacks from Communist forces. However, President Ford was unable to get additional funds to support U.S. military involvement.

Fall of Saigon: In April 1975, the U.S.-supported government in Saigon fell to the North, and Vietnam was reunified under the Communist government in Hanoi (North Vietnam's capital).

• Just before the final collapse, the US was able to evacuate about 150,000 Vietnamese who had supported the US and now faced certain persecution.

• The fall of South Vietnam marked a low point of American prestige overseas and confidence at home.

Genocide in Cambodia: Also in 1975, the U.S.-supported government in Cambodia, fell to the Khmer Rouge, a radical Communist faction that killed between 1-2 million of its own people in a brutal relocation program to rid the country of Western influence.

• Together the wars in Southeast Asia created 10 million refugees, many of whom fled to the United States.

Future of Southeast Asia: The fall of Cambodia seemed to fulfill Eisenhower's domino theory, but the rest of Southeast Asia did not fall to communism.

Instead, nations such as Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia emerged as the "little tigers" of the vigorously growing Asian (Pacific Rim) economy. Some argued that U.S. support of South Vietnam was not a waste because it bought time for other nations of East Asia and Southeast Asia to develop and better resist communism.

8.9: The Great Society

Learning Objective 1: Explain the causes and effects of continuing policy debates about the role of the federal government over time.

Learning Objective 2: Explain the contributions and changes in immigration patterns over time.

Johnson was a politician who started his career as a Roosevelt Democrat and was determined to expand the social reforms of the New Deal in his new program called the “Great Society”.

War on Poverty

In his best-selling book on poverty, The Other America (1962), Michael Harrington helped focus national attention on the 40 million Americans still living in poverty.

President Johnson responded by declaring in 1964 an “unconditional war on poverty”. The Democratic Congress gave the president almost everything he asked for by creating the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) and providing this antipoverty agency with a billion-dollar budget.

• The OEO sponsored a variety of self-help programs for the poor, such as Head Start for preschoolers, the Job Corps for vocational education, literacy programs, and legal services.

• The controversial Community Action Program allowed the poor to run antipoverty programs in their own neighborhoods.

Johnson went against Senator Hubert Humphrey in the 1964 election with a liberal agenda.

Republicans nominated a conservative, Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, who advocated ending the welfate state (including the Tennessee Valley Authority & Social Security) and Goldwater’s campaign introduce new young conservative voices.

Johnson won the election by a landslide. Democrats also now controlled both houses of Congress, leading to a Democratic president and Congress who were in a position to pass economic and social reforms originally proposed by Truman in the 1940s.

Great Society Reforms

• Congress also increased funding for public housing, mass transit, and rent subsidies for low-income people and for crime prevention.

• Johnson established 2 new cabinet departments: the Department of Transportation (DOT) & The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)

• Congress passed automobile industry regulations (in response to Ralph Nader’s Book, Unsafe at Any Speed, 1965) that would save hundreds of thousands of lives

• Clean air and water laws were enacted (in response to Rachel Carson’s, Silent Spring, which warned against pesticides.

• Federal park and wilderness areas were expanded

Critics have attacked Johnson's Great Society for making unrealistic promises to eliminate poverty, for creating a centralized welfare state, and for being inefficient and very costly.

Defenders point out that these programs gave vitally needed assistance to millions of Americans who had previously been forgotten or ignored- the poor, the disabled, and the elderly.
Johnson himself would jeopardize his domestic achievements by escalating the
war in Vietnam- a war that resulted in higher taxes and inflation.

Changes in Immigration

Before the 1960s, most immigrants were coming from Europe & Canada. By the 1980s, more immigrants were coming from Latin America and Asia compared to Europe and Canada.

This shift in immigration was caused by refugees leaving Cuba and Vietnam after Communist takeovers of their home countries.

• Another major cause was the Immigration Act of 1965, which ended the ethnic quota acts of the 1920s that favored Europeans; thus, opening the US to immigrants from all over the world. This led to an increase in legal immigration.

  • By the mid 1970s, about 12 million foreigners were illegal immigrants and the rise in Asian and Latin American immigrants led to the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which penalized employers for hiring illegal immigrants or immigrants that overstayed their visas while also granting amnesty to undocumenting immigrants arriving by 1982.

  • Even so, Americans believed that the US had lost control of its borders.

President Johnson’s Great Society programs included liberal social legislation (such as ending racial discrimination) that he feared would cause him to lose Southern support from the Democratic Party. The conservative resurgence in the next decades was partly motivated to undo the Great Society legislation.

8.10: The African American Civil Rights Movement (60s)

Civil rights activities and freedom riders were met with violence.

• Martin Luther King Jr.: leader of the civil rights movement; remained committed to nonviolent protests against segregation

  • Jailed in Birmingham, Alabama for protesting

  • Letter from Birmingham Jail - most Americans believed that King was jailed unjustly and his Letter from Birmingham Jail essay was a milestone in civil rights movement —> his letter moved to President Kennedy to support a tougher civil rights bill

• March on Washington (1963): led by King; a peaceful protest on Washington in support of jobs and the civil rights bill

  • I Have a Dream Speech: appealed for the end of racial prejudice

Federal Civil Rights Acts of 1964 & 1965

1964 Civil Rights Act: made segregation illegal in all public facilities and gave federal government more power to enforce school desegregation

• Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: set up to end discrimination in employment based on race, religion, sex, or national origin

24th Amendment: ratified in 1964; abolished the practice of collecting a poll tax (one of the measures that was used for decades to bar poor people from voting)

• March to Montgomery: voting rights march from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery that was met with violence that was televised to the public,

  • led to national outrage which prompted Johnson to send federal troops to protect King and other marchers in an attempt to petition state government

    • led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965

Voting Rights Act of 1965: ended literacy tests and provided federal registrars in areas where African Americans had been kept from voting since the Reconstruction —> most dramatic impact in the Deep South

Young African Americans were starting to become impatient with slow progress toward equality and the continued violence by White extremists.

Black Muslims & Malcolm X

• Elijah Muhammad: Black Muslim leader that preach Black nationalism, separatism, and self-improvement

  • Black Muslim Movement gained more traction when Malcolm X became the most controversial voice of the movement

    • He criticized MLK as “an Uncle Tom” (subservient to Whites) and advocated self defense (using Black violence to counter White violence)

Race Riots & Black Power

The radicalism of Malcolm X influenced the thinking of young African Americans in civil rights organizations such as: the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) & The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

• Stokely Carmichael: chairman of the SNCC that repudiated nonviolence and advocated “black power” (especially economic power) and racial separatism

• Black Panthers: revolutionary socialist movement that advocated self-rule for American blacks; organized by Huey Newton, Bobby Seale

After the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, race riots continued to erupt in black neighborhoods in major cities with more casualties and destruction of property.

• made Whites suspect that Black extremists and revolutionaries were behind the violence even though there was little evidence that the Black Power movement was actually responsible for the violence

• Kerner Commission: concluded that racism and segregation were chiefly responsible and that the US was becoming more racially segregated

By the mid 1960s, the issue of civil rights had spread beyond de jure (in law) segregation practice under the law in the South and now began to include de facto (in practice/in reality) segregation and discrimination caused by racist attitudes in the North and West.

Martin Luther King Jr’s nonviolent, peaceful protest approach was under increasing pressure from all sides.

• The nation went in shock over King’s assassination.

• The violence revealed the anger and frustrations among African Americans in both the North and the South and also fed the growing “White backlash” against the civil rights movement.

8.11: The Civil Rights Movement Expands

Women’s Movement

Increased education and employment of women in the 1950s, the civil rights movement, and the sexual revolution, all contributed to the renewal of the women’s movement in the 1960s.

• Additionally, feminists who were part of the countercultures of the 1960s rejected many of the social, economic, and political values of their parents’ generation and advocated changes in sexual norms.

The Feminine Mystique (1963) by Betty Friedan: gave the women’s movement new direction by encouraging middle class women to seek fulfillment in professional careers in addition to filling the roles of wife, mother, and homemaker

• Friedan helped found the National Organization for Women (NOW) which adopted the activist tactics of other civil rights movements to secure equal treatment of women, especially for job opportunities

  • Equal Pay Act of 1963 & Civil Rights Act of 1964: prohibited discrimination in employment and compensation on the basis of sex but had been poorly enforced

• Title IX: a statue to end sex discrimination in schools that receive federal funding

  • required that schools provide girls with equal athletic opportunities —> proved to be a key step in promoting women’s equality

Campaign for the Equal Rights Amendment: Feminists achieved major legislative victory in 1972 thru Congress passage of:

• Equal Rights Amendment (ERA): proposed that equality of rights under the law should not be denied or abridged by the US or by any state on the account of sex

  • Despite campaigning from feminist groups like the NOW, the ERA missed ratification by the required 38 states and was defeated in part due to a a growing reaction against feminism by conservatives who feared the Women’s Movement threatened traditional roles of women.

The Women’s Movement accomplished fundamental changes in attitudes and hiring practices towards women.

• Women began to go into more male-dominated professions but women still experienced the “glass ceiling” but American society was starting to make a trend towards beings less of a man’s world

Latino Americans

Most Latino Americans before WW2 lived in Southwestern States but the postwar years saw an influx of Latin American immigrants from Communist affected Latin American countries as they began to settle more in the East and Midwest.

After deportation during the Great Depression, Mexican workers came by to the US in the 50s and 60s to take low-paying agricultural jobs. These farm workers were exploited before boycotts led by Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers Association gained collective bargaining rights for them in 1975

Mexican American activists won a federal mandate for bilingual education, requiring schools to teach Hispanic children in both English & Spanish

• As time went on, more Hispanic Americans were elected to public office

American Indian Movement

In the 50s, Eisenhower’s administration made an unsuccessful attempt to encourage American Indians to leave reservations and assimilate into urban America.

American Indian leaders resisted the loss of cultural identity that would be a result of the policy. To achieve self determination and reviving of tribal traditions, the American Indian Movement (AIM) was founded in 1968

Indian Self-Determination Act of 1975: gave reservations and tribal lands greater control over internal programs, education, and law enforcement

• Federal courts supported efforts to regain property and compensation for treaty violations

• American Indians attacked widespread unemployment and poverty on reservations by improving education and building industries and gambling casinos on reservations under the self-determination legislation

Asian Americans

Americans of Asian descent became the fastest growing ethnic minority by the 1980s.

• Asian Americans included: Chinese, Filipinos, Japanese, Indians, Koreans, and Vietnamese

• Asian Americans suffered from discrimination and envy

• Asian American emphasis on education led to them being more represented in colleges and universities

Gay Rights Movement

Urged homosexuals to be open about their identity and to work to end discrimination and violent abuse

• by the mid 1970s, homosexuality was no longer classified as a mental illness and federal Civil Service dropped its ban on employing homosexuals

• In 1993, President Clinton tried to end discrimination against gays and lesbians in teh military through a “dont ask, don’t tell” policy

The Warren Court & Individual Rights

in the 1960s, the Warren Court made a series of decisions involving race relations that affected the criminal-justice system, state political systems, and the definition of individual rights

Criminal Justice:

• Mapp v. Ohio (1961): ruled that evidence seized illegally cannot be used against the accused in court.

• Gideon v. Wainwright (1963): required that state courts provide counsel (services of an attorney) for indigent (poor) defendants.

• Escobedo v. Illinois (1964): extended the ruling in Gideon, giving suspects the right to have a lawyer present during questioning by the police.

• Miranda v. Arizona (1966): extended the ruling in Escobedo to require the police to inform an arrested person of his or her right to remain silent.

Baker v. Carr (1962): Warren Court declared that including a house of their legislatures that had districts that strongly favored rural areas to the disadvantage to cities was unconstitutional

• "One man, one vote”: election districts would have to be redrawn, to provide equal representation for all citizens

The Warren Court extended the rights of the 1st Amendment to protesters, to permit more freedom under the press, to ban religious activities sponsored by public schools, and to guarantee adults’ rights to use contracpetives

• Yates v. United States (1957) said that the 1st Amendment protected radical and revolutionary speech, even by Communists, unless it was a "clear and present danger" to the safety of the country.

• Engel v. Vitale (1962) ruled that state laws requiring prayers and Bible readings in the public schools violated the 1st Amendment's provision for separation of church and state.

8.12: Youth Culture of the 1960s

While most young Americans accepted the social order of the day, a growing number of young Americans wanted a change from conformity and materialism that they saw in middle class American culture.

Student Movement & the New Left

Liberal groups began to resonate with blacks’ struggle against oppressive laws. The first groups were made up of college and university students.

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS): radical student organization (led by Tom Hayden) that issued a declaration of purposes (Port Huron Statement) where they called for university decisions to be made thru participatory democracy so that student could have a voice in the decisions that affect their lives —> these ideas became associated with the New Left

Free Speech Movement: first major student protest that took place in 1964 on the UC Berkeley campus; Berkeley students demanded an end to university restrictions on students’ political activities and a greater voice in the government of the university

• By the 1960s, students across the country were protesting and their primary focus became opposition to the draft and the Vietnam War

Students Against the Vietnam War

Student demonstrations grew with the escalation of US involvement in the Vietnam War and the increase in drafting into the military. Students protested on campuses with demonstrations including draft-card burning, sit-ins, and protests against military recruiters and ROTC programs and protested against war-related companies.

• Chicago Convention: best-known off campus protest in 1968 that took place during the Democratic Convention.

  • A mix of peaceful and radical antiwar protesters, anarchists, and Yippies (members of the Youth International Party) damaged property, terrorized pedestrians, and taunted police

  • In response, Mayor Richard Daley ordered police to break up the demonstrations in a police riot"

• Weather Underground: most radical protest of the SDS which used violence and vandalis in their attacks of “the system”;

  • used bombings to protest government war policies, racial unfairness, and corporate greed

  • they believed that the evil of these injustices warranted an extreme response and/or revolution

  • would use bomb on US gov buildings like the Capitol, Pentagon, and State Department —> their extremist methods affects the credibility of the New Left

Counterculture

Political protests of the New Left coincided with the new youth counterculture that was expressed in rebellious styles of music, dress, drug use, and communal living.

• Hippies would dress with long hair, beards, beads, and jeans

• Folk music (such as Joan Baez and Bob Dylan) gave voice to the younger generation’s protests and rock music (Beatles, Rolling Stones, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin) provided beat and lyrics for counterculture

• Woodstock: music festival in upper New York State that reflected the zenith of counterculture

• Sexual Revolution: traditional beliefs about sexual conduct were challenged

  • Alfred Kinsey’s studies challenged traditional sexual norms by indicating that premarital sex, marital infidelity, and homosexuality were more common than anyone had suspected

The counterculture movement and conservative opposition fueled the resurgence of conservatives in politics.

8.13: The Environment & Natural Resources from 1968 to 1980

Origins of the Environmental Movement

In the 1950s and 1960s, three biologists helped launch the modem environmental movement. Through their writings and activism, they made issues such as chemical pollution, nuclear fallout, and population growth a public concern.

Rachel Carson: Many historians mark the beginning of the modem American environmental movement with the publication of biologist Rachel Carson's Silent Spring in 1962. Silent Spring explained the negative environmental effects of DDT, a potent insecticide that had been usedin American agriculture. Carson argued that unchecked industrial growth would destroy animal life and ultimately human lifeon earth. This best-sellingboot forced Americans to question whether "better living through chemistry"Wit the solution or the cause of the emerging environmental crisis.

Barry Commoner: In the late 1950s, Barry Commoner and other researchers began finding high levels of a cancer-causing substance strontium-90, in children's teeth. It came from nuclear weapons tests. Commoner led the political fight to end such testing. In 1963, the United States, the Soviet Union, and other countries agreed to stop testingweapons aboveground.

Paul Ehrlich: In his book The Population Bomb (1968), biologist Paul Ehrlich argued that overpopulation was causing the world's environmental problems. The most frightening of his predictions, that starvation would increase dramatically, did not come to pass. Increases in agricultural productivity and anti-poverty programs moderated the effects of population growth. However, his book did spark a debate over how many people the earth could sustain.

Public Awareness

During the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, several environmental disasters raised the public awareness of damage to the environment caused by human behavior. Media coverage of industrial disasters increased public questioning of the benefits of industry and new technologies in what some called a "postmodern" culture.

Environmental accidents reinforced the fears of the deadly combination of human error and modern technology.

• In 1954, the 23-man crew of the Japanese fishing vessel Lucky Dragon was exposed to radioactive fallout from a hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll, a chain of islands in the Pacific Ocean.

• In 1969, an oil well blowout in Santa Barbara Bay spilled more than 200,000 gallons of oil into the ocean. The widespread pollution of the California coastline forced the oil industry to reform its operations.

• Also in 1969, Ohio's Cuyahoga River burst into flames from all the oil and chemicals floating on the surface.

• In 1979, opinion also turned against building additional nuclear power plants after an accident at the Three Mile Island power plant in Pennsylvania.

Such events convinced many Americans that the United States had serious environmental problems.

Earth Day: The first Earth Day in 1970 reflected the nation's growing concerns over air and water pollution and the destruction of the natural environment, including wildlife. In New York City, 100,000 people showed their support for protecting the earth. Organizers estimated that 1,500 colleges and 10,000 schools took part in Earth Day. Time magazine estimated that about 20 million Americans participated in some activity related to the event. The popularity of the environmental movement grew after 1970 and became an important political issue.

Pictures from Space: The Apollo crew's first photographs of Earth from space in 1968 also raised awareness of humanity's home.These images portrayed a relatively small and fragile planet in the vast lifeless vacuum of space. The photograph,named"Earthrise,"and variationsof it, became iconic images for the environmental movement. They helped people around the world gain a new perspectives on the human condition and better understand their shared but finite environment.

Environmental Activists The environmental movement grew and gained strength by the late 1960s. Building on the organization and tactics of the civil rights and antiwar movements, thousands of citizens, especially middle-class youth, men, and women, joined the environmental movement.

During the 1970s, mainstream environmental organizations, such as the National Audubon Society, the Environmental Defense Fund, the National Wildlife Federation, the National Resources Defense Council, the National Parks Conservation Association, and the Sierra Club, established sophisticated operations in Washington, D.C. These groups served a watchdog function, monitoring whether environmental regulations were properly enforced by federal agencies. They hired lobbyists to advocate for environmental legislation, lawyers to enforce environmental standards in the courts, and scientists to help determine when new regulations were needed.

Government Environmental Protection

While the federal government was slow to develop environmental protection legislation, the state of California became a leader in auto emissions standards by mandating that engine gases be recycled to cut back on the pollution and smog choking its large cities. Congress had passed some air and water quality legislation during the postwar period but often left regulation and enforcement to the individual states.

In the 1960s, President Lyndon Johnson (1963- 1969) signed almost 300 conservation and beautification bills, supported by more than $12 billion in authorized funds.

• The most significant was the Wilderness Act, which permanently set aside certain federal lands from commercial economic development in order to preserve them in their natural state. The federal government also took a new interest in controlling pollution.

During the Nixon administration, protecting the environment was a bipartisan issue, and the administration worked with a Democratic majority in Congress.

• President Nixon recognized the power of a popular movement and over the next few years proposed an ambitious program, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the foundation of the nation's modern environmental protection system.

Environmental Protection Agency: To enforce federal regulations, Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970. An independent federal agency, the EPA was given responsibility for regulating and enforcing federal programs and policies on air and water pollution, radiation issues, pesticides, and solid waste.

Clean Air and Water: During the 1970s, the federal government took over responsibility for clean air and water. Growing concerns about the environmental and economic impact of polluted air and water came from growing cities as well as rural areas.

• The Clean Air Act of 1970 regulated air emissions from both stationary and mobile sources and authorized the EPA to set standards to protect public health by regulating emissions of hazardous air pollutants.

Other legislation followed, including the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act of 1972; the Safe Drinking Water Act (1974); theResource Conservation and Recovery Act (1976); the Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1977, which became known as the Clean Water Act; and the Superfund Act (1980) to clean up toxic waste from former industrial sites.

Wildlife Protection: The Endangered Species Act of 1973 was created to protect critically imperiled species such as the American bald eagle from extinction as a "consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation."

• The Endangered Species Act was created to also protect the ecosystems upon which wildlife depend. The habitat of wildlife became the source of contention between preservationists andland developers and industries.

The Oil Embargo and Fuel Economy: As a result of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) placed an embargo on oil sold to Israel's supporters, which included the United States.

• This caused a worldwide oil shortage and long lines at American gas pumps.

• In response, Congress reduced speed limits to save gasoline and consumers switched from big American-made gas guzzlers to smaller, more fuel-efficient cars imported from Japan.

• In 1975 Congress first enacted standards for fuel economy, which resulted in more fuel-efficient American cars. More fuel-efficient cars meant fewer harmful emissions, bolstering the regulation of tailpipe emissions that was part of the Clean Air Act of 1970 and helping to reduce the greenhouse gasesin the atmosphere that scientists blame for climate change.

Antinuclear Movement: Antinuclear protests grew out of the environmental movement, peaking in the 1970s and 1980s.

• Public opinion also turned against building additional nuclear power plants after the accident at the Three Mile Island power plant in Pennsylvania.

• Besides the growing concerns over the safety of nuclear power plants, the issue of disposal of the radioactive waste became a major issue, as it needed to be safely stored somewhere for many generations.

• The antinuclear movement delayed construction or halted commitments to build new nuclear plants, and pressured the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to enforce and strengthen the safety regulations for nuclear power plants.

Backlash Against Environmental Movement

In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan sought to curtail the scope of environmental protection. It turned out that the 1970s were a high point in the environmental movement as industrial and conservative groups fought back against federal regulations.

8.14: Society in Transition

The 1970s was a decade many Americans wanted to forget, marked by losses in Vietnam and Cambodia, the Kent State shootings, the OPEC oil embargo, and the Watergate scandal, along with high unemployment, stagnant wages, hyperinflation, tax revolts, the polarization of politics, and the politicization of religion. The 1970s also marked the transition from the dominance of the more liberal Democratic Party to the more conservative Republican Party, each with a very different view on the role of the federal government.

American Society in Transition

Social changes in the 1970s had even greater potential significance than politics.

• Unlike theprevious decade, which was dominated by the youth revolt, the 1970s was the decade when Americans became conscious that the population was aging.

• Cultural pluralism was replacing the melting pot as the model for U.S. society, as diverse ethnic and cultural groups strove not only to end discrimination and improve their lives but also to celebrate their unique traditions.

Nixon Presidency

Watergate Scandal