Unit 10

1968

"To some, 1968 was the year of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Yet it was also the year of the Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bobby Kennedy assassinations; the riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago; Prague Spring; the antiwar movement and the Tet Offensive; Black Power; the generation gap; avant-garde theater; the upsurge of the women's movement; and the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union" - 1968: The Year That Rocked the World, Mark Kurlansky

Vietnamization

Vietnamization was a policy of the Richard Nixon administration during the Vietnam War to end U.S. involvement in the war and "expand, equip, and train South Vietnam's forces and assign to them an ever-increasing combat role, at the same time steadily reducing the number of U.S. combat troops".[1] Brought on by the Viet Cong's Tet Offensive, the policy referred to U.S. combat troops specifically in the ground combat role, but did not reject combat by the U.S. Air Force, as well as the support to South Vietnam, consistent with the policies of U.S. foreign military assistance organizations. U.S. citizens' mistrust of their government that had begun after the offensive worsened with the release of news about U.S. soldiers massacring civilians at My Lai (1968), the invasion of Cambodia (1970), and the leaking of the Pentagon Papers (1971). The name "Vietnamization" came about accidentally. At a January 28, 1969 meeting of the National Security Council, General Andrew Goodpaster, deputy to General Creighton Abrams and commander of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, stated that the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) had been steadily improving, and the point at which the war could be "de-Americanized" was close. Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird agreed with the point, but not with the language: "What we need is a term like 'Vietnamizing' to put the emphasis on the right issues." Nixon immediately liked Laird's word.[2] Vietnamization fit into the broader détente policy of the Nixon administration, in which the United States no longer regarded its fundamental strategy as the containment of communism but as a cooperative world order, in which Nixon and his chief adviser Henry Kissinger were focused on the broader constellation of forces[clarification needed] and the bigger world powers.[3] Nixon had ordered Kissinger to negotiate diplomatic policies with Soviet statesman Anatoly Dobrynin. Nixon also opened high-level contact with China. U.S. relations with the Soviet Union and China were of higher priority than South Vietnam. Nixon said Vietnamization had two components. The first was "strengthening the armed force of the South Vietnamese in numbers, equipment, leadership and combat skills", while the second was "the extension of the pacification program [i.e. military aid to civilians] in South Vietnam." To achieve the first goal, U.S. helicopters would fly in support; however, helicopter operations were too much part of ground operations to involve U.S. personnel.[clarification needed] Thus, ARVN candidates were enrolled in U.S. helicopter schools to take over the operations. As observed by Lieutenant Dave Palmer, to qualify an ARVN candidate for U.S. helicopter school, he first needed to learn English; this, in addition to the months-long training and practice in the field, made adding new capabilities to the ARVN take at least two years.[4] Palmer did not disagree that the first component, given time and resources, was achievable. However: "Pacification, the second component, presented the real challenge...it was benevolent government action in areas where the government should always have been benevolently active...doing both was necessary if Vietnamization were to work."

Alger Hill case

Alger Hiss (November 11, 1904 - November 15, 1996) was an American lawyer, government official, author, and lecturer. He was involved in the establishment of the United Nations both as a U.S. State Department and U.N. official. Hiss was accused of being a Soviet spy in 1948 and convicted of perjury in connection with this charge in 1950. On August 3, 1948, Whittaker Chambers, a former Communist Party member, testified under subpoena before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) that Hiss had secretly been a Communist, though not a spy, while in federal service. Called before HUAC, Hiss categorically denied the charge. When Chambers repeated his claim on nationwide radio, Hiss filed a defamation lawsuit against him. During the pretrial discovery process, Chambers produced new evidence indicating that he and Hiss had been involved in espionage, which both men had previously denied under oath to HUAC. A federal grand jury indicted Hiss on two counts of perjury; Chambers admitted to the same offense but, as a cooperating government witness, was never charged. Although Hiss's indictment stemmed from the alleged espionage, he could not be tried for that crime because the statute of limitations had expired. After a mistrial due to a hung jury, Hiss was tried a second time. In January 1950, he was found guilty on both counts of perjury and received two concurrent five-year sentences, of which he eventually served three and a half years. Hiss maintained his innocence until his death. Arguments about the case and the validity of the verdict took center stage in broader debates about the Cold War, McCarthyism, and the extent of Soviet espionage in the United States.[1] Since Hiss's conviction, statements by involved parties and newly exposed evidence have added to the dispute. In 2001, James Barron, a staff reporter for The New York Times, identified what he called a "growing consensus that Hiss, indeed, had most likely been a Soviet agent."[2] However, author Anthony Summers argued that since many relevant files continue to be unavailable, the Hiss controversy will continue to be debated.[3]

Army-McCarthy Hearings

Already infamous for his aggressive interrogations of suspected Communists, Wisconsin Senator Joseph R. McCarthy (1908-1957) earned more notoriety via these televised 1954 Congressional hearings. McCarthy had turned his investigations to army security, but the army in turn charged him with using improper influence to win preferential treatment for a former staff member, Pvt. G. David Schine. When the senator tried to emphasize army lawyer Joseph Welch's Communist ties, Welch delivered his famous "Have you no sense of decency?" rebuke. Although McCarthy was acquitted, his popular support waned and his political career was soon over.

Ford Administration

America's 38th president, Gerald Ford (1913-2006) took office on August 9, 1974, following the resignation of President Richard Nixon (1913-1994), who left the White House in disgrace over the Watergate scandal. Ford became the first unelected president in the nation's history. A longtime Republican congressman from Michigan, Ford had been appointed vice president less than a year earlier by President Nixon. He is credited with helping to restore public confidence in government after the disillusionment of the Watergate era.

U-2

An international diplomatic crisis erupted in May 1960 when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) shot down an American U-2 spy plane in Soviet air space and captured its pilot, Francis Gary Powers (1929-77). Confronted with the evidence of his nation's espionage, President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969) was forced to admit to the Soviets that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had been flying spy missions over the USSR for several years. The Soviets convicted Powers on espionage charges and sentenced him to 10 years in prison. However, after serving less than two years, he was released in exchange for a captured Soviet agent in the first-ever U.S.-USSR "spy swap." The U-2 spy plane incident raised tensions between the U.S. and the Soviets during the Cold War (1945-91), the largely political clash between the two superpowers and their allies that emerged following World War II.

Apollo 8

Apollo 8, the second human spaceflight mission in the United States Apollo space program, was launched on December 21, 1968, and became the first manned spacecraft to leave Earth orbit, reach the Earth's Moon, orbit it and return safely to Earth. The three-astronaut crew — Commander Frank Borman, Command Module Pilot James Lovell, and Lunar Module Pilot William Anders — became the first humans to travel beyond low Earth orbit, the first to see Earth as a whole planet, the first to directly see the far side of the Moon, and then the first to witness Earthrise. The 1968 mission, the third flight of the Saturn V rocket and that rocket's first manned launch, was also the first human spaceflight launch from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, located adjacent to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The mission was originally planned as Apollo 9, to be performed in early 1969 as the second test of the complete Apollo spacecraft, including the Lunar Module and the Command/Service Module in an elliptical medium Earth orbit. But when the Lunar Module proved unready to make its first test in a lower Earth orbit in December 1968, it was decided in August to fly Apollo 8 in December as a more ambitious lunar orbital flight without the Lunar Module. This meant Borman's crew was scheduled to fly two to three months sooner than originally planned, leaving them a shorter time for training and preparation, thus placing more demands than usual on their time and discipline. Apollo 8 took three days to travel to the Moon. It orbited ten times over the course of 20 hours, during which the crew made a Christmas Eve television broadcast where they read the first 10 verses from the Book of Genesis. At the time, the broadcast was the most watched TV program ever. Apollo 8's successful mission paved the way for Apollo 11 to fulfill U.S. President John F. Kennedy's goal of landing a man on the Moon before the end of the 1960s. The Apollo 8 astronauts returned to Earth on December 27, 1968, when their spacecraft splashed down in the Northern Pacific Ocean. The crew was named Time magazine's "Men of the Year" for 1968 upon their return.

Red Scare

As the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States intensified in the late 1940s and early 1950s, hysteria over the perceived threat posed by Communists in the U.S. became known as the Red Scare. (Communists were often referred to as "Reds" for their allegiance to the red Soviet flag.) The Red Scare led to a range of actions that had a profound and enduring effect on U.S. government and society. Federal employees were analyzed to determine whether they were sufficiently loyal to the government, and the House Un-American Activities Committee, as well as U.S. Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, investigated allegations of subversive elements in the government and the Hollywood film industry. The climate of fear and repression linked to the Red Scare finally began to ease by the late 1950s.

Massive Retaliation & Brinkmanship

Brinkmanship is a term coined during the Cold War to describe the tactic of seeming to approach the verge of war in order to persuade one's opposition to retreat. It was an effective tactic[citation needed] because neither side of a conflict could contemplate mutually assured destruction in a nuclear war, acting as a nuclear deterrence for both the side threatening to pose damage and the country on the 'receiving end'. Ultimately, it worsened the relationship between the USSR and the US.

Americanization of Vietnam War

Because U.S. President Lyndon Johnson continued to expand U.S. support to South Vietnam, the U.S. military presence continued and took a more aggressive posture in 1964. The American advisory effort remained the same, as did the shipments of American military and economic assistance to the government and armed forces of South Vietnam. Changes in American envoys to South Vietnam occurred when vacancies opened at the American Embassy in Saigon and MACV headquarters. This article discusses the changes that occurred soon after Johnson took office.

Berlin Blockade and Airlift

Berlin blockade and airlift, international crisis that arose from an attempt by the Soviet Union, in 1948-49, to force the Western Allied powers (the United States, the United Kingdom, and France) to abandon their post-World War II jurisdictions in West Berlin. In March 1948 the Allied powers decided to unite their different occupation zones of Germany into a single economic unit. In protest, the Soviet representative withdrew from the Allied Control Council. Coincident with the introduction of a new deutsche mark in West Berlin (as throughout West Germany), which the Soviets regarded as a violation of agreements with the Allies, the Soviet occupation forces in eastern Germany began a blockade of all rail, road, and water communications between Berlin and the West. On June 24 the Soviets announced that the four-power administration of Berlin had ceased and that the Allies no longer had any rights there. On June 26 the United States and Britain began to supply the city with food and other vital supplies by air. They also organized a similar "airlift" in the opposite direction of West Berlin's greatly reduced industrial exports. By mid-July the Soviet army of occupation in East Germany had increased to 40 divisions, against 8 in the Allied sectors. By the end of July three groups of U.S. strategic bombers had been sent as reinforcements to Britain. Tension remained high, but war did not break out. Despite dire shortages of fuel and electricity, the airlift kept life going in West Berlin for 11 months, until on May 12, 1949, the Soviet Union lifted the blockade. The airlift continued until September 30, at a total cost of $224 million and after delivery of 2,323,738 tons of food, fuel, machinery, and other supplies. The end to the blockade was brought about because of countermeasures imposed by the Allies on East German communications and, above all, because of the Western embargo placed on all strategic exports from the Eastern bloc. As a result of the blockade and airlift, Berlin became a symbol of the Allies' willingness to oppose further Soviet expansion in Europe.

Black Panthers

Black Panthers, U.S. African-American militant party, founded (1966) in Oakland, Calif., by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. Originally aimed at armed self-defense against the local police, the party grew to espouse violent revolution as the only means of achieving black liberation. The Black Panthers called on African Americans to arm themselves for the liberation struggle. In the late 1960s party members became involved in a series of violent confrontations with the police (resulting in deaths on both sides) and in a series of court cases, some resulting from direct shoot-outs with the police and some from independent charges. Among the most notable of the trials was that of Huey Newton for killing a policeman in 1967, which resulted in three mistrials, the last in 1971. Bobby Seale, one of the "Chicago Eight" convicted of conspiracy to violently disrupt the Democratic National Convention of 1968 (later overturned), was a codefendant in a Connecticut case charging murder of an alleged informer on the party. He was acquitted in 1971. A third major trial was of 13 Panthers in New York City accused of conspiring to bomb public places. They were also acquitted in 1971. The results of these trials were taken by many observers as confirmation of their suspicions that the Black Panthers were being subjected to extreme police harassment. Another incident that supported this view was the killing in a raid by Chicago police of Illinois party leader Fred Hampton and another Panther in 1969; review of this incident revealed that the two Panthers had been shot in their beds without any provocation. While controversy raged over the civil liberties issue, the Panthers themselves were riven with internal disputes. A major split took place, with Newton and Seale (who in 1972 announced their intention of abandoning violent methods) on the one side and Eldridge Cleaver (formerly the chief publicist for the party, who continued to preach violent revolution) on the other. Cleaver headed the so-called international headquarters of the party (until 1973) in Algeria. In 1974 both Seale and Newton left the party; the former resigned, and the latter fled to Cuba to avoid drug charges. During the late 1970s the party gradually lost most of its influence, ceasing to be an important force within the black community. The New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, founded in Dallas, Tex., in 1989, is not related to the old group.

Black Power

Black Power is a political slogan and a name for various associated ideologies aimed at achieving self-determination for people of African/Black descent.[1] It is used by African Americans in the United States.[2] The movement was prominent in the late 1960s and early 1970s, emphasizing racial pride and the creation of black political and cultural institutions to nurture and promote black collective interests[3] and advance black values. "Black Power" expresses a range of political goals, from defense against racial oppression, to the establishment of social institutions and a self-sufficient economy. The earliest known usage of the term is found in a 1954 book by Richard Wright entitled Black Power.[4] Although he did not "coin" the phrase, New York politician Adam Clayton Powell Jr. used the term on May 29, 1966 during a baccalaureate address at Howard University: "To demand these God-given rights is to seek black power."[4]

Black Nationalism

Black nationalism (BN) advocates a racial definition (or redefinition) of national identity. There are different indigenous nationalist philosophies but the principles of all Black nationalist ideologies are unity and self-determination—that is, separation, or independence, from European society. Martin Delany (1812-1885), an African-American abolitionist, is considered to be the grandfather of Black nationalism.[1] The third period of Black nationalism arose during the post-Reconstruction era, particularly among various African-American clergy circles. Separated circles were already established and accepted because African-Americans had long endured the oppression of slavery and Jim Crowism in the United States since its inception. The clerical phenomenon led to the birth of a modern Black nationalism that stressed the need to separate from non-blacks and to build separated communities to promote racial pride and to collectivize resources. The new ideology became the philosophy of groups like the Moorish Science Temple and the Nation of Islam. Although the 1960s brought a period of heightened religious, cultural and political nationalism, still it was Black nationalism that would lead the promotion of Afrocentrism.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896, which allowed state-sponsored segregation, insofar as it applied to public education. Handed down on May 17, 1954, the Warren Court's unanimous (9-0) decision stated that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." As a result, de jure racial segregation was ruled a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. This ruling paved the way for integration and was a major victory of the civil rights movement.[1]

Containment

Containment was a United States policy to prevent the spread of communism abroad. A component of the Cold War, this policy was a response to a series of moves by the Soviet Union to enlarge communist influence in Eastern Europe, China, Korea, Africa, and Vietnam. It represented a middle-ground position between appeasement and rollback. The basis of the doctrine was articulated in a 1946 cable by U.S. diplomat George F. Kennan. As a description of U.S. foreign policy, the word originated in a report Kennan submitted to U.S. Defense Secretary James Forrestal in 1947, a report that was later used in a magazine article. It is a translation of the French cordon sanitaire, used to describe Western policy toward the Soviet Union in the 1920s. The word containment is associated most strongly with the policies of U.S. President Harry Truman (1945-53), including the establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a mutual defense pact. Although President Dwight Eisenhower (1953-61) toyed with the rival doctrine of rollback, he refused to intervene in the Hungarian Uprising of 1956. President Lyndon Johnson (1963-69) cited containment as a justification for his policies in Vietnam. President Richard Nixon (1969-74), working with advisor Henry Kissinger, followed a policy called détente, or relaxation of tensions. This involved expanded trade and cultural contacts, as well as the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. President Jimmy Carter (1977-81) at first emphasized human rights rather than anti-communism. He dropped this stance and returned to containment when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979. President Ronald Reagan (1981-89), denouncing the Soviet state as an "evil empire", escalated the Cold War and promoted rollback in Nicaragua and Afghanistan. Central programs begun under containment, including NATO and nuclear deterrence, remained in effect even after the end of the cold war.

Douglas MacArthur

Douglas MacArthur (26 January 1880 - 5 April 1964) was an American five-star general and Field Marshal of the Philippine Army. He was Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II. He received the Medal of Honor for his service in the Philippines Campaign, which made him and his father Arthur MacArthur, Jr., the first father and son to be awarded the medal. He was one of only five men ever to rise to the rank of General of the Army in the US Army, and the only man ever to become a field marshal in the Philippine Army. Raised in a military family in the American Old West, MacArthur was valedictorian at the West Texas Military Academy, and First Captain at the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he graduated top of the class of 1903. During the 1914 United States occupation of Veracruz, he conducted a reconnaissance mission, for which he was nominated for the Medal of Honor. In 1917, he was promoted from major to colonel and became chief of staff of the 42nd (Rainbow) Division. In the fighting on the Western Front during World War I, he rose to the rank of brigadier general, was again nominated for a Medal of Honor, and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross twice and the Silver Star seven times. From 1919 to 1922, MacArthur served as Superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where he attempted a series of reforms. His next assignment was in the Philippines, where in 1924 he was instrumental in quelling the Philippine Scout Mutiny. In 1925, he became the Army's youngest major general. He served on the court martial of Brigadier General Billy Mitchell and was president of the American Olympic Committee during the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam. In 1930, he became Chief of Staff of the United States Army. As such, he was involved in the expulsion of the Bonus Army protesters from Washington, D.C. in 1932, and the establishment and organization of the Civilian Conservation Corps. He retired from the US Army in 1937 to become Military Advisor to the Commonwealth Government of the Philippines. MacArthur was recalled to active duty in 1941 as commander of United States Army Forces in the Far East. A series of disasters followed, starting with the destruction of his air forces on 8 December 1941, and the invasion of the Philippines by the Japanese. MacArthur's forces were soon compelled to withdraw to Bataan, where they held out until May 1942. In March 1942, MacArthur, his family and his staff left nearby Corregidor Island in PT boats and escaped to Australia, where MacArthur became Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area. For his defense of the Philippines, MacArthur was awarded the Medal of Honor. After more than two years of fighting in the Pacific, he fulfilled a promise to return to the Philippines. He officially accepted Japan's surrender on 2 September 1945, aboard the USS Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay, and oversaw the occupation of Japan from 1945 to 1951. As the effective ruler of Japan, he oversaw sweeping economic, political and social changes. He led the United Nations Command in the Korean War until he was removed from command by President Harry S. Truman on 11 April 1951. He later became Chairman of the Board of Remington Rand.

"To Secure These Rights"

Drafted by President Harry S. Truman's Committee on Civil Rights in 1947, To Secure These Rights (subtitled "The Report of the President's Committee on Civil Rights") remains one of the most important federal civil rights reports in United States history. Issued on the heels of World War II, To Secure These Rights identified remarkable disparities in racial treatment in both the North and the South and called for a series of measures to improve race relations in the United States. Among them were police professionalization, federal protection of black voting rights, enforcement of antilynching laws, and an end to segregation in schools, housing, and public accommodations.

Cuban Missile Crisis

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union engaged in a tense, 13-day political and military standoff in October 1962 over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba, just 90 miles from U.S. shores. In a TV address on October 22, 1962, President John Kennedy (1917-63) notified Americans about the presence of the missiles, explained his decision to enact a naval blockade around Cuba and made it clear the U.S. was prepared to use military force if necessary to neutralize this perceived threat to national security. Following this news, many people feared the world was on the brink of nuclear war. However, disaster was avoided when the U.S. agreed to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's (1894-1971) offer to remove the Cuban missiles in exchange for the U.S. promising not to invade Cuba. Kennedy also secretly agreed to remove U.S. missiles from Turkey.

Dynamic Conservationism

Dwight Eisenhower accepted the basic framework of government responsibility established by the New Deal, but sought to limit the presidential role. He termed his approach "dynamic conservatism" or "modern Republicanism," which meant, he explained, "conservative when it comes to money, liberal when it comes to human beings." A critic countered that Eisenhower appeared to argue that he would "strongly recommend the building of a great many schools...but not provide the money." Eisenhower's first priority was to balance the budget after years of deficits. He wanted to cut spending, cut taxes and maintain the value of the dollar. Republicans were willing to risk unemployment to keep inflation in check. Reluctant to stimulate the economy too much, they saw the country suffer three recessions in eight years. In other areas, the administration transferred control of offshore oil lands from the federal government to the states. It also favored private development of energy sources rather than the public approach the Democrats had initiated. In everything the Eisenhower administration undertook, its orientation was sympathetic to business. Eisenhower's inclination to play a modest role in public often led to legislative stalemate. Still, he was active behind the scenes pushing his favorite programs. And he was one of the few presidents who left office as popular as when he entered it.

Detente

Détente (a French word meaning release from tension) is the name given to a period of improved relations between the United States and the Soviet Union that began tentatively in 1971 and took decisive form when President Richard M. Nixon visited the secretary-general of the Soviet Communist party, Leonid I. Brezhnev, in Moscow, May 1972.

Freedom Summer

Freedom Summer (also known as the Mississippi Summer Project) was a campaign in the United States launched in June 1964 to attempt to register as many African-American voters as possible in Mississippi, which had historically excluded most blacks from voting. The project also set up dozens of Freedom Schools, Freedom Houses, and community centers in small towns throughout Mississippi to aid the local black population. The project was organized by the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), a coalition of the Mississippi branches of the four major civil rights organizations (SNCC, CORE, NAACP and SCLC). Most of the impetus, leadership, and financing for the Summer Project came from the SNCC. Robert Parris Moses (Bob Moses), SNCC field secretary and co-director of COFO, directed the summer project.[1]

George Kennan

George Frost Kennan (February 16, 1904 - March 17, 2005) was an American advisor, diplomat, and historian, known best as an advocate of a policy of containment of Soviet expansion at the end of World War II. He later reversed himself on containment. He lectured widely and wrote scholarly histories of the relations between USSR and the United States. He was also one of the group of foreign policy elders known as "The Wise Men". During the late 1940s, his writings inspired the Truman Doctrine and the U.S. foreign policy of "containing" the Soviet Union. His "Long Telegram"[1] from Moscow during 1946 and the subsequent 1947 article "The Sources of Soviet Conduct" argued that the Soviet regime was inherently expansionist and that its influence had to be "contained" in areas of vital strategic importance to the United States. These texts provided justification for the Truman administration's new anti-Soviet policy. Kennan played a major role in the development of definitive Cold War programs and institutions, notably the Marshall Plan. Soon after his concepts had become U.S. policy, Kennan began to criticize the foreign policies that he had seemingly helped begin. Subsequently, prior to the end of 1948, Kennan became confident that positive dialogue could commence with the Soviet government. His proposals were discounted by the Truman administration and Kennan's influence was marginalized, particularly after Dean Acheson was appointed secretary of state during 1949. Soon thereafter, U.S. Cold War strategy assumed a more assertive and militaristic quality, causing Kennan to lament about what he believed was an abrogation of his previous assessments. During 1950, Kennan left the Department of State—except for two brief ambassadorial stints in Moscow and Yugoslavia—and became a realist critic of U.S. foreign policy. He continued to be analyze international affairs as a faculty member of the Institute for Advanced Study from 1956 until his death at age 101. He was a member of the Founding Council of the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford.[2]

Long Telegram

George Kennan was the chief intellectual architect of the U.S. cold war policy of containment, which he articulates in the "Long Telegram," sent from Moscow in 1946. The "Long Telegram" lays out what he saw as the chief features of the Soviet state and its approach to world affairs. In it he suggests that trying to contain the USSR would be more effective in the long run than would direct confrontation. Although Kennan's influence on foreign policy was strong, he was unable to prevent containment from being implemented almost exclusively as a military policy rather than the economic and political strategy that he had envisioned. In devising the policy of containment, Kennan envisaged that policy makers would choose their conflicts in such a way as to maximize potential gains while minimizing potential losses, in terms of life, political capital, and economic resources.

Gideon v. Wainwright

Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963), is a landmark case in United States Supreme Court history. In it, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that states are required under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to provide counsel in criminal cases to represent defendants who are unable to afford to pay their own attorneys. The case extended the identical requirement that had been imposed on the federal government under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments.

Hubert Humphrey

Hubert Horatio Humphrey Jr. (May 27, 1911 - January 13, 1978) was an American politician who served as the 38th Vice President of the United States under President Lyndon B. Johnson, from 1965 to 1969. Humphrey twice served in the United States Senate, representing Minnesota from 1949 to 1964 and 1971 to 1978. He was the nominee of the Democratic Party in the 1968 presidential election, losing to the Republican nominee, Richard Nixon. Born in Wallace, South Dakota, Humphrey attended the University of Minnesota before earning his pharmacist license from the Capitol College of Pharmacy in 1931. He helped run his father's pharmacy until 1937 when he returned to academia, graduating with his masters from Louisiana State University in 1940, where he was a political science instructor. He returned to Minnesota during World War II and became a supervisor for the Works Progress Administration. He was then appointed state director of the Minnesota war service program before becoming the assistant director of the War Manpower Commission. In 1943, Humphrey became a Professor of political science at Macalester College and ran a failed campaign for Mayor of Minneapolis. Humphrey helped found the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) in 1944, and in 1945, became the DFL candidate for Mayor of Minneapolis for a second time, winning with 61% of the vote. Humphrey served as mayor from 1945 to 1948, he was reelected and became the co-founder of the liberal anti-communism group Americans for Democratic Action in 1947. Humphrey was elected to the Senate in 1948, the year his proposal of ending racial segregation was included into the party platform at the Democratic National Convention, where he gave one of his most notable speeches on the convention floor, suggesting the Democratic Party "walk into the sunshine of human rights."[1] He served three terms in the Senate from 1949 to 1964 and was the Democratic Majority Whip from 1961 to 1964. During his tenure, Humphrey was the lead author of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, introduced the first initiative to create the Peace Corps, sponsored the clause of the McCarran Act to threaten concentration camps for 'subversives', proposed making Communist Party membership a felony and chaired the Select Committee on Disarmament. Humphrey ran two failed campaigns for President in the 1952 and 1960 Democratic primaries. Lyndon B. Johnson became President on November 22, 1963, after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Johnson received the Democratic nomination for President in 1964, and he chose Humphrey as his vice presidential running mate, and both were elected in a landslide victory in the 1964 presidential election. After Johnson made the surprise announcement that he would not seek reelection in March 1968, Humphrey launched his campaign for the presidency the following month. Humphrey's main Democratic challengers were anti-Vietnam War Senators Eugene McCarthy and Robert F. Kennedy. Humphrey, who was loyal to the Johnson administration's policies on the Vietnam War as Vice President, saw opposition from many within his own party and avoided the primaries to focus on receiving the delegates of non-primary states at the Democratic Convention. Humphrey's delegate strategy succeeded in clinching the nomination, choosing Senator Edmund Muskie as his running mate. With the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy that year, and heightened opposition to the Vietnam War, the convention saw major protests which later proved costly to Humphrey's campaign. On November 5, 1968, Humphrey lost to former Vice President Richard Nixon in the general election. Humphrey then returned to teaching in Minnesota before returning to the Senate in 1971. He became the first Deputy President pro tempore of the senate and served in his seat until his death in 1978. Humphrey died of bladder cancer at his home in Waverly, Minnesota and is buried at the Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis. He was succeeded by his wife of forty-one years Muriel Humphrey as the interim Senator for Minnesota.

USSR acquires atomic bomb

In September 1949 the Western world learned that the Soviet Union had exploded an atomic bomb. U.S. government officials had predicted that it would take the Soviet Union as long as a decade to develop atomic weapons. The speed with which the Soviets produced a bomb led to charges that development of the device was a product of Soviet espionage. People spoke of the Russians having used German scientists or having stolen secrets. Indeed, a German scientist, Klaus Fuchs, had provided the Russians a detailed description of the plutonium implosion bomb in June 1945, while he was working at Los Alamos, New Mexico. Russia's leading scientist on the bomb project, Igor Kurchatov, and his close associate, Yuli Khariton, had not been sure that Fuch's information was completely reliable. Khariton and his team were assigned the task of verifying everything. Another working on the atomic bomb for the Soviet Union was Andrei Sakharov, aged 27 in 1948, and that year he had already been thinking about the creation of a hydrogen bomb. The Soviet Union gave its scientists massive resources and privileged living conditions, while those taking part in the project believed that the Soviet Union needed its own bomb in order to defend itself, and they welcomed the challenge of proving the worth of Soviet science. People in the West saw it differently. For them the prospect of war was now more frightening. In November it was announced in the U.S. that scientists had already created a bomb "six times the effectiveness" of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And in January, 1950, President Truman revealed that he had ordered the Atomic Energy Commission to develop the hydrogen bomb.

Little Rock School Integration

In a key event of the American Civil Rights Movement, nine black students enrolled at formerly all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in September 1957, testing a landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional. The court had mandated that all public schools in the country be integrated "with all deliberate speed" in its decision related to the groundbreaking case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. On September 4, 1957, the first day of classes at Central High, Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas called in the state National Guard to bar the black students' entry into the school. Later in the month, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent in federal troops to escort the "Little Rock Nine" into the school, and they started their first full day of classes on September 25.

Selma to Montgomery March

In early 1965, Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) made Selma, Alabama, the focus of its efforts to register black voters in the South. That March, protesters attempting to march from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery were met with violent resistance by state and local authorities. As the world watched, the protesters (under the protection of federalized National Guard troops) finally achieved their goal, walking around the clock for three days to reach Montgomery. The historic march, and King's participation in it, greatly helped raise awareness of the difficulty faced by black voters in the South, and the need for a Voting Rights Act, passed later that year.

My Lai Massacre

In one of the most horrific incidents of violence against civilians during the Vietnam War, a company of American soldiers brutally killed the majority of the population of the South Vietnamese hamlet of My Lai in March 1968. Though exact numbers remain unconfirmed, it is believed that as many as 500 people including women, children and the elderly were killed in the My Lai Massacre.. Higher-ranking U.S. Army officers managed to cover up the events of that day for a year before revelations by a soldier who had heard of the massacre sparked a wave of international outrage and led to a special investigation into the matter. In 1970, a U.S. Army board charged 14 officers of crimes related to the events at My Lai; only one was convicted. The brutality of the My Lai killings and the extent of the cover-up exacerbated growing antiwar sentiment on the home front in the United States and further divided the nation over the continuing American presence in Vietnam.

Affirmative Action

In the United States, affirmative action refers to equal opportunity employment measures that Federal contractors and subcontractors are legally required to adopt. These measures are intended to prevent discrimination against employees or applicants for employment on the basis of "color, religion, sex, or national origin".[1][2] Examples of affirmative action offered by the United States Department of Labor include outreach campaigns, targeted recruitment, employee and management development, and employee support programs.[2]

John Foster Dulles

John Foster Dulles (1888-1959) was a powerful U.S. secretary of state under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Born into a family of statesmen, Dulles became an international lawyer for a Wall Street firm and attended the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 as part of the Reparations Commission and Economic Council. He negotiated the Japanese peace treaty in the early 1950s as a consultant to President Harry S. Truman, but later became a vocal critic of the administration's foreign policy. Named secretary of state in 1953, Dulles was known for a strong stance against communism and his management of the crises of Suez, Indochina and Lebanon.

Joseph McCarthy

Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy (November 14, 1908 - May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in which Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread Communist subversion.[1] He was noted for making claims that there were large numbers of Communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers inside the United States federal government and elsewhere. Ultimately, his tactics and inability to substantiate his claims led him to be censured by the United States Senate. The term McCarthyism, coined in 1950 in reference to McCarthy's practices, was soon applied to similar anti-communist activities. Today the term is used more generally in reference to demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents.[2] McCarthy was born in 1908 in Grand Chute Township Wisconsin, and attended Marquette University, eventually earning a degree from Marquette University Law School. [3] At age 33, McCarthy volunteered for the United States Marine Corps and served during World War II. He successfully ran for the United States Senate in 1946, defeating Robert M. La Follette Jr. After three largely undistinguished years in the Senate, McCarthy rose suddenly to national fame in February 1950 when he asserted in a speech that he had a list of "members of the Communist Party and members of a spy ring" who were employed in the State Department.[4] McCarthy was never able to prove his sensational charge. In succeeding years after his 1950 speech, McCarthy made additional accusations of Communist infiltration into the State Department, the administration of President Harry S. Truman, the Voice of America, and the United States Army. He also used various charges of communism, communist sympathies, disloyalty, or homosexuality to attack a number of politicians and other individuals inside and outside of government.[5] Not as widely known as McCarthy's anti-Communist crusade were his various attempts to intimidate, and expel from government positions, persons whom he accused, or threatened to publicly accuse, of homosexuality. Former U.S. Senator Alan K. Simpson has written: "The so-called 'Red Scare' has been the main focus of most historians of that period of time. A lesser-known element...and one that harmed far more people was the witch-hunt McCarthy and others conducted against homosexuals."[6] This anti-homosexual witch-hunt that McCarthy and others waged alongside their "Red Scare" tactics has been referred to by some as the "Lavender Scare".[7] With the highly publicized Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954, and following the death of Senator Lester Hunt of Wyoming by suicide that same year,[8] McCarthy's support and popularity faded. On December 2, 1954, the Senate voted to censure Senator McCarthy by a vote of 67 to 22, making him one of the few senators ever to be disciplined in this fashion. McCarthy died in Bethesda Naval Hospital on May 2, 1957, at the age of 48. The official cause of death was acute hepatitis; it is widely accepted that this was caused, or at least exacerbated, by alcoholism.[9]

Landrum-Griffin Act

Landrum-Griffin Act, 1959, passed by the U.S. Congress, officially known as the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act. It resulted from hearings of the Senate committee on improper activities in the fields of labor and management, which uncovered evidence of collusion between dishonest employers and union officials, the use of violence by certain segments of labor leadership, and the diversion and misuse of labor union funds by high-ranking officials. The act provided for the regulation of internal union affairs, including the regulation and control of union funds. Former members of the Communist party and former convicts are prevented from holding a union office for a period of five years after resigning their Communist party membership or being released from prison. Union members are protected against abuses by a bill of rights that includes guarantees of freedom of speech and periodic secret elections. Secondary boycotting and organizational and recognition picketing (i.e., picketing of companies where a rival union is already recognized) are severely restricted by the act. In the field of arbitration, an amendment to the Taft-Hartley Labor Act (1947) written into this 1959 act authorized states to process cases that fall outside the province of the National Labor Relations Board. Organized labor has, in general, opposed the act for strengthening what they consider the antilabor provisions of the Taft-Hartley Labor Act.

Voice of America

Mid-1941 U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt establishes the U.S. Foreign Information Service (FIS) in order to begin international radio broadcasts. Under the leadership of Robert Sherwood, the FIS is headquartered in New York City and begins to produce material for broadcast to Europe by the privately owned American shortwave stations. December 1941 The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and Germany's declaration of war against the United States accelerate the growth of U.S. international broadcast efforts. Sherwood hires John Houseman, the theatrical producer, author, and director, to take charge of the FIS radio operations in New York City. FIS made its first direct broadcasts to Asia from a studio in San Francisco. February 1, 1942 FIS makes its first broadcast to Europe via BBC medium- and long-wave transmitters. Speaking from New York City in VOA's inaugural broadcast, announcer William Harlan Hale signs on in German saying, "Here speaks a voice from America. Everyday at this time we will bring you the news of the war. The news may be good. The news may be bad. We shall tell you the truth." March 1942 VOA is broadcasting a six-and-a-quarter hour block of programming, and by April VOA is on the air twenty-four hours a day and adding more languages to its broadcast schedule. June 1942 VOA grows rapidly and has a new organizational home - the Office of War Information (OWI). Twenty-three transmitters and 27 language services are on the air when the Allied summit takes place in Casablanca. 1945 As World War II draws to a close, many VOA language services are reduced or eliminated. A State Department-appointed committee of private citizens chaired by Columbia University professor Arthur McMahon advises the U.S. Government that it can not be "indifferent to the ways in which our society is portrayed to other countries." Consequently, on December 31, 1945, the VOA's and Coordinator for Inter-American Affairs broadcast services to Latin America are transferred to the Department of State, and Congress reluctantly appropriates funds for their continued operation in 1946 and 1947. 1948 The Smith-Mundt Act is enacted by Congress to establish America's international informational and cultural exchange programs, a function that VOA has already been carrying out for the past six years on its own. January 27, 1948 The U.S. Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948, also known as the Smith-Mundt Act, is passed by Congress and signed into law by U.S. President Harry Truman, placing international overseas information activities, including VOA, under an Office of International Information at the Department of State.

New Frontier

NEW FRONTIER. The term "New Frontier" refers to the economic and social programs of the presidency of John F. Kennedy. The concept of a "New Frontier" epitomized Kennedy's commitment to renewal and change. He pitched his 1960 presidential campaign as a crusade to bring in a "new generation of leadership—new men to cope with new problems and new opportunities." Standing in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum before 80,000 people, accepting the Democratic presidential nomination, Kennedy used "the New Frontier" to root himself in the past and evoke a new and rosy future. In a characteristic intellectual and political pastiche, Kennedy and his speechwriters built on President Theodore Roosevelt's "Square Deal," President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "New Deal," President Harry S. Truman's "Fair Deal," and Professor Frederick Jackson Turner's lament about "the closing of the frontier." Nearly seven decades after Turner's famous 1893 essay, Kennedy noted that "today some would say" that the pioneering struggles Turner praised "are all over, that all the horizons have been explored, that all the battles have been won, that there is no longer an American frontier. But ...the problems are not all solved and the battles are not all won, and we stand today on the edge of a New Frontier—the frontier of the 1960s, a frontier of unknown opportunities and paths, a frontier of unfulfilled hopes and threats." Kennedy claimed that his frontier was "a set of challenges. It sums up not what I intend to offer the American people, but what I intend to ask of them"—foreshadowing his more famous "ask not what your country can do for you" formulation in his inaugural address. And those challenges were essential in generating the great liberal excitement of Kennedy's magical "thousand days." But the New Frontier was also very much a "set of promises," and a legislative agenda "to get the country moving again." Detailed in the Democratic platform, the New Frontier called for advancing "the civil and economic rights essential to the human dignity of all men," raising the minimum wage, guaranteeing equal pay for women, rebuilding the inner cities, increasing federal aid for education, initiating a Peace Corps, and developing a Medicare program to assist the elderly. Kennedy was more successful in setting a tone than in enacting his program. True, in Kennedy's first two years as president, Congress passed 304 bills that the White House proposed. But that represented less than half of the 653 bills actually championed and, many historians agree, "domestically, it was not the important half." Congress raised the minimum wage from $1.00 to $1.25 and broadened eligibility requirements. Congress did provide $4.9 billion in federal grants for urban development. But Congress defeated Kennedy's proposals for Medicare, for a Department of Urban Affairs, and for mass transit aid. The big, dramatic, Kennedyesque legislative program known as the Great Society was only enacted during President Lyndon B. Johnson's tenure—partially as a tribute to the martyred president after Kennedy's assassination, and partially as a result of Johnson's tenacity and talent. John F. Kennedy's New Frontier, thus, was more evocative than effective, more style than substance, more a mark of Kennedy's great potential and inspiring oratory than the high-point of liberal reform he hoped it would be.

NSC-68

National Security Council Report 68 (NSC-68) was a 58-paged top secret policy paper issued by the United States National Security Council on April 14, 1950, during the presidency of Harry S. Truman. It was one of the most significant statements of American policy in the Cold War. NSC-68 largely shaped U.S. foreign policy in the Cold War for the next 20 years, and involved a decision to increase the pressure of Containment against global Communist expansion a high priority. It rejected the alternative policies of friendly Détente or aggressive Rollback.[1] They needed a costly arms build up for American defense. It was how exactly the US was going to handle how it would defend itself from the Soviet Union.

V-J Day

On August 14, 1945, it was announced that Japan had surrendered unconditionally to the Allies, effectively ending World War II. Since then, both August 14 and August 15 have been known as "Victoryover Japan Day," or simply "V-J Day." The term has also been used for September 2, 1945, when Japan's formal surrender took place aboard the U.S.S. Missouri, anchored in Tokyo Bay. Coming several months after the surrender of Nazi Germany, Japan's capitulation in the Pacific brought six years of hostilities to a final and highly anticipated close.

Nuclear Ban Test Treaty

On August 5, 1963, representatives of the United States, Soviet Union and Great Britain signed the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which prohibited the testing of nuclear weapons in outer space, underwater or in the atmosphere. The treaty, which President John F. Kennedy signed less than three months before his assassination, was hailed as an important first step toward the control of nuclear weapons.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

On August 6, 1945, during World War II (1939-45), an American B-29 bomber dropped the world's first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion wiped out 90 percent of the city and immediately killed 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure. Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people. Japan's Emperor Hirohito announced his country's unconditional surrender in World War II in a radio address on August 15, citing the devastating power of "a new and most cruel bomb."

Lunch counter sit-ins

The Greensboro sit-ins were a series of nonviolent protests in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1960[1] which led to the Woolworth department store chain reversing its policy of racial segregation in the Southern United States.[2] While not the first sit-ins of the African-American Civil Rights Movement, the Greensboro sit-ins were an instrumental action, leading to increased national sentiment at a crucial period in US history.[3] The primary event took place at the Greensboro, North Carolina Woolworth store, now the International Civil Rights Center and Museum.

Tet Offensive

On January 31, 1968, some 70,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces launched the Tet Offensive (named for the lunar new year holiday called Tet), a coordinated series of fierce attacks on more than 100 cities and towns in South Vietnam. General Vo Nguyen Giap, leader of the Communist People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), planned the offensive in an attempt both to foment rebellion among the South Vietnamese population and encourage the United States to scale back its support of the Saigon regime. Though U.S. and South Vietnamese forces managed to hold off the Communist attacks, news coverage of the offensive (including the lengthy Battle of Hue) shocked and dismayed the American public and further eroded support for the war effort. Despite heavy casualties, North Vietnam achieved a strategic victory with the Tet Offensive, as the attacks marked a turning point in the Vietnam War and the beginning of the slow, painful American withdrawal from the region.

Korean War

On June 25, 1950, the Korean War began when some 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People's Army poured across the 38th parallel, the boundary between the Soviet-backed Democratic People's Republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south. This invasion was the first military action of the Cold War. By July, American troops had entered the war on South Korea's behalf. As far as American officials were concerned, it was a war against the forces of international communism itself. After some early back-and-forth across the 38th parallel, the fighting stalled and casualties mounted with nothing to show for them. Meanwhile, American officials worked anxiously to fashion some sort of armistice with the North Koreans. The alternative, they feared, would be a wider war with Russia and China-or even, as some warned, World War III. Finally, in July 1953, the Korean War came to an end. In all, some 5 million soldiers and civilians lost their lives during the war. The Korean peninsula is still divided today.

Freedom Riders

On May 4, 1961, a group of 13 African-American and white civil rights activists launched the Freedom Rides, a series of bus trips through the American South to protest segregation in interstate bus terminals. The Freedom Riders, who were recruited by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), a U.S. civil rights group, departed from Washington, D.C., and attempted to integrate facilities at bus terminals along the way into the Deep South. African-American Freedom Riders tried to use "whites-only" restrooms and lunch counters, and vice versa. The group encountered tremendous violence from white protestors along the route, but also drew international attention to their cause. Over the next few months, several hundred Freedom Riders engaged in similar actions. In September 1961, the Interstate Commerce Commission issued regulations prohibiting segregation in bus and train stations nationwide.

Suez Crisis

On October 29, 1956, Israeli armed forces pushed into Egypt toward the Suez Canal after Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918-70) nationalized the canal in July of that same year, initiating the Suez Crisis. The Israelis soon were joined by French and British forces, which nearly brought the Soviet Union into the conflict, and damaged their relationships with the United States. In the end, the British, French and Israeli governments withdrew their troops in late 1956 and early 1957.

Point Four Program

Point Four program, U.S. foreign aid project aimed at providing technological skills, knowledge, and equipment to poor nations throughout the world. The program also encouraged the flow of private investment capital to these nations. The project received its name from the fourth point of a program set forth in President Truman's 1949 inaugural address. In the cold war the U.S. government used Point Four to win support from uncommitted nations. From 1950 until 1953, Point Four aid was administered by the Technical Cooperation Administration, a separate unit within the Dept. of State. During the administration of President Eisenhower it was integrated into the overall foreign aid program.

Smith Act

Smith Act, formally Alien Registration Act of 1940, U.S. federal law passed in 1940 that made it a criminal offense to advocate violent overthrow of the government or to organize or be a member of any group or society devoted to such advocacy. After World War II this statute was made the basis of a series of prosecutions against leaders of the Communist Party and the Socialist Workers Party. The conviction of the principal officers was sustained, and the constitutionality of the "advocacy" provision upheld, by the Supreme Court in Dennis v. United States (1951); but in a later case (Yates v. United States, 1957) the court offset this position somewhat by a strict reading of the language of the Smith Act, construing "advocacy" to mean only urging that includes incitement to unlawful action.

Richard Nixon

Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 - April 22, 1994) was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only U.S. president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a U.S. representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961. Nixon was born in Yorba Linda, California. After completing his undergraduate work at Whittier College, he graduated from Duke University School of Law in 1937 and returned to California to practice law. He and his wife, Pat Nixon, moved to Washington to work for the federal government in 1942. He subsequently served in the United States Navy during World War II. Nixon was elected to the House of Representatives in 1946 and to the Senate in 1950. His pursuit of the Hiss Case established his reputation as a leading anti-communist, and elevated him to national prominence. He was the running mate of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Republican Party presidential nominee in the 1952 election. Nixon served for eight years as vice president. He waged an unsuccessful presidential campaign in 1960, narrowly losing to John F. Kennedy, and lost a race for Governor of California in 1962. In 1968 he ran again for the presidency and was elected. Although Nixon initially escalated the war in Vietnam, he subsequently ended the U.S. involvement in 1973 as well as the draft. Nixon's visit to the People's Republic of China in 1972 opened diplomatic relations between the two nations, and he initiated détente and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the Soviet Union the same year. His administration generally transferred power from Washington to the states. He imposed wage and price controls, enforced desegregation of Southern schools and established the Environmental Protection Agency. Though he presided over Apollo 11, he scaled back manned space exploration. He was reelected by one of the largest landslides in US history in 1972. The year 1973 saw an Arab oil embargo and a continuing series of revelations about the Watergate scandal. The scandal escalated, costing Nixon much of his political support, and on August 9, 1974, he resigned in the face of almost certain impeachment and removal from office. After his resignation, he was issued a pardon by his successor, Gerald Ford. In retirement, Nixon's work authoring several books and undertaking many foreign trips helped to rehabilitate his image. He suffered a debilitating stroke on April 18, 1994, and died four days later at the age of 81. Nixon remains a source of considerable interest among historians.

Robert Kennedy

Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy (November 20, 1925 - June 6, 1968), commonly known by his initials RFK, was an American politician from Massachusetts. He served as a Senator for New York from 1965 until his assassination in 1968. He was previously the 64th U.S. Attorney General from 1961 to 1964, serving under his older brother, President John F. Kennedy and his successor, President Lyndon B. Johnson. An icon of modern American liberalism and member of the Democratic Party, Kennedy was a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in the 1968 election. After serving in the U.S. Naval Reserve as a Seaman Apprentice from 1944 to 1946, Kennedy graduated from Harvard College and the University of Virginia School of Law. Prior to entering public office, he worked as a correspondent to the Boston Post and as an attorney in Washington D.C.. He gained national attention as the chief counsel of the Senate Labor Rackets Committee from 1957 to 1959, where he publicly challenged Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa over the corrupt practices of the union, and published The Enemy Within, a book about corruption in organized labor. A prominent member of the Kennedy family, Bobby was the campaign manager for his brother John in the 1960 presidential election and was appointed Attorney General during his presidential administration. He also served as a White House adviser to the president from 1961 to 1963. His tenure is best known for its advocacy for the African-American Civil Rights Movement, crusade against organized crime and the mafia, and involvement in U.S. foreign policy related to Cuba and Indonesia. After his brother's assassination, Kennedy remained in office for a few months until leaving to run for the United States Senate in 1964 where he defeated Republican incumbent Kenneth Keating. In 1968, Kennedy campaigned for the presidency and was a leading Democratic candidate, appealing particularly to black, Hispanic, and Catholic voters. Shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968, after Kennedy defeated Senator Eugene McCarthy in the California presidential primary, he was shot by Sirhan Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian, and died the following day.[1]

Rosenberg Case

Rosenberg Case, in U.S. history, a lengthy and controversial espionage case. In 1950, the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Julius Rosenberg (1918-53), an electrical engineer who had worked (1940-45) for the U.S. army signal corps, and his wife Ethel (1916-53); they were indicted for conspiracy to transmit classified military information to the Soviet Union. In the trial that followed (Mar., 1951), the government charged that in 1944 and 1945 the Rosenbergs had persuaded Ethel's brother, David Greenglass—an employee at the Los Alamos atomic bomb project—to provide them and a third person, Harry Gold, with top-secret data on nuclear weapons. The chief evidence against the Rosenbergs came from Greenglass and his wife, Ruth. Both Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were found guilty (1951) and received the death sentence; Morton Sobell, a codefendant, received a 30-year prison term, as did Harry Gold; and David Greenglass was later sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. Despite many court appeals and pleas for executive clemency, the Rosenbergs were executed on June 19, 1953. They became the first U.S. civilians to suffer the death penalty in an espionage trial. The case aroused much controversy. Many claimed that the political climate made a fair trial impossible and that the only seriously incriminating evidence had come from a confessed spy; others questioned the value of the information transmitted to the Soviet Union and argued that the death penalty was too severe. Communists in the United States and abroad organized a campaign to save the Rosenbergs and received the support of many liberals and religious leaders.

Stagflation

Stagflation, a portmanteau of stagnation and inflation, is a term used in economics to describe a situation where the inflation rate is high, the economic growth rate slows down, and unemployment remains steadily high. It raises a dilemma for economic policy since actions designed to lower inflation may exacerbate unemployment, and vice versa. The term is generally attributed to a British Conservative Party politician who became chancellor of the exchequer in 1970, Iain Macleod, who coined the phrase in his speech to Parliament in 1965.[1][2][3][4] [notes 1] Keynes didn't use the term, but some of his work refers to the conditions most would recognise as stagflation. In the version of Keynesian macroeconomic theory which was dominant between the end of WWII and the late-1970s, inflation and recession were regarded as mutually exclusive, the relationship between the two being described by the Phillips curve. Stagflation is very costly and difficult to eradicate once it starts, in human terms as well as in budget deficits. One economic indicator, the misery index, is derived by the simple addition of the inflation rate to the unemployment rate.

Students for a Democratic Society

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a student activist movement in the United States that was one of the main representations of the New Left. The organization developed and expanded rapidly in the mid-1960s before dissolving at its last convention in 1969. SDS has been an important influence on student organizing in the decades since its collapse. Participatory democracy, direct action, radicalism, student power, shoestring budgets, and its organizational structure are all present in varying degrees in current American student activist groups. Though various organizations have been formed in subsequent years as proposed national networks for left-wing student organizing, none has approached the scale of SDS, and most have lasted a few years at best. A new incarnation of SDS was founded in 2006.

Taft-Hartley Labor Act

Taft-Hartley Labor Act, 1947, passed by the U.S. Congress, officially known as the Labor-Management Relations Act. Sponsored by Senator Robert Alphonso Taft and Representative Fred Allan Hartley, the act qualified or amended much of the National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act of 1935, the federal law regulating labor relations of enterprises engaged in interstate commerce, and it nullified parts of the Federal Anti-Injunction (Norris-LaGuardia) Act of 1932. The act established control of labor disputes on a new basis by enlarging the National Labor Relations Board and providing that the union or the employer must, before terminating a collective-bargaining agreement, serve notice on the other party and on a government mediation service. The government was empowered to obtain an 80-day injunction against any strike that it deemed a peril to national health or safety. The act also prohibited jurisdictional strikes (dispute between two unions over which should act as the bargaining agent for the employees) and secondary boycotts (boycott against an already organized company doing business with another company that a union is trying to organize), declared that it did not extend protection to workers on wildcat strikes, outlawed the closed shop, and permitted the union shop only on a vote of a majority of the employees. Most of the collective-bargaining provisions were retained, with the extra provision that a union before using the facilities of the National Labor Relations Board must file with the U.S. Dept. of Labor financial reports and affidavits that union officers are not Communists. The act also forbade unions to contribute to political campaigns. Although President Truman vetoed the act, it was passed over his veto. Federal courts have upheld major provisions of the act with the exception of the clauses about political expenditures. Attempts to repeal it have been unsuccessful, but the Landrum-Griffin Act (1959) amended some features of the Taft-Hartley Labor Act.

Fall of Czechoslovakia

The 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état (often simply the Czech coup) (Czech: Únor 1948, Slovak: Február 1948, both meaning "February 1948") - in Communist historiography known as "Victorious February" (Czech: Vítězný únor, Slovak: Víťazný február) - was an event late that February in which the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, with Soviet backing, assumed undisputed control over the government of Czechoslovakia, marking the onset of four decades of Communist dictatorship in the country. The coup's significance extended well beyond the country's boundaries, however, as it was a clear marker along the already well-advanced road to full-fledged Cold War. The shock with which the West greeted the event—which bore distinct echoes of Munich—helped spur quick adoption of the Marshall Plan, the creation of a state in West Germany, vigorous measures to keep Communists out of power in France and especially Italy, and steps toward mutual security that would, in little over a year, result in the establishment of NATO and the definitive drawing of the Iron Curtain until the fall of Communism in 1989.

Democratic National Convention of '68

The 1968 Democratic National Convention of the U.S. Democratic Party was held at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago, Illinois, from August 26 to August 29, 1968. Because President Lyndon B. Johnson had announced he would not seek reelection, the purpose of the convention was to select a new presidential nominee to run as the Democratic Party's candidate for the office.[1] The keynote speaker was Senator Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii).[2] Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey and Senator Edmund S. Muskie of Maine, were nominated for President and Vice President, respectively. The convention was held during a year of violence, political turbulence, and civil unrest, particularly riots in more than 100 cities[3] following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4.[4] The convention also followed the assassination of Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York, on June 5.[5] Both Kennedy and Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota had been running against the eventual Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Hubert Humphrey.

AFL-CIO Merger

The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) is a national trade union center and the largest federation of unions in the United States. It is made up of fifty-six national and international unions,[3] together representing more than 12 million active and retired workers.[1] The AFL-CIO is one of the highest-spending and most politically active unions.[3] The AFL-CIO was formed in 1955 when the AFL and the CIO merged after a long estrangement. Membership in the union peaked in 1979, when the AFL-CIO had nearly twenty million members.[4] From 1955 until 2005, the AFL-CIO's member unions represented nearly all unionized workers in the United States. Several large unions split away from AFL-CIO and formed the rival Change to Win Federation in 2005 but a number of those unions have since re-affiliated. The largest union currently in the AFL-CIO is the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), with approximately 1.4 million members.[5]

Bay of Pigs Invasion

The Bay of Pigs Invasion, known in Latin America as Invasión de Playa Girón (or Invasión de Bahía de Cochinos or Batalla de Girón), was a failed military invasion of Cuba undertaken by the CIA-sponsored paramilitary group Brigade 2506 on 17 April 1961. A counter-revolutionary military, trained and funded by the United States government's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Brigade 2506 fronted the armed wing of the Democratic Revolutionary Front (DRF) and intended to overthrow the Communist government of Fidel Castro. Launched from Guatemala, the invading force was defeated within three days by the Cuban armed forces, under the direct command of the Prime Minister of Cuba, Fidel Castro. The Cuban Revolution of 1952 to 1959 had forced President Fulgencio Batista, an ally of the United States, into exile. He was replaced by the Communist movement led by Castro, which severed the country's formerly strong links with the US after expropriating the assets of US corporations—and developing links with the Soviet Union, with whom, at the time, the United States was engaged in the Cold War. US President Dwight D. Eisenhower was concerned at the direction Castro's government was taking, and in March 1960, Eisenhower allocated $13.1 million to the CIA to plan Castro's overthrow. The CIA proceeded to organize the operation with the aid of various Cuban counter-revolutionary forces, training Brigade 2506 in Mexico. Following his election in 1960, President John F. Kennedy was informed of the invasion plan and gave his consent. Over 1,400 paramilitaries, divided into five infantry battalions and one paratrooper battalion, assembled in Guatemala before setting out for Cuba by boat on April 13. Two days later on April 15, eight CIA-supplied B-26 bombers attacked Cuban air fields and returned to the U.S. On the night of April 16, the main invasion landed at a beach named Playa Girón in the Bay of Pigs. It initially overwhelmed a local revolutionary militia. The Cuban Army's counter-offensive was led by José Ramón Fernández, before Castro decided to take personal control of the operation. On April 20, the invaders finally surrendered, with the majority of troops being publicly interrogated and put into Cuban prisons. The failed invasion strengthened the position of Castro's dictatorship and strengthened ties with the USSR. This led eventually to the events of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The invasion was a major embarrassment for US foreign policy. John Kennedy ordered a number of internal investigations across Latin America.

Casablanca Conference

The Casablanca Conference (codenamed SYMBOL) was held at the Anfa Hotel in Casablanca, French Morocco from January 14 to 24, 1943, to plan the Allied European strategy for the next phase of World War II. In attendance were United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and representing the Free French forces, Generals Charles de Gaulle, and Henri Giraud. Premier Joseph Stalin had declined to attend, citing the ongoing conflict in Stalingrad required his presence in the Soviet Union. The conference agenda addressed the specifics of tactical procedure, allocation of resources and the broader issues of diplomatic policy. The debate and negotiations produced what was known as the "Casablanca Declaration", and what is, perhaps, its most historically provocative statement of purpose, "unconditional surrender". The doctrine of "unconditional surrender" came to represent the unified voice of implacable Allied will—the determination that the Axis powers would be fought to their ultimate defeat and annihilation.

Chicano Movement

The Chicano Movement of the 1960s, also called the Chicano Civil Rights Movement, also known as El Movimiento, is an extension of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement which began in the 1940s with the stated goal of achieving Mexican American empowerment. It encompassed a broad cross section of issues—from restoration of land grants, to farm workers' rights, to enhanced education, to voting and political rights, as well as emerging awareness of collective history. Socially, the Chicano Movement addressed negative ethnic stereotypes of Mexicans in mass media and the American consciousness. Edward J. Escobar sleeder [1] from The Journal of American History describes some of the negativity of the time in stating, "The conflict between Chicanos and the LAPD thus helped Mexican Americans develop a new political consciousness that included a greater sense of ethnic solidarity, an acknowledgment of their subordinated status in American society, and a greater determination to act politically, and perhaps even violently, to end that subordination. While most people of Mexican descent still refused to call themselves Chicanos, many had come to adopt many of the principles intrinsic in the concept of chicanismo." Chicanos did this through the creation of works of literary and visual art that validated the Mexican American ethnicity and culture practices.

Fall of China

The Chinese Communist Revolution or The 1949 Revolution was the culmination of the Chinese Communist Party's drive to power since its founding in 1921 and the second part of Chinese Civil War (1946-1949). In the official media, this period is known as the War of Liberation (simplified Chinese: 解放战争; traditional Chinese: 解放戰爭; pinyin: Jiěfàng Zhànzhēng). On the eve of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, the Kuomintang or Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), and the Communist Party of China (CPC) joined in a United Front against Japan. After the entrance of the United States into the war after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the two sides maintained the formal alliance, but fought each other on several occasions. In 1945, Stalin's troops invaded from Soviet Outer Manchuria as part of its declaration of war against Japan. After the Japanese surrender in August, the Americans attempted to broker a coalition government in China, but an all-out war between these two forces soon resumed. On October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the establishment of the People's Republic of China. Chiang Kai-shek, 600,000 Nationalist troops, and about two million Nationalist-sympathizer refugees retreated to the island of Taiwan. After that, resistance to the Communists on the mainland was substantial but scattered, such as in the far south. An attempt to take the Nationalist-controlled island of Kinmen was thwarted in the Battle of Kuningtou. In December 1949 Chiang proclaimed Taipei, Taiwan the temporary capital of the Republic, and continued to assert his government as the sole legitimate authority of all China, while the PRC government continued to call for the unification of all China. The last direct fighting between Nationalist and Communist forces ended with the communist capture of Hainan Island in May 1950, though shelling and guerrilla raids continued for a number of years. The outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 led the American government to place the Fifth Fleet in the Taiwan Straits, which kept each side from attacking the other.

Dumbarton Oaks Conference

The Dumbarton Oaks Conference or, more formally, the Washington Conversations on International Peace and Security Organization was an international conference at which the United Nations was formulated and negotiated among international leaders. The conference was held at Dumbarton Oaks from August 21, 1944 through October 7, 1944. The Dumbarton Oaks Conference constituted the first important step taken to carry out paragraph 4 of the Moscow Declaration of 1943, which recognized the need for a postwar international organization to succeed the League of Nations. At the conference, delegations from Republic of China, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States deliberated over proposals for the establishment of an organization to maintain peace and security in the world. Among the representatives were the British Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Sir Alexander Cadogan; Soviet Ambassador to the United States, Andrei Gromyko; Chinese Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Wellington Koo; and U.S. Undersecretary of State, Edward Reilly Stettinius, Jr.,[1] each of whom chaired his respective delegation. (When Cadogan was called back to London after the first half of the conference, leadership of the delegation was assumed by E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax, the British ambassador in Washington.[2]) The conference itself was chaired by Stettinius,[3] and U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull delivered the opening address. The conversations were held in two phases, since the Soviets were unwilling to meet directly with the Chinese.[4] In the first phase, representatives of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States convened between August 21 and September 28. In the second, representatives of Republic of China, the United Kingdom, and the United States held discussions between September 29 and October 7.

Interstate Highway System

The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways (commonly known as the Interstate Highway System, Interstate Freeway System, Interstate System, or simply the Interstate) is a network of controlled-access highways that forms a part of the National Highway System of the United States. The system is named for President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who championed its formation. Construction was authorized by the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, and the original portion was completed 35 years later, although some urban routes were cancelled and never built. The network has since been extended, and as of 2013, it had a total length of 47,856 miles (77,017 km),[2] making it the world's second longest after China's. As of 2013, about one-quarter of all vehicle miles driven in the country use the Interstate system.[3] The cost of construction has been estimated at $425 billion (in 2006 dollars).[4]

Fair Deal

The Fair Deal was an ambitious set of proposals put forward by U.S. President Harry S. Truman to Congress in his January 1949 State of the Union address. More generally the term characterizes the entire domestic agenda of the Truman Administration, from 1945 to 1953. It offered new proposals to continue New Deal liberalism, but with the Conservative Coalition dominant in Congress, only a few of its major initiatives became law and then only if they had considerable GOP support. As Richard Neustadt concludes, the most important proposals were aid to education, universal health insurance, the Fair Employment Practices Commission, and repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act. They were all debated at length, then voted down. Nevertheless, enough smaller and less controversial items passed that liberals could claim some success.[1]

Great Society

The Great Society was a set of domestic programs in the United States launched by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964-65. The main goal was the elimination of poverty and racial injustice. President Johnson first used the term "Great Society" during a speech at Ohio University, then unveiled the program in greater detail at an appearance at University of Michigan. New major spending programs that addressed education, medical care, urban problems, and transportation were launched during this period. The program and its initiatives were subsequently promoted by him and fellow Democrats in Congress in the 1960s and years following. The Great Society in scope and sweep resembled the New Deal domestic agenda of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Some Great Society proposals were stalled initiatives from John F. Kennedy's New Frontier. Johnson's success depended on his skills of persuasion, coupled with the Democratic landslide in the 1964 election that brought in many new liberals to Congress, making the House of Representatives in 1965 the most liberal House since 1938.[1] Anti-war Democrats complained that spending on the Vietnam War choked off the Great Society. While some of the programs have been eliminated or had their funding reduced, many of them, including Medicare, Medicaid, the Older Americans Act and federal education funding, continue to the present. The Great Society's programs expanded under the administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.[2]

Marshall Plan

The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was an American initiative to aid Europe and Asia, in which the United States gave $13 billion (approximately $160 billion in current dollar value) in economic support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II. The plan was in operation for four years beginning in April 1948. The goals of the United States were to rebuild war-devastated regions, remove trade barriers, modernize industry, and make Europe prosperous again.[1] The Marshall Plan required a lessening of interstate barriers, a dropping of many petty regulations constraining business, and encouraged an increase in productivity, labour union membership, as well as the adoption of modern business procedures.[2] The Marshall Plan aid was divided amongst the participant states roughly on a per capita basis. A larger amount was given to the major industrial powers, as the prevailing opinion was that their resuscitation was essential for general European revival. Somewhat more aid per capita was also directed towards the Allied nations, with less for those that had been part of the Axis or remained neutral. The largest recipient of Marshall Plan money was the United Kingdom (receiving about 26% of the total), followed by France (18%) and West Germany (11%). Some 18 European countries received Plan benefits.[3] Although offered participation, the Soviet Union refused Plan benefits, and also blocked benefits to Eastern Bloc countries, such as East Germany and Poland. The initiative is named after Secretary of State George Marshall. The plan had bipartisan support in Washington, where the Republicans controlled Congress and the Democrats controlled the White House with Harry S. Truman as president. The Plan was largely the creation of State Department officials, especially William L. Clayton and George F. Kennan, with help from Brookings Institution, as requested by Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.[4] Marshall spoke of an urgent need to help the European recovery in his address at Harvard University in June 1947.[1][5] The phrase "equivalent of the Marshall Plan" is often used to describe a proposed large-scale rescue program.[6]

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (August 7, 1964) gave broad congressional approval for expansion of the Vietnam War. During the spring of 1964, military planners had developed a detailed design for major attacks on the North, but at that time President Lyndon B. Johnson and his advisers feared that the public would not support an expansion of the war. By summer, however, rebel forces had established control over nearly half of South Vietnam, and Senator Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee for president, was criticizing the Johnson administration for not pursuing the war more aggressively. On August 2, shortly after a clandestine raid on the North Vietnamese coast by South Vietnamese gunboats, the U.S. destroyer Maddox (conducting electronic espionage nearby) was fired on by North Vietnamese torpedo boats. Two days later, in the same area, the Maddox and another destroyer reported that they were again under attack. Although these reports now appear to have been mistaken, Johnson proceeded quickly to authorize retaliatory air strikes against North Vietnam. The next day he gathered congressional leaders and, without divulging the circumstances that might have helped provoke the torpedo attack, accused the North Vietnamese of "open aggression on the high seas." He then submitted to the Senate a resolution that authorized him to take "all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression." The resolution was quickly approved by Congress; only Senators Wayne Morse of Oregon and Ernest Gruening of Alaska voted against it. Later, when more information about the Tonkin incident became available, many concluded that Johnson and his advisers had misled Congress into supporting the expansion of the war. Six years later, amid mounting criticism of President Richard M. Nixon's Cambodian incursion, the resolution was terminated (December 31, 1970). But in fact, the war had been sustained by Congress's continued military appropriations, not by the Tonkin Resolution. Nevertheless, Johnson had frequently cited the resolution as evidence of congressional support, and to critics of the war it had become a symbol of the escalation they opposed.

HUAC

The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), a committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, investigated allegations of communist activity in the U.S. during the early years of the Cold War (1945-91). Established in 1938, the committee wielded its subpoena power as a weapon and called citizens to testify in high-profile hearings before Congress. This intimidating atmosphere often produced dramatic but questionable revelations about Communists infiltrating American institutions and subversive actions by well-known citizens. HUAC's controversial tactics contributed to the fear, distrust and repression that existed during the anticommunist hysteria of the 1950s. By the late 1950s and early 1960s, HUAC's influence was in decline, and in 1969 it was renamed the Committee on Internal Security. Although it ceased issuing subpoenas that year, its operations continued until 1975.

"Iron Curtain"

The Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological conflict and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The term symbolized efforts by the Soviet Union to block itself and its satellite states from open contact with the west and non-Soviet-controlled areas. On the east side of the Iron Curtain were the countries that were connected to or influenced by the Soviet Union. On either side of the Iron Curtain, states developed their own international economic and military alliances: Member countries of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance and the Warsaw Pact, with the Soviet Union as the leading state Member countries of the European Community and/or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and with the United States as the leading country Physically, the Iron Curtain took the form of border defenses between the countries of Europe in the middle of the continent. The most notable border was marked by the Berlin Wall and its Checkpoint Charlie which served as a symbol of the Curtain as a whole.[1] The events that demolished the Iron Curtain started in discontent in Poland,[2][3] and continued in Hungary, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Romania. Romania was the only communist state in Europe to violently overthrow its totalitarian government.[4]

Jackson State

The Jackson State killings occurred on Friday May 15, 1970, at Jackson State College (now Jackson State University) in Jackson, Mississippi. On May 14, 1970, a group of student protesters against the Vietnam War, specifically the United States invasion of Cambodia, were confronted by city and state police. Shortly after midnight, the police opened fire, killing two students and injuring twelve.[1] The event happened only 11 days after National Guardsmen killed four students in similar protests at Kent State University in Ohio, which had first captured national attention.

Kent State

The Kent State shootings (also known as the May 4 massacre or the Kent State massacre)[2][3][4] occurred at Kent State University in the US city of Kent, Ohio, and involved the shooting of unarmed college students by the Ohio National Guard on Monday, May 4, 1970. The guardsmen fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis.[5][6] Some of the students who were shot had been protesting the Cambodian Campaign, which President Richard Nixon announced during a television address on April 30. Other students who were shot had been walking nearby or observing the protest from a distance.[7][8] There was a significant national response to the shootings: hundreds of universities, colleges, and high schools closed throughout the United States due to a student strike of four million students,[9] and the event further affected public opinion—at an already socially contentious time—over the role of the United States in the Vietnam War.[10]

McCarran Internal Security Act

The McCarran Internal Security Act (1950)was enacted during the early Cold War years and shortly after U.S. intervention in the Korean War in response to growing domestic anti‐Communist fears. In the wake of Republican accusations that the Truman administration was not diligent enough against Communists and Communist sympathizers in the United States, a coalition of conservative Democrats and Republicans adopted the measure. The act, named after Democratic senator Patrick A. McCarran of Nevada, required "communist‐action" and "communist front" organizations to register with the Justice Department. It also increased the statute of limitations, required registration of individuals trained in espionage, authorized the exclusion and deportation of Communists and other "subversives," and provided for the detention of potential espionage agents and subversives whenever the president proclaimed an "internal security emergency." President Harry S. Truman vetoed the bill, which was criticized as an abridgment of civil liberties; but the measure became law on 23 September 1950 after Congress overrode his veto. The registration measures were challenged in the courts and declared unconstitutional in the 1960s. The emergency detention provisions were repealed by Congress in 1971 during the presidency of Richard M. Nixon and the controversial Vietnam Antiwar Movement.

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The Montgomery Bus Boycott, a seminal event in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, was a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. The campaign lasted from December 1, 1955—when Rosa Parks, an African American woman, was arrested for refusing to surrender her seat to a white person—to December 20, 1956, when a federal ruling, Browder v. Gayle, took effect, and led to a United States Supreme Court decision that declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws requiring segregated buses to be unconstitutional.[1] Many important figures in the Civil Rights Movement took part in the boycott, including Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ralph Abernathy.

Kerner Commission

The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, known as the Kerner Commission after its chair, Governor Otto Kerner, Jr. of Illinois, was an 11-member commission established by President Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the causes of the 1967 race riots in the United States and to provide recommendations for the future. Lyndon B. Johnson appointed the commission on July 28, 1967, while rioting was still underway in Detroit, Michigan. Mounting civil unrest since 1965 had stemmed riots in the black neighborhoods of major U.S. cities, including Los Angeles (Watts riots of 1965), Chicago (Division Street Riots of 1966), and Newark (1967 Newark riots).[1] In his remarks upon signing the order establishing the Commission, Johnson asked for answers to three basic questions about the riots: "What happened? Why did it happen? What can be done to prevent it from happening again and again?"[2]

National Security Act

The National Security Act of 1947 was a major restructuring of the United States government's military and intelligence agencies following World War II. The majority of the provisions of the Act took effect on September 18, 1947, the day after the Senate confirmed James Forrestal as the first Secretary of Defense.[1] His power was initially limited and it was difficult for him to exercise the authority to make his office effective. This was later changed in the amendment to the act in 1949, creating what was to be the Department of Defense.[2] The Act merged the Department of War (renamed as the Department of the Army) and the Department of the Navy into the National Military Establishment (NME), headed by the Secretary of Defense. It also created the Department of the Air Force, which separated the Army Air Forces into its own service. Initially, each of the three service secretaries maintained quasi-cabinet status, but the act was amended on August 10, 1949, to ensure their subordination to the Secretary of Defense. At the same time, the NME was renamed as the Department of Defense. The purpose was to unify the Army, Navy, and Air Force into a federated structure.[3] Aside from the military reorganization, the act established the National Security Council, a central place of coordination for national security policy in the executive branch, and the Central Intelligence Agency, the U.S.'s first peacetime intelligence agency. The council's function was to advise the president on domestic, foreign, and military policies, and to ensure cooperation between the various military and intelligence agencies.[3] The Joint Chiefs of Staff was officially established under Title II, Section 211 of the original National Security Act of 1947 before Sections 209-214 of Title II were repealed by the law enacting Title 10[4] and Title 32,[5] United States Code (Act of August 10, 1956, 70A Stat. 676) to replace them. The act and its changes, along with the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, were major components of the Truman administration's Cold War strategy. The bill signing took place aboard Truman's VC-54C presidential aircraft Sacred Cow, the first aircraft used for the role of Air Force One.[6]

Nixon Doctrine

The Nixon Doctrine (also known as the Guam Doctrine) was put forth during a press conference in Guam on July 25, 1969 by U.S. President Richard Nixon[1] and later formalized in his speech on Vietnamization on November 3 1969.[2] According to Gregg Brazinsky,[3] Nixon stated that "the United States would assist in the defense and developments of allies and friends," but would not "undertake all the defense of the free nations of the world." This doctrine meant that each ally nation was in charge of its own security in general, but the United States would act as a nuclear umbrella when requested. The Doctrine argued for the pursuit of peace through a partnership with American allies. The Nixon Doctrine implied the intentions of Richard Nixon shifting the direction on international policies in Asia, especially aiming for "Vietnamization of the Vietnam War."

James Meredith & "Ole Miss"

The Ole Miss riot of 1962 was fought between Southern segregationist civilians and federal and state forces beginning the night of September 29, 1962; segregationists were protesting the enrollment of James Meredith, a black US military veteran, at the University of Mississippi (known affectionately as Ole Miss) at Oxford, Mississippi. Two civilians were killed during the night, including a French journalist, and over 300 people were injured,[1] including one third of the US Marshals deployed.

Paris Peace Agreement

The Paris Peace Accords of 1973 intended to establish peace in Vietnam and an end to the Vietnam War, ended direct U.S. military involvement, and temporarily stopped the fighting between North and South Vietnam. The governments of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam), the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), and the United States, as well as the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) that represented indigenous South Vietnamese revolutionaries, signed the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam on January 27, 1973. The agreement was not ratified by the United States Senate.[1][2] The negotiations that led to the accord began in 1968 after various lengthy delays. As a result of the accord, the International Control Commission (ICC) was replaced by International Commission of Control and Supervision (ICCS) to fulfill the agreement. The main negotiators of the agreement were United States National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and Vietnamese politburo member Lê Đức Thọ; the two men were awarded the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts, although Lê Đức Thọ refused to accept it.

Pentagon Papers

The Pentagon Papers was the name given to a secret Department of Defense study of U.S. political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967, prepared at the request of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in 1967. As the Vietnam War dragged on and the U.S. military presence in South Vietnam increased to more than 500,000 troops by 1968, the military analyst Daniel Ellsberg (who had worked on the study) came to oppose the war, and decided that the information contained in the Pentagon Papers should be more widely available to the American public. He secretly photocopied the report and in March 1971 gave the copy to The New York Times, which subsequently published a series of articles based on the report's findings. Amid the national and international uproar that followed, the federal government tried unsuccessfully to block publication of the Pentagon Papers on grounds of national security.

Potsdam Conference

The Potsdam Conference was held at Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm Hohenzollern, in Potsdam, occupied Germany, from 17 July to 2 August 1945. (In some older documents it is also referred to as the Berlin Conference of the Three Heads of Government of the USSR, USA and UK[2][3]) Participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States. The three powers were represented by Communist Party General Secretary Joseph Stalin, Prime Ministers Winston Churchill,[4] and, later, Clement Attlee,[5] and President Harry S. Truman. Stalin, Churchill, and Truman—as well as Attlee, who participated alongside Churchill while awaiting the outcome of the 1945 general election, and then replaced Churchill as Prime Minister after the Labour Party's defeat of the Conservatives—gathered to decide how to administer punishment to the defeated Nazi Germany, which had agreed to unconditional surrender nine weeks earlier, on 8 May (V-E Day). The goals of the conference also included the establishment of post-war order, peace treaty issues, and countering the effects of the war.

GI Bill

The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944 (P.L. 78-346, 58 Stat. 284m), known informally as the G.I. Bill, was a law that provided a range of benefits for returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I.s). Benefits included low-cost mortgages, low-interest loans to start a business, cash payments of tuition and living expenses to attend university, high school or vocational education, as well as one year of unemployment compensation. It was available to every veteran who had been on active duty during the war years for at least ninety days and had not been dishonorably discharged; combat was not required.[1] By 1956, roughly 2.2 million veterans had used the G.I. Bill education benefits in order to attend colleges or universities, and an additional 5.6 million used these benefits for some kind of training program.[2] Canada operated a similar program for its World War II veterans, with an economic impact similar to the American case.[3] The G.I. Bill was a major factor in the creation of the American middle class, but also substantially increased racial inequality because many of the benefits of the G.I. bill were not granted to soldiers of color.[4] This is because "at the very moment when a wide array of public policies was providing most white Americans with valuable tools to advance their social welfare—insure their old age, get good jobs, acquire economic security, build assets, and gain middle-class status—most black Americans were left behind or left out." [5] Since the original 1944 law, the term has come to include other veteran benefit programs created to assist veterans of subsequent wars as well as peacetime service. Historians and economists judge the G.I. Bill a major political and economic success—especially in contrast to the treatments of World War I veterans—and a major contribution to America's stock of human capital that sped long-term economic growth.[6][7]

Sputnik

The Sputnik crisis was a period of public fear and uncertainty in the United States in the wake of the success of the Soviet Sputnik program and a perceived technological gap between the two superpowers.[1] It was a key Cold War event beginning with the launch of Sputnik 1, the first artificial Earth satellite, by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The Sputnik crisis led to the creation of NASA and the start of the Space Race. The term was coined by then-US President Dwight D. Eisenhower.[citation needed]

SALT

The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) were two rounds of bilateral talks and corresponding international treaties involving the United States and the Soviet Union—the Cold War superpowers—on the issue of armament control. The two rounds of talks and agreements were SALT I and SALT II. Negotiations commenced in Helsinki, Finland, in November 1969.[1] SALT I led to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and an interim agreement between the two countries. Although SALT II resulted in an agreement in 1979, the United States chose not to ratify the treaty in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which took place later that year. The agreement expired on December 31, 1985 and was not renewed. The treaties led to START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty), which consisted of START I (a 1991 completed agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union) and START II (a 1993 agreement between the United States and Russia, which was never ratified by the United States), both of which proposed specific capacities on each side's number of nuclear weapons. A successor to START I, New START, entered proposal and was eventually ratified on February of 2011.

Tehran Conference

The Tehran Conference (codenamed Eureka[1]) was a strategy meeting held between Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill from 28 November to 1 December 1943. It was held in the Soviet embassy in Tehran, Iran and was the first of the World War II conferences held between all of the "Big Three" Allied leaders (the Soviet Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom). It closely followed the Cairo Conference which had taken place on 22-26 November 1943, and preceded the 1945 Yalta and Potsdam Conferences. Although all three of the leaders present arrived with differing objectives, the main outcome of the Tehran Conference was the commitment to the opening of a second front against Nazi Germany by the Western Allies. The conference also addressed relations between the Allies and Turkey and Iran, operations in Yugoslavia and against Japan as well as the envisaged post-war settlement. A separate protocol signed at the conference pledged the Big Three's recognition of Iran's independence.

NATO

The Treaty of Brussels, signed on 17 March 1948 by Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, and the United Kingdom, is considered the precursor to the NATO agreement. The treaty and the Soviet Berlin Blockade led to the creation of the Western European Union's Defence Organization in September 1948.[10] However, participation of the United States was thought necessary both to counter the military power of the USSR and to prevent the revival of nationalist militarism, so talks for a new military alliance began almost immediately resulting in the North Atlantic Treaty, which was signed in Washington, D.C. on 4 April 1949. It included the five Treaty of Brussels states plus the United States, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark and Iceland.[11] The first NATO Secretary General, Lord Ismay, stated in 1949 that the organization's goal was "to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down."[12] Popular support for the Treaty was not unanimous, and some Icelanders participated in a pro-neutrality, anti-membership riot in March 1949. The creation of NATO can be seen as the primary institutional consequence of a school of thought called Atlanticism which stressed the importance of trans-Atlantic cooperation.[13] The members agreed that an armed attack against any one of them in Europe or North America would be considered an attack against them all. Consequently they agreed that, if an armed attack occurred, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence, would assist the member being attacked, taking such action as it deemed necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area. The treaty does not require members to respond with military action against an aggressor. Although obliged to respond, they maintain the freedom to choose the method by which they do so. This differs from Article IV of the Treaty of Brussels, which clearly states that the response will be military in nature. It is nonetheless assumed that NATO members will aid the attacked member militarily. The treaty was later clarified to include both the member's territory and their "vessels, forces or aircraft" above the Tropic of Cancer, including some Overseas departments of France.[14] The creation of NATO brought about some standardization of allied military terminology, procedures, and technology, which in many cases meant European countries adopting US practices. The roughly 1300 Standardization Agreements (STANAG) codified many of the common practices that NATO has achieved. Hence, the 7.62×51 NATO rifle cartridge was introduced in the 1950s as a standard firearm cartridge among many NATO countries. Fabrique Nationale de Herstal's FAL, which used 7.62 NATO cartridge, was adopted by 75 countries, including many outside of NATO.[15] Also, aircraft marshalling signals were standardized, so that any NATO aircraft could land at any NATO base. Other standards such as the NATO phonetic alphabet have made their way beyond NATO into civilian use.

Truman Doctrine

The Truman Doctrine of containment was a United States policy to stop Soviet expansion during the Cold War.[1] United States President Harry S. Truman pledged to contain communism in Europe and elsewhere and impelled the US to support any nation with both military and economic aid if its stability was threatened by communism or the Soviet Union. The Truman Doctrine became the foundation of the president's foreign policy and placed the U.S. in the role of global policeman. As Foner reminds us, the Truman Doctrine "set a precedent for American assistance to anticommunist regimes throughout the world, no matter how undemocratic, and for the creation of a set of global military alliances directed against the Soviet Union" (1st edition, p. 781; 2nd edition, p. 844). President Harry S. Truman told Congress that "it must be the policy of the United States to support free people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures."[2] Truman reasoned, because these "totalitarian regimes" coerced "free peoples", they represented a threat to international peace and the national security of the United States. Truman made the plea amid the crisis of the Greek Civil War (1946-1949). He argued that if Greece and Turkey did not receive the aid that they urgently needed, they would inevitably fall to communism with grave consequences throughout the region. Because Turkey and Greece were historic rivals, it was necessary to help both equally, even though the threat to Greece was more immediate. For years Britain had supported Greece, but was now near bankruptcy and was forced to radically reduce its involvement. In February 1947, Britain formally requested the United States take over its role in supporting the Greek government.[3] The policy won the support of Republicans who controlled Congress and involved sending $400 million in American money, but no military forces, to the region. The effect was to end the Communist threat, and in 1952 both countries (Greece and Turkey) joined NATO, a military alliance that guaranteed their protection.[4] The Doctrine was informally extended to become the basis of American Cold War policy throughout Europe and around the world.[5] It shifted American foreign policy toward the Soviet Union from détente (a relaxation of tension) to a policy of containment of Soviet expansion as advocated by diplomat George Kennan.

Vietnam War

The Vietnam War (Vietnamese: Chiến tranh Việt Nam), also known as the Second Indochina War,[36] and also known in Vietnam as Resistance War Against America (Vietnamese: Kháng chiến chống Mỹ) or simply the American War, was a Cold War-era proxy war[37] that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955[A 1] to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War (1946-54) and was fought between North Vietnam—supported by the Soviet Union, China and other communist allies—and the government of South Vietnam—supported by the United States and other anti-communist allies.[42] The Viet Cong (also known as the National Liberation Front, or NLF), a South Vietnamese communist common front aided by the North, fought a guerrilla war against anti-communist forces in the region. The People's Army of Vietnam (also known as the North Vietnamese Army) engaged in a more conventional war, at times committing large units to battle. As the war continued, the part of the Viet Cong in the fighting decreased as the role of the NVA grew. U.S. and South Vietnamese forces relied on air superiority and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations, involving ground forces, artillery, and airstrikes. In the course of the war, the U.S. conducted a large-scale strategic bombing campaign against North Vietnam, and over time the North Vietnamese airspace became the most heavily defended in the world. The U.S. government viewed American involvement in the war as a way to prevent a Communist takeover of South Vietnam. This was part of a wider containment strategy, with the stated aim of stopping the spread of communism. According to the U.S. domino theory, if one state went Communist, other states in the region would follow, and U.S. policy thus held that Communist rule over all of Vietnam was unacceptable. The North Vietnamese government and the Viet Cong were fighting to reunify Vietnam under communist rule. They viewed the conflict as a colonial war, fought initially against forces from France and then America, as France was backed by the U.S., and later against South Vietnam, which it regarded as a U.S. puppet state.[43] Beginning in 1950, American military advisors arrived in what was then French Indochina.[44][A 3] U.S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s, with troop levels tripling in 1961 and again in 1962.[45] U.S. involvement escalated further following the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, in which a U.S. destroyer clashed with North Vietnamese fast attack craft, which was followed by the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave the U.S. president authorization to increase U.S. military presence. Regular U.S. combat units were deployed beginning in 1965. Operations crossed international borders: bordering areas of Laos and Cambodia were heavily bombed by U.S. forces as American involvement in the war peaked in 1968, the same year that the communist side launched the Tet Offensive. The Tet Offensive failed in its goal of overthrowing the South Vietnamese government but became the turning point in the war, as it persuaded a large segment of the United States population that its government's claims of progress toward winning the war were illusory despite many years of massive U.S. military aid to South Vietnam. Disillusionment with the war by the U.S. led to the gradual withdrawal of U.S. ground forces as part of a policy known as Vietnamization, which aimed to end American involvement in the war while transferring the task of fighting the Communists to the South Vietnamese themselves. Despite the Paris Peace Accord, which was signed by all parties in January 1973, the fighting continued. In the U.S. and the Western world, a large anti-Vietnam War movement developed. This movement was part of a larger Counterculture of the 1960s. Direct U.S. military involvement ended on 15 August 1973 as a result of the Case-Church Amendment passed by the U.S. Congress.[46] The capture of Saigon by the North Vietnamese Army in April 1975 marked the end of the war, and North and South Vietnam were reunified the following year. The war exacted a huge human cost in terms of fatalities (see Vietnam War casualties). Estimates of the number of Vietnamese service members and civilians killed vary from 800,000[47] to 3.1 million.[28][48][49] Some 200,000-300,000 Cambodians,[33][34][35] 20,000-200,000 Laotians,[50][51][52][53][54][55] and 58,220 U.S. service members also died in the conflict.[A 2]

Voting Rights Act of 1965

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of federal legislation in the United States that prohibits racial discrimination in voting.[7][8] It was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson during the height of the American Civil Rights Movement on August 6, 1965, and Congress later amended the Act five times to expand its protections.[7] Designed to enforce the voting rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, the Act resulted in the mass enfranchisement of racial minorities throughout the country, especially in the South. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the Act is considered to be the most effective piece of civil rights legislation ever enacted in the country.[9] The Act contains numerous provisions that regulate election administration. The Act's "general provisions" provide nationwide protections for voting rights. Section 2 is a general provision that prohibits every state and local government from imposing any voting law that results in discrimination against racial or language minorities. Other general provisions specifically outlaw literacy tests and similar devices that were historically used to disenfranchise racial minorities. The Act also contains "special provisions" that apply to only certain jurisdictions. A core special provision is the Section 5 preclearance requirement, which prohibits certain jurisdictions from implementing any change affecting voting without receiving preapproval from the U.S. Attorney General or the U.S. District Court for D.C. that the change does not discriminate against protected minorities.[10] Another special provision requires jurisdictions containing significant language minority populations to provide bilingual ballots and other election materials. Section 5 and most other special provisions apply to jurisdictions encompassed by the "coverage formula" prescribed in Section 4(b). The coverage formula was originally designed to encompass jurisdictions that engaged in egregious voting discrimination in 1965, and Congress updated the formula in 1970 and 1975. In Shelby County v. Holder (2013), the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the coverage formula as unconstitutional, reasoning that it was no longer responsive to current conditions.[11] The Court did not strike down Section 5, but without a coverage formula, Section 5 is unenforceable.[12]

War Powers Act

The War Powers Act of 1941, also known as the First War Powers Act, was an American emergency law that increased Federal power during World War II. The act was signed by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and put into law on December 18, 1941, less than two weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The act was similar to the Departmental Reorganization Act of 1917 as it was signed shortly before the U.S. engaged in a large war and increased the powers of the president's U.S. Executive Branch.[1] The act gave the President enormous authority to execute World War II in an efficient manner. The president was authorized to reorganize the executive branch, independent government agencies, and government corporations for the war cause. With the act, the President was allowed to censor mail and other forms of communication between the United States and foreign countries. The act and all changes created by its power were to remain intact until six months after the end of the war at which time, the act would become defunct.[1] Three months after passing the first, the Second War Powers Act was passed on March 27, 1942. This further strengthened the executive branch powers towards executing World War II. This act allowed the acquisition, under condemnation if necessary, of land for military or naval purposes. Some provisions of the Hatch Act of 1939 were also suspended which reduced naturalization standards for aliens within the U.S. Armed Forces. In addition, it created methods for war-related production contracting along with adjusting several other aspects of government affairs.[1] The Second War Powers Act repealed the confidentiality of census data, allowing the FBI to use this information to round up Japanese-Americans.[2] Under Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson retrospectively delegated his authority from the President under the War Powers Act of 1941 to Leslie Groves for the Manhattan Project. The authority, given in a memorandum to Groves dated April 17, 1944, was retrospective to September 1, 1942. The written delegation was only given in 1944 when Groves deputy Kenneth Nichols was about to sign a large contract with Du Pont, and it was found that he only had a low delegated authority, as Nichols' higher authority for the Manhattan Project had only been given verbally by General Styer to his predecessor Colonel James C. Marshall.[3]

Watergate

The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal that occurred in the United States in the 1970s as a result of the June 17, 1972, break-in at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and the Nixon administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement. When the conspiracy was discovered and investigated by the U.S. Congress, the Nixon administration's resistance to its probes led to a constitutional crisis.[1] The term Watergate has come to encompass an array of clandestine and often illegal activities undertaken by members of the Nixon administration. Those activities included such "dirty tricks" as bugging the offices of political opponents and people of whom Nixon or his officials were suspicious. Nixon and his close aides ordered harassment of activist groups and political figures, using the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The scandal led to the discovery of multiple abuses of power by the Nixon administration, articles of impeachment,[2] and the resignation of Richard Nixon, the President of the United States. Hundreds of cars lined up trying to enter the already full parking lot of El Toro Marine Base on August 9, 1974 to witness the first ever resignation of a United States president.[3] The scandal also resulted in the indictment of 69 people, with trials or pleas resulting in 48 being found guilty and incarcerated, many of whom were Nixon's top administration officials.[4] The affair began with the arrest of five men for breaking and entering into the DNC headquarters at the Watergate complex on June 17, 1972. The FBI connected cash found on the burglars to a slush fund used by the Committee for the Re-Election of the President (CRP), the official organization of Nixon's campaign.[5][6] In July 1973, as evidence mounted against the President's staff, including testimony provided by former staff members in an investigation conducted by the Senate Watergate Committee, it was revealed that President Nixon had a tape-recording system in his offices and that he had recorded many conversations.[7][8] After a protracted series of bitter court battles, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the president had to hand over the tapes to government investigators; he eventually complied. Recordings from these tapes implicated the president, revealing he had attempted to cover up the questionable goings-on that had taken place after the break-in.[6][9] Facing near-certain impeachment in the House of Representatives and equally certain conviction by the Senate, Nixon resigned the presidency on August 9, 1974.[10][11] On September 8, 1974, his successor, Gerald Ford, pardoned him. The name "Watergate" and the suffix "-gate" have since become synonymous with political scandals in the United States[12] and in other English- and non-English-speaking nations.[13]

Watts riots

The Watts riots (or Watts rebellion)[1] were race riots that took place in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles from August 11 to 17, 1965. During World War II, the defense industries in Los Angeles had attracted many African-Americans, who became increasingly unemployed after the war. The maintaining of all-white suburbs had concentrated the blacks in certain zones, where there was little opportunity for advancement. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) was adopting a more military culture, largely approved by the public. On August 11, 1965, a black motorist was arrested for drunk-driving, and a minor roadside argument suddenly turned into a riot. There followed six days of looting and arson, especially of white-owned businesses, and police needed the support of nearly 4,000 members of the California Army National Guard. There were 34 deaths and over $40 million in property damage. The riots were blamed principally on unemployment, although a later investigation also highlighted police racism. It was the city's worst unrest until the Rodney King riots of 1992.

The Plumbers

The White House Plumbers, sometimes simply called the Plumbers, were a covert White House Special Investigations Unit, established July 24, 1971, during the presidency of Richard Nixon. Its task was to stop the leaking of classified information, such as the Pentagon Papers, to the news media. Its members branched into illegal activities while working for the Committee to Re-elect the President, including the Watergate break-in and the ensuing Watergate scandal.[1]

Yalta Conference

The Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, held February 4-11, 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, represented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Premier Joseph Stalin, respectively, for the purpose of discussing Europe's post-war reorganization. The conference convened in the Livadia Palace near Yalta in Crimea. The meeting was intended mainly to discuss the re-establishment of the nations of war-torn Europe. Within a few years, with the Cold War dividing the continent, Yalta became a subject of intense controversy. To some extent, it has remained controversial. Yalta was the second of three wartime conferences among the Big Three. It had been preceded by the Tehran Conference in 1943, and was followed by the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, which was attended by Stalin, Churchill (who was replaced midpoint by the newly elected British Prime Minister Clement Attlee) and Harry S. Truman, Roosevelt's successor.

Counterculture

The counterculture of the 1960s refers to an anti-establishment cultural phenomenon that developed first in the United States and the United Kingdom, and then spread throughout much of the Western world between the early 1960s and the mid-1970s, with London, New York City and later San Francisco being hotbeds of early countercultural activity. The aggregate movement gained momentum as the African-American Civil Rights Movement continued to grow, and became revolutionary with the expansion of the US government's extensive military intervention in Vietnam.[3][4][5] As the 1960s progressed, widespread social tensions also developed concerning other issues, and tended to flow along generational lines regarding human sexuality, women's rights, traditional modes of authority, experimentation with psychoactive drugs, and differing interpretations of the American Dream. As the era unfolded, new cultural forms and a dynamic subculture which celebrated experimentation, modern incarnations of Bohemianism, and the rise of the hippie and other alternative lifestyles, emerged. This embracing of creativity is particularly notable in the works of British Invasion bands such as the Beatles, and filmmakers whose works became far less restricted by censorship. In addition to the trendsetting Beatles, many other creative artists, authors, and thinkers, within and across many disciplines, helped define the counterculture movement. Several factors distinguished the counterculture of the 1960s from the anti-authoritarian movements of previous eras. The post-World War II "baby boom"[6][7] generated an unprecedented number of potentially disaffected young people as prospective participants in a rethinking of the direction of American and other democratic societies.[8] Post-war affluence allowed many of the counterculture generation to move beyond a focus on the provision of the material necessities of life that had preoccupied their Depression-era parents.[9] The era was also notable in that a significant portion of the array of behaviors and "causes" within the larger movement were quickly assimilated within mainstream society, particularly in the US.[10][11] The counterculture era essentially commenced in earnest with the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy. It ended with the termination of US combat military involvement in the communist insurgencies of Southeast Asia and the end of the draft in 1973, and ultimately with the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon in August 1974. Many key movements were born of, or were advanced within, the counterculture of the 1960s. Each movement is relevant to the larger era. The most important stand alone, irrespective of the larger counterculture.[12] In the broadest sense, 1960s counterculture grew from a confluence of people, ideas, events, issues, circumstances, and technological developments which served as intellectual and social catalysts for exceptionally rapid change during the era.

Eisenhower Doctrine

The term Eisenhower Doctrine refers to a speech by President Dwight David Eisenhower on 5 January 1957, within a "Special Message to the Congress on the Situation in the Middle East". Under the Eisenhower Doctrine, a Middle Eastern country could request American economic assistance or aid from U.S. military forces if it was being threatened by armed aggression from another state.[1] Eisenhower singled out the Soviet threat in his doctrine by authorizing the commitment of U.S. forces "to secure and protect the territorial integrity and political independence of such nations, requesting such aid against overt armed aggression from any nation controlled by international communism."[2] In the global political context, the Doctrine was made in response to the possibility of a generalized war, threatened as a result of the Soviet Union's attempt to use the Suez War as a pretext to enter Egypt. Coupled with the power vacuum left by the decline of British and French power in the region after the U.S. protested against the conduct of their allies during the Suez War, Eisenhower felt that a strong position needed to better the situation was further complicated by the positions taken by Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, who was rapidly building a power base and using it to play the Soviets and Americans against each other, taking a position of "positive neutrality" and accepting aid from the Soviets. On the regional level, the intent was that the Doctrine would help to provide the independent Arab regimes with an alternative to Nasser's political control, strengthening them while isolating Communist influence through isolation of Nasser. The doctrine largely failed on that front, with Nasser's power quickly rising by 1959 to the point where he could shape the leadership outcomes in neighboring Arab countries, including Iraq and Saudi Arabia; in the meantime, Nasser's relationship with the Soviet leaders deteriorated, allowing the U.S. to switch to a policy of accommodation. The Eisenhower Administration also saw the Middle East as being influential for future foreign policy not only regarding the United States, but also its allies. The region contains a large percentage of the world's oil supply, and it was perceived that if it were to fall to communism, the United States and its allies would suffer immense economic consequences. Eisenhower's protests against longtime allies — the United Kingdom and France — during the Suez Canal Crisis meant that the U.S. was the lone Western power in the Middle East and placed U.S. oil security in jeopardy as the USSR filled the power vacuum. The Eisenhower Doctrine was a backflip against the previous policy, however — the U.S. now had the burden of military action in the Middle East to itself. The military action provisions of the Doctrine were applied in the Lebanon Crisis the following year, when the United States intervened in response to a request by that country's then President Camille Chamoun.

San Francisco Conference

Treaty of San Francisco (サンフランシスコ講和条約 San-Furansisuko kōwa-Jōyaku?), Peace Treaty with Japan (日本国との平和条約 Nihon-koku tono Heiwa-Jōyaku?) or commonly known as the Treaty of San Francisco, Peace Treaty of San Francisco, or San Francisco Peace Treaty), mostly between Japan and the Allied Powers, was officially signed by 48 nations on September 8, 1951, at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco, California, United States. It came into force on April 28, 1952. This treaty served to officially end World War II, to formally end Japan's position as an imperial power, to allocate compensation to Allied civilians and former prisoners of war who had suffered Japanese war crimes, and to end the Allies' military occupation and return sovereignty to Japan. This treaty made extensive use of the UN Charter[1] and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights[2] to enunciate the Allies' goals. This treaty, along with the Security Treaty signed that same day, is said to mark the beginning of the "San Francisco System"; this term, coined by historian John W. Dower, signifies the effects of Japan's relationship with the United States and its role in the international arena as determined by these two treaties and is used to discuss the ways in which these effects have governed Japan's post-war history. This treaty also introduced the problem of the legal status of Taiwan due to its lack of specificity as to what country Taiwan was to be surrendered, and hence some supporters of Taiwan independence argue that sovereignty of Taiwan is really still held by the Allies (particularly the US).

United States v. Nixon

United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 (1974), was a landmark United States Supreme Court decision. It resulted in a unanimous 8-0 ruling against President Richard Nixon and was important to the late stages of the Watergate scandal. It is considered a crucial precedent limiting the power of any US president. Chief Justice Warren E. Burger wrote the opinion for a unanimous court, joined by Justices William O. Douglas, William J. Brennan, Potter Stewart, Byron White, Thurgood Marshall, Harry Blackmun and Lewis F. Powell. Burger, Blackmun and Powell were appointed to the Court by Nixon during his first term. Associate Justice William Rehnquist, a Nixon appointee, recused himself as he had previously served in the Nixon administration as Assistant Attorney General.[1][2]

VE Day

Victory in Europe Day, generally known as V-E Day, VE Day, or simply V Day was the public holiday celebrated on 8 May 1945 (7 May in Commonwealth realms) to mark the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces.[1] It thus marked the end of World War II in Europe. On 30 April, Adolf Hitler, the Nazi leader, committed suicide during the Battle of Berlin. Germany's surrender, therefore, was authorized by his successor, Reichspräsident Karl Dönitz. The administration headed by Dönitz was known as the Flensburg Government. The act of military surrender was signed on 7 May in Reims, France and on 8 May in Berlin, Germany.

Betty Friedan

With her book The Feminine Mystique (1963), Betty Friedan (1921-2006) broke new ground by exploring the idea of women finding personal fulfillment outside of their traditional roles. She also helped advance the women's rights movement as one of the founders of the National Organization for Women (NOW). She advocated for an increased role for women in the political process and is remembered as a pioneer of feminism and the women's rights movements. A bright student, Betty Friedan excelled at Smith College, graduating in 1942 with a bachelor's degree. Although she received a fellowship to study at the University of California, she chose instead to go to New York to work as a reporter. Friedan got married in 1947 and had three children. She returned to work after her first child was born, but lost her job when she was pregnant with her second, according to The Christian Science Monitor. Friedan then stayed home to care for her family. But she was restless as a homemaker and began to wonder if other women felt the same way. To answer this question, Friedan surveyed other graduates of Smith College. The results of this research formed the basis of The Feminine Mystique. The book became a sensation—creating a social revolution by dispelling the myth that all women wanted to be happy homemakers. Friedan encouraged women to seek new opportunities for themselves. As an icon in the women's rights movement, Betty Friedan did more than write about confining gender stereotypes—she became a force for change. She co-founded the National Organization for Women (NOW) in 1966, serving as its first president. Friedan also fought for abortion rights by establishing the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (now known as NARAL Pro-Choice America) in 1969. She wanted women to have a greater role in the political process. With such other leading feminists as Gloria Steinem and Bella Abzug, Friedan helped create the National Women's Political Caucus in 1971. In 1982, Betty Friedan published The Second Stage, which sought to help women wrestling with the demands of work and home. It seemed to be a more moderate feminist position than her earlier work. While in her seventies, Friedan explored the later stages of a woman's life in The Fountain of Age (1993). Betty Friedan died of heart failure on February 4, 2006, in Washington, D.C. She is remembered as one of the leading voices of the feminist and women's rights movement of the twentieth century. And the work that she started is still being carried today by the three organizations she helped establish.

The Hollywood Ten

n October 1947, 10 members of the Hollywood film industry publicly denounced the tactics employed by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), an investigative committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, during its probe of alleged communist influence in the American motion picture business. These prominent screenwriters and directors, who became known as the Hollywood Ten, received jail sentences and were banned from working for the major Hollywood studios. Their defiant stands also placed them at center stage in a national debate over the controversial anti-communist crackdown that swept through the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Besides the Hollywood Ten, other members of the film industry with alleged communist ties were later banned from working for the big movie studios. The Hollywood blacklist came to an end in the 1960s.

Civil Rights Act of 1968

of 1968, (Pub.L. 90-284, 82 Stat. 73, enacted April 11, 1968) is a landmark part of legislation in the United States that provided for equal housing opportunities regardless of race, creed, or national origin and made it a federal crime to "by force or by threat of force, injure, intimidate, or interfere with anyone ... by reason of their race, color, religion, or national origin."[1] The Act was signed into law during the King assassination riots by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had previously signed the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act into law. Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 is commonly known as the Fair Housing Act and was meant as a follow‑up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. While the Civil Rights Act of 1866 prohibited discrimination in housing, there were no federal enforcement provisions.[2] The 1968 act expanded on previous acts and prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin, and since 1974, gender; since 1988, the act protects people with disabilities and families with children. Victims of discrimination may use both the 1968 act and the 1866 act via section 1983[3] to seek redress. The 1968 act provides for federal solutions while the 1866 act provides for private solutions (i.e., civil suits). Titles II through VII comprised the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968, which applies to the Native American tribes of the United States and makes many, but not all, of the guarantees of the Bill of Rights applicable within the tribes[4] (that Act appears today in Title 25, sections 1301 to 1303 of the United States Code). A rider attached to the bill makes it a felony to "travel in interstate commerce...with the intent to incite, promote, encourage, participate in and carry on a riot". This provision has been criticized for "equating organized political protest with organized violence".[5]