APUSH-chapter38_terms

Medicare and Medicaid

But in 1965, with President Lyndon B. Johnson's "War on Poverty" and the "Great Society," Congress enacted Medicaid and Medicare to provide some access to care for the indigent and elderly. These government programs, which largely enabled patients to apply to hospitals of their own choosing, did not resolve what experts had begun to call the "plight of the public hospital." Now chronically, and in some cases critically underfunded, public hospitals required administrative and structural changes if they were to survive. A variety of proposals floated in the early 1970s involved severing, partially or wholly, the public hospital from direct control by local governments and municipalities. The New York public hospitals came under control of a public benefit corporation, while in Denver the public hospitals merged with the municipal public health system to create a successful municipal health care system. Full divestiture was another solution chosen by other local governments, which transferred the public hospital to a medical school or other organization. For these hospitals, mission generally outlasted governance; divested hospitals frequently retained the public hospital commitment to serve all in need. Predictions in the 1960s and even later forecast the demise of the public hospital, in great part due to the projected benefits the poor and elderly could receive from Medicaid and Medicare. Although the number of public beds declined and some hospitals would eventually shut their doors due to lack of funding, nothing like that came about. Medicaid from the start failed to cover at least one-quarter of the poorest patients, while Medicare never paid more than about half the costs of care for seniors; and those costs rapidly mounted in real-dollar terms. While the consumer price index rose 300 percent between 1960 and 1980, the per diem cost of hospital beds rose by 900 percent. A clear need for "open door" hospitals with a high standard of care continued to exist and, in fact, to expand. Creation of a Commission on Public-General Hospitals in 1976 brought a report two years later that crystallized the fact that "The future of the urban public-general hospital . . . must be uniquely treated." The National Association of Public Hospitals (NAPH) was established just to that aim in 1980 as an umbrella advocacy group. It opened for business the day before the inauguration of Ronald Reagan, and one of its early legislative victories was recognition for the Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) that serves more than its share of low-income patients. DSH alone over the years has brought public hospitals billions of dollars and represents a critical source of funding. Another aspect of the "safety net" hospital (as they began to designate themselves) was a redesigned commitment to the communities they served. Today, in addition to inpatient and outpatient services, safety net hospitals typically offer HIV/AIDS care, substance abuse counseling, prenatal care and obstetric services, and Level 1 trauma care. These services enlarge the scope and reach of public hospitals while maintaining their basic mission.

"rights revolution"

The rights revolution accomplished in the United States through decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court--reaching its peak levels between 1961 and 1975--was largely contingent upon on concerted pressure from well-organized rights advocates. That is the argument of this book. There is great virtue in a book that contains analysis so cogent that its conclusions seem quite obvious and familiar, even though they have not been previously expressed so clearly in this form. This is such a book. It should be required reading for every scholar of law and politics and for undergraduate students, who need a solid foundation for understanding the politics of judicial review. It clearly demonstrates findings that we should have known years ago—and in general terms we possibly did. Thus, the central question of the book is, "Why did the rights revolution occur?" Professor Epp begins by asking that question about the rights revolution in the United States that began possibly in 1937, in 1954, or in 1961 (a precise date is more clearly evident by hindsight, but is subject to dispute even then). His answer to his central question is solid and persuasive, but he generalizes it beyond the United States by examining the comparable experiences of India, the United Kingdom, and Canada to see whether his answer suffices also in other systems. Thus, his book is among the few successful genuinely comparative works by American law and politics scholars. His hypothesis is that rights revolutions occur where there is political pressure consisting of "deliberate, strategic organizing by rights advocates" whose work is possible because of the presence of a "support structure for legal mobilization" (pp. 2-3: all page references are to the paper edition). This constitutes his "support structure" explanation. Epp acknowledges also the contributions of three other elements, so his "support structure" consisting of rights advocates with sufficient resources represents a necessary but not a sufficient condition. The other elements include "constitution-centered" and "judge-centered" points that work in concert with sponsored litigation to make a "rights revolution" possible. Together they represent the traditional wisdom that proposes that 1) the presence or absence of constitutionally-embedded individual rights provisions, 2) the presence or absence of independent-activist judges, and 3) the level of popular support for civil rights and liberties, altogether determine whether a rights revolution may occur. But his book demonstrates persuasively that even where all three of these are present, they may not be sufficient by themselves.

Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965

abolished the National Origins Formula that had been in place in the United States since the Emergency Quota Act. It was proposed by United States Representative Emanuel Celler of New York, co-sponsored by United States Senator Philip Hart of Michigan and heavily supported by United States Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts. The Hart-Celler Act abolished the national origins quota system that was American immigration policy since the 1920s, replacing it with a preference system that focused on immigrants' skills and family relationships with citizens or U.S. residents. Numerical restrictions on visas were set at 170,000 per year, with a per-country-of-origin quota, not including immediate relatives of U.S. citizens, nor "special immigrants" (including those born in "independent" nations in the Western Hemisphere, former citizens, ministers, and employees of the U.S. government abroad). The 1965 act marked a radical break from the immigration policies of the past. The law as it stood then excluded Asians and Africans and preferred northern and western Europeans over southern and eastern ones. At the height of the civil rights movement of the 1960s the law was seen as an embarrassment by, among others, President John F. Kennedy, who called the then-quota-system "nearly intolerable". After Kennedy's assassination, President Lyndon Johnson signed the bill at the foot of the Statue of Liberty as a symbolic gesture. In order to convince the American populace - the majority of whom were opposed to the act - of the legislation's merits, its liberal proponents assured that passage would not influence America's culture significantly. President Johnson called the bill "not a revolutionary bill. It does not affect the lives of millions",[4] Secretary of State Dean Rusk estimated only a few thousand Indian immigrants over the next five years, and other politicians, including Senator Ted Kennedy, hastened to reassure the populace that the demographic mix would not be affected; these assertions would later prove wildly inaccurate.[5] In line with earlier immigration law, the bill also prohibited the entry into the country of "sexual deviants", including homosexuals. By doing so it crystallized the policy of the INS that had previously been rejecting homosexual immigrants on the grounds that they were "mentally defective" or had a "constitutional psychopathic inferiority". Immigration changed America's demographics, opening the doors to immigrants from Latin America (especially Mexico), Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. By the 1990s, America's population growth was more than one-third driven by legal immigration and substantially augmented by illegal immigration population namely from Latin America and other parts of the developing world, as opposed to one-tenth before the act was passed into law. Ethnic and racial minorities, as defined by the US Census Bureau, rose from 25 percent of the US population during the year 1990 to 30 percent in the year 2000 and to 36.6 percent as per the results from 2011 census results.[10] Similarly, during the same time period the Non-Hispanic white population in the United States decreased from 75 percent of the overall US population in 1990 to 70 percent in 2000 and finally to 63.4 percent during the year 2011.[10] It is estimated that by the year 2042, white people will constitute no longer a majority but rather only a plurality of the population of the United States, while racial and ethnic minority groups, led by the Hispanics (mainly Mexican Americans), Black Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and Pacific Islander Americans would together outnumber whites. According to the 2000 census, roughly 11.1 percent of the American population was foreign-born, a major increase from the low of 4.7 percent in 1970. A third of the foreign-born were from Latin America and a fourth from Asia. The act increased illegal immigration from Latin America, especially Mexico, since the unlimited legal bracero system previously in-place was cut. The waves of immigration have raised both possibilities and problems. Many immigrants have taken advantage of the abundance of opportunities in the US, although some immigrant groups continue to face major challenges. For example, Asian Indians in the U.S. have a higher average income and lower poverty rate than the national average while Vietnamese Americans (mostly from refugee backgrounds) have median earnings less than the national average and a higher poverty rate. Asians and Pacific Islanders (including international students from Asia) constituted 30 percent of the student population in California's public universities by 2000 and over 38% of the student population by 2011. Immigration helped stimulate the sunbelt boom.[citation needed] The problems have centered on questions of multicultural identity as opposed to the melting-pot idea, debates on the economic impact of immigration, impact of illegal immigration, and fears of becoming a polyglot nation with English not the primary language.

voting rights act of 1965

is a landmark piece of national legislation in the United States that outlawed discriminatory voting practices that had been responsible for the widespread disenfranchisement of African Americans in the U.S. Echoing the language of the 15th Amendment, the Act prohibits states from imposing any "voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure ... to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color."[3] Specifically, Congress intended the Act to outlaw the practice of requiring otherwise qualified voters to pass literacy tests in order to register to vote, a principal means by which Southern states had prevented African Americans from exercising the franchise.The Act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had earlier signed the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law. The Act established extensive federal oversight of elections administration, providing that states with a history of discriminatory voting practices (so-called "covered jurisdictions") could not implement any change affecting voting without first obtaining the approval of the Department of Justice, a process known as preclearance.[5] These enforcement provisions applied to states and political subdivisions (mostly in the South) that had used a "device" to limit voting and in which less than 50 percent of the population was registered to vote in 1964.The Act has been renewed and amended by Congress four times, the most recent being a 25-year extension signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2006. The Act is widely considered a landmark in civil-rights legislation,[7] though some of its provisions have sparked political controversy. During the debate over the 2006 extension, some Republican members of Congress objected to renewing the preclearance requirement (the Act's primary enforcement provision), arguing that it represents an overreach of federal power and places unwarranted bureaucratic demands on Southern states that have long since abandoned the discriminatory practices the Act was meant to eradicate. Conservative legislators also opposed requiring states with large Spanish-speaking populations to provide bilingual ballots. Congress nonetheless voted to extend the Act for twenty-five years with its original enforcement provisions left intact.

massive retaliation

is a military doctrine and nuclear strategy in which a state commits itself to retaliate in much greater force in the event of an attack. In the event of an attack from an aggressor, a state would massively retaliate by using a force disproportionate to the size of the attack. The aim of massive retaliation is to deter an adversary from initially attacking. For such a strategy to work, it must be made public knowledge to all possible aggressors. The adversary also must believe that the state announcing the policy has the ability to maintain second-strike capability in the event of an attack. It must also believe that the defending state is willing to go through with the deterrent threat, which would likely involve the use of nuclear weapons on a massive scale. Massive retaliation works on the same principles as mutually assured destruction, with the important caveat that even a minor conventional attack on a nuclear state could conceivably result in all-out nuclear retaliation. In August 1945, the United States ended World War II with the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. Four years later, on August 9, 1949, the Soviet Union developed its own nuclear weapons. At the time, both sides lacked the means to effectively use nuclear devices against each other. Eventually with nuclear triads being established, both countries were quickly increasing their ability to deliver nuclear weapons into the interior of the opposing country. The doctrine of massive retaliation was based on the West's increasing fear at the perceived imbalance of power in conventional forces, a corresponding inability to defend itself or prevail in conventional conflicts. By relying on a large nuclear arsenal for deterrence, President Eisenhower believed that conventional forces could be reduced while still maintaining military prestige and power and the capability to defend the western bloc. Upon a conventional attack on Berlin, for instance, the United States would undertake a massive retaliation on the Soviet Union with nuclear weapons. The massive response doctrine was thus an extension of mutually assured destruction to conventional attacks, conceivably deterring the Soviet Union from attacking any part of the United States' sphere of influence even with conventional weapons. In theory, as the U.S.S.R. had no desire to provoke an all-out nuclear attack, the policy of massive response likely deterred any ambitions it would have had on Western Europe. Although the United States and NATO bloc would be hard-pressed in a conventional conflict with the Warsaw Pact forces if a conventional war were to occur, the massive response doctrine prevented the Soviets from advancing for fear that a nuclear attack would have been made upon the Soviet Union in response to a conventional attack. It can be argued, however, that aside from raising tensions in an already strained relationship with the Soviet bloc, massive retaliation had few practical effects. A threat of massive retaliation is hard to make credible, and is inflexible in response to foreign policy issues. Everyday challenges of foreign policy could not be dealt with using a massive nuclear strike. In fact, the Soviet Union took many minor military actions that would have necessitated the use of nuclear weapons under a strict reading of the massive retaliation doctrine. A massive retaliation doctrine, as with any nuclear strategy based on the principle of mutually assured destruction and as an extension the second-strike capability needed to form a retaliatory attack, encourages the opponent to perform a massive counterforce first strike. This, if successful, would cripple the defending state's retaliatory capacity and render a massive retaliation strategy useless. Also, if both sides of a conflict adopt the same stance of massive response, it may result in unlimited escalation (a "nuclear spasm"), each believing that the other will back down after the first round of retaliation. Both problems are not unique to massive retaliation, but to nuclear deterrence as a whole.

"black power"

is a political slogan and a name for various associated ideologies aimed at achieving self-determination for people of African/Black descent.It is used in the movement among people of Black African descent throughout the world, though primarily by African Americans in the United States. 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." The first popular use of the term "Black Power" as a social and political slogan was by Stokely Carmichael (later known as Kwame Ture) and Willie Ricks (later known as Mukasa Dada), both organizers and spokespersons for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Stokely Carmichael saw the concept of "Black Power" as a means of solidarity between individuals within the movement. It was a replacement of the "Freedom Now!" slogan of non-violent leader Martin Luther King. With his conception and articulation of the word, he felt this movement was not just a movement for racial desegregation, but rather a movement to help combat America's crippling racism. He said, "For the last time, 'Black Power' means black people coming together to form a political force and either electing representatives or forcing their representatives to speak their needs." The movement for Black Power in the U.S. came during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Many members of SNCC, among them Stokely Carmichael (later Kwame Ture), were becoming critical of the nonviolent approach to confronting racism and inequality—articulated and practiced by Martin Luther King, Jr., the NAACP and other moderates—and rejected desegregation as a primary objective. SNCC's membership was generally younger than that of the other "Big Five"[9] civil rights organizations and became increasingly more militant and outspoken over time. From SNCC's point of view, racist people had no qualms about the use of violence against black people in the U.S. who would not "stay in their place," and "accommodationist" civil rights strategies had failed to secure sufficient concessions for black people.[citation needed] As a result, as the Civil Rights Movement progressed, increasingly radical, more militant voices came to the fore to aggressively challenge white hegemony. Increasing numbers of black youth, particularly, rejected their elders' moderate path of cooperation, racial integration and assimilation. They rejected the notion of appealing to the public's conscience and religious creeds and took the tack articulated by another black activist more than a century before. Although the concept remained imprecise and contested and the people, who used the slogan ranged from businesspeople who used it to push black capitalism to revolutionaries who sought an end to capitalism, the idea of Black Power exerted a significant influence. It helped organize scores of community self-help groups and institutions that did not depend on Whites. It was used to force black studies programs at colleges, to mobilize black voters to elect black candidates, and to encourage greater racial pride and self-esteem. Though the Black Power movement did not immediately remedy the political problems faced by African Americans in the 1960s and 1970s, the movement did contribute to the development of black politics both directly and indirectly. As a contemporary of and successor to the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Power movement created, what sociologist Herbert H. Haines refers to as a "positive radical flank effect" on political affairs of the 1960s. Though the nature of the relationship between the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power movement is contested, Haines' study of the relationship between black radicals and the mainstream civil rights movement indicates that Black Power generated a "crisis in American institutions which made the legislative agenda of 'polite, realistic, and businesslike' mainstream organizations" more appealing to politicians. In this way, it can be argued that the more strident and oppositional messages of the Black Power movement indirectly enhanced the bargaining position of more moderate activists.[13] Black Power activists approached politics with vitality, variety, wit, and creativity that shaped the way future generations approached dealing with America's societal problems (McCartney 188). These activists capitalized on the nation's recent awareness of the political nature of oppression, a primary focus of the Civil Rights Movement, developing numerous political action caucuses and grass roots community associations to remedy the situation. The National Black Political Convention, held March 10-12, 1972, was a significant milestone in black politics of the Black Power era. Held in Gary, Indiana, a majority black city, the convention included a diverse group of black activists, although it completely excluded whites. The convention was criticized for its racial exclusivity by Roy Wilkins of the NAACP, a group that supported integration. The delegates created a National Black Political Agenda with stated goals including the election of a proportionate number of black representatives to Congress, community control of schools, national health insurance, etc. Though the convention did not result in any direct policy, the convention advanced goals of the Black Power movement and left participants buoyed by a spirit of possibility and themes of unity and self-determination. A concluding note to the convention, addressing its supposed idealism, read: "At every critical moment of our struggle in America we have had to press relentlessly against the limits of the 'realistic' to create new realities for the life of our people. This is our challenge at Gary and beyond, for a new Black politics demands new vision, new hope and new definitions of the possible. Our time has come. These things are necessary. All things are possible."[14] Though such political activism may not have resulted in direct policy, they provided political models for later movements, advanced a pro-black political agenda, and brought sensitive issues to the forefront of American politics. In its confrontational and often oppositional nature, the Black Power movement, started a debate within the black community and America as a nation over issues of racial progress, citizenship, and democracy, namely "the nature of American society and the place of the African American in it.". The continued intensity of debate over these same social and political issues is a tribute to the impact of the Black Power movement in arousing the political awareness and passions of citizens.

credibility gap

is a political term that came into wide use during the 1960s and 1970s. At the time, it was most frequently used to describe public skepticism about the Lyndon B. Johnson administration's statements and policies on the Vietnam War. Today, it is used more generally to describe almost any "gap" between the reality of a situation and what politicians and government agencies say about it. The term was widely in use as early as 1963, according to "Timetables of History". "Credibility gap" was popularized in 1966 by J. William Fulbright, a Democratic Senator from Arkansas, when he could not get a straight answer from President Johnson's Administration regarding the war in Vietnam. "Credibility gap" was first used in association with the Vietnam War in the New York Herald Tribune in March 1965, to describe then-president Lyndon Johnson's handling of the escalation of American involvement in the war. A number of events—particularly the surprise Tet Offensive, and later the 1971 release of the Pentagon Papers—helped to confirm public suspicion that there was a significant "gap" between the administration's declarations of controlled military and political resolution, and the reality. These were viewed as examples of Johnson's and later Richard Nixon's duplicity. Throughout the war, Johnson worked with his officials to ensure that his public addresses would only disclose bare details of the war to the American public. During the war the country grew more and more aware of the credibility gap especially after Johnson's speech at Johns Hopkins University in April 1965.[4] An example of public opinion appeared in the New York Times concerning the war. "The time has come to call a spade a bloody shovel. This country is in an undeclared and unexplained war in Vietnam. Our masters have a lot of long and fancy names for it, like escalation and retaliation, but it is a war just the same." - James Reston. The advent of the presence of television journalists allowed by the military to report and photograph events of the war within hours or days of their actual occurrence in an uncensored manner drove the discrepancy widely referred to as "the credibility gap." However, the term had actually been used prior to its association with the Vietnam War. In December 1962, at the annual meeting of the U.S. Inter-American Council, Senator Kenneth B. Keating (R-N.Y.) praised President John F. Kennedy's prompt action in the Cuban Missile Crisis. But he said there was an urgent need for the United States to plug what he termed the "Credibility Gap" in U.S. policy on Cuba.

counterculture

is a subculture whose values and norms of behavior deviate from those of mainstream society, often in opposition to mainstream cultural mores. A countercultural movement expresses the ethos, aspirations, and dreams of a specific population during a well-defined era. When oppositional forces reach critical mass, countercultures can trigger dramatic cultural changes. In the United States, the counterculture of the 1960s became identified with the rejection of conventional social norms of the 1950s. Counterculture youth rejected the cultural standards of their parents, especially with respect to racial segregation and initial widespread support for the Vietnam War, and, less directly, the Cold War — with many young people fearing that America's nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union, coupled with its involvement in Vietnam, would lead to a nuclear holocaust. As the 1960s progressed, widespread tensions developed in American society that tended to flow along generational lines regarding the war in Vietnam, race relations, sexual mores, women's rights, traditional modes of authority, and a materialist interpretation of the American Dream. White, middle class youth — who made up the bulk of the counterculture — had sufficient leisure time, thanks to widespread economic prosperity, to turn their attention to social issues. These social issues included support for civil rights, women's rights, and gay rights movements, and a rejection of the Vietnam War. The counterculture also had access to a media which was eager to present their concerns to a wider public. Demonstrations for social justice created far-reaching changes affecting many aspects of society. Hippies became the largest countercultural group in the United States. Rejection of mainstream culture was best embodied in the new genres of psychedelic rock music, pop-art and new explorations in spirituality. Musicians who exemplified this era include The Beatles, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Cream, The Rolling Stones, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Pink Floyd, Joni Mitchell, and, in their early years, Chicago. New forms of musical presentation also played a key role in spreading the counterculture, with large outdoor rock festivals being the most noteworthy. The climactic live statement on this occurred from August 15-18, 1969, with the Woodstock Music Festival held in Bethel, New York — with 32 of rock's and psychedelic rock's most popular acts performing live outdoors during the sometimes rainy weekend to an audience of half a million people. (Michael Lang stated 400,000 attended, half of which did not have a ticket.) It is widely regarded as a pivotal moment in popular music history — with Rolling Stone calling it one of the 50 Moments That Changed the History of Rock and Roll.According to Bill Mankin, "It seems fitting... that one of the most enduring labels for the entire generation of that era was derived from a rock festival: the 'Woodstock Generation'." The counterculture in the United States lasted roughly from 1964 to 1972— coincident with America's involvement in Vietnam — and reached its peak in 1967, the "summer of love". Unconventional appearance, music, political activism, public protests, drugs, communitarian experiments, and sexual liberation were hallmarks of the sixties counterculture — most of whose members were young, white and middle-class. The counterculture collapsed circa 1973, and many have attributed two major reasons: First, the most popular of its political goals — civil rights, civil liberties, gender equality, environmentalism, and the end of the Vietnam War — were accomplished (to at least a significant degree), and its most popular social attributes — particularly a "live and let live" mentality in personal lifestyles (the "sexual revolution") — were co-opted by mainstream society.[16][22] Second, a decline of idealism and hedonism occurred as many notable counterculture figures died, the rest settled into mainstream society and started their own families, and the "magic economy" of the 1960s gave way to the stagflation of the 1970s[16] — the latter costing many middle-class Americans the luxury of being able to live outside conventional social institutions. The counterculture, however, continues to influence social movements, art, music, and society in general, and the post-1973 mainstream society has been in many ways a hybrid of the 1960s establishment and counterculture— seen as the best (or the worst) of both worlds.

Nation of Islam

is a syncretic new religious movement founded in Detroit, Michigan by Wallace D. Fard Muhammad in July 1930. The Nation of Islam's stated goals are to improve the spiritual, mental, social, and economic condition of African Americans in the United States and all of humanity. Its critics accuse it of being black supremacist and antisemitic. After Fard's disappearance in June 1934, the Nation of Islam was led by Elijah Muhammad, who established places of worship - called Temples - a school named Muhammad University of Islam, businesses, farms and real estate holdings in the United States and abroad. There were a number of splits and splinter groups during Elijah Muhammad's leadership, most notably the departure of senior leader Malcolm X to become Sunni Muslim. After Elijah Muhammad's death, his son Warith Deen Mohammed changed the name of the organization several times and brought it into line with mainstream Sunni Islam. In 1977 Louis Farrakhan rejected Warith Deen Mohammed's leadership and re-established the Nation of Islam on the original model. He took over the Nation of Islam's headquarter Temple, Mosque Maryam (Mosque #2), which is located in Chicago, IL. Its official news publication is The Final Call Newspaper. The Nation of Islam does not publish its membership numbers; the core membership of the Nation of Islam is estimated between 20,000 and 50,000, but their following is believed to be larger.[8] Most of the members are in the United States, but there are minority communities in other countries, including Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Jamaica, and Trinidad & Tobago. The Nation of Islam was founded in Detroit, Michigan, in July 1930 by Wallace Fard Muhammad, also known as W. D. Fard Muhammad (1877-1934). The N.O.I. teaches that W. Fard Muhammad was both the "Messiah" of Judaism and the Mahdi of Islam. Within one year, he had approximately 25,000 followers who knew him as "Prophet" W.D. Fard, at Temple No. 1. Fard's assistant minister, Elijah Muhammad, succeeded him as head of the movement in 1934. Because of dissension within the Detroit temple, he moved to Chicago where he established Temple No. 2. During World War II, he advised followers to avoid the draft stating that the US did nothing for blacks. He was charged and convicted of violating the Selective Service Act and jailed (1942-46). Elijah Muhammad slowly built up the membership of his movement through recruitment in the postwar decades. His program called for the establishment of a separate nation for black Americans and the adoption of a religion based on the worship of Allah and on the belief that blacks were his chosen people.cDuring this time, the Nation of Islam attracted Malcolm Little. While in prison for burglary from 1946 to 1952, Little joined the Nation of Islam. He was influenced by his brother, Reginald, who had become a member in Detroit. Little quit smoking, gambling and eating pork, in keeping with the Nation's practices and dietary restrictions. He spent long hours reading books in the prison library. He also sharpened his oratory skills by participating in debate classes. Following Nation tradition, Elijah Muhammad ordered him to replace his surname, "Little", with an "X", a custom among Nation of Islam followers who considered their surnames to have been imposed by white slaveholders after their African names were taken from them. Malcolm X rose rapidly to become the Minister of Boston Temple No. 11, which he founded; he was later rewarded with the post of Minister of Temple No. 7. Elijah Muhammad named Malcolm X the National Representative of the Nation of Islam, his second in rank. Under Malcolm X's lieutenancy, the Nation claimed a membership of 500,000. In March 1964, Malcolm X was forcibly removed and excommunicated from the Nation and, in the next month, founded Muslim Mosque Inc., stating, "I never left the Nation of Islam of my own free will. It was they who conspired with Captain Joseph here in New York to pressure me out of the Nation." In 1955, Louis Walcott joined the Nation of Islam. Following custom, he also replaced his surname with an "X". Louis X first proved himself at Temple No. 7 in Harlem, where he emerged as the protege of Malcolm X. Louis X was appointed head minister of Boston Temple No. 11, which Malcolm X had established earlier. He was given his new name, "Farrakhan," by Elijah Muhammad. After Malcolm X's break with the Nation in 1964, Farrakhan replaced him as head minister of Harlem's Temple No. 7 and as the National Representative of the Nation, the second-in-command of the organization. Like his predecessor, Farrakhan was a dynamic, charismatic leader and a powerful speaker with the ability to appeal to the African-American masses. That year, the young boxer Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr. knocked out Sonny Liston to become the heavyweight boxing champion of the world. After winning the heavyweight title, Clay announced that he had joined the Nation of Islam. After replacing his surname with an "X," Clay was given a new name, Muhammad Ali, by Elijah Muhammad. Based on the teachings of the Nation of Islam, Ali refused to acknowledge his military service after being drafted. He said that his religious convictions prevented him from fighting in the Vietnam War. In 1967, Ali put his personal values ahead of his career. The U.S. Department of Justice pursued a legal case against Ali, denying his claim for conscientious objector status. Although found guilty of refusing to be inducted into the military, Ali later cleared his name after a lengthy court battle. By the time Elijah Muhammad died in 1975, there were 75 NOI centers across America. The Nation's leadership chose Wallace Muhammad, the fifth of Elijah's sons, not Louis Farrakhan, as the new Supreme Minister. He renamed the organization as "The World Community of Al-Islam in the West;" it later became the American Society of Muslims. He shunned his father's theology and black pride views, accepting whites as fellow worshipers and forging closer ties with mainstream Muslim communities in an attempt to tranform the Nation of Islam into Sunni Islam.[14] W.D. Mohammed's organization would disband, change names and reorganize many times. It finally dissolved in August 31, 2003, after he resigned from the leadership.

modernization theory

is a theory used to explain the process of modernization within societies. The theory looks at the internal factors of a country while assuming that, with assistance, "traditional" countries can be brought to development in the same manner more developed countries have. Modernization theory attempts to identify the social variables which contribute to social progress and development of societies, and seeks to explain the process of social evolution. Modernization theory is subject to criticism originating among socialist and free-market ideologies, world-systems theorists, globalization theory and dependency theory among others. Modernization theory not only stresses the process of change but also the responses to that change. It also looks at internal dynamics while referring to social and cultural structures and the adaptation of new technologies. Among the scientists who contributed much to this theory are Walt Rostow, who in his The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto (1960) concentrates on the economic system side of the modernization, trying to show factors needed for a country to reach the path to modernization in his Rostovian take-off model. David Apter concentrated on the political system and history of democracy, researching the connection between democracy, good governance and efficiency and modernization. Seymour Martin Lipset in "Some Social Requisites of Democracy" (1959) argued that economic development sets off a series of profound social changes that together tend to produce democracy. David McClelland (The Achieving Society, 1967) approached this subject from the psychological perspective, with his motivations theory, arguing that modernization cannot happen until a given society values innovation, striving for improvement and entrepreneurship. Alex Inkeles (Becoming Modern, 1974) similarly creates a model of modern personality, which needs to be independent, active, interested in public policies and cultural matters, open for new experiences, rational and being able to create long-term plans for the future. Edward Said's "Orientalism" interprets modernization from the point of view of societies that are quickly and radically transformed. Modernization theorists often saw traditions as obstacles to economic growth. Furthermore, while modernization might deliver violent, radical change for traditional societies it was thought worth the price. Critics insist that traditional societies were often destroyed without ever gaining promised advantages if, among other things, the economic gap between advanced societies and such societies actually increased. The net effect of modernization for some societies was therefore the replacement of traditional poverty by a more modern form of misery, according to these critics. Others point to improvements in living standards, physical infrastructure, education and economic opportunity to refute such criticisms.

palestine liberation organization

is an organization created in 1964 with the purpose of creating an independent State of Palestine. It is recognized as the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people" by the United Nations and over 100 states with which it holds diplomatic relations,[4] and has enjoyed observer status at the United Nations since 1974.[5] The PLO was considered by the United States and Israel to be a terrorist organization until the Madrid Conference in 1991. In 1993, PLO recognized Israel's right to exist in peace, accepted UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, and rejected "violence and terrorism"; in response, Israel officially recognized the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people. Conceived by the Arab states at the first Arab summit meeting, the 1964 Arab League summit (Cairo), its stated goal was the "liberation of Palestine" through armed struggle. The organization was called Palestinian Liberation Organization.[7] The original PLO Charter (issued on 28 May 1964[8]) stated that "Palestine with its boundaries that existed at the time of the British mandate is an integral regional unit" and sought to "prohibit... the existence and activity" of Zionism.[7] It also called for a right of return and self-determination for Palestinians. Palestinian statehood was not mentioned, although in 1974 the PLO called for an independent state in the territory of Mandate Palestine.[9] The group used multi-layered guerrilla tactics to attack Israel from their bases in Jordan (including the West Bank), Lebanon, Egypt (Gaza Strip), and Syria. The Arab League in Cairo Summit 1964 initiated the creation of an organization representing the Palestinian people. The Palestinian National Council convened in Jerusalem on 28 May 1964. Concluding this meeting the PLO was founded on 2 June 1964. Its Statement of Proclamation of the Organization[19] declared "... the right of the Palestinian Arab people to its sacred homeland Palestine and affirming the inevitability of the battle to liberate the usurped part from it, and its determination to bring out its effective revolutionary entity and the mobilization of the capabilities and potentialities and its material, military and spiritual forces". Due to the influence of the Egyptian President Nasser, the PLO supported 'Pan-Arabism', as advocated by him - this was the ideology that the Arabs should live in one state. The first executive committee was formed on 9 August, with Ahmad Shuqeiri as its leader. In spite of the 1949 Armistice Agreements, the Arab states remained unreconciled to Israel's creation as they had been to the proposed partition of Palestine in 1948. Therefore, the Palestinian National Charter of 1964[20] stated: "The claims of historic and spiritual ties between Jews and Palestine are not in agreement with the facts of history or with the true basis of sound statehood... [T]he Jews are not one people with an independent personality because they are citizens to their states." Although Egypt and Jordan supported the creation of a Palestinian state on land that they recognised as being occupied by Israel, they would not grant sovereignty to the Palestinian people in lands under Jordanian and Egyptian military occupation, amounting to 53% of the territory allocated to Arabs under the UN Partition Plan. Hence, Article 24: "This Organization does not exercise any territorial sovereignty over the West Bank, the Gaza Strip or in the Himmah Area."

"hawks" and "doves"

is the tenth studio album by Canadian musician Neil Young. Its two sides were recorded in different circumstances, side one being culled from sessions dating from approximately 1974 through 1977, and side two from sessions specifically for the album in early 1980. The record peaked at #30 on the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart in December 1980 in the US. It is also one of Young's shortest albums, its running time just under half an hour. It was unavailable on compact disc until it was released as a HDCD-encoded remastered version on August 19, 2003 as part of the Neil Young Archives Digital Masterpiece Series. Side one, the "doves" side, includes "Little Wing" and "The Old Homestead", which were originally intended to be released as part of 1975's Homegrown. "The Old Homestead" presents a winding, oblique parable of Young's career, including reference to those who question Young's insistence on using the band Crazy Horse when more polished musicians are easily available. Since David Crosby has been on record many times with that very question, the song could be in answer to him directly, incidentally bearing resemblance to Crosby's song "Cowboy Movie" from his If I Could Only Remember My Name album of 1971, in that both present a lengthy allegorical story concealing allusion to the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young saga. In another resemblance, the song "Captain Kennedy" bears similarities to a tune entitled "My Name Is John Johanna" as recorded by Kelly Harrell and the Virginia String Band in 1927, appearing as part of the "ballads" section of Harry Smith's famed Anthology of American Folk Music from 1952. This was intentional on Young's part, as the Anthology was part of the background hum on the folk circuit of Young's early days, influencing hundreds of folk and blues oriented performers in the 1950s and 1960s, both directly and indirectly. Side two, the "hawks" side, consists of the recordings intended for the album, being the straightest country and western songs Young had penned to date, even more so than those found on American Stars 'N Bars or Comes a Time. Also, this side was unabashed patriotism and seeming promotion of right-wing values puzzled many critics and fans alike as it went against the public perception of the sixties folk-rocker who had written one of the most celebrated protest songs of the seventies, "Ohio". See the Robert Christgau link to the right for one take on this apparent conundrum. As with many of Young's releases, critical reaction at the time was mixed. It is interesting to note, the album is meant to be a political statement, having been released on Monday, November 3, 1980, the day before the election.

War on Poverty

is the unofficial name for legislation first introduced by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during his State of the Union address on January 8, 1964. This legislation was proposed by Johnson in response to a national poverty rate of around nineteen percent. The speech led the United States Congress to pass the Economic Opportunity Act, which established the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) to administer the local application of federal funds targeted against poverty. As a part of the Great Society, Johnson believed in expanding the government's role in education and health care as poverty reduction strategies. These policies can also be seen as a continuation of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, which ran from 1933 to 1935, and the Four Freedoms of 1941. The popularity of a war on poverty waned after the 1960s. Deregulation, growing criticism of the welfare state, and an ideological shift to reducing federal aid to impoverished people in the 1980s and 1990s culminated in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996, which, as claimed President Bill Clinton, "end[ed] welfare as we know it." Prof. Tony Judt, the late historian, said in reference to the earlier proposed title of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act that "a more Orwellian title would be hard to conceive" and attributed the decline in the popularity of the Great Society as a policy to its success, as fewer people feared hunger, sickness, and ignorance. Additionally, fewer people were concerned with ensuring a minimum standard for all citizens and social liberalism. Nonetheless, the legacy of the War on Poverty policy initiative remains in the continued existence of such federal programs as Head Start, Volunteers in Service to America, TRIO (program), and Job Corps. In the decade following the 1964 introduction of the war on poverty, poverty rates in the U.S. dropped to their lowest level since comprehensive records began in 1958: from 17.3% in the year the Economic Opportunity Act was implemented to 11.1% in 1973. They have remained between 11 and 15.2% ever since. The 'absolute poverty line' is the threshold below which families or individuals are considered to be lacking the resources to meet the basic needs for healthy living; having insufficient income to provide the food, shelter and clothing needed to preserve health. Poverty among Americans between ages 18-64 has fallen only marginally since 1966, from 10.5% then to 10.1% today. Poverty has significantly fallen among Americans under 18 years old from 23% in 1964 down to less than 17%, although it has risen again to 20% in 2009.[7] The most dramatic decrease in poverty was among Americans over 65, which fell from 28.5% in 1966 to 10.1% today.

flexible response

was a defense strategy implemented by John F. Kennedy in 1961 to address the Kennedy administration's skepticism of Dwight Eisenhower's New Look and its policy of Massive Retaliation. Flexible response calls for mutual deterrence at strategic, tactical, and conventional levels, giving the United States the capability to respond to aggression across the spectrum of warfare, not limited only to nuclear arms. The New Look policy, though initially useful, quickly became obsolete with the introduction of inter-continental delivery systems that undermined the credibility of a deterrence threat. The cornerstone of U.S. and European defense strategy was then threatened as the U.S. could no longer rely on nuclear threats to provide security for it and its allies. John F. Kennedy won the presidency by touting that the Republican Party had allowed the U.S. to fall behind the Soviets into a Missile gap. Upon entering office Kennedy cited General Maxwell Taylor's book The Uncertain Trumpet to Congress for its conclusion that massive retaliation left the U.S. with only two choices: defeat on the ground or the resort to the use of nuclear weapons. Technology had improved since massive retaliation was adopted. Improvements in communication and transportation meant U.S. forces could be deployed more effectively, quickly, and flexibly than before. Advisers persuaded Kennedy that having multiple options would allow the president to apply the appropriate amount of force at the right place without risking escalation or losing alternatives. This would improve credibility for deterrence as the U.S. would now have low-intensity options and therefore would be more likely to use them, rather than massive retaliation's all-or-nothing options. Flexible Response was implemented to develop several options across the spectrum of warfare, other than the nuclear option, for quickly dealing with enemy aggression. In addition, the survivability of the retaliatory capability was stressed, leading to the diversification of the strategic force, development of the strategic triad, and half the Strategic Air Command force being put on permanent alert status. The Kennedy doctrine did not include the ability to fight nuclear wars because of the idea that it would undermine deterrence, was technologically unworkable, would fuel the arms race, and was not politically feasible. Importance was also placed on counterinsurgency and the development of unconventional military forces, unconventional tactics, and "civic action" programs. It consisted of three stages: Direct defense, Deliberate Escalation, General Nuclear Response.

beat poets

was a group of American post-World War II writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired. Central elements of "Beat" culture included rejection of received standards, innovations in style, experimentation with drugs, alternative sexualities, an interest in Eastern religion, a rejection of materialism, and explicit portrayals of the human condition. Allen Ginsberg's Howl (1956), William S. Burroughs's Naked Lunch (1959) and Jack Kerouac's On the Road (1957) are among the best known examples of Beat literature. Both Howl and Naked Lunch were the focus of obscenity trials that ultimately helped to liberalize publishing in the United States. The members of the Beat Generation developed a reputation as new bohemian hedonists, who celebrated non-conformity and spontaneous creativity. The original "Beat Generation" writers met in New York. Later, in the mid-1950s, the central figures (with the exception of Burroughs) ended up together in San Francisco where they met and became friends with figures associated with the San Francisco Renaissance. In the 1960s, elements of the expanding Beat movement were incorporated into the hippie counterculture. While many authors claim to be directly influenced by the Beats, the Beat Generation phenomenon itself has had a pervasive influence on Western culture more broadly. The term "Beatnik" was coined by Herb Caen of the San Francisco Chronicle on 2 April 1958, a portmanteau on the name of the recent Russian satellite Sputnik and Beat Generation. This suggested that beatniks were (1) "far out of the mainstream of society" and (2) "possibly pro-Communist". Caen's term stuck and became the popular label associated with a new stereotype — the man with a goatee and beret reciting nonsensical poetry and playing bongo drums, while free-spirited women wearing black leotards dance. An early example of the "beatnik stereotype" occurred in Vesuvio's (a bar in North Beach) which employed the artist Wally Hedrick to sit in the window dressed in full beard, turtleneck, and sandals, creating improvisational drawings and paintings. By 1958 tourists to San Francisco could take bus tours to view the North Beach Beat scene, prophetically anticipating similar tours of the Haight-Ashbury district ten years later.[38] A variety of other small businesses also sprang up exploiting (and/or satirizing) the new craze. In 1959, Fred McDarrah started a "Rent-a-Beatnik" service in New York, taking out ads in The Village Voice and sending Ted Joans and friends out on calls to read poetry.[39] "Beatniks" appeared in many cartoons, movies, and TV shows of the time, perhaps the most famous being the character Maynard G. Krebs in The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. (1959-1963) While some of the original Beats embraced the beatniks, or at least found the parodies humorous (Ginsberg, for example, appreciated the parody in Pogo[40]) others criticized the beatniks as inauthentic posers. Kerouac feared that the spiritual aspect of his message had been lost and that many were using the Beat Generation as an excuse to be senselessly wild.

gulf of tonkin resolution

was a joint resolution that the United States Congress passed on August 7, 1964, in response to the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. It is of historical significance because it gave U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson authorization, without a formal declaration of war by Congress, for the use of "conventional'' military force in Southeast Asia. Specifically, the resolution authorized the President to do whatever necessary in order to assist "any member or protocol state of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty". This included involving armed forces. It was opposed in the Senate only by Senators Wayne Morse (D-OR) and Ernest Gruening (D-AK). Senator Gruening objected to "sending our American boys into combat in a war in which we have no business, which is not our war, into which we have been misguidedly drawn, which is steadily being escalated". (Tonkin Gulf debate 1964) The Johnson administration subsequently relied upon the resolution to begin its rapid escalation of U.S. military involvement in South Vietnam and open warfare between North Vietnam and the United States. The USS Maddox, a U.S. destroyer, was conducting a DESOTO patrol (Moise 1996, p. 50) in the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin on August 2, 1964, when it was attacked by three North Vietnamese Navy torpedo boats from the 135th Torpedo Squadron (Moise 1996, p. 78), which were attempting to close their range on the Maddox for effective torpedo fire (1,000 yards was maximum effective range for the torpedoes) (Moise 1996, p. 71) (Hanyok 2000) Maddox fired over 280 5-inch shells (Moise 1996, p. 78) and the boats expended their 6 torpedoes (all misses) and some 14.5-mm machinegun fire. Breaking contact, the combatants commenced going their separate ways, when the three torpedo boats, T-333, T-336, and T-339 were then attacked by four USN F-8 Crusader jet fighter bombers from the aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga. (Moise 1the boy hAD DOG996, p. 82) The Crusaders reported no hits with their Zuni rockets, but scored hits on all three torpedo boats with their 20-mm cannons; damaging all three boats. Two days later, on August 4, the Maddox and the destroyer Turner Joy both reported to be under attack, again, by North Vietnamese torpedo boats; during this alleged engagement, the Turner Joy fired approximately 220 3-inch & 5-inch shells at radar controlled surface targets. (Moise 1996, p. 158) Hanoi subsequently insisted that it had not launched a second attack. A later investigation by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee revealed that the Maddox had been on an electronic intelligence (DESOTO) mission. It also learned that the U.S. Naval Communication Center in the Philippine Islands, in reviewing ships' messages, had questioned whether any second attack had actually occurred. (NYT 1968) In 2005, an internal National Security Agency historical study was declassified; it concluded that the Maddox had engaged the North Vietnamese Navy on August 2, but that there may not have been any North Vietnamese Naval vessels present during the engagement of August 4. In truth, Hanoi's navy was engaged in nothing that night but the salvage of two of the boats damaged on August 2. By 1967, the rationale for what had become a costly U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War was receiving close scrutiny. With opposition to the war mounting, a movement to repeal the resolution—which war critics decried as having given the Johnson administration a "blank check"—began to gather steam. An investigation by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee revealed that the Maddox had been on an electronic intelligence collection mission off the North Vietnamese coast. (Finney 1968) It also learned that the U.S. Naval Communication Center in the Philippine Islands, in reviewing ships' messages, had questioned whether any second attack had actually occurred. The administration of President Richard Nixon, which took office in January 1969, initially opposed repeal, warning of "consequences for Southeast Asia [that] go beyond the war in Vietnam". In 1970 the administration began to shift its stance. It asserted that its conduct of operations in Southeast Asia was based not on the resolution but was a constitutional exercise of the President's authority, as Commander in Chief of U.S. military forces, to take necessary steps to protect American troops as they were gradually withdrawn (NYT 1970) (the U.S. had begun withdrawing its forces from Vietnam in 1969 under a policy known as "Vietnamization"). Mounting public opinion against the war eventually led to the repeal of the resolution, which was attached to a bill that Nixon signed in January 1971. (NYT 1971) Seeking to restore limits on presidential authority to engage U.S. forces without a formal declaration of war, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution in 1973, over Nixon's veto. The War Powers Resolution, which is still in effect, sets forth certain requirements for the President to consult with Congress in regard to decisions that engage U.S. forces in hostilities or imminent hostilities.

civil rights act of 1964

was a landmark piece of civil rights legislation in the United States that outlawed major forms of discrimination against racial, ethnic, national and religious minorities, and also women.[2] It ended unequal application of voter registration requirements and racial segregation in schools, at the workplace and by facilities that served the general public (known as "public accommodations"). Powers given to enforce the act were initially weak, but were supplemented during later years. Congress asserted its authority to legislate under several different parts of the United States Constitution, principally its power to regulate interstate commerce under Article One (section 8), its duty to guarantee all citizens equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment and its duty to protect voting rights under the Fifteenth Amendment. The Act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who would later sign the landmark Voting Rights Act into law. The bill was called for by President John F. Kennedy in his civil rights speech of June 11, 1963,[3] in which he asked for legislation "giving all Americans the right to be served in facilities which are open to the public—hotels, restaurants, theaters, retail stores, and similar establishments," as well as "greater protection for the right to vote." Kennedy delivered this speech following a series of protests from the African-American community, the most concurrent being the Birmingham campaign which concluded in May 1963. Emulating the Civil Rights Act of 1875, Kennedy's civil rights bill included provisions to ban discrimination in public accommodations, and to enable the U.S. Attorney General to join in lawsuits against state governments which operated segregated school systems, among other provisions. However, it did not include a number of provisions deemed essential by civil rights leaders including protection against police brutality, ending discrimination in private employment, or granting the Justice Department power to initiate desegregation or job discrimination lawsuits. The Constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was, at the time, in some dispute as it applied to the private sector. In the landmark Civil Rights Cases the United States Supreme Court had ruled that Congress did not have the power to prohibit discrimination in the private sector, thus stripping the Civil Rights Act of 1875 of much of its ability to protect civil rights [3]. Even today, the Supreme Court has struck down parts of civil rights laws on the grounds that the Fourteenth Amendment does not give Congress the power to prohibit private sector discrimination. In the late 19th and early 20th century, the legal justification for voiding the Civil Rights Act of 1875, was part of a larger trend by members of the United States Supreme Court to invalidate most government regulations of the private sector, except when dealing with laws designed to protect traditional public morality. In the 1930s, during the New Deal, the majority of the Supreme Court justices gradually shifted their legal theory to allow for greater government regulation of the private sector under the commerce clause, thus paving the way for the Federal government to enact civil rights laws prohibiting both public and private sector discrimination on the basis of the commerce clause. After the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, the Supreme Court upheld the law's application to the private sector, on the grounds that Congress has the power to regulate commerce between the States. The landmark case, Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, established the Constitutionality of the law, but it did not settle all of the legal questions surrounding the law.

tet offensive

was a military campaign during the Vietnam War that was launched on January 30, 1968 by forces of the Viet Cong and North Vietnam against South Vietnam, the United States, and their allies. It was a campaign of surprise attacks that were launched against military and civilian command and control centers throughout South Vietnam, during a period when no attacks were supposed to take place. The operations are referred to as the Tet Offensive because there was a prior agreement to "cease fire" during the Tet Lunar New Year celebrations. Both North and South Vietnam announced on national radio broadcasts that there would be a two-day cease-fire during the holiday. Nonetheless, the Communists launched an attack that began during the early morning hours of 30 January 1968, the first day of Tet. In Vietnamese, the offensive is commonly called Tết Mậu Thân (Tet, year of the monkey). Military planners called it the "General Offensive and uprising." The Communists launched a wave of attacks on the morning of 30 January in the I and II Corps Tactical Zones of South Vietnam. This early attack did not lead to widespread defensive measures. When the main communist operation began the next morning the offensive was countrywide and well coordinated, eventually more than 80,000 Communist troops striking more than 100 towns and cities, including 36 of 44 provincial capitals, five of the six autonomous cities, 72 of 245 district towns, and the southern capital.[10] The offensive was the largest military operation conducted by either side up to that point in the war. The initial attacks stunned the US and South Vietnamese armies and took them by surprise, but most were quickly contained and beaten back, inflicting massive casualties on communist forces. During the Battle of Huế intense fighting lasted for a month resulting in the destruction of the city by US forces while the Communists executed thousands of residents in the Massacre at Huế. Around the US combat base at Khe Sanh fighting continued for two more months. Although the offensive was a military defeat for the communists, it had a profound effect on the US government and shocked the US public, which had been led to believe by its political and military leaders that the communists were, due to previous defeats, incapable of launching such a massive effort. The term "Tet offensive" usually refers to the January-February 1968 offensive, but it can also include the so-called "mini-Tet" offensives that took place in May and August. The leadership in Hanoi was despondent at the outcome of their offensive.[149][150] Their first and most ambitious goal, producing a general uprising, had ended in a dismal failure. In total, approximately 85,000-100,000 communist troops had participated in the initial onslaught and in the follow-up phases. Overall, during the "Border Battles" of 1967 and the nine-month winter-spring campaign, 45,267 communist troops had been killed in action. The keys to the failure of Tet are not difficult to discern. Hanoi had underestimated the strategic mobility of the allied forces, which allowed them to redeploy at will to threatened areas; their battle plan was too complex and difficult to coordinate, which was amply demonstrated by the 30 January attacks; their violation of the principle of mass, attacking everywhere instead of concentrating their forces on a few specific targets, allowed their forces to be defeated piecemeal; the launching of massed attacks headlong into the teeth of vastly superior firepower; and last, but not least, the incorrect assumptions upon which the entire campaign was based.[152] According to General Tran Van Tra: "We did not correctly evaluate the specific balance of forces between ourselves and the enemy, did not fully realize that the enemy still had considerable capabilities, and that our capabilities were limited, and set requirements that were beyond our actual strength. The communist effort to regain control of the countryside was somewhat more successful. According to the U.S. State Department the Vietcong "made pacification virtually inoperative. In the Mekong Delta the Vietcong was stronger now than ever and in other regions the countryside belongs to the VC." General Wheeler reported that the offensive had brought counterinsurgency programs to a halt and "that to a large extent, the V.C. now controlled the countryside." Unfortunately for the Vietcong, this state of affairs did not last. Heavy casualties and the backlash of the South Vietnamese and Americans resulted in more territorial losses and heavy casualties. The horrendous losses inflicted on Viet Cong units struck into the heart of the irreplaceable infrastructure that had been built up for over a decade. MACV estimated that 181,149 Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops had been killed during 1968.[157] From this point forward, Hanoi was forced to fill one-third of the Viet Cong's ranks with North Vietnamese regulars. However, this change had little effect on the war, since North Vietnam had little difficulty making up the casualties inflicted by the offensive. Some Western historians have come to believe that one insidious ulterior motive for the campaign was the elimination of competing southern members of the Party, thereby allowing the northerners more control once the war was won. It was not until after the conclusion of the first phase of the offensive that Hanoi realized that its sacrifices might not have been in vain. Hanoi had in no way anticipated the political and psychological effect the offensive would have on the leadership and population of the U.S.[162] When the northern leadership saw how the U.S. was reacting to the offensive, they began to propagandize their "victory". The opening of negotiations and the diplomatic struggle, the option feared by the Party militants prior to the offensive, quickly came to occupy a position equal to that of the military struggle. On 5 May Trường Chinh rose to address a congress of Party members and proceeded to castigate the Party militants and their bid for quick victory. His "faction-bashing" tirade sparked a serious debate within the party leadership which lasted for four months. As the leader of the "main force war" and "quick victory" faction, Lê Duẩn also came under severe criticism. In August, Chinh's report on the situation was accepted in toto, published, and broadcast via Radio Hanoi. He had single-handedly shifted the nation's war strategy and restored himself to prominence as the Party's ideological conscience. Meanwhile, the Vietcong proclaimed itself the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam, and took part in future peace negotiations under this title. It would be a long seven years until victory. South Vietnam was a nation in turmoil both during and in the aftermath of the offensive. Tragedy had compounded tragedy as the conflict reached into the nation's cities for the first time. As government troops pulled back to defend the urban areas, the Vietcong moved in to fill the vacuum in the countryside. The violence and destruction witnessed during the offensive left a deep psychological scar on the South Vietnamese civilian population. Confidence in the government was shaken, since the offensive seemed to reveal that even with massive American support, the government could not protect its citizens. The human and material cost to South Vietnam was staggering. The number of civilian dead was estimated by the government at 14,300 with an additional 24,000 wounded.[166] 630,000 new refugees had been generated, joining the nearly 800,000 others already displaced by the war. By the end of 1968, one of every twelve South Vietnamese was living in a refugee camp.[166] More than 70,000 homes had been destroyed in the fighting and perhaps 30,000 more were heavily damaged and the nation's infrastructure had been virtually destroyed. The South Vietnamese military, although it had performed better than the Americans had expected, suffered from lowered morale, with desertion rates rising from 10.5 per thousand before Tet to 16.5 per thousand by July. 1968 became the deadliest year of the war to date for the ARVN with 27,915 men killed. In the wake of the offensive, however, fresh determination was exhibited by the Thieu government. On 1 February Thieu declared a state of martial law and, on 15 June, the National Assembly passed his request for a general mobilization of the population and the induction of 200,000 draftees into the armed forces by the end of the year (a decree that had failed to pass only five months previously due to strong political opposition).[168] This increase would bring South Vietnam's troop strength to more than 900,000 men.[169][170] Military mobilization, anti-corruption campaigns, demonstrations of political unity, and administrative reforms were quickly carried out.[171] Thiệu also established a National Recovery Committee to oversee food distribution, resettlement, and housing construction for the new refugees. Both the government and the Americans were encouraged by a new determination that was exhibited among the ordinary citizens of the Republic. Many urban dwellers were indignant that the communists had launched their attacks during Tet and it drove many who had been previously apathetic into active support of the government. Journalists, political figures, and religious leaders alike—even the militant Buddhists—professed confidence in the government's plans. Thiệu saw an opportunity to consolidate his personal power and he took it. His only real political rival was Vice President Ky, the former Air Force commander, who had been outmaneuvered by Thiệu in the presidential election of 1967. In the aftermath of Tet, Ky supporters in the military and the administration were quickly removed from power, arrested, or exiled. A crack-down on the South Vietnamese press also ensued and there was a worrisome return of former President Ngô Đình Diệm's Can Lao Party members to high positions in the government and military. By the summer of 1968, the President had earned a less exalted sobriquet among the South Vietnamese population, who had begun to call him "the little dictator." Thieu had also become very suspicious of his American allies, unwilling to believe (as did many South Vietnamese) that the U.S. had been caught by surprise by the offensive. "Now that it's all over," he queried a visiting Washington official, "you really knew it was coming didn't you?"[175][176] Lyndon Johnson's unilateral decision on 31 March to curtail the bombing of North Vietnam only confirmed what Thiệu already feared, that the Americans were going to abandon South Vietnam to the communists. For Thiệu, the bombing halt and the beginning of negotiations with the North brought not the hope of an end to the war, but "an abiding fear of peace." He was only mollified after an 18 July meeting with Johnson in Honolulu, where the American president affirmed that Saigon would be a full partner in all negotiations and that the U.S. would not "support the imposition of a coalition government, or any other form of government, on the people of South Vietnam." The Tet Offensive created a crisis within the Johnson administration, which became increasingly unable to convince the American public that it had been a major defeat for the communists. The optimistic assessments made prior to the offensive by the administration and the Pentagon came under heavy criticism and ridicule as the "credibility gap" that had opened in 1967 widened into a chasm. The shocks that reverberated from the battlefield continued to widen: On 18 February 1968 MACV posted the highest U.S. casualty figures for a single week during the entire war: 543 killed and 2,547 wounded. As a result of the heavy fighting, 1968 went on to become the deadliest year of the war for the US forces with 16,592 soldiers killed. On 23 February the U.S. Selective Service System announced a new draft call for 48,000 men, the second highest of the war. On 28 February Robert S. McNamara, the Secretary of Defense who had overseen the escalation of the war in 1964-1965, but who had eventually turned against it, stepped down from office.

viet cong

was a political organization and army in South Vietnam and Cambodia that fought the United States and South Vietnamese governments during the Vietnam War (1959-1975), and emerged on the winning side. It had both guerrilla and regular army units, as well as a network of cadres who organized peasants in the territory it controlled. Many soldiers were recruited in South Vietnam, but others were attached to the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), the regular North Vietnamese army. During the war, communists and anti-war spokesmen insisted the Viet Cong was an insurgency indigenous to the South, while the U.S. and South Vietnamese governments portrayed the group as a tool of Hanoi. Although the terminology distinguishes northerners from the southerners, communist forces were under a single command structure set up in 1958. Southern Vietnamese communists established the National Liberation Front in 1960 to encourage the participation of non-communists in the insurgency. Many of the Viet Cong's core members were "regroupees," southern Viet Minh who had resettled in the North after the Geneva Accord (1954). Hanoi gave the regroupees military training and sent them back to the South along the Ho Chi Minh trail in the early 1960s. The NLF called for southern Vietnamese to "overthrow the camouflaged colonial regime of the American imperialists" and to make "efforts toward the peaceful unification." The Viet Cong's best-known action was the Tet Offensive, a massive assault on more than 100 South Vietnamese urban centers in 1968, including an attack on the US embassy in Saigon. The offensive riveted the attention of the world's media for weeks, but also overextended the Viet Cong. Later communist offensives were conducted predominately by the North Vietnamese. The organisation was dissolved in 1976 when North and South Vietnam were officially unified under a communist government. By the terms of the Geneva Accord (1954), which ended the Indochina War, France and the Viet Minh agreed to a truce and to a separation of forces. The Viet Minh became the government of North Vietnam and communist forces regrouped there. Non-communist forces regrouped in South Vietnam, which became a separate state. Elections on reunification were scheduled for July 1956. A divided Vietnam angered Vietnamese nationalists, but it made the country less of a threat to China. Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai negotiated the terms of the ceasefire with France and then imposed them on the Viet Minh. About 90,000 Viet Minh were evacuated to the North while 5,000 to 10,000 cadre remained in the South, most of them with orders to refocus on political activity and agitation. The Saigon-Cholon Peace Committee, the first Viet Cong front, was founded in 1954 to provide leadership for this group.[6] Other front names used by the Viet Cong in the 1950s implied that members were fighting for religious causes, for example, "Executive Committee of the Fatherland Front", which suggested affiliation with the Hòa Hảo sect, or "Vietnam-Cambodian Buddhist Association." Front groups were favored by the Viet Cong to such an extent that its real leadership remained shadowy until long after the war was over, prompting the expression, "the faceless Vietcong.". Led by Ngô Đình Diệm, South Vietnam refused to sign the Geneva Accord. Arguing that a free election was impossible under the conditions that existed in communist-held territory, Diệm announced in July 1955 that the scheduled election on reunification would not be held. After subduing the Binh Xuyen organized crime gang in the Battle for Saigon in 1955, and the Hòa Hảo and other militant religious sects in early 1956, Diệm turned his attention to the Viet Cong.[13] Within a few months, the Viet Cong had been driven into remote swamps. The success of this campaign inspired U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower to dub Diệm the "miracle man" when he visited the U.S. in May 1957. France withdrew its last soldiers from Vietnam in April 1956. In March 1956, southern communist leader Lê Duẩn presented a plan to revive the insurgency entitled "The Road to the South" to the other members of the Politburo in Hanoi.[16] He argued adamantly that war with the United States was necessary to achieve unification.[17] But as China and the Soviets both opposed confrontation at this time, Lê Duẩn's plan was rejected and communists in the South were ordered to limit themselves to economic struggle.[16] Leadership divided into a "North first", or pro-Beijing, faction led by Trường Chinh, and a "South first" faction led by Lê Duẩn. As the Sino-Soviet split widened in the following months, Hanoi began to play the two communist giants off against each other. The North Vietnamese leadership approved tentative measures to revive the southern insurgency in December 1956.[18] Lê Duẩn's blueprint for revolution in the South was approved in principle, but implementation was conditional on winning international support and on modernizing the army, which was expected to take at least until 1959. President Hồ Chí Minh stressed that violence was still a last resort. Nguyễn Hữu Xuyên was assigned military command in the South, replacing Lê Duẩn, who was appointed North Vietnam's acting party boss. This represented a loss of power for Hồ, who preferred the more moderate Võ Nguyên Giáp, who was defense minister. An assassination campaign, referred to as "extermination of traitors" [22] or "armed propaganda" in communist literature, began in April 1957. Tales of sensational murder and mayhem soon crowded the headlines. Seventeen civilians were killed by machine gun fire at a bar in Châu Đốc in July and in September a district chief was killed with his entire family on a main highway in broad daylight. In October 1957, a series of bombs exploded in Saigon and left 13 Americans wounded. In a speech given on September 2, 1957, Hồ reiterated the "North first" line of economic struggle.[23] The launch of Sputnik in October boosted Soviet confidence and led to a reassessment of policy regarding Indochina, long treated as a Chinese sphere of influence. In November, Hồ traveled to Moscow with Lê Duẩn and gained approval for a more militant line.[24] In early 1958, Lê Duẩn met with the leaders of "Inter-zone V" (northern South Vietnam) and ordered the establishment of patrols and safe areas to provide logistical support for activity in the Mekong Delta and in urban areas. In June 1958, the Viet Cong created a command structure for the eastern Mekong Delta. French scholar Bernard Fall published an influential article in July 1958 which analyzed the pattern of rising violence and concluded that a new war had begun.

great society

was a set of domestic programs in the United States announced by President Lyndon B. Johnson at Ohio University and subsequently promoted by him and fellow Democrats in Congress in the 1960s. Two main goals of the Great Society social reforms were the elimination of poverty and racial injustice. New major spending programs that addressed education, medical care, urban problems, and transportation were launched during this period. 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. Unlike the New Deal, which was a response to a severe financial and economic calamity, the Great Society initiatives came just as the United States' post-World War II prosperity was starting to fade, but before the coming decline was being felt by the middle and upper classes. President Kennedy proposed an across-the-board tax cut lowering the [[Income tax in the United States#History of top rates[21]|top marginal rate]] by 20%, from 91% to 71%, which was enacted in February 1964 under President Johnson (three months after Kennedy's assassination). The tax cut also significantly reduced marginal rates in the lower brackets as well as for corporations. The gross national product rose 10% in the first year of the tax cut, and economic growth averaged a rate of 4.5% from 1961 to 1968.[3] Johnson's tax cut measure triggered what one historian described as "the greatest prosperity of the postwar years." GNP increased by 7% in 1964, 8% in 1965, and 9% in 1966. The unemployment rate fell below 5%, and by 1966 the number of families with incomes of $7,000 a year or more had reached 55%, compared with 22% in 1950. In 1968, when John Kenneth Galbraith published a new edition of "The Affluent Society," the average income of the American family stood at $8,000, double what it had been a decade earlier. Disposable personal income rose 15% in 1966 alone. Federal revenues increased dramatically from $94 billion in 1961 to $150 billion in 1967. As the Baby Boom generation aged, two and a half times more Americans would enter the labor force between 1965 and 1980 than had between 1950 and 1965.

students for a democratic society

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. In the academic year 1962-1963, the President was Tom Hayden, the Vice President was Paul Booth and the National Secretary was Jim Monsonis. There were nine chapters with, at most, about 1000 members. The national office (NO) in New York City consisted of a few desks, some broken chairs, a couple of file cabinets and a few typewriters. As a student group with a strong belief in decentralization and a distrust for most organizations, the SDS did not have a strong central bureaucracy. The three stalwarts at the office, Don McKelvey, Steve Max, and the National Secretary, Jim Monsonis, worked long hours for little pay to service the local chapters, and to help establish new ones. Even during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October, little could be accomplished. Most activity was oriented toward civil rights issues and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) played a key role in inspiring SDS. By the end of the academic year, there were over 200 delegates at the annual convention at Pine Hill, New York, from 32 different colleges and universities. It was then decided to give more power to the chapters, who would then send delegates to the National Council (NC), which would meet quarterly to handle the on-going activities. Also, in the spirit of participatory democracy, a consensus was reached to elect new officers each year. Lee Webb of Boston University was chosen as National Secretary, and Todd Gitlin of Harvard University was made president. Some continuity was preserved by retaining Paul Booth as Vice President. The search began for something to challenge the idealistic, budding activists. It was at this time that the Black Power Movement was first gaining some momentum (although Stokely Carmichael would make the movement more mainstream in 1966). The movement made it impolitic for white activists, such as those in SDS, to presume to lead protests for black civil rights. Instead, SDS would try to organize white unemployed youths through a newly established program they called the Economic Research and Action Project (ERAP). This "into the ghetto" move was a practical failure, but the fact that it existed at all drew many young idealists to SDS. At the summer convention in 1964 there was a split between those who were campus-oriented, and the ERAP supporters. Most of the old guard were ERAP supporters, but the campus activists were growing. Paul Potter was elected president, and by the end of summer there were ten ERAP programs in place, with about 125 student volunteers. C. Clark Kissinger of Shimer College in Illinois was elected as National Secretary, and he put the NO on a much more business-like basis. He and his assistant, Helen Garvey mailed out the literature list, the newsletters and the news of chapter's activities to a growing membership list. Kissinger also worked to smooth the relationship with the LID. A small faction of SDS that was interested in change through conventional electoral politics established a program called the Political Education Project (PEP). Its Director was Jim Williams of the University of Louisville, and Steve Max served as its Associate Director. This was never very large, and it was opposed by the mainstream SDSers, who were mostly opposed to such traditional, old-fashioned activity, and were looking for something new that "worked". The Johnson landslide victory in November played its part, as well, and PEP soon withered away. A Peace Research and Education Project (PREP) headed by Paul Booth, Swarthmore, met a similar fate. Meanwhile, the local chapters got into all sorts of projects, from University reform, community-university relations, and now, in a small way, the issue of the draft and Vietnam War. In February 1965, United States President Lyndon Johnson dramatically escalated the war in Vietnam by bombing North Vietnam in Operation Flaming Dart and introducing ground troops directly involved in fighting the Viet Cong in the South. Campus chapters of SDS all over the country started to lead small, localized demonstrations against the war and the NO became the focal group that organized the march against the war in Washington on April 17. Endorsements came from nearly all of the other peace groups and leading personalities, there was significant increase in income and by the end of March there were 52 chapters. The media began to cover the organization and the New Left. However, the call for the march and the openness of the organization in allowing other groups, even communist front groups, or communists themselves, to join in caused great strains with the LID and some other old left organizations. The first teach-in against the war was held in the University of Michigan. Soon hundreds more, all over the country, were held. The demonstration in Washington, DC attracted about 25,000 anti-war protesters and SDS became the leading student group against the war on most U.S. campuses. Representing its move into the heartland, the 1965 summer convention was held at Kewadin, a small camp in Northern Michigan. Moreover, its National Office, which was previously located in Manhattan, was moved to Chicago at about the same time.

free speech movement

was a student protest which took place during the 1964-1965 academic year on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley under the informal leadership of students Mario Savio, Brian Turner, Bettina Aptheker, Steve Weissman, Art Goldberg, Jackie Goldberg, and others. In protests unprecedented in this scope at the time, students insisted that the university administration lift the ban of on-campus political activities and acknowledge the students' right to free speech and academic freedom. In 1958, activist students organized SLATE, a campus political party, to promote the right of student groups to support off-campus issues. In the fall of 1964, student activists, some of whom had traveled with the Freedom Riders and worked to register African American voters in Mississippi in the Freedom Summer project, set up information tables on campus and were soliciting donations for civil rights causes. According to existing rules at the time, fundraising for political parties was limited exclusively to the Democratic and Republican school clubs. There was also a mandatory "loyalty oath" required of faculty, which had led to dismissals and ongoing controversy over academic freedom. On September 14, 1964, Dean Katherine Towle announced that existing University regulations prohibiting advocacy of political causes or candidates, outside political speakers, recruitment of members, and fundraising by student organizations at the intersection of Bancroft and Telegraph Avenues would be "strictly enforced." (This strip was until then thought to be city property, not campus property.) On October 1, former graduate student Jack Weinberg was sitting at the CORE table. He refused to show his identification to the campus police and was arrested. There was a spontaneous movement of students to surround the police car in which he was to be transported. Weinberg did not leave the police car, nor did the car move for 32 hours. At one point, there may have been 3,000 students around the car. The car was used as a speaker's podium and a continuous public discussion was held which continued until the charges against Weinberg were dropped. On December 2, between 1,500 and 4,000 students went in to Sproul Hall as a last resort in order to re-open negotiations with the administration on the subject of restrictions on political speech and action on campus. Among other grievances was the fact that four of their leaders were being singled out for punishment. The demonstration was orderly. Some students studied, some watched movies, some sang folk songs. Joan Baez was there to lead in the singing, and to lend moral support. "Freedom classes" were held by teaching assistants on one floor, and a special Channukah service took place in the main lobby. On the steps of Sproul Hall Mario Savio gave a famous speech: "...But we're a bunch of raw materials that don't mean to be - have any process upon us. Don't mean to be made into any product! Don't mean - Don't mean to end up being bought by some clients of the University, be they the government, be they industry, be they organized labor, be they anyone! We're human beings!...There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious—makes you so sick at heart—that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all." At midnight, Alameda County deputy district attorney Edwin Meese III telephoned Governor Edmund Brown, Sr, asking for authority to proceed with a mass arrest. Shortly after 2 am on December 4, police cordoned off the building, and at 3:30 am began arresting close to 800 students. Most of the arrestees were bussed to Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, about 25 miles away. They were released on their own recognizance after a few hours behind bars. About a month later, the university brought charges against the students who organized the sit-in, resulting in an even larger student protest that all but shut down the university. After much disturbance, the University officials slowly backed down. By January 3, 1965, the new acting chancellor, Martin Meyerson, established provisional rules for political activity on the Berkeley campus, designating the Sproul Hall steps an open discussion area during certain hours of the day and permitting tables. This applied to the entire student political spectrum, not just the liberal elements that drove the FSM. Most outsiders, however, identified the Free Speech Movement as a movement of the Left. Students and others opposed to U.S. foreign policy did indeed increase their visibility on campus following the FSM's initial victory. In the spring of 1965, the FSM was followed by the Vietnam Day Committee, a major starting point for the anti-Vietnam war movement. The Free Speech Movement had long-lasting effects at the Berkeley campus and was a pivotal moment for the civil liberties movement in the 1960s. It was seen as the beginning of the famous student activism that existed on the campus in the 1960s, and continues to a lesser degree today. There was a substantial voter backlash against the players involved in the Free Speech Movement. Ronald Reagan won an unexpected victory in the fall of 1966 and was elected Governor; the newly elected governor directed the UC Board of Regents to dismiss UC President Clark Kerr because of the perception that he had been too soft on the protesters. The FBI had kept a secret file on Kerr

six-day war

was fought between June 5 and 10, 1967, by Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt (known at the time as the United Arab Republic), Jordan, and Syria. The war began on June 5 with Israel launching surprise bombing raids against Egyptian air-fields after a period of high tension that included an Israeli raid into the Jordanian-controlled West Bank,[12][13] Israeli initiated aerial clashes over Syrian territory,[14] Syrian artillery attacks against Israeli settlements in the vicinity of the border followed by Israeli response against Syrian positions in the Golan Heights and encroachments of increasing intensity and frequency (initiated by Israel) into the demilitarized zones along the Syrian border and culminating in Egypt blocking the Straits of Tiran. and ordering of the evacuation from the Sinai Peninsula of the U.N. buffer force. Within six days, Israel had won a decisive land war. Israeli forces had taken control of the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. After the 1956 Suez Crisis, Egypt agreed to the stationing of U.N. peacekeepers, the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF), in the Sinai to ensure all parties would comply with the 1949 Armistice Agreements.[17][18][19] In the following years, there were numerous minor border clashes between Israel and its Arab neighbors, particularly Syria. On November 4, 1966, the Soviet Union vetoed a six-Power resolution, that invited Syria to prevent incidents that constitute a violation of the General Armistice Agreement. Soon thereafter, in response to Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) guerrilla activity,[21][22] including a mine attack that killed three Israeli soldiers,[23] the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) attacked the village of as-Samu in the Jordanian-occupied West Bank.[24] Jordanian units that engaged the Israelis were quickly beaten back. Between 14[25] and 21[26] Jordanian soldiers were killed in the operation and 37 more were wounded.[26] Overall, 18 were killed, 130 wounded, while 125 houses, the school, and the clinic were destroyed in the attack.[27] Israel's attack was deplored by the Security Council, which emphasized to Israel that actions of military reprisal could not be tolerated.[28] King Hussein of Jordan criticized Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser for failing to come to Jordan's aid, and "hiding behind UNEF skirts".[29][30] The Samu raid shattered the fragile trust between Israel and Jordan,[31] leading the Jordanian leadership to believe Israel's strategic goal was to occupy the West Bank. According to one source, this alleged fear that in the event of a regional war, Israel would invade the West Bank, led to King Hussein's decision to sign a joint defense pact with Egypt. Others however have theorized that Hussein's pact with Egypt was motivated by a desire to placate domestic pressures and preserve his throne. Still others have noted that Hussein closed ranks with Nasser because he had to convince Arabs "that he was not a puppet of the West." Not only land, but water was a major factor in building tensions between Israel and it neighbours. From 1950's Water politics had escalated. Israel tapped the Jordan River (and the Sea of Galilee) by canal for irrigation in its west, and southern desert, while Syria planned diversions from tributaries in the Golan Heights to Syria, Jordan and Lebanon (to the Litani River), which would have reduced Israeli access. Across-border conflict over water without political resolution had preceded the war by years. Between 1966 and 1967 Israel's borders saw repeated Arab terrorist attacks and Syrian military activity.[34] On May 11, UN Secretary General U Thant leveled criticism at Syria for its sponsorship of Palestinian terrorism, denouncing those attacks as "deplorable," "insidious" and "menaces to peace." During 1965-7, Israel's armed forces staged numerous provocations along the Israeli-Syrian border area.[36] This escalation led the Syrians and the Soviets to believe Israel was planning to overthrow the Syrian regime using military force.[36] On April 7, 1967, a serious incident broke out between Israel and Syria over a cultivation problem within the demilitarized zone. Israel took military action against Syria, and eventually both sides employed artillery, tanks, and mortars.[37] During this clash Israeli airstrikes were launched a few miles from Damascus. Israel bombed both Syrian border villages, and Syrian military targets, and had refused a cease-fire proposal by the Chairman of Mixed Armistice Commission. After several hours the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization managed to arrange a cease-fire. Following this confrontation Arab governments pledged their support to Syria, but also complained that the Jordanian air force had done nothing to help Syrian planes even when they were shot down in Jordanian airspace. In May 1967, Israeli officials began to publicly threaten military action against Syria if Syria did not stop Palestinian guerrillas from crossing the border into Israel.[39] Following that, Nasser received false intelligence reports from the Soviet Union that an Israeli attack on Syria was imminent.[40][41][42][43][44] Egyptian intelligence later confirmed that the Soviet reports of Israeli force concentrations were in fact groundless,[45][46][47] but Nasser had by then already started his buildup and he feared that since a large portion of his army was already in the Sinai, a sudden callback of those forces would result in humiliation at a time when Nasser could ill afford being humiliated.[48] On May 19, U Thant called statements attributed to Israeli leaders "so threatening as to be particularly inflammatory in the sense that they could only heighten emotions and thereby increase tensions on the other side of the lines".[49] Nasser then misled the Egyptian people by perpetuating the falsehood claiming in an address on the anniversary of the Egyptian revolution, that the IDF was concentrating forces "on Syria's doorstep." Israel's threats to invade Syria appeared serious to Arab leaders, however, and foreign observers suspected that an Israeli strike on Syria was imminent. According to Michael Oren, Nasser disregarded the counsel of his own intelligence and began massing his troops in the Sinai Peninsula on Israel's border (May 16), expelled the UNEF force from Gaza and Sinai (May 19), and took up UNEF positions at Sharm el-Sheikh, overlooking the Straits of Tiran. According to Moshe Shemesh, as Egypt and Syria shared a mutual defence pact, Nasser responded to the Israeli threats by beginning to concentrate his troops in the Sinai Peninsula according to the "Qahir" (Conqueror) defence plan. He also decided to prepare the feda'iyyun for carrying out the "Fahd 2 (Leopard) Plan" [murderous attacks] inside Israel and to coordinate military operations with Syria. On May 30, Jordan and Egypt signed a defense pact. The following day, at Jordan's invitation, the Iraqi army began deploying troops and armored units in Jordan.[70] They were later reinforced by an Egyptian contingent. On June 1, Israel formed a National Unity Government by widening its cabinet, and on June 4 the decision was made to go to war. The next morning, Israel launched Operation Focus, a large-scale surprise air strike that was the opening of the Six-Day War. Most scholarly accounts of the crisis attribute the drift to war to an escalation that was unwanted, however despite a desire to avoid war on all sides, everyone was in the end responsible for making the escalation unavoidable.

march on Washington

was one of the largest political rallies for human rights in United States history[3] and called for civil and economic rights for African Americans. It took place in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, August 28, 1963. Martin Luther King, Jr., standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial, delivered his historic "I Have a Dream" speech advocating racial harmony during the march. The march was organized by a group of civil rights, labor, and religious organizations, under the theme "jobs, and freedom". Estimates of the number of participants varied from 200,000 to 300,000.Observers estimated that 75-80% of the marchers were black and the rest were white and non-black minorities. The march is widely credited with helping to pass the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the Voting Rights Act (1965). On August 28, more than 2,000 buses, 21 special trains, 10 chartered airliners, and uncounted cars converged on Washington. All regularly scheduled planes, trains, and buses were also filled to capacity. The march began at the Washington Monument and ended at the Lincoln Memorial with a program of music and speakers. The march failed to start on time because its leaders were meeting with members of Congress. To the leaders' surprise, the assembled group began to march from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial without them. The 1963 March also spurred anniversary marches that occur every five years, with the 20th and 25th being some of the most well known. The 25th Anniversary theme was "We Still have a Dream...Jobs*Peace*Freedom." Representatives from each of the sponsoring organizations addressed the crowd from the podium at the Lincoln Memorial. Speakers included all six civil-rights leaders of the so-called, "Big Six"; Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish religious leaders; and labor leader Walter Reuther. None of the official speeches were by women; Josephine Baker gave a speech during the preliminary offerings, but women's presence in the official program was limited to a "tribute" led by Bayard Rustin (planned to be Myrlie Evers, who was unable to attend due to a prior commitment in Boston. Floyd McKissick read James Farmer's speech because Farmer had been arrested during a protest in Louisiana; Farmer had written that the protests would not stop "until the dogs stop biting us in the South and the rats stop biting us in the North."

Student Noninvolvement Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

was one of the organizations of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. It emerged from a series of student meetings led by Ella Baker held at Shaw University in April 1960. SNCC grew into a large organization with many supporters in the North who helped raise funds to support SNCC's work in the South, allowing full-time SNCC workers to have a $10 per week salary. Many unpaid volunteers also worked with SNCC on projects in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, and Maryland. SNCC played a major role in the sit-ins and freedom rides, a leading role in the 1963 March on Washington, Mississippi Freedom Summer, and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party over the next few years. SNCC's major contribution was in its field work, organizing voter registration drives all over the South, especially in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. In the later 1960s, led by fiery leaders such as Stokely Carmichael, SNCC focused on black power, and then protesting against the Vietnam War. As early as 1965, James Forman said he didn't know "how much longer we can stay nonviolent" and in 1969, SNCC officially changed its name to the Student National Coordinating Committee to reflect the broadening of its strategies. It passed out of existence in the 1970s. SNCC played a signal role in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. While many speakers applauded the Kennedy Administration for the efforts it had made toward obtaining new, more effective civil rights legislation protecting the right to vote and outlawing segregation, John Lewis took the administration to task for how little it had done to protect Southern blacks and civil rights workers under attack in the Deep South. Although he was forced to tone down his speech under pressure from the representatives of other civil rights organizations on the march organization committee, his words still stung. However, under pressure from the representatives of other groups many changes were made to the speech as it was delivered that day.[8] According to James Forman, the most important of these was the change of "we cannot support" the Kennedy Civil Rights Bill to "we support with reservations. Forman's and SNCC's anger came in part from the failure of the federal government, FBI and Justice Department to protect SNCC civil rights workers in the South at this time. Indeed, the federal government at that time was instrumental in indicting SNCC workers and other civil rights activists.

operation rolling thunder

was the title of a gradual and sustained US 2nd Air Division (later Seventh Air Force), US Navy, and Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF) aerial bombardment campaign conducted against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) from 2 March 1965 until 2 November 1968, during the Vietnam War. The four objectives of the operation (which evolved over time) were to boost the sagging morale of the Saigon regime in the Republic of Vietnam, to persuade North Vietnam to cease its support for the communist insurgency in South Vietnam without actually taking any ground forces into communist North Vietnam, to destroy North Vietnam's transportation system, industrial base, and air defenses, and to cease the flow of men and material into South Vietnam. Attainment of these objectives was made difficult by both the restraints imposed upon the U.S and its allies by Cold War exigencies and by the military aid and assistance received by North Vietnam from its communist allies, the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China (PRC). The operation became the most intense air/ground battle waged during the Cold War period; indeed, it was the most difficult such campaign fought by the U.S. Air Force since the aerial bombardment of Germany during World War II. Supported by communist allies, North Vietnam fielded a potent mixture of sophisticated air-to-air and ground-to-air weapons that created one of the most effective air defenses ever faced by American military aviators. Writing after the war, Robert McNamara stated that by spring 1967 he and other civilians in the administration had become convinced that both Rolling Thunder and the ground war in South Vietnam were not working. McNamara claimed that he and others within the administration continuously opposed the Joint Chief's recommendations for an increased tempo of bombing and the loosening of target restrictions. The generals found themselves on the horns of a dilemma of their own making. They continuously claimed that the campaign was working, yet they also had to continuously demand greater latitude in order to make the campaign succeed.[93] The limited goals entailed in American foreign policy and the military's goal of total victory were simply not reconcilable. The great conundrum had then become how to defeat North Vietnam without defeating North Vietnam. On 9 August 1967 the Senate Armed Services Committee opened hearings on the bombing campaign. Complaints from the armed services had sparked the interest of some of the most vocal hawks on Capitol Hill. The military chiefs testified before the committee, complaining about the gradual nature of the air war and its civilian-imposed restrictions. It was obvious that McNamara, the only civilian subpoenaed and the last to testify before the committee, was to be the scapegoat. The Secretary of Defense marshaled his objections to an indiscriminate air war and adeptly rebutted the charges of the military chiefs. He bluntly admitted that there was "no basis to believe that any bombing campaign...would by itself force Ho Chi Minh's regime into submission, short, that is, of the virtual annihilation of North Vietnam and its people." It had now become clear to President Johnson that McNamara had become a liability to the administration. In February 1968, McNamara resigned his position and was replaced by Clark Clifford, who was chosen because of his personal friendship with Johnson and his previous opposition to McNamara's suggestions that the number of troops in the South Vietnam be stabilized and that Rolling Thunder be ended.[100] McNamara's position, however was almost immediately taken up by Secretary of State Dean Rusk, (until then an ardent advocate of the bombing campaign). Rusk proposed limiting the campaign to the panhandle of North Vietnam without preconditions and awaiting Hanoi's reaction. Within months Clifford too began to adopt the views of the man he had replaced, gradually becoming convinced that the U.S. had to withdraw from an open-ended commitment to the war. Disappointed by perceived political defeats at home and hoping that Hanoi would enter into negotiations, President Johnson announced on 31 March 1968, that all bombing north of the 19th parallel would cease.[103] As a result of that decision, into the area between the 17th and 19th parallels, the Air Force and Navy began to pour all the firepower that they had formerly spread throughout North Vietnam. The Air Force doubled the number of sorties sent into Route Package One to more than 6,000 per month with the campaign concentrated on interdiction "choke points", road closing, and truck hunting.[104] Once again, the military commanders were faced a familiar dilemma: having opposed the bombing cutback, they then decided that the new policy had a lot of merit, especially when considering the alternative of no bombing at all.[105] The North Vietnamese responded by doubling the number of anti-aircraft batteries in the panhandle, but most of their SAM batteries remained deployed around Hanoi and Haiphong. Hanoi, which had continuously stipulated that it would not conduct negotiations while the bombing continued, finally agreed to meet with the Americans for preliminary talks in Paris. As a result, President Johnson declared that a complete bombing halt over North Vietnam would go into effect on 1 November 1968, just prior to the U.S. presidential election. Although the bombing halt was to be linked to progress in the peace talks, the Joint Chiefs were skeptical that the administration would reopen the bombing campaign under any circumstances. They were correct. Between March 1965 and November 1968, aircraft of the U.S. Air Force had flown 153,784 attack sorties against North Vietnam, while the Navy and Marine Corps had added another 152,399.[107] On 31 December 1967, the Department of Defense announced that 864,000 tons of American bombs had been dropped on North Vietnam during Rolling Thunder, compared with 653,000 tons dropped during the entire Korean War and 503,000 tons in the Pacific theater during the Second World War. The CIA estimated on 1 January 1968 that damage inflicted in the north totaled $370 million in physical destruction, including $164 million worth of damage to capital assets (such as factories, bridges, and power plants). The agency also estimated that approximately 1,000 casualties had been inflicted on the North Vietnamese population per week, or approximately 90,000 for the 44-month period, 72,000 of whom were civilians.[109] Due to combat and operational circumstances, 506 U.S. Air Force, 397 Navy, and 19 Marine Corps aircraft were lost over or near North Vietnam.[110][111] During the operation, of the 745 crewmen shot down, the U.S. Air Force recorded 145 rescued, 255 killed, 222 captured (23 of whom died in captivity), and 123 missing. Figures on U.S. Navy and Marine Corps casualties were harder to come by. During the 44-month time frame, 454 Naval aviators were killed, captured, or missing during combined operations over North Vietnam and Laos. Rolling Thunder had begun as a campaign of psychological and strategic persuasion, but it changed very quickly to interdiction, a tactical mission.[114] Its ultimate failure had two sources, both of which lay with the civilian and military policy-makers in Washington: First, neither group could ever conceive that the North Vietnamese would endure under the punishment that they would unleash upon it. The civilians, moreover, did not understand air power well enough to know that their policies might be crippling it; Second, the American military leadership failed to initially propose and develop, or later to adapt, an appropriate strategy for the war. Along the way, Rolling Thunder also fell prey to the same dysfunctional managerial attitude as did the rest of the American military effort in Southeast Asia. The process of the campaign became an end unto itself, with sortie generation as the standard by which progress was measured. Sortie rates and the number of bombs dropped, however, equaled efficiency, not effectiveness. The U.S fighter community was shocked by the news that elderly subsonic fighters were inflicting losses against the F-105 Thunderchief, the fastest and most sophisticated strike fighter then in the Air Force inventory. One result was a drastic rethinking of air combat and aircraft design, which had been centered around delivery of nuclear weapons in Europe and missile interception. As a result, the F-4 Phantom became the primary U.S. air superiority fighter for both services in the later days of the war. The Air Force's F-4E was fitted with maneuvering slats and an internal gun, while the Navy cancelled an expensive new fighter design[clarification needed] in favor of a plane that would be more, rather than less effective, in a short-range dogfight than the Phantom. Analysis of the campaign resulted in the creation of new pilot training programs, such as the famous TOPGUN, utilizing F-5 Tigers and A-4 Skyhawks to simulate the threat of small subsonic and supersonic MiG fighters. The U.S. also started the design of a new generation of fighters that were optimized for visual-range dogfights. Although the first of these "teen" fighters would not enter service soon enough to cover America's withdrawal from Vietnam, they would dominate future air battles, serving well into the 21st century. Many remain in service today.