U.S. History Exam 4

Discuss how and why the Tet offensive was a turning point in Americans' attitudes toward the Vietnam War.

- Johnson rallied US forces to defend Khe Sanh (airbase) and launched B-52 raids in hills surrounding base's perimeter -Up until that point, the U.S. had held the Southern cities and fighting had always ceased around the Chinese New Year's holiday known as Tết. In 1968, likewise, the communists agreed to a ceasefire and many ARVN (South Vietnamese) forces went home. -But this time, the VC surprised the Americans and South Vietnamese by simultaneously attacking 55 cities (120 towns overall) in the South with 85k troops (right). Tapping the Ho Chi Minh Trail and tunnel network, they'd snuck weapons into the cities in everyday items like vegetable carts, parade floats, and funeral caskets. On January 31st, they sprung the attacks during the holiday celebrations amidst fireworks, hoping to "crack the sky and shake the Earth." Lê Duẩn borrowed this New Year's distraction idea from the history books, as the Vietnamese had won control from the Chinese during Tet, 1789. -The Tet Offensive caught most of the military and all of the public back home off guard, as communist troops nearly overtook the U.S. Embassy in Saigon live on the American nightly news. But the VC lost support among civilians by being too heavy-handed in their door-to-door executions of "blood enemies," which included anyone they'd wrongly arrested that could identify them -In Huế, communists massacred ~ 3k innocent government employees and Catholic nuns, some still alive when buried in a mass grave. Aside from being a horrible atrocity, the Massacre at Huế counterproductively convinced many South Vietnamese that similar retributions would follow if the communist won the war. Across South Vietnam, the Americans and their allies dug in, held and routed the VC, decimating their numbers. Huế was the most difficult Tet fight, lasting for a month before Marines retook the city. -The surprise offensive was a huge gamble and the U.S. didn't fully realize how counterproductive Tet had been for the communists until Soviet archives opened in 1992, twenty years after the war.

Summarize the military strategy the U.S. employed in Vietnam.

- Kennedy tried to segregate VC by relocating villagers in Strategic Hamlet Program (but ppl didn't want to move away from burial grounds and fostered resentment) - Johnson wanted to stop communism advance in SE Asia -The U.S. hoped to eliminate the Viet Cong (VC) and North Vietnamese Army (NVA) from South Vietnam but they didn't want escalation into a major war with China or the USSR. -Consequently, they never invaded the North directly other than an aerial bombing campaign called Operation Rolling Thunder, with F-105's and "Big Belly" (extra payload) B-52's running 12-hour roundtrip missions out of Thailand and Guam the three-year Rolling Thunder campaign was the biggest sustained air battle of the Cold War but never accomplished its goal. Scores of bridges and railroads were destroyed, only to be rebuilt. -The North rebuilt pontoon bridges seemingly overnight. The North Vietnamese were armed to the teeth with Soviet MiG jets and an assortment of cutting-edge surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) to shoot down American bombers and Vought F-8 Crusader or Douglas A-4E Skyhawk fighters who flew low to avoid radar detection. -In the South, the U.S. fought a ground war of attrition, hoping to kill communists on such a scale that the North would capitulate and give up its hope of taking over the South. Simply put, they hoped the VC and NVA would finally run out of troops if enough died. The emphasis was on body counts, or "kill counts. -American forces were also at a disadvantage in the South because they were fighting insurgents on their home turf, in this case mostly jungles and rice paddies. If human combatants weren't enough, soldiers had to keep their eyes peeled for tigers and venomous snakes like kraits, pit vipers, and cobras on the ground and in the trees -hey suffered from malaria, dysentery and various bacterial infections like jungle rot (tropical ulcers). Seven hundred years later, American soldiers were falling into pits and impaling themselves on over-cooked (hardened) bamboo spears in the same manner as Mongol invaders. Such contraptions, along with traditional landmines, represented a significant percentage of U.S. casualties and gave the Viet Cong a psychological edge. -Despite these obstacles, well-trained Americans killed large numbers of VC, allowing the Pentagon to cite high 10:1 kill ratios that gave the public the impression the U.S. was winning. And, while casualties were high, American deaths were less than previous wars because of the lack of large-scale traditional battles and improvements in surgery and in evacuating injured soldiers in helicopters

From Short Video: Analyze how the la Drang battle symbolized the Vietnam conflict. How did it exemplify the strategic problems the U.S. faced fighting in South Vietnam? ?????

- Little info on enemy - Seek out Viet Cong and kill them as mission; goal never to occupy area but to kill and leave - Faced 1500 soldiers ninety minutes after landing; strike Southern section of landing zone - US forces abandon landing zone - Battle declared a "victory" The battle was extremely important because it was the first significant contact between U.S. troops and North Vietnamese forces. The action demonstrated that the North Vietnamese were prepared to stand and fight major battles even though they might take serious casualties. Senior American military leaders concluded that U.S. forces could wreak significant damage on the communists in such battles--this tactic lead to a war of attrition as the U.S. forces tried to wear the communists down. The North Vietnamese also learned a valuable lesson during the battle: by keeping their combat troops physically close to U.S. positions, U.S. troops could not use artillery or air strikes without risking injury to American troops. This style of fighting became the North Vietnamese practice for the rest of the war...

Describe how, including the 24th Amendment, 1965 Immigration Act, Loving vs. Virginia (1967) case, and Fair Housing Act of 1968, the Civil Rights Movement changed the legal landscape regarding race in America.

-24th amendment = prohibits both Congress and the states from conditioning the right to vote in federal elections on payment of a poll tax or other types of tax. -the Voting Rights Act of 1965, along with the Twenty-Fourth Amendment, beefed up the Fifteenth Amendment, outlawing all the various excuses states used to keep Blacks and Hispanics from voting like literacy tests and poll taxes. -Immigration act = Immigration laws also shed their racist qualifications with the 1965 Hart-Celler Immigration and Nationality Act, as the U.S. once again welcomed people from around the world by abolishing the national origins quota system that had been in place since the 1920s. -Loving vs virginia = in 1967, the Supreme Court ruled in Loving v. Virginia that Virginia's anti-miscegenationlaw banning interracial couples was unconstitutional per the Fourteenth Amendment, overturning numerous precedent cases and similar laws in fifteen southern states. The Court ruled that marriage was an inherent right. -Fair housing act =Congress passed the Fair Housing Act in 1968 as part of another civil rights bill, banning the discriminatory practices in real estate that we covered in Chapter 15. -These three laws/rulings involving immigration, interracial marriage, and housing are among the most underrated aspects of the civil rights movement. -These legislative struggles overcame epic filibusters in the U.S. Senate.

Evaluate the ways that the techniques and concerns of the black Civil Rights Movement carried over, or were shared, by other groups: Hispanics

-Hispanics were the original European inhabitants of the American Southwest, then lost political control with Texas Independence and the Mexican War of 1846-48 -when the Mexican Revolution of the 1910's uprooted many, workers migrated to the U.S. for jobs in agriculture, railroads, mining, and construction. They lived mainly in southern Texas and New Mexico where -Across the country, Whites extended similar patterns of segregation and discrimination aimed at Blacks to Mexicans, especially as they moved north to take factory jobs during World War I. -World War II ignited a new phase of Hispanic civil rights activism, the same way it did with Blacks, as Latinos fought in large numbers. Dr. Hector P. Garcia formed the American GI Forum to protest discrimination in veteran benefits, but it became the fulcrum for a broader movement. -In the mid-20th century, black and Hispanic civil rights movements reinforced each other. With the help of organizers like Texan Willie Velasquez, Hispanics were effective in using the vote to gain control over local councils and school boards. -Forming organizations like the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, they utilized the 1965 Voting Rights Act to sue in courts and push back against discriminatory gerrymandering that minimized their electoral influence. -Some, like Texas Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez, promoted gradualism and assimilation while others, like Raza Unida leader José Ángel Gutiérrez of Crystal City, Texas, were more militant. -Like the black civil rights movement, Hispanic leaders didn't follow a common script. -Many younger Latinos embraced a movement of their own roughly similar to Black Power: the Chicano movement, based on the Indian word Mexica as opposed to the Spanish word Aztec. They embraced rather than minimized the Indian part of their ancestry. They walked out of classes in East Los Angeles and San Antonio, demanding Hispanic representation among school administrators and the inclusion of Mexican-American history in curriculums. -Other Hispanics borrowed from Gandhi's idea of non-violent protest. Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta used boycotts, most famously of grapes, to help organize Mexican and Mexican-American migrant workers and get carcinogenic pesticides banned in the fields of California and the Southwest. -Chavez and Huerta's movement ended child labor in the fields and led to the first farm worker contracts. The most influential protests were in California and Texas. As you read above, Hispanic organizations brought suit in the game-changing -Hernandez v. Texas case of 1954 and forged a decades-long alliance with Lyndon Johnson because of the Longoria Affair

Identify the Gulf of Tonkin incident and how LBJ's retaliation after Pleiku helped muster Soviet support for North Vietnam.

-A North Vietnamese torpedo fired on an American destroyer, the USS Maddox, patrolling in the Gulf of Tonkin, closer to the North Vietnamese coast than they usually ventured as they were covering the South Vietnamese navy as it shelled coastal islands. -The torpedo caused just one bullet hole in the Maddox and the captain changed his story several times, so it's unclear whether LBJ was trying to manufacture a small incident for the election -Whatever the case, Barry Goldwater would've crucified LBJ in the presidential campaign for looking soft if he hadn't retaliated. LBJ's staff thought they had to respond as if attacked even if they weren't just in case word got out that they were. -In response to the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, the U.S. sent troops up to the northern edge of the demilitarized zone that divided North and South Vietnam along the 17° Parallel, which the North took as an act of aggression. -LBJ asked Congress for funding and they responded with the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, not an official war declaration, that passed the Senate 98-2. LBJ didn't want World War III, or even an official war, but wanted enough money to cover everything -The communists' next major move was an attack on an American helicopter base at Camp Holloway, near Pleiku in Vietnam's Central Highlands, in February 1965. Johnson responded by bombing North Vietnam. This occurred during a visit to Hanoi by Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin, helping to convince him that the USSR should cement its military alliance with North Vietnam. -The Soviets had been gradually withdrawing support for Ho Chi Minh under Nikita Khrushchev but reconsidered their policy when they saw China gaining influence in Southeast Asia.

Explain why Eisenhower and the U.S. didn't want to sign the 1954 Geneva Convention or honor the convention's call for country-wide elections.

-After the Vietnamese took control of North Vietnam in 1954, world powers convened in Geneva, Switzerland to discuss the growing crisis in the southern part of the country, where France was hanging on to what remained of its colony. -Just a year after the war in Korea simmered down, the Geneva Accords called for dividing Vietnam along the 17° Parallel, similar to Korea's 38°, with an independent North Vietnam and French-held South. -Unlike the Korean situation, where the stalemate went on in perpetuity, elections would be held two years later in 1956, with the winner taking over one unified country of Vietnam. -U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower thought that even fully participating in the Geneva talks sanctioned the communists' takeover in the north. While the U.S. sent a representative to Geneva, it didn't sign the agreement, mainly because they knew the wrong guy would win a unified election: Ho Chi Minh. Therein lay the roots of future conflict.

Explain why relations were so contentious between labor and management in the immediate aftermath of World War II.

-At stake was the question of whether the gains labor made during the Depression, including minimum wage and the right to collective bargaining, were temporary or permanent. -While there were several strikes during WWII, labor and management were mostly willing to shelve the argument during the war. Once the war ended, it was game on. -Management wanted the 1935 Wagner Act repealed now that the Depression was over, especially the all-important collective bargaining law that compelled management to negotiate with unions. -Labor wanted to hang on to their gains and underscored their determination with a series of (connected) secondary strikes in railroads, coal, steel, and autos in 1946.

Evaluate the quality of the evidence for his violation of the Logan Act or purported treason, and whether his actions were beneficial or harmful to the U.S. in the long run.

-But Johnson knew that he was prompted because he ordered the FBI to wiretap the Nixon campaign, the NSA tapped the South Vietnamese Embassy in Washington, and the CIA tapped the South Vietnamese in Saigon. That's how LBJ "knew what was happening from both ends" as he put it. Interfering with foreign relations as a private citizen is a felony under the Logan Act but Nixon and Kissinger got away with it. -In 2016, historians discovered a phone call note at the Nixon Presidential Library from Nixon aide H.R. Haldeman confirming that Nixon hoped to "monkey wrench" the peace talks before the election -Johnson challenged Nixon about it directly in this phone conversation, with Nixon denying the charges Dirksen passed on to him. However, in a New York meeting, the FBI recorded Chennault telling South Vietnamese Ambassador Bui Diem to "hold on, we're gonna win." In Johnson's conversation with Nixon, he only mentions press reports rather than the wiretappings. Ultimately, Johnson and the new Democrat candidate Hubert Humphrey decided that it would be better for the country to not go public with the allegations even though he thought they were treasonous. -As for the peace talks in Paris, Nixon's sabotage helped doom them but they might have failed anyway. When the parties finally arrived, they argued for weeks over how to arrange the tables as thousands died back home on both sides. The communists wanted a square arrangement, with the Americans, South Vietnamese, North Vietnamese, and (Southern) Viet Cong each sitting on one side, but the Americans wanted the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong combined into one side.

Describe how China's communist revolution influenced American politics.

-But in his second term, the U.S. experienced several setbacks in the Cold War, including the Soviets exploding an atomic bomb, spy scandals at home, and a communist takeover of China. -In fairness, China was not really Truman's to lose, but TIME's Henry Luce flayed Truman mercilessly for "losing China" and being soft on communism. -In this charged atmosphere, any man who didn't knock himself out being "tough on communism" ran the danger of being considered a "fellow traveler" himself (fellow communist). -East Asian linguists fired by State Department (no one in gov't who spoke Korean or Vietnamese) -Rather than stand up to the criticism, Truman pandered to the hysteria by instituting loyalty oaths and reviving the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), a committee started in the House of Representatives in the late 1930s to ferret out right-wing influence (Nazi and Klan) in the government. -HUAC, though, made a public spectacle of the country's worst tendencies, including political backstabbing and paranoia. In hoping to defuse his critics, Truman accidentally fanned the flames with bellows when he should have used an extinguisher on HUAC and just made sure the FBI and CIA were adequately staffed to hunt real spies.

Critique Richard Nixon's actions in the 1968 presidential race.

-By 1968, LBJ was looking to end the Vietnam War in similar terms as the Korean conflict, with the country divided in this case along the 17° north-south parallel instead of the 38° -Yet, as Richard Nixon ran for president in 1968, the last thing Nixon wanted was a successful resolution to the crisis before the election — what he called a cheap "peace gimmick." Kissinger hitched his wagon to Nixon's star with the promise of becoming his National Security Advisor. -According to FBI files, Nixon and Kissinger disrupted the three-way peace talks between the U.S., South Vietnam, and North Vietnam, telling the South and its leader, President Thiệu, through intermediary Madame Anna Chennault (widow of the founder of the WWII Flying Tigers) that, if they hung on until Nixon was president, they'd get a better deal by Nixon driving a harder bargain with North Vietnam. -But Johnson knew that he was prompted because he ordered the FBI to wiretap the Nixon campaign, the NSA tapped the South Vietnamese Embassy in Washington, and the CIA tapped the South Vietnamese in Saigon. That's how LBJ "knew what was happening from both ends" as he put it. Interfering with foreign relations as a private citizen is a felony under the Logan Act but Nixon and Kissinger got away with it. In 2016, historians discovered a phone call note at the Nixon Presidential Library from Nixon aide H.R. Haldeman confirming that Nixon hoped to "monkey wrench" the peace talks before the election

Identify Colin Powell and three main points of the Powell Doctrine.

-Colin Powell was the most influential Vietnam veteran in terms of shaping future policy. His Doctrine built on the lessons of Vietnam by suggesting these future guidelines: 1. Never engage in any war the public doesn't back. 2. Use overwhelming air power up front, destroying the enemy's air force, then proceed on the ground. 3. Always have both a clear plan of attack and a viable exit strategy. Powell later served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Bush 41 and Secretary of State under Bush 43, before resigning after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. He was influential in shaping strategy during the First Gulf War in 1990-91.

Identify and describe the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965.

-Congress and Johnson signed legislation outlawing racism in public establishments, including privately-owned businesses, with the 1964 Civil Rights Act. That law, along with the Heart of Atlanta Motel court case the same year, beefed up the Fourteenth Amendment considerably to outlaw formal racism anywhere in any state, not just state-sanctioned racism as it had been interpreted since 1883. =also reaffirmed equal pay act for women (S. Democrats put in hoping that N. democrats would vote against whole bill) -The Voting Rights Act of 1965, along with the Twenty-Fourth Amendment, beefed up the Fifteenth Amendment, outlawing all the various excuses states used to keep Blacks and Hispanics from voting like literacy tests and poll taxes.

Analyze which dissenting arguments were strongest or weakest, in your opinion, from a Constitutional perspective.

-Dissenting judges, including Chief Justice John Roberts (Bush 43) and Antonin Scalia (Reagan), said the Court was legislating without consent of the people — a "putsch" in Scalia's words — especially with their evolving definition of the Fourteenth Amendment's right to due process. -However, the case came after decades of legislation and initiatives from elected officials and voters and multiple cases bouncing around the lower courts — exactly what the Supreme Court traditionally rules on. -If the judges really thought it was a purely legislative matter then they shouldn't have taken the case. The Court can't accept a case then rig it by arguing that ruling against the plaintiff is their business but ruling in his favor isn't. The real opposition to same-sex marriage doesn't come from the Constitution, but rather tradition and/or religion. -Another line of criticism from the dissenting judges was that marriage is only for having children, though that ignores that it's legal for married heterosexual couples to not have children. Better to stick to the ambiguity of the Fourteenth's due process clause. -That's a roundabout argument but, to the extent that it makes any sense, the implication would be that we should outlaw marriage because some people find it confining. If someone is arguing that you shouldn't have the right to marry because in their opinion you shouldn't want to marry anyway, then why would that apply to one group (homosexuals) and not another (heterosexuals)? -That brings us back to the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of equal protection under the law. Should that be overridden in this case by religious or cultural convention? -One accurate point the dissenting judges made is that this does indeed open up the question of polygamous marriage. To wit: based on Reynolds v. U.S. (1878) polygamy's ban rests on historical convention, in that case dating back to English common law, a similar justification to what the minority supported and majority challenged on bans against same-sex marriage. The difference is that a broad majority of the public opposes polygamy whereas public opinion had shifted in the case of gay marriage by 2015.

Evaluate the idea that public/government spending can only be a drag on the economy.

-Eisenhower's domestic agenda was closely tied to Cold War foreign policy, emphasizing military spending as a way to keep pace with the USSR. -It's a *commonly held notion today that only free markets spur growth and innovation while governments just drag down the economy*. It's surprising how many people nod their head in approval at this balderdash despite the obvious contradictions of recent history -*It may or may not be disturbing that the Cold War arms race spurred the postwar economic boom*, depending on your perspective, and a small-government advocate could argue that a free market would've produced even better technology on its own. Either way, *it's nonsense to argue that taxpayer-funded government spending can't produce results when the military-industrial complex shaped our modern economy*

Analyze and describe the pros and cons of Affirmative Action.

-For most modern Americans, a main fault line of controversy regarding civil rights revolves around Affirmative Action programs mandating the hiring or admission of minorities. Affirmative Action first applied to federal contracts under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. -Affirmative action is controversial among both Whites and minorities because it may or may not go a step beyond the fundamental demand of equal treatment. Cons -Another complication with Affirmative Action is that its beneficiaries might feel their achievements are devalued. -And under-qualified minorities can flunk out of prestigious schools when they otherwise would have graduated and found jobs had they gone to a normal school (studies show that same problem can afflict students of any race that over-reach). At the same time, many high-performing students from the lower economic quartile are not being matched with prestigious enough schools - Critics — according to some, including Martin Luther King — see Affirmative Action as going too far, in worst-case scenarios resulting in inferior applicants getting preferential treatment and, thus, discriminating against Whites or Asians and lowering overall economic efficiency, on top of being unjust. Pros: restrict discrimination against equally or better-qualified minorities

Explain how voting rights legislation affected the Houston Astrodome bond issue.

-Houston, Texas felt the impact of these new laws right away. The stadium their Colt 45's baseball team played in was humid and mosquito-infested. -The National League granted them the franchise with the understanding that they'd try to build the first-ever indoor ballpark. -The problem was they needed voters to pass a bond issue to build the new Astrodome and Blacks could now vote. Their only choice was to cave in and allow Blacks to attend events there. -Appropriately enough, the stadium opened in 1965 with a Judy Garland and Supremes double billing. -President Johnson attended the Astros' opening night that month to celebrate the stadium, but everyone understood the city was crossing a bigger hurdle than playing history's first indoor baseball game. He needed to look no further than the integrated crowd around him to see the impact of the laws he'd signed the previous year.

Who were the primary leaders of the Black Power movement?

-Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael -Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, -The related Black Power movement included non-Muslims like singer James Brown, Olympic runners Tommie Smith (gold) and John Carlos (bronze) and football player Jim Brown -The Nation of Islam included famous athletes like boxer Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay) and basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Lew Alcindor).

Discuss the politics of America's highways.

-Ike also spurred economic growth by promoting and signing the Interstate Highway Act of 1956 that built on earlier state legislation from the 1940s and '50's and New Jersey's pioneering four-lane turnpike. -As a former general, he had military efficiency in mind primarily, envisioning a four-lane system similar to the German Autobahn he'd seen during WWII that armed convoys could move around on, with the updated version having high enough overpasses (17 ft.) that nuclear warheads could pass underneath. -Ike also figured that freeways would allow cities to evacuate and rebuild faster in the event of a nuclear strike. -Prior to the mid-1950s, some states had modern roads, but the overall network was mostly an inconsistent patchwork of mud, gravel, and two-lane county roads -Interstates were the biggest federal project in U.S. history — bigger than any New Deal stimulus or the Manhattan Project — and made transportation and trucking more efficient. - Car, truck, oil, and tire companies pushing and intervening (i.e. LA Streetcar Conspiracy)

Explain how the Rodney King and O.J. Simpson trials in Los Angeles exemplified and/or caused racial tension in America circa 1990s.

-In 1991, a passerby videotaped white cops beating up black, unarmed drunk driver Rodney King with batons. -The police claimed they thought King was on PCP though subsequent toxicology reports showed he wasn't. -King was a convicted felon (armed robbery) who knew another DUI arrest would violate his parole, leading to the high-speed chase that preceded the beating. -An all-white jury acquitted the police after the city moved the trial to the lily-white suburb of Simi Valley. -The follow-up investigation revealed recordings of white police joking about pounding "porch monkeys" and likening their patrols to the movie Gorillas in the Midst. -When the city tried to rectify their image by keeping ex-football star O.J. Simpson's murder trial downtown in 1994-95, a mostly-black jury acquitted "the Juice" despite DNA evidence implicating him in the death of his wife, Nicole, and Ron Goldman (both white). -The jury in O.J.'s trial didn't really think he was innocent, they were just balancing out the scale of justice, in their view, for years of racism on the part of the LAPD. -Earlier, we discussed the importance of jury duty; the bookended King and Simpson cases illustrate how difficult it is to find objective, impartial "post-racial" jurors in a mostly segregated, racially-charged city.

As a case study, how did Austin encourage racial segregation?

-In Austin, they tore out a high-value street, East Avenue, but conveniently situated I-35 to separate east and west Austin — effectively using the interstate as a physical barrier to affirm segregation, and reinforcing a 1928 city plan for a "Negro district" on the Eastside between 6th and 19th, with Hispanics between 6th and 1st. -in the 1930s Austin realtors agreed to never re-sell anything new to Blacks or Hispanics in the western part of the city, hoping to gradually segregate it completely. -The city didn't provide water or electricity to minorities buying homes outside their Eastside districts and mandated that any dirty industries with incinerators or the like had to be on the Eastside.

Analyze how the 1964 presidential election changed the Vietnam situation for the U.S.

-In January 1964, the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara that the United States shoulder the primary burden against the North Vietnamese. -Then, when President Lyndon Johnson (LBJ) ran against Barry Goldwater in 1964, Goldwater wanted to use at least tactical nuclear bombs to end the war. LBJ feared that might mean WWIII with the Soviets, but also wanted to look tough during the election. -LBJ was getting drawn deeper into a predicament even though he sensed it wouldn't end well. "What the hell is Vietnam worth to me? What is it worth to this country?...Now, of course, you start runnin' from communists, they'll just chase you right into your own kitchen." It's dispiriting, especially for someone who fought in the war or lost a loved one, to hear recordings of LBJ at the outset of escalation — not in hindsight but with foresight — say "I don't think it's worth fighting for and I don't think we can get out." -If that was really the case, maybe the U.S. shouldn't have gotten in and employed its strength elsewhere in other ways

Evaluate the successes, failures, and challenges of Harry Truman's Fair Deal.

-In his second term, Harry Truman embraced near-left Democrats while calling progressives like Wallace "commies." Truman pushed a platform to expand the New Deal called the Fair Deal. -The Fair Deal supported civil rights legislation, universal health insurance, expansion of Social Security benefits, and repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act that weakened labor the year before. Success = -The portions of the Fair Deal that made it through Congress were small increases in the minimum wage and expansion of social security benefits to include COLAs (1950) and disability insurance -neither did unions lose the basic right to collective bargaining that they'd won in the 1930s -Even in failing to pass the Fair Deal, in other words, Truman cemented the New Deal. Rather than being a temporary phenomenon, the New Deal left a lasting imprint on American politics long after the Depression, up to and including the present. -core New Deal liberalism like Social Security, minimum wage, and housing loans locked in -strong unions and prosperous working class, big housing and consumer economy, low interest rates, lasting impact, small inc in min wage, expansion of SS to include COLAS, helped cement the New Deal Failures = -AMA DEFEATED Truman on health insurance -Taft-Hartley wasn't repealed, but neither did unions lose the basic right to collective bargaining that they'd won in the 1930s -Democrats victims of own success, didn't add much to New deal liberalism, defeated on health insurance by AMA

Evaluate the ways that the techniques and concerns of the black Civil Rights Movement carried over, or were shared, by other groups: American Indians

-Indians used sit-ins and fish-ins to push back on federal encroachment for the first time since the 1930s. -The United Indians of All Tribes, a voice of the Red Power movement, took over the defunct Alcatraz prison in San Francisco Bay for nineteen months from 1969-71 -yhey demanded reparations and that they be given the right to rehabilitate the facility per the 1868 Laramie Treaty that all abandoned federal facilities or lands defaulted to Indians. -their occupation failed to win them Alcatraz but succeeded in another significant way. During the occupation, President Nixon granted American Indians increased rights to self-determination, namely the right to run their own affairs on reservations. The standoff ended the policy of assimilation the government had been forcing on Indians since the 1940s.

Analyze what can we learn about conspiracy theories in general from the conspiracy theories surrounding the Kennedy assassination.

-Jacqueline Kennedy had never accompanied JFK on a domestic political trip, but the two had grown closer in the previous year after they lost their third child, Patrick, in infancy to respiratory distress syndrome, and he wanted her along in Texas. -Kennedy was in Texas because, like 1960, it was a critical swing state in the upcoming 1964 election and he'd already been in Florida the previous week. -the hate mail regarding JFK's upcoming trip kept the Dallas police and Secret Service busy in preparation -The culprit this time, though, wasn't connected to the sort of reactionary organizations the authorities feared, and the sniper found a convenient nest from his own workplace rather than the numerous overpasses, rooftops, and bridges the Secret Service secured as the presidential motorcade wound its way through the city on its way from Love Field to the Trade Mart, where JFK was scheduled to speak. In an instant, on November 22nd, Jacqueline lost her husband, home, and job in the first of the decade's four political assassinations. -The culprit, Lee Harvey Oswald, was a former Marine sharpshooter who defected to the USSR before returning to the U.S. with his Russian wife. -Yet subsequent forensic evidence suggests that all three shots came from Oswald, or at least from the book depository. An experienced marksman like Oswald could fire off the bolt-action rifle shots in the allotted time — though conspiracy theorists argue he was a mediocre shot — and there's scant evidence of any bullets fired from in front of Kennedy. -Oswald's first shot from the depository missed (possibly glancing off the stoplight that was directly between him and the motorcade), the second passed through Kennedy's neck and then through the back and wrist of Governor Connally, who was seated in front, lodging in Connally's leg (he survived). -The third bullet hit Kennedy in the back of his head and Oswald told police that's where he aimed, proud that he put a monkey wrench into the wheels of capitalism by killing the president. -The police questioned Oswald in the lunchroom of the depository, but another employee vouched for him. He then fled the scene and killed a policeman before being caught in a movie theater. -Then days after the assassination, local strip club owner and one-time Al Capone errand boy Jack Ruby killed Oswald as they moved him from the Dallas jail to the courthouse, sparking conspiracy rumors in other directions that continue to this day. -According to this Mafia conspiracy theory, Ruby had been skimming Marcello and Marcello gave Ruby a choice between killing Oswald or being killed. Oswald was born and raised in New Orleans and his uncle worked as Marcello's bookie. At first, Ruby said he killed Oswald out of patriotic duty and to spare Jacqueline the stress of having to return to Texas for the trial. But his first visitor in jail was capo Joseph Campisi and Ruby dined at Campisi's restaurant the night before the assassination. -Kennedy's assassination is an excellent demonstration of how skeptical we should be toward conspiracy theories, which in this case point at various conflicting parties, including the Mafia, pro-Castro Cubans, Soviet KGB, and Lyndon Johnson, with some versions accusing the CIA and FBI as either being complicit or at least enabling cover-ups. -For their part, the CIA withheld key documents concerning their relationship with Oswald during the initial Warren Committeeinvestigation in 1963-64 and the House Select Committee investigation in 1976-78. The Warren Commission never saw the wiretap recordings or photos of Oswald in Mexico City, for instance, or interviewed anyone familiar with his movements there. -Oswald was a member of the New Orleans chapter of a pro-Castro group. The mugshot on the left was taken after his arrest at a pro-Castro rally. Kennedy continued (via the CIA) with Eisenhower's plan to use the Mafia to kill Fidel Castro (Operation Mongoose, Chapter 14). Yet anti-Castro elements, including some in the Mafia, were also angry with Kennedy for having agreed to leave the dictator in power after the Cuban Missile Crisis. -As mentioned, American mobsters were angry with Bobby Kennedy to start with and, by extension, John seemed ungrateful for their help in Cuba. For proponents of the Mafia theory, they killed John to get rid of Bobby as Attorney General or out of vengeance toward both (Marcello's head and tail) -Another line of conjecture pointed the finger at Lyndon Johnson, who was ambitious and bored to the point of depression with the vice-presidency. -He and Kennedy didn't get along and Bobby Kennedy always suspected Johnson, who had the obvious motive of ascending to the White House. There's no compelling evidence, though, that Johnson ordered the killing

Identify the Great Society and contrast the legislative achievements of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.

-Johnson defined his own agenda apart from Kennedy's New Frontier called the Great Society and accomplished much in the year after JFK's death, even before he ran on his own. -In 1964, LBJ not only won reelection, but liberal Democrats swept into power in the House and Senate, making it a watershed year in politics. -He endorsed public investment in infrastructure and education, insisting that there was something wrong with pervasive poverty amidst the wealthiest society on Earth -Declaring an all-out "war on poverty," Johnson played off JFK's martyrdom, convincing like-minded Congress to pass legislation on Kennedy's behalf. And, pass bills they did JFK New Frontier agenda, win Space Race against soviets, invigorated NASA, lowered taxes, sent troops in South to integrate Mississippi Univ and Alabama; signed Equal Pay Act- outlawing sex discrimination in pay for equal work, Title IX- ensured girls and women could play sports LBJ -LBJ accomplished what Truman mostly failed to with the Fair Deal, which was to expand on the New Deal. -the addition of Medicare to Social Security, providing a healthcare stipend for senior citizens. LBJ unambiguously encouraged civil rights legislation once in the Oval Office. -Johnson signed the two most significant civil rights bills since the Civil War: the 1964 Civil Rights Act that outlawed racial discrimination in public places and the 1965 Voting Rights Act that, along with the 24th Amendment of 1964, outlawed restrictions on voting such as poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses. -In addition to the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, Congress also passed legislation banning racism from the immigration process and federal housing loans and the Supreme Court legalized interracial marriage in all the states. -LBJ and Congress set out to diminish racism and poverty as best they could. They spent federal money on public housing projects and various agencies dedicated to helping the poor gain employment in cities, rural areas and Indian reservations, as well as continuing the food stamp program Kennedy piloted and other nutritional programs. -The Great Society, though, was more than just the war on poverty and racism: the government also got behind pollution control and mass transit, started spending tiny sums on public broadcasting (PBS and NPR), outlawed toxins in children's' toys, and funded research into fire prevention. The Wilderness Act of 1964 set aside over 9 million acres of federal land for preservation. - Johnson: Great Society, "war on poverty", expanded New Deal, added Medicare to Social Security, helped secure funds for low-income housing, refused to sign Southern Manifesto opposing integration, 1964 Civil Rights Act (outlawed discrim in public), 1965 Voting Rights Act (outlawed poll tax), DELIVERED LEGISLATION, Immigration and Nationality Act- criteria based on job skills, family relations, and maximum of 170k visas awarded, Fair Housing Act- outlawed redlining, Loving v. Virginia - banned laws prohibiting inter-racial marriage, public housing projects, Foods Stamps, Wilderness Act

Identify Kennedy's New Frontier and his most significant legislative achievements.

-Kennedy's New Frontier agenda was dedicated to winning the Space Race against the Soviets, especially given the importance of long-range missiles to the arms race. -The Soviets got off to a quicker start, both in satellites and unmanned Moon shots. While details of the Soviet launches weren't commonly known among Americans, Nikita Khrushchev humiliated Ike by giving him a model of the Luna 2 during his 1959 visit to the U.S. — the first man-made craft to land on the Moon. -Kennedy invigorated NASA, with spending increasing from 0.5% to 4.5% of the federal budget (today it's back around 0.5%). He boldly claimed that the U.S. would land a man on the Moon by the end of the decade. -Ike's investment in NASA and JFK's support was starting to pay off. Kennedy was also willing to use space research to improve Soviet relations, similar to the Atoms-for-Peace plan Ike had for nuclear power. -Government spending on space and weapons boosted the economy and JFK lowered taxes some in 1963, with the top bracket dropping from 91% to 77%. -That was noteworthy because, as a senator, JFK voted against the 1957 Civil Rights Act Ike signed. Like Eisenhower at Little Rock, Kennedy sent troops into the South, in his case to integrate Ole' Miss University in 1962 and the University of Alabama in '63. -Kennedy also reintroduced food stamps, increased unemployment insurance, and expanded school lunches and support for mental health JFK signed Congress's Equal Pay Act outlawing sex discrimination in pay for equal work. -Additionally, Title IXensured that girls and women could play high school and college sports, domestic violence shelters were established, and every state outlawed marital rape.

Summarize what made the 1960 election between Richard Nixon and John Kennedy one of the more compelling in modern history.

-Kennedy, also known as JFK or Jack, was a young congressman from Massachusetts who became president in 1961 and whose dramatic handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 we've already looked at. -He suffered from bad digestion (colitis), malaria he'd picked up in the war, and Addison's Disease, a chronic illness affecting the adrenal gland in the 1960 general election, Dwight Eisenhower's VP Richard Nixon (R) of California ran against Kennedy (D). -They were both dedicated cold warriors who'd served in WWII and both distrusted the more liberal tendencies of New Deal politicians. Nixon, too, battled health problems, in his case phlebitis that interrupted blood flow in his legs and threatened to send a clot shard to his lungs. the most controversial thing about Kennedy, other than his age, was his Catholicism -Nixon wasn't as charismatic as Kennedy and lacked support from Eisenhower, who never cared much for his two-term vice-president. After hearing Kennedy give his acceptance speech at the Democratic convention, Nixon thought he could beat his friend in a debate and they agreed to four. A theory developed that when they faced off on television in the first-ever presidential debate, most viewers thought Kennedy won but listeners who heard the same debate on the radio thought Nixon had won -Ultimately, JFK defeated Nixon in a razor-tight race as measured by popular vote (one-quarter of one percent), winning the electoral vote 303-219. -JFK: Democrat, Catholic, ill, sort of supported civil rights, endorsed MLK - Nixon: lack of charisma, lack of Eisenhower support - 1st ever presidential debate, most ppl thought Kennedy won on TV but that Nixon won on radio; JFK better looking than Nixon - JFK defeated Nixon in razor-tight race by popular vote - youngest president replaced oldest president at that point

Describe what went wrong for the Democratic Party in the 1968 election.

-Liberal Democrats turned on President Johnson because of his escalation of the Vietnam War. He found it impossible to juggle the dual mandates of a war on poverty at home and war against communism in Vietnam. -by alienating southern Whites over desegregation and northern liberals over Vietnam, Johnson presided over the collapse of the New Deal spirit that he was trying to preserve and extend, instead preparing the way for a profound shift rightward of the political center over the next 20 years." -After the despondent LBJ decided to not run for reelection in 1968, some hippies cut their hair and "went clean for Gene," campaigning for Eugene -McCarthy as the first Democratic candidate pledging to get the U.S. out of Vietnam McCarthy's willingness to accept a coalition (part communist) government in South Vietnam was controversial, as was his notion of busing inner-city black students to affluent suburbs. -Bobby Kennedy rose to the head of the Democratic pack among those pledging withdrawal from Vietnam -Even before Kennedy's death, Democrats were divided over whether or not to court the vote of young protesters and radicals. Doing so threatened to alienate the blue-collar union workers and farmers who'd formed the party base since the New Deal and before. In 1968, anti-war protestors crashed the party (so to speak) at the Democrats' nominating convention in Chicago but ran into another type of Democrat, old-time machine boss and Mayor Richard Daley. -they were especially divided between the "hairs" and "cigars" (young liberals and protestors vs. blue collars and old union/party bosses). - Sirhan Sirhan shot Kennedy the night he won CA primary - young crowd crashed DNC in Chicago and Daley's police provided three days of street brawls; embarrassed Democrats

Identify Barry Goldwater and analyze how the 1964 Election triggered a shift in voting patterns.

-Lyndon Johnson (D) was president for a year after JFK's assassination before running against Arizona Republican Senator Barry Goldwater, or AuH20 -Barry Goldwater, by contrast, was a straight shooter with independent convictions who didn't suffer fools kindly. -Domestically, Goldwater strayed from many other Republicans by voting against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that outlawed racial discrimination in public places, and he didn't support national intervention forcing states to allow minorities to vote. Goldwater wasn't really a racist himself; he'd integrated the Guard in Arizona and hired Blacks to work in his own department store. But he opposed using the national government to protect minorities' civil rights, earning him the devotion of racists, North and South. -he not only got crushed in the presidential election, but Democrats swept to power in the House and Senate, leading to the most liberal era in American history. -Second, he emboldened a strong grass-roots movement among young conservatives that blunted liberalism's advance by the late 1970s Goldwater was eccentric. He believed alien saucers were housed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (Hanger 18) and enjoyed ham radio and Kachina dolls. -Despite his social libertarianism — supporting gay rights in the military, being pro-choice, and a critic of the religious right — he was nonetheless the godfather of the conservative revival that blossomed in the 1980s and beyond. -opposing the graduated income tax, hoping to make Social Security optional, and vowing to ramp up aggression against communism beyond the Truman Doctrine of containment -LBJ won by a landslide in the electoral college (and 61% of the popular vote), with Goldwater winning only his home state of Arizona and the Southeast. *But Goldwater's victory in the Southeast, due mainly to his opposition to the Civil Rights Act, was noteworthy, signaling the most dramatic electoral shift since the Civil War.* Their opposition to black civil rights gained Lincoln's GOP control over most of the former Confederacy, which they've held onto ever since for a variety of reasons that transcend race. -Even in losing, Goldwater had "moved the needle" more than many presidents who win elections.

How well does that notion stand up against American history during the Cold War?

-Military spending during the Cold War was an example of how government-funded research and cooperation with private contractors, venture capitalists, and universities spurred the economy -Cold War arms race spurred post war boom -military-industry complex shaped modern economy -e.g. silicon transistors, integrated circuits, computers - for Fairchild Semiconductor's research on silicon transistors. Under Ike's successor, John Kennedy, NASA funded Fairchild's work on integrated circuits, or microchips, because they needed computers smaller than a barn if they were going to send them on rockets to the moon, or Moscow. Silicon integrated circuits were smaller, cheaper, and faster than the hand-assembled transistor circuit boards of the 1950s. Today chips don't run just computer systems and phones, they run cars, planes, satellites, medical devices, weapons, robots, etc.

Describe how violence and protests in Alabama and the 1963 March on Washington impacted civil rights legislation. ????

-Mississippi and Alabama were the epicenters of protest and reprisal. -In 1963, activists lured Birmingham mayor and former Klan member "Bull" Connor into using attack dogs and fire hoses on innocent teenagers, turning public opinion against the oppressors for those who saw the news coverage. -The KKK's White Knights blew up the 16th St. Baptist Church in September 1963, killing four girls in a terrorist act that shifted public opinion more in favor of the civil rights movement -In the Freedom Summer of 1964, a volunteer campaign to register black voters in Mississippi, racists burned 35 black churches and, echoing Tulsa 1921 and Germany's Kristallnacht 1938, destroyed 40 black businesses. With MLK in a Birmingham jail, younger protesters hit the streets to keep the movement alive. -Protests in Birmingham and in Montgomery, Alabama morphed into a major march on Washington in 1963, where King gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. -President Kennedy feared violence and tried to talk black leaders out of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. → he didn't want a march on the capitol building, especially, and authorized use of federal troops to control protestors. March leaders agreed to rally at the Lincoln Memorial instead of the Capitol, -The March on Washington and events in Alabama and Mississippi contributed to major civil rights legislation the following year, passed after Kennedy's assassination --> the Civil Rights Act of 1964

Briefly describe some of the engineering challenges confronting the American space program in the 1960s.

-NASA propelled the microchip processing industry because traditional mainframe computers were too large to take into space. But integrated circuits were in their infancy, as we saw in Chapter 15 -Astronauts checked the mechanical gyroscope (AGS) that guided them with a sextant like the ones used by sailors since the Middle Ages to gauge stars. -Originally he wanted to build a space station first, then go to the Moon from there. However, budget and time constraints dictated that they leave from Earth directly. -NASA followed that up in 1969 with Apollo 11's successful manned landing. Mission Commander Neil Armstrong -Twenty-two-year-old MIT engineer Don Eyles wrote the program to guide the landing system, the most sophisticated software in existence as of 1969. -Getting home was tricky. They had to pass through the Earth's atmosphere indirectly enough to not burn up in re-entry but at a steep enough angle to not bounce off into oblivion (though the astronauts would've died without oxygen, they would've never decomposed).

Contrast Richard Nixon's strategy for attaining victory in Vietnam with Lyndon Johnson's. How were their strategies similar? How did they vary?

-Nixon won the presidency and took over in January 1969. But his campaign promise of a "secret plan" to end the war didn't actually differ much from Johnson's -There were threats to escalate against the North that the communists ignored, but the U.S. mainly continued to bomb the North and fight a ground war in the South -One difference under Nixon was that they gradually handed more responsibilities over to the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN), just as Kennedy and Johnson had hoped for. American troops steadily dropped from 543k to 49k over the next four years and American ground-combat forces were out by 1973. -Nixon called this transfer of fighting responsibilities Vietnamization, while the Viet Cong dismissed the ARVN as a "puppet army." -The biggest change after 1969 was that Nixon and his advisor Kissinger tried to entice the Chinese and Soviets into stopping their support of North Vietnam by improving relations through their Linkage and détente strategies, which we'll examine in more detail in the next chapter -Nixon also increased the bombing in North Vietnam and mined Haiphong Harbor to prevent shipments from China and the USSR but the communists didn't relent. Kissinger was on the verge of a peace agreement around the time of the November 1972 presidential election, that Nixon won decisively, but the Viet Cong was upset that North Vietnam wasn't insisting on ousting Thieu in the South and negotiating the release of its 30k prisoners. -Nixon negotiated a settlement that divided the country in half in 1973 along the 17° Parallel. The agreement saved some face - "peace with honor" as Nixon called it — but everyone knew the South Vietnamese couldn't fend off the communists indefinitely, just as South Vietnam's President Thiệu feared. -The 1973 truce was the same agreement Nixon interfered with back in 1968, so the last four years of the war ended up being a waste, if indeed peace was otherwise possible in '68. strategic bombings SAME AS JOHNSON and lots of americans died; never fostered stable S Vietnamese gov't - Johnson: wanted to end war along terms similar to Korean, w/ country divided along 17th

Explain how the mid-20th century black Civil Rights movement incorporated strategies pioneered by early civil rights leaders.

-W.E.B. Du Bois wanted to use the courts to beef up the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, to secure basic rights of citizenship and voting. -This push for equality was known as the Niagara Movement, named for the "mighty current of change" that swept over Niagara Falls. Du Bois was co-founder of the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and advocated restoring African pride, solidarity, and culture globally through Pan-Africanism. -Booker T. Washington argued for a more gradualist approach advocating that Blacks get up to speed in segregated vocational colleges before pushing for full equality -His Atlanta Compromise acquiesced in white political domination in exchange for education funding and guarantee of due process of law. -Marcus Garvey shared Du Bois' belief in Pan-Africanism and promoted black business ownership. -These strategies weren't mutually exclusive, but two of them - using the Constitution and promoting education - combined as important strategies of the modern Civil Rights Movement a generation later

Summarize the importance of the Emmett Till case.

-One need look no further than a case involving the murder of a boy in Mississippi to see what a sick joke America's legal system could be with all-white juries. The Emmett Till case gave the TV-watching part of the American public an up-close reminder that, despite being a relative beacon of hope in a hostile world, the United States had some skeletons of its own in the closet. -Emmett's family was part of the Great Migration north, but they were back from Chicago visiting Mississippi relatives in the summer of 1955. -The 14-year-old purportedly wolf-whistled to 21-year-old white clerk Carolyn Bryant at the local grocery store, perhaps saying something along the lines of "thanks, baby" after buying some candy. -The clerk's husband and stepbrother came to the Till farm, abducted Emmett, beat him up with a tire iron, gouged out his eyes, shot him in the head, tied him to a 74 lb. cotton gin fan with barbed wire, and threw him in the Tallahatchie River. -Till's mother insisted on an open casket so that the nation could see what the perpetrators had done to Emmett, and images appeared in black publications like Jet magazine and the Chicago Defender. U -upon discovery of the body, the local sheriff suspected the murder was some "NAACP-sponsored scheme" to discredit white Mississippians, though normally false flags don't go to such extremes. -An all-white jury acquitted the killers, but they admitted their guilt to Look magazine four months later, still escaping justice because of the Constitutional restriction against double jeopardy Shows why jury duty matters, representation, etc

Evaluate the limitations and legacy of the 1960s counterculture (according to our textbook).

-Originally called "junior-grade hipsters" by their Beatnik forebears, hippies rejected the materialism, violence, and racism of mainstream culture and generally "let their freak flags fly." They also often rejected the American work ethic, leading their detractors to consider them bums. -Established by two Stanford psychologists in 1962, the Esalen Institute along the coastal cliffs of California's Big Sur (below) was ground zero for transcendence and exploring higher planes of consciousness through meditation, LSD, encounter groups, massage, yoga, "finding your body," and all manner of beliefs and practices later known as New Age. - While not everything at Esalen involved belief in the supernatural, it's true that the counterculture, as historian Theodore Roszak was calling it by 1969, valued mysticism over reason and rationality. -The individualism inherent in the counterculture's message undermined group political action but there were nonetheless groups like the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) that advocated for progressive causes. Under Nixon, the FBI undermined organized expressions of the counterculture and Civil Rights movement through a project called COINTELPRO. Berkeley protests attracted lots of students -Some counterculture protesters were political from the start, especially the Free Speech Movement of 1964 at the University of California-Berkeley that protested the campus' ban on political activism. The Berkeley protests initially attracted a wide swath of students, including conservative Goldwater supporters, because of the administrators' ban on free speech. -opposition to the war Legacy But hippiedom still had a big cultural impact that outlasted the '60's, emboldening the sexual revolution, ushering in shaggier groovy dos and facial hair than America had seen on males since the 19th century, reinvigorating popular music, popularizing recreational drug use beyond what it had been in the first half of the 20th century, and contributing to significant "blue island" portions of the country (especially college towns) that are, in varying degrees, "Berkeleyized and Vermontified." The counterculture raised awareness of healthy diets and environmentalism (then called ecology) and promoted introspection, yoga, group therapy, and Esalen-like quests for self-fulfillment that later transcended its narrower demographic base

Analyze how broader American culture mirrored the government's attempts to ferret out communists.

-Paranoia within the government spread to the rest of society and popular culture in the Red Scare, the second in America's history after an earlier post-WWI outbreak. -Hollywood conservatives led by John Wayne, Walt Disney, Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, Ronald Reagan, Barbara Stanwyck, Ginger Rogers, and Cecile B. Demille led a blacklisting of leftist actors, writers, and directors, trying to push them out of the industry. -The Cincinnati Reds baseball team changed their name to the Redlegs just to counter any suspicions as to their political leanings.

Identify the Dixiecrats (States' Rights Party) and integrate their story with our earlier analysis of the Democrats in the 1920s and 30's.

-Recollect how divided the Democrats had been in the 1920s along rural/urban, immigrant/WASP lines, when big-city Catholic "wets" like Al Smith failed to connect with dry, rural Protestants. Only the severity of the Depression bridged that gap, allowing FDR to launch the New Deal under the unspoken agreement that as a "party unifier" he wouldn't push for civil rights. The Democrats stayed in power as FDR was reelected three times, but broke apart along the old fault lines of the 1920s once WWII was over. -The States' Rights Party, aka the Dixiecrats, led by Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, threatened to break away or even lead a secessionist movement if the Democrats pushed for civil rights. -Some Dixiecrats also opposed continuation of the New Deal but other "Boll Weevils," as Southern Democrats were known, supported liberal economic policies while opposing racial equality or integration. -Northern Democrats ranging from near-left liberals like Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota to progressives like Henry Wallace wanted progress on both fronts and Truman was caught in between.

Identify policies the textbook mentions as helping cities cope with race-based police brutality.

-Some cities improved things by putting more black police on the streets in inner-city neighborhoods. In precincts where it's possible, it's helpful to team partners of different races. -in 1960s Newark, black voters took advantage of their voting rights to get on the city council, improving community-police relations -One constructive step forward is police wearing body cameras. In Rialto, California complaints against police dropped 88% once officers wore cameras. -They usually include mandatory body cameras, biracial partners on patrol, restrictions against arresting whole neighborhoods full of young, loitering, black men to sort out later at the station, and, in Los Angeles, taking social service workers along on calls involving mentally ill suspects.

What does it tell us about the importance of jury duty, media coverage, and sectional relations between North and South?

-Television cameras captured the farcical trial for national news — coverage that did more damage to Jim Crow than a thousand protests could have before the TV age. -The incident augured things to come: subsequent civil rights battles played out in the nation's living rooms, as both sides used the camera effectively to get their points across to broad audiences. -Hispanics won an influential decision in Hernandez v. Texas (1954) that gave all minorities the right to sit on juries. The Court ruled jury duty as fundamental to equal protection under the law.

Analyze why its interpretation among journalists, historians, the Pentagon, and the public remain controversial.

-The American public and media instead interpreted the Tet Offensive as a setback. Some understood that the troops had rallied and everyone heard the Pentagon's spin that Tet was the enemy's Battle of the Bulge, referring to Hitler's last-ditch Belgian offensive in 1944. -But Westmoreland, commander of U.S. operations, had also told the public that the U.S. was just months away from winning the war, so they were surprised to see troops back on their heels, even if temporarily. -round this time, Creighton Abrams replaced General Westmoreland as Commander of American Forces, and he too argued that Tet had been a disaster for the communists. But the America public was also increasingly put off by the brutality they were seeing on the nightly news, including an allied South Vietnamese general shooting a Viet Cong POW -The Tet Offensive broadened what came to be known as the credibility gap: the difference between how LBJ and the Pentagon wanted the war spun and how embedded journalists were increasingly coming to report it. Tet should've narrowedthe credibility gap since this time there was truth to the Pentagon's spin, but the public was understandably confused as to how the communists could've launched such an attack — even one that failed — just after the authorities were telling the public that victory was imminent. -The growing tension between the Pentagon and media was important because Vietnam was the first war with footage and body counts featured nightly on the evening news. -Media analyst Marshall McLuhanwrote, "Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America." -Conservative revisionist historian James Robbins disagrees with a common line of interpretation, pointing out that some polls showed increasedresolve among the public after Tet despite Cronkite's op-ed, and that Johnson didn't lose America, America lost Johnson, who shouldn't have lost his own faith in the war. For Robbins, Tet didn't force America to the negotiating table; -Johnson was already at the table and the Tet defeat forced the communist to the table, which is why talks began shortly thereafter

Contrast the civil rights strategies of the early Southern, Christian-led movement and the Northern, Nation of Islam-oriented Black Power movement

-The Black Panthers, originating in Oakland, trained militarily, vowing to defend themselves if attacked by white police and to keep black drug dealers off the streets. The leftist organization saw both racial violence and drug abuse as offshoots of capitalism. -Followers of the Nation of Islam, an American branch of Islam that emerged in Detroit in the 1930s, endorsed the same segregationist policies as their white oppressors. The NOI's apostle, Elijah Muhammad, turned traditional racism around, arguing that Whites were devils invented by an evil black scientist named Yakub 6,600 years ago -Elijah Muhammad's most famous follower other than Ali was Malcomn X -Black Power never resulted in the substantive political changes of the non-violent movement led by Martin Luther King and others, partly because much of the "low-hanging fruit" had already been plucked by the mid-1960s in terms of voting rights and non-discrimination laws. -Black Power nonetheless had an impact on society and popular culture, -Most importantly, it taught young African Americans that they didn't need to knock themselves out trying to be white; they could be proud of their heritage. -Three Nation of Islam members killed Malcolm X after he converted to Sunni Islam on a Hajj (pilgrimage) to Mecca, Saudi Arabia in 1964 and disavowed racism toward all Whites. -Young Blacks attracted to the religion dropped their given (slave) names and embraced African culture and ethnic pride. The Nation of Islam included famous athletes like boxer Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay) and basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Lew Alcindor).

Describe how the Kennedy administration struggled to control the escalating civil war in South Vietnam.

-The Geneva Accords called for the removal of enemy troops from each region, North and South, but political organizers could stay behind to campaign for the upcoming election that never happened. Nearly a million Catholics migrated from North to South but many Viet Minh stayed behind in the southern countryside, where 80% of Vietnamese lived, forming the National Liberation Front (NLF). -By 1959-60, The NLF and Ho Chi Minh's other "cadres" in the South morphed into the Việt Cộng (VC) and systematically started to assassinate village leaders that supported American-backed Ngo Dinh Diem. While initially a rag-tag bunch, they gradually gained confidence as they sensed the disorganization and lack of commitment from Diem's Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). -Echoing widespread opinion among those who knew enough to care, the New York Times declared that Vietnam was "a struggle the U.S. cannot shirk." But for most Americans, Vietnam was a sideshow at this point -As for the North Vietnamese, they were skeptical about American claims that they were merely aiding South Vietnam and not trying to colonize the region for themselves. -hey didn't view America so much in the context of the Cold War as merely the next in a long list of invaders, even though it really wasn't America's intention to completely take over Vietnam, only to control it. Like America's Civil War of the 1860s, Vietnam was an example where opponents weren't fighting over a disagreement on an agreed-upon principle; they didn't agree on what the war was about or understand each other's motives. -When John Kennedy arrived in office in 1961, he resolved to influence civil wars in both Laos and Vietnam with aid and military training but to keep U.S. troops out of the fray, except in low-profile covert ops. -He sent Green Berets, for instance, to the Central Highlands to train forces that would help disrupt communist supply lines from the North via Laos and Cambodia. He authorized the use of incendiary napalm and Agent Orange, a defoliant so named for the circle of that color around the 55-gallon drums it shipped in -Kennedy (JFK) wanted to influence events, in other words, without drawing attention to America's role or putting too many boots on the ground, similar to Eisenhower. -Kennedy's administration struggled to stabilize South Vietnam and even to distinguish who was on America's side and who wasn't. -Kennedy's Peace Corps was also active in Vietnam and officials hoped that Americans could build the country's infrastructure the same way New Dealers had the U.S. during the 1930s. -American efforts had mixed results, but they were effective enough to strengthen Ho's argument to the Chinese that he needed their assistance to help communism spread to the South. Politically and militarily, one problem was figuring out whose side everyone was on, especially when many people were just caught in the crossfire and didn't necessarily favor either side or disliked both Kennedy's administration tried to segregate the VC and its sympathizers from others by relocating villagers in the Strategic Hamlet Program, similar to a venture the French had failed with earlier in North Vietnam. People didn't want to move away from their ancestors' burial grounds and the program only fostered resentment among the rural population toward Americans. -Diem cut phone lines to American diplomats, declared martial law, and closed schools after children joined in mass protests, leading to the arrests of children of parents on his own staff. -America's attempt at building a democracy in South Vietnam was failing and Diem's political and military support was dwindling. -Some people in the CIA advised Kennedy to replace Diem, though most of his advisors opposed it because they feared, rightfully as it turned out, that they wouldn't be able to find anyone better to replace him. Kennedy authorized a coup among Diem's generals. When the CIA came back later to tell him the generals had capped Diem after promising to let him escape, Kennedy nearly fainted, not realizing he'd accidentally ordered an assassination. -Unfortunately for the U.S., Diem's assassination plunged South Vietnam into chaos. After archives opened up in 1992, historians realized that northern communists, while indeed viewing Diem as a capitalist lackey, viewed him as an effective lackey and were happy to see the CIA assassinate him.

Analyze and assess the theory that Hollywood radicals were trying to dismantle the American system.

-The MPA formed in 1944, when fascist Germany was still a threat, though there weren't any active fascist actors or directors in the industry — only anti-Nazi refugees like Fritz Lang, Paul Henreid, and Peter Lorre. -By the late 1940s, the alliance's stance was predicated on the idea that left-leaning actors, writers, and directors wanted to attain power through subversion, revolt, or dismantling the voting system after winning office -Their "blacklist" never had any formal legal authority, but it damaged careers and included people who weren't communists or didn't pose any active threat to American democracy. -the MPA was instead merely silencing the voices of those they disagreed with - Violated SPIRIT of free speech as mentioned in goals - some of Hollywood Ten fired from industry really were active communists - Committee for First Amendment formed in response - In end, 50 directors signed to blacklist anyone who wouldn't submit to interrogation before HUAC -In the end, around fifty directors and producers signed on to blacklist anyone who wouldn't submit to interrogation before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Identify and describe the appeal of Richard Nixon's Law & Order campaign.

-The big beneficiary of the Democrats' confusion was none other than Richard Nixon. -Nixon promised to return "law and order" to American streets if elected in 1968, along with executing a secret plan to end the Vietnam War. -1968 had been a rough year in America, with the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, setbacks in the Vietnam War, and rioting and crime in the streets. Then, in 1969, the Hell's Angels biker gang killed two concert-goers while "policing" a free Rolling Stones concert -the FBI and Chicago Police killed promising young civil rights leader Fred Hampton in "self-defense" in Hampton's bedroom; LIFE magazine published photos of American soldiers slaughtering women and children at a Vietnamese village called My Lai; and deranged failed musician Charles Manson ordered his "family" (i.e. cult) of young impressionable followers on a senseless murdering spree in Los Angeles -People understandably thought the world was crashing down around them.

Describe how the Civil Rights movement connected to public education, both K-12 and colleges.

-The old separate but equal interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment that held for half a century after Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896) fell in two cases involving public education: Sweatt v. Painter (1950) and Brown v. [Topeka] Board of Education (1954) — both argued by Thurgood Marshall, who later became America's first black Supreme Court Justice. -Heman Sweatt, the grandson of slaves, was admitted to the University of Texas' "separate but equal" black law school. -UT scrambled to build Texas Southern, a black college in Houston, as the case made its way through the lower courts, but eventually lost in the Supreme Court, forcing the school to integrate its classrooms. -The Klan terrorized Sweatt on UT's campus, burning crosses and slashing his tires as the Austin police did nothing, but the case set a precedent for a broader ruling affecting K-12. Meanwhile, the University of Virginia was going through a similar experience and convinced African American Gregory Swanson to drop out. -In 1954, the Court integrated all U.S. public schools in the Brown v. Board case -With the president unenthused, not much happened in the immediate aftermath of Brown v. Board regarding enforcement of integration in the nation's schools. -Most famously, Ike took a stand against the Arkansas National Guard being used to keep black students out of Little Rock's Central High School in 1957. He didn't like a state so brazenly defying a Supreme Court ruling, even one he didn't care for, and he knew that American racism was feeding Soviet propaganda -Ike sent in troops and federalized the Guard, as presidents can do through executive order. The 101st Airborne Division escorted the same Little Rock 9 (black students) into the school that the Guard had just kept out before it was federalized. -Whites threw acid in one black girl's eyes and a few tried unsuccessfully to burn her alive in the girls' bathroom. -Over a hundred congressmen signed the Southern Manifesto to oppose integration in schools or elsewhere. White Flight suburbanization and lack of compliance mostly saved Whites from the feared indignity of their kids sharing classrooms with minorities

Identify the My Lai Massacre and explain how the liberation policy backfired.

-The worst recorded atrocity was at Song Mỹ village — My Lai and My Khe or "Pinkville" to the U.S. since it was a Viet Cong stronghold. In March 1968, some mentally drained U.S. troops of the Americal Division lost control there, raping, dismembering, and massacring between 350 and 500 civilians for four hours before being dispersed by fellow Americans who happened to pass over in helicopters -Psychologist Randall Collins called scenarios like My Lai forward panic, whereby groups that have endured prolonged periods of fearful vulnerability take out their aggressions savagely when they isolate a more vulnerable group. -Eventually, Johnson and his generals resorted to reviving a simpler version of Kennedy's Strategic Hamlet idea, except this time they just cleared everyone out of large areas in "liberation" campaigns. That way, if no one lived in the so-called Free-Fire Zones, they could be sure the area was clear of communists. Entire villages were burned down as people were either evacuated or killed if they resisted. -Liberation campaigns in 1966 alone left over three million Vietnamese homeless, over 20% of the entire population. The upshot was that liberation didn't play well in either the American media or on the ground in Vietnam.

Identify the Constitutional argument plaintiffs used in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015).

-They were victorious in Obergefell v. Hodges (June 26, 2015), that legalized gay marriage in the remaining states. -Plantiffs = Obergefell -They were victorious in Obergefell v. Hodges (June 26, 2015), that legalized gay marriage in the remaining states. Again, the normally conservative judge Kennedy voted in favor of the plaintiff Obergefell, swinging the vote 5-4. Citing an amicus curiae brief from the Organization of American Historians (OAH), he argued that marital conventions have been evolving throughout history, countering the dissenting arguments for tradition.

Identify the key legislation that affected labor.

-Truman wasn't subtle in his reaction to these unwelcome slowdowns in the economy, lambasting management and preparing to have the army take over the railroads. → he threatened to draft striking coal miners into the military -both sides lost faith in him. -Labor responded by voting Republican in the 1946 midterm elections. But, once in power, the GOP's first act was to weaken unions. Their Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 outlawed communism among labor leaders, union political contributions, closed shops (right-to-work zones replaced workplaces mandating union membership), and secondary strikes (or boycotts) whereby major unions like steel and auto would strike in unison, as they had in 1946. -truman vetoed the act, knowing that he'd be overridden, just to help win back labor for the Democrats. -unions mostly voted straight-ticket Democrat until 1970s

Summarize how the U.S. got involved in Vietnam between World War II and 1963.

-With France being overwhelmed by Germany during World War II, Japan invaded this territory in their quest for tin and rubber in 1940. -After the Potsdam Conference toward the end of WWII, the U.S. helped China and Britain liberate the Vietnamese from Japanese control in the northern and southern parts of the country, respectively. After Japan retreated, the French weren't able to regain control over the country, especially in the north, despite U.S. funding. -North Vietnam won independence from France in 1954 under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh as hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese died in the process, embittering the population toward Westerners - US needed both Japanese and French alliances; France worried if Vietnam communist rest of region would "fall like dominoes" - Geneva Accords: called for dividing Vietnam along 17 Parallel w/ independent N and French held S; communists wanted to unify whole country - Eisenhower sent Ngo Dinh Diem to take over South Vietnam and US aided but couldn't organize effective gov't, no elections - Viet Cong (Minh supporters) started to assassinate village leaders that supported Diem - civil war btwn S Vietnam and National Liberation Front (NLF), Viet Cong, Viet Minh, People's Army of N Vietnam (backed by China and USSR to lesser extent)

Summarize the ways that World War II helped trigger the modern (mid-20th c.) Civil Rights Movement.

-World War II ignited the Civil Rights movement more than the New Deal did. -Not only did minority troops fight in combat (nothing new), but Americans also looked hard-core racism in the eye when fighting Japan and Germany and didn't like what they saw. -Japan's racially justified brutalization of other Asians and the horrific Jewish Holocaust made some, not all, Americans rethink their own racism. Minority soldiers who fought in the war were also less likely to accept America's apartheid-like system when they returned. -In Korematsu v. the United States (1944), the Court ruled that Japanese internment camps were justified but only because of the wartime emergency and that, in the future, they would look skeptically at racially discriminatory laws. That was a bold claim for those that noticed, like the NAACP, because the U.S. had many such laws. -Many WWII soldiers in the Pacific had relations with Asian women or brought home Asian wives. -That might not seem extraordinary today but, as of the 1940s, mixed-race relationships were illegal in many states. Yet, the willingness of some politicians to embrace civil rights legislation signaled light at the end of the tunnel. -Integration of the military and pro sports in 1946-48 also helped lay the foundation for a brewing civil rights movement. -White supremacist groups didn't go away and are still around today but, after WWII, they no longer marched down Main Street USA in parades with the marching band, fire truck, and Kiwanis Club.

Explain the ways that Henry David Thoreau and Mahatma Gandhi influenced the philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr.

-activists employed tactics Mahatma Gandhiused in India's successful pursuit of independence from Britain in 1948. For inspiration, Gandhi preached reliance on satyagraha, loosely translated as the "truth force." -American writer Henry David Thoreau advocated a similar approach a century earlier in Civil Disobedience (1849). -But like Gandhi, King transferred the moral burden of violence onto his oppressors for all to see. One of the movement's prominent historians, Taylor Branch, recalled a vivid example he witnessed personally. In 1962, a member of the American Nazi Party accosted King at an SCLC rally in Birmingham. Many of those in the audience thought it was staged to demonstrate a point, but it was a real attack. As he punched the leader in the face and landed several body blows, King yelled, "Don't touch him! We have to pray for him." -Like Thoreau and Gandhi, Reverend King argued that some laws were worth breaking on behalf of a higher moral cause in his Letter from Birmingham Jail(1963), that he wrote after being incarcerated for non-violent protest. -Blacks and Whites sitting together at a lunch counter, for instance, broke society's laws, but on behalf of an arguably higher cause. - Thoreau: some laws are worth breaking on behalf of higher moral cause - Gandhi: preached reliance on satyagraha - "truth force" , passive resistance, transferred moral burden of violence onto his oppressors

Describe Joseph McCarthy's role in American politics and evaluate recent attempts to revive his reputation.

-joseph McCarthy (R-WI) wasn't on HUAC but chaired similar committees in the Senate. After 1950, he manipulated the spirit HUAC had whipped up from 1947-50. -He was a tough, energetic, self-educated farm boy and boxer from Appleton, Wisconsin, who was a Democrat during the New Deal but switched to the right wing of the Republican Party. -In the early Cold War, McCarthy realized he could destroy pretty much anyone's career simply by accusing him of being communist. In such a heated environment, the accusation alone sufficed, even without real evidence -If the victim fought back, that merely proved his guilt. Anyone who challenged him was "red," as journalist Drew Pearson discovered. -Just as Democrats took advantage of Republican resistance to fighting Germany in the late 1930s by associating them with fascism through brown-baiting, now Republicans and conservative Democrats smeared liberals with communism through red-baiting. -Recently, some commentators have tried to revive McCarthy's reputation, because it became apparent after the Cold War ended in 1991 that the Soviets indeed had spies throughout the U.S. government and were influential in the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). -both the Americans and Soviets, in fact, infiltrated each other's governments, nuclear research, militaries, and intelligence agencies. -Not all this came to light after the Cold War ended; a defecting Soviet spy named Elizabeth Bentley named names to the FBI in the 1940s. For reasons like these, the Texas State Board of Education is pushing to vindicate McCarthy's legacy in the states' public schools. -There's not enough overlap between real Soviet spies and those McCarthy accused of communist infiltration to rehabilitate his reputation, and he attacked too many non-spies simply for leaning left. Library of Congress historian John Earl Haynes showed that only nine of the 159 names on McCarthy's subversive lists were actually spies,

Identify the meaning of the term counter-factual history.

-referred to as virtual history, is a form of historiography that attempts to answer "what if" questions known as counterfactuals -The method seeks to explore history and historical incidents by means of extrapolating a timeline in which certain key historical events did not happen or had an outcome which was different from that which did in fact occur. FDR changed his VP from Henry Wallace to Harry Truman -However, after the Cold War, Soviet archives confirmed what Wallace's skeptics in the Democratic Party charged at the time: that Wallace's progressive wing of the Democratic Party was becoming, essentially, an infiltrated vehicle of the Communist Party USA — at least more than Wallace himself realized at the time; historians learned more after Boris Yeltsin opened Soviet archives in 1992. Wallace even naïvely favored the USSR's Joseph Stalin over Truman and criticized American postwar aid to Western Europe as a Wall Street plot, even though his "Global New Deal" idea promoted pretty much the same idea. That makes a Wallace presidency a compelling and/or disturbing counterfactual (what if?) scenario because the policies he advocated moved in lockstep with the Soviets in 1948, though by 1952 he viewed the USSR as evil. Truman, on the other hand, approached the Soviet Union with the containment policy we covered in the previous two chapters and bolstered democratic capitalism in Western Europe with the Marshall Plan and Asia with support for Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea

Briefly summarize the origins of the Internet

-single chip microprocessor from Fairchild kicked off digital age -Moore's Law: original said # of transistors on single chip would double every year, now says every 18 months computers will double in power for same cost or halve in cost for same power -Noyce, the "mayor of Silicon Valley," was the link between Fairchild and its direct descendant, Intel, whose engineers developed single-chip microprocessors (e.g. 4004) that truly kicked off the digital age. Intel co-founder Gordon Moore predicted the number of transistors that could be placed on a single (dense) integrated circuit would double every year. Today, the updated Moore's Law predicts that every 18 months computers will either double in power for the same cost or halve in cost for the same power -DARPA's most conspicuous contribution was ARPANET (1969), the precursor to the Internet, created along with NORAD's SAGE so that radar and missile sites could communicate with each other in case of a first-strike nuclear attack by the Soviets. -DARPA (then ARPA) -Even the computers the Internet ran on were the product of government research during WWII and Cold War, and Air Force funding at Stanford created the first search engine in 1963, thirty-five years before Google. -For twenty years, the Internet was mainly the domain of government, military, and academics at research centers like MIT, with small networks around Boston and Los Angeles. -But the invention of the World Wide Web (or "Web") by British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee in 1989 allowed for a broader system of linked hypertext documents with domain names.

Identify the Conservative Counter-Revolution and George Wallace and trace their rise in popularity over the course of the 1960s.

-their Counter-Revolution commenced as the Great Society unfolded and can be traced to William F. Buckley, Jr., Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan and, further to the right, the John Birch Society (1958- ). -Alabama Governor George Wallace (D) took the lead in attacking civil rights legislation and the general move toward racial integration. At first, Wallace seemed to be a purely southern phenomenon, but his popularity transcended Dixie -Many northern Republicans and working-class Democrats resented integration and black political equality, especially those in cities where children now shared classrooms with African Americans and Hispanics. -Anxious Whites flocked to Wallace as he mounted a run at the 1968 presidential campaign. Wallace ran again in 1972 but was paralyzed in an assassination attempt. He later repented against his racist past and became governor, once again, of Alabama in the 1980s, this time with the support of forgiving Blacks. -Wallace wasn't as racist privately as he pretended to be to attract votes and attention — they shared an outright hatred of free-loving hippies.

Identify the importance of: NSC-68

-under Truman, the U.S. was dedicated to preventing the spread of communism, especially after NSC-68 (1950) declared that they would fight communism anywhere and everywhere on the Eurasian continent. -What if an emerging country wanted to be both independent and communist? Vietnam put America in a bind. On one hand, they supported decolonization, had declared as much during WWII, and famously jumpstarted the movement by throwing off the British yoke in 1776. On the other hand, they were dedicated to stopping communist expansion. -The upshot was that the U.S. supported countries gaining their independence from Europeans — ushering out the era depicted in the cartoon above — but not if the new, independent country was a communist dictatorship or even a socialist democracy. Vietnam appeared headed for a communist dictatorship. Like Korea, Vietnam is contiguous with China, and the U.S. wanted to stop the spread of the "red menace" out of China even if it wasn't willing to go so far as to overthrow Mao's government within China itself. -NSC-68 trumped the Atlantic Charter.

What's the purpose of the 4-lane interstates?

New Jersey and Pennsylvania pioneered the four-lane system with their Turnpikes, but the prevailing pattern for larger arteries ended up being open-access free roads funded by the federal government.

Identify the Old Guard, and explain their importance.

A coalition of northern Republicans and southern Democrats called the "Old Guard" mostly stymied the Fair Deal. This conservative alliance coalesced in the late 1930s during FDR's New Deal. The Old Guard blocked civil rights legislation supporting black voting rights and prohibiting lynching up until the mid-1960s

Describe how opponents of same-sex marriage have shifted tactics in recent years.

A more common angle of opposition today is to argue that having to tolerate homosexuals or treat them with equality violates one's First Amendment right to religious freedom. Judge Thomas wrote in his Obergefell dissent that the majority's "short-circuiting of the process [democracy] has potentially ruinous consequences for religious liberty." With gay marriage legal across the land, attention shifts to whether businesses can lean on the First Amendment to discriminate against LGBT customers.

Summarize how [Ralph] Nader's Raiders changed peoples' everyday lives.

Consumer advocate Ralph Nader was such a thorn in General Motors' side about the automotive industry, especially the lack of seat belts in its cars and instability of the Chevrolet Corvair (with its unusual rear axle and engine in the trunk), that they tried to lure him with a prostitute so they could blackmail him. He resisted her advances, sued GM for entrapment, and used the million-dollar settlement to seed an office of full-time lobbyists nicknamed Nader's Raiders Goaded by Nader's Raiders, the government outlawed firing employees just before pensions kick in, required that ingredients be listed on food products, made one's own credit scores available to consumers, and forced Detroit automakers to offer optional seat belts

Identify the importance of: Atlantic Charter

Earlier, Franklin Roosevelt (FDR) and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill vowed in their 1941 Atlantic Charter to support decolonization, or independence movements, in the postwar world. On board the Prince of Wales, they proclaimed support for the "right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live."

Identify the importance of: Domino Theory

France had their hands full, meanwhile, putting down another colonial uprising in Algeria, just across the Mediterranean in North Africa. The Viet Minh were ruthless in their attempts to gain independence and unify Vietnam, with Ho's generals torturing, slaughtering, drowning, and burying alive capitalists, landlords, Catholics, pro-French sympathizers, and even rival nationalists and communists. France warned the U.S. that if Vietnam went communist, the rest of the region would "fall like dominoes." American commitment to Containment and Domino Theory trumped its commitment to supporting independence.

Which congressmen passed LBJ's landmark civil rights legislation?

Illinois Republican Everett Dirksen helped patch together a coalition of Democrats and Republican that secured passage

Identify the importance of: Relations With France & Japan

Moreover, American allies Japan and France leaned on the U.S. to stymie Vietnamese independence. Japan still needed the same raw materials from Indochina it had in 1940 and France wanted to at least hang on to the southern part of Vietnam. The U.S., in turn, needed both alliances. Japan was America's main democratic-capitalist ally in Asia after WWII and the U.S. needed France to shore up NATO in Western Europe and fend off communism there.

If you're not familiar with the 14th Amendment, refresh yourself with Section 1.

No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws The 14th incorporates the Bill of Rights (1-9) down to the state level, meaning that neither the national nor state governments can abridge basic rights of citizenship.

Evaluate the ways that the techniques and concerns of the black Civil Rights Movement carried over, or were shared, by other groups: LGBT

Other gays protested against discrimination after WWII, including Army geographer Frank Kameny. Like others, Kameny lost his job because of his sexual orientation, but he fought back in the courts, organized protests in front of the White House, and he and his followers began to challenge psychiatrists labeling gays as mentally ill. The Stonewall Riot led to more peaceful protests and marches across the city, raising public awareness of the discrimination homosexuals faced.

Evaluate and critique the successes and failures of the Great Society's war on poverty and racism.

President Johnson's Great Society had mixed results. Successes -It lowered the rate of black poverty and malnutrition for pennies on the dollar (despite taxpayer's complaints), creating a black middle class and empowering millions through the 1964-68 legislation. Overall poverty rates dropped. -But most African Americans remained mired in poverty, with underfunded public schools and poor municipal sanitation. The historic legacy of redlining, subprime mortgages, segregation, and neighborhood covenants was still in place even after the Fair Housing Act, creating residual, institutional, or "structural racism. -Some young black males locked into vicious cycles of destructive behavior at a disproportionate rate, with poverty and lack of opportunity leading to crime, broken homes, homelessness, and substance abuse -African-American men were (and are) particular targets of racial profiling by police, employers, and other citizens, making it harder to find good jobs

Identify White Flight and analyze how race and class played into urban expansion and freeway construction in the postwar period.

Race and class -Despite its numerous benefits, the Interstate Act was rough on ghettos. The government has the right to eminent domain, or the right to expel residents while paying them full market value. -if the government didn't have such a right, there wouldn't be many straight roads, rails, sewers or utility lines. However, the poorer the neighborhood, the easier it is for the government to match fair market value. Poorer neighborhoods also mount less political opposition Segregation was key to real estate development across the country, -Suburbs would have happened regardless of race, due to housing shortages and a growing population after WWII. -The GI Bill awarded 4% long-term mortgages to white veterans, and the long-term mortgages initiated by the New Deal's Federal Housing Authority starting in 1934 (Chapter 9) provided working Americans affordable housing on a scale unprecedented in modern history. -The curvilinear roads with cul-de-sacs and dead ends provided a sort of maze that discouraged outsiders from passing through, especially pre-GPS. -Most families weren't consciously looking to avoid other races, porch visitors, taverns, or the grandparents so much as they just wanted the peace and quiet of getting away from the city, and were tired of living in their parents' attic or in military barracks. Suburbia was always somewhat prone to over-analysis -Banks and VA agents administering the GI Bill usually denied benefits to black veterans. *White flight from inner cities dictated the way suburbs developed. * Homebuyers often had to sign covenants promising to never resell their property to Blacks, Hispanics, or Jews -The Supreme Court ruled in Shelley v. Kraemer (1948) that these covenants were constitutional as long as they were private agreements and not government-mandated. -the government, far from being neutral or helping minorities, had instead encouraged racism since the New Deal by redlining all-white areas on maps and awarding them lower-rate mortgages. -As we saw in Chapter 9, minorities got subprime interest rates on their loans from federal housing authorities -*When a homeowner sold to a minority, realtors descended on their neighbors like flies on you-know-what warning them to sell and move before the whole neighborhood transitioned to a ghetto and their homes lost their value. Some cynical real estate block-busters paid black women to roll their strollers up and down the street before making their pitch. Usually, this led to a self-fulfilling prophecy of declining prices, especially given that entire neighborhoods, including white homes, were redlined if they had any minorities.* -The result after World War II was the donut effect, whereby many cities had donut-holes of poverty and rubble in the center surrounded by a donut of prosperity in white suburbs. -By the late 20th century and oughts, yuppies and moneyed hipsters started re-investing in dilapidated inner-city homes, gradually gentrifyingneighborhoods and driving up tax rates on existing minority homeowners, who sometimes migrated to the "transitioning" suburbs unless their lower tax rates were grandfathered in.

How far was the U.S. willing to go to keep communism out of South Vietnam, and why wasn't it willing to exert its full capacity for warfare on the North Vietnamese?

The U.S. hoped to eliminate the Viet Cong (VC) and North Vietnamese Army (NVA) from South Vietnam but they didn't want escalation into a major war with China or the USSR. Consequently, they never invaded the North directly other than an aerial bombing campaign called Operation Rolling Thunder, with F-105's and "Big Belly" (extra payload) B-52's running 12-hour roundtrip missions out of Thailand and Guam

Based on what you've read in previous chapters, why were the U.S. and USSR were so intent on exploring the moon.

The 1960s were largely defined by global friction between the world's leading superpowers. While not engaged in direct armed conflict, the Soviet Union and the United States were each building an argument for supremacy. Each side made its case through technological advancement, political expansion and proxy wars such as the Vietnam War. So when President John F. Kennedy announced on May 25, 1961, America's intention to go to the moon, it was more about showing up terrestrial enemies than exploring an extraterrestrial world. In other words, Americans felt like their communist adversaries had them on the ropes. They needed to land the mother of all punches. If they couldn't be the first in space, they could try to beat the Russians to the moon.

Why does it present a problem if more than one sounds convincing?

The problem with unraveling the Kennedy assassination isn't that conspiracies don't actually exist or that this particular batch seems implausible. The problem is how compelling various freestanding theories can sound in isolation. If we know that, at the least, all of them are wrong but one since they conflict with each other, then collectively they show how right wrong theories can sound Also, be wary of magnitude: the larger the web of supposed conspirators, the more unlikely it would be for everyone to keep the secret for long, to say nothing of pulling it off in the first place. Think of how much fame and fortune would accrue to whoever spilled the beans in a tell-all book and could back it up. Finally, be wary of equating motive with a crime in this and other conspiracy theories

How, in some cases, do Whites benefit from Affirmative Action?

There's also something to be said, especially at schools, on behalf of diversity for its own sake. Today, absent any enrollment caps, Asians would be the majority at many leading colleges even though they comprise less than 5% of the American population. ny people that satisfy Affirmative Action numbers or qualify for schools as legacy preferences (whose parents or relatives attended) are candidates that would've otherwise been admitted on merit anyway, but some aren't. Legacy preferences are warping admissions numbers even more than affirmative action as time goes by because more and more alumni have children applying to the schools they attended.

Why did America choose roads over passenger/commuter rail?

car, truck, oil, and tire companies were pushing city and state multi-lane freeways long before the national government built the interstates. These industries bought streetcar lines from municipalities and then destroyed them while road-builders lobbied for contracts. It happened most famously in Los Angeles (see the L.A. Streetcar Conspiracy) when the Pacific Electric Railway gradually sold off its tracks and subway system where the tracks converged downtown. In 1955, General Motors bought and sealed off the "Ghost Terminal" central subway depot. Then they destroyed the system's train cars. The same consortium of GM, Standard Oil, Philips Petroleum, Firestone Tires, and Mack Trucks wielded similar influence in Baltimore, Newark, and Oakland, where they converted streetcars to bus lines. Angelinos later regretted the move when the freeways filled up with congestion and exhaust caused daily smog to settle between the mountains and ocean, and today L.A. is uncovering their old streetcar tracks where they can and rebuilding urban rail.

Who pays for them?

none of the roads were really free. Gov paid but Excise taxes on oil, vehicles, and tires went toward road construction in a so-called "self-fueling system" (no pun intended) that set up America's longstanding addiction to oil. These taxes are nearly invisible to the public because they're charged to wholesalers rather than retailers, but they're mostly passed on to consumers

Evaluate the ways that the techniques and concerns of the black Civil Rights Movement carried over, or were shared, by other groups: Elderly

the Gray Panthers led by Maggie Kuhn advocated on behalf of the elderly, an influential part of the voting electorate. The "Gray Panther" movement led to improved access to public facilities and advocacy groups like AARP (American Association for Retired People) who defend and fight for entitlements like Social Security and Medicare.

Distinguish between Truman's narrower "rotten apples in a barrel" policy (LO 13:2) toward key areas and the broader "domino theory" applied to the entire Eurasian landmass.

the domino theory was a theory prominent from the 1950s to the 1980s that posited that if one country in a region came under the influence ofcommunism, then the surrounding countries would follow in a domino effect → so if one european country became communist then all would become communists The Truman Doctrine initially focused on stopping communism in strategic areas like Greece, Turkey, and Iran - hoping to not let "one rotten apple spoil the barrel" as Truman put it Wanted to stop communism in key countries hoping it wouldn't spread to other countries

Explain how and why NSC-68 trumped the Atlantic Charter as far as America's role in Vietnam.

under Truman, the U.S. was dedicated to preventing the spread of communism, especially after NSC-68 (1950) declared that they would fight communism anywhere and everywhere on the Eurasian continent. What if an emerging country wanted to be both independent and communist? Vietnam put America in a bind. On one hand, they supported decolonization, had declared as much during WWII, and famously jumpstarted the movement by throwing off the British yoke in 1776. On the other hand, they were dedicated to stopping communist expansion. Vietnam appeared headed for a communist dictatorship. Like Korea, Vietnam is contiguous with China, and the U.S. wanted to stop the spread of the "red menace" out of China even if it wasn't willing to go so far as to overthrow Mao's government within China itself.