Period 8 APUSH
What was the basis for the new prosperity of the Sun Belt?
A Niagara of federal dollars accounted for much of the Sunbelt's prosperity, though, ironically, southern and western politicians led the cry against government spending. Also jobs in electronics and war industries.
What was causing the new militancy and restlessness among many in the African-American community post-1945?
African Americans had fought for freedom in the war, many recognized US hypocrisy.
What were the primary purposes of NATO, the Marshall Plan, Truman Doctrine, Point Four?
Alliance against the Soviet Union, for democracy.
What did the ERA state?
An amendment that declared full constitutional equality for women. Although it passed both houses of Congress in 1972, a concerted grassroots campaign by antifeminists led by Phyllis Schlafly persuaded enough state legislatures to vote against ratification. The amendment failed to become part of the Constitution.
Title IX
An amendment to an education bill signed by President Nixon in 1972. It read: "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance." Title IX facilitated women's access to educational facilities at all levels, conspicuously including college athletic programs.
What "happened" at the 1968 Democratic party convention?
Angry antiwar zealots, deprived by an assassin's bullet of one of their candidates, streamed menacingly into Chicago for the Democratic convention in August 1968. Mayor Richard Daley responded by arranging for barbed-wire barricades around the convention hall ("Fort Daley"), as well as thousands of police and National Guard reinforcements. Some militant demonstrators baited the officers in blue by calling them "pigs," chanting "Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh," shouting obscenities, and hurling bags and cans of excrement at the police lines. As people the world over watched on television, the exasperated peace officers broke into what was later described as a "police riot," clubbing and manhandling innocent and guilty alike. Acrid tear gas fumes hung heavily over the city even as Humphrey steamrollered to the nomination on the first ballot.
Eisenhower's pick of Richard Nixon as running mate was seen as a concession to what group(s)?
Anti Communist
What was the guiding principle of Carter's foreign policy?
As a committed Christian, President Carter displayed from the outset an overriding concern for "human rights" as the guiding principle of his foreign policy. In the African nations of Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe) and South Africa, Carter and his eloquent U.N. ambassador, Andrew Young, championed the oppressed black majority.
What was at the root of Jimmy Carter's political trouble early in his presidency?
But Carter's honeymoon did not last long. An inexperienced outsider, he had campaigned against the Washington "establishment" and never quite made the transition to being an insider himself. He repeatedly rubbed congressional fur the wrong way, especially by failing to consult adequately with the leaders. Critics charged that he isolated himself in a shallow pool of fellow Georgians, whose ignorance of the ways of Washington compounded the problems of their greenhorn chief.
Main reason Jiang Jieshi lost the Chinese civil war to the Communists.
But ineptitude and corruption within the generalissimo's regime gradually corroded the confidence of his people.
The biggest failure during the Iran hostage crisis
Carter at last ordered a daring rescue mission. A highly trained commando team penetrated deep into Iran's sandy interior. Their plan required ticktock-perfect timing to succeed, and when equipment failures prevented some members of the team from reaching their destination, the mission had to be scrapped. As the commandos withdrew in the dark desert night, two of their aircraft collided, killing eight of the would-be rescuers. nThis disastrous failure of the rescue raid proved anguishing for Americans.
What diplomatic decision of the Truman administration risked US access to Mid-East oil?
Creation of Israel.
Origins of the Cold War emerged from basic U.S./Soviet disagreements about postwar arrangements in what region of the world?
Different visions of the postwar world also separated the two superpowers. Stalin aimed above all to guarantee the security of the Soviet Union. The USSR had twice in the twentieth century been stabbed in its heartland by attacks across the windswept plains of Eastern Europe.
Immediate result of the full-scale invasion of South Vietnam in 1975
Early in 1975 the North Vietnamese gave full throttle to their long-expected drive southward. President Ford pleaded in vain for Congress to vote still more weapons for Vietnam. Without the crutch of massive American aid, the South Vietnamese quickly and ingloriously collapsed.The dam burst so rapidly that the remaining Americans had to be frantically evacuated by helicopter, the last of them on April 29, 1975. Also rescued were about 140,000 South Vietnamese, most of them so dangerously identified with the Americans that they feared a bloodbath by the victorious communists. Ford compassionately admitted these refugees to the United States, where they added further seasoning to the melting pot. Eventually some 500,000 arrived.
How did Eisenhower define his domestic policy?
Eisenhower had entered the White House in 1953 pledging his administration to a philosophy of "dynamic conservatism." "In all those things which deal with people, be liberal, be human," he advised. But when it came to "people's money, or their economy, or their form of government, be conservative."
Given his historic military background, what domestic policy decision by Eisenhower seems perhaps ironic?
Eisenhower nonetheless sought to halt further expansions of government programs. He was determined to balance the federal budget and guard the Republic from what he called "creeping socialism." The former supreme Allied commander put the brakes on Truman's enormous military buildup, though defense spending still soaked up 10 percent of GNP.
Multiple responses* - Parts of President Johnson's legislative program after his 1964 election
Even more impressive were the Big Four legislative achievements that crowned LBJ's Great Society program: aid to education, medical care for the elderly and indigent, immigration reform, and a new voting rights bill.
Things that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 "did" - what did the law DO?
Federal law that banned racial discrimination in public facilities and strengthened the federal government's power to fight segregation in schools. Title VII of the act prohibited employers from discriminating based on race in their hiring practices, and empowered the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to regulate fair employment.
Things that Arizona's Barry Goldwater opposedThings that Arizona's Barry Goldwater opposed
Goldwater's forces had galloped out of the Southwest to ride roughshod over the moderate Republican "eastern establishment." Insisting that the GOP offer "a choice not an echo," Goldwater attacked the federal income tax, the Social Security system, the Tennessee Valley Authority, civil rights legislation, the nuclear test-ban treaty, and, most loudly, the Great Society. His fiercely dedicated followers proclaimed, "In Your Heart You Know He's Right," which prompted the Democratic response, "In Your Guts You Know He's Nuts." Goldwater warmed right-wing hearts when he proclaimed that "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And... moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."
What was the most serious blow to Johnson's Vietnam policy?
Hawkish illusions that the struggle was about to be won were shattered by a blistering communist offensive launched in late January 1968, during Tet, the Vietnamese New Year. At a time when the Viet Cong were supposedly licking their wounds, they suddenly and simultaneously mounted savage attacks on twenty-seven key South Vietnamese cities, including the capital, Saigon. Although eventually beaten off with heavy losses, they demonstrated anew that victory could not be gained by Johnson's strategy of continual escalation. The Tet Offensive ended in a military defeat but a political victory for the Viet Cong. Ever more loudly, Americans demanded a speedy end to the war.
The Vietnamese Nationalist movement
Ho Chi Minh's nationalist guerrilla forces, called the Viet Minh, wanted control of Vietnam from the French Colonists.
What was the decision of the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka?
In a forceful opinion, the justices ruled that segregation in public schools was "inherently unequal" and thus unconstitutional. The uncompromising decision reversed the Court's earlier declaration of 1896 in Plessy v. Ferguson that "separate but equal" facilities were constitutional. Desegregation, the justices now insisted, must go ahead with "all deliberate speed."
CIA response to Soviet threat to Middle Eastern oil
In response, the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) helped to engineer a coup in 1953 that installed the youthful shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, as a kind of dictator.
What was the effect of aerial bombardment in Vietnam?
In the Vietnam War, areas targeted with bombing exhibited less trust of Americans and South Vietnamese authorities, and more trust of North Vietnamese soldiers and local insurgents.
Describe the major steps taken in the anti-communist crack down of the late 40s-early 50s.
Individual states likewise became intensely security-conscious. Loyalty oaths in increasing numbers were demanded of employees, especially teachers. The House of Representatives in 1938 had established the House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) to investigate "subversion." In 1948 committee member Richard M. Nixon, a rising GOP star and ambitious red-catcher, led the chase after Alger Hiss, a prominent ex-New Dealer and a distinguished member of the "eastern establishment."
Focus of Black Power advocates in the North by the late 1960s
Inner-city anarchy baffled many northerners, who had considered racial problems a purely "southern" question. But black concerns had moved north—as had nearly half the nation's black people in the decades after World War II. Residential discrimination, white outmigration to suburbs, and deindustrialization all directly affected African Americans, who suffered unemployment at twice the rate of whites.
Response to attempt by Soviets to install nukes in Cuba
Kennedy and Khrushchev now began a nerve-racking game of "nuclear chicken." The president flatly rejected air force proposals for a surgical bombing strike against the missile-launching sites. Instead, on October 22, 1962, he ordered a naval quarantine of Cuba and demanded immediate removal of the threatening weaponry. He also served notice on Khrushchev that any attack on the United States from Cuba would trigger nuclear retaliation against the Russian heartland.
Purpose of Kennedy's moon landing promise
Kennedy's New Frontier vision also extended to the "final frontier." Early in his term, the president promoted a multibillion-dollar project dedicated, as he put it, to "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to earth." Though he summoned stirring rhetoric about expanding human possibilities, the moon shot was really a calculated ploy to restore America's international prestige, severely damaged by the Soviet Sputnik successes.
What did the case Roe v. Wade declare?
Landmark Supreme Court decision that forbade states from barring abortion by citing a woman's constitutional right to privacy. Seen as a victory for feminism and civil liberties by some, the decision provoked a strong counterreaction by opponents to abortion, galvanizing the pro-life movement.
What finally brought Senator McCarthy's anti-communist crusade to an end?
McCarthy finally bent the bow too far when he attacked the U.S. Army.
What two groups were in direct conflict in the 1968 Six-Day War?
Military conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors, including Syria, Egypt, and Jordan. The war ended with an Israeli victory and territorial expansion into the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank. The 1967 war was a humiliation for several Arab states, and the territorial disputes it created formed the basis for continued conflict in the region.
The intent/goals of the Truman Doctrine.
More generally, he declared that "it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures"—a sweeping and open-ended commitment of vast and worrisome proportions.
Radical actions taken by American Indian activists in the 1970s
Native Americans in the 197 0s gained remarkable power through using the courts and well-planned acts of civil disobedience. But while blacks had fought against segregation, Indians used the tactics of the civil rights movement to assert their status as separate semi-sovereign peoples.
Who benefited the most from post-WWII prosperity?
Of all the beneficiaries of postwar prosperity, none reaped greater rewards than women. More than ever, urban offices and shops provided a bonanza of employment for female workers. The great majority of new jobs created in the postwar era went to women, as the service sector of the economy dramatically outgrew the old industrial and manufacturing sectors.
What economic feature provided much of the underpinnings of the prosperity of the 50s and 60s?
Ominously, much of the glittering prosperity of the 1950s and 1960s rested on the underpinnings of colossal military budgets, leading some critics to speak of a "permanent war economy".
What illegal activities were uncovered during the Watergate scandal
On June 17, 1972, five men were arrested in the Watergate apartment-office complex in Washington after a bungled effort to plant electronic "bugs" in the Democratic party's headquarters. The Watergate break-in turned out to be just one in a series of Nixon administration "dirty tricks" that included forging documents to discredit Democrats, using the Internal Revenue Service to harass innocent citizens named on a White House "enemies list," burglarizing the office of the psychiatrist who had treated the leaker of the Pentagon Papers, and perverting the FBI and the CIA to cover the tricksters' tracks.
The Paris summit conference
Optimism evaporated when a follow-up Paris "summit conference," scheduled for May 1960, turned into an embarrassing fiasco. On the eve of the conference, the Soviets shot down an American U-2 spy plane deep in the heart of Russia. After bungling bureaucratic denials in Washington, "honest Ike" took the unprecedented step of assuming personal responsibility. Khrushchev stormed into Paris filling the air with invective, and the conference collapsed before it could get off the ground. The concord of Camp David was replaced with the grapes of wrath.
What caused the death of the SALT II treaty in the Senate?
Political earthquakes in the petroleum-rich Persian Gulf region finally buried all hopes of ratifying the SALT II treaty. On November 4, 1979, a mob of passionately anti-American Muslim militants stormed the United States embassy in Tehran, Iran, and took all of its occupants hostage. The captors then demanded that the American authorities ship back to Iran the exiled shah, who had arrived in the United States two weeks earlier for medical treatment. World opinion hotly condemned the diplomatic felony in Iran, while Americans agonized over both the fate of the hostages and the stability of the entire Persian Gulf region, so dangerously close to the Soviet Union. The Soviet army then aroused the West's worst fears on December 27, 1979, when it blitzed into the mountainous nation of Afghanistan, next door to Iran, and appeared to be poised for a thrust at the oil jugular of the Gulf.
Over what challenger did President Gerald Ford win the Republican nomination in 1976
President Gerald Ford energetically sought the Republican nomination in his own right and only narrowly defeated challenger Ronald Reagan, former actor and governor of California.
Postwar prosperity helped pave the way for what social transformations in the U.S.?
Prosperity underwrote social mobility; it paved the way for the eventual success of the civil rights movement; it funded vast new welfare programs, like Medicare; and it gave Americans the confidence to exercise unprecedented international leadership in the Cold War era.
Why did the ERA fail ratification?
Schlafly charged that the ERA's advocates were just "bitter women seeking a constitutional cure for their personal problems." Her STOP ERA campaign (STOP stood for "Stop Taking Our Privileges") proved stunningly successful. Grassroots antifeminist activists organized state-level efforts to block ratification and brought the ERA's momentum to a halt.
The response to Soviet challenges that was developed by George F. Kennan.
Soviet specialist, George F. Kennan, this concept held that Russia, whether tsarist or communist, was relentlessly expansionary. But the Kremlin was also cautious, Kennan argued, and the flow of Soviet power into "every nook and cranny available to it" could be stemmed by "firm and vigilant containment."
Factor(s) that tipped the electoral scales in favor of JFK
Television may well have tipped the scales. Nixon agreed to meet Kennedy in four debates. The contestants crossed words in millions of living rooms before audiences estimated at 60 million or more. The debates reinforced the importance of image over substance in the television age, as many viewers found Kennedy's glamour and vitality far more appealing than Nixon's tired and pallid appearance.
The effect of television on politics in this era
Television was now a formidable political tool that, much more than radio, allowed candidates to bypass traditional party machinery and speak directly to voters. A future awaited, one critic observed, of "selling the President like toothpaste."
Eisenhower's massive public works project...(more expensive than anything in the New Deal)
The Federal Highway Act of 1956 authorized a $27 billion plan to build forty-two thousand miles of sleek, fast motorways. The president believed that such roads were essential to national defense, allowing U.S. troops to mobilize anywhere in the country in the event of a Soviet invasion.
Both major party candidates in 1968 agreed on what policy for Vietnam?
The Humphrey forces also blocked the McCarthyites' attempt to secure an antiwar platform plank and hammered into place their own declaration that armed force would be relentlessly applied until the enemy showed more willingness to negotiate. As a hawk on Vietnam and a right-leaning middle-of-the-roader on domestic policy, Nixon was acceptable to both the Goldwater conservatives and party moderates. He appealed to white southern voters with his law-and-order rhetoric, as well as with his choice of Maryland's Governor Spiro T. Agnew, noted for his tough stands against dissidents and black militants, as his vice-presidential running mate. In an especially cynical ploy, Nixon instructed an aide to use an influential intermediary to "monkey wrench" on-going peace negotiations with the Vietnamese, thus denying the Johnson administration and the Humphrey campaign a possible political advantage—and thus risking a longer war for his own selfish purposes.
Beliefs of the neoconservatives of the 1980s
The New Right's cadre of activists and political organizers were mainly veterans of Barry Goldwater's failed 1964 presidential campaign. They spent the 1970s building an interlocking network of advocacy groups, political action committees, and think tanks. More populist in tone than previous generations of political conservatives, the New Right emphasized hot-button cultural issues—from the ERA and abortion to busing and school curricula—as well as a nationalist foreign-policy outlook that rejected détente and international treaties. Ford's moderate governing approach during his brief presidency, and especially his appointment of the liberal Republican Nelson Rockefeller as his vice president, had prompted conservatives to seek an alternative nominee. Though Reagan fell short at the Republican convention in 1976, he and the movement behind him grew substantially more powerful over the next four years.
Key decisions made by Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill at the Yalta Conference
The Yalta Conference, the final fateful meeting of the Big Three, took place in February 1945. Final plans were laid for smashing the buckling German lines and assigning occupation zones in Germany to the victorious powers. Stalin agreed that Poland, with revised boundaries, should have a representative government based on free elections—a pledge he soon broke. Bulgaria and Romania were likewise to have free elections—a promise also flouted. The Big Three further announced plans for fashioning a new international peacekeeping organization, the United Nations. Of all the grave decisions at Yalta, the most controversial concerned the Far East. The atomic bomb had not yet been tested, and Washington strategists expected frightful American casualties in the projected assault on Japan. From Roosevelt's standpoint it seemed highly desirable that Stalin should enter the Asian war, pin down Japanese troops in Manchuria and Korea, and lighten American losses. Stalin, striking a hard bargain, agreed to attack Japan within three months after the collapse of Germany. In return, the Soviets were promised the southern half of Sakhalin Island, lost to Japan in 1905; Japan's Kurile Islands; and control over the railroads and two key seaports in China's Manchuria.
What aspect of the Taft-Hartley Act most negatively affected labor?
The growing muscle of organized labor deeply annoyed many conservatives. They had their revenge against labor's New Deal gains in 1947, when a Republican-controlled Congress (the first in fourteen years) passed the Taft-Hartley Act over President Truman's vigorous veto. Labor leaders condemned the Taft-Hartley Act as a "slave-labor law." It outlawed the "closed" (all-union) shop, made unions liable for damages that resulted from jurisdictional disputes among themselves, and required union leaders to take a noncommunist oath.
Why did median income not decline even though it stagnated from the 70s to the 90s?
The median income of the average American family stagnated in the decades after 1970 and failed to decline only because of the addition of working wives' wages to family incomes.
How did candidate Eisenhower propose to help end the Korean War?
The outcome of the presidential election of 1952 was never really in doubt. Given an extra prod by Eisenhower's last-minute pledge to go personally to Korea to end the war, the voters overwhelmingly declared for Ike.
Result, in the South, of the Voting Rights Act
The passage of the Voting Rights Act, exactly one hundred years after the conclusion of the Civil War, climaxed a century of awful abuse and robust resurgence for African Americans in the South. "Give us the ballot," said Martin Luther King, Jr., "and the South will never be the same again." He was right. The act did not end discrimination and oppression overnight, but it placed an awesome lever for change in blacks' hands. Black southerners now had power and began to wield it under federal protection. White southerners began to court black votes and business as never before. In the following decade, for the first time since emancipation, African Americans began to migrate into the South.
Carter's most spectacular foreign-policy achievement
The president's most spectacular foreign-policy achievement came in September 1978 when he invited President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel to a summit conference at Camp David, the woodsy presidential retreat in the Maryland highlands. Skillfully serving as go-between, Carter persuaded the two visitors to sign an accord (September 17, 1978) that held considerable promise of peace. Israel agreed in principle to withdraw from territory conquered in the 1967 war, and Egypt in return promised to respect Israel's borders. Both parties pledged themselves to sign a formal peace treaty within three months.
Explain the skepticism about authority that emerged in the U.S. in the 1960s
The struggles of the 1960s against racism, poverty, and the war in Vietnam had momentous cultural consequences. Everywhere in 1960s America, a newly negative attitude toward all kinds of authority took hold. Disillusioned by the discovery that American society was not free of racism, sexism, imperialism, and oppression, many young people lost their traditional moral rudders. Neither families nor churches nor schools seemed to be able to define values and shape behavior with the certainty of shared purpose that many people believed had once existed. No matter what the topic, conventional wisdom and inherited ideas came under fire.
What event harmed the attempt to nominate an antiwar Democratic candidate in 1968?
The summer of 1968 was one of the hottest political seasons in the nation's history. Johnson's heir apparent for the Democratic nomination was his liberal vice president, Hubert H. Humphrey, a former pharmacist, college professor, mayor, and U.S. senator from Minnesota. Senators McCarthy and Kennedy meanwhile dueled in several state primaries, with Kennedy's bandwagon gathering ever-increasing speed. But on June 5, 1968, the night of his exciting victory in the California primary, Kennedy was shot to death by a young Arab immigrant resentful of the candidate's pro-Israel views.
Globally, where did youthful protests of 1968 succeed, and where did they fail?
The year 1968 became synonymous with unrest in many lands. Deep within the Soviet bloc, Western-inspired Czechoslovakian reformers launched the liberating program that became known as the "Prague Spring" in January 1968. For eight months political freedom blossomed, until ruthlessly mowed down by Soviet tanks. In May, leftist students in Paris organized protests against their country's antiquated university system. The government's heavy-handed response compelled nearly 11 million workers to engage in wildcat solidarity strikes, bringing the economy to a halt and nearly toppling the government. President Charles de Gaulle even briefly fled Paris, sequestrating his personal papers and spiriting the family jewels from the city. In Mexico City, violent battles between students and police culminated in a brutal massacre of dozens of demonstrators at an October rally in Tlatelolco. Spectacular student-led protests also rocked Brazil, Spain, and Japan that year.
Robert Kennedy's desire for the new focus of the FBI
The youngest president ever elected assembled one of the youngest cabinets, including his brother, Robert F. Kennedy, as attorney general. Thirty-five-year-old "Bobby" set out, among other reforms, to recast the priorities of the FBI, shifting its focus from internal security work to organized crime cases and civil rights enforcement.
Location of the first major militant protest on behalf of gay liberation
Uprising in support of equal rights for gay people sparked by an assault by off-duty police officers at a gay bar in New York. The rebellion led to a rise in activism and militancy within the gay community and furthered the sexual revolution of the late 1960s. (Stonewall)
What were the circumstances surrounding Gerald Ford becoming the vice president?
Worse, Ford had been selected, not elected, vice president, following Spiro Agnew's resignation in disgrace. The sour odor of illegitimacy hung about this president without precedent.
What was the origin of SNCC?
Youth organization founded by southern black students in 1960 to promote civil rights. Drawing on its members' youthful energies, SNCC in its early years coordinated demonstrations, sit-ins, and voter registration drives. Formed after the Sit ins.
Effect of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965
abolished at last the "national-origins" quota system that had been in place since 1921. The act also doubled (to 290,000) the number of immigrants allowed to enter annually, while for the first time setting limits on immigrants from the Western Hemisphere (120,000). The new law further provided for the admission of close relatives of U.S. citizens beyond those numerical limits. At a signing ceremony before the grand backdrop of the Statue of Liberty, President Johnson declared that the act "corrects a cruel and enduring wrong in the conduct of the American nation," and tried to placate opponents who worried about its impact. "The bill that we sign today is not a revolutionary bill," said the president. Johnson's prediction was off the mark. More than 100,000 persons per year took advantage of the act's family unification provisions in the decades after 1965, as the immigrant stream swelled beyond expectations. No less surprising to the act's sponsors, the sources of immigration soon shifted heavily from Europe to Latin America and Asia, dramatically changing the racial and ethnic composition of the American population.
President Carter's "malaise speech"
chiding his fellow citizens for falling into a "moral and spiritual crisis" and for being too concerned with "material goods." A few days later, in a bureaucratic massacre of almost unprecedented proportions, he fired four cabinet secretaries and circled the wagons of his Georgia advisers more tightly about the White House by reorganizing and expanding the power of his personal staff. Critics began to wonder aloud whether Carter, the professed man of the people, was losing touch with the popular mood of the country.
What were many of the neoconservative intellectuals of the 80s reacting against?
hot-button cultural issues—from the ERA and abortion to busing and school curricula—as well as a nationalist foreign-policy outlook that rejected détente and international treaties.
What was the result of the refusal of the Federal Housing Authority to grant home loans to African Americans?
this discriminatory practice further limited the mobility of African-Americans out of the inner cities, driving many into public housing projects. Redlining also had long-term, multi-generational effects, feeding the stubborn "wealth gap" between whites and blacks. Because home values are most American families' principal financial asset, historical inequalities in real estate markets have impeded the ability of non-homeowners to generate equity and pass it down from one generation to the next.
