Agenda for 3/18

1. Cold War into the 1960s (Vietnam War) - Crash Course

Key Concept 8.1:

The United States responded to an uncertain and unstable postwar world by asserting and working to maintain a position of global leadership, with far-reaching domestic and international consequences.

I.               United States policymakers engaged in a Cold War with the authoritarian Soviet Union, seeking to limit the growth of Communist military power and ideological influence, create a free-market global economy, and build an international security system. 

A.         As postwar tensions dissolved the wartime alliance between Western democracies and the Soviet Union, the United States developed a foreign policy based on collective security, international aid, and economic institutions that bolstered non-Communist nations.  

Examples:  Collective security, United Nations (1945), Truman Doctrine (1947), Marshall Plan (1947), Rio Pact (1947), NATO (1949), SEATO (1954)

B.         Concerned by expansionist Communist ideology and Soviet repression, the United States sought to contain communism through a variety of measures, including major military engagements in Korea and Vietnam.

Examples: Containment policy, George F. Kennan’s “long telegram” (1946), domino theory, National Security Report 68/NSC-68 (1950), hydrogen bomb (1952), John F. Dulles and massive retaliation (1954), Sputnik and the space race (1957), National Defense Education Act (1958), JFK’s flexible response policy, Truman’s “limited war” in the Korean War, Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (1964), Operation Rolling Thunder (1965-1968), Tet Offensive (1968)

            C.         The Cold War fluctuated between periods of direct and indirect military confrontation and periods of mutual coexistence (or détente).

Examples:  Khrushchev’s visit to US (1959), U-2 incident (1960), Berlin Wall (1961), Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), White House “hotline” with USSR (1963), Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963), détente, Nixon’s visit to China (1972), Grain Deal with USSR (1972), Nixon’s “Vietnamization” policy (1969-1972), Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty/SALT I (1969)

D.         Postwar decolonization and the emergence of powerful nationalist movements in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East led both sides in the Cold War to seek allies among new nations, many of which remained nonaligned.

Examples:  US recognition of Israel (1948), Operation Ajax in Iran (1953), Peace Corps (1961), US support of Israel in Yom Kippur War (1973),

Camp David Accords (1978), Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979)

E.         Cold War competition extended to Latin America, where the U.S. supported non-Communist regimes that had varying levels of commitment to democracy.

Examples:  US intervention in overthrow of leader of Guatemala (1954), US embargo of Cuba (1960), Bay of Pigs (1961), Alliance for Progress (1961), Peace Corps (1961), Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)

Key Concept 8.2:

New movements for civil rights and liberal efforts to expand the role of government generated a range of political and cultural responses.

I.          Seeking to fulfill Reconstruction-era promises, civil rights activists and political leaders achieved some legal and political successes in ending segregation, although progress toward equality was slow.

A.         During and after World War II, civil rights activists and leaders, most notably Martin Luther King Jr., combatted racial discrimination utilizing a variety of strategies, including legal challenges, direct action, and nonviolent protest tactics.

Examples:  Asa Phllip Randolph’s threat to “March on Washington” (1941), Congress of Racial Equality/CORE (1942), Double V campaign, Fair Employment Practices Commission (1942), Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-1956), Southern Christian Leadership Conference (1957), Martin Luther King’s nonviolent civil disobedience, , integration of Central High/”Little Rock Nine” (1957), Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (1960), Greensboro lunch counter sit-ins (1960), Freedom Rides (1961), King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963), March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (1963), Freedom Summer (1964), Fannie Lou Hamer and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (1964), John L. Lewis and SNCC, Selma March (1965), Motown music, Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP

B.         The three branches of the federal government used measures including desegregation of the armed services, Brown v. Board of Education, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to promote greater racial equality.

Examples:  Executive Order 9981 desegregated US armed forces (1948), Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954), Civil Rights Act (1964), 24^th Amendment (1964), Voting Rights Act (1965), Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (1965), LBJ’s affirmative action speech (1965), Fair Housing Act (1968), Griggs v. Duke Power (1971)

C.         Continuing white resistance slowed efforts at desegregation, sparking social and political unrest across the nation. Debates among civil rights activists over the efficacy of nonviolence increased after 1965.

Examples:  Declaration of Constitutional Principles/Southern Manifesto (1956), Little Rock Nine (1957), murders of civil rights workers during Freedom Summer (1964) Watts Riot (1965), Selma March (1965), Black Power (1966), Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam (1952-1964), black nationalism, Stokely Carmichael and Black Power (1966), Black Panther Party (1966)

2. Work on Civil Rights Movement Projects - due by 11:59 pm!