Period 8: 1945 – 1980 – Cold War America  

Beginning = Victory in World War II and the rise of America as a global superpower

What do I need to know?

1. The various methods used to try to CONTAIN (George Kennan) Communism
   1. Examples: Truman Doctrine ($ to Greece and Turkey), Marshall Plan ($ to European countries to rebuild), NATO (first permanent peacetime alliance), Korean War (United Nations), Vietnam War
2. The relation between U.S and the Soviet Union fluctuated between     hostility and “détente”
   1. Examples of conflict: Berlin Blockade & Airlift, Warsaw Pact, NSA-68, Mutually Assured Destruction, Cuban Missile Crisis, U-2 Crisis, Korean War, Vietnam War
   2. Examples of détente: Geneva Convention, United Nations, SALT Treaties, Nixon goes to China
3. Ways the U.S. supported undemocratic governments, so long as the were not Communist
   1. CIA in Iran and Guatemala, Support for the Diem regime in Vietnam, support for Augusto Pinochet in Chile
4. Cold War led to conflict at home between liberty & order, war & peace,
   1. Examples:

1. Order vs. Liberty: 2^nd Red Scare (compare/contrast to 1920’s Red Scare), HUAC, McCarthyism, Alger Hiss, Rosenbergs
2. Arms Race & Space Race: Ike’s “Military/Industrial Complex”, Sputnik, NASA, increase $ for science education, H-Bomb

• Rise of anti-war Movement: Anti-Vietnam War 1968, Tet Offensive, Bombing Cambodia, My Lai Massacre, college protests (Kent State, Berkeley, Michigan St.)

1. The Supreme Court’s Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954 began the Civil Rights movement while also leading white southerners to close ranks around their racial order
   1. Examples: Brown v. Board, Montgomery Bus Boycott 1955-56, Freedom Riders 1961, Freedom Summer 1964
   2. How federal government acted to encourage an end to Jim Crow

1. Executive Branch: Truman desegregates military 1948, LBJ’s Great Society
2. Legislative: Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act 1965

• Judicial: Brown vs. Board Warren Court expanded rights of the accused (liberal court)

1. Southern White Reaction: Closed ranks/white supremacy: Southern Manifesto, Little Rock 9, “Solid South”, George Wallace “Segregation Now,Segregation Forever”, KKK (3^rd Gen)

1. The Civil Rights Movement was radicalized after 1968 deaths of RFK and Martin Luther King, Jr.
   1. Stokely Carmichael, “Black Power”, Malcolm X, Black Panther Party

 

1. Other minority groups were inspired by the success of the Civil Rights Movement and pressed for their own freedom and equality
   1. Examples: Cesar Chavez/Mexican Americans, La Raza, LGBT (Stonewall Riot-NYC), American Indian Movement (AIM), Women’s Rights (ERA, Feminine Mystique, National Organization for Women, Roe vs. Wade,)
2. Liberalism under the Great Society (LBJ) continued to expand the power of the federal government (Connect to Progressive Era and New Deal)
   1. Examples: Medicare, Medicaid, Poverty programs (Head Start, Job Corps) Civil Rights Act 1964, Voting Rights Act 1965,       Immigration Act of 1965 ended Quotas
3. How the Great Society, Warren Court decisions, Hippie Movement, Social change, and rise in sexual and drug experimentation led to a rise in CONSERVATIVE politics (Barry Goldwater-1964, Nixon-1968, Reagan-1980) 

END: Election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 & rise of conservative revolution