60s Political Environment + Vietnam War

Question 1

What major event do historians argue impacted/influenced US politics and public opinion throughout the 1960s?

Answer 1

Vietnam War

Question 2

List the 3 Presidents who were in office throughout the 60s.

Answer 2

1. John F Kennedy
2. Lyndon B Johnson
3. Richard M Nixon

Question 3

Give the 3 key areas looked at within the 60s.

Answer 3

1. Liberalism
2. Conservative Realism
3. Counter-Culture: Hippies + Student Protests

Question 4

What was Kennedy’s description of a liberal?

Hint: 4 things

Answer 4

• Forward thinking
• Flexible
• Concerned about welfare
• Less suspicious abroad

Question 5

Give the stereotype of a liberal.

Answer 5

• Educated
• Middle class
• Wealthy

Question 6

List 3 liberal beliefs.

Answer 6

1. Equality
2. Civil Rights
3. Prepared to limit individual liberties to help those in need.

Question 7

Define positive discrimination.

Answer 7

Preferential treatment in employment, education… given to minority groups that have suffered from discrimination to readdress inequality.

Question 8

List 3 achievements of a liberal congress in the late 1960s.

Answer 8

Increase in support for liberal measures:

1. Civil Rights
2. Legalising abortion
3. Equal opportunites were increase e.g civil rights act + voting act

Question 9

What were conservative beliefs? What were they shocked by?

Answer 9

Bewildered by counter-culture + wanted traditional values.

Question 10

Summarise Nixon and the New Right.

Answer 10

• Campaigned for president on New Right policies.
• Wanted to restore law and order and traditional values.
• Nixon gained support from people who found the campaign promise of uniting society appealing.

Question 11

What was the Christian Right?

Answer 11

• Relgious groups that held campus campagins.
• These groups campaigned to keep laws against homosexuality and to remove office people found to be homosexual.

Question 12

What happened in the 1970s with the Religious Right Movement?

Answer 12

They campaigned for a return to tradtional family values.

Question 13

Summarise the hippy beliefs.

Answer 13

• Peace
• Want for a simply way of life
• Want to live in a communal soceity
• Rejected hard work

Question 14

What was the hippy lifestyle?

Answer 14

• Smoked dope + mind altering drugs
• Wider sexual freedom than marriage

Question 15

What was Woodstock? When was it? What happened?

Answer 15

15 - 18 August 1969

400,000 - 500,000 arrived to music festival; there were freely available drugs and sexual freedom.

Question 16

What does SDS stand for?

Hint: Counter-culture; Student Protests

Answer 16

Students for a Demcratic Society

Question 17

What were the beliefs of the SDS?

Answer 17

• Rejected all forms of racism + communism.
• Protested, often violently, against the Vietnam War.

Question 18

What does FSM stand for?

Hint: Counter-culture; Student Protests

Answer 18

Free Speech Movement

Question 19

What was the FSM? What did they do?

Answer 19

A radical group that led a campaign on Berkley campus; used sit-ins + peaceful protests to push free speech on campus.

Question 20

Summarise the student violence on May 4, 1970?

Answer 20

• Ohio guardsmen shot 4 unarmed students at a protest against the Vietnam War.
• Small groups planted bombs at militons targets e.g 24 August 1970, killed 1 researcher and caused $60 million in damage.

Question 21

By the end of the Vietnam War, around how many Americans had been killed?

Answer 21

Over 58,000

Question 22

How many Vietnamese civilians were killed during the war?

Answer 22

2 million

Question 23

Vietnam was part of which European empire?

Answer 23

France’s Indochina

Question 24

What is Domino Theory?

Answer 24

If one country turned to communism, the ones around it also would.

Question 25

Along what line was Vietnam split?

Answer 25

17th parallel

Question 26

What was the ratio of Vietnam deaths to American deaths?

Answer 26

10:1

Question 27

Why did the Tet Offensive begin on January 31 1968?

Answer 27

It was the first day of the Vietnamese Luna New Year.