APUSH Chapter 29 Flashcards
Spring of 1964
SV conditioned worsened LBJ advisers planned a bombing campaign against NV
August: The National Security Agency
Reported 2 attacks against US destroyers by NV patrol boats in the Gulf of Tonkin, off the coast of NV
- 2nd attack never happened but report prompted LBJ to order retaliatory airstrikes against bases in NV
The Gulf of Tonkin resolution
Gave President LBJ the power to use military force in Vietnam without a formal declaration of war.
- Moved unanimously through the House & passed the Senate on August 7 with only two dissenting votes.
Viet Cong
An epithet & umbrella term to refer to the communist-driven armed movement & united front organization in SV.
Operation Rolling Thunder
A campaign of gradually intensifying air attacks against NV.
- November 1965: the total topped 165,000 & more troops were on the way
- Late 1968: the US had dropped more than 3 million tons of bombs on V
Morley Safer in August 1965
CBS News report
- CBS Evening in News showed Marines setting fire to the thatched homes of civilians.
- Government was losing moral support for war
- Networks showed the awful horrifying things that were happening in V
Free Speech Movement
Wanted participatory democracy
- Students wanted a say in their education
Counterculture: 1967
Summer of Love,” the population of the Haight-Ashbury district swelled by 75,000 as youthful adventurers from around the world gathered for a huge “be-in.”
- Hippies
- More kids having sex with teens/young adults in the 1960s
- The “pill”
Timothy Leary
Harvard professor
- Urged young people to “turn on, tune in, drop out” & also advocated the mass production & distribution of LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide), which was not criminalized until 1968.
Woodstock Music Festival in NY
- 400,000 people in August for a 3 day rock concert
- Thousand took drugs even with security officials local police around
- The Woodstock Nation counterculture was not representative of all young people
- The large minority seeking a peaceful alternative to the intensifying climate of war.
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
American student organization that flourished in the mid-to-late 1960s & was known for its activism against the Vietnam War.
SDS moblived 20,000 people in an antiwar match on the nation’s capital
Students want an end to war related research their campuses made by the expansion of higher education in the 1960s
Vietnam Veterans Against the War
Summer 1967: begun to organize returning soldiers & sailors, encouraging them to cast off the medals & ribbons they had won in battle.
- Other activists determined to “bring the war home” went beyond civil disobedience.
- 40,000 bombing incidents or bomb threats took place from January 1969 to April 1970; more than $21 million of property was damaged, & 43 people were killed.
Teenage Soldiers
Average age of soldiers who fought in V was 19
Focused on recruiting in poor communities by advertising the armed forces as a provider of vocational training & social mobility.
Many LA & AA signed up in large numbers under these inducements
High school dropout & AA (especially) had a higher casualty rate
- Were not isolated from changes in generation, many G.I.s still smoked marijuana, listen to rock music & hung psychedelic posters in their brackets
PTSD
Mostly finding and keeping a job proved to be particularly hard in the shrinking economy of the 1970s
Economic Opportunity Act in August 1964
The legislation established the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO)
- Coordinated a network of community-based programs designed to help the poor help themselves by providing opportunities for education & employment
Examples of programs from the OEO
VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America), domestic Peace Corps: brought several thousand idealistic volunteers into poor communities for social service work.
- Educational programs were more successful
Community Action Program (CAP), mandated “maximum feasible participation” of local residents.
- Community power to help the poor
- Led to fights between local government officials & the poor over who should control funding.
The Legal Services Program: staffed by attorneys, helped millions of poor people in legal battles with housing authorities, welfare departments, police, & slumlords
Crisis in the Cities
- Great Depression, WW2,& suburbs movements = a decline in housing stock in the nations cities
- City officials favored the middle class
- 1968: a federal survey showed that 80 percent of those displaced under these programs were people of color
- By the mid 1960s, African Americans had become near majorities in the nation’s decaying inner cities.
-Many had fled rural poverty only to find themselves earning minimum wages at best & living in miserable, racially segregated neighborhoods.
Urban Uprisings
Summers of 1964 to 1968: more than 100 urban uprisings
August 1965: Watts in LA - a six-day rebellion, sparked by a traffic stop & arrest, resulting in 34 deaths, over 1,000 injuries, & extensive property damage.
July 12, 1967, in Newark, New Jersey: a city with severe housing shortages & the nation’s highest black unemployment rate, the beating & arrest of a black taxi driver by a white police officer sparked five days of looting & burning of buildings that ended with 25 people dead.
One week later Detroit police rated a bar & arrested the after-hour patrons, after week 34 people dead and 7,000 under arrest
In July 1967, President Johnson created the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders to investigate the riots.
The Tet Offensive
A series of coordinated attacks launched by NV & Viet Cong forces against SV during the lunar new year (Tet) holiday in late January 1968
- Huge death tool
- As many as 1 million SV became refugees, villages ruined
Affects of The Tet Offensive for the US
US stopped the Tet Offensive but weakens the resolve of many Americans
US won war abroad but was losing it at home
- US modest calaites, 1,100 dead & 8,000 wounded
- The first time, polls showed strong opposition to the war, 49 percent concluding that the entire operation in Vietnam was a mistake.
On March 31, the president appeared on television to declare a pullback in bombing over North Vietnam and the readiness of the United States to enter into comprehensive peace talks with Hanoi.
- LBJ did not go for another term
~Lost his presidency in Asia like Truman
MLK Assasination
FBI was harassing MLK
Spring of 1968, King chose Memphis, Tennessee, home of striking sanitation workers, to launch a Poor People’s Campaign for peace and justice.
- There he delivered his final speech, a message of hope
The next evening, April 4, 1968, as he stood on the balcony of his motel, King was shot & killed.
MLK Assaination Affect
The world mourned
Riots broke out in more than 100 cities, on college campuses, & on military bases in V
Chicago Mayor Richard Daley ordered his police to shoot to kill.
In Washington, DC, U.S. Army units set up machine guns outside the Capitol & the White House.
King’s dream of the nation as a “Beloved Community” died with him.
1968 Election, the Democrats
Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York emerged as the candidate of choice.
- Had a strong record on civil rights
- Like King, he had begun to interpret the war as a mirror of injustice at home.
- Assassinated on June 4
Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, who had announced his candidacy in April, was now the sole Democrat with the credentials to succeed Johnson.
Alabama senator George Wallace ran as a 3rd party
- Pro-segregation
- “Segregation forever” he said
1968 Election, Richard Nixon
- built on voter hostility toward youthful protesters & the counterculture.
- “silent majority”—those Americans who worked, paid taxes, and did not demonstrate or picket.
-Running mate the governor of Maryland, Spiro T. Agnew
Nixon & Agnew barely won the popular vote percentage win
Black Power
1966, Stokely Carmichael, who had helped turn the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) into an all-black organization, began to advocate Black Power
- Take control of their own AA communites
The Black Panther Party, founded in Oakland, CA, in 1966 by Huey P. Newton & Bobby Seale, demanded “land, bread, housing, education, clothing, and justice.”
- They monitored local police
- Volunteers ran free breakfast programs for school children, established medical clinics, & conducted educational classes.
- Procecited by FBI, leaders of organization arrest & jailed = effectively destroyed the organization
The Reverend Jesse Jackson: rallied AA in Chicago to boycott the A&P supermarket chain until the firm hired 700 black workers.
- Jackson encouraged AA to support their own business & services
AA Styles
AA styles of dresses, dashikis & hair & African names
Many well-known activists and artists such as Imamu Amiri Baraka (formerly LeRoi Jones), Muhammad Ali (formerly Cassius Clay), & Kwame Touré (formerly Stokely Carmichael) rejected their “slave names.”
The new holiday Kwanzaa followed Christmas as a weeklong celebration of African heritage and culture.
This deepening sense of racial pride was summed up in the popular slogan “Black Is Beautiful.”
the National Organization for Women (NOW)
1966: Betty Friedan’s best-selling Feminine Mystique (1963) sparked the formation of NOW
- Fought for the enforcement of laws banning sex discrimination in work & in education, for maternity leaves, & for government funding of daycare centers.
- Backed the ERA
- Demanded the repeal of legislation that prohibited abortion or restricted birth control.
Women’s liberalization movement
Sought equal rights and opportunities and greater personal freedom for women
- One NY group created a lot of publicity for the movement by storming the 1968 Miss America Beauty Pageant in Atlantic City.
-Not all women did these things, it’s what the media focused on
Some activists staged sit-ins at Newsweek to protest demeaning media depictions of women.
Others established health clinics, daycare centers, rape crisis centers, & shelters for women fleeing abusive husbands or lovers.
Mostly white middle class women
Women Recognition
Feminist bookstores and publishing companies, such as the Feminist Press, reached out to eager readers.
- In January 1972, Ms. Magazine hit the newsstands.
Campus activists demanded women’s studies programs & women’s centers, not least to prepare women for steady participation in the workforce
Lesbians, who charged the early NOW leaders with homophobia, found large pockets of “heterosexism” in the women’s liberation movement & broke off to form their own organizations.
AA remained wary of white women’s appeals to sisterhood & formed their own “womanist” movement to address their distinct cultural and political concerns.
Similarly, by 1970, a Latina feminist movement addressed issues uniquely relevant to women of color in an Anglo Dominated society.
Gay Liberation
Mid-1950s: 2 pioneering homophile organizations - the Mattachine Society & the Daughters of Bilitis
- Campaigned against discrimination in employment, the armed forces, & all areas of social and cultural life.
- Late 1960s the movement gained courage
Post repeated police raid of pay bars - Friday, June 27, 1969, NY police raided the Stonewall Inn, a well-known gay bar in Greenwich Village, & provoked an uprising that lasted the entire night.
- The next day, “Gay Power” graffiti appeared throughout the neighborhood
the Gay Liberation Front (GLF)
In NYC
Formed in 1969 after the Stonewall riots, was a radical & revolutionary LGBTQ+ activist organization that sparked a shift in the nature of LGBTQ+ activism, demanding rights & liberation for gay & lesbian people.
Affects of Gay Liberation
1973: the American Psychiatric Association, which since World War II had viewed homosexuality as a treatable mental illness, reclassified it as a normal sexual orientation.
Slow process of decriminalization consenting adults began
1975: The U.S. Civil Service Commission ended its ban on the employment of homosexuals.
1970: to commemorate the first anniversary of the Stonewall raid, Gay Pride parades took place in at least eight American cities.
the Chicano Movement (1960s-1970s)
1965: United Farm Workers (UFW) strike against grape growers in San Joaquin Valley, CA
1968: César Chávez & Dolores Huerta lead nationwide boycott of non-union grapes & lettuce
Adoption of “Chicano” as a term of ethnic pride for Mexican Americans
Demands: full civil rights, recognition of culture & history
High school students at forefront of movement
March 1968: Brown Berets help organize “blow out” of 15,000 Chicano teenagers in East LA
Education reform demands: inclusion of Mexican American topics
Movement expressed through arts & literature: film, drama, murals, music, dance, & literature
Red Power Movement
Social movement led by Native American youth demanding self-determination
Key organization: American Indian Movement (AIM), founded in 1968
- Represented mainly urban Indian communities
- Monitoring law enforcement practices
- Building networks of urban centers, churches, & philanthropic organizations
- Creating “powwow circuit” for news distribution
Red Power actions
1972: “Trail of Broken Treaties” caravan.
A weeklong occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, DC.
Pine Ridge Reservation, the site of the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.
Spring of 1973: they demanded a restoration of treaty rights & began a siege that lasted 10 weeks.
- Dozens of FBI agents with shoot to-kill orders poured in, leaving 2 Indian activists dead & an unknown number of casualties on both sides.
“Longest Walk”: a five-month march in 1978 from San Francisco to Washington, DC.
Red Power Affects
Several tribes won court rulings, legislation, or administrative fiat small parts of what had been taken from them.
Still, many tribal lands continued to suffer from industrial & government waste-dumping & environmental degradation.
On reservations & in urban areas with heavy Indian concentrations, alcohol abuse & ill health remained serious problems.
The Asian American Movement
1968: groups of Chinese, Japanese, & Filipino students began to identify for the first time as Asian Americans.
Students at San Francisco State University formed the Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA)
Throughout 1968 & 1969: Asian American college students boycotted classes & demanded the establishment of ethnic studies programs.
The Redress and Reparations Movement, begun by Sansei (third-generation Japanese Americans)
- Encouraged children to ask their parents about their wartime internment experiences & prompted older civil rights organizations, such as the Japanese American Citizens League, to raise the issue of reparations.
Artists, writers, documentary filmmakers, oral historians, & anthropologists worked to recover the Asian American past.
Nixon’s reelection campaing
New Social Security Benefits: Expanded support for elderly.
Subsidized Housing: Assistance for the poor.
Environmental Initiatives: Oversaw the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency & the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Monetary Policy Change (Aug 1971): Ordered dollar to float against other currencies, ending Bretton Woods system.
Inflation Control: Halted wages, rents, & prices to manage inflation from massive spending.
Minority Contractor Support: Adjustments or quotas favored minority contractors, leading to future set-aside programs.
Southern Strategy: Maintained commitment to appeal to Southern conservatives while aligning with them on civil rights issues.
School Desegregation: Slowed desegregation efforts and rejected busing programs
.
Supreme Court Nominees: Appointed more conservative justices compared to Eisenhower.
Nixon & the Vietnam War
Nixon promised “peace with honor” but the war raged on for 4 more years.
Henry A. Kissinger, Nixon’s national security adviser, held much responsibility for prolonging the war, insisting the U.S. could not appear weak.
On May 14, 1969, Nixon announced “Vietnamization,” leading to the withdrawal of 60,000 troops while increasing bombing in North Vietnam (NV).
April 30, 1970: Nixon ordered U.S. troops to invade Cambodia without congressional approval to end NV infiltration; this resulted in massive protests, including the Kent State shooting where 4 students were killed.
The Senate introduced a resolution to limit funds for military operations in Cambodia, but the House rejected it.
February 1971: Nixon directed the South Vietnamese army to invade Laos, resulting in a quick and humiliating defeat.
April 1972: Intensified bombing and mining of NV harbors; Kissinger conducted secret negotiations in Paris.
Cease-fire agreement made, specifying U.S. troop withdrawal; South Vietnam’s president refused to sign.
Christmas Day 1972: Nixon ordered final bomb attacks, prompting resumption of negotiations.
Paris Peace Agreement signed in January 1973, resulting in last U.S. troops withdrawing by March 1973.
April 1975: North Vietnam captured Saigon, uniting Vietnam under Communist rule.
War cost: 58,000 American lives and $150 billion; U.S. failed to achieve war goals and lost status in Southeast Asia.
The Vietnam War revealed the inability to sustain containment; notable war crimes emerged, including the My Lai Massacre where Lt. William L. Calley Jr. was court-martialed for murdering Vietnamese civilians.
Nixon Foreign Policy key events
April 1971: “Ping-pong diplomacy” begins with China hosting the US table tennis team.
July 1971: Henry Kissinger’s secret mission to China.
February 1972: President Nixon visits Beijing.
May 1972: Nixon visits Moscow to negotiate with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev.
1972: Cooperation on science and technology, including a joint space mission.
1972: Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I) signed with the Soviet Union.
- Represented the first success at strategic arms control since the start of the Cold War & a major public relations victory for the leaders of the two superpowers.
1973-1975: Kissinger engages in “shuttle diplomacy” to mediate Israeli-Arab disputes.
October 1973: Egyptians and Israelis agree to a cease-fire in the Yom Kippur War
Nixon’s controversial foreign policy actions
Increased arms sales to Arab countries and delivery of arms to foreign dictators.
Support for repressive regimes, including Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua.
Efforts to overthrow Salvador Allende’s government in Chile.
September 1973: Military junta in Chile kills President Allende; Nixon and Kissinger welcome General Augusto Pinochet.
Dirty Tricks & the 1972 Election
Nixon formed a secret unit called the “Plumbers” to halt information leaks, led by ex-CIA agent E. Howard Hunt and ex-FBI agent G. Gordon Liddy.
Their first target was Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971, exposing U.S. government deception in the Vietnam War.
The Plumbers broke into Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office in 1971 to discredit him. This illegal act led to the dismissal of charges against Ellsberg.
The Pentagon Papers revealed that U.S. leaders had misled the public and Congress about Vietnam.
The Plumbers’ activities later escalated to the Watergate scandal, which contributed to Nixon’s resignation in 1974
Watergate: Nixon’s Downfall
June 17, 1972: Five men arrested breaking into Democratic National Committee headquarters at Watergate complex
Nixon initially denied knowledge of the plan
Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein investigated, tracing evidence to high-level officials
“Saturday Night Massacre” damaged Nixon’s reputation
June 24, 1974: Supreme Court ordered Nixon to release tapes to special prosecutor Leon Jaworski
Tapes proved Nixon’s involvement in the scandal
July 1974: House Judiciary Committee adopted three articles of impeachment against Nixon
October 1973: Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned due to corruption charges, replaced by Gerald Ford
August 8, 1974: Nixon resigned, becoming the first U.S. president to do so
“The Whole World Is Watching!” (Mayor Richard Daly)
Refused to issue parade permits for anti-war activists
Sent undercover police to encourage violence
“Police riot” occurred
Raided McCarthy’s campaign headquarters
Humphrey praised Daley and Johnson’s conduct of the Vietnam War
Senator Ribicoff protested “Gestapo tactics”
Tear gas used against demonstrators
Crowd chanted “The whole world is watching
Anti-war movement’s global impact:
Gained momentum
- Protests in Paris, Japan, Italy, Ireland, Germany, Czechoslovakia, and England
- Demands for democratic reforms and end to U.S. involvement in Vietnam
