Transcript Unit 9

Unit 9 – Post WWII America
This ain’t a scene, its an arms race
Essential questions
1. What were the causes of the Cold
War?
2. How did the United States respond
to the threat of communism after
WWII?
Essential questions
3. What factors contributed to postwar
prosperity in the United States?
4. How did the United States handle postwar
prosperity?
5. What popular culture changes occurred in
the United States following World War II?
Essential questions
Vocab.




Iron Curtain
Containment
NATO
McCarthyism
 House Un-American
Activities Committee
(HUAC)
 Levittown
 GI Bill
 Baby boom
 Great Society
Vocab.







Ho Chi Minh*
Vietminh
Ngo Dinh Diem*
Vietcong
Tonkin Gulf Resolution
Vietnamization
Silent majority
Beginning the Cold War
 Conflict between the U.S. and
U.S.S.R began before and during
WWII
 Philosophical differences
 Capitalism vs. communism
 Democratic republic vs. totalitarian
dictatorship
 World War II conflicts

Allies delay in Europe invasion (D-day)
Beginning the Cold War
 Postwar Conflicts
 Soviet Union occupation of Eastern European
nations
 U.S. attempts to block Soviet expansion
 Development of atomic bomb created fear
and mistrust
Beginning the Cold War
Beginning the Cold War
 The United States took many
actions to stop the spread of
communism



The Truman Doctrine
The Marshall Plan
Berlin Airlift
Beginning the Cold War
 Truman Doctrine
 1947 – President Truman
pledge to provide
financial and military aid
to nations threatened by
Soviet Union
 “I believe it must be the
policy of the United
States to support free
peoples who are resisting
subjugation by armed
minorities or outside
pressures”
Beginning the Cold War
 Marshall Plan
 Named after Secretary of
State George C. Marshall
 1948-1951 – Over $13
billion in financial aid to
Western European nations
to rebuild after WWII


Bought food and farm
equipment
Rebuilt factories, homes,
transportation networks
 Helped these nations resist
communist groups seeking
power
Beginning the Cold War
 “Our policy is directed
not against any
country or doctrine
but against hunger,
poverty, desperation,
and chaos. Its
purpose should be the
revival of working
economy in the world
so as to permit the
emergence of political
and social conditions
in which free
institutions can exist.”
Berlin Airlift
Military Alliances
The Cold War Escalates
 Cold War tensions
increased in 1949
1. Soviets successfully
detonated atomic
bomb
2. Mao Zedong led a
communist revolution
in China
 These events greatly
troubled Americans,
and added to the fear
of communism
The Second Red Scare
 Cold War tension
created increasing fear
and paranoia about the
threat of communism in
the United States
 A second red scare
gripped the nation
 Many government
officials were afraid of
being perceived as “soft
on communism” and took
actions to prevent this
The Second Red Scare
 After WWII, the HUAC
focused on the possible threat
of Communism in the U.S.
 ‘Hollywood Ten’ incident
 1947 – 10 writers/ directors
were arrested and jailed for
refusing to answer questions
about colleagues
The Second Red Scare
 Public communistespionage cases fueled
the paranoia
 1948 – Alger Hiss
 1950 – Klaus Fuchs
 1951 – The Rosenbergs
 Many feared
communists working in
the federal government
The Second Red Scare
 Senator Joseph
McCarthy made
matters worse
 Claimed to know of
communists in the U.S.
State Department
 His accusations were
unfounded
 Became a popular
national figure
 This method became
known as McCarthyism
The Cold War Escalates
 After World War II
Korea had been
divided into north
and south
 North controlled by
the Soviets
 South controlled by
Americans
 The division was at
the ‘38th parallel’
The Cold War Escalates
 Soviet supported North Korea
was under communism
 Led by Kim Il Sung, wanted to unify
Korea under communism
 South Korea under democracy
 Wanted to unify Korea with
democracy
The Cold War Escalates
 Peace negotiations were
unsuccessful for two years
 Battles to improve
position continued
 Eisenhower elected in
1952
 Ends the Korean War
 The nation remained
divided




USA – 37,000 KIA
U.N. – 60,000 KIA
2 million Communist
casualties
3 million Korean casualties
The Arms Race
 Soviet development of
the Atomic Bomb
began an ‘arms race’
between U.S. and
Soviet Union
 Both sides competed to
have an advantage in
military technology






H-Bomb
B-52s
Foreign bases
ICBMs
Nuclear Subs
Sputnik I & II
The Arms Race
 President Eisenhower took several steps to
ensure an advantage
 A policy of ‘Brinkmanship’ – being on the verge
of war without ever going to war
 To ensure peace, the U.S. pledged ‘massive
retaliation’ against the
Soviet Union should
war break out

Peace through ‘mutually
assured destruction’
 1947 – CIA created to
spy and take secret
action against foreign
enemies
The Cold War
 Stalin dies in 1953
 Succeeded by
Nikita Khrushchev
 U.S.S.R. remained
a communist
dictatorship
The Cold War
 Fidel Castro came to
power in Cuba in 1959
after 2-year revolt.
 Est. a communist
government
 Signed trade agreement
with Soviets
 John F. Kennedy elected
President in 1960
 Learned of secret CIA
plan to oust Castro
(under Eisenhower)
The Cold War
 CIA planned to use
Cuban exiles to invade
Cuba
 Goal to kill Castro and
take over government
 Expected support of
Cubans
 Invasion was a disaster
 Plan reported in news
 Airstrikes failed
 No anti-Castro uprising
 ‘Bay of Pigs invasion’
strengthened Castro’s
ties to Soviet Union
The Cold War
 Khrushchev
challenges Kennedy
in Berlin
 Had seen the Bay
of Pigs invasion as
a sign of weakness
 Demanded U.S.
withdraw from
Berlin
 Many East Berliners
were escaping to
West Berlin
The Cold War
 Kennedy built up
troops in West
Germany
 Kennedy was
determined to
show American
resolve
 Soviets then built
the Berlin Wall to
prevent further
escapes to West
Berlin
 Let them come to
Berlin
The Cold War
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cold War
 In 1962 the Soviet Union
installed nuclear missiles
on Cuba
 After a two-week stand off,
the Soviet Union agreed to
remove the missiles
 The U.S. had to remove
missiles from Turkey and
promise not to attack Cuba
 Known as the Cuban Missile
Crisis
Quiz #1
 Unit 9 vocab. / notes
 Handouts
 Soviet Union and Eastern Europe
 Western Europe after WWII
 Readings
 The Korean War Q&A
 Atomic Anxiety Q&A
 Video
 Story of Us: Boomers pt.1/2
Quiz #1
1. What is the Cold War and what events
after world war II contributed to the
beginning of the Cold War?
2. Name and describe the United States
foreign policy towards the Soviet Union
and the spread of communism following
World War II
3. How did the United States help prevent
communism from spreading to Western
Europe after World War II?
Quiz #1
4. What was the military strategy of the
United States to maintain peace between
them and the Soviet Union during the Cold
War?
5. What war did the United States fight in in
the early 1950s? Why was the United
States involved in this war?
6. How did the United States respond to the
spread of communism and the threat of
Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba?
Quiz #1
7. How did American citizens react to the
threat of Nuclear War during the Cold
War?
8. What were two factors that contributed to
a Second Red Scare in the United States
following World War II?
Post WWII America
 Within months of World War II coming to
an end, nearly 12 million men and women
returned the United States
 Faced an uncertain future
 Many found shortages of homes and work
 Women workers of WWII expected to leave
their jobs for returning men
 However, this troubled period of transition
and uncertainty would be incredibly brief
Post WWII America
 After WWII the U.S.
experienced
unprecedented economic
growth and prosperity
 Several factors
contributed to this
growth
Post WWII America
 The GI Bill helped millions
of returning soldiers
 Money for college or job
training
 Assistance finding work
 Loans for homes, farms, or
businesses
 Unemployment pay
 Increasing demand for
consumer goods created
millions of jobs
Post WWII America
 The baby boom following
WWII greatly contributed
to this increasing demand
 Larger families required new
and larger homes and cars
 Demand for home appliances
 Returning veterans built the
new homes and cars
Post WWII America
 To meet the growing
demand for homes, builders
mass produced new
suburban developments





Levittown is the most famous
example
Used assembly line techniques
Homes built nearly identical
Often, minorities were
restricted, which contributed
to ‘white flight’
Many major cities experienced
poverty and decay
Civil Rights Movement
 After World War II,
many barriers that
had begun to restrict
African American
rights and equality
began to break down
Breaking Down Barriers:
The Civil Rights Movement
 Supreme Court


Brown v. Board overturns ‘separate but equal’
Finds segregation unconstitutional
 Education


Brown v. Board forces desegregation of schools
CRA(1964) gives federal power to integrate schools
 Racism/Prejudice


Jackie Robinson first African-American MLB player
Non-violent protests create sympathy for African
Americans
Breaking Down Barriers:
The Civil Rights Movement
 Law Enforcement


Federal forces used to enforce desegregation
CRA (1964) creates federal agencies to investigate
civil rights violations
 The Presidents



Truman desegregates armed force
Eisenhower used federal forces to enforce
desegregation
Kennedy proposes and Johnson signs Civil Rights Act
(1964)
 Voting Restrictions


24th amendment banned poll taxes
Voting Rights Act suspends literacy tests,
grandfather clauses, etc.
Comparing Ideas for Change
 Read document 1 and document 3
on page 942-943
 In two paragraphs, explain the
different perspectives how to
bring about change and which
one you personally agree with
Civil Rights Movement
 1954 Supreme Court decision in
Brown v. Board of Education
was a significant step in
beginning the Civil Rights
movement
 Overturned Plessy v. Ferguson
 Ended legal segregation of
schools
 Forced states to integrate their
schools
 Showed African Americans they
had an ally in the Supreme
Court
Civil Rights Movement
 Brown v. Board
emboldened African
Americans to challenge
segregation in other
areas of society
 Rosa Parks helped
begin the ‘Montgomery
bus boycott’
 Supreme Court ruled
segregation on busses
unconstitutional
Civil Rights Movement
 In 1960, young AfricanAmericans began a ‘sitin’ campaign




Would sit in segregated
diners and coffee shops
Would be arrested and
harassed
Sit-ins gained national
attention and support for
their non-violent methods
Eventually, store owners
would integrate their
shops
Civil Rights Movement
 In 1961, African
Americans went on
‘Freedom Rides’ to
challenge segregation in
bus terminals



Wanted to bring national
attention to the situation
Rode on busses throughout
southern states and towns
and use whites-only rooms
and facilities
Riders faced harassment
and violence
Civil Rights Movement
 The ‘Freedom Rides’ concluded when
President Kennedy sent federal forces to
protect the riders and enforce integration
 Boycotts, Sit-Ins, and Freedom Rides
displayed the strategy of mass non-violent
civil rights activists and organizations
 SCLC – Southern Christian Leadership
Conference, led by Martin Luther King Jr.
 SNCC - Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee
Civil Rights Movement
 The success of non-violent
protest, and the media
attention given to these
protests, made the push for
civil rights a national
movement

Support from blacks and
whites
 President Kennedy
proposed ‘The Civil Rights
Act’ to end all segregation

Televised speech addressing
the nation
Civil Rights Movement
 Hours after Kennedy’s
speech, head of the
NAACP, Medgar Evers,
was assassinated by a
KKK member


An all white juries did
not reach a verdict after
two trials and he went
free
Eventually in 1994 new
evidence led to his
conviction
Civil Rights Movement
 To build support for
the Civil Rights Act,
more than 200,000
people marched on
Washington D.C.
 The march concluded
with Martin Luther
King Jr’s “I have a
dream” speech
Civil Rights Movement
 In July, 1964, Congress passed
the Civil Rights Act
 Banned discrimination in public
accommodations and employment
opportunities
 Applied federal authority to speed up
integration of public schools
 Outlawed unequal voting
requirements
Civil Rights Movement
 Key to achieving equality and freedom
was eliminating voting restrictions
 1962 – African Americans began the
‘Voter Education Project’
 Goal to register African American voters
 Opposition from white southerners was just as
great for voting rights as it was for
desegregation
 Attempts to register African American voters
often ended with violence and murder
 Mississippi was especially bad
Civil Rights Movement
 To achieve this goal, black
and white Americans
participated in ‘Freedom
Summer’


Summer of 1964, college
students travel to
Mississippi to register
African Americans to vote
Also created ‘Freedom
Schools’ to educate
African American children
A Brief History of Vietnam
 Struggles with China
 Colonial Vietnam
 Controlled by French
 Ho Chi Minh
 Vietminh in WWII
 Spread of communism in Asia





Domino Theory
U.S. support of France
Guerilla tactics
France defeated 1954
Geneva Conference and elections 1956
Vietnam War
 Eisenhower
supported Ngo Dinh
Diem
 Anti-communist
 Corrupt
 Ho Chi Minh’s
popularity grew
throughout Vietnam
 Diem banned elections
 Vietcong formed
Vietnam War
 Elected in 1960, Kennedy committed to
take a firm stand against communism in
Vietnam
 Would gradually increase American
involvement, but did not support combat
 “In the final analysis it is their war. They are
the ones who have to win or lose it”
 Sent military advisers and special forces
 Were not supposed to get involved in combat,
but did
Vietnam War
Vietnam War
 In 1963, President Diem was assassinated
 The U.S. did help plot to overthrow him
 But did not seek his assassination
 Kennedy was assassinated weeks later
 New President, Lyndon B. Johnson sought
to increase American involvement
 The situation was dire
 Tonkin Gulf incident
 In 1964, Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf
Resolution
 Committed the U.S. to the Vietnam War
Increasing U.S. Involvement
 1954 – U.S. paying for 75% of costs for
France’s war
- French surrendered
 1955 – U.S. supplied South Vietnam with money
and weapons
 1959 – 900 U.S. ‘advisers’ in Vietnam
 1961 – 3,000 U.S. ‘advisers’ / 14 Americans killed
 1963 – 16,000 U.S. ‘advisers’ / 500 killed
- Diem assassinated
 1964 – Vietcong controlled half of South Vietnam
 1964 – Tonkin Gulf Resolution
 1965 – 185,000 American troops
 1967 – 486,000 American troops
Vietnam War
Vietnam War
Vietnam War
 As American force in Vietnam
increased, the military relied
more heavily on the draft

Deferments were possible




Excused for health, college enrollment
Poorer citizens, and African
Americans, drafted at a higher
percentage
To end this inequity, U.S.
government implemented a draft
lottery
Many young men were ‘draft
dodgers’

Refused to register or escaped to
Canada
Vietnam War
 Early, support for the war
had been high
 1968 was a turning point
in the war, and in the
nation


Media had a huge impact
Americans saw firsthand
the horrors of war
 U.S. military officials had
been reporting great
progress in the war

TV showed Americans
something different
Vietnam War
Vietnam War
 A large anti-war
movement began



Mostly consisted of
young people
Many protests took place
on college campuses
Burning draft cards was
a common form of
protest
Vietnam War
 In 1968 North
Vietnam launched
the ‘Tet Offensive’
 Series of massive
coordinated attacks
against South
Vietnamese cities
Vietnam War
 Effects of the Tet Offensive




Communist forces were not weakening
America was not ‘winning’ the war
The war was not soon to be over
Johnson (and the war) became even more
unpopular
 “We have been too often disappointed
by the optimism of the American
leaders…for it seems now more than
ever that the bloody experience of
Vietnam is to end in stalemate”
- Walter Cronkite, 1968
Vietnam War
 “Hey, Hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill
today?”
 Due to the unpopularity of the war,
Lyndon Johnson did not seek re-election
in 1968
Vietnam War
 Election of 1968 was fiercely
contested
 Robert Kennedy’s assassination
 Democratic Convention and Chicago
riots
Vietnam War
 Richard Nixon
elected President in
1968
 Promised to end U.S.
involvement in
Vietnam
 Developed a strategy
called Vietnamization
Vietnam War
 Nixon began
withdrawing troops
in 1969
 1969 – 540,000
 1972 – 24,000
 Anti-war protests
increased as Nixon
widened the war
 Invaded Laos and
Cambodia
Vietnam War
 Violence broke
out on college
campuses in 1970
 4 killed at Kent
State University
 2 Killed at Jackson
St.
 Thousands went
on strike
 Forced colleges to
shut down
Vietnam War
 1970 250,000
protesters marched on
D.C.
 Largest anti-war
demonstration in
history
 The Weathermen were
a radical protest group
 Bombed government
buildings
 Vietnam veterans
protested as well
Vietnam War
 Fueling the anti-war
movement were
atrocities in Vietnam
 My-Lai massacre
 American soldiers
killed 450 women,
children, elderly
 Kept quiet by
government
 Lt. Calley claimed he
was ‘doing his duty’
Vietnam War
 Major U.S.
involvement ends in
1973
 North Vietnam
invaded and took
over in 1975
 U.S. scrambled to
evacuate American
and Vietnamese
citizens
 Many were left
behind
Vietnam War
 U.S. spent $150 billion on the war, dropped 8
million tons of bombs
 58,000 Americans killed, 300,000 wounded –
many paralyzed or disabled
 Over 600 POW’s and over 2,000 missing
 Many soldiers developed cancer and their
children had birth defects from defoliants that
were used (agent orange)
 Veterans were often verbally abused and spit on
when returning home
 Many had trouble readjusting to civilian life
 Post traumatic stress led to nightmares, violent
behavior, flashbacks
Fifties and Sixties
2. Israel
6. MacArthur
7. 22nd Amendment
8. ANZUS
10. SEATO
11. Nautilus
13. Jonas Salk
15. AFL and CIO
17. Eisenhower Doctrine
19. Explorer I
20. National Aeronautics and
Space Administration
22. St. Lawrence Seaway
24. Kennedy 303 Nixon 219
26. Peace Corps
28. Alliance for Progress
29. 23rd Amendment
31. Colorado Springs
34. John Glenn
35. November 22
36. Great Society
39. Nobel Peace Prize
40. Lyndon Johnson
42. National Organization
for Women
43. 25th Amendment
45. Neil Armstrong