Chapter 29
America During Its Longest War,
1963-1974
© 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved.
The Great Society
• Lyndon Baines Johnson (1963-1969)
– Consummate legislative horse trader
– Helped transform Texas economy with his
power in Congress
– Wanted to expand that transformation to all of
America
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Closing the New Frontier
• Economic Opportunity Act (1964)
– Office of Economic Opportunity
– VISTA
– Job Corps
• Civil Rights Act (1964)
– Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
– Title VII
• “Freedom Summer”
• Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
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The Election of 1964
• Barry Goldwater
– Militant anti-communism
– Anti-Civil Rights Act
– “Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice”
• Johnson wins spectacularly
• Goldwater’s campaign energizes future
Conservative leaders
– George Wallace
– Ronald Reagan
– William Rehnquist
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Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society
• Medicare and Medicaid
• Department of Housing and Urban Development
(HUD)
• Voting Rights Act (1965)
• "War on Poverty"
• “Model Cities Program”
• Head Start
• Community Action Program
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Evaluating the Great Society
• Johnson’s dramatic extension of Washington’s
power rekindled debates about government’s role
• Conservative opponents
– George Wallace
– Barry Goldwater
• Charles Murray Losing Ground (1984)
• Great Society: did not redistribute wealth in
America
• Great Society: first significant investment of
federal money in domestic social programs since
the New Deal
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Escalation in Vietnam
• Escalation of the war overseas demanded
the administration’s energy and resources
• Vietnam war
– alienated many Americans, especially the
young
– divided the nation
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The Tonkin Gulf Resolution
• Gulf of Tonkin
– Maddox
– Turner Joy
• Tonkin Gulf Resolution (1964)
• South Vietnam’s government was
ineffective and chaotic
• Johnson’s advisors give conflicting advice
• Johnson’s decision: "Rolling Thunder“
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The War Widens
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Intervention in the Dominican Republic
William Westmoreland
"Search and destroy"
Operation RANCHHAND
Johnson’s “light at the end of the tunnel” mindset
“Pacification"
“Strategic hamlet"
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The Media and the War
• Television war coverage: a “living room
war”
• “Hawks” v. “doves”
• J. William Fulbright
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The War at Home
• Millions of Americans eventually
opposed the war in Vietnam
• By 1968, years of tensions reached a
critical point
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A New Left
• Young Americans for Freedom (YAF)
• Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
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“Port Huron Statement”
"New Left”
Civil Rights
Vietnam
Domestic economic deprivation
• Berkeley “student revolt”
• Burning draft cards
• “Teach-ins”
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The Counterculture
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“Hippies"
Bob Dylan
Grateful Dead
Rolling Stones and Beatles
Easy Rider and the “new Hollywood”
Ford Mustang
March on the Pentagon (1967)
– Abbie Hoffman
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American Attitudes Toward the Vietnam War– Responses to the
question: “Do you think that the United States made a mistake in
sending troops to fight there?”
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From Civil Rights to Black
Power
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King and Selma march
Watts (1965)
"Black Power"
Nation of Islam
– Malcolm X
– Elijah Muhammad
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Stokely Carmichael
Black Panthers
Civil Rights Act of 1968
Fair Housing Act
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1968: The Violence Overseas
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"Tet Offensive“
Westmoreland asks for 206,000 more troops
Clark Clifford
"Vietnamization“
Eugene McCarthy
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1968: The Violence at Home
• Devastating Assassinations in 1968:
– Martin Luther King, Jr.
• James Earl Ray
– Robert Kennedy
• Nixon promises restoration of “Law and
Order”
• Chicago Democratic National Convention
– “Police riot”
– Hubert Humphrey
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The Election of 1968
• Richard M. Nixon (1969-1974)
• Hubert Humphrey
• George Wallace
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American Independent Party
Anti-”tax and spend” Washington bureaucracy
Curtis Lemay
“Bombsey twins”
• Nixon victory
– “Forgotten Americans”
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The Nixon Years, 1969-1974
• Political background
– House of Representatives (1946)
– Senate (1950)
– Vice-President (1952)
• Preoccupied with settling old scores and
confronting new enemies
The Economy
• Staggering decline in the economy
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Costs of war in Vietnam
Deteriorating trade balance
Rising inflation
Soaring unemployment
• “Stagflation”
– Economic stagnation coupled with price inflation
• 90 day wage and price freeze
• Floating exchange rates
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Social Policy
• Daniel Patrick Moynihan and the Family
Assistance Plan (FAP)
• “New federalism”
– Block grants
• Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
• “Indexing” of Social Security benefits
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Social Welfare Spending, 1960-1990
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Environmentalism
• Preservationist legislation
• Environmentalism
– Rachel Carson Silent Spring (1962)
– Earth Day (1970)
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Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Clean Air Act of 1970
Endangered Species Act of 1972
Environmental impact statements
Controversies over Rights
• Warren Court and Miranda v. Arizona (1966)
• Burger Court and Dandridge v. Williams (1970)
• Ralph Nader
– Unsafe at Any Speed (1965)
• Occupational Safety Act (1973)
• National Organization for Women (NOW)
– Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)
– Phyllis Schlafly’s “Stop ERA”
– Roe v. Wade (1973)
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Foreign Policy Under Nixon and
Kissinger
• Henry Kissinger, National Security Adviser
– National Security Council
– 1973-1977: secretary of state
– Engineered grand strategies of foreign policy
• Soviets, China, disengagement in Southeast Asia
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Détente
• Easing of tensions with Soviets and
Communist Chinese
• Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I)
• People's Republic of China
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Vietnamization
• "Nixon Doctrine"
• Cambodia (1970)
– Jackson State College
– Kent State University
• My Lai
– William Calley
• Christmas bombing
• Vietnam Veterans Against the War
– "how do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a
mistake” John Kerry April 1971
• Paris Peace Accords (1973)
• Collapse of Saigon
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The Aftermath of War
• 1960-1973: 3.5 million men and women
served in Vietnam
– 58,000 died
– 150,000 wounded
– 2,000 missing
• Politicians and citizens alike struggled with
the conditions and outcome of the war
• “No more Vietnams”
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The Nixon Doctrine
• Kissinger: the U.S. would not dispatch troops to
oppose revolutionary insurgencies but would give
assistance to anticommunist regimes or factions
• Early 1970s, America supported staunch
anticommunist powers with dictatorial
governments
– Iran, South Africa, Brazil
– Covert CIA operations: Chile, 1970
• Senator Frank Church
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The Wars of Watergate
• Nixon’s paranoia
– White House secret intelligence unit
• Daniel Ellsberg
– "Pentagon Papers"
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The Election of 1972
• CREEP (Committee to Re-Elect the
President)
• “Dirty tricksters"
• George McGovern, Democratic candidate
• Twenty-sixth Amendment, 1971
– Lowered legal voting age to 18 years
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Nixon Pursued
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Watergate
John Sirica
Sam Ervin
White House tapes
“Executive privilege”
Spiro Agnew
Twenty-fifth Amendment
Gerald Ford, named Vice-President
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Nixon’s Last Days
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Archibald Cox
"Saturday Night Massacre”
Leon Jaworski
U.S. v. Nixon (1974)
Impeachment
“Smoking gun”
President Gerald Ford
Nixon pardoned
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Conclusion
• Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society”
• Escalation in Vietnam
– Consumed the nation and hurt the economy
• Richard Nixon
– Abuse of power and Impeachment
• Generation and racial conflict
• Conflicting definitions of patriotism
(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved