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…and a brief summary of how the Cold War
came to a close, 1975 - 1991
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Because American soldiers were forced to contend not
only with the North Vietnamese Army, but also with the
Viet Cong – South Vietnamese soldiers who were opposed
to American intervention in Vietnam – there was an everpresent threat of guerrilla warfare.
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While searching for
members of the Viet
Cong, soldiers led by Lt.
William Calley came
across a village of women
and children who would
not – or could not – help
to locate the men of the
community. Hundreds of
Vietnamese women,
children, and elderly
were arbitrarily killed.
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Students who were
protesting against the
Vietnam War – and
particularly the
bombings of
Cambodia and Laos by
Nixon – were shot at
by National Guard
members. Four
students died.
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*M.
Agent Orange
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The French controlled almost all of
Southeast Asia before World War II.
After the war, they attempted to reestablish themselves as colonial rulers
of the region, but to no avail. The
movement for Independence in Vietnam
undermined their efforts to regain
control over the region.
Richard Nixon explains his secret plan for
“Vietnamization” of the war. Critics say
he declared victory and left.
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The Gulf of Tonkin
Resolution gave President
Lyndon Baines Johnson
the power to conduct the
war in Vietnam. In this
picture, Secretary of
Defense Robert
McNamara explains the
details of the incident.
He later admitted that
the attack by a North
Vietnamese gunboat may
not have happened at all.
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The Ho Chi Minh Trail was the supply line
from North Vietnam to South Vietnam.
Weapons from North Vietnam, food,
supplies, and medicine were all brought
along the secret, hidden trail. Americans
attempted to find and bomb the Ho Chi
Minh Trail throughout the war. Napalm
and Agent Orange were both used with
devastating consequences. Yet the supply
lines remained open throughout the war.
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From Richard Nixon to the Collapse of the Soviet Union
in 1991 – a short version of the Cold War’s Demise.
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In an effort to calm down tensions
during the Cold War, Richard Nixon
made a visit to China, where he sat
down to negotiate with Mao Zedong and
Zhou Enlai. The meeting was not a
perfect success, but the Soviet Union
soon wanted to meet with Nixon as well
– to calm down the rhetoric and
peacefully coexist with the USA.
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Richard Nixon became the first
American President to ever visit
Moscow to meet with Leonid Brezhnev
in the early 1970s. The two men hoped
to end the frightening rhetoric and
posturing of the Cold War Era, so that
the United States and the USSR could
peacefully co-exist.
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Mikhail Gorbachev simply
admitted that the
communist system the
Soviet Union had lived
with for so long was not
working as well as the
American way. He did
everything in is power to
bring down tensions
between his nation and
the United States, and he
ended the arms race for
good.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX00QkvK-mQ
When Revolutions began in 1989,
they were peaceful. New
democratic governments were not
challenged by the Soviet Union. The
Cold War was ending.
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