Chapter Twenty-Nine
War at Home, War Abroad,
1965—1974
Part One:
Introduction
Chapter Focus Questions
How and why was U.S. involvement in the war in
Vietnam widened?
What was the “sixties generation” and what was its
role in the antiwar movement?
How did poverty contribute to the urban crisis?
What characterized the election of 1968?
What contributed to the rise of “liberation”
movements?
What characterized the Nixon presidency and how
did the Watergate conspiracy arise?
Part Two:
Uptown, Chicago, Illinois
Chicago
In 1964, a small group of college students tried to help
residents in a poor Chicago neighborhood.
The activists were members of Students for a
Democratic Society.
Founded by white college students, SDS initially sought
reform and grew by 1968 to have 350 chapters and
between 60,000 and 100,000 members.
Efforts to mobilize the urban poor were unsuccessful,
but SDS members helped break down isolation and
strengthened community ties.
By 1967, SDS energies were being directed into protests
against the widening war in Vietnam.
Part Three:
Vietnam: America’s
Longest War
Johnson’s War
Escalated war.
Johnson sent large numbers of troops.
Search-and-destroy missions.
Chemical warfare.
Havoc on people, land.
LBJ committed to war of attrition.
The Credibility Gap
Johnson kept his decisions secret.
He distorted accounts of military actions.
Media questioned the war.
Americans questioned LBJ’s handling of the war.
Democratic senators led by J. William Fulbright
opposed Johnson.
Part Four:
A Generation in Conflict
“The Times They Are A-Changin’”
All ages protested war—young stood out.
Early campus protests at Berkeley--free speech.
San Francisco “Summer of Love.”
Woodstock.
The Woodstock Festival, promoted as “3
Days of Peace and Music,” attracted more
than 450,000 people to the rain-soaked
pasture of Max Yasgur’s New York farm.
The huge rock concert, staged in August
1969, became a landmark of the
counterculture. SOURCE:The Image Works CDOMOOO2.
FIGURE 29.4 Public Opinion on the War in Vietnam By 1969 Americans were sharply
divided in their assessments of the progress of the war and peace negotiations. The
American Institute of Public Opinion, founded in 1935 by George Gallup, charted a growing
dissatisfaction with the war in Vietnam. SOURCE:The Gallup Poll:Public Opinion,1935 –74 (New York:Random House,1974),p.2189.
Campus Protest in Global
Perspective
Map: Antiwar Protests
From Campus Protests to Mass
Mobilization
War effort and universities’ roles in war-related
research.
Student strikes.
Public opinion polarized.
Massive anti and pro-war rallies.
Nonviolent/violent protests erupted at draft
boards.
African American troops in Vietnam, 1970. Serving on the front lines in disproportionate
numbers, many black soldiers echoed the growing racial militancy in the United States and
increasingly chose to spend their off-duty time apart from white soldiers. SOURCE:Mark Jury, The Vietnam Photo Book .
Teenage Soldiers
Cultural attitudes of protesters found in GI
counterparts.
Latinos and African-Americans disproportionate
draftees.
Soldiers grew bitter over government lies.
Society shunned returning GIs.
The war in Vietnam contributed to the
growing racial militancy in the United
States. African Americans served on the
front lines in Vietnam in disproportionate
numbers, and many came to view the
conflict as a “white man’s war.”
SOURCE:J ames Meredith march through Mississippi.© 2001 Matt Herron c/o Mira.com.
Part Five:
Wars on Poverty
An American Profile: Life
Expectancy
A racial divide existed on life expectancy.
FIGURE 29.1 Comparative
Figures on Life Expectancy
at Birth by Race and Sex,
1950–70 Shifting mortality
statistics suggested that the
increased longevity of
females increasingly cut
across race lines, but did not
diminish the difference
between white people and
black people as a whole.
An American Profile: Infant
Mortality
Poverty helped create a racial divide on infant
mortality
FIGURE 29.2 Comparative
Figures on Infant Mortality by
Race, 1940–70 The causes of
infant mortality such as inadequate
maternal diets, prenatal care, and
medical services were all rooted in
poverty, both rural and urban.
Despite generally falling rates of
infant mortality, nonwhite people
continued to suffer the effects more
than white people.
An American Profile: Poverty
Michael Harrington’s The Other America,
awareness increased.
LBJ’s “an unconditional war on poverty.”
Chart: Percentage of Population Below
Poverty Level
FIGURE 29.3 Percent of
Population Below Poverty
Level, by Race, 1959–69 Note:
The poverty threshold for a
nonfarm family of four was $3,743
in 1969 and $2,973 in 1959.
SOURCE:Congressional Quarterly,Civil Rights:A Progress Report , 1971,p.46.
The Great Society
Office of Economic Opportunity.
The Job Corps failed.
Community Action Agencies threatened those in power.
Legal Service Program and Head Start made differences.
Great Society opposed to income redistribution.
Most social spending went to non-poor via Medicare.
1970 study concluded war on poverty barely scratched
surface.
Crisis in the Cities
Cities became segregated centers of poverty.
Pollution surrounded large minority populations.
Urban black frustrations resulted--100 riots.
Between 1965 and 1968, racial tensions exploded into violence in more than seventy-five cities. Unlike
earlier episodes of racial violence, which often took the form of clashes between black and white residents
over contested neighborhoods, the riots of the 1960s were more often attacks by residents against retail
establishments and property owned primarily by whites. Most deaths and injuries resulted from
confrontations between police and rioters, not from fighting between black and white residents. This
photograph, taken in 1967, shows police officers arresting suspected looters in Newark, New Jersey,
where twenty-three people were killed in the course of the uprising. SOURCE:Bettmann/CORBIS BE020706.
Urban Uprisings
Map: Urban Uprising
A presidential commission blamed the rioting
on white racism, poverty, and police brutality,
and recommended massive social reforms.
MAP 29.1 Urban Uprisings, 1965–1968 After World War II urban uprisings precipitated by
racial conflict increased in African American communities. In Watts in 1965 and in Detroit and
Newark in 1967, rioters struck out at symbols of white control of their communities, such
as white-owned businesses and residential properties.
Part Six:
1968
MAP 29.2 The Southeast Asian War The IndoChinese subcontinent, home to long-standing
regional conflict, became the center of a
prolonged war with the United States.
The Tet Offensive
Map: The Southeast Asian War
January 30, 1968 Tet Offensive.
Credibility of American officials shattered.
U.S. military victory, media reports triggered
antiwar protests.
LBJ declared a bombing halt.
Announced he would not seek reelection.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
1968, Martin Luther King broke with LBJ
on Vietnam.
Massive Poor People’s Campaign.
MLK assassinated in Memphis.
Rioting broke out in over 100 cities.
“Martin Luther King,” Robert Kennedy said when he heard the news of the assassination of
the civil rights leader, “dedicated his life to love and to justice for his fellow human beings,
and he died because of that effort.” The funeral service for King was held in the Ebenezer
Baptist Church in Atlanta on April 7, 1968. SOURCE:“Walk down West Hunter Street,Atlanta .” © James L..Amos/CORBIS (JA 004098).
The Democratic Campaign
Polarization split the Democrats.
Robert Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy sought
anti-war vote.
Kennedy appeared unbeatable, but was
assassinated.
Hubert Humphrey won the nomination from
divided party.
The Democratic Convention was scene of riots.
In 1968, Richard J. Daley had been
elected major of Chicago four
times and held power as a
traditional city boss. In December
of that year, the National
Commission on Violence released
a report that concluded that
Chicago police, acting under Mayor
Daley’s brazenly announced a 22
percent salary increase for
members of the city’s police and
fire personnel. This painting, by the
popular illustrator Bernard Perlin,
depicts the protest against Mayor
Daley’s role during the Democratic
Convenction.
SOURCE:Bernard Perlin,Mayor Richard Daley,1968 .Collection of Philip J.and Suzanne
Schiller,American Social Commentary Art, 1930 –70.Library of Congress.
Part Seven:
The Politics of Identity
Black Power
Generational divisions marked the civil rights
movement.
Younger African Americans turned to Black
Power.
Black Panthers reflected the growing militancy.
Racial pride grew during the late 1960s.
A renewed interest in African heritage and culture.
Sisterhood is Powerful
Women began to demand equal rights.
Women identified their movement as one of
liberation.
Diverse and comprehensive women’s rights agenda
emerged
White middle-class women.
On August 26, 1970, to mark the
fiftieth anniversary of the passage of
the Nineteenth Amendment, women
nationwide staged demonstrations for
women’s rights. The young women in
this photograph gathered in Central
Park, New York, in the largest
demonstration ever held for women’s
rights. Proposed by Representative
Bella Abzug and designated by
Congress in 1971, Women’s Equality
Day is celebrated every year on
August 26.
SOURCE:Jesse-Steve RoseThe Image Works BROS0031000.
Gay Liberation
Several openly gay organizations had emerged after
WWII.
Stonewall Riot in New York City in 1968
Galvanized Gay Liberation Front.
Large minority of homosexuals “came out”.
The Chicano Rebellion
Chicano pride and nationalism
Mexican Americans push for land and social
reforms.
Cesar Chavez organized United Farm Workers.
Labor activist Cesar Chavez spearheaded the
organization of Chicano agricultural workers
into the United Farm Workers (UFW), the first
successful union of migrant workers. In 1965,
a strike of grape pickers in the fields around
Delano, California, and a nationwide boycott
of table grapes brought Chavez and the UFW
into the media spotlight. Like Martin Luther
King Jr., he advocated nonviolent methods for
achieving justice and equality.
SOURCE:© Paul Fusco//Magnum photo (NYC40062).
Red Power
Map: Major Indian Reservations
Indian activists took over Wounded Knee.
Indian Renaissance led to many new books
about Indian life.
MAP 29.3 Major Indian Reservations, 1976 Although sizable areas, designated Indian
reservations represented only a small portion of territory occupied in earlier times.
The Asian American Movement
Asian Americans embraced a nationalism.
Part Eight:
The Nixon Presidency
The Election of 1968
In 1968, Richard Nixon’s campaign:
appealed to voters hostile to the protests,
counterculture
pledged to undercut liberal programs
roll back the Great Society
Nixon narrowly defeated Humphrey and
George Wallace.
MAP 29.4 The Election of 1968 Although
the Republican Nixon-Agnew team won the
popular vote by only a small margin, the
Democrats lost in most of the northern
states that had voted Democratic since the
days of FDR. Segregationist Governor
George Wallace of Alabama polled more
than 9 million votes.
The massive bombing and ground combat
created huge numbers of civilian
casualties in Vietnam. The majority killed
were women and children.
SOURCE:BlackStar/Stockphoto WQXQZ4TN.
In 1971 a group of angry veterans create
the first memorial to the war, throwing their
Purple Hearts and Bronze Stars into a
heap before the U.S. Capitol and adding
their discharge papers to the pile.
AP Wide World Photos.
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial carries the 58,132 names of men and women who were killed in
Vietnam carved into the highly polished, reflective black granite in the order in which they were
killed. The entire installation is below ground-level and not visible from most parts of the Mall. A
replica, the “Moving Wall,” travels to various cities and towns throughout the country.
Joyce Naltchayan/Agence France Presse/Getty Images.
Editors of the conservative
National Review have complained
that the memorial focuses on
individuals not the war, making
“death in war a private matter
rather than a sacrifice for
collective cause.” In this
photograph, a sister touches the
name of her brother. The objects
left at the wall are carefully
preserved in a warehouse in
suburban Maryland.
Getty Images,Inc.
“The Three Fightingmen,” by sculptor Frederick Hart portrays strong, highly masculine soldiers
returning from patrol. Positioned facing the wall, the soldiers appear to be gazing at the names on
the wall. The sculture was added in 1984 in response to critics who complained that the wall was
insufficiently patriotic and too unlike conventional war monuments, which usually depicts heroic
images of military men.
Getty Images,Inc.
The Vietnam Women’s Memorial,
designed by Glenna Goodacre and
dedicated in 1993, is the first national
memorial to female veterans. The
bronze sculpture, which stands about
300 feet from the wall, honors the ten
thousand women, military and civilian,
who served with the U.S. armed forces
in Vietnam.
Sonda Dawes/The Image Works.
Nixon’s War
Nixon promised to bring “peace with honor” to Vietnam.
Nixon and Henry Kissinger, believed defeat would destroy
global leadership.
Nixon spoke of a phased withdrawal.
Widened the war by invading Cambodia.
Four deaths at Kent State, two at Jackson State.
Nixon accepted a peace settlement.
South Vietnam fell.
Chart: U.S. Military Forces and Casualties
On Monday, May 4, 1970, after a weekend of antiwar demonstrations against the invasion of Cambodia,
Ohio National Guardsmen fired 67 bullets into a crowd of students, killing four and wounding nine others
on the campus of Kent State University. As news of the killings spread, students at hundreds of colleges
and universities turned out in mass demonstrations to protest widening the war in Southeast Asia and the
increasing violence on campus. Approximately 5 million students joined the national student strike,
boycotting classes for the remainder of the week. As news of the Kent State “massacre” spread to
Vietnam, some U.S. troops refused orders to invade Cambodia; others wore black armbands to
demonstrate their solidarity with students at home. SOURCE:Getty Images Inc./Hulton Archive Photos PAL AADXNVWO.
FIGURE 29.5 U.S. Military Forces in Vietnam
and Casualties, 1961–81 The United States
government estimated battle deaths between
1969 and 1973 for South Vietnamese troops at
107,504 and North Vietnamese and Vietcong at
more than a half-million. Although the United
States suffered fewer deaths, the cost was
enormous.
SOURCE:U.S.Department of Defense,Selected Manpower Statistics, annual and unpublished data;beginning
1981,National Archives and Records Service,“Combat Area Casualty File ” ((3-330-80-3).
Foreign Relations
Nixon opened relations China.
Relations with the Soviet Union improved.
Kissinger negotiated a temporary lull Mideast
War.
Domestic Policy
Despite his conservatism, Nixon:
supported guaranteed income to replace welfare
imposed a wage and price freeze to hold down
inflation
Opposition to school busing
Conservative Supreme Court appointments.
Part Nine:
Watergate
Conspiracy and The Age of Dirty
Tricks
Nixon’s foreign policy included secret interventions.
Regimes propped up or destabilized in Asia, Africa, and Latin
America.
Formed inner circle to keep information from the
public.
1972, Democrats nominated George McGovern.
The Nixon reelection committee ran a dirty-tricks
campaign.
Break-in at the Democratic headquarters at Watergate.
The Fall of the Executive
The White House covered up Watergate
involvement.
Wash Post followed the evidence back to the
Oval Office.
Nixon fired the special Watergate prosecutor
Nixon made tapes of White House conversations.
Nixon resigned to avoid impeachment.
Richard Nixon bid a final farewell to his White House staff as he left Washington DC on August 9,
1974. The first president to resign from office, Nixon had become so entangled in the Watergate
scandal that his impeachment appeared certain. He was succeeded by Vice-President Gerald Ford.
After taking the oath of office later that day, President Ford remarked that the wounds of Watergate
were “more painful and more poisonous than those of foreign wars.” SOURCE:Bettmann/Corbis BE 023919.
Part Ten:
Conclusion