
Iron Curtain


physical boundary dividing Europe into two
separate areas from the end of World War II until the
end of the Cold War in 1991
Dividing democratic and communist countries in
Europe.





When
 1927-1949
Who
 Chiang Kai-Shek
(Nationalist)
 Mao Zedong (Communist)
Who won/Outcome
 Mao Zedong (Communist)
 China becomes communist
President
 Truman
What did the US do?
 Nothing





When
 1950-1953
Who
 North Korea
 South Korea
Who won/Outcome
 No one. Stalemate 38th
parallel
President
 Truman and Eisenhower
What did the US do?
 Supported South Korea
Vietnam





When
 1962
Who
 Cuba
 Soviet Union
 US
What
 Soviet missiles in Cuba aimed at
America
 Communist take over in Cuba (Fidel
Castro)
What did US do?
 Invaded Cuba (Bay of Pigs). Failed
CIA operations. US trained Cuban
exiles
Who won/Outcome
 Ended with a cease fire and nuclear
weapons ban by USSR and US
 Cuba became Communist





When
 1955-1975
Who
 North Vietnam (Vietcong)
 South Vietnam
 United States
Who Won/Outcome
 North Vietnam
 Many Americans died or Pulled-out
of the war
 People in America started to hate the
war and protest Anti-Vietnam war
President
 Eisenhower
 Kennedy
 Johnson
 Nixon
What did the US do?
 Helped out South Vietnam

China was in a civil war in the 1940s




Mao Zedong gathered support among
Chinese rural peasants to take control of
communist China
America is not willing to go to a military
solution over China – they’re too big and
the USSR might get involved
China wanted to invade Taiwan


(US supported) Nationalists vs. Communists
The U.S. would not allow China to invade and
destroy the Nationalists.
WHY?!?!?


In 1950, communist North Korean forces flooded over the 38th
parallel into democratic South Korea (whom the US was
supposed to protect). This was part of the U.S. policy of
Containment.
Truman sent General Douglas MacArthur back into action (he
had served in the Pacific in WWII)



MacArthur’s strong push is successful until China adds support to
North Korea and pushes back
MacArthur begged Truman for greenlight to attack China,
Truman refuses, MacArthur criticizes, Truman fires him
(America’s favorite war hero at the time)
The war ended in a stalemate – as the 38th parallel remained
the border


54,000 Americans died in Korea
America spent $67 billion
the Cuban Revolution
1956
• Fidel Castro led communist
revolution for control over
Cuba, promising an end to
inequality, poverty and
dictatorship
• Relations with the US got
worse, but JFK’s new foreign
policy when something didn’t
go our way was “flexible
response”
The Bay of Pigs invasion
• The CIA trained over 1,000 Cuban exiles to lead
invasion of Cuban Bay of Pigs that would lead to
overthrow of Castro’s government
• Nothing went as planned and the US army-led
invasion was a giant embarrassment and failure
– The US had to pay $53 million in supplies for the release of
the captured forces
• Cuba turned to the Soviet Union for more
“communist big brother” support
Bay of Pigs
the Cuban missile crisis
1962
• October 14: US planes take photos of Soviet missiles in
Cuba – placed there by the USSR to keep America out in
the future
• October 22: Kennedy informs America of danger in
Cuba, intent to limit buildup
• October 24: Kennedy starts naval blockade of Cuba
• October 25: Soviet Union ships stopped at blockade
• October 28: Khrushchev (USSR) vows to pull missiles
out of Cuba to avoid bigger conflict
– US had to take missiles out of Turkey as well
describing the Vietnam War
• 1953: Eisenhower explains DOMINO THEORY and
how US cannot let another nation fall to communism
– if one country in Southeast Asia fell to
communism, then the neighboring countries would
become communist as well
• Vietcong will resist US within South Vietnam
• JFK, afraid to be labeled “soft” on communism, continues
US involvement in Vietnam
• After USS Maddox fired upon, Congress passes Tonkin
Gulf Resolution gives wide war-power to LBJ
Vietnam War
Vietnam War
U.S. Troop levels escalate…
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
1963: 16,000 (JFK)
1964: 50,000 (LBJ)
1965: 180,000 (LBJ)
1966: 385,000 (LBJ)
1967: 500,000 (LBJ)
1968: 542,000 (LBJ)
1969: 480,000 (Nixon)
1970: 225,000 (Nixon)
1971: 160,000 (Nixon)
1972: 10,000 (Nixon)
A Difficult War to fight
• Elusive/Unclear/Deter
mined Enemy
– Vietcong were fighting a
hundred-year-old war for
their survival
• Impossible Terrain
– jungles, heat, bugs,
rain, traps, hiding
Vietcong
– 3.5 million landmines
still in Vietnam today
•
•
•
•
Guerilla Warfare
War of Attrition
Chemical Warfare
Sinking Troop Morale
the Tet offensive
• TET OFFENSIVE – January 1968
– Tet holiday ceasefire (Vietnamese New Year)
– Vietcong ignore ceasefire and attack 100 towns
– Vietcong lose 32,000 (ARVN/US lose 3,000), before Tet: 28% doves, 56% hawks
- after Tet: 40% doves, 40% hawks
The “Living room war”
• Vietnam is often
characterized as the "livingroom war" or the
"television war." It was the
first war to be
systematically televised, and
it was so televised during a
period when television was
becoming a more
compelling presence in
American life.
growing opposition to the
war
• Most soldiers DRAFTED
• African American Soliders
– 10% of forces, 20% of death toll (??)
• The New Left (protest leadership)
– SDS & FSM
• student groups rage against “the machine”
• seek to increase youth voice in government
– Kent State & Jackson State
• Violence erupts, people die
• Opposition turns to protest and resistance
• DOVES vs. HAWKS
– protesters were unpopular
• (70% believed it was un-American to protest war)
Sputnik I
• In 1957, the Soviet Union launched the first
satellite into space
– America worried, “are we falling behind in science
& technology?”
• President Dwight D. Eisenhower encouraged
increased spending on education (math &
science, especially)
– And increased military/defense spending
Levittown
• There is a baby boom following WWII
– a dramatic increase in birth rates during the postWorld War II era
• Americans had saved up tons of money and the
economy is BOOMING
• The 1950s will be an era of conformity
– Everyone looking to be the same, do the same
• Levittown, NY and then Levittown, PA
– Planned suburbs for the new American family
Interstate Highway Act 1956
• President Dwight D. Eisenhower (elected 1952)
• 40,000 miles of highways in 10 years makes it
the largest public project in American history
to that time
– To connect the nation, coast to coast
– To grow urban American outward into suburbs
– Attributed to the development of suburban areas
in the U.S during the 1950s
The impact television on
American culture
• POLITICS & NEWS
– (Civil Rights & Vietnam War)
• POPULAR CULTURE
– (music, clothing, family relations)
• COMMERCIALS
– (teenage consumerism)
the presidential debates
(Kennedy/Nixon, 1960)
• 70 million Americans tuned in to watch the first ever
presidential debate
• Richard Nixon, the Vice President and foreign
policy expert, hoped to expose Kennedy’s
inexperience
• John F. Kennedy (JFK) got a lot of coaching and
was very collected/confident on TV
Kennedy won, barely by
only 119,000 votes
Thanks to tv debates and his
active position on civil
rights
Describe the causes and early
momentum of the civil rights
movement.
• What is civil rights?
Jackie Robinson
Jackie with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947
Jackie at MLK’s “March on Washington” in 1963
1947: Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League
Baseball, ending eighty years of segregation in
“America’s Pastime”
Who was president then? What did this president do
of note with regard to civil rights?
news coverage of
the Civil Rights movement
news coverage of
the Civil Rights movement
• Television, newspaper, magazine, radio
• Constant attention to marches, demonstrations
and activities kept civil rights in Americans’
minds
• Sympathy for non-violent protestors shown in
the news won popular support for the
movement
explaining
Brown v. Board of Education
1954
• Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas =
“separate but equal is inherently unequal”
efforts to resist the ‘brown’
decision
• The responsibility for integration fell to
local governments
• Ten years after Brown, more than 89%
of African American students in the
South still attended segregated
schools
• Little Rock, Arkansas: Central High
School famously resisted and the
nation watched on TV as Eisenhower
sent federal troops to escort the
African American students to class
One of the “Little Rock Nine” gets harassed 
Letter from a Birmingham Jail
April 1963
• He didn’t feel like they could wait any
longer, change was needed immediately
• Breaking unjust laws is okay
I have a dream.
August 1963
• Created support for desegregation
• Prompted the Civil Rights Act of 1964
• Called for a dream that whites and blacks
could live together in peace.
• …
• …
• …
• …
comparing & contrasting
SCLC and SNCC
• Southern Christian Leadership Conference
– Formed in 1957 by MLK, other ministers & civil rights
leaders soon after Montgomery Bus Boycott
• Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee
– Formed in 1960, these students thought that change was
coming too slowly; going to challenge the system
Pronounced “snick”
Tactics used by civil rights
organizations
• Sit-ins were a non-violent way of forcing attention to
situations that needed attention
• Freedom Rides across the South
– While testing bus segregation, with Kennedy’s support from
federal troops
• Changing Composition of SNCC
– 1966: frustrated tensions erupted and some leaders started to
become more militant
• Black Power: more “we shall overrun” less “we shall overcome”
– resisted by MLK
causes & consequences of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964
July 1964
• Lyndon Johnson signed Civil Rights Act of 1964
– Banned discrimination in employment
– Banned discrimination in all establishments (libraries,
restaurants, hotels, etc)
– Federal government would protect voting rights
– Federal government would work harder on integrating
schools
causes & consequences of the
Voting Rights Act of 1965
• SNCC workers spent the “Freedom Summer” of
1964 traveling through the South (Mississippi,
mostly) trying to register African American voters
• Lyndon Johnson pushed the Voting Rights Act of
1965 through Congress, eliminating literacy tests,
poll taxes, etc
– African American voters tripled in the South
the political impact of
the JFK assassination
• Kennedy took the presidency with a vision of a New
Frontier
– “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you
can do for your country.”
– civil rights legislation
– race to the moon
– Peace Corps
– assault on poverty
• November 22, 1963 an assassin’s bullet ended JFK’s
presidency, but perhaps gave greater strength to
his visions for America’s future
explaining Lyndon Johnson’s
Great Society
• Johnson was a master politician and he worked
to achieve the visions JFK had held
• Tax cuts
• Civil Rights laws
• War on Poverty
– Federal funds for low-income
housing.
• Education
• Health care
LBJ getting sworn in on an airplane 
The LBJ
Treatment
establishing Medicare
• Health care and low-cost insurance to those over 65
• And Medicaid too…
– Low-cost health care for those on welfare
The Warren Court
• Chief Justice Earl Warren leading an activist
Supreme Court
• Ever since Brown v. Board of Education, the
Court worked to fight for individual rights
– Banning school prayer
– Taking power away from censors
The court Expands
individual rights
• Miranda v. Arizona (1966)
– The accused must be informed of
their individual constitutional
rights (5th Amendment)
• Roe v. Wade (1973)
– Woman has the individual right to
have an abortion because she has
the right to private decisions over
her own body
the Bakke decision on
affirmative action
• Supreme Court decided in 1978 in the case of
California v. Bakke that using racial quotas (numbers
set ahead of time) was illegal, but that race could be
considered a factor in the admissions process
• Affirmative Action – increase the opportunities of
those that have been historically discriminated
against (in admissions or employment)
origins & goals of the
modern women’s movement
• 1960s: fueled by feminism -- that women
should have economic, political & social
equality with men
• In 1966, the National Organization of
Women (NOW) was formed, pushing for
better opportunities and better choices for
women
César ChÁvez
• As the Latino population in the US grew, so
did their need for better representation and
better treatment
• Chávez founded the United Farm Workers’
movement in 1966
– It would be like a union for farm laborers that
would use non-violence to reach its goals
Rachel Carson
• Wrote about the negative effects chemical
pesticides could have on the environment
– Silent Spring (1962)
• The outcry from American readers led LBJ to
pass Water Quality Act of 1965
Compare to: Uncle Tom’s Cabin or The Jungle
modern environmentalist
movement
• Environmentalists, those taking an active role in
protecting the environment, grew throughout the
1960s
– In 1970, Nixon created the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) to set and enforce pollution standards,
research and control
– Also on April 22, 1970, Americans celebrated their first
Earth Day celebration
describing the social and
political turmoil of 1968
• On top of the Tet Offensive in January…
• assassination of Martin Luther King, JR
– April, 1968: Memphis, TN
– a shattered end to the Civil Rights movement
• assassination of Robert F. Kennedy
– June, 1968: Los Angeles, CA
– An end to a brother’s hope of rekindling JFK’s legacy
• COLLEGE CAMPUS PROTESTS
– 400,000 students involved across the nation
• Democratic National Convention
– August, 1968: Chicago, IL
– Protests turn to mob/police violence
– LBJ wasn’t going to run for president for Democrats again
• “the Great Society was shot down on the battlefields of Vietnam”
the rise of the conservative
movement
• In 1964, Barry Goldwater ran for president
against Lyndon Johnson and lost big time
– His campaign criticized federal government
over-activity in trying to fight social inequality,
poverty, or any lack of opportunities
• In 1968, America seemed to need a break from
all the turmoil of the 1960s
– Richard Nixon (R) won the presidency
RED STATES
Democrat
(Liberal)
wins
BLUE STATES
Republican
(Conservative)
wins
President Nixon’s
foreign policiy
• In 1971, Richard Nixon normalized relations between
the US and China for first time since 1949
• In 1972, Nixon visited China to strengthen economic
and political relations
Nixon’s resignation
• In 1972, Nixon was up for reelection and was pretty sure to do
well
• The Committee to Reelect the President broke into Democratic
Headquarters at the Watergate office and apartments complex
– The cover-up that followed was ugly
•
•
•
•
Washington Post uncovered the story
Senate investigates
Prosecutors were fired
Audio tapes from the Oval Office were tampered with
• Nixon, fearing impeachment for his role in the burglary and
cover-up, resigned in 1974
– First president ever to do so
the Presidency of
Gerald Ford (1974-1976)
• “Our long national nightmare is over”
– Hard feelings over Nixon’s actions
• Ford pardoned Nixon, preventing criminal trial
– Economic struggles
• Oil prices rising and rising and rising
• INFLATION (rising prices) unsuccessfully challenged by Ford’s
plan to Whip Inflation Now (WIN)
• Jimmy Carter (D-GA) wins the presidency in 1976,
promising in a down-to-earth style: “I will never tell
a lie to the American people.”
Carter administration’s
efforts in the Middle East
• Carter promoted human rights and morality in foreign
policy (bad for relations with USSR)
• In 1978, Carter invited the leaders of Egypt and Israel
to America to complete their peace talks →→ Camp
David Accords
• In 1979, there was a revolution in Iran and Carter
did not support the new government
• November 4, 1979: Iranian militants took 52
American hostages in Tehran
– (444 days of hostage crisis, continuing oil problems and
still-rising prices killed Carter’s presidency)
Which image is easier for
a voter to remember?
changing attitudes
toward government
• 1932-1963
– FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, JFK
• 1963-1980
–Johnson: passed Civil Rights legislation, but Great Society
died while he lied about troop escalation
–Nixon: slowed civil rights, had to resign over Watergate
scandal
–Ford: pardoned the crook before him, couldn’t fix the
economy
–Carter: couldn’t get the hostages back, couldn’t fix long
lines at gas stations
What do you think of government?
Do you trust our leaders in government?
Ronald Reagan:
foreign Policy
• As the Soviet Union began its collapse,
Reagan flexed muscle with increase defense
spending
• In 1986, Americans found out that Reagan sold
weapons to Iran (when he’d said he wouldn’t)
and that the money from the sales went to help
fund the Contras in their revolution in
Nicaragua
– Iran-contra scandal really did not hurt Reagan’s
image that much
Ronald Reagan:
Domestic Policy
• Reagan easily beat Jimmy Carter in 1980 and set out to
restore confidence in government and economy
• Reaganomics was his plan where people would pay less
taxes, save more money and then investments &
productivity would rise
– Government spending and regulation went down
– Drugs, education, urban slums all grew into bigger problems