ch 39 outline

Ch 39

Sources of Stagnation

-->Following the economic boom in America during the 1950s and 1960s, the economy of the 1970s was declining

---> Former President Lyndon B. Johnson's lavish spending on the Vietnam War and on his Great Society also depleted the U.S. Treasury, giving citizens too much money and creating too great a demand for too few products

Nixon "Vietnamizes" the War

--->President Nixon brought to the White House his broad knowledge and thoughtful expertise in foreign affairs.  He applied himself to putting America's foreign-policy in order

---> President Nixon's announced policy, called "Vietnamization," was to withdraw the 540,000 U.S. troops in South Vietnam over an extended period

--->The Nixon Doctrine proclaimed that the United States would honor its existing defense commitments but in the future, Asians and others would have to fight their own wars without the support of large numbers of American troops

--->On November 3, 1969, Nixon delivered a televised speech to the "silent majority," who presumably supported the war

Cambodianizing the Vietnam War

---> On April 29, 1970, President Nixon widened the war when he ordered American forces to join with the South Vietnamese in cleaning out the enemy in officially neutral Cambodia

---> Nixon withdrew the troops from Cambodia on June 29, 1970, although the bitterness between the "hawks" and the "doves" increased

--->In 1971, the 26^th Amendment was passed, lowering the voting age to 18.

Nixon's Détente with Beijing (Peking) and Moscow

--->The two great communist powers, the Soviet Union and China, were clashing bitterly over their rival interpretations of Marxism

--->Dr. Henry A. Kissinger reinforced Nixon's thinking

---> In 1969, Kissinger had begun meeting secretly with North Vietnamese officials in Paris to negotiate an end to the war in Vietnam

--->In 1972, Nixon made a visit to China and paved the way for improved relations between the United States and Beijing

---> In May 1972, Nixon traveled to Moscow, which was ready to deal

--->great grain deal of 1972 was a 3-year arrangement by which the United States agreed to sell the Soviets at least $750 million worth of wheat, corn, and other cereals

---> The first major achievement, an anti-ballistic missile (AMB) treaty, limited the U.S. and the Soviet Union to two clusters of defensive missiles

--->SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks), froze the numbers of long-range nuclear missiles for 5 years

A New Team on the Supreme Bench

--->Earl Warren was appointed as a Justice to the Supreme Court, making many controversial rulings-

Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) struck down a state law that banned the use of contraceptives, even by married couples, creating a "right to privacy

--->Gideon v. Wainwright (1963) ruled that all criminals were entitled to legal counsel, even if they were unable to afford it

--->Escobedo (1964) and Miranda (1966) ruled that those who were arrested had to the "right to remain silent"

--->Engel v. Vitale (1962) and School District of Abington Township vs. Schempp (1963) led to the Supreme Court ruling against required prayers and having the Bible in public schools, basing the judgment on the First Amendment, which separated church and state

--->Reynolds vs. Sims (1964) ruled that the state legislatures would be required to be reapportioned according to population

---->In an attempt to end the liberal rulings, President Nixon set Warren E. Burger to replace the retiring Earl Warren in 1969

Nixon on the Home Front

--->Nixon expanded the Great Society programs by increasing funding for Medicare, Medicaid, and Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC)

--->created the Supplemental Security Income (SSI), giving benefits to the poor aged, blind, and disabled

--->Nixon's Philadelphia Plan of 1969 required construction-trade unions working on the federal pay roll to establish "goals and timetables" for black employees

---> This plan changed the definition of "affirmative action" to include preferable treatment on groups, not individuals

---> the Supreme Court's ruling on Griggs v. Duke Power Co. (1971) upheld this

--->The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OHSA) were created

--->In 1962, Rachel Carson boosted the environmental movement with her book Silent Spring, which exposed the disastrous effects of pesticides

---> By 1950, Los Angeles had an Air Pollution Control Office

--->Clean Air Act of 1970 and the Endangered Species Act of 1973 both aimed at protecting and preserving the environment

The Nixon Landslide of 1972

--->spring of 1972, the North Vietnamese burst through the demilitarized zone separating the two Vietnams

--->Senator George McGovern won the 1972 Democratic nomination

----> President Nixon, though, won the election of 1972 in a landslide

Bombing North Vietnam to the Peace Table

--->Nixon launched the heaviest assault of the war when he ordered a two-week bombing of North Vietnam in an attempt to force the North Vietnamese to the conference table

--->January 23, 1973, North Vietnamese negotiators agreed to a cease-fire agreement

Watergate Woes

--->On June 17, 1972, five men working for the Republican Committee for the Re-election of the President were caught breaking into the Watergate Hotel and bugging rooms

--->John Dean III testified of all the corruption, illegal activities, and scandal.

The Great Tape Controversy

--->In 1973, Vice President Spiro Agnew was forced to resign due to tax evasion.  In accordance with the newly-passed 25^th Amendment (1967), Nixon submitted to Congress, for approval as the new vice president, Gerald Ford

--->On October 20, 1973 ("Saturday Night Massacre"), Archibald Cox, the prosecutor of the Watergate scandal case who had issued a subpoena of the tapes, was fired

The Secret Bombing of Cambodia and the War Powers Act

--->Despite federal assurances to the American public that Cambodia's neutrality was being respected, it was discovered that secret bombing raids on North Vietnamese forces in Cambodia had taken place since March of 1969; this caused the public to question trust of the government

---> Nixon ended the bombing in June 1973

--->In November 1973, Congress passed the War Powers Act, requiring the president to report all commitments of U.S. troops to foreign exchanges within 48 hours

The Arab Oil Embargo and the Energy Crisis

--->Following U.S. support of Israel during Israel's war against Syria and Egypt to regain territory lost during the Six-Day War, the Arab nations imposed an oil embargo, strictly limiting oil in the United States

---> A speed limit of 55 MPH was imposed, the oil pipeline in Alaska was approved in 1974 despite environmentalists' cries, and other forms of energy were researched

--->OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) lifted the embargo in 1974, yet it then quadrupled the price of oil

The Unmaking of a President

--->On July 24, 1974, the Supreme Court ruled that President Nixon had to submit all tapes to Congress

--->On August 5, 1974, Nixon released the three tapes that held the most damaging information-the same three tapes that had been "missing"

---> On August 8 Nixon resigned, realizing that he would be convicted if impeached, and with resignation, he could at least keep the privileges of a president.

The First Unelected President

Gerald Ford became the first unelected president; his name had been submitted by Nixon as a vice-presidential candidate

--->In July 1975, Ford signed the Helsinki accords, which recognized Soviet boundaries and helped to ease tensions between the two nations

Defeat in Vietnam

--->Early in 1975, the North Vietnamese made their full invasion of South Vietnam

--->The last of Americans were evacuated on April 29, 1975

--->The United States had fought the North Vietnamese to a standstill and had then withdrawn its troops in 1973, leaving the South Vietnamese to fight their own war.  The estimated cost to America was $188 billion, with 56,000 dead and 300,000 wounded

The Bicentennial Campaign and the Carter Victory

--->In the election of 1976, Democrat Jimmy Carter beat Republican Gerald Ford to win the presidency

--->In 1978, President Carter convinced Congress to pass an $18 billion tax cut

Carter's Humanitarian Diplomacy

-->Carter championed for human rights, and in Rhodesia (known today as Zimbabwe) and South Africa, he championed for black rights

--->On September 17, 1978, President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel signed peace accords at Camp David

--->President Carter pledged to return the Panama Canal to Panama by the year 2000 and resume full diplomatic relations with China in 1979

Carter Tackles the Ailing Economy

--->Inflation had been steadily rising, and by 1979, it was at 13%

Carter's Energy Woes

--->In 1979, Iran's shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, who had been installed by America in 1953 and had ruled Iran as a dictator, was overthrown and succeeded by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini

--->In July 1979, Carter retreated to Camp David and met with hundreds of advisors to contemplate a solution to America's problems

---> On July 15, 1979, Carter chastised the American people for their obsession of material woes ("If it's cold, turn down the thermostat and put on a sweater."), stunning the nation

Foreign Affairs and the Iranian Imbroglio

--->In 1979, Carter signed the SALT II agreements with Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev, but the U.S. senate refused to ratify it

--->On November 4, 1979, a group of anti-American Muslim militants stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took hostages, demanding that the U.S. return the exiled shah who had arrived in the U.S. two weeks earlier for cancer treatments

--->On December 27, 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, which ended up turning into the Soviet Union's own Vietnam

---> "Rapid Deployment Force" that could quickly respond to crises anywhere in the world

The Iranian Hostage Humiliation

--->Carter first tried economic sanctions to force the release of the hostages, but this failed

--->tried a commando rescue mission, but that had to be aborted

--->The stalemate hostage situation dragged on for most of Carter's term, and the hostages were never released until January 20, 1981-the inauguration day of Ronald Reagan

ch 38 outline

Ch 38

Kennedy's "New Frontier" Spirit
--->President Kennedy, the youngest president to take office, assembled one of the youngest cabinets, including his brother Robert Kennedy, the Attorney General, who planned to reform the priorities of the FBI

The New Frontier at Home

--->In 1962, he negotiated a noninflationary wage agreement with the steel industry

--->When the steel industry announced significant price increases, promoting inflation, President Kennedy erupted in wrath, causing the industry to lower its prices

Rumblings in Europe

--->President Kennedy met with Soviet leader Khrushchev at Vienna in June 1961

--->In August 1961, the Soviets began to construct the Berlin Wall, which was designed to stop the large population drain from East Germany to West Germany through Berlin

---> Focusing on Western Europe, Kennedy secured passage of the Trade Expansion Act in 1962, authorizing tariff cuts of up to 50% to promote trade with Common Market countries

--->President of France, Charles de Gaulle, was suspicious of American intentions in Europe and in 1963, vetoed British application for Common Market membership, fearing that the British "special relationship" with the United States would allow the U.S. to indirectly control European affairs

Foreign Flare-ups and "Flexible Response"

--->In 1960, the African Congo received its independence from Belgium and immediately exploded in violence

--->In 1954, Laos gained its independence from France and it, too erupted in violence

--->Defense Secretary Robert McNamara pushed the strategy of "flexible response"

Stepping into the Vietnam Quagmire

--->The doctrine of "flexible response" provided a mechanism for a progressive, and possibly endless, stepping-up of the use of force (Vietnam)

--->In 1961, Kennedy increased the number of "military advisors" in South Vietnam in order to help protect Diem from the communists long enough to allow him to enact basic social reforms favored by the Americans

--->In November 1963, after being fed up with U.S. economic aid being embezzled by Diem, the Kennedy encouraged a successful coup and killed Diem

Cuban Confrontations

--->In 1961, President Kennedy extended the American hand of friendship to Latin America with the Alliance for Progress, called the Marshall Plan for Latin America

--->On April 17, 1961, 1,200 exiles landed at Cuba's Bay of Pigs

---> In October 1962, it was discovered that the Soviets were secretly installing nuclear missiles in Cuba

---> Instead, on October 22, 1962, he ordered a naval "quarantine" of Cuba and demanded immediate removal of the weapons

---> October 28, Khrushchev agreed to a compromise in which he would pull the missiles out of Cuba

--->In late 1963, a pact prohibiting trial nuclear explosions in the atmosphere was signed

--->In June 1963, President Kennedy gave a speech at American University, Washington, D.C.

--->encouraging Americans to abandon the negative views of the Soviet Union

The Struggle for Civil Rights

--->In 1960, groups of Freedom Riders spread out across the South to end segregation in facilities serving interstate bus passengers

----> A white mob torched a Freedom Ride bus near Anniston, Alabama in May 1961, when southern officials proved unwilling to stop the violence, federal marshals were dispatched to protect the freedom riders

--->For the most part, the Kennedy family and the King family (Martin Luther King, Jr.) had a good relationship

--->SNCC and other civil rights groups inaugurated a Voter Education Project to register the South's historically disfranchised blacks

--->In the spring of 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. launched a campaign against discrimination in Birmingham, Alabama, the most segregated big city in America

---> President Kennedy delivered a speech to the nation on June 11, 1963 in which he dedicated himself to finding a solution to the racial problems

--->In August 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. led 200,000 black and white demonstrators on a peaceful "March on Washington" in support of the proposed new civil rights legislation

The Killing of Kennedy

--->On November 22, 1963, President Kennedy was shot and killed as he was riding in an open limousine in Dallas, Texas

---> The alleged gunman was Lee Harvey Oswald who was shot and killed by self-appointed avenger, Jack Ruby

The LBJ Brand on the Presidency

--->After prodding from President Johnson, Congress passed the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, banning racial discrimination in most private facilities open to the public

---> Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to eliminate discrimination in hiring --->1965, President Johnson issued an executive order requiring all federal contractors to take "affirmative action" against discrimination. 

Johnson Battles Goldwater in 1964

--->The Democrats nominated Lyndon Johnson to run for president for the election of 1964

---> The Republicans chose Senator Barry Goldwater

--->In August 1964 in the Gulf of Tonkin, U.S. Navy ships had been cooperating with the South Vietnamese in raids along the coast of North Vietnam

---> On August 2th and August 4th, two U.S. ships were allegedly fired upon

--->Lyndon Johnson overwhelmingly won the election of 1964.

The Great Society Congress

--->Congress passed a flood of legislation, comparable to output of the Hundred Days Congress --->Escalating the War on Poverty, Congress doubled the funding of the Office of Economic Opportunity to $2 billion

---> Congress also created two new cabinet offices

---> the Department of Transportation and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)

---> The National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities was designed to lift the level of American cultural life

--->The Big Four legislative achievements that crowned LBJ's Great Society program

---> aid to education, medical care for the elderly and poor, immigration reform, and a new voting rights bill

--->1965 came Medicare for the elderly and Medicaid for the poor

---> The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 abolished the quota system that had been in place since 1921

Battling for Black Rights

--->The Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave the federal government more power to enforce school-desegregation orders and to prohibit racial discrimination in all kinds of public accommodations and employment

--->The 24^th Amendment, passed in 1964, abolished the poll tax in federal elections, yet blacks were still severely hampered from voting

---> Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, banning literacy tests and sending federal voter registers into several southern states

Black Power

--->Days after the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed, a bloody riot erupted in Watts, a black ghetto in Los Angeles

--->The Watts explosion marked increasing militant confrontation in the black struggle

---> Malcolm X deepened the division among black leaders

--->In 1965, he was shot and killed by a rival Nation of Islam.

--->The violence or threat of violence increased as the Black Panther party emerged, openly carrying weapons in the streets of Oakland, California

--->On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and killed by a sniper in Memphis, Tennessee. 

Combating Communism in Two Hemispheres

--->In April 1965, President Johnson sent 25,000 troops to the Dominican Republic to restore order after a revolt against the military government started

--->In February 1965, Viet Cong guerrillas attacked an American air base at Pleiku, South Vietnam, prompting Johnson to send retaliatory bomb raids and, for the first time, order attacking U.S. troops to land

---> By the middle of March 1965, "Operation Rolling Thunder" was in full swing - regular full-scale bombing attacks against North Vietnam

--->The South Vietnamese watched as their own war became more Americanized

--->By 1968, Johnson had put more than 500,000 troops in Southeast Asia, and the annual cost for the war was exceeding $30 billion

Vietnam Vexations

--->In June 1967, after numerous military threats presented by Egypt, Israel launched a pre-emptive attack on Egypt's airforce, starting the Six-Day War

----> Senator William Fulbright staged a series of televised hearings in 1966 and 1967 in which he convinced the public that it had been deceived about the causes and "winnability" of the war

--->By early 1968, the war had become the longest and most unpopular foreign war in the nation's history

---> Casualties, killed, and wounded had exceeded 100,000, and more bombs had been dropped in Vietnam than in World War II

--->In 1967, Johnson ordered the CIA to spy on domestic antiwar activists

Vietnam Topples Johnson

--->In January 1968, the Viet Cong attacked 27 key South Vietnamese cities, including Saigon

---> The Tet Offensive ended in a military defeat for the VC, but it caused the American public to demand an immediate end to the war

--->Eugene McCarthy and Robert F. Kennedy both entered the race for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination

--->On March 31, 1968, President Johnson issued an address to the nation stating that he would freeze American troop levels and gradually shift more responsibility to the South Vietnamese themselves

The Presidential Sweepstakes of 1968

--->On June 5, 1968, the night of the California primary, Robert Kennedy was shot and killed by an Arab immigrant resentful of the candidate's pro-Israel views

-->Hubert H. Humphrey, vice president of Johnson, won the Democratic nomination

--->The Republicans nominated Richard Nixon for president and Spiro T. Agnew for vice president

--->The Republican platform called for a victory in Vietnam and a strong anticrime policy

--->The American Independent party, headed by George C. Wallace, entered the race and called for the continuation of segregation of blacks

Victory for Nixon

--->Richard Nixon won the election of 1968 as Humphrey was scorched by the LBJ brand

The Obituary of Lyndon Johnson

---> By 1966, the Vietnam War brought dissent to Johnson, and as war costs sucked tax dollars, Great Society programs began to wither

The Cultural Upheaval of the 1960s

--->One of the first organized protests against established authority took place at the University of California at Berkeley in 1964, in the Free Speech Movement

---> Leader Mario Savio condemned the impersonal university "machine"

--->The 1960s also witnessed a "sexual revolution."

---> Mattachine Society, founded in 1951, was an advocate for gay rights

--->Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), had, by the end of the 1960s, spawned an underground terrorist group called the Weathermen

--->The upheavals of the 1960s could be largely attributed to the three Ps

---> the youthful population bulge, protest against racism and the Vietnam War, and the apparent permanence of prosperity.

ch 36 outline

Ch 36

Postwar Economic Anxieties

--->During the 1930s, unemployment and insecurity had pushed up the suicide rate and decreased the marriage rate

--->In the initial postwar years, the economy struggled; prices elevated 33% from 1946-1947 after the wartime price controls were removed

--->In 1947, the Republican Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act over President Truman's veto

--->It outlawed the "closed" (all-union) shop, made unions liable for damages that resulted from jurisdictional disputes among themselves, and required union leaders to take a noncommunist oath

--->The CIO's "Operation Dixie," aimed at unionizing southern textile workers and steelworkers, failed in 1948 to overcome lingering fears of racial mixing

--->Congress passed the Employment Act in 1946 to promote maximum employment, production, and purchasing power

---> It also created a 3-member Council of Economic Advisers to provide the president with the data and the recommendations to make that policy a reality.

--->The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944 made generous provisions for sending the former solders to school

The Long Economic Boom, 1950-1970

--->In the 1950s, the American economy entered a twenty-year period of tremendous growth

--->The size of the middle class doubled from pre-Great Depression days, including 60% of the population by the mid 1950s

--->The majority of new jobs created in the postwar era went to women, as the service sector of the economy dramatically outgrew the old industrial and manufacturing sectors

The Roots of Postwar Economy

--->The economic upturn of 1950 was fueled by massive appropriations for the Korean War and defense spending

---> The military budget helped jumpstart high-technology industries such as aerospace, plastics, and electronics

---> Cheap energy also fueled the economic boom

---> American and European companies controlled the flow of abundant petroleum from the expanses of the Middle East, and they kept prices low

--->Gains in productivity were enhanced the rising educational level for the work force

---> By 1970, nearly 90% of the school-age population was enrolled in educational institutions

The Smiling Sunbelt

--->In the 30 years after WWII, an average of 30 million people changed residence every year

--->The "Sunbelt", a 15-state area stretching from Virginia through Florida and Texas to Arizona and California, increased it population at a rate nearly double than that of the old industrial zones of the Northeast

---> In the 1950s, California alone accounted for 1/5 of the nation's population

The Rush to the Suburbs

---> The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and Veterans Administration (VA) made home-loan guarantees, making it more economically attractive to own a home in the suburbs rather than to rent an apartment in the city

--->"White flight" to the suburbs and the migration of blacks from the South left the inner cities, especially those in the Northeast and Midwest, to become poverty-stricken

The Postwar Baby Boom

--->In the decade and a half after 1945, the birth rate in the United States exploded as the "baby boom" took place

--->More than 50 million babies were born by the end of the 1950s

--->By 1973, the birth rates had dropped below the point necessary to maintain existing population figures

Truman: The "Gutty" Man from Missouri

--->The first president without a college education in many years, President Harry S Truman was known as "average man's average man"

Yalta: Bargain or Betrayal?

--->February 1945, the Big Three (Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin) met in Yalta to discuss the war's end

--->The most controversial decision concerned the Far East

---> The Soviet Union was also granted control over the railroads of China's Manchuria and special privileges in the two key seaports of that area, Dairen and Port Arthur

The United States and the Soviet Union

--->The United States terminated vital lend lease aid to a battered USSR in 1945 and ignored Moscow's plea for a $6 billion reconstruction loan-while approving a similar loan of $3.75 billion to Britain in 1946

---> By maintaining a Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern and Central Europe, the USSR could protect itself and consolidate its revolutionary base as the world's leading communist country

--->Unaccustomed to their great-power roles, the Soviet Union and the United States provoked each other into a tense, 40-year standoff known as the Cold War

Shaping the Postwar World

--->In 1944, the Western Allies met at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire and established the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to encourage world trade by regulating currency exchange rates

---> They also founded the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) to promote economic growth in war-ravaged and underdeveloped areas

--->The United Nations Conference opened on April 25, 1945

---> Meeting at the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House, representatives from 50 nations made the United Nations charter

---> It included the Security Council, dominated by the Big Five powers (the United States, Britain, the USSR, France, and China)

--->UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization), FAO (Food and Agricultural Organization), and WHO (World Health Organization), the U.N. brought benefits to people around the world

---?In 1946, Bernard Baruch called for a U.N. agency, free from the great-power veto, with worldwide authority over atomic energy, weapons, and research

---> The plan quickly fell apart as neither the United States nor the Soviet Union wanted to give up their nuclear weapons

The Problem of Germany

--->At Nuremberg, Germany from 1945-1946, Nazi leaders were tried and punished for war crimes

--->At the end of the war, Austria and Germany had been divided into 4 military occupation zones, each assigned to one of the Big Four powers (France, Britain, America, and the USSR)

---> In 1948, following controversies over German currency reform and four-power control, the Soviet Union attempted to starve the Allies out of Berlin by cutting off all rail and highway access to the city --->In May 1949, after America had flown in many supplies, the blockade was lifted

--->In 1949, the governments of East and West Germany were established

Crystallizing the War

--->In 1946, Stalin, seeking oil concessions, broke an agreement to remove his troops from Iran's northernmost province

--->In 1947, George F. Kennan formulated the "containment doctrine"

--->President Truman embraced the policy in 1947 when he stated that Britain could no longer bear the financial and military burden of defending Greece against communist pressures

--->On March 12, 1947, President Truman came before Congress and requested support for the Truman Doctrine

--->In 1947, France, Italy, and Germany were all suffering from the hunger and economic chaos caused in that year

---> Secretary of State George C. Marshall invited the Europeans to get together and work out a joint plan for their economic recovery

---> The Marshall Plan led to the eventual creation of the European Community (EC)

--->Truman officially recognized the state of Israel on May 14, 1948

America Begins to Rearm

--->In 1947, Congress passed the National Security Act, creating the Department of Defense

---> The department was headed by a new cabinet officer, the secretary of defense

--->The uniformed heads of each service were brought together as the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

--->The National Security Act also established the National Security Council (NSC) to advise the president on security matters and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to coordinate the government's foreign fact-gathering

--->In 1948, the United States joined the European pact, called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

---> The Senate passed the treaty on July 21, 1949.

Reconstruction and Revolution in Asia

--->General Douglas MacArthur took control of the democratization of Japan

--->In 1946, a MacArthur-dictated constitution was adopted

---> It renounced militarism and introduced western-style democratic government

--->1949, the Chinese Nationalist government of Generalissimo Jiang Jieshi was forced to flee the country to the island of Formosa (Taiwan) when the communists, led by Mao Zedong, swept over the country

--->In September 1949, the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb, 3 years before experts thought possible

--_>H-bomb (Hydrogen Bomb) was exploded in 1952.  The Soviets exploded their first H-bomb in 1953, and the nuclear arms race entered a dangerously competitive cycle

Feeling Out Alleged Communists

--->In 1947, President Truman launched the Loyalty Review Board to investigate the possibility of communist spies in the government

--->In 1949, 11 communists were sent to prison for violating the Smith Act of 1940

--->Dennis v. United States (1951)

--->In 1938, the House of Representatives established the Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) to investigate "subversion"

---> In 1948, Congressman Richard M. Nixon led the hunt for and eventual conviction of Alger Hiss, a prominent ex-New Dealer and a distinguished member of the "eastern establishment"

--->In 1950, Truman vetoed the McCarran Internal Security Bill

---->authorized the president to arrest and detain suspicious people during an "internal security emergency”

--->In 1951, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted and sentenced to death for stealing American atomic bomb plans and selling them to the Soviet Union

Democratic Divisions in 1948

---->In 1948, the Republicans chose Thomas E. Dewey to run for president

--->Democrats chose Truman

--->Progressive party nominated Henry A. Wallace.  Expected to lose, but not ready to give up, Truman traveled the country, giving energetic speeches

--->President Truman called for a "bold new program" ("Point Four")

---> The plan was to lend U.S. money and technical aid to underdeveloped lands to help them help themselves

--->At home, Truman outlined a "Fair Deal" program in 1949

--->raising the minimum wage, providing for public housing in the Housing Act of 1949

--->extending old-age insurance to many more beneficiaries in the Social Security Act of 1950

The Korean Volcano Erupts (1950)

--->When Japan collapsed in 1945, Korea had been divided up into two sections

---> the Soviets controlled the north above the 38^th parallel and the United States controlled south of that line

--->On June 25, 1950, the North Korean army invaded South Korea

--->NSC-68 was a key document of the Cold War because it not only marked a major step in the militarization of American foreign policy, but it reflected the sense of almost limitless possibility that encompassed postwar American society

--->On June 25, 1950, President Truman obtained from the United Nations Security Council a unanimous condemnation of North Korea as an aggressor

The Military Seesaw in Korea

--->On September 15, 1950, General MacArthur succeeded in pushing the North Koreans past the 38^th parallel

---> On November 1950, though, hordes of communist Chinese "volunteers" attacked the U.N. forces, pushing them back to the 38^th parallel

--->Due to General MacArthur's insubordination and disagreement with the Joint Chiefs of Staff about increasing the size of the war, President Truman was forced to remove MacArthur from command on April 11, 1951

--->In July 1951, truce discussions dragged out over the issue of prisoner exchange