The cold war in vietnam

1. The cold war in vietnam By: Wanizhah Zahra, Brianna Veerasammy, and Wesley Mong.

2. Presidents of the Cold War: • President Harry S. Truman: • Foreign Policy: Truman Doctrine stated that he would support any country economically and militarily in order to stop the spread of communism. • Acts: Taft-Hartley Act, 1947: outlawed the “closed” (all union) shop made unions liable for damages that resulted from jurisdictional disputes among themselves. Required union leaders to take a non-communist path. • McCarran Internet Security Bill: Authorized the President to arrest and detain suspicious people during an “international security emergency.” • President Dwight D. Eisenhower: • Foreign Policy: Dulles Diplomacy and massive retaliation: a military doctrine and nuclear strategy in which a state commits itself to retaliate in much greater force in the event of an attack. • Acts: Interstate Highway Act: offered benefits to the trucking, automobile, oil, and travel industries. • Landrum-Griffin Act, 1959: Designed to bring labor leaders to book for financial shenanigans and to prevent bullying tactics. • National Defense and Education Act: Authorized $887 million in loans to needy college students and in grants for the improvement of teaching the sciences and languages.

3. Platforms of Truman and Eisenhower • Democratic party platform: • vetoed Taft-Hartley bill • courted black Americans by favoring civil rights • anti-Soviet policy won Truman support among many Americans • Recognizing the new state of Israel solidified his relationship with American Jews. • Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan • Republican party platform: • armistice to end the Korean War. • Fight unemployment • federal minimum wage was raised for more then 2 million workers • extension of social security to more than 10 million workers • supported “ self-government, national suffrage and representation in the Congress of the United States for residents of the District of Columbia.”

4. Presidents (cont.) • President John F. Kennedy: • Foreign Policy: “flexible response”: Developing an array of military “options” that could be precisely matched to the gravity of the crisis at hand. • President Lyndon B. Johnson: • Acts: Civil Rights Act of 1964: banned racial discrimination in most private facilities open to public, strengthened the federal government’s power to end segregation in schools and other public places. • Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965: abolished the quota system that had been in place since 1921; also doubled the number of immigrants allowed to enter the country annually; sources of immigration shift from Europe to Latin America and Asia. • Voting Rights Act of 1965: banned literacy tests and sending federal voter registers into several southern states.

5. Platforms of JFK and Johnson • Democratic party platform: • JFK hoped to pull together key elements of the Roosevelt coalition of the 1930s—urban minorities, ethnic voting blocs, and organized labor. • The new Democratic Administration wanted to recast military capacity in order to provide forces and weapons of a diversity, balance, and mobility sufficient in quantity and quality to deter both limited and general aggressions. • The new Democratic Administration will review their system of pacts and alliances. They shall continue to adhere to current treaty obligations, including the commitment of the UN Charter to resist aggression. But shall also seek to shift the emphasis of our cooperation from military aid to economic development, wherever this is possible. • national peace agency of disarmament • President Johnson platform: • allieviating poverty • introduced Medicare and Head start • wanted to build a Great Society for Americans

6. More Presidents... • President Richard Nixon: • Foreign Policy: Nixon Doctrine: proclaimed that the U.S. would honor its existing defense commitments but that in the future, Asians and others would have to fight their own wars without the support of American troops. • Acts: Philadelphia Plan of 1969: required construction trade unions working on federal contracts to establish “goals and time tables” for the hiring of black apprentices. • President Gerald R. Ford: • Treaties: Helsinki Accords: agreements, small dissident movements in E.E. and U.S.S.R. • President James E. Carter Jr: • Treaties: Camp David Accords: held considerable promise of peace.

7. Causes of the Vietnam War: • North Vietnam wanted to rule South Vietnam. • Nixon’s policy of containment. • America did not want Vietnam falling into communist hands. • Domino Theory: If one country falls into communism, so will the rest. • The last US combat troops left Vietnam in March 1973, two months after a ceasefire was signed at talks in Paris. As American aid decreased, Chinese & Soviet aid increased and in Jan. 1975 N. Vietnam launched a full-scale attack on the South.

8. Effects of the Vietnam War: • The governement of North Vietnam sent soldiers to South Vietnam. • The United States sent weapons and planes to South Vietnam. • In August 1964, the US Congress passed a resolution giving the president power to go to war. In February 1965, the U.S. began bombing the north and soon 184,000 American soldiers were fighting in Vietnam. • On 31 April the North captured Saigon and the following year N + S Vietnam were united to form a single nation.

9. Amendements: • 24th Amendment: abolished poll tax in federal elections. • 26th Amendment: lowered the voting age to 18. • Equal Rights Amendment: Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the U.S. or by any state on account of gender.

10. Supreme Court Cases: • Brown V. Board of Education: ruled that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. • Gideon V. Wainwright: all defendants in serious criminal cases were entitled to legal council, even if they were poor to afford it. • Escobedo V. Illinois (1964) & Miranda V. Arizona (1966): Ensured the right of the accused to remain silent and to enjoy other prosecutions when accused of a crime. • Engel V. Vitale (1962) & S.D. of Abington Township V. Schempp (1963): Voted against required prayers and bible readings in public schools. • Roe V. Wade (1973): legalized abortion. • Milliken V. Bradley (1974): desegregation plans could not require students to move across the school district lines. Reinforced “white flight” from cities to suburbs. • Bakke case (1978): Supreme court upheld his claim that his application to medical school had been turned down.

11. Publications: • Literary themes and styles: began to write about war in fantastic and psyched prose, upper-class New Yorkers. • Poets: often highly critical and deeply despairing about American life; Ezra Pand and Wallace Stevens older, Roethlee and Lauell younger. • Playwrights: Tennessee Williams wrote searing dramas, Arthur Miller wrote about American values. • Black Authors: Richard Wright: Native Son, Ralph Ellison: Invisible Man, James Baldwin: The Free Next Time. • Southern Literature: Renaissance, William Faulkner, Robert Pennwarren, Flanner O’ Connor, William Styran about Nat Turner Rebellion. • Jewish Authors: J.D. Stallinger, experience of lower middle class immigrants.