Unit 21: 1960s Cold War Battlefields

OHS US HISTORY TEAM

Learning Objectives

• Analyze the impact of television and mass media on the American home, politics, and economy

• Describe President John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier programs to improve education, end discrimination, create the peace Corps and put a man on the moon.

• Describe the causes, course, and consequences of the Vietnam War

• Compare the policies and practices of presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon and their impacts on the continuation of the Vietnam War.

Big Concepts• Vietnam, a small primarily Buddhist agricultural country in South East Asia had long be under the

control of France (Imperialism).

• Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh, a communist, sought to expel the French from the country.

• Waging a guerilla war against the French army the French leave and agree to divide the country into two. North Vietnam (communist) and South Vietnam (non-communist).

• Ho Chi Minh seeks to unite the country under one communist state and begins a military campaign against South Vietnam.

• America’s Cold War policy of containment brings American advisors and military support into South Vietnam.

• John F. Kennedy uses the first ever televised presidential debates to defeat Vice President Richard Nixon in the 1960 election.

• President Kennedy faces communist challenges in Cuba and Vietnam and must deal with the new leader of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev.

• Kennedy is assassinated in 1963 while visiting Dallas, Texas.

• Lyndon Johnson, his vice president, becomes President.

• Throughout the 1960s American military involvement in Vietnam increases and includes the deployment of hundreds of thousands of troops in bloody and controversial conflict

• The Vietnam War destroys Lyndon Johnson’s presidency who vows not to run for reelection in 1968.

• Richard Nixon returns and wins the 1968 presidential election in the greatest political comeback of all time.

Vocabulary

• Yellow – must copy

• Green – copy if time permits

Television

• Television slowly replaces the radio as America’s new entertainment and communication tool.

• The 1960 presidential debates are the first ever televised.

• Kennedy young and tan impresses the audience

• Nixon recovering from a cold looks pale and sweaty.

Kennedy’s New Frontier

• Improve the education system – fears of falling behind to Soviets

• Continue the containment of communism

• Fight racial discrimination

• Peace Corp - provide social and economic development abroad

• Put a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s –Apollo Missions

Cuban Missile Crisis• Cuba falls to communist rebels led by Fidel Castro

• Castro allies Cuba with the Soviet Union

• Bay of Pigs Invasion - Kennedy attempts a CIA backed invasion of Cuba to overthrow Castro.

• The invasion fails and makes Kennedy look weak.

• Fidel allows Nikita Khrushchev's Soviet Union to build nuclear missile launch pads on the island.

• In a tense standoff the United States and Soviet Union almost go to war over Cuba.

• The Soviets agree at the last minute to remove the missiles.

Vietnam – Early Involvement• 1954 – Geneva Accords – Vietnam divided into two countries.

• 1955 - North Vietnam begins guerilla war against South Vietnam

• Eisenhower and Kennedy begins their policies of containment by providing military supplies and advisors to South Vietnam.

• 1965 – President Johnson claims that an American naval vessel is attacked by North Vietnam.

• 1965 – Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution allowing the President to deploy combat troops into Vietnam.

• <-Vietnam

• Ho Chi Minh ->

Vietnam War

• By 1968 there are over 500,000 American soldiers in South Vietnam.

• The United States uses napalm (long burning fire bomb) and Agent Orange (chemical that kills trees and vegetation).

• North Vietnam and its Viet Cong guerilla fighters use the jungle to hide and evade the United States military.

• 1968 – Johnson declares that the United States is winning the war

1968 – Tet Offensive• North Vietnam and the Viet Cong

launch surprise attacks across South Vietnam.

• The attacks shock the United States.

• Much of it is shown on television.

• American’s begin turning against the war.

Anti-War Movement• 1969 - The United States begins a draft by

lottery for the war

• This becomes very unpopular especially among college students.

• Television showing America’s military campaigns against a third world country spark anger towards the government.

• The anti-war movement against President Johnson and the democrats sparks confrontations across America’s college campuses and cities.

Nixon’s Vietnam Strategy

• Nixon begins to remove America’s military from Vietnam through a policy of heavy bombing and Vietnamization.

• Vietnamization – the idea to replace American soldiers with trained South Vietnamese soldiers.

• Bombing – Nixon heavily bombs North Vietnam and Cambodia (a neutral country)

• These policies fail as Nixon removes the last troops and North Vietnam conquers South Vietnam.

• The war officially ends in 1975

Space Race• 1963-1972 - The Apollo Program designed to land humans on the

Moon and bring them safely back to Earth.

• Six of the missions (Apollos 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17) achieved this goal.

• Apollo 11 – Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins

Satellite Imagery of landing sites