The Years of TurbulenceAmerica, 1965-1980

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Economic challenges By 1965, America was facing serious challenges in steel, automobile, and electronic production from other countries. Japan and Germany were among those who had cut production costs with the use of Unimate robotic arms (an American development).

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Greater Militancy in civil rightsIn 1966, 6 young men in California formed the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. Dissatisfied with the gradual strategy of gaining civil rights through non-violence, the Panthers called for black neighborhoods to arm against “government suppression.” Johnson found the Panther’s revolutionary rhetoric dangerous, and ordered FBI surveillance.

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New Civil Rights LeadersJohnson’s “new new deal” programs for fighting poverty did not impress a younger, more vocal group of civil rights leaders. Malcolm X, leader of a Nation of Islam splinter group, was challenging the King-era leadership, and gaining many followers. Long before Malcolm's murder (by rivals in the movement), the FBI was using wire-taps to gain information on the Nation of Islam.

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Racial Tensions

The civil rights movement had created tensions in American cities. Clashes between police and citizens in black neighborhoods, like Watts (above, in 1965) and Detroit (in 1967), led to violence and social divisions.

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The Generation GapBy the mid-60’s, the earliest baby boomers were twenty years old. They had in large numbers embraced cultural values different from their parents. The most vocal (literally) difference was in music, where rock-and-roll, which had been suppressed on AM radio in many places in the 1950s, now reigned supreme on FM radio. Rock’s lyrics of protest (written by Bob Dylan, left, and others) troubled the Kennedy generation of the Depression/War era.

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New Generation, New TechnologySales for Japanese electronics were brisk in the 60’s, especially with the baby boomers, who wanted to embrace new music, new ideas, and new things. The “generation gap” was known as the “blue jeans vs. the geritols” in ad agencies, which pushed for “youth” TV after 1964.

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Generation PoliticsWith the Cold War it was inevitable that generational differences would arise. The Students for Democratic Society (SDS) was founded in 1962. In the SDS “Port Huron Statement,” the young authors proclaimed their issues, criticizing the older generation for tolerating racial and sexual intolerance, for supporting “brush fire wars” around the world, for permitting pollutions and a nuclear standoff that might “destroy the planet.”

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DrugsThe increased use of marijuana and other narcotics as leisure drugs among the middle class was also a divisive issue. In 1965, possession of one joint of pot could result in a 10-15 year jail sentence in over half of the 50 states. The invention of LSD, and its widespread use in arts, entertainment, and eventually suburbia, led the Federal government to create the DEA.

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Gender Wars?Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, published in 1963, expressed the frustrations of American women over the 1950s images of female domesticity. With others, she inspired a women's liberation movement.

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Free Speech, Foul Speech

When the University of California at Berkeley refused to allow Malcolm X and “other radicals” to speak at student sponsored functions, the students responded with a “free speech protest.” By the end of the 60’s, most “loco parentis” rules were discarded at public universities and colleges.

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Johnson’s Idea of a “Great Society”In 1964, LBJ won the presidency in his own right. Choosing Minnesota Senator Hubert Humphrey as his running mate, he devised a program of economic reform that would build what he called a "Great Society."

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Elements of the Great Society

•Carry out the unfinished goals of the New Deal – universal health care, civil rights protections, etc.

•Enhance American culture through Federal aid to the arts, sciences, and humanities.

•Show the world that the “American Way” was superior to the ideas of “world socialism” being offered by the “Soviet Bloc” of nations.

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Key Actions of the Program

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War on Poverty In his first State of the Union address, on January 8,

1964, President Johnson announced that his administration "today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America, and I urge this Congress and all Americans to join with me in that effort.“

His program called for a systematic effort in "chronically distressed areas" of the country, a youth employment ("job corps") plan, expansion of the food stamp and unemployment relief systems, and special aid to schools, libraries, hospitals, and nursing homes.

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War on Poverty:President Johnson and Mrs. Johnson in Kentucky

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1965: Title XVIII and XIX of the Social Security Act

Medicare (Title XVIII) established to provide health insurance coverage to persons over age 65

Medicaid (Title XIX) established to provide health insurance coverage to low income women and children (also, aged, blind and disabled)

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1965: Title V Amended, P.L. 89-97

The 1965 amendments (P.L. Law 89-97) amended Title

V of the Social Security Act by providing

comprehensive health care for children and youth. A primary directive was to make these services

accessible, available and appropriate to the identified low-income neighborhoods

The intent was to provide comprehensive health care to children and youth including health supervision, screening, medical care, nutrition, and social services.

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1966: Highway Safety Act and the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act Authorized the federal government to set and regulate

standards for motor vehicles and highways

Vehicles were built with new safety features, including head rests, energy-absorbing steering wheels, shatter-resistant windshields, and safety belts

By 1970, motor-vehicle-related death rates were decreasing

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1968: School Lunch and Child Nutrition Act Expanded

In 1968, Congress expanded the School Lunch and Child Nutrition Act.

A program was created to provide food for school-age

children during the summer. Additionally, a year-round program was initiated to

provide food to low-income children, as well as children in day-care centers and Head Start programs.

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Expanding Voting Rights

In August 1965, Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, a measure he had pushed through Congress. The act outlawed literacy tests as a way of limiting the right to vote. It also provided Federal resources to investigate actions to prevent people from voting

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Money for Culture

Johnson also supported bills to establish the National Endowment for Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts. Both the NEA and the NEH, created in 1965, would be the focus of controversy for the Federal money given to support projects that some found offensive.

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Controversial Social IssuesThe 1960s and 1970s were a time when Americans divided over many issues: race, taxes, foreign policy, and social questions. One of the most divisive issues was school prayer. In Engle vs. Vitale, the US Supreme ruled against school prayer in any public, tax-supported school. The issue has remained divisive since.

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Whose Bodies?

Perhaps no issue of this era has generated more division that Roe Vs. Wade, a Supreme Court decision in 1973 that made abortions legal in all states.

From 1973 on, anti-abortion groups have tended to support the more conservative tenets of the Republican Party, the membership in which began to grow rapidly in the 1970s.

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Money TroubleSeveral of the Great Society programs were quite successful, including VISTA, Head Start, and other parts of the “War on Poverty.” But, when coupled with the expenses of the Vietnam conflict, the cost of these programs forced Johnson to increase taxes. Tax payers soon complained and Johnson was increasingly forced to consider the issue of “guns vs. butter” – reduce his Great Society costs or reduce his commitment in Vietnam.

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Vietnam Vietnam became a major US commitment in 1965, when Johnson claimed that two US warships had been attacked late one night by North Vietnamese craft in the Tonkin Gulf. The facts surrounding this attack remain controversial, but in passing the “Tonkin Gulf Resolution,” Congress gave the president power to send US troops to Vietnam. The number of troops grew to over 500,000 by 1968.

LBJ meets with Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to discuss troop strength in Vietnam.

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Large Scale WarfareAmerican efforts in Vietnam included heavy use of bombers to attack enemy troops and North Vietnamese industry, ground troop sweeps into areas under guerilla control, use of chemicals to destroy jungle vegetation (to expose enemy camps). Everything short of atomic weapons were used. Agent Orange, a chemical used to kill jungle vegetation,

was later found to be a major contributor to cancer in soldiers who served in Vietnam.

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Stalemate American troops won virtually every battle in Vietnam, but the war went on and American casualties continued to increase. A frustrated Johnson began to argue with General William Westmoreland, his commander in Vietnam. As Westmoreland called for more troops, the American press began to call the Vietnam a “quagmire.”

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War at HomeVietnam divided the American public. Protests by draft-age students, mothers, and veterans of previous wars became more frequent. Television news heightened the violence of these protests and support for Johnson’s presidency began to decline.

Because a college student could obtain a “deferment” from being drafted, college enrollment grew to unprecedented levels from 1965-1973.

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Tet OffensiveIn the early days of 1968, the Vietcong launched a series of unexpected attacks on American bases in Vietnam. At one point insurgents controlled part of the American embassy in Saigon. Because Johnson had recently announced that America was “clearly winning” the war, this seriously damaged his support.

The 1969 Vietcong attacks were called the Tet Offensive because the began during the Tet (lunar new year) holidays.

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1968 ElectionsHis presidency under attack, Johnson chose not to run for re-election in 1968. The 1968 Democratic convention chose Hubert Humphrey as the presidential candidate. But the convention was also the site of the most violent anti-war protests yet.

Harmed by his connection to Johnson, Humphrey lost the election to Richard Nixon

Chicago police suppressed the anti-war demonstrations with particular brutality, with hundreds injured.

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Nixon’s Turn Nixon tried to solve the Vietnam issue by expanding the war – sending US troops into neighboring Cambodia (where Vietcong kept sanctuaries). This led to new protests. One, at Kent State in Ohio, led to tragedy in May 1970 when National Guardsmen fired on students and killed four.

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“Only Nixon Could Go to China”Nixon now turned to diplomacy. The sight of a veteran anti-communist visiting China in 1971 was strange, but he managed to create better relations with China. While this did not help with Vietnam, it did help Nixon by opening the door to disarmament talks with Russia.

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DetenteA French word for the lessening of tension, détente, became the label for Nixon’s policy of obtaining an agreement with the Soviet Union for reducing the number of nuclear missiles each side had aimed at one another. Nixon’s visit to Russia in 1972 also helped open the door to American troop reductions in Vietnam.

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Dirty Tricks

Believing that anti-war groups were being influenced by the USSR or communist groups, the White House authorized a group (known as the “White House Plumbers” – to stop leaks) to search homes and plant microphones. When this group was caught breaking into the Democratic Party national headquarters office at the Watergate Building in 1972, no one guessed that this incident would destroy a presidency. Former CIA agent Howard Hunt testifies before Congress

in 1973. Hunt controlled the men to had broken in the Watergate Democratic Office.

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The Watergate ScandalThe Watergate scandal grew as more and more White House officials (including the Attorney General and the Chief of Staff) were implicated in the attempts to cover up the White connections to the “plumbers.” In 1973, it was discovered that Nixon’s own office conversations had been recorded and that he may had ordered the CIA to block the FBI’s investigation of Watergate. If true, Nixon would be guilty of obstruction of justice.

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Resignation

In 1974, the US Supreme Court ordered the White to give up its tapes to the Congress investigation. When these confirmed that Nixon had tried to stop a criminal investigation, Nixon resigned to avoid an impeachment.

Gerald Ford, his successor, pardoned Nixon two months later.

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The Carter Presidency Jimmy Carter, president from 1977-1981, made numerous proposals for energy savings, reduced alliance on foreign oil, and environmental preservation. His biggest foreign policy achievement was to persuade Israel and Egypt to agree (in the Camp David Accord) to end 30 years of intermittent warfare. This put the leadership of the anti-Israel alliance into the hands of Iraq and Iran. Carter’s failure to solve a crisis with Iran, holding US hostages, cost him the 1980 election.

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Hostage CrisisProgress toward peace in the Middle East was derailed in November 1979, when Shiite Muslims in Iran seized 66 US hostages and held them in Tehran. Carter’s inability to gain the release of the hostages made his defeat in the 1980 election almost a certainty.

The national mood was also moving toward a more conservative point of view.

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The National Swing Away From Reform

Ronald Reagan’s victory in 1980 marked the moment that the national mood moved away from the Depression-motivated ideas of government toward the pre-1933 ideas of government. The Reagan years were marked by a more aggressive form of anti-communism and a rejection of most Great Society programs.