Above: Berlin Wall
Below: Confrontation during Prague Spring |
The term refers to the lack of “hot” fighting, that is, large-scale fighting whereas most of it was a political game. It was an ideological conflict between the Soviet Union and other Communist-controlled countries (known as satellite states and consisting of all the countries in the Eastern Bloc) and the Capitalist West; as both sides were prepared for a nuclear war, it was an incredibly tense time, but the promise of Mutually Assured Destruction ensured neither side set off their arsenal. In general, historians agree that it occurred in multiple phases from the end of World War II until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. An early element of allegiance was President Truman’s doctrine in 1947 with the intention of ensuring all peoples remain free – that is, capitalist – and thus the US must contain communism, an attitude that underpinned much of Cold War (and Vietnam) policy.
A couple major events early on were the foundation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Chinese Civil War, and the Korean War. In 1953, the political leaders changed to Eisenhower and Khrushchev (who initiated a light process of de-Stalinization, as he recognized his flaws). In 1956, Hungary revolted and threatened to leave the Warsaw Pact – a Soviet response to NATO – which resulted in an invasion from the Soviet Army and vastly undermined the moral of countries in the Eastern Bloc. A similar attempt at ignoring communism and a similar violent response occurred in 1968 during the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia. In 1961, the Soviets closed a “hole” in the iron curtain and built the Berlin Wall to avoid the loss of education professionals to the West. In 1962, Khrushchev learned about the CIA’s plan to assassinate their ally, Castro, and installed missiles in Cuba which started the missile crisis – thankfully, they backed down after the US issued an ultimatum; this, among other things, led to his oustment in 1964. The 1960s – 1970s were marginally calmer, but the Vietnam War was a direct result of an attempt to avoid, according to LBJ, “another Cuba.” However, the process of détente – a reduction of tensions – was initiated in 1969. As the Cold War was really a conflict between the West and East, in addition to nuclear weapons, the Space Race was also a result of the Cold War; it began with the 1957 launch of Sputnik 1, the first satellite. |
While the war was officially fought between North and South Vietnam, it was used as a battleground for Cold War tensions. The North’s army (and the guerrilla Viet Cong) was supported by communists and the South was supported by the US and other capitalist countries. France, who had colonized Indochina in the mid-1800s, granted freedom to Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam after a major military defeat in 1954, and Vietnam then dealt with a lot of internal conflict. In South Vietnam, Ngô Đình Diệm was elected President, although there is controversy surrounding his vote. Due to his Roman Catholic extremism, he persecuted the Buddhists, of which Vietnam had a majority, and enacted policies with a negative effect in the countryside. While the US supported South Vietnam from the sidelines, Diệm was dangerous and immovable, thus the US did nothing to stop a regime change in 1963 brewing that would eventually result in him (and his brother’s) execution. Afterwards, the US had their hands in every brief regime in South Vietnam. After the controversial Gulf of Tonkin incident, in which shots were supposedly exchanged between North Vietnam and U.S. ships, LBJ became more directly involved with the war and the first ground troops arrived in 1965 and remained until 1973. While there, soldiers used Agent Orange, which has had very long lasting results of environmental and health issues, and have accusations of war crimes and misconduct. However, the war lasted until 1975 with the fall of Saigon, shortly after the resignation of South Vietnam President Thieu, who had some scathing words for the “betrayal” of the U.S. On July 2, 1976, both sides were merged into a single socialist republic. Another result was the rise of the Khmer Rouge, who committed a horrific genocide in Cambodia.
In the United States, the war was marked by extremely polarizing views, either very for or strongly against. Reasons for opposition were the draft, concerns about the real reasoning behind intervening, and the increase of war-time reporting due to the increase in media proliferation. Much of the antiwar movement occurred through the youth and on college campuses, as did other cultural movements of the decade. |
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Above: Till's funeral and his mother.
Below: Greensboro sit-in day one. Far bottom: Selma. |
Despite the end of slavery following the Civil War, African-Americans in the U.S. have always been treated horribly through racially-motivated violence, racism, and segregation. In the 1960s, following a consistent “separate but equal” doctrine that legally allowed segregation, disenfranchisement and legal racism, economic exploitation, and violence, minority groups had enough and acted out and sought to change the way the country ran. While the fight for equal civil liberties was being fought on all fronts during the 1960s – for example, through the Chicano movement, Asian American movements, etc. – the black struggle for power was the most prominent. A few notable triggers include 1954’s Brown v. Board of Education case – in which the Supreme Court ruled that racially segregated schools were unconstitutional –, the murder of Emmett Till – a 14-year old black boy who was lynched and mutilated for whistling at a white woman –, Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott – which protest segregated seating –, and the Little Rock Nine – nine black students who required the National Guard to help them get into their high school.
At the beginning, African-Americans advanced their causes through nonviolence. Methods of action were sit-ins, in which people simply sat in silence in areas they weren’t allowed, freedom rides, in which protestors attempted to integrate bus seating arrangements, attempts at voter registration, and marches, such as King’s famous March on Washington. Due to the strong tension – especially in ex-Confederate states --, African-Americans were met with extreme violence, threats, bombings, and death. In the mid-1960s, Malcolm X and other black nationalists began to form groups and react to racism and freedom restrictions got more violent. However, it is important to recognize that the movement occurred nationally via many different methods, actions, and factions and there is no one “right” way things got done. Also, there were a lot of other activist movements happening at the time, such as the women’s liberation movement, which focused a lot on women in families and body autonomy and led, among many other things, to the foundation of the National Organization for Women was founded in 1966. Furthermore, the gay liberation movement appeared in the late-1960s and led to the 1969 Stonewall riots – widely considered to be one of the founding moments of modern LGBTQIA+ rights movements –, in which patrons of the Stonewall Inn, mainly trans people of color, rioted against a police raid that attempted to shut down one of their few safe places. |
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J. Edgar Hoover:
He was a major player in the founding of the FBI in 1935 and was its first director until his death in 1972. While respected for his influence in modifying the FBI into a prominent agency with modernizations, evidence of his abuse of power appeared following his death. In addition to investigating gangsters in the 1930s and 1940s, the FBI kept suspected radicals or subversives under surveillance in the 1950s and on, some of which led to FBI policies such as COINTELPRO, which dabbled in illegality to incriminate communists. Rosenberg Trial: The Rosenberg Trial is a controversial 1953 Cold War case that resulted in the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, United States citizens who supposedly gave nuclear weapon designs and classified information to the USSR. While the couple is considered to be guilty, their trial was a mess and the death penalty was an extreme result due to some framing and tampering with evidence. After the sentencing, there was a major campaign in both the US and abroad in which many left-leaning figures – such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Einstein, and Frida Kahlo – tried to stop the execution. In 1995, the Verona project information was released by the government and revealed the extent to which the Rosenberg’s were involved with espionage. Daughters of the American Revolution: DAR is a membership-based non-profit organization for women who are direct descendants of people involved in the Revolutionary War founded in 1890 in response to the exclusion of women in the Sons of the American Revolution. This interesting, as the group is well-known for excluding African-American performers and women from joining; the first African American member, Karen Batchelor Farmer, didn’t join until 1977. However, they have been supporting more women of color since the mid-1980s. As their website notes, their mission is “[to dedicate] themselves to historical preservation, promotion of education, and encouragement of patriotic endeavor.” |