The Road to 9/11

I. Reagan's Policy

A. The Reagan Doctrine--Reagan had long been a proponent of "containment" of Soviet influence, and rejected Jimmy Carter's policy of making human rights the linchpin of foreign policy. The Reagan Doctrine was meant to rollback Soviet influence around the world.

1. Support for the Contras--Sandinista rebels in Nicaragua had overthrown longtime dictator Anastocio Somoza,  and were attempting to foster a similar revolution in neighboring Salvador. The Reagan administration began supplying arms to the Contras in the hope of destabilizing the Nicaraguan government.

2. The Enemy of My  Enemy is My Friend--despite back channel diplomatic efforts during the 1980 presidential election to free US hostages in Iran, the US supported Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran, despite his use of weapons of mass destruction (biological and chemical weapons) against the Iranians--and dissident groups within his country.

3. Beruit--US Marines initially sent to facilitate PLO pullout, but after the assassination of Israeli -friendly Christian leader Bashir Gemayel, and Israel allowing Christian forces to retaliate by slaughtering more than 1,000 Palestinians in a refugee camp, the initial contingent was reinforced--but rather than act as an impartial arbitrator, US forces began shelling Muslim militia positions. The upshot was the suicide bomb attack that killed 241 Marines--and led to the quiet withdrawal of US forces from Lebanon.


4. Grenada--Reagan had been planning an invasion of this tiny Caribbean nation, and after the fiasco in Lebanon this gave him a quick victory to remove  the defeat from the newspapers.

5. Continued support for the mujahideen--begun under Jimmy Carter after the Soviet invasion to prop up that country's puppet regime, this policy maintained pressure on the Soviets--and kept them engaged in an increasingly unpopular war at home. Support for the mujahideen came from across the Muslim world, including the son of a prominent Saudi family by the name of Osama bin Laden.


II. Bush the Elder

A. Patrician background--Bush's father was an investment banker and senator from Connecticut. Bush, like his father before him--and his sons afterward--attended Philips Andover Academy and Yale University.


B. Public Service and Private Gain--the Bush family, more so than most, was able to make a great deal of private gain from their public service, mainly through connections made with business people.


1. Marriage and college--Bush's education was interrupted by his service, which he entered soon after graduating from Philips in 1942. Bush survived being shot down in the Pacific, and on his return to the US at the close of the war Bush married Barbara Pierce that year; the first child, George, as born in 1946.


2. George Bush, oilman--Bush used family connections to make a great deal of money in the oil business in Texas during the 1950s and early 1960s, so that he was able to retire at the age of 40 from the oil business.


3. Bush the politician--used family connections to finagle one of the few "safe" Republican seats in Texas in  the mid-1960s. Bush was not driven by any ideology to get into politics; although he voted against the Civil Rights Act in 1964, he later moderated his position on this issue. For Bush, policy positions were merely a means to get elected.

a. 1980 Election--Bush was one of a number of Republican candidate in 1980, even going so far as labeling the economic plans of opponent Ronald Reagan as "voodoo economics"--but when he has defeated by Reagan, he accepted the latter's offer to become his vice-presidential candidate.

b. Bush's foreign policy experience--Bush was unusual as a candidate for the executive branch, in that he had served both as an ambassador and as the head of he CIA. His claim to have been "out of the loop" during the Iran-Contra affair was, therefore, not very believable--and, indeed, later evidence has proven that statement to be false.


C. Operation Desert Storm--this brief and successful military operation left Iraq, already impoverished by the Iran/Iraq war of the previous decade, in even worse shape, under  stringent UN sanctions (which they regularly violated, to little effect).


III. The Clinton Years

A. William J. Clinton--Born in Hope, Arkansas, and raised in Hot Springs, Clinton was a graduate of Georgetown University, and a Rhodes Scholar. He served as an elected official in Arkansas in a variety of capacities after graduating from Yale Law School (where he met and married a fellow law student named Hilary Rodham), eventually becoming governor of Arkansas


B. Clinton's Foreign Policy--After an attack with a truck bomb on the World Trade Center in New York City, the Clinton Administration began looking for ways to strike back at Osama bin Laden, who headed up the Al Qaeda.


1. Bosnia--the break-up of Yugoslavia--into Slovakia, Croatia, Macedonia, and Bosnia--led to increased ethnic tensions, which then exploded into ethnic cleansing, as the Slovaks and Croats attempted to eliminate the ethnic Bosnians, who were Muslim.


2. Somalia--the placement of US troops in that unstable place in the world, to bring stability, began under George H.W. Bush; with the murder of US troops in Mogadishu (made famous in Black Hawk Down), led to the withdrawal of those troops.


3. Attack on the USS Cole--a suicide attack on a US warship anchored at the Yemeni port of Aden resulted in the deaths of 17 sailors.


IV. George W. Bush and 9/11

A. Early life--although born in New Haven, Connecticut, while his father was attending Yale, Bush grew up in Texas (although he returned east to attend boarding school and Yale, just like father). After graduating from Yale in 1968 (at the height of the Vietnam War), Bush was able to obtain a treasured position in the Texas Air National Guard, which meant that he would not drafted and sent to Vietnam. Although he failed to fulfill his obligation, he was still able to obtain an honorable discharge, and went off to Harvard and obtained a MBA.


B. Mid-life crisis--Bush moved back to Texas, ran for office unsuccessfully, and then failed in a series of business ventures. It was not until friends of his father gave him a stake in the Texas Rangers baseball team, and made him the public face of the team--and he was able, with their help, to threaten and cajole the local government in the city of Arlington to build the team a new stadium with tax payer dollars, that he became a "success." Bush then profited from selling his share of the team, which helped him re-launch his political career, when he beat the popular Ann Richards in the race for governor of Texas.

C. 2000 Election campaign--Bush promised "compassionate conservatism" and to return "honor" to the White House--and still lost the popular election to Albert Gore. The "Brooks Brothers" riot shut down the recount in Dade County (Miami) Florida, and the Supreme Court, in Bush v. Gore, decided that the recount should end, as well--in a 5-4 decision, along party lines.


D. George W. Bush Administration Before 9/11--largely ineffectual, in part because Bush himself was largely absent from the White House, on vacation--including the whole month of August of 2001--even after he received a briefing from his intelligence team on August 6 titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US"

Weekly Assignment 15

With the end of the Cold War, some intellectuals in the United States pondered how the world would be shaped by a single superpower nation. Francis Fukyama, in an essay entitled "The End of History" (that later was expanded into a book), predicted that liberal democracy had prevailed over all other forms of government, and that it would remain in that position forever. After reading Part 1 and Part 2, do you agree or disagree with Fukyama's thesis? Why?

Globalization and Middle America

I.        Rise of the New Right – built on the ashes of the Goldwater fiasco in 1964, the Republican Party targeted white suburbanites, and particularly those suburbanites living in the South and West

A)    Watergate and Its Aftermath—Although apologists for Nixon point out that—rightly—that Nixon was not the first president to abuse the power of his office to strike back at his enemies. But Nixon was the first to do this in a systematic fashion, and to use the powers of his office to attempt to subvert a criminal investigation into the attempt on the part of his campaign to fix a national election.

1)      The Watergate break-in—the so-called “third-rate burglary” was an attempt to plant illegal listening devices at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee.

B)     Tax revolts – conservatives were able to use the growing distrust against government to feed a movement to choke off funds for the government, namely taxes.

1)      California Proposition 13 – sold the idea that taxes merely funded wasteful government spending, particularly for things like education, welfare, and other social programs

2)      Rise of “code” language – while it became unacceptable to use racial slurs in the 1970s and 1980s, this did not mean that race disappeared as an issue in American politics—only that these references to race were now used in a “code” language, like “welfare queens” and “drug lords.”

C)    Christian coalitions

1)      Southern Christian academies – with the implementation of Brown v. Board of Education, white Christian academies opened as a way for parents to avoid sending their children to integrated schools.  The Carter administration tried to end the tax breaks these led to these various groups organizing to resist this

2)      Southern televangelists – preachers like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson used the technology of television to expand the scope (and number of contributors to) their “mission.”

3)      Reactions to gender politics

(a)    Abortion – Roe v. Wade linked control of reproductive rights to a woman’s constitutionally guaranteed rights to privacy.  To social conservatives, this upset gender roles and traditional patriarchy, and was considered an attack on “the right of a husband to protect the life of the child he fathered in his wife’s womb.”

(i)                  Opposition of Catholic Church – while the Church may not speak for all of its female members on this issue, it was able to mobilize a great deal of opposition to the decision.

(b)   Opposition to the Equal Rights Ammendent – as the long sought-after ERA got closer to passage by the states, political opposition to the Amendment got more heated; this amendment would have simply recognized legally the changes that had largely already taken place in the United States.  Right-wing politicians like Phyllis Schafly, Jerry Falwell were able to distort its effects and change (by comparing it to the perceived slights whites received under Affirmative Action programs) and sway public opinion about ERA enough to prevent its passage.

(c)    Gay Pride movement – the Stonewall Riot in Greenwhich Village New York signaled that gays would no longer accept the harassment and stigmatization that they had received previously.  As gays “came out of the closet,” however, they met increasing opposition from politicians on the Right.

D)    Right turn of the Democratic Party – after the McGovern disaster of 1972 (who many party members felt was too liberal), and Carter’s victory in 1976 (who was certainly more conservative than many of the voters who voted for him), the Democratic Party became increasingly more conservative in its movement toward “the center.”

1)      Disenchantment of the poor – rather than mobilize voters who had historically made up their voter base (minorities, blue collar workers, and the poor), Democrats began to compete for the same suburban voters that Republican candidates were pursuing—white suburbanites

(a)    Decline of trade unions and urban machines – unions and machine politics had traditionally mobilized Democratic voters, and as these institutions declined, so did their effectiveness

E)     Election of Ronald Reagan – two bit actor, former president of the Screen Actors Guild, became spokesman for the vehemently anti-union General Electric Company in the 1950s, and began a rapid rightward descent.

1)      Presidential policies

(a)    Cut taxes – for the rich, anyway; Reagan got Congress to cut taxes for the rich from 73% to 28%,  but taxes for the poor actually went up, because they were hit with an increase in state and local taxes to make up for the shortfall as a result from the decline in federal tax revenue

(b)   Cut social programs – Reagan cut much spending on social programs, like welfare

(c)    Increase defense spending – corporate welfare for selected industries, fed boom on the West and East coasts (see below)

(d)   Results – federal tax revenues plummeted by $750 billion, and generated staggering federal deficits of $150 billion and $200 billion, which kept the prime interest rate in double digits.

F)     Reagan boom – the Reagan years were beneficial for a small, select group of people, but the era was one of increasing disparity between the few rich, and the increasing number of poor

1)      Growing disparity – between 1977 and 1990, the income of the richest fifth of the population grew by one-third, and that of the top one percent almost doubled; but the total income of the bottom 60 percent of Americans actually fell, and the incomes of the poorest Americans fell most sharply.

II)                 Reaganomics and its Effects on Working People

A)    Undermining of Unions – perhaps the greatest effect of Reaganomics was that it undermined the financial security of working-class people, by undermining the unions that represented their unions.

1)      The Reagan Recession (1981-1983) – one of the first effects of supply-side economics, or “Reaganonimics,” as it came to be called, was one of the worst recessions of the post-war era.

(a)    Demand from corporations for give-backs – corporations in financial trouble went to unions and its workers, and demanded concessions to remain in business.  Competitors then went to their unions and workers, to demand concessions to remain competitive.  The cumulative effect of this was at best to freeze the wages of working-class, and at worst to undermine the wage structure.

B)     Toledo AP Parts Strike--fifty years after the Auto-Lite strike, a Toledo firm provoked a strike by its unionized workforce. Despite the support of a mobilized community, the union and its workers largely returned to work months later largely on the company's terms. The company, however, quickly discovered that despite this "victory," however, the company quickly discovered that they were still unable to compete in the marketplace, and with a decade were out of business.

C)  Workers in Decatur, Illinois – Decatur is a small town in central Illinois, rising out of the prairie, which had a diversified (for the Midwest) manufacturing base, but which witnessed the full aftereffects (or aftershock, to use a nuclear analogy) of Reaganomics.

1)      A.E. Staley – locally-owned agricultural goods manufacturer, manufactured corn starch, corn syrup, soy products.  This company resisted buyouts through the early 1980s, but by the end of the decade was bought out by a London-based food processor.

(a)    Demand for 12 hour, rotating shifts – in order to more “efficiently” use its workers, management wants its workers to work twelve hour shifts, and do away with shift pay differentials; it also wants workers to move from one shift to another every other month (describe havoc this plays with lives of workers with families)

2)      Firestone – the tire industry was one of the largest casualties of the merger-mania of the 1980s, and Firestone was bought by Japanese manufacturer Bridgestone.

(a)    Demand for twelve-hour, rotating shifts; do away with annual pay increases—instead, have cost of living increases and productivity incentives.

(b)   Provoked strike – this strike proved costly not only to many workers (who lost their jobs, some temporarily, to strikebreakers), but ultimately to the company, as well—the replacement workers manufactured the AT Wilderness tires that went on Ford Explorers--and proved to be inferior tires, subject to blowouts that caused numerous rollover accidents, and led to Fords abandonment of Firestone tire (after an 80-year business association, and at least one marriage between family members).

3)      Caterpillar – the industry leader in the production of heavy equipment at the time it provoked a strike by UAW members over concessions that it wanted in its contract—namely, a six-year contract, complete control over production decisions.  In the end, this company handed the UAW the worst defeat in its history.

III)            The Reagan Hangover – is suffered by working people in this country, of course.

Weekly Assignment 14

Was the Vietnam War necessary? Was it a tragic blunder, a noble cause, or a disguised form of anti-democratic imperialism? How did it affect the American people and the American presidency?

Assignment 14

In very broad terms, compare the decades of the 1930s and the 1970s. How were they alike? How were they different?

America and the Global Economy

I. Rise of the New Right – built on the ashes of the Goldwater fiasco in 1964, the Republican Party targeted white suburbanites, and particularly those suburbanites living in the South and West

A)   Watergate and Its Aftermath—Although apologists for Nixon point out that—rightly—that Nixon was not the first president to abuse the power of his office to strike back at his enemies. But Nixon was the first to do this in a systematic fashion, and to use the powers of his office to attempt to subvert a criminal investigation into the attempt on the part of his campaign to fix a national election.

1)    The Watergate break-in—the so-called “third-rate burglary” was an attempt to plant illegal listening devices at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. This was part of a much larger operation, run by the Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP) to manipulate the Democratic primary election.

2) Agnew resignation--Vice-President Spiro Agnew resigned as part of  the deal to  avoid  charges of bribery and extortion (settling for the charge of avoiding paying income tax on the money he accepted in bribes and extorted).

3) Nixon resignation--in August 1973 Nixon resigned, after being forced to turn over a tape revealing that he knew of the break-in and the cover-up just after they happened--and lied to his staff, his lawyers, and most importantly, to the American people on this matter.
4) Growing distrust of government--this incident, coupled with the revelations from the release of the Pentagon Papers (that the Johnson administration had lied about the basis for the war in Vietnam), fed a growing distrust of the government--so much so, that political candidates began running as "political outsiders."

B)   Tax revolts – conservatives were able to use the growing distrust against government to feed a movement to choke off funds for the government, namely taxes.

1)    California Proposition 13 – sold the idea that taxes merely funded wasteful government spending, particularly for things like education, welfare, and other social programs

2)    Rise of “code” language – while it became unacceptable to use racial slurs in the 1970s and 1980s, this did not mean that race disappeared as an issue in American politics—only that these references to race were now used in a “code” language, like “welfare queens” and “drug lords.”

C)   Christian coalitions

1)    Southern Christian academies – with the implementation of Brown v. Board of Education, white Christian academies opened as a way for parents to avoid sending their children to integrated schools.  The Carter administration tried to end the tax breaks these led to these various groups organizing to resist this

2)    Southern televangelists – preachers like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson used the technology of television to expand the scope (and number of contributors to) their “mission.”

3)    Reactions to gender politics

(a)   Abortion – Roe v. Wade linked control of reproductive rights to a woman’s constitutionally guaranteed rights to privacy.  To social conservatives, this upset gender roles and traditional patriarchy, and was considered an attack on “the right of a husband to protect the life of the child he fathered in his wife’s womb.”

(i)    Opposition of Catholic Church – while the Church may not speak for all of its female members on this issue, it was able to mobilize a great deal of opposition to the decision.

(b)  Opposition to the Equal Rights Ammendent – as the long sought-after ERA got closer to passage by the states, political opposition to the Amendment got more heated; this amendment would have simply recognized legally the changes that had largely already taken place in the United States.  Right-wing politicians like Phyllis Schafly, Jerry Falwell were able to distort its effects and change (by comparing it to the perceived slights whites received under Affirmative Action programs) and sway public opinion about ERA enough to prevent its passage.

(c)   Gay Pride movement – the Stonewall Riot in Greenwhich Village New York signaled that gays would no longer accept the harassment and stigmatization that they had received previously.  As gays “came out of the closet,” however, they met increasing opposition from politicians on the Right.

D)   Right turn of the Democratic Party – after the McGovern disaster of 1972 (who many party members felt was too liberal), and Carter’s victory in 1976 (who was certainly more conservative than many of the voters who voted for him), the Democratic Party became increasingly more conservative in its movement toward “the center.”

1)    Disenchantment of the poor – rather than mobilize voters who had historically made up their voter base (minorities, blue collar workers, and the poor), Democrats began to compete for the same suburban voters that Republican candidates were pursuing—white suburbanites

(a)   Decline of trade unions and urban machines – unions and machine politics had traditionally mobilized Democratic voters, and as these institutions declined, so did their effectiveness

(b) Capital flight--Although industry had been fleeing cities--and the increased power of labor unions there--since the Second World War, the economic malaise of the early 1970s, combined with the scrutiny the "urban problem" promoted, finally brought attention to the fact that the economy in the United States was undergoing a period of de-industrialization; by the  middle of the decade, many cities in the Midwest were transformed from the Manufacturing Belt to the Rust Belt.

E)    Election of Ronald Reagan – two bit actor, former president of the Screen Actors Guild, became spokesman for the vehemently anti-union General Electric Company in the 1950s, and began a rapid rightward descent.

1)    Presidential policies

(a)   Cut taxes – for the rich, anyway; Reagan got Congress to cut taxes for the rich from 73% to 28%,  but taxes for the poor actually went up, because they were hit with an increase in state and local taxes to make up for the shortfall as a result from the decline in federal tax revenue

(b)  Cut social programs – Reagan cut much spending on social programs, like welfare

(c)   Increase defense spending – corporate welfare for selected industries, fed boom on the West and East coasts (see below)

(d)  Results – federal tax revenues plummeted  by $750 billion, and generated staggering federal deficits of $150 billion and $200 billion, which kept the prime interest rate in double digits.

F)    Reagan boom – the Reagan years were beneficial for a small, select group of people, but the era was one of increasing disparity between the few rich, and the increasing number of poor

1)    Growing disparity – between 1977 and 1990, the income of the richest fifth of the population grew by one-third, and that of the top one percent almost doubled; but the total income of the bottom 60 percent of Americans actually fell, and the incomes of the poorest Americans fell most sharply.

II)   Reaganomics the War on Working People

A)   Undermining of Unions – perhaps the greatest effect of Reaganomics was that it undermined the financial security of working-class people, by undermining the unions that represented their unions.

1)    The Reagan Recession (1981-1983) – one of the first effects of supply-side economics, or “Reaganonimics,” as it came to be called, was one of the worst recessions of the post-war era.

(a)   Demand from corporations for give-backs – corporations in financial trouble went to unions and its workers, and demanded concessions to remain in business.  Competitors then went to their unions and workers, to demand concessions to remain competitive.  The cumulative effect of this was at best to freeze the wages of working-class, and at worst to undermine the wage structure.

B)   Workers in Decatur, Illinois – Decatur is a small town in central Illinois, rising out of the prairie, which had a diversified (for the Midwest) manufacturing base, but which witnessed the full aftereffects (or aftershock, to use a nuclear analogy) of Reaganomics.

1)    A.E. Staley – locally-owned agricultural goods manufacturer, manufactured corn starch, corn syrup, soy products.  This company resisted buyouts through the early 1980s, but by the end of the decade was bought out by a London-based food processor.

(a)   Demand for 12 hour, rotating shifts – in order to more “efficiently” use its workers, management wants its workers to work twelve hour shifts, and do away with shift pay differentials; it also wants workers to move from one shift to another every other month (describe havoc this plays with lives of workers with families)

2)    Firestone – the tire industry was one of the largest casualties of the merger-mania of the 1980s, and Firestone was bought by Japanese manufacturer Bridgestone.

(a)   Demand for twelve-hour, rotating shifts; do away with annual pay increases—instead, have cost of living increases and productivity incentives.

(b)  Provoked strike – this strike proved costly not only to many workers (who lost their jobs, some temporarily, to strikebreakers), but ultimately to the company, as well—the replacement workers manufactured the AT Wilderness tires that went on Ford Explorers.

3)    Caterpillar – the industry leader in the production of heavy equipment at the time it provoked a strike by UAW members over concessions that it wanted in its contract—namely, a six-year contract, complete control over production decisions.  In the end, this company handed the UAW the worst defeat in its history.

III) The Reagan Hangover – is suffered by working people in this country, of course.

The American War in Vietnam

                                         Country Joe McDonald and the Fish at Woodstock

I) Vietminh as US allies

A) Vietminh and the OSS

1) Ho Chi Minh – Ho was a Vietnamese nationalist who admired the works of Marx, and wanted to establish a socialist state in his country



2) Vietminh armed forces – with military supplies from the US, the Vietminh fought an effective guerilla war against the Japanese.



B) Japanese surrender – when the Japanese surrendered, the Vietminh expected the US to continue to support them in their effort to establish an independent country



II) French attempt to re-colonize – the Vichy government (the government which controlled France during the Nazi occupation of that country) had surrendered to the invading Japanese, but many French rubber plantation owners had in fact cooperated with the Japanese, and were allowed to maintain their property.

A) Vietminh resistance – not surprisingly, the Vietminh resisted the attempted French re-colonization, and maintained their guerilla war against the occupying forces.



B) US aid to France – the US provided some military assistance to their NATO alliance partners, in the form of credits and some military advisers

1) Geo-political decision – the officials of the US government decided that it was more politically important, in our “Cold War” against the Soviet Union, to make nice with France in their struggle to re-assert colonial control, than to ally with a small, insignificant country with which we had no economic interest, nor any real political interest.

C) French military offensive



1) 1946 – while the Vietminh were still expecting the US to side with them in the dispute, the French forces in Vietnam were able to drive the Vietminh forces out of most of the cities in the country



D) French military defeats – after their initial victories against the Vietminh, the French suffered a series of devastating defeats; in response, the French government changed military commanders in the country.

1) “The light at the end of the tunnel” – soon after taking command of French forces, commander Gen. Henri Navarre declared that “Now we can see victory clearly, like the light at the end of the tunnel.” That is not the last time that phrase is heard in relation to conflicts in Vietnam.

2) Dien Bien Phu – in the jungle near this small hamlet, a large French force was surrounded by Vietminh forces, and after an extensive two-month siege, the Vietminh forced the French survivors to surrender on May 7, 1954.



3) Geneva Accords – at the insistence of the United States, the country of Vietnam was divided “temporarily” along the 17th Parallel, and nationwide elections to choose a government for a unified Vietnam were to be held in 1956

III) Vietnam and the Domino Theory – the so-called Domino Theory was an ideology subscribed to by both liberals and conservatives; a politician who could be portrayed as “soft on communism” effectively signed their own political death warrant.



A) Government of South Vietnam – largely a paper tiger, if not a myth. The government in South Vietnam never enjoyed any widespread popular support; if it were not for the millions and eventually billions of dollars that the US poured in to the country, it would have collapsed of its own inertia long before 1975, when the North Vietnamese Army finally rolled into Saigon. As a secret government study conducted by the Pentagon, and leaked as the famous “Pentagon Papers,” the “government” of South Vietnam was largely a creation of the United States government.

1) Premier Diem – Vietnamese Catholic, he organized a “national referendum” that led to the creation of the Republic of Vietnam. He then won a rigged election to head that government, and maintained control only with US support (eventually, that support from the US amounted to over $1 million a day)



(a) Diem’s only support in the country come from other Vietnamese Catholics (a very small percentage of the population, by the way), and other Vietnamese who had collaborated with the French



2) US $$$ -- the United States was positive that given a choice, no country would want to pass up the political and economic advantages that could be provided by alliances with the US

3) National Liberation Front – in December of 1960, the National Liberation Front was established by forces loyal to Ho in the south; they were popularly known in the US by the derogatory term given them by forces loyal to Diem in the south, Viet Cong (which became “VC” or “Charlie,” eventually, in US GI slang)

B) Kennedy and Counterinsurgency – Kennedy was elected over Richard Nixon (barely) in part because of his promise to “close the window of vulnerability” that he claimed existed and threatened the security of the US.



1) Counterinsurgency – the creation of a Special Forces branch in the Army, which supposedly would be able to respond to Communist aggression around the globe



(a) “Green Berets” – to train South Vietnamese forces in techniques of counterinsurgency, and dry up the sea of support which the National Liberation forces swam in (an allusion to an idea Mao espoused, where he compared guerilla forces to fish in a sea, undetectable among other fish.



(b) Cowboys and Indians – the Vietnamese forces were an unconventional enemy that enjoyed widespread support among the people of the rural countryside—which in Vietnam, meant most of the people living in the country.



(c) Lack of success – the lack of success that the South Vietnamese forces enjoyed in their counterinsurgency battles meant that more and more money and material was flowing into the country from the US, as were more and more military advisors, to “support” the Army of the Republic of Viet Nam (ARVN).



IV) Escalation of US Involvement

A) Gulf of Tonkin – the USS Maddox was allegedly “attacked” while offshore from North Vietnam, in disputed seas (North Vietnam claimed the area as sovereign territory, while the US maintained that the waters were international waters).



1) Gulf of Tonkin Resolution – after the alleged attack, President Johnson asked Congress for, and received, authorization from Congress to “take all necessary measures to repel armed attacks against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.”



(a) Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was passed unanimously in the House, and only two dissenters in the Senate (both of whom lost in the next election that they faced.

B) Da Nang

1) USMC – on March 8, 1965, a large force of Marines landed at Da Nang to reinforce an airfield there; by March 13 the Marine expeditionary force was joined by 40,000 other troops, and by late June of that year the Army commander in Vietnam, Gen. William Westmoreland, had received authorization to commit American forces to battle wherever he saw fit.



C) The Undeclared War – as more troops were committed, soldiers and Marines from the United States began to assume more of the responsibility of the fighting in this undeclared war

1) Search and destroy missions – troops from the US forces engaged in the small troop tactic of so-called Search and Destroy missions, where platoons ventured into the jungles of Vietnam, looking for enemy to engage and hopefully kill, or at least locate so that air support could be called in. Most of the time, these patrols found nothing. The fault of these tactics was, of course, that the enemy only engaged their pursuers at the time and place of their choosing



2) The Air War – the US dropped four times the amount of bombs in Southeast Asia than were used by all belligerents during World War II; but this bombing campaign was relatively ineffective against an enemy that was fighting a low tech war anyway—there simply was not much infrastructure to destroy.

3) Weekly body count – each Friday, the military released figures of casualties, which was how the “score” was kept. Each week, the total number of casualties for the North Vietnamese Army and the National Liberation Front, which inevitably were higher than the combined totals for the United States and the ARVN—so we were winning the war, right?



4) Selective Service – because of college student deferments, the burden of service in this war fell inordinately upon the working-class; in fact, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton (the three premier universities in the country) between them only had one alumnus die. George W. attended Yale, drank his way through four years, and then conveniently “served” in the Air National Guard; Albert Gore, Jr. graduated from Princeton, and served in Vietnam—as a correspondent for Stars and Stripes, the newspaper written for members of the military.

D) Tet – Tet is the name for the Vietnamese New Year; after 1968 the word Tet is associated with the beginning of the end of US involvement in the war in Vietnam.



1) “The light at the end of the tunnel” – in January 1968, Gen. Westmoreland declared that the end of the war, now three years along in the involvement of US forces, was at hand, that officers there were confident that they were able to see the light at the end of the tunnel.



2) The Tet Offensive – just after Westmoreland made his observance about the end of the war, the National Liberation Front launched its Tet Offensive. This offensive caught the US and South Vietnamese forces completely by surprise, and NLF forces captured several cities in the south (including the center of religious life in Vietnam, Hue), and threatened to capture Saigon. The NVA had coordinated an attack at a Marine camp called Khe Shanh at this time, and held it under siege for several weeks.

3) Result – the effect of the Tet Offensive, from a military view, was a crushing defeat for the NLF and NVA; the US forces eventually defeated the combined force, and retook all of the lost territory; the NLF in particular was decimated.



(a) The end of US involvement – it became obvious to even the most casual observers that the end of the war was no where close to happening; popular support for continued US involvement in the war began to shift dramatically from this point.

(b) This was less a result of the growing protest movement, but increased frustration on the part of the general public at the apparent stalemate in the war.

Assignment 13--Plus a Bonus

           Rock and roll played an important part in forming the counterculture; in fact, it could be argued that the counterculture would not exist without it. Rock music began as an integrated style of music, played by both African Americans and white, but as it matured as an art form, became increasingly monochrome--rock music today is almost exclusively a white art form. What do you think are the reasons for this?

            In addition, you may choose to substitute (or add) this assignment. With the Thanksgiving holiday, and the time away from school, many choose to spend the time in front of the television or at the movie theater (the reviews of Clint Eastwood's new film J. Edgar have been very good, I hear). If you intend to do either, and choose to write a review of the movie that places it in its historical context, you may hand that in sometime before the end of the semester. You may want to consult this list of 100 movies reviewed by historians before venturing to the video store or checking your Netflix queue.

Rock and Roll, Part 2

I) The Rebirth of Rock – the years between 1958 (when Elvis went into the army) and 1963 (when the Beatles broke in the United States) have been portrayed as the low point of rock history, but in reality it was the time when black do-wop groups ruled—except for the white teen idols (Fabian, Frankie Avalon—who appealed to the American Bandstand crowd)

A) Beatles – undoubtedly, the most influential group of musicians in the years after 1950. How many band members in the 1960s and 1970s recounted their first exposure to the Beatles as the beginning of their career in music?

1) Liverpool – in the 1950s, Liverpool was a depressed seaport, with piles of rubble left over from the destruction of WWII, but it supported a huge music scene.

(a) Skiffle – an English interpretation of American folk music (songs like Rock Island Line, etc.). Its biggest star, Lonnie Donegan, performed with more enthusiasm than talent—but that was just the point, and this music inspired hundreds of young people to get a guitar and form a band.

(b) Muddy Water – inspired many of the same young people to perform with amplified music



(c) Search for authenticity – appreciation for indigenous cultural artifact from another culture (namely music) a sign of cosmopolitanism—of “hipness.”

2) Brian Epstein – scion of a family that owned a regional chain of department stores; bored, and afraid that a convicted felon due for release soon would “out” him. Epstein knew little about music, but was a promotional genius.



(a) Cleaning up the Beatles image – before Epstein, the Beatles dressed in black and leather. Epstein prevailed on the band to wear suits and neckties—although they kept the “French cuts” (long hair).



(b) Beatles came across as pleasant, intelligent young men, just cheeky enough to appeal to their generation, but not threatening enough that mother would ban them from the house.

(i) This, of course, left the door open for a band to emerge with a more raucous sound and a dirtier image—namely, the Rolling Stones.



(ii) Beatles themselves were loud and raucous, and they brought a new sense of style to rock and roll that the Rolling Stones also followed—a sense of campiness, that all of this was done as kind of an inside joke, which only “insiders” could pick up on.



3) Do It Ourselves – Lennon and McCartney were determined that their band would perform songs mainly written by themselves—a break with past traditions (for instance, although Elvis Presley received song publishing credit, he didn’t really write any songs himself).



II) Bob Dylan

A) Robert Zimmerman – a bright Jewish kid growing up in Hibbing, Minnesota, listening to black r & b on the radio, as well as country music.



1) University of Minnesota – Zimmerman after high school attended school in Minneapolis, where he discovered what passed for the “bohemian” crowd there, and he began developing the Bob Dylan persona.



(a) Re-emergence of the folk music movement – Folk music first emerged in the early 1950s, but was quashed in the Red Scare led by McCarthy; with McCarthy’s fall, folk re-emerges



(i) Woody Guthrie – Guthrie, a member of the Weavers along with Pete Seeger, cannot re-emerge with the movement he helped inspire because he is stricken with Parkinson’s disease. Dylan, by this time, has copied Guthrie’s repertoire (as well as his style of delivery).

2) Move to New York – after his sophomore year, Dylan moved to New York (really the only city one could make a living as a folk musician); Dylan assumes Guthrie’s mantle, and develops his own repertoire of songs, while retaining much of the persona he appropriated from Guthrie.



3) Stardom – Dylan quickly established himself as the biggest fish in a rather small pond (Joan Baez, Peter, Paul, & Mary, Pete Seeger, etc.), which was good enough until the Beatles arrived.

III) Beatlemania



A) UK – the Beatles built a solid following in the United Kingdom, particularly among young girls, who tended to scream during the entire set (which had gotten shorter, at the insistence of Epstein—about twenty-five minutes, on average).



1) Three things set Beatles apart



(a) Furious energy



(b) Care and diligence that Lennon and McCartney brought to developing their own songs



(c) Demand that they be able to create their own “art”



B) “Phony Beatlemania” – the storied “conquering” of the US is much more complicated than is generally known.

1) Screaming crowds – were hired by Brian Epstein, who also massaged members of the press to spin favorable stories about the band.



2) Successful tour – the initial tour in 1963 was successful, but the Beatles did not initially take the country by storm.

3) “Hard Days Night” – a pseudo-documentary of a day in the life of the band, full of them being chased by young women, and being cute and cuddly. Film was released in 1964, and the band toured US after its release—when the Beatlemania was anything but phony (after American kids were shown how they should act).



4) Critical acceptance – perhaps the most important distinction between rock’s rebirth and its initial creation was that it was an acceptable musical form, particularly as it was performed by the Beatles (not that there was not some opposition to the long-haired freaks, but it was much less vehement the second time around).



IV) Dylan Meets the Beatles

A) Dylan Tours UK – Dylan toured the UK in early 1964, where he was treated by audiences like a rock star—like the Beatles. In fact, Dylan was greatly influential upon the Beatles, who admired his songwriting ability. Dylan, for his part, admired the audience the Beatles were attracting.


1) “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” – Beatles hit, which became ubiquitous in the US in 1964, and which Dylan thought contained the lyrics “Your love, I get High! I get high! I get high!” (instead of “can’t hide”). This becomes an issue of greater amusement after Dylan introduced the Beatles to marijuana in August of 1964. Inserted into one of the songs on the subsequent album, Rubber Soul, was the “I get high!” lyric in the song “It’s Only Love.”

B) Dylan goes electric – in an effort to broaden his audience, upon his return from England Dylan recorded his last acoustic album for many years, Another Side of Bob Dylan, which contained only one overtly political song. In May 1965 he released his first electric album, Bringing It All Back Home, which contained “Subterranean Homesick Blues” which, although a modest success in the US, became his second top ten hit in the UK



1) 1965 Newport Folk Festival – although Dylan was not booed off the stage at Newport while performing with members of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, his reception was less than enthusiastic, and he pulled the plug after performing only two or three songs (perhaps having more to do with his stoned state than the audience)



(a) Dylan and drug use – Dylan, in an effort to “get to the depths of where you are at” (whatever that means), was increasingly relying upon drugs, particularly marijuana, to get there.

2) 1965 Dylan UK tour – his performance style was becoming increasingly hostile (he refused to perform earlier songs), and his reception there was much less ecstatic than before.

V) Haight-Asbury



A) The Acid Test

1) Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters—and LSD