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 observation 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.
II. The War and Domestic Politics
A. Democratic Party 1968--The commander-in-chief, Lyndon Baines Johnson, had just won an overwhelming victory less than four years before, had just persuaded Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act, and had begun to create the "Great Society" that promised to create a more equitable American society.
1. LBJ--the war consumed Johnson, "that bitch of a war on the other side of the world" in his words--and eventually that war would cost him a second full term as president
2. Hubert H. Humphrey--LBJ's vice-president who, after the contentious Chicago convention, became the Democratic Party candidate
3. Eugene McCarthy--the initial anti-war candidate, and first to challenge Johnson for the Democratic candidacy; his near-defeat of Johnson in the New Hampshire primary led to Johnson dropping out of the race
4. Robert F. Kennedy--entered the race after Johnson withdrew, became the leading primary vote getter in the Democratic primaries in 1968 before he was murdered after winning the California primary
B. The Republican Party--benefited from the disarray of the Democratic Party, and the frustration that many people felt over the direction the country seemed to be heading--what Richard Nixon, the party's presidential candidate, called the "Silent Majority."
1. Richard Nixon and the Southern Strategy--Nixon, seeing the success that Barry Goldwater had making inroads into the formerly solidly Democratic South in 1964, courted Southern whites with coded language, promising to "get tough on crime." Nixon also promised "peace with honor" in Vietnam.
a. US war dead in Vietnam between 1965-1968--36,152
b. US war dead in Vietnam between 1969-1974--21,041
To speak of a "beginning" of the Civil Rights Movement is something of a misnomer; for African Americans, the "beginning" of the civil rights movement dates from the end of slavery, when agitation for the extension of poltical rights began. This struggle moved on and off the radar screen of white historians
A) New Deal – from 1935-1936, African Americans were an important part of the “New Deal Coalition,” which demanded, like other members of that coalition (white ethnics, labor, etc.) made demands upon the government which they expected would be met.
B) 1943 March on Washington – although this march never really took place, the fact that the President (FDR) reacted by creating the Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC) was a victory for African American activists.
C) NAACP – from the outset of the New Deal, the NAACP had been pursuing a number of lawsuits in order to overturn the practice of “separate but equal” that had been institutionalized since Plessy v. Ferguson.
1) Brown v. Board of Education – in 1954, the Supreme Court handed down a decision in a case in which an African American parent had sued the Topeka (KS) board of education over the maintenance of separate schools for white and black students. The Court agreed with plaintiff Brown that separate school systems were inherently unequal, and directed that the practice be ended with “all deliberate speed.”
II) Southern White Reaction – Brown v. Board of Education has long been held as the beginning of the of the modern civil rights movement; but what the decision really signaled was the recognition on a part of some whites in government that African Americans should be accorded full rights as citizens. Not all whites were willing to recognize this fact, however, inside or outside of government.
A) Massive Resistance – the vow on the part of most southern white politicians to resist any and all efforts on the part of the federal government to integrate southern institutions.
1) Little Rock Arkansas – one of the earliest integration efforts was at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957. Central High School was, to this point, attended largely by white working-class students (the integration of working-class schools is a practice that would be repeated around the country—including places like Boston). The governor of Arkansas, Orville Faubus, promised to resist the federal government order to integrate Little Rock schools. A huge crowd of whites turned out to jeer and threaten and throw rocks at the ten African American students who attempted to enter the school the first day. Reluctantly, President Eisenhower called out the 101st Airborne Division to ensure that students in Little Rock could attend school.
2) University of Mississippi – rioting broke out, with whites going on a rampage that again had to be quelled by the 101st Airborne, when James Meredith attempted to enroll at the University.
3) University of Alabama – George C. Wallace proclaimed that he would stand in the school house door to prevent any African American students from enrolling at the university—which he did, although he quickly stepped aside once his point had been made.
III) African American Action – the white reaction of massive resistance did not come mainly from government action, but from the pressure that African Americans, mainly young people (college and high school students), placed on the government to live up to the promise of equal opportunity.
A) Lunch counter sit-ins
1) Greensboro, NC – Greensboro was a city that prided itself on its progressive race relations; when 4 North Carolina A & T freshmen—Ezell Blair, Jr., David Richmond, Joseph McNeil, and Franklin McCain—decided to sit at the Woolworth’s lunch counter on February 1, 1960. The next day, these four were joined by twenty more; and eventually hundreds more (including a contingent of white female students from the nearby North Carolina Women’s College)
(a) Inspired black students throughout the south to similar actions.
2) Nashville, TN – led by students from the American Baptist Theological Seminary and Fisk University like John Lewis, Marion Berry, and Diane Nash, who were in turn led by a northern born black minister named James Lawson, who was committed to using Gahndian non-violent methods to foster social change.
3) Atlanta University – the “Black Ivy League;” led by Lonnie King and Julian Bond, who attempted to integrate public facilities in Atlanta; group was quickly arrested and they spent most of the day in jail—but this action turned middle-class blacks into freedom fighters.
B) Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) – at a meeting on April 16, 1960 in Raleigh, NC SNCC was formed; decided to remain independent from other civil rights organizations like NAACP, CORE, and SCLC.
C) Freedom Rides (1961)
1) Nonviolent confrontations – attempt to integrate interstate bus transportation
(a) Birmingham, AL –1st bus was allowed to leave but the KKK firebombed the bus on the highway, and the passengers were beaten as they tried to escape the inferno, until the US Marshall accompanying them drew his pistol and fired it into the air; 2nd bus of riders was set upon the group of whites at the bus station in Birmingham, and were allowed to beat passengers for five minutes before police showed up (by pre-arrangement).
(b) Mississippi – less violence then in Alabama, but the passengers were arrested and charged with “inflammatory riding,” saddled with high bails and eventually with unreasonably long jail terms (some even served time at Parchman Farm)
D) Montgomery bus boycott (1955)
1) Rosa Parks – Mrs. Parks was much more than the popularly portrayed old woman who was tired from a day at work; she was secretary of the local NAACP chapter, and had had regular run-ins with the Montgomery Bus Company over her treatment on the buses.
2) E.D. Nixon – Nixon was an official in the local chapter of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and the president of the NAACP chapter; at the beginning of the boycott, he sought out all the local black ministers to lead the boycott, feeling that this would make it seem less radical to other blacks; he first asked the new minister at the Third Baptist Church, Martin Luther King, who declined; after all other ministers also declined, Nixon was able to persuade King to assume the responsibility.
(a) Nixon and others coordinated the car pool service, which replaced the bus service in the black community; many of the drivers were college students who stayed home to provide the service
3) Martin Luther King, Jr. – feared about maintaining his new pastorate, with this high-profile task, and about the safety of his family (rightly, as it turned out, since shortly after his assuming leadership of the boycott his home was firebombed)
(a) After nearly a year, the Montgomery Bus Company capitulated, and agreed to remove the boards that segregated the riders.
(b) Result of the success of the boycott guided King into a new role
E) Albany (GA) Movement (1962) – an attempt by local African Americans to integrate public facilities, and to open bi-racial talks; the movement was led by SNCC until a local group called in King, which led to a sometimes bitter internal struggle. Albany police chief Laurie Pritchett restrained his officers from publicly abusing the protesters; the lack of conflict led to an overwhelming defeat.
F) Birmingham – after the lesson of Albany, King realized that he for nonviolent tactics to be successful, he needed a foil that would be more physically active than Pritchett.
1) Television – the violence of the Birmingham police, and their attack dogs and high-pressure hoses, repulsed much of the nation—and won a great deal of sympathy for the civil rights movement
2) Youth join the Movement – as more adults were arrested in Birmingham during the protests, King okayed the use of teenagers (and younger children) who faced Bull Connors’ police and dogs and fire hoses, which increased the impact for viewers on television.
3) “Letter from Birmingham jail” – King’s most famous writing distilled the aims of civil rights movement.
G) March on Washington – King’s “I have a Dream” speech, which was predated by a much angrier speech by SNCC leader John Lewis (which was less angry then it was originally intended, because the UAW’s Walter Reuther threatened to pull the union’s funding from the March).
H) Civil Rights Act (1964) – LBJ’s greatest moment, despite the rift it caused with former Senate colleagues.
I) Freedom Summer (1964) – the program created by SNCC to register black Mississippians to vote; recruited black and white college students, who were trained in nonviolent tactics at Miami University in Oxford in the spring of 1964.
1) White volunteers – SNCC first recruited a large number of white volunteers in 1963, in an early voter registration drive.
2) 1964 – more whites joined the effort; the hope of SNCC leaders was that by having prominent whites involved (including the son of California governor Pat Brown—Jerry Brown) there would be less danger for all involved
3) “Mississippi Burning” – three SNCC volunteers—one black and two whites—were kidnapped and murdered by the KKK
(a) Inordinate attention paid to the deaths of the white volunteers, which caused resentment among SNCC members; from this point white members are asked to leave the organization, and the black pride attitude becomes more prevalent.
J) Voting Rights Act (1965)
1) Selma – home to another reactionary racist, Sheriff Jim Clark; the police chief Wilson Baker maintained peace in the city early on—which hindered the voting rights campaign greatly.
(a) Decided to begin marching registrants to the Dallas County Courthouse, which Clark found provoking; Clark responded by ordering his deputies to beat protestors, despite the presence of television cameras
(b) “Bloody Sunday” – March 7, 1965; Hosea Williams and John Lewis led marchers, who were met at the Pettis bridge by the combined force of the Dallas County deputies an the Alabama State Troopers, who descended upon the marchers with a rebel yell and club all marchers they could reach senseless; ABC interrupted the movie “Judgment at Nuremberg” (the trial of another group of racists) to broadcast footage of the carnage.
(c) Presidential address – LBJ addressed a joint session of Congress calling for the passage of the Voting rights act, and quoted the famous song of the Movement “We Shall Overcome.”
(d) March 21—march to Montgomery resumes; Wallace was called to Washington and given the “Johnson treatment.”
A. Marion Wright--the head of the NAACP's Legal Defense and Education Fund suggested to King that only by providing more economic opportunities to poor people would true equality be achieved. King had himself been thinking in this same vein, and from this came the idea in late 1967 to launch the Poor People's Campaign. King planned for an initial group of 2,000 poor people to descend on Washington, D.C., southern states and northern cities to meet with government offïcials to demand jobs, unemployment insurance, a fair minimum wage, and education for poor adults and children designed to improve their self-image and self-esteem.
B. Memphis Sanitation Strike (1968)--although the ostensible reason for the strike was the deaths of two sanitation workers in the previous weeks, sanitation workers in Memphis--all African American--suffered from discrimination, dangerous working conditions, and low pay--but for workers, it was also a struggle for simple human dignity
1. I AM A MAN--the strike began on February 11, 1968, and quickly attracted a number of veteran civil rights workers, including by early April Dr. Martin Luther King
2. Early morning, April 4--After giving a speech in Memphis in support of the strike, King returned to the Lorraine Motel, and was standing on the balcony at 6:00pm when he was shot and killed by James Earl Ray, a fugitive from the Missouri State Penitentiary.
C. Failure of the Poor People's Campaign
1. African American reaction to King's assassination--125 riots broke out in the days immediately following Dr. King's assassination--including Washington, D.C. and Chicago--but is also significant to note the cities that rioting did not take place.
2. Resurrection City--with King's right-hand-man taking over leadership of SCLC, the decison was made to go ahead with the campaign, but much of the momentum was lost with King's assassination--and what little momementum there was was lost when Robert Kennedy was himself was assassinated just after midnight on June 5, 1968.
The pilot for the popular sitcom, Happy Days, first shown on the anthology show called Love, American Style
Which, remarkably, shared several cast members from this early George Lucas film:
due in part to the fact that George Lucas liked Ronnie (as he was still known then) Howard for this film, which was just beginning production. American Graffiti, I argue, takes place near the end of the 1950s (or certainly, before the beginning of the cultural 1960s) 1962--before the Beatles.
That is how the 1950s culture is remembered, nostalgically, from the 1970s--but how did the culture of the time portray it?
From one of Stanley Kubrick's other films, The Killing (1955)
The Killing is an example of a popular style of film that was produced throughout the 1950s called film noir, which generally had a downbeat topic, often dealing with criminals or police officers of dubious character
A) Postwar Economic Boom – from the end of WWII to the early 1970s, the US experienced a period of unprecedented economic growth
1) Car Culture – epitomized US society during these years; the car culture emphasized the consumption
(a) Consumption of consumer goods
(b) High wage jobs – (for union members, anyway), which allowed consumers to buy the goods that advertising convinced them that they wanted.
(c) Movement to the suburbs – for whites
(d) Example of Detroit
B) Modified Keynesian economics – government was to use its power to tax and spend in order to regulate the consumer demand for goods and services (example: the price of gasoline, which had been kept artificially low in the US because it was a desirable policy to encourage the purchase of individually owned automobiles, rather than have the price reflect the true social cost of all of the automobiles on the road)
1) Legacy of the New Deal
(a) Liberals – wanted to sustain economic growth by sustaining consumer purchasing power through government spending on programs like public works, schools, housing, Social Security and unemployment insurance.
(b) Conservatives – feared liberal programs would erode market incentives; advocated tax reductions for businesses instead
(c) Stalemate – taxes remained high on business, but government spending on social programs grew slowly; much of the money went into the military build-up, which represented a means of government spending that conservatives found more palatable
2) Labor and social programs
(a) Union Membership as a Percentage of the Workforce--Union membership had been steadily climbing since the second half of FDR's second term (since passage of the Wagner Act), and in 1954 reached its high water mark of nearly 40 percent of the privately employed workforce (for comparison, less than 10 percent of the privately-employed workforce are union members today); although union membership in real numbers continued to climb into the 1980s--only beginning to fall during the Reagan administration--union growth was halted.
(b) Health insurance – this benefit was bargained for by large unions, because they expected large corporations to balk at paying the costs for this, and would therefore lobby the government with the unions to create a European-styled national health plan—but instead corporations decided to pass the additional costs of theses plans on to consumers who bought the products they manufactured. The American Medical Association (AMA) was also vehemently opposed to any plans for a national health plan until the late 1960s.
(c) Wages – because of contracts, wages grew independently of market pressures, which shortened the length of recessions considerably.
3) Military spending – by 1950, approximately half of the US budget was devoted to the military, and military “needs” affected a large portion of the rest of the budget.
(a) Economic growth – especially in the South and the West Coast, where many military installations were located—and where the industries serving the military re-located—fueled much of the economic growth during this period.
(b) Social programs – Educational programs (like the GI Bill), medical care (VA hospitals), housing (VA loans) all expanded during this period, unconstroversially.
(c) Perhaps the post-war program that had the greatest effect on America, the Interstate and Defense Highway Program, was established in 1956 because of the perceived need for the military to be able to move around the country quickly
C) Era of Labor-Management Peace – despite some rather high-profile strikes during the 1950s (like the steel strike in 1959—one of the longest in history, to that point—the era was marked by a new labor-management understanding in their relationship to one another.
1) The labor-management tacit agreement--recent research tends to see this "tacit agreement" as much more complex than when this idea was first proposed in the early 1970s, because management refused to accede any of its prerogatives to set productions standards, prices, etc.
(a) Management agrees to high wages for union members
(b) Well-established unions were insulated from assault from corporations
(c) Unions had to accept management decision making power on the shop floor and in the boardroom
2) Non-competition for workers – corporation in the same industries agree not to compete for labor, which helps to establish the era of pattern bargaining. The rising cost of labor is met, however, by general rise in prices for the goods produced.
(a) Only possible in maturing industries – industries where the number of firms within an industry had already been reduced by attrition and merger
(b) Workers for these larger corporations were protected from inflation by the Cost-of-Living-Adjustment (COLA); first introduced during negotiations between the UAW and GM in 1948
(i) COLA was pegged to the Consumer Price Index (CPI)
(ii) Workers also got 2% “annual improvement factor” designed to give workers a portion of the productivity gains made by corporations.
3) “Treaty of Detroit” – the 1950 UAW/GM contract
(a) Unprecedented five year contract (which the union never repeated, because despite the economic innovations the wage rise did not keep up with inflation)
(b) By the end of the 1950s, COLAs were a feature of even contracts for employees of non-union companies.
4) What price peace?
(a) End of the “wildcat strike” – companies insisted that production be uninterrupted during the life of the contract (like the Treaty of Detroit example)
(b) Company insistence upon longer terms for contracts—which help them control labor costs
(c) All disputes that arose during the life of the contract were to be handled only through official channels—usually through the established grievance process. This meant that union officials became contract police; in effect the union became the arbitrator between the company and its employees, rather than the advocate for its members.
5) Labor merger – in 1955, the AFL and the CIO merged; the new organization was headed by the former president of the AFL, a former plumber named George Meany, who boasted that he had never led a strike.
(a) Merger of unequal partners – at the time of the merger, the AFL was twice the size of the CIO
(b) Labor during this period became increasingly reliant upon the Democratic Party, while receiving less and less for this support.
6) Labor corruption – was especially prevalent in decentralized, highly competitive industries like trucking (Teamsters), restaurant (Restaurant Employees), and dock work (ILA)
1) “I Like Ike” – one of the heroes of the Second World War, Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had engineered the Allied victory in Europe
2) 8 Millionaires in the cabinet – displaying the linkage between the military and business from the war years
3) Retained many New Deal programs
B) Cold War on the cheap
1) Reliance upon nuclear weapons
(a) John Foster Dulles – believed that the US needed to remove the taboo from using nuclear weapons
(b) Promise of “Massive Retaliation” – the doctrine of Massive Retaliation advocated by Dulles; the promise of total annihilation should the US ever face a nuclear attack itself (led to the understanding of “Mutually Assured Destruction” on the part of the US and the USSR).
(c) Civil Defense – the ludicrousness of “survival” in the event of nuclear war.
II) Economic and social life in the 1950s
A) Postwar Economic Boom – from the end of WWII to the early 1970s, the US experienced a period of unprecedented economic growth
1) Car Culture – epitomized US society during these years; the car culture emphasized the consumption
(a) Consumption of consumer goods
(b) High wage jobs – (for union members, anyway), which allowed consumers to buy the goods that advertising convinced them that they wanted.
(c) Movement to the suburbs – for whites
(d) Example of Detroit
B) Modified Keynesian economics – government was to use its power to tax and spend in order to regulate the consumer demand for goods and services (example: the price of gasoline, which had been kept artificially low in the US because it was a desirable policy to encourage the purchase of individually owned automobiles, rather than have the price reflect the true social cost of all of the automobiles on the road)
1) Legacy of the New Deal
(a) Liberals – wanted to sustain economic growth by sustaining consumer purchasing power through government spending on programs like public works, schools, housing, Social Security and unemployment insurance.
(b) Conservatives – feared liberal programs would erode market incentives; advocated tax reductions for businesses instead
(c) Stalemate – taxes remained high on business, but government spending on social programs grew slowly; much of the money went into the military build-up, which represented a means of government spending that conservatives found more palatable
2) Labor and social programs
(a) Health insurance – this benefit was bargained for by large unions, because they expected large corporations to balk at paying the costs for this, and would therefore lobby the government with the unions to create a European-styled national health plan—but instead corporations decided to pass the additional costs of theses plans on to consumers who bought the products they manufactured. The American Medical Association (AMA) was also vehemently opposed to any plans for a national health plan until the late 1960s.
(b) Wages – because of contracts, wages grew independently of market pressures, which shortened the length of recessions considerably.
3) Military spending – by 1950, approximately half of the US budget was devoted to the military, and military “needs” affected a large portion of the rest of the budget.
(a) Economic growth – especially in the South and the West Coast, where many military installations were located—and where the industries serving the military re-located—fueled much of the economic growth during this period.
(b) Social programs – Educational programs (like the GI Bill), medical care (VA hospitals), housing (VA loans) all expanded during this period, unconstroversially. Perhaps the post-war program that had the greatest effect on America, the Interstate and Defense Highway Program, was established in 1956 because of the perceived need for the military to be able to move around the country quickly
C) Era of Labor-Management Peace – despite some rather high-profile strikes during the 1950s (like the steel strike in 1959—one of the longest in history, to that point—the era was marked by a new labor-management understanding in their relationship to one another.
1) The labor-management tacit agreement
(a) Management agrees to high wages for union members
(b) Well-established unions were insulated from assault from corporations
(c) Unions had to accept management decision making power on the shop floor and in the boardroom
2) Non-competition for workers – corporation in the same industries agree not to compete for labor, which helps to establish the era of pattern bargaining. The rising cost of labor is met, however, by general rise in prices for the goods produced.
(a) Only possible in maturing industries – industries where the number of firms within an industry had already been reduced by attrition and merger
(b) Workers for these larger corporations were protected from inflation by the Cost-of-Living-Adjustment (COLA); first introduced during negotiations between the UAW and GM in 1948
(i) COLA was pegged to the Consumer Price Index (CPI)
(ii) Workers also got 2% “annual improvement factor” designed to give workers a portion of the productivity gains made by corporations.
3) “Treaty of Detroit” – the 1950 UAW/GM contract
(a) Unprecedented five year contract (which the union never repeated, because despite the economic innovations the wage rise did not keep up with inflation)
(b) By the end of the 1950s, COLAs were a feature of even contracts for employees of non-union companies.
4) What price peace?
(a) End of the “wildcat strike” – companies insisted that production be uninterrupted during the life of the contract (like the Treaty of Detroit example)
(b) Company insistence upon longer terms for contracts—which help them control labor costs
(c) All disputes that arose during the life of the contract were to be handled only through official channels—usually through the established grievance process. This meant that union officials became contract police; in effect the union became the arbitrator between the company and its employees, rather than the advocate for its members.
5) Labor merger – in 1955, the AFL and the CIO merged; the new organization was headed by the former president of the AFL, a former plumber named George Meany, who boasted that he had never led a strike.
(a) Merger of unequal partners – at the time of the merger, the AFL was twice the size of the CIO
(b) Labor during this period became increasingly reliant upon the Democratic Party, while receiving less and less for this support.
6) Labor corruption – was especially prevalent in decentralized, highly competitive industries like trucking (Teamsters), restaurant (Restaurant Employees), and dock work (ILA)
Dr. Strangelove, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Directed by Stanley Kubrik, Columbia Pictures. Released January 1964 (the movie was slated to be released in late November 1963, but the Kennedy assassination pushed the released back).
The nuclear arsenal in the United States was had three different kinds of delivery systems: Intercontinental Ballistic Missles (ICBM), missiles launched from atomic submarines, and bombs dropped from airplanes under the command of the Strategic Air Command (SAC)
The fear of Communism in the United States, whipped up first by President Harry S. Truman, was the bete noire of American politics during most of the Cold War era; its legacy is still present, in fact, in the accusation that President Barak Obama is a socialist (Americans have long had great difficulty distinguishing between socialism and communism).
You will notice that throughout the film, hyper-masculine sexuality is made fun of: from the names used for characters like "Buck" Turgidson, President Merkin Muffley, Group Captain Mandrake.
Some groups during the Cold War characterized everything they disagreed with a "Communisit plot"--including things as innocuous as the flouridation of water.
Mutually Assured Destruction, taken to its logical conclusion
The sanctity of private property:
American ingenuity at work:
'til we meet again
Dr. Strangelove is an iconic piece of film making, but it is also a document of history. The film was shot and produced just a year after the United States and the Soviet Union reached the brink of nuclear war with the Cuban Missile Crisis. The film reflects the concern that some Americans felt over the arms race, and what its continuation meant for the United States--and the world. For the this week's assignment, I would like you to reflect on the issues the film raises. What was the effect of the Cold War on American society? What changed in American society as a result of the perceived threat from the Soviety Union?
If you would like to tackle a longer project for this week's assignment, you may write a 3-5 page review of the movie Dr. Strangelove. This assignment is due at the beginning of class on Friday, November 12.
