The British decision to scuttle its empire was a bold one brought on by necessity. The people of England were morally opposed to the continuation of the old order and Britain was stumbling economically. Two world wars bankrupted the nation and it struggled to stay afloat. England would survive, however, it was not an easy transition from the world’s greatest empire to just the United Kingdom. England’s ability to influence world affairs was shrinking, and this required the United States of America to step in and take its place representing the Western Democracies around the world. For this to occur, America had to end its isolationist tendencies and enter into the unforgiving world of international relations where, as the leading nation, it would take endless flack for its decisions. The United States was not used to this role and the transition to a world leader was not easy for a nation wanting to being left alone.
Internally, America was going to face its own upheaval when the civil rights movements got underway in the late 1950s. The majority of white Americans disliked the way the southern states treated black Americans, but the issue was ignored for decades. Finally, blacks brought attention to their plight and America responded. This crusade against the bigots of the South was going to consume a large amount of time and energy. What no one could foresee was this struggle bringing as much bad as good. Victory over the discriminatory laws of several southern states should have brought harmony within the nation and a satisfaction in the expansion of liberty to minorities; however, the opposite occurred as black America decided the United States was a worthless country and not worth supporting. Violence did not decrease as the civil rights movement went on, it increased. Even after numerous laws and court decisions supported the black cause, blacks refused to rejoice in the progress made. Rather, they obsessed over getting more, or getting even, for past wrongs.
Meanwhile, the progress of technology continued apace. New smaller electronics were reaching consumers each year and progress in new kitchen and home devices of every type was commonplace. Everywhere in the West things were getting better—at least on the home front. Women were employed in increasing numbers and industrial expansion was accelerating. Even with the growing challenge from the East, the West was feeling it was superior.
Kennedy: Risk-Taking Cold Warrior
1960-November 1963
Kennedy addressed the Cold War in an aggressive way. He managed to get himself into the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of communist Cuba by former Cuban exiles(an absolute failure), and he allowed his brother, the attorney general Robert Kennedy, to run secret wars against Castro (the Cuban dictator) as well as other communists in Latin America. There were some successes; however, Kennedy soon came to realize the American intelligence services were hollow. Without good information making good decisions regarding the Soviet Union and other challenges abroad was difficult.
The CIA missed the Soviets’ placing missiles into its client state of Cuba. The director of the CIA predicted, with no evidence, the USSR might try this gambit; however, such a move could start World War Three and no one thought the Soviets would risk it. However, the Soviets did make the move in 1962. Photos taken by a U-2 over flight and examined by a good analyst uncovered the evidence, but the missiles were already in the country by the time the CIA informed Kennedy of their presence. By careful analysis and more extremely dangerous over flights (one U-2 was shot down and its pilot lost) the United States ascertained that the missiles were armed with nuclear warheads. Messages to Moscow failed to elicit the desired response so Kennedy declared a blockade of Cuba and sent the US Navy to sea with orders to intercept Soviet ships sailing for Cuba with missiles for their Cuban arsenal.[339] As one might expect, the blockade triggered an international crisis while the United States and the Soviets sparred with one another behind the scenes.
Eventually, a deal was worked out whereby the United States would agree to never invade Cuba and to remove its nuclear missiles from Turkey. In exchange, the USSR would remove its missiles from Cuba. The communists won all around. John Kennedy and his brother Robert were adamant that no details about the removal of missiles from Turkey be leaked. As presented by the press the crisis was an American victory. The truth was unknown for years. If it had leaked in 1962, Kennedy and the democrats might have lost the 1964 election.
The Cuban missile crisis was indirectly caused by the CIA’s failure to discover the movement of Soviet nuclear-tipped missiles into Cuba. The direct cause was Kennedy himself. Khrushchev, the leader of the Soviet Union, had met Kennedy and decided he was not tough; that is, he could be bluffed if Khrushchev remained strong. It was a close call for the world because Khrushchev misread the American president, the US military, and the American people. The US military was lobbying for war after the missiles were discovered and Kennedy and his brother Robert had a hard time holding them in check. Because the two leaders of the USSR and the United States misread one another an atomic exchange leading to worldwide devastation became a real possibility.
This was always the ultimate danger in the Cold War, that someone would make an error, or a series of errors, leading to an unintended atomic war. Some experts worried about a diplomatic error, leading one superpower to think the other planned an attack or an error by one leader making a foolish read of the other’s intentions and launching a pre-emptive atomic strike. Others worried about human error at the machines, because the missiles and aircraft armed with nuclear devices were ready to launch at a moment’s notice. Both sides, America and the Soviets, were hit by surprise attacks in World War II that severely harmed their military capabilities. Both sides were determined not to let it happen again. This put the two sides on a nuclear hair trigger, and the trigger men on both sides were nervous. It might be a miracle the world came through this long period of threat unscathed by the nukes, but a lot of people in both governments put in many sleepless nights keeping the world safe from its ultimate destruction. Either side had the ability to destroy the entire world hundreds of times over; consequently, if either side launched the world was gone. It was a lot of people never taking their eyes off the ball that kept the Cold War from becoming World War III and both sides won on that score.
President Kennedy did not finish his term of office. He was murdered riding in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. The man who allegedly killed President Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, was murdered in the Dallas police station on November 24, 1963, by strip club owner Jack Ruby. The Warren Commission, established by order of President Johnson (who was vice president when Kennedy was assassinated), investigated the assassination. Under the guidance of Chief Justice Earl Warren of the US Supreme Court the Commission concluded Oswald murdered the president as a lone gunman. They further concluded that Jack Ruby killed Oswald because he assassinated Kennedy.
The findings of the Commission were immediately challenged and numerous conspiracy theories continue to circulate even today (2010). Conspiracy theorists believe Oswald shot the president in the back and claim the bullet hitting President Kennedy in the head was fired from the front of the car rather than Oswald’s position behind Kennedy. The Warren Commission found that Oswald fired the fatal shots from a third floor window in the Dallas book depository building. Amateur film taken of the assassination appears to show the president’s head being pushed back and to his left (as viewed from the front of the car) when the bullet struck. The conspiracy theorists believe the government covered up the crime to protect someone or something of great importance.[340] It is certain that critical evidence was lost and suffered from tampering. Photographs of the Kennedy emergency room operation and autopsy are missing as are parts of his brain that were supposed to be retained. Stranger still, the missing photographs are said to be the very ones that could prove if the killing shot came from the front or the back of the president. The missing brain matter could also prove what kind of bullet hit the president. What really happened that day in Dallas may never be conclusively known, but the Warren Commission’s investigation was sloppy and contained
many unstated assumptions and flaws that caused people to conclude a government cover-up had occurred.
The Kennedy assassination was a blow to the upbeat nature of the nation. The 1950s was an era of growth and change, but the changes were moderate. The death of Kennedy threw a wet blanket on the times and the message was things were not as they once were. The newspapers were full of reports about the war in Vietnam, small as it was, and the continuing strife of the civil rights movement. The Space Race was proceeding and even there it seemed the communists were winning. Nonetheless, prosperity was evident, and the future seemed to promise more of the same. Europe started talking about a new organization, a kind of economic United States of Europe, where trade barriers would come down and laws could be homogenized. France was pushing the idea as they believed they would be the natural leader of any such organization, thus, enabling a further distancing from America and its inordinate influence on European affairs.
Most European states were unhappy with the US involvement in Vietnam, and they resisted pressure to fight the communist assault on the South. The world had larger problems, they thought, and a lot of those problems were just to the east of Europe as the Soviet Union gained economic and military power.
Lyndon B. Johnson: Worthless Cold Warrior
November 1963-1968
After Kennedy’s assassination, Lyndon B. Johnson became president. Johnson, who had been a leader of Congress for years, had large plans. He launched the “War on Poverty,” “War on Crime,” and many other social wars for his “Great Society”; however, he did all this while engaging in and massively expanding a real shooting war in Vietnam. Johnson, who witnessed the importance of price controls during World War II, stated that the nation would enjoy both “guns and butter” with his administration. This statement illustrates an unrivaled irrationality. Wars bring inflation, normally on a massive scale; thus, governments move to inhibit inflation by imposing wage and price controls at the outset of a conflict. Discovered in World War I, this was not a secret and wage and price controls were immediately initiated in World War II. Johnson knew all of this and chose to ignore it (he also ignored his economists).
The predictable result of this economic policy was massive inflation and economic stagnation. The impacts on the American economy were intensely negative which affected the Cold War. With America focused on Vietnam the troops and equipment in Europe, and other areas, languished. The Soviets upheld the peace, but if they had struck the US Army and its European Allies would have faced conquest from the east. All over the world communists were making progress in their insurgencies because the attention of the United States was on Vietnam. Johnson failed at fighting the Vietnam War and the Cold War. During his final years in office antiwar protests swept the nation. As the press turned against him Johnson watched his presidency implode.
We will handle Vietnam in a special section.
President Johnson began what he termed the Great Society which was a bundle of welfare programs designed to pull the poor out of poverty, decrease crime, improve education, and otherwise make the United States into the true workers’ paradise he thought it could be. The megacities continued to grow and during the 1970’s and the urban welfare programs did not alleviate the problems. All these Great Society programs were costly failures. His expensive programs, plus the Vietnam War, led to massive inflation coupled with an economic contraction. Presidents must make good decisions, and Johnson made some of the worst decisions in the history of the US presidency. He failed as few others have.[341]
Nixon: Winning Cold Warrior
1968 to August 1974
The antiwar movement, rallying around Robert F. Kennedy for president, drove Johnson from office; however, after winning the California primary in 1968, which all but guaranteed him the democratic presidential nomination, a Muslim terrorist murdered RFK.[342] In his place the Democratic Party nominated US Senator Hubert H. Humphrey. His opponent was Republican Richard Nixon, John Kennedy’s opponent in 1960. The Republicans won the presidential race, but Congress remained strongly democratic and antiwar. Nixon extracted the United States from Vietnam by 1973; however, South Vietnam fell to an all-out communist invasion from the North in 1975.[343]
Nixon was the first US president to visit China in an attempt to bring about a new relationship between the two nations. China greeted Nixon warmly, but overtly little happened. The real “victory” was sub-rosa because just by visiting the communist nation he put pressure on North Vietnam. Nixon’s visit was a key moment in opening up China to capitalism. Nixon also signed arms limitation treaties with the USSR; thus, lowering atomic war tensions. Nixon was attempting to limit the possibility of atomic war by allowing Red China, and the USSR, an equal place in the world which was the goal of every US president since Truman. What none of them seemed ready to acknowledge was the communist commitment to the destruction of the United States in particular and democracy in general. By following a course of live and let live they were giving the communist unlimited time to destroy the West.
Nixon inherited a contracting economy with enormous new government programs doling out billions of dollars to millions of people and institutions. Nixon, remembered as a conservative, increased these payments until they became the largest part of the federal budget. At the same time, he imposed wage and price controls to hold inflation in check because of the Vietnam War spending—but this came much too late to do any good. Government expansion continued under the Nixon administration. Nixon thought big and attempted significant changes to the world and the nation; however, Nixon could not overcome the hostility of Congress and the weak economy in his search for grand accomplishments. And his wage and price controls did nothing to improve the economic situation.
Nixon ordered the CIA to “spy” on US citizens which was against its charter, but they had previously engaged in many non-charter ventures. Nixon was convinced communist agents sponsored the antiwar movement; however, no proof was found. A break-in at Democratic Headquarters in the Watergate Building in Washington DC was traced back to the Committee To Re-elect the President, a Nixon campaign organization. A Congressional investigation accused Nixon of covering up for his White House staff and impeached him for obstruction of justice. Nixon resigned in 1973 to avoid, he said, putting the nation through an impeachment. The Watergate scandal drove Nixon from office. The new president, Gerald Ford, was not in office long enough to achieve any real change in economic or national policy.[344]
After Nixon left office Gerald Ford, the vice president appointed by Congress after the resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew, assumed the presidency. After Ford came into office North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam in violation of the treaty signed with Nixon in 1973 and in violation of numerous UN Charter provisions. Ford did nothing because Congress had cut off all aid to the former ally. The United Nations also refused to act, in contradiction of its own charter. Ford, president for over two years, listened to Henry Kissinger on foreign policy matters and Kissinger advised doing nothing about the invasion of South Vietnam. Ford’s biggest foreign policy decision was to forgo defending South Vietnam after the communist invasion. South Vietnam quickly fell to the North Vietnamese.
Europe was making progress toward joining into an economic union. This was tempered by the problems of socialism, because the new socialist world that Europe created after World War II was running into a funding problem. It was apparent that Europeans were not having enough children to replace themselves. One-child families were the norm, and this meant a shrinking young population would soon be supporting a fast growing retired population. The only way to handle the growing number of people, retired or otherwise, on the government dole was to raise Europe’s already high taxes. High taxes were already hurting the European economy and increasing them would only do additional harm. The politicians in Europe had to keep increasing the dole to stay in office because powerful trade unions demanded increasing benefits; however, to do so was irresponsibly selling the future for the pr
esent. This demonstrates a significant problem in democracies adopting a Socialist or Wealth redistribution philosophy. When powerful groups gain control of the government they can force policies into law benefitting their groups at the expense of the nation as a whole.
The Muslim populations in Europe were growing. At first the Islamic people were an underclass who kept to themselves and seemed to bother no one; however, as their numbers increased so did their power. By the year 2000 they were a massive group demanding vast cultural changes in Europe to correspond to their view of religion and life. Using democratic processes these Muslim groups have demanded changes to Western law to meet their cultural views. From the first moment they began to establish themselves in Europe they refused to adopt Western ideas, dress, or culture. Now Europe faces a dynamic but growing minority that may soon be majorities in some nations. The failure to notice and deal with the non-assimilation of the Muslims now challenges Europe with massive change.
During the 1970’s, satellite development made space a very important place. Telecommunications satellites began to tie the world together through television and radio signals sent to satellites in space that beamed them back to earth. This made it possible to televise events from anywhere in the world. As this theme progressed, it would lead to Global Positioning Systems (satellite tracking of positions on the earth’s surface), cellular telephones enabling a phone the size of a deck of cards to communicate with anyone anywhere on earth, and a host of other wonders advancing our ability to tell each other “what’s for dinner.” It also enhanced the military’s ability to put a bomb through a bathroom window from half way around the world. Now a guy’s not safe anywhere.
The Super Summary of World History Page 54