Objectives:
Analyze the tensions that existed between the United States and the Soviet Union following World War II and how these developed into the Cold War.
Evaluate the responses of the Truman administration to the onset of the Cold War and to early conflicts such as the Berlin Airlift, Marshall Plan, and Truman Doctrine.
Assess the significance of the Korean War.
Explain the rise and fall of McCarthyism in the United States from 1950 to 1954.
Evaluate Eisenhower's success or failure in waging the Cold War.
Explain the expansion of the Cold War in the 1950s into Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America.
Analyze Kennedy's attitude toward the Cold War and nuclear armaments and the possible long-term consequences vis-à-vis the Soviet Union.
Compare and contrast the arguments for continued confrontation or conciliation with the Russians in the context of the Cuban missile crisis.
Understand the reasons for America's escalation of the Vietnam conflict and how this undermined the Johnson administration.
Explain how and why the year 1968 seemed to mark a turning point in the Vietnam War.
People
George Kennan
Alger Hiss
Joseph McCarthy
Edward R. Murrow
General Douglas MacArthur
Mao Zedong
Khrushchev
Fidel Castro
Ngo Dinh Diem
Robert McNamara
Cold War concepts/terms
“Iron Curtain”
Loyalty Boards
Truman Doctrine
Marshall Plan
National Security Act
Brussels Pact
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Berlin Airlift
Warsaw Pact
House Un-American Activities Committee
Rosenberg trial
Organization of American States
Geneva Conference
Baghdad Pact
Eisenhower Doctrine
Sputnik
Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)
brinkmanship
U-2 incident
Military Industrial Complex
Bay of Pigs invasion
Berlin Wall
Cuban Missile Crisis
Domino Theory
Geneva Accords
Viet Cong
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
escalation
Ho Chi Minh Trail
Tet offensive
My Lai Massacre