US History 2nd Semester Final Project: Post WWII Socratic Seminar

Topic #1: Do the social ideas of the 1960s still have relevance today?
Topic #2: Did American presidents have good reasons to become involved in
conflicts to contain communism? Are there connections between Americas
involvement in world affairs to contain communism and Americas involvement
in world affairs to fight terrorism?
Content Objectives:
1. Examine how groups like women, African Americans, young people and the
economically disadvantaged sought equality in the United States.
2. Evaluate the decisions of US leadership to get involved in world affairs.
21st Century Skills Objectives:
1.
2.
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4.
5.

Critical Thinking - Closely analyzing documents

Collaboration - Socratic discussion and todaysmeet.com
Effective Oral Communication - Socratic discussion
Accessing and Analyzing Information - finding relevant current events articles
Initiative - Participation in academic conversation, on task over an extended
period of time

Instructions:
1.
You will be provided with a packet of documents to read and analyze in order to
prepare for your assigned socratic seminar topic.
2.
Read the documents, annotate them, and answer the guiding questions that
accompany each one.
3.
Each person is responsible for also locating and documenting three additional
documents that connect the historical topics to a current event or issue. Complete the
forms on the attached pages for each current events article that you locate.
4.
Complete the graphic organizer for the focus/topic question in order to pull all of the
material together.
5.

Be prepared to participate in a 40-minute socratic seminar on your assigned topic.

6.
Students who are not directly participating in the socratic seminar will be making
comments and asking questions in real-time using todaysmeet.com
Assessment/Evaluation: 75 points total
Prep/Written Grade (25 points): Everyone is required to turn in their document analysis
and current events article forms at the end of their socratic seminar discussion.
Socratic Discussion Grade (50 points)
In order to earn at least an 80% (B-), you must do the following:

Participate at least 4 times

Question or encourage at least one classmate

Reference your documents at least twice
Post at least 2 meaningful questions/thoughts/ideas in todaysmeet.com

Current Events Article #1

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Topic #1: Do the social ideas of the 1960s still have relevance today?
Group
Women

Economicall
y
Disadvanta
ged

African
Americans

Youth

Main Goals, Ideas, and

Methods of the 1960s

Connections to Today

Topic #2: Did American presidents have good reasons to become involved
in conflicts to contain Communism? Are there connections between
Americas involvement in world affairs to contain Communism and
Americas involvement in world affairs to fight terrorism?
Goals and Methods
of the United
States in this
Situation
Post World
War II
Europe

Korean
Conflict

Vietnam
Conflict

What does the

United States gain
from being involved
in this situation?

Why should the

United States not
involve itself in
this situation?

Current
Conflicts

The Rusk-McNamara Report (1961)

Soon after taking office in 1961, President Kennedy dispatched a series of factfinding missions to South Vietnam to assess the situation and to recommend a
plan of action. One of the most important of these analyses was conducted by
Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.
1. The United States National Interests in South Vietnam
The deteriorating situation in South Vietnam requires attention to the nature
and scope of the United States national interests in that country. The loss of
South Vietnam to Communism would involve the transfer of a nation of 20
million people from the free world to the Communism bloc. The loss of South
Vietnam would make pointless any further discussion about the importance
of Southeast Asia to the free world; we would have to face the near certainty
that the remainder of Southeast Asia and Indonesia would [fall] to
Communism. The United Stateshas commitments to South VietnamThe
loss of South Vietnam to Communism wouldundermine the credibility of
American commitments elsewhere
2. The United States objective in South Vietnam
The United States should commit itself to the clear objective of preventing
the fall of South Vietnam to Communism. The basic means for accomplishing
this objective must be to put the government of South Vietnam into a
position to win its own war against the [rebels from the North]. We must
insist that the government itself take the measures necessary for that
purpose in exchange for large-scale United States assistance in the military,
economic, and political fields. At the same time, we must recognize that it
may not be possible for the [South Vietnamese] to win this war as long as
the flow of men and supplies from North Vietnam continues unchecked and
the [rebels] enjoy a safe sanctuary in neighboring territory.
We should be prepared to introduce United States combat forces if that
should become necessary for success
3. The Use of United States Forces in South Vietnam

The commitment of United States forces to South Vietnam involves two

different categories: A. Units of modest size required for the direct support of
South Vietnamese military effort, such as communications, helicopter and
other forms of airlift, reconnaissance aircraft, naval patrols, intelligence units,
etc., and B. larger organized units with actual or potential direct military
missionUnder present circumstances, therefore, the question of injecting
United States combat forces should in large part be considered as a
contribution to the moral of the South Vietnamese in their own effort to do
the principal job themselvesIn light of the foregoing, the Secretary of State
and the Secretary of Defense recommend that:
1. We now take the decision to commit ourselves to the objective of
preventing the fall of South Vietnam to Communism, and that, in
doing so, we recognize that the introduction of United States forces
may be necessary to achieve this objective.
2. The Department of Defense be prepared with plans for the use of
United States forces in South Vietnam under one or more of the
following purposes:
a. Use of a significant number of United States forces to signify
United States determination to defend South Vietnam and to
boost South Vietnam morale.
b. Use of United States forces to deal with the situation if there is
organized Communist military intervention [from outside
forces]
Guiding Questions
1. Identify and explain at least two reasons that McNamara and Rusk gave for
ongoing United States involvement in Vietnam.

2. What steps did Rusk and McNamara outline for achieving the US goals in
Vietnam?

3. How did these steps leave the door open for increased US involvement in
the future?

4. What comparisons, if any, can you make between this type of involvement in
Vietnam and current involvement in Afghanistan and/or Iraq? Be specific.

Womens Liberation (1970)

The social turbulence of the 1960s gave new momentum to the womens rights
movement. Prominent feminists such as writer Gloria Steinem focused their efforts on
passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the Constitution. In 1970 the Senate
Judiciary Committee held hearings on the ERA, which passed the Congress but failed to
gain ratification by three-fourths of the states. The following transcript comes from
Steinems testimony before the committee.
During 12 years of working for a living, I have experienced much of the legal and social
discrimination reserved for women in this country. I have been refused service in public
restaurants, ordered out of public gathering places, and turned away from apartment
rentals; all for the clearly stated, sole reason that I am a women. And all without the legal
remedies available to blacks and other minorities. I have been excluded from professional
groups, writing assignments on so-called unfeminine subjects such as politics, full
participation in the Democratic Part, jury duty, and even from such small male privileges
as discounts on airline fares. Most important to me, I have been denied a society in which
women are encouraged, or even allowed to think of themselves as first-class citizens and
responsible human beings.
However, after 2 years of researching the status of American women, I have discovered
that in reality, I am very, very lucky. Most women, both wage-earners and housewives,
routinely suffer more humiliation and injustice than I do.
As a freelance writer, I dont work in the male-dominated hierarchy of an officeI am not
one of the millions of women who must support a family. Therefore, I havent had to go on
welfare because there are no day-care centers for my children while I work, and I havent
had to submit to the humiliating welfare inquiries about my private and sexual life,
inquiries from which men are exempt. I havent had to brace the sex bias of labor unions
and employers, only to see my family subsist on a median salary 40 percent less than the
male median salary.

I hope this committee will hear the personal, daily injustices suffered by many womenprofessionals and day laborers, women housebound by welfare as well as by suburbia. We
have all been silent for too long. But we wont be silent anymore.
The truth is that all our problems stem from the same sex-based myths. We may appear
before you as white radicals or the middle-class or black soul sisters, but we are all sisters
in fighting against these outdated myths. Like racial myths, they have been reflected in
our laws. Let me list a few.
That women are biologically inferior to men. In fact, an equally good case can be made for
the reverse. Women live longer than men, even when the men are not subject to business
pressures. Women survived Nazi concentration camps better, keep cooler heads in
emergencies, are protected from heart attacks by their female sex hormones, and are so
much more durable at every stage of life that nature must conceive 20 to 50 percent more
males in order to keep the balance going.
Mans hunting abilities are forever being pointed to as tribal proof of superiority. But while
he was hunting, women built houses, tilled the land, developed animal husbandry, and
perfected language. Men, being all alone in the bush, often developed into a creature as
strong as women, but not very bright
What we do know is that the difference between two races or two sexes is much smaller
than the differences to be found within each group. Therefore, in spite of the slide show on
female inferiorities that I understand was shown to you yesterday, the law makes much
more sense when it treats individuals, not groups bundled together by some condition of
birth

Another myth, that women are already treated equally in this society. I am sure there has
been ample testimony to prove that equal pay for equal work, equal chance for
advancement, and equal training or encouragement is obscenely scarce in every field,
even those like food and fashion industries that are supposedly feminine.
A deeper result of social and legal injustice, however, is what sociologists refer to as
Internalized Aggression. Victims of aggression absorb the myth of their own inferiority,
and come to believe that their group is in fact second class. Even when they themselves
realize that they are not second class, they may still think that their group is, thus the
tendency to be the only Jew in the club, the only black woman in the block, the only
woman in the office.
Women suffer this second class treatment from the moment they are born. They are
expected to be, rather than achieve, to function biologically rather than learn. A brother,
whatever his intellect, is more likely to get the familys encouragement and education
money, while girls are often pressure to conceal ambition and intelligence
Another myth, that American women hold great economic power. Fifty-one percent of all
shareholders in this country are women. That is a favorite male-chauvinist statistic.
However, the number of shares is so small that the total is only 18 percent of all the
shares. Even those holdings are often controlled by men.
The constantly repeated myth of our economic power seems less testimony to our real
power than to the resentment of what little power we do have.

Another myth, that children must have full-time mothers. American mothers spend more
time with their homes and children than those of any other society we know about. In the
past, joint families, servants, a prevalent system in which grandparents raised the
children, or family field work in the agrarian systems all these factors contributed more
to child care than the labor saving devices of which we are so proud.
The truth is that most American children seem to be suffering from too much mother, and
too little father. Part of the program of Womens Liberation is a return of fathers to their
children. If laws permit women equal work and pay opportunities, men will then be
relieved of their role as the sole breadwinner. Fewer ulcers, fewer hours of meaningless
work, equal responsibility for this own children; there are a few of the reasons that
Womens Liberation is Mens Liberation too
Another myth, that the womens movement is not political, wont last, or is somehow not
serious. When black people leave their 19 th century role, they are feared. When women
dare to leave theirs, they are ridiculed. We understand this; we accept the burden of
ridicule. It wont keep us quiet anymore.
Similarly, it shouldnt deceive male observers into thinking that this is somehow a joke. We
are 51 percent of the population; we are essentially united on these issues across
boundaries of class or race or age and we may well end by changing this society more
than the civil rights movement.Womens bodies will no longer be owned by the state for
the production of workers and soldiers; birth control and abortion are facts of everyday
life. The new family is an egalitarian family.
Gunner Myrdal noted 30 years ago the parallel between women and Negroes in this
country. Both suffered from such restricting social myths as: smaller brains, passive
natures, inability to govern themselves, sex objects only, childlike natures, special skills,
and the like. When evaluating a general statement about women, it might be valuable to
substitute black people for women just to test the prejudice at work.
And it might be valuable to do this constitutionally as well. Neither group is going to be
content as cheap labor anymore. And neither is going to be content without full
constitutional rights.

Guiding Questions
1. Identify at least three specific complaints that Steinem had regarding women
in American society in the 1960s.

2. Although Steinem does not directly state her goals in this document, she
indicates what she would like to see change for women. Infer three goals that
Steinem has for American women moving forward.

3. Who/what is Steinems audience in this document? How did she cater her
message to this audience? Be specific.

4. What parts of Steinems argument are still relevant today? Which ones have
been adequately addressed in current American society? Explain.

Vietnam and the Draft (1969)

This antiwar manifesto was signed by 250 student body presidents representing an
array of American colleges and universities. It was published in campus
newspapers across the country and may have been sent to President Nixons
Secretary of Defense, Melvin Laird.
In June of 1967, our predecessors submitteda petition signed by over 10,000
draft eligible students from nine campuses, calling for alternative service for those
who cannot fight in Vietnam. There have been many other similar attempts to
influence Congress and the Administration. Nonetheless, despite all of our efforts,
the Selective Service System remains impervious to change. Presently, thousands
of fellow students face the probability of immediate induction into the armed
forces.

Most of us have worked in electoral politics and through other channels to change
the course of Americas foreign policy and to remove the inequities of the draft
system. We will continue to work in these ways, but the possible results of these
efforts will come too late for those whose deferments will soon expire. We must
make an agonizing choice: to accept induction into the armed forces which we feel
would be irresponsible to ourselves, our country, and our fellow man; or to refuse
induction, which is contrary to our respect for law and involves injury to our
personal lives and careers.
Left without a third alternative, we will act according to out conscience. Along with
thousands of our fellow students, we campus leaders cannot participate in a way
which we believe to be immoral and unjust. Although this, for each of us, is an
intensely personal decision, we publicly and collectively express our intention to
refuse induction and to aid and support those who decide to refuse. We will not
serve in the military as long as the war in Vietnam continues.

The Twenty-Sixth Amendment to the Constitution (1971)

Amendment XXVI gives young adults between the age of eighteen and twenty-one
the right to vote. The measure is another in a line of constitutional changes that
expanded the right to vote to more citizens. At the time of the ratification of the
Constitution in 1788, most states limited voting to white, male citizens who were
over the age of 21.
It took 82 years for African American slaves to gain a constitutional right to vote,
132 years for womens suffrage and 183 years for those 18 to 21 years old to join
the voting population.
SECTION. 1. The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of
age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any
State on account of age.
SECTION. 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate
legislation.

Guiding Questions
1. What complaint were these student body presidents bringing to the
government? Why was this group of people particularly interested in this
issue?

2. Identify and explain at least two methods previously tried by this group to
make the government aware of its concerns.

3. What decision had this group recently come to regarding the issue of the
draft?

4. Explain the connection between the 1st and 2nd documents presented here.
Pay attention to the dates of each one and the content of each one to
establish how and why they fit together.

5. As young people today, what issues do you believe are most pressing for the
government to know about? How could you create change in the same ways
that the young people of the 1960s did?

Michael Harrington, The Other America: Poverty in the United States

(1962)
Sociologist Michael Harrington studied the plight of the invisible poor. His
shocking report spurred Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson to fight
the War on Poverty.

There is a familiar America. It is celebrated in speeches and advertised on

television and in the magazines. It has the highest mass standard of living the
world has ever known.
In the 1950s this America worried about itself, yet even its anxieties were products
of abundance. The title of a brilliant book [John Kenneth Galbraiths The Affluent
Society] was widely misinterpreted, and the familiar America began to call itself
the affluent society. There was introspection about Madison Avenue and tail fins;
there was discussion of the emotional suffering taking place in the suburbs. In all
this, there was an implicit assumption that the basic grinding economic problems
had been solved in the United States. In this theory the nations problems were no
longer a matter of basic human needs, of food, shelter, and clothing. Now they
were seen as qualitative, a question of learning to live decently amid luxury.
While this discussion was carried on, there existed another America. In it dwelt
somewhere between 40,000,000 and 50,000,000 citizens of this land. They were
poor. They still are.
To be sure, the other America is not impoverished in the same sense as those poor
nations where millions cling to hunger as a defense against starvation. This
country has escaped such extremes. That does not change the fact that tens of
millions of Americans are, at this very moment, maimed in body and spirit, existing
at levels beneath those necessary for human decency. If these people are not
starving, they are hungry, and sometimes fat with hunger, for that is what cheap
foods do. They are without adequate housing and education and medical care.
The Government has documented what this means to the bodies of the poor, and
the figures will be cited throughout this book. But even more basic, this poverty
twists and deforms the spirit. The American poor are pessimistic and defeated, and
they are victimized by mental suffering to a degree unknown in Suburbia.
This book is a description of the world in which these people live; it is about the
other America. Here are the unskilled workers, the migrant farm workers, the aged,
the minorities, and all the others who live in the economic underworld of American
life. In all this, there will be statistics, and that offers the opportunity for
disagreement among honest and sincere men. I would ask the reader to respond
critically to every assertion, but not to allow statistical quibbling to obscure the
huge, enormous, and intolerable fact of poverty in America. For, when all is said
and done, that fact is unmistakable, whatever its exact dimensions, and the truly
human reaction can only be outrage....
There are perennial reasons that make the other America an invisible land. Poverty
is often off the beaten track. It always has been. The ordinary tourist never left the
main highway, and today he rides interstate turnpikes. He does not go into the
valleys of Pennsylvania where the towns look like the movie sets of Wales in the
thirties. He does not see the company houses in rows, the rutted roads (the poor
always have bad roads whether they live in the city, in towns, or on farms), and
everything is black and dirty. And even if he were to pass through such a place by

accident, the tourist would not meet the unemployed men in the bar or the women
coming home from a runaway sweatshop.
Guiding Questions
1. About how many Americans lived in poverty during this time?

2. What did Harrington mean by poverty twists and deforms the spirit?

3. What types of people made up the other America?

Major Great Society Programs Lyndon B. Johnson

The Great Society program became Johnson's agenda for Congress in January
1965: aid to education, attack on disease, Medicare, urban renewal, beautification,
conservation, development of depressed regions, a wide-scale fight against
poverty, control and prevention of crime and delinquency, removal of obstacles to
the right to vote.
War on Poverty: forty programs that were intended to eliminate poverty by
improving living conditions and enabling people to lift themselves out of the cycle
of poverty.
Education: sixty separate bills that provided for new and better-equipped
classrooms, minority scholarships, and low-interest student loans.
Medicare & Medicaid: guaranteed health care to every American over sixty-five
and to low-income families.
The Environment: introduced measures to protect clean air and water.
National Endowment for the Arts and the Humanities: government funding
for artists, writers and performers.
Head Start: program for four- and five-year-old children from low-income families.
Sampling of the laws passed during the Johnson administration to
promote the Great Society. PREVENTION & ABATEMENT OF AIR POLLUTION
(THE CLEAN AIR ACT)
DEC. 17, 1963
-VOTING RIGHTS ACT OF 1965 AUG. 6, 1965
-HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT ACT AUG. 10, 1965

-PUBLIC WORKS AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ACT

AUG. 26, 1965
-DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT ACT
SEPT. 9, 1965
-NATIONAL FOUNDATION ON THE ARTS & THE HUMANITIES ACT
SEPT. 29, 1965
-HIGHER EDUCATION ACT OF 1965 NOV. 8, 1965
-CHILD NUTRITION ACT OF 1966 OCT. 11, 1966
-CHILD PROTECTION ACT OF 1966 NOV. 3, 1966
-NATIONAL SCHOOL LUNCH ACT MAY 8, 1968
-VOCATIONAL DEC. 18, 1963
-CIVIL RIGHTS JULY 2, 1964
-URBAN MASS JULY 9, 1964
-FEDERAL-AID AUG. 13, 1964
-EDUCATION ACT
-ACT OF 1964 TRANSPORTATION HIGHWAY ACT OF 1964
-CRIMINAL JUSTICE ACT OF 1964 AUG. 20, 1964
-FOOD STAMP ACT OF 1964 AUG. 31, 1964
-NATIONAL ARTS CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT ACT OF 1964
SEPT. 3, 1964
-SOCIAL SECURITY AMENDMENTS JULY 30, 1965

PRO: What Was Really Great About The Great Society (Modified)
By Joseph A. Califano Jr.
The Washington Monthly (online), October 1999
If there is a prize for the political scam of the 20th century, it should go to the
conservatives for [claiming that the] Great Society programs of the 1960s were a
misguided and failed social experiment that wasted taxpayers' money.
Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, from 1963 when Lyndon Johnson
took office until 1970 as the impact of his Great Society programs were felt, the
portion of Americans living below the poverty line dropped from 22.2 percent to
12.6 percent, the most dramatic decline over such a brief period in this century. . .
If the Great Society had not achieved that dramatic reduction in poverty, and the
nation had not maintained it, 24 million more Americans would today be living
below the poverty level. . .
Since 1965 the federal government has provided more than a quarter of a trillion
dollars in 86 million college loans to 29 million students, and more than $14 billion
in work-study awards to 6 million students. Today nearly 60 percent of full- time
undergraduate students receive federal financial aid under Great Society
programs. . .
Head Start has served more than 16 million preschoolers in just about every city
and county in the nation and today serves 800,000 children a year. . . . Lyndon

Johnson knew that the rich had kindergartens and nursery schools; and he asked,
why not the same benefits for the poor?
Is revolution too strong a word? Since 1965, 79 million Americans have signed up
for Medicare. In 1966, 19 million were enrolled; in 1998, 39 million. Since 1966,
Medicaid has served more than 200 million needy Americans. In 1967, it served 10
million poor citizens; in 1997, 39 million. . . Closely related to these health
programs were efforts to reduce malnutrition and hunger. Today, the Great
Society's food stamp program helps feed more than 20 million men, women, and
children in more than 8 million households. Since it was launched in 1967, the
school breakfast program has provided a daily breakfast to nearly 100 million
schoolchildren.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965. . .opened the way for black Americans to strengthen
their voice at every level of government. In 1964 there were 79 black elected
officials in the South and 300 in the entire nation. By 1998, there were some 9,000
elected black officials across the nation, including 6,000 in the South. . . .
Source: Joseph Califano, Jr., became a special assistant to President Johnson in July
1965, and served as President Johnson's senior domestic policy aide for the
remainder of Johnson's term.
CON: War on Poverty Revisited (Modified)
By Thomas Sowell
Capitalism Magazine (online), August 17, 2004
The War on Poverty represented the crowning triumph of the liberal vision of
society -- and of government programs as the solution to social problems. . .
In the liberal vision, slums bred crime. But brand-new government housing projects
almost immediately became new centers of crime and quickly degenerated
(declined) into new slums.
Rates of teenage pregnancy and venereal disease had been going down for years
before the new 1960s attitudes toward sex spread rapidly through the schools,
helped by War on Poverty money. These downward trends suddenly reversed and
skyrocketed.
The murder rate had also been going down, for decades, and in 1960 was just
under half of what it had been in 1934. Then the new 1960s policies toward curing
the "root causes" of crime and creating new "rights" for criminals began. Rates of
violent crime, including murder, skyrocketed.
The black family, which had survived centuries of slavery and discrimination,
began rapidly disintegrating in the liberal welfare state that subsidized (paid for)
unwed pregnancy and changed welfare from an emergency rescue to a way of
life. . .

The economic rise of blacks began decades earlier, before any of the legislation
and policies that are credited with producing that rise. The continuation of the rise
of blacks out of poverty did not -- repeat, did not -- accelerate during the 1960s.
The poverty rate among black families fell from 87 percent in 1940 to 47 percent in
1960, during an era of virtually no major civil rights legislation or anti-poverty
programs. . . . In various skilled trades, the incomes of blacks relative to whites
more than doubled between 1936 and 1959 -- that is, before the magic 1960s
decade when supposedly all progress began. The rise of blacks in professional and
other high-level occupations was greater in the five years preceding the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 than in the five years afterwards.
Guiding Questions
1. What was Califanos main argument? What was Sowells main argument?

2. What evidence did each use to support his claim?

3.

Who do you find more convincing? Why?

CONTAIN SOVIET COMMUNISM

Excerpts from a telegram sent by George Kennan from the U.S. Moscow
embassy to the State Department, February 22, 1946USSR still lives in
antagonistic capitalistic encirclement with which in the long run there can be no
permanent peaceful coexistence.... [They believe that the] capitalist world is beset
with internal conflicts, inherent in the nature of capitalist society.... Internal
conflicts of capitalism inevitably generate wars... Everything must be done to
advance relative strength of USSR... no opportunity must be missed to
reducestrength and influence, collectively as well as individually, of capitalist
powers.... At bottom of Kremlins neurotic view of world affairs is traditional and
instinctive Russian sense of insecurity.... Soviet power, unlike that of Hitlerite
Germany, is neither schematic nor adventuristic. It does not work by fixed plans. It
does not take unnecessary risks. Impervious to logic of reason, and it is highly
sensitive to logic of force. For this reason it can easily withdrawand usually does
when strong resistance is encountered at any point....
We must see that our public is educated to realities of Russian situation.... Much
depends upon health and vigor of our own society. World communism is like
malignant parasite which feeds only on diseased tissue.... We must formulate and
put forward for other nations a much more positive and constructive picture of sort
of world we would like to see. Many foreign peoples, in Europe at least, are tired
and frightened by experiences of past, and are less interested in abstract freedom
than in security. They are seeking guidance rather than responsibilities. We should
be better able than Russians to give them this. And unless we do, Russians
certainly will.... We must have courage and self-confidence to cling to our own
methods and conceptions of human society. The greatest danger that can befall us
in coping with this problem of Soviet communism, is that we shall allow ourselves
to become like those with whom we are coping.
Excerpts from a memorandum to President Truman prepared by Clark
Clifford, special counsel to the president, September 24, 1946[The Soviet
leaders] with whom we hope to achieve an understanding on the principles of
international peace appear to believe that a war with the United States and the
other leading capitalist nations is inevitable. They are increasing their military
power and the sphere of Soviet influence in preparation for the inevitable conflict,

and they are trying to weaken and subvert their potential opponents by every
means at their disposal.... We should be prepared to join with the British and other
Western countries in an attempt to build up a world of our own which will pursue its
own objectives and will recognize the Soviet orbit as a distinct entity with which
conflict is not predestined, but with which we can not pursue common aims.... [We
must] as a first step to world stabilization seek to prevent additional Soviet
aggression. The greater the area controlled by the Soviet Union, the greater the
military requirements of this country will be.... The language of military power is
the only language which disciples of power politics understand. The United States
must use that language in order that Soviet leaders will realize that our
government is determined to uphold the interests of its citizens and the rights of
small nations.... The prospect of defeat is the only sure means of deterring the
Soviet Union.... To maintain our strength at a level which will be effective in
restraining the Soviet Union, the United States must be prepared to wage atomic
and biological warfare.... In addition to maintaining our own strength, the United
States should support and assist all democratic countries which are in any way
menaced or endangered by the U.S.S.R. Providing military support in case of attack
is a last resort; a more effective barrier to communism is strong economic
support....
Cooperation by the Soviets can result in increased trade.... [However,] economic
aid granted to the Soviet government or other governments within its sphere, and
the fruits of private trade with persons inside these countries, will go to strengthen
the entire world program of the Kremlin.... Because the Soviet Union is a highly
centralized state, whose leaders exercise rigid discipline and control of all
governmental functions, its government acts with speed, consistency, and
boldness. The United States can not afford to be uncertain of its policies toward the
Soviet Union.... The American people should be fully informed about the difficulties
in getting along with the Soviet Union, and the record of Soviet evasion,
misrepresentation, aggression and militarism should be made public.... The United
States should maintain military forces powerful enough to restrain the Soviet Union
and to confine Soviet influence to its present area. All nations not now within the
Soviet sphere should be given generous economic assistance and political support
in their opposition to Soviet penetration.
Guiding Questions
1. What do you think Kennan was talking about when he mentioned diseased
tissue?

2. According to Kennan, what role should the United States play in foreign
affairs?

3. What did Truman think was the most effective barrier to communism?

AVOID FOREIGN ENTANGLEMENTS

Excerpts from President George Washingtons Farewell Address,
September 19, 1796
Nothing is more essential than that permanent, deep-seated resentment against
particular nations and passionate attachments for others should be excluded and
that in place of them just and harmonious feelings toward all should be
cultivated.... Against the insidious ruses of foreign influence, ...the jealousy of a
free people ought to be constantly awake.... The great rule of conduct for us, in
regard to foreign nations, is in extending our commercial relations to have with
them as little political connection as possible.... Europe has a set of primary
interests which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be
engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to
our concerns.... Even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial
hand, neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences.
Excerpts from President James Monroes message to Congress, December
2, 1823
Our policy in regard to Europe, which was adopted at an early stage of the wars
which have so long agitated that quarter of the globe, nevertheless remains the
same, which is not to interfere in the internal concerns of any of its powers; to
consider the government de facto [in power] as the legitimate government for us;
to cultivate friendly relations with it, and to preserve those relations by a frank,
firm, and manly policy, meeting in all instances the just claims of every power,
submitting to injuries from none.
Excerpts from speeches by Senator Robert Taft, May 1943, August 1943,
and January 1946
[Suggestions that the United States police the world] are completely contrary to
the ideals of the American people and the theory that we are fighting for liberty as
well as security.... It is based on the theory that we know better what is good for
the world than the world itself. It assumes that we are always right and that
anyone who disagrees with us is wrong.... Other people simply do not like to be
dominated....

Money loaned to governments is not likely to be repaid if loaned in such

tremendous amounts. That was our experience after the last war.... I seriously
question the wisdom of having one government lend money to another.... In the
long run, a country which cannot stand on its own feet is not likely to succeed
through assistance from some other country. Every country must work out its own
salvation.... Loans from one government to another make for bad feelings. A man
or a country is more likely to make enemies by lending money and asking for
repayment than he or it is likely to make friends. Loans have been used and
probably will be used in the future for political purposes, to tie one country more
closely to another, to obtain concessions in the development of resources, and to
form political blocs, which are a good deal more dangerous than economic blocs.
Guiding Questions
1. Why did Washington and Monroe caution America against getting involved in
European politics?

2. What was Senator Robert Tafts argument against economic aid to foreign
countries? There are TWO main ones.

President Lyndon B. Johnson's

Address at Johns Hopkins University: "Peace Without Conquest"
April 7, 1965
Mr. Garland, Senator Brewster, Senator Tydings, Members of the congressional
delegation, members of the faculty of Johns Hopkins, student body, my fellow
Americans:
Last week 17 nations sent their views to some two dozen countries having an
interest in southeast Asia. We are joining those 17 countries and stating our
American policy tonight which we believe will contribute toward peace in this area
of the world.
I have come here to review once again with my own people the views of the
American Government.

Tonight Americans and Asians are dying for a world where each people may choose
its own path to change.
This is the principle for which our ancestors fought in the valleys of Pennsylvania. It
is the principle for which our sons fight tonight in the jungles of Viet-Nam.
Viet-Nam is far away from this quiet campus. We have no territory there, nor do we
seek any. The war is dirty and brutal and difficult. And some 400 young men, born
into an America that is bursting with opportunity and promise, have ended their
lives on Viet-Nam's steaming soil.
Why must we take this painful road?
Why must this Nation hazard its ease, and its interest, and its power for the sake of
a people so far away?
We fight because we must fight if we are to live in a world where every country can
shape its own destiny. And only in such a world will our own freedom be finally
secure.
This kind of world will never be built by bombs or bullets. Yet the infirmities of man
are such that force must often precede reason, and the waste of war, the works of
peace. We wish that this were not so. But we must deal with the world as it is, if it
is ever to be as we wish.
The world as it is in Asia is not a serene or peaceful place.
The first reality is that North Viet-Nam has attacked the independent nation of
South Viet-Nam. Its object is total conquest.
Of course, some of the people of South Viet-Nam are participating in attack on
their own government. But trained men and supplies, orders and arms, flow in a
constant stream from north to south.
This support is the heartbeat of the war. And it is a war of unparalleled brutality.
Simple farmers are the targets of assassination and kidnapping. Women and
children are strangled in the night because their men are loyal to their
government. And helpless villages are ravaged by sneak attacks. Large-scale raids
are conducted on towns, and terror strikes in the heart of cities.The confused
nature of this conflict cannot mask the fact that it is the new face of an old enemy.
Over this war--and all Asia--is another reality: the deepening shadow of Communist
China. The rulers in Hanoi are urged on by Peking. This is a regime which has
destroyed freedom in Tibet, which has attacked India, and has been condemned by
the United Nations for aggression in Korea. It is a nation which is helping the forces
of violence in almost every continent. The contest in Viet-Nam is part of a wider
pattern of aggressive purposes.

Why are these realities our concern? Why are we in South Viet-Nam ?
We are there because we have a promise to keep. Since 1954 every American
President has offered support to the people of South Viet-Nam. We have helped to
build, and we have helped to defend. Thus, over many years, we have made a
national pledge to he!p South Viet-Nam defend its independence.
And I intend to keep that promise.
To dishonor that pledge, to abandon this small and brave nation to its enemies,
and to the terror that must follow, would be an unforgivable wrong.
We are also there to strengthen world order. Around the globe, from Berlin to
Thailand, are people whose well-being rests, in part, on the belief that they can
count on us if they are attacked. To leave Viet-Nam to its fate would shake the
confidence of all these people in the value of an American commitment and in the
value of America's word. The result would be increased unrest and instability, and
even wider war.
We are also there because there are great stakes in the balance. Let no one think
for a moment that retreat from Viet-Nam would bring an end to conflict. The battle
would be renewed in one country and then another. The central lesson of our time
is that the appetite of aggression is never satisfied. To withdraw from one
battlefield means only to prepare for the next. We must say in southeast Asia--as
we did in Europe--in the words of the Bible: "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no
further."
There are those who say that all our effort there will be futile--that China's power is
such that it is bound to dominate all southeast Asia. But there is no end to that
argument until all of the nations of Asia are swallowed up.
There are those who wonder why we have a responsibility there. Well, we have it
there for the same reason that we have a responsibility for the defense of Europe.
World War II was fought in both Europe and Asia, and when it ended we found
ourselves with continued responsibility for the defense of freedom.
Our objective is the independence of South Viet-Nam, and its freedom from attack.
We want nothing for ourselves--only that the people of South Viet-Nam be allowed
to guide their own country in their own way.
We will do everything necessary to reach that objective. And we will do only what
is absolutely necessary.
Guiding Questions
1. What are the three strongest arguments that Lyndon B. Johnson gave for the
necessity of American troops being in Vietnam?

2. What point was Johnson trying to make when he stated, the appetite of
aggression is never satisfied?

Donald Duncan, The Whole Thing Was a Lie! Ramparts 4, no. 10

(February 1966), pp. 12-24
Donald Duncan was a Master Sergeant who served ten years in the Army. Six of
those years were in the Special Forces where he spent eighteen months on active
combat duty in Vietnam. He participated in many missions behind enemy lines.
This is an excerpt from his memoirs.
My first impressions of Vietnam were gained from the window of the jet while flying

over Saigon and its outlying areas. As I looked down Ithought, "Why, those could
be farms anywhere and that could be a city anywhere." The ride from Tan Son Nhut
to the center of town destroyed the initial illusion.
My impressions weren'tunique for a new arrival inSaigon. I was appalled by theheat
and humidity which mademy worsted uniform feel like afur coat. Smells. Exhaust
fumesfrom the hundreds of blue andwhite Renault taxis and militaryvehicles.
Human excrement; thefoul, stagnant, black mud andwater as we passed over the
river on Cong Ly Street; and,overriding all the others, thevery pungent and rancid
smellof what I later found out wasnuoc mam, a sauce made much in the same
manner as sauerkraut, with fish substituted for cabbage. No Vietnamese meal is
complete without it. People masses of them! The smallest children, with the
dirty faces of all children of their age, standing on the sidewalk unshod and with no
clothing other than a shirtwaist that never quite reached the navel on the
protruding belly. Those a little older wearing overall-type trousers with the crotch
seam torn out a practical alteration that eliminates the need for diapers.
Bars by the hundreds with American-style names (Playboy, Hungry, Flamingo)
and faced with grenade- proof screening. Houses made from packing cases,
accommodating three or four families, stand alongside spacious villas complete
with military guard. American GI's abound in sport shirts, slacks, and cameras;
motorcycles, screaming to make room for a speeding official in a large, shiny
sedan, pass over an intersection that has hundreds of horseshoes impressed in the
soft asphalt tar. Confusion, noise, smells, people almost overwhelming.
There was a continual putdown of Saigon officials, the Saigon government, ARVN
(Army Republic of Vietnam), the LLDB (Luc Luong Dae Biet- Vietnamese Special
Forces) and the Vietnamese man-in-the-street. The government was rotten, the
officials corrupt, ARVN cowardly, the LLDB all three, and the man-in-the-street an
ignorant thief.
I was shocked. I was working with what were probably some of the most dedicated
Americans in Vietnam. They were supposedly in Vietnam to help "our Vietnamese
friends" in their fight for a democratic way of life. Obviously, the attitude didn't fit.
Whenever anybody questioned our being in Vietnam in light of the facts the old
rationale was always presented: We have to stop the spread of communism
somewhere if we dont fight the commies here, well have to fight them at home
if we pull out, the rest of Asia will go Red these are uneducated people who
have been uped; they dont understand the difference between democracy and
communism.
Being extremely anti-Communist myself, these arguments satisfied me for a long
time. In fact, I guess it was saying these very same things to myself over and over
again that made it possible for me to participate in the things I did in Vietnam. But
we were stopping communism? Even during the shortperiod I had been in Vietnam,
the Viet Cong had obviouslygained in strength; the government controlled less and
less ofthe country every day. The moretroops and money we pouredin, the more
people hated us.Countries all over the worldwere losing sympathy with ourstand in

Vietnam. Countrieswhich up to now had preserveda neutral position were

becoming vehemently anti-American.A village near Tay Ninh in whichI had slept in
safety six monthsearlier was the center of a VietCong operation that cost thelives
of two American friends.A Special Forces team operating in the area was almost
decimated over a period of fourmonths. United States Operations Mission (USOM),
civilian representatives, who had been able to travel by vehicle in relative safety
throughout the countryside, were being kidnapped and killed. Like the military,
they now had to travel by air.
The real question was, whether communism is spreading in spite of our
involvement or because of it.
The troops were accosting women on the streets. They would go into a place a
bar or cafe and order varieties of food. When the checks came they wouldn't
pay them. Instead they would simply wreck the place, dumping over the tables and
smashing dishes. While these men were accosting women, the police would just
stand by, powerless or unwilling to help. In fact, the situation is so difficult that
American troops, if in town at the same time as the Vietnamese Air- borne Brigade,
are told to stay off the streets at night to avoid coming to harm.
The whole thing was a lie. We weren't preserving freedom in South Vietnam. There
was no freedom to preserve. To voice opposition to the government meant jail or
death. Neutralism was forbidden and punished. Newspapers that didn't say the
right thing were closed down. People are not even free to leave and Vietnam is one
of those rare countries that doesn't fill its American visa quota. It's all there to see
once the Red film is removed from the eyes. We aren't the freedom fighters. We
are the Russian tanks blasting the hopes of an Asian Hungary.
When I returned from Vietnam I was asked, Do you resent young people who have
never been in Vietnam, or in any war, protesting it?" On the contrary, I am
relieved. I think they should be commended. I had to wait until I was 35 years old,
after spending 10 years in the Army and 18 months personally witnessing the
stupidity of the war, before I could figure it out. That these young people were able
to figure it out so quickly and so accurately is not only a credit to their intelligence
but a great personal triumph over a lifetime of conditioning and indoctrination. I
only hope that the picture I have tried to create will help other people come to the
truth without wasting 10 years. Those people protesting the war in Vietnam are not
against our boys in Vietnam. On the contrary. What they are against is our boys
being in Vietnam. They are not unpatriotic. Again the opposite is true. They are
opposed to people, our own and others, dying for a lie, thereby corrupting the very
word democracy.

Guiding Questions
1. How did Donald Duncans views on American troops being in Vietnam
change?

2. What do you think Duncan meant when he stated, The real question was,
whether communism is spreading in spite of our involvement or because of
it.?

3. How does Duncan feel about protesters? Does this answer surprise you?

An Interview With Malcolm X - Excerpts

The following interview with Malcolm X, formerly the minister of the New York City
and Washington, D.C. mosques of the Lost-Found Nation of Islam, headed by The
Honorable Elijah Muhammad, was held on March 19, 1964. The interview,
conducted by poet and jazz critic A.B. SPELLMAN, appeared simultaneously in
Monthly Review and Revolution.
Spellman: Please answer these charges that are often raised against you: That
you are as racist as Hitler and the Klan, etc. That you are anti-Semitic. That you
advocate mob violence.
Malcolm X: No, were not racists at all. Our brotherhood is based on the fact that
we are all black, brown, red, or yellow. We dont call this racism, any more than you
could refer to the European Common Market which consists of Europeans, which
means that it consists of white-skin peopleis not referred to as a racist coalition
its referred to as the European Common Market, an economic groupwhile our
desire for unity among black, brown, red, and yellow is for brotherhoodhas
nothing to do with racism, has nothing to do with Hitler, has nothing to do with the
Klanin fact, the Klan in this country was designed to perpetuate an injustice upon
Negroes; whereas the Muslims are designed to eliminate the injustice that has
been perpetuated upon the so-called Negro.
Were anti-exploitation and in this country the Jews have been located in the socalled Negro community as merchants and businessmen for so long that they feel
guilty when you mention that the exploiters of Negroes are Jews. This doesnt
mean that we are anti-Jews or anti-Semiticwere anti-exploitation.
No. We have never been involved in any kind of violence whatsoever. We have
never initiated any violence against anyone, but we do believe that when violence
is practiced against us we should be able to defend ourselves. We dont believe in
turning the other cheek.
Spellman: Whom do you hope to draw from in organizing this political movement
what kind of people?
Malcolm X: Allwere flexiblea variety. But our accent will be upon youth. Weve
already issued a call for the students in the colleges and universities across the
country to launch their own independent studies of the race problem in he country
and then bring their analyses and their suggestions for a new approach back to us
so that we can devise an action program geared to their thinking. The accent is on
youth because the youth have less at stake in this corrupt system and therefore
can look at it more objectively, whereas the adults usually have a stake in this
corrupt system and they lose their ability to look at it objectively because of their
stake in it.

Malcolm X: National? I have gotten already an amazing number of letters from

student groups at college campuses across the country expressing a desire to
become involved in a united front in this new idea that we have.
Spellman: What kind of coalition do you plan to make? Can whites join the Muslim
Mosque Inc.?
Malcolm X: Whites cant join us. Everything that whites join that Negroes have
they end up out-joining the Negroes. The whites control all Negro organizations
that they can jointhey end up in control of those organizations. If whites want to
help us financially we will accept their financial help, but we will never let them join
us.
Spellman: Then black leadership is necessary?
Malcolm X: Absolutely black leadership.
Spellman: What is your program for achieving your goals of independence?
Malcolm X: When the black man in this country awakens, becomes intellectually
mature and able to think for himself, you will then see that the only way he will
become independent and recognized as a human being on the basis of equality
with all other human beings, he has to have what they have and he has to be
doing for himself what others are doing for themselves so the first step is to
awaken him to this and that is where the religion of Islam makes him morally more
able to rise above the evils and the vices of an immoral society and the political,
economic, and social philosophy of black nationalism instills within him the racial
dignity and the incentive and the confidence that he needs to stand on his own
feet and take a stand for himself.
Spellman: Do you plan to employ any kind of mass action?
Malcolm X: Oh, yes.
Spellman: What kinds?
Malcolm X: Wed rather not say at this time, but we definitely plan to employ
mass action.
Spellman: Is there anything else you want to say?
Malcolm X: No. Ive said enoughmaybe Ive said too much.

Letter From a Birmingham Jail - Excerpts

Martin Luther King, Jr. April 16, 1963
My Dear Fellow Clergymen,
While confined here in the Birmingham City Jail, I came across your recent
statement calling our present activities unwise and untimely. Seldom, if ever, do I
pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas But since I feel that you are men

of genuine good will and your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I would like to
answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.
In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: 1) collection of the facts to
determine whether injustices are alive; 2) negotiation; 3) self-purification; and 4)
direct action. We have gone through all of these steps in Birmingham
Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States.
Its ugly record of police brutality is known in every section of the country. Its unjust
treatment of Negroes in the courts is a notorious reality. There have been more
unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any city
in this nation. These are the hard, brutal, and unbelievable facts. On the basis of
these conditions Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the
political leaders consistently refused to engage in good faith negotiation.
Then came the opportunity last September to talk with some of the leaders of the
economic community. In these negotiating sessions certain promises were made
by the merchantssuch as the promise to remove the humiliating racial signs from
the stores. On the basis of these promises Reverend Shuttlesworth and the leaders
of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to call a moratorium
on any type of demonstrations. As the weeks and months unfolded we realized
that we were the victims of a broken promise. The signs remained. As in so many
experiences in the past, we were confronted with blasted hopes, and the dark
shadow of a deep disappointment settled upon us. So we had no alternative except
that of preparing for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a
means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and national
community. We were not unmindful of the difficulties involved. So we decided to go
through the process of self-purification. We started having workshops on
nonviolence and repeatedly asked ourselves the questions, are you able to accept
the blows without retaliating? Are you able to endure the ordeals of jail?
You may well ask, Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches, etc.? Isnt negotiation
a better path? You are exactly right in your call for negotiation. Indeed, this is the
purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and
establish such creative tension that a community that has constantly refused to
negotiate is forced to confront the issue.
My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights
without legal and nonviolent pressure. History is the long and tragic story of the
fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals
may see the moral light and give up their unjust posture; but as Reinhold Niebuhr
has reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals.
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the
oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly I have never yet
engaged in a direct action movement that was well timed, according to the
timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation.
For years now I have heard the word Wait! It rings in the ear of every Negro with
a piercing familiarity. This wait has almost always meant never. It has been a

tranquilizing Thalidomide, relieving the emotional stress for a moment, only to give
birth to an ill-formed infant of frustration. We must come to see with the
distinguished jurist of yesterday that justice too long delayed is justice denied.
We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given
rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward the goal
of political independence, and we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward the
gaining of a cup of coffee at a lunch counter.
I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to
say wait. But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at
will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled
policemen curse, kick, brutalize, and even kill your black brothers and sisters with
impunity; when you see the vast majority of your 20 million Negro brothers
smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when
you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to
explain to your six-year-old daughter why she cant go to the public amusement
park that has just been advertised on television, and see the tears welling up in
her little eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see
the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky, and see
her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness
toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son
who is asking in agonizing pathos: Daddy, why do white people treat colored
people so mean? when you take a cross country drive and find it necessary to
sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no
motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging
signs reading white men and colored when your first name becomes nigger
and your middle name becomes boy (however old you are) and your last name
becomes John, and when your wife and mother are never given the respected
title of Mrs. when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that
you are a Negro, living constantly at tip-toe stance, never quite knowing what to
expect next, and plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are
forever fighting a degenerating sense of nobodinessthen you will understand
why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs
over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of injustice where
they experience the bleakness of corroding despair. I hope, sirs, you can
understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience..
The Negro has many pent-up resentments and latent frustrations. He has to get
them out. So let him march sometime; let him have his prayer pilgrimages to the
city hall; understand why he must have sit-ins and freedom rides. If his repressed
emotions do not come out in these nonviolent ways, they will come out in ominous
expressions of violence. This is not a threat; it is a fact of history. So I have not said
to my people, Get rid of your discontent. But I have tried to say that this normal
and healthy discontent can be channeled through the creative outlet of nonviolent
direct action.
I hope this letter finds you strong in the faith.. Let us all hope that the dark clouds
of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will

be lifted from our fear-drenched communities and in some not too distant
tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation
with all of their scintillating beauty.
Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood,
M. L. King, Jr.
Guiding Questions:
1. Identify and explain two methods by which Malcolm X hoped to achieve
greater equality for African Americans in the 1960s.

2. Define and explain the steps of a nonviolent campaign, as outlined by King.

3. What did King mean when he said wait means never?

4. What did King say one must do if they break an unjust law?
Case Study - The Tonkin Gulf Resolution
From the Choices Curriculum
The Incident
During the summer of 1964 the United States was directing two ongoing naval
operations in the Gulf of Tonkin, north of the 17th parallel off the coast of Vietnam.
One operation involved South Vietnamese commandos, trained by the C.I.A., who
would launch hit-and-run strikes on North Vietnamese coastal sites using very fast
patrol boats. The other operation would send U.S. warships, equipped with
sensitive electronic gear, to cruise to within eight miles of the North Vietnamese
coast in order to trigger the operation of North Vietnamese radar installations and
then take measurements of their locations and frequencies. The U.S. destroyer
Maddox was engaged in such a mission off the North Vietnamese coast on August
1. The day before, several South Vietnamese patrol boats had raided North
Vietnamese coastal positions in the same area.
On the morning of August 2, the Maddox was attacked by several North
Vietnamese patrol boats. Several torpedoes missed their target, but machine gun
fire hit the U.S. warship. There were no casualties. The Maddox had begun firing as

soon as the patrol boats approached, sinking one patrol boat and damaging two
others. Planes from the nearby U.S. aircraft carrier Ticonderoga assisted by strafing
the enemy boats. When Johnson received word of the incident, he sent a stern
warning to North Vietnamese leaders in Hanoi. He also informed Soviet Premier
Nikita Khrushchev that, while he did not wish to widen the war, the United States
would not tolerate attacks by the North Vietnamese on U.S. warships in
international waters. No acts of reprisal were ordered at the time.
To underscore American determination, the Maddox, joined by a second destroyer,
the C. Turner Joy, were ordered back into the same area the next day. Several
South Vietnamese patrol boats also staged another hit-and-run mission in the area.
During that evening, radar and sonar readings taken by the crews of the destroyers
seemed to indicate that both U.S. destroyers were under attack. No enemy boats
were actually seen and no hostile gunfire was heard. Nevertheless, both destroyers
fired for several hours at the unseen attackers. Heavy rain that evening in the
Tonkin Gulf contributed to the confusion. When Johnson was notified of the
situation, he decided to order retaliation, and to ask Congress immediately for a
resolution of support. (Several days later, analysis of the incident raised doubts
that the two destroyers had actually come under attack. Johnson himself remarked
to an aide, "Hell, those dumb stupid sailors were just shooting at flying fish.")
Guiding Questions
1. Some have argued that the North Vietnamese were to blame for the incident, while others have
maintained the United States was at fault. Discuss the case that both sides might make.

2. Why do you think that President Johnson went to Congress and the American people immediately,
rather than waiting for a full investigation of the second "attack"?
The Request

On the evening of August 4, the day of the controversial second "attack" on U.S.
naval vessels in the Tonkin Gulf, President Johnson went on national television to
announce that he had ordered reprisal bombing of North Vietnamese naval
facilities and to declare that "repeated acts of violence against the armed forces of
the United States must be met not only with alert defense, but with positive reply."
The next day the following resolution was sent to Congress for action:
"Whereas the naval units of the Communist regime in Vietnam, in violation
of the principles of the Charter of the United Nations and of international
law, have deliberately and repeatedly attacked United States naval vessels
lawfully present in international waters and have thereby created a serious
threat to international peace;

"Whereas these attacks are part of a deliberate and systematic campaign

of aggression that the communist regime in North Vietnam has been
waging against its neighbors and the nations joined with them in the
collective defense of their freedom;
"Whereas the United States is assisting the peoples of southeast Asia to
protect their freedom and has no territorial, military or political ambitions
in that area, but desires only that these peoples should be left in peace to
work out their own destinies in their own way. Now therefore, be it
"Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled that the Congress approves and
supports the determination of the President, as Commander in Chief, to
take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces
of the United States and to prevent further aggression.
"Sec. 2 The United States regards as vital to its national interest and to
world peace the maintenance of the international peace and security in
southeast Asia. Consonant with the Constitution and the Charter of the
United Nations and in accordance with its obligations under the Southeast
Asia Collective Defense Treaty, the United States is, therefore, as the
President determines, to take all necessary steps, including the use of
armed force, to assist any member or protocol state [South Vietnam] of
the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty requesting assistance in
defense of its freedom.
"Sec. 3 This resolution shall expire when the President shall determine that
the peace and security of the area is reasonably assured by international
conditions created by action of the United Nations or otherwise, except
that it may be terminated earlier by concurrent resolution of the
Congress."
Guiding Questions
1. Do the changes in wording from the draft of June appear to strengthen
the hand of the President in directing U.S. policy in Vietnam? Explain
by comparing specific phrases from the two documents.

2. Sometime later, Johnson remarked to aides that this resolution was

"like grandma's nightshirt - it covered everything." What did he mean
by this?

The Action
After two days of debate, both Houses of Congress, with only Senators Wayne
Morse and Ernest Gruening dissenting, passed the Tonkin Gulf resolution. This
congressional action would be cited by the administration as the necessary and
sufficient legal authority for its actions in Vietnam during the next several years.
Subsequent annual requests for funds to continue the war were regularly approved
by Congress. Even congressmen who opposed the war were reluctant to deny the
funds and resources necessary to support the U.S. effort. The Tonkin Gulf resolution
was repealed by the Senate in June 1970. U.S. involvement in the war continued
until January 1973, although no formal declaration of war was ever requested.
Guiding Question
1. If the administration had foreseen how long and costly the war would be,
do you think that it would have chosen the same means to obtain
congressional support and legal authority? Explain.

173 - Statement by the President on the Situation in Korea - Excerpts

President Harry Truman, June 27, 1950
IN KOREA the Government forces, which were armed to prevent border raids and to
preserve internal security, were attacked by invading forces from North Korea. The

Security Council of the United Nations called upon the invading troops to cease
hostilities and to withdraw to the 38th parallel. This they have not done, but on the
contrary have pressed the attack. The Security Council called upon all members of
the United Nations to render every assistance to the United Nations in the
execution of this resolution. In these circumstances I have ordered United States
air and sea forces to give the Korean Government troops cover and support.
The attack upon Korea makes it plain beyond all doubt that communism has
passed beyond the use of subversion to conquer independent nations and will now
use armed invasion and war. It has defied the orders of the Security Council of the
United Nations issued to preserve international peace and security. In these
circumstances the occupation of Formosa by Communist forces would be a direct
threat to the security of the Pacific area and to United States forces performing
their lawful and necessary functions in that area.
Accordingly I have ordered the 7th Fleet to prevent any attack on Formosa. As a
corollary of this action I am calling upon the Chinese Government on Formosa to
cease all air and sea operations against the mainland. The 7th Fleet will see that
this is done. The determination of the future status of Formosa must await the
restoration of security in the Pacific, a peace settlement with Japan, or
consideration by the United Nations.
I know that all members of the United Nations will consider carefully the
consequences of this latest aggression in Korea in defiance of the Charter of the
United Nations. A return to the rule of force in international affairs would have farreaching effects. The United States will continue to uphold the rule of law.
I have instructed Ambassador Austin, as the representative of the United States to
the Security Council, to report these steps to the Council.
Guiding Questions
1. Why did Truman send US air and sea forces to Korea?

2. Why is Truman concerned about communist forces occupying Formosa?

3. Who are the communist forces?