The Most Significant Events
The goal of this paper is to establish the most significant events in the United States that took place in each of the five decades following the World War II. There were many events that took place during that period but some had more impact than others. In the 1950s it was McCarthyism that had greater impact to the people of the United States than any other event. It was the politically motivated practice of making allegations without relevant evidence concerning communists. McCarthyism cost Americans a lot of jobs and led to many incarcerations without fair trial. In the 1960s, it was the Vietnam War that impacted most on the lives of the Americans (Fried, 1997). The war was an effort to save South Vietnamese from the north. This war led to the loss of 58,000 Americans, had 350,000 casualties and cost billions of tax payers money (Ringnalda, 1994). In the 1970s the Watergate Scandal took place under the leadership of President Nixon. During the era of Nixon more crimes against democracy were committed than in any other regime (Genovese, 2004). During the 1980s, Reagan Economy came in as an effort to alter the course of the American economic policy. The federal government revenues went up significantly following the tax cuts of the Reagan era, but the remarkable increase in spending gave rise to budgetary deficits (Karier, 1997). The 1990s saw the end of the cold war, after the fall of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989 (English, 2000).
1950s-The McCarthyism
The era of McCarthyism started towards the end of 1940s and ended in the late 1950s. When the Cold War started between the United States and the Soviet Union after 1945, there was serious fear and hatred towards communism. McCarthyism came to be the same as witch-hunt which is the act of making severe but unproven allegations against individuals in public life. The time is used even today to describe the act of making false accusations, based on irrelevant proof. McCarthyism is largely associated with the Red Scare. It is often known as the Second Red Scare. The Red Scare is a term given to a period in which Americans were afraid of communist influence (Fried, 1997). The witch-hunt by McCarthy started in 1950 when he announced that he had in his possession list of 205 communists who were employed by the state department. This led to senate and house investigations that took years and led to many people loosing their jobs. It destroyed the reputations of the victims and their families were torn apart. Those who were accused by McCarthy were condemned by the public. In February 1954, Senator Joseph McCarty took on the American army (Fried, 1997). McCarthy issued summons to army officers, and the brigadier, alleging that the army had given an honorable discharge to a supposed communist sympathizer. The senator was using the countrys fear of communism for what was believed to be personal gain. The Americans feared the Soviet Union and were worried that the communists were penetrating the government in an effort to overthrow America. McCarthy was responsible for reinforcing the fear (Strout, 1999).
Impact of McCarthyism
There were many victims of McCarthyism who were innocent and hundreds of them were incarcerated without fair trial because no lawyer would risk his job by defending communists. Most of the victims were blacklisted. During McCarthyism unlike any other event in the history of America, 9,500 civil servants lost their jobs through dismissal and 15,000 resigned. About 600 teachers also lost their jobs and many artists were not capable of working again Strout, L (1999). The McCarran Internal Security Act of 1950 forced organizations to provide list of members that were considered communists and the Communist Control Act of 1954 banned the communist party. The greatest effect of McCarthyism was the anti-democratic atmosphere that it created Strout, L (1999).
1960s-The Vietnam War
The Vietnam War started rather benignly with the taking of the United States advisors to help the South Vietnamese in training its army. The troop was sent secretly by the then President John F. Kennedy in 1962 (Donato, 2005). The initial objective was to allow the South Vietnamese army to oppose the violence from the North and to maintain their sovereignty as a democracy. As time went on and the United States administrations changed, the roles changed until it became a United State led and financed war (Ringnalda, 1994). The number of American army increased and a massive war was growing in an effort to bar the mounting re-supply of the North Vietnamese in the South. The South Vietnamese was offered financial aid by a number of nations, including Thailand, South Korea, Australia, and the Philippines, while others contributed manpower. However, the war was basically a United States show. Towards the end of the decade, the United States government realized that the war would not end and started negotiations with the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong in Paris, France. As a show of good intentions, the United States combat reversed its strategy into a defensive operation. The resulting lethal effect on the morale of the troop made the situation on the ground worse that before (Ringnalda, 1994).
Impact of the Vietnam War
As the decade progressed, the war divided America, with riots and protests erupting. When the South Vietnamese capital finally fell in 1975, the victory of the north over the south was complete (Donato, 2005). This led to many people fleeing the South into other countries. Many lost their lives on the way, but those that survived took asylum in other countries including the United States. The United States thus received very many refugees of war at that time. The war was over but the pain and confusion from it remains to this day. The Vietnam War cost lives of 58,000 Americans, had 350,000 casualties and cost billions of tax payers money (Ringnalda, 1994). The Vietnam War was the longest war in the history of the United States. The war caused a division in the country at a period that it required to be unified and left scars that are yet to be healed. Even today, Americans still wonder whether the effort that was put in Vietnam was a sin, a mistake, necessary war, or a good cause (Donato, 2005).
1870s-The Watergate scandal
The Watergate scandal was a political disgrace in the United States that took place in the 1970s under the leadership of President Nixon. At the begging of this decade, the United State was still staggering from its unstable time in the past decade. Some of the issues emanating from the Vietnam War were carried over to the 1970s (Genovese, 2004). When Nixon was elected to power, he promised to put an end to the Vietnam War, but instead of ending it he fueled it increasing the killings. The scandal started with the arresting of five men for the crime of breaking and entering into the Democratic National Committee headquarters situated at the Watergate complex on June 17, 1972 to bug the telephones. The five were members of the plumbers. The plumbers were a group of anti-Castro Cuban refugees, former CIA agents, former FBI agents among others. The group was republican (Liebovich, 2003). The Plumbers were a secret unit that was established and supported by the White House with the aim, of fixing leaks The group was immediately given the duty of going after Daniel Ellsberg, a former defense department analyst. He had turned over a secret Pentagon report on the war to be published by the New York Times in 1971. The New York Times had published those papers a fact that infuriated many of the people in charge of the country including Nixon. They had to stop the publications and if that was not possible, they could discredit Ellsberg (Genovese, 2004). President Nixon did all this because he was not prepared to let the anti-war movements and activists undermine his authority as they had done to President Johnsons. He considered whoever hated him or challenged his leadership as a threat to the nation (Liebovich, 2003).
Impact of the Watergate Scandal
The effects of the scandal led to the resignation of the president, Richard Nixon on august 9, 1974. The burglary ended up holding worldwide interest. The scandal also led to the condemnation and conviction of a number of the Nixon administrators (Liebovich, 2003). People in the United States still have the memory of Watergate term as a description for the fall of President Nixon. Presidents Nixon and the Watergate scandal affected democracy in the United States by committing a lot of crimes. They include political burglary extortion bribery phone tapping conspiring obstruction of justice destruction of evidence tax fraud illegal use of the CIA and the FBI illegal contributions to campaigns and use of tax payers money for personal use. This decade records the most crimes committed by a government of the United States (Genovese, 2004).
1980s-The Reagan Economy
Reagan economics was the most serious effort to alter the course of the United States economic policy. Reagan argued that it was only by decreasing the growth of the government that the economy could grow. President Reagan assumed power in the United States at a time of high inflation and unemployment (Campagna, 1994). Reagans policy for economic recovery had four primary policy objectives to reduce the growth of spending by the federal government to reduce the tax rates on income from both capitals and labor to reduce regulation and to reduce inflation by exercising control over the growth of the money supply (Karier, 1997). These policy changes were aimed at increasing saving and investment, balancing the budget, restoring healthy financial markets, and lowering inflation and rates of interest. At the beginning of his administration, Reagan initiated tax cuts across the board. The tax cuts were founded on the principles from supply side economics, otherwise known as the trickle down effect. This was in contrast with the demand side economics. Reagan advocated deep tax cuts while simultaneously increasing military spending. While Keynesian economics boosted the view of consumers establishing job opportunities by increasing the demands for products and services, Reaganomics relied on offering more finances to producers by cutting taxes, especially to the wealthy citizens, who would therefore establish job opportunities that would somehow find a demand. The economics of Reagan were influenced by the Laffer curve, a theoretical scheme that was used by some American conservatives in the 1970s (Karier, 1997). It predicts that excessive tax rates reduce potential tax revenues this is by lowering the motivation to produce. The curve was also use d to show how to maximize revenues for the federal government through the fiscal policy. The federal government revenues went up significantly following the tax cuts of the Reagan era, but the remarkable increase in spending gave rise to budgetary deficits (Campagna, 1994).
Effects of Reagan Economy
During the 1980s, the tensions caused by the cold war increased as Reagan pursued a rigorous Anti-Soviet Policy. During his second term in office, President Reagan faced considerable problems trying to balance the budget. This is because he had increased spending on defense by 35 (Karier, 1997). In 1986 Reagan became involved in the Irangate Scandal. This was after it was found out that his administration was trading in arms to the Islamic government on Iran so as to secure the release of American hostages in Lebanon. The scandal was so damaging that his Chief of Staff and the National Security Advisor resigned, Reagan survived but his reputation was so damaged by the scandal. At the end of his second term, Reagan left three major unfavorable legacies. The fist one was the privately held federal debt that rose from 22.3 percent of GDP to 38.1 percent. The second was the failure to handle the savings and loan issues that led to an additional debt of approximately 125 billion dollars. The last one is that the administration added more trade restrictions than any other regime since the Hoover. The share of the United States imports rose from 12 percent in 1980 to 23 percent in 1988 (Karier, 1997).
1990s-The end of the cold war
The fall of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989 terminated the cold war. The termination of the Cold War and the willingness of Russia to join the United States in opposition against Iraq established a high level of international cooperation (Garthoff, 1994). The collapse of the communists in Soviet Union and Eastern Europe opened up large economic markets. In February 1989, President Bush ordered an appraisal of the United States policy toward Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (English, 2000). Due to the bureaucratic procedures and political reasons, the process took a very long time and was more complicated than expected. The questions of Gorbachevs intentions after the war animated discussions on foreign policy in the White House and the United States intelligent community. By late 1989, the Bush administration had an agreement on united policy goals and Gorbachev. They decided that Gorbachev was for real and that they could do business with him. The united state agreed to pursue two agendas focus on matters of mutual importance like control of arms, economic assistance and regional conflict and reducing soviet presence in Eastern Europe (Garthoff, 1994).
Effects of the Cold War
By the end of the globalized war, bad things that had happened in other countries spread to the United States. There were genocide spawn refugees who destabilized their neighbors. There was corruption that sparked financial meltdowns, rocking the world economy (Garthoff, 1994).
Many wars generations have passed and many wars fought in the period of human Endeavour. The dream of every American is the creation of the New World Order. This will foresee the movement towards a period of cooperation. Out of the troubled times to a new period that will be free from terror, stronger in pursuit of justice and secure in the search for peace. This will be a period where all nations of the world, East and West, North and South will be able to prosper and live in harmony. The end of the wars of the five decades following the world war II might have seemed like victory and beginning of peace for the united states. The war is far from over. With the increase in terrorist threats, obtaining of more sophisticated weapons by other counties like Iran, Iraq, among other, financial crisis facing the whole world, and other conflicts within and among countries, the United States still has a lot to do in the coming decade.
1950s-The McCarthyism
The era of McCarthyism started towards the end of 1940s and ended in the late 1950s. When the Cold War started between the United States and the Soviet Union after 1945, there was serious fear and hatred towards communism. McCarthyism came to be the same as witch-hunt which is the act of making severe but unproven allegations against individuals in public life. The time is used even today to describe the act of making false accusations, based on irrelevant proof. McCarthyism is largely associated with the Red Scare. It is often known as the Second Red Scare. The Red Scare is a term given to a period in which Americans were afraid of communist influence (Fried, 1997). The witch-hunt by McCarthy started in 1950 when he announced that he had in his possession list of 205 communists who were employed by the state department. This led to senate and house investigations that took years and led to many people loosing their jobs. It destroyed the reputations of the victims and their families were torn apart. Those who were accused by McCarthy were condemned by the public. In February 1954, Senator Joseph McCarty took on the American army (Fried, 1997). McCarthy issued summons to army officers, and the brigadier, alleging that the army had given an honorable discharge to a supposed communist sympathizer. The senator was using the countrys fear of communism for what was believed to be personal gain. The Americans feared the Soviet Union and were worried that the communists were penetrating the government in an effort to overthrow America. McCarthy was responsible for reinforcing the fear (Strout, 1999).
Impact of McCarthyism
There were many victims of McCarthyism who were innocent and hundreds of them were incarcerated without fair trial because no lawyer would risk his job by defending communists. Most of the victims were blacklisted. During McCarthyism unlike any other event in the history of America, 9,500 civil servants lost their jobs through dismissal and 15,000 resigned. About 600 teachers also lost their jobs and many artists were not capable of working again Strout, L (1999). The McCarran Internal Security Act of 1950 forced organizations to provide list of members that were considered communists and the Communist Control Act of 1954 banned the communist party. The greatest effect of McCarthyism was the anti-democratic atmosphere that it created Strout, L (1999).
1960s-The Vietnam War
The Vietnam War started rather benignly with the taking of the United States advisors to help the South Vietnamese in training its army. The troop was sent secretly by the then President John F. Kennedy in 1962 (Donato, 2005). The initial objective was to allow the South Vietnamese army to oppose the violence from the North and to maintain their sovereignty as a democracy. As time went on and the United States administrations changed, the roles changed until it became a United State led and financed war (Ringnalda, 1994). The number of American army increased and a massive war was growing in an effort to bar the mounting re-supply of the North Vietnamese in the South. The South Vietnamese was offered financial aid by a number of nations, including Thailand, South Korea, Australia, and the Philippines, while others contributed manpower. However, the war was basically a United States show. Towards the end of the decade, the United States government realized that the war would not end and started negotiations with the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong in Paris, France. As a show of good intentions, the United States combat reversed its strategy into a defensive operation. The resulting lethal effect on the morale of the troop made the situation on the ground worse that before (Ringnalda, 1994).
Impact of the Vietnam War
As the decade progressed, the war divided America, with riots and protests erupting. When the South Vietnamese capital finally fell in 1975, the victory of the north over the south was complete (Donato, 2005). This led to many people fleeing the South into other countries. Many lost their lives on the way, but those that survived took asylum in other countries including the United States. The United States thus received very many refugees of war at that time. The war was over but the pain and confusion from it remains to this day. The Vietnam War cost lives of 58,000 Americans, had 350,000 casualties and cost billions of tax payers money (Ringnalda, 1994). The Vietnam War was the longest war in the history of the United States. The war caused a division in the country at a period that it required to be unified and left scars that are yet to be healed. Even today, Americans still wonder whether the effort that was put in Vietnam was a sin, a mistake, necessary war, or a good cause (Donato, 2005).
1870s-The Watergate scandal
The Watergate scandal was a political disgrace in the United States that took place in the 1970s under the leadership of President Nixon. At the begging of this decade, the United State was still staggering from its unstable time in the past decade. Some of the issues emanating from the Vietnam War were carried over to the 1970s (Genovese, 2004). When Nixon was elected to power, he promised to put an end to the Vietnam War, but instead of ending it he fueled it increasing the killings. The scandal started with the arresting of five men for the crime of breaking and entering into the Democratic National Committee headquarters situated at the Watergate complex on June 17, 1972 to bug the telephones. The five were members of the plumbers. The plumbers were a group of anti-Castro Cuban refugees, former CIA agents, former FBI agents among others. The group was republican (Liebovich, 2003). The Plumbers were a secret unit that was established and supported by the White House with the aim, of fixing leaks The group was immediately given the duty of going after Daniel Ellsberg, a former defense department analyst. He had turned over a secret Pentagon report on the war to be published by the New York Times in 1971. The New York Times had published those papers a fact that infuriated many of the people in charge of the country including Nixon. They had to stop the publications and if that was not possible, they could discredit Ellsberg (Genovese, 2004). President Nixon did all this because he was not prepared to let the anti-war movements and activists undermine his authority as they had done to President Johnsons. He considered whoever hated him or challenged his leadership as a threat to the nation (Liebovich, 2003).
Impact of the Watergate Scandal
The effects of the scandal led to the resignation of the president, Richard Nixon on august 9, 1974. The burglary ended up holding worldwide interest. The scandal also led to the condemnation and conviction of a number of the Nixon administrators (Liebovich, 2003). People in the United States still have the memory of Watergate term as a description for the fall of President Nixon. Presidents Nixon and the Watergate scandal affected democracy in the United States by committing a lot of crimes. They include political burglary extortion bribery phone tapping conspiring obstruction of justice destruction of evidence tax fraud illegal use of the CIA and the FBI illegal contributions to campaigns and use of tax payers money for personal use. This decade records the most crimes committed by a government of the United States (Genovese, 2004).
1980s-The Reagan Economy
Reagan economics was the most serious effort to alter the course of the United States economic policy. Reagan argued that it was only by decreasing the growth of the government that the economy could grow. President Reagan assumed power in the United States at a time of high inflation and unemployment (Campagna, 1994). Reagans policy for economic recovery had four primary policy objectives to reduce the growth of spending by the federal government to reduce the tax rates on income from both capitals and labor to reduce regulation and to reduce inflation by exercising control over the growth of the money supply (Karier, 1997). These policy changes were aimed at increasing saving and investment, balancing the budget, restoring healthy financial markets, and lowering inflation and rates of interest. At the beginning of his administration, Reagan initiated tax cuts across the board. The tax cuts were founded on the principles from supply side economics, otherwise known as the trickle down effect. This was in contrast with the demand side economics. Reagan advocated deep tax cuts while simultaneously increasing military spending. While Keynesian economics boosted the view of consumers establishing job opportunities by increasing the demands for products and services, Reaganomics relied on offering more finances to producers by cutting taxes, especially to the wealthy citizens, who would therefore establish job opportunities that would somehow find a demand. The economics of Reagan were influenced by the Laffer curve, a theoretical scheme that was used by some American conservatives in the 1970s (Karier, 1997). It predicts that excessive tax rates reduce potential tax revenues this is by lowering the motivation to produce. The curve was also use d to show how to maximize revenues for the federal government through the fiscal policy. The federal government revenues went up significantly following the tax cuts of the Reagan era, but the remarkable increase in spending gave rise to budgetary deficits (Campagna, 1994).
Effects of Reagan Economy
During the 1980s, the tensions caused by the cold war increased as Reagan pursued a rigorous Anti-Soviet Policy. During his second term in office, President Reagan faced considerable problems trying to balance the budget. This is because he had increased spending on defense by 35 (Karier, 1997). In 1986 Reagan became involved in the Irangate Scandal. This was after it was found out that his administration was trading in arms to the Islamic government on Iran so as to secure the release of American hostages in Lebanon. The scandal was so damaging that his Chief of Staff and the National Security Advisor resigned, Reagan survived but his reputation was so damaged by the scandal. At the end of his second term, Reagan left three major unfavorable legacies. The fist one was the privately held federal debt that rose from 22.3 percent of GDP to 38.1 percent. The second was the failure to handle the savings and loan issues that led to an additional debt of approximately 125 billion dollars. The last one is that the administration added more trade restrictions than any other regime since the Hoover. The share of the United States imports rose from 12 percent in 1980 to 23 percent in 1988 (Karier, 1997).
1990s-The end of the cold war
The fall of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989 terminated the cold war. The termination of the Cold War and the willingness of Russia to join the United States in opposition against Iraq established a high level of international cooperation (Garthoff, 1994). The collapse of the communists in Soviet Union and Eastern Europe opened up large economic markets. In February 1989, President Bush ordered an appraisal of the United States policy toward Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (English, 2000). Due to the bureaucratic procedures and political reasons, the process took a very long time and was more complicated than expected. The questions of Gorbachevs intentions after the war animated discussions on foreign policy in the White House and the United States intelligent community. By late 1989, the Bush administration had an agreement on united policy goals and Gorbachev. They decided that Gorbachev was for real and that they could do business with him. The united state agreed to pursue two agendas focus on matters of mutual importance like control of arms, economic assistance and regional conflict and reducing soviet presence in Eastern Europe (Garthoff, 1994).
Effects of the Cold War
By the end of the globalized war, bad things that had happened in other countries spread to the United States. There were genocide spawn refugees who destabilized their neighbors. There was corruption that sparked financial meltdowns, rocking the world economy (Garthoff, 1994).
Many wars generations have passed and many wars fought in the period of human Endeavour. The dream of every American is the creation of the New World Order. This will foresee the movement towards a period of cooperation. Out of the troubled times to a new period that will be free from terror, stronger in pursuit of justice and secure in the search for peace. This will be a period where all nations of the world, East and West, North and South will be able to prosper and live in harmony. The end of the wars of the five decades following the world war II might have seemed like victory and beginning of peace for the united states. The war is far from over. With the increase in terrorist threats, obtaining of more sophisticated weapons by other counties like Iran, Iraq, among other, financial crisis facing the whole world, and other conflicts within and among countries, the United States still has a lot to do in the coming decade.
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