Grand Canyon University Golden and Mystical 1950s History Worksheet This is a 5 question history Q&A worksheet on The Golden and Mystical 1950s. Please see
Grand Canyon University Golden and Mystical 1950s History Worksheet This is a 5 question history Q&A worksheet on The Golden and Mystical 1950s. Please see the document titled “Scoring Guide” for instructions and as a guide for how the instructor will grade the worksheet. There needs to be at least 3 references. Please use APA format. What specific effects did Urban Sprawl have on U.S. society? Explain. How did the advent of Rock and Roll and the Teen Culture impact U.S. society? Explain. How did dynamic conservatism affect the U.S. political landscape? Explain. What was Politics of Consensus? How does this compare with the current political discourse in the U.S. today? Which of these two views of perpetuating democratic government are better? Explain. What effect did Sputnik have on U.S. society? Be sure to discuss its effects on both foreign and domestic policy. 7/7/2020
National Defense Education Act (1958)
National Defense Education Act (1958)
The Cold War and, specifically, the “space race” set in motion by the successful 1957 launch of the Soviet satellite
Sputnik led many Americans to fear that their country had fallen behind the Soviets in science and technology. As a
result, Congress passed the National Defense Education Act (NDEA), which provided $575 million to enhance math,
science, and foreign language education in primary and secondary schools, graduate fellowships, foreign language and
area studies, and vocational-technical training. Perhaps the act’s most important provision for U.S. college students,
both in 1958 and today, was the funding of low-interest loans for students.
Title I: General Provisions
Sec. 101. The Congress hereby finds and declares that the security of the Nation requires the fullest development of
the mental resources and technical skills of its young men and women. The present emergency demands that
additional and more adequate education opportunities be made available. The defense of this Nation depends upon the
mastery of modern techniques developed from complex scientific principles. It depends as well upon the discovery and
development of new principles, new techniques, and new knowledge.
We must increase our efforts to identify and educate more of the talent of our Nation. This requires programs that will
give assurance that no student of ability will be denied an opportunity for higher education because of financial need;
will correct as rapidly as possible the existing imbalances in our education programs which have led to an insufficient
proportion of our population educated in science, mathematics, and modern foreign languages and trained in
technology.
The Congress reaffirms the principle and declares that the states and local communities have and must retain control
over and primary responsibility for public education. The national interest requires, however, that the Federal
Government give assistance to education for programs which are important to our defense. To meet the present
educational emergency requires additional effort at all levels of government. It is therefore the purpose of this act to
provide substantial assistance in various forms to individuals, and to States and their subdivisions, in order to insure
trained manpower of sufficient quality and quantity to meet the national defense needs of the United States.
Sec. 102. Nothing contained in this act shall be construed to authorize any department, agency, officer, or employee of
the United States to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction,
administration, or personnel of any educational institution or school system.
Title III: Financial Assistance for Strengthening Science, Mathematics, and Modern Foreign Language Instruction
Sec. 301. There are hereby authorized to be appropriated $70,000,000 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1959, and
for each of the three succeeding fiscal years, for (1) making payments to State educational agencies under this title for
the acquisition of equipment (suitable for use in providing education in science, mathematics, or modern foreign
language) . . .
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National Security Council Memorandum Number 68 (1950)
National Security Council Memorandum Number 68 (1950)
The emerging Cold War led some United States officials to view the world as dividing into two hostile spheres.
The Soviet-dominated sphere was considered a threat to survival of the American-led free world. A major issue
concerned nuclear weapons and the need to maintain the American lead in the arms race.
Within the past thirty-five years the world has experienced two global wars of tremendous violence. It has
witnessed two revolutions – the Russian and the Chinese – of extreme scope and intensity. It has also seen the
collapse of five empires – the Ottoman, the Austro-Hungarian, German, Italian and Japanese – and the drastic
decline of two major imperial systems, the British and the French. During the span of one generation, the
international distribution of power has been fundamentally altered. For several centuries it had proved
impossible for any one nation to gain such preponderant strength that a coalition of other nations could not in
time face it with greater strength. The international scene was marked by recurring periods of violence and war,
but a system of sovereign and independent states was maintained, over which no state was able to achieve
hegemony.
Two complex sets of factors have now basically altered this historical distribution of power. First, the defeat of
Germany and Japan and the decline of the British and French Empires have interacted with the development of
the United States and the Soviet Union in such a way that power has increasingly gravitated to these two
centers. Second, the Soviet Union, unlike previous aspirants to hegemony, is animated by a new fanatic faith,
antithetical to our own, and seeks to impose its absolute authority over the rest of the world. Conflict has,
therefore, become endemic and is waged, on the part of the Soviet Union, by violent or non-violent methods in
accordance with the dictates of expediency. With the development of increasingly terrifying weapons of mass
destruction, every individual faces the ever-present possibility of annihilation should the conflict enter the
phase of total war.
On the one hand, the people of the world yearn for relief from the anxiety arising from the risk of atomic war.
On the other hand, any substantial further extension of the area under the domination of the Kremlin would
raise the possibility that no coalition adequate to confront the Kremlin with greater strength could be
assembled. It is in this context that this Republic and its citizens in the ascendancy of their strength stand in
their deepest peril. . . .
Military Evaluation of U.S. and U.S.S.R. Atomic Capabilities
The United States now has an atomic capability, including both numbers and deliverability, estimated to be
adequate, if effectively utilized, to deliver a serious blow against the war-making capacity of the U.S.S.R. It is
doubted whether such a blow, even if it resulted in the complete destruction of the contemplated target systems,
would cause the U.S.S.R. to sue for terms or present [prevent] Soviet forces from occupying Western Europe
against such ground resistance as could presently be mobilized. A very serious initial blow could, however, so
reduce the capabilities of the U.S.S.R. to supply and equip its military organization and its civilian population
as to give the United States the prospect of developing a general military superiority in a war of long duration.
As the atomic capability of the U.S.S.R. increases, it will have an increased ability to hit at our atomic bases
and installations and thus seriously hamper the ability of the United States to carry out an attack such as that
outlined above. It is quite possible that in the near future the U.S.S.R. will have a sufficient number of atomic
bombs and a sufficient deliverability to raise a question whether Britain with its present inadequate air defense
could be relied upon as an advance base from which a major portion of the U.S. attack could be launched.
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National Security Council Memorandum Number 68 (1950)
It is estimated that, within the next four years, the U.S.S.R. will attain the capability of seriously damaging vital
centers of the United States, provided it strikes a surprise blow and provided further that the blow is opposed by
no more effective opposition than we now have programmed. Such a blow could so seriously damage the
United States as to greatly reduce its superiority in economic potential.
Effective opposition to this Soviet capability will require among other measures greatly increased air warning
systems, air defenses, and vigorous development and implementation of a civilian defense program which has
been thoroughly integrated with the military defense systems.
In time the atomic capability of the U.S.S.R. can be expected to grow to a point where, given surprise and no
more effective opposition than we now have programmed, the possibility of a decisive initial attack cannot be
excluded.
In the initial phases of an atomic war, the advantages of initiative and surprise would be very great. A police
state living behind an iron curtain has an enormous advantage in maintaining the necessary security and
centralization of decision required to capitalize on this advantage.
For the moment our atomic retaliatory capability is probably adequate to deter the Kremlin from a deliberate
direct military attack against ourselves or other free peoples. However, when it calculates that it has a sufficient
atomic capability to make a surprise attack on us, nullifying our atomic superiority and creating a military
situation decisively in its favor, the Kremlin might be tempted to strike swiftly and with stealth. The existence
of two large atomic capabilities in such a relationship might well act, therefore, not as a deterrent, but as an
incitement to war.
A further increase in the number and power of our atomic weapons is necessary in order to assure the
effectiveness of any U.S. retaliatory blow, but would not of itself seem to change the basic logic of the above
points. Greatly increased general air, ground and sea strength, and increased air defense and civilian defense
programs would also be necessary to provide reasonable assurance that the free world could survive an initial
surprise atomic attack of the weight which it is estimated the U.S.S.R. will be capable of delivering by 1954
and still permit the free world to go on to the eventual attainment of its objectives. Furthermore, such a build-up
of strength could safeguard and increase our retaliatory power, and thus might put off for some time the date
when the Soviet Union could calculate that a surprise blow would be advantageous. This would provide
additional time for the effects of our policies to produce a modification of the Soviet system.
If the U.S.S.R. develops a thermonuclear weapon ahead of the U.S., the risks of greatly increased Soviet
pressure against all the free world, or an attack against the U.S., will be greatly increased.
If the U.S. develops a thermonuclear weapon ahead of the U.S.S.R., the U.S. should for the time being be able
to bring increased pressure on the U.S.S.R. . . .
In the light of present and prospective Soviet atomic capabilities, the action which can be taken under present
programs and plans, however, becomes dangerously inadequate, in both timing and scope, to accomplish the
rapid progress toward the attainment of the United States’ political, economic, and military objectives which is
now imperative.
A continuation of present trends would result in a serious decline in the strength of the free world relative to the
Soviet Union and its satellites. This unfavorable trend arises from the inadequacy of current programs and plans
rather than from any error in our objectives and aims. These trends lead in the direction of isolation, not by
deliberate decision but by lack of the necessary basis for a vigorous initiative in the conflict with the Soviet
Union.
Our position as the center of power in the free world places a heavy responsibility upon the United States for
leadership. We must organize and enlist the energies and resources of the free world in a positive program for
peace which will frustrate the Kremlin design for world domination by creating a situation in the free world to
which the Kremlin will be compelled to adjust. Without such a cooperative effort, led by the United States, we
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National Security Council Memorandum Number 68 (1950)
will have to make gradual withdrawals under pressure until we discover one day that we have sacrificed
positions of vital interest.
It is imperative that this trend be reversed by a much more rapid and concerted build-up of the actual strength of
both the United States and the other nations of the free world. The analysis shows that this will be costly and
will involve significant domestic financial and economic adjustments.
The execution of such a build-up, however, requires that the United States have an affirmative program beyond
the solely defensive one of countering the threat posed by the Soviet Union. This program must light the path to
peace and order among nations in a system based on freedom and justice, as contemplated in the Charter of the
United Nations. Further, it must envisage the political and economic measures with which and the military
shield behind which the free world can work to frustrate the Kremlin design by the strategy of the cold war; for
every consideration of devotion to our fundamental values and to our national security demands that we achieve
our objectives by the strategy of the cold war, building up our military strength in order that it may not have to
be used. The only sure victory lies in the frustration of the Kremlin design by the steady development of the
moral and material strength of the free world and its projection into the Soviet world in such a way as to bring
about an internal change in the Soviet system. Such a positive program – harmonious with our fundamental
national purpose and our objectives – is necessary if we are to regain and retain the initiative and to win and
hold the necessary popular support and cooperation in the United States and the rest of the free world.
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Policy statement about American objectives in Southeast Asia, June 25, 1952, in The Pentagon Papers (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971), vol
Policy statement about American objectives in Southeast Asia, June
25, 1952, in The Pentagon Papers (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971), vol.
2, pp. 286288.
Under President Harry Truman, the United States adopted a foreign policy doctrine called “containment.” Originated by
George Kennan, Dean Acheson, and other diplomats and policy advisors, containment aimed not to fight an all-out war
with the Soviet Union but rather to confine communism and the Soviet Union to their existing boundaries. This doctrine
led directly to the Vietnam War, in which the United States fought to prevent communist forces from attaining power in
Southeast Asia.
25 June 1952
Statement of Policy by the National Security Council on United States Objectives and Courses of Action with Respect to
Southeast Asia1
Objective
1. To prevent the countries of Southeast Asia from passing into the communist orbit, and to assist them to develop the
will and ability to resist communism from within and without and to contribute to the strengthening of the free world.
General Considerations
2. Communist domination, by whatever means, of all Southeast Asia would seriously endanger in the short term, and
critically endanger in the longer term, United States security interests.
a. The loss of any of the countries of Southeast Asia to communist control as a consequence of overt or covert
Chinese Communist aggression would have critical psychological, political and economic consequences. In the
absence of effective and timely counteraction, the loss of any single country would probably lead to relatively
swift submission to or an alignment with communism by the remaining countries of this group. Furthermore, an
alignment with communism of the rest of Southeast Asia and India, and in the longer term, of the Middle East
(with the probable exceptions of at least Pakistan and Turkey) would in all probability progressively follow. Such
widespread alignment would endanger the stability and security of Europe.
b. Communist control of all of Southeast Asia would render the U.S. position in the Pacific offshore island chain
precarious and would seriously jeopardize fundamental U.S. security interests in the Far East.
c. Southeast Asia, especially Malaya and Indonesia, is the principal world source of natural rubber and tin, and a
producer of petroleum and other strategically important commodities. The rice exports of Burma and Thailand are
critically important to Malaya, Ceylon and Hong Kong and are of considerable significance to Japan and India, all
important areas of free Asia.
d. The loss of Southeast Asia, especially of Malaya and Indonesia, could result in such economic and political
pressures in Japan as to make it extremely difficult to prevent Japan’s eventual accommodation to communism.
3. It is therefore imperative that an overt attack on Southeast Asia by the Chinese Communists be vigorously opposed.
In order to pursue the military courses of action envisaged in this paper to a favorable conclusion within a reasonable
period, it will be necessary to divert military strength from other areas thus reducing our military capability in those
areas, with the recognized increased risks involved therein, or to increase our military forces in being, or both.
4. The danger of an overt military attack against Southeast Asia is inherent in the existence of a hostile and aggressive
Communist China, but such an attack is less probable than continued communist efforts to achieve domination through
subversion. The primary threat to Southeast Asia accordingly arises from the possibility that the situation in Indochina
may deteriorate as a result of the weakening of the resolve of, or as a result of the inability of the governments of
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Policy statement about American objectives in Southeast Asia, June 25, 1952, in The Pentagon Papers (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971), vol
France and of the Associated States to continue to oppose the Viet Minh rebellion, the military strength of which is
being steadily increased by virtue of aid furnished by the Chinese Communist regime and its allies.
5. The successful defense of Tonkin is critical to the retention in non-Communist hands of mainland Southeast Asia.
However, should Burma come under communist domination, a communist military advance through Thailand might
make Indochina, including Tonkin, militarily indefensible. The execution of the following U.S. courses of action with
respect to individual countries of the area may vary depending upon the route of communist advance into Southeast
Asia.
6. Actions designed to achieve our objections in Southeast Asia require sensitive selection and application, on the one
hand to assure the optimum efficiency through coordination of measures for the general area, and on the other, to
accommodate to the greatest practicable extent to the individual sensibilities of the several governments, social
classes and minorities of the area….
Courses of Action
8. With respect to Indochina the United States should:
a. Continue to promote international support for the three Associated States.
b. Continue to assure the French that the U.S. regards the French effort in Indochina as one of great strategic
importance in the general international interest rather than in the purely French interest, and as essential to the
security of the free world, not only in the Far East but in the Middle East and Europe as well.
c. Continue to assure the French that we are cognizant of the sacrifices entailed for France in carrying out her
effort in Indochina and that, without overlooking the principle that France has the primary responsibility in
Indochina, we will recommend to the Congress appropriate m…
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