HIST 1312 1st Edition Lecture 7 Outline of Last Lecture I The Anticommunist Crusade a Loyalty and Disloyalty b The Spy Trials c McCarthy and McCarthyism d An Atmosphere of Fear e The Uses of Anticommunism f Anticommunist Politics g Cold War Civil Rights II The Eisenhower Era a Origins of the Vietnam War III Vietnam and the New Lef a Lyndon Johnson s War b The Antiwar Movement c The Counterculture Outline of Current Lecture IV The Regan Revolution a Conservatives and Reagan b Reagan and the Cold War These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute c Iran Contra Affair d Reagan and Gorbachev e Reagan s Legacy V The Post Cold War World a The Crisis of Communism b A New World Order c The Gulf War d Visions of America s Role VI A New Century and New Crises VII The War on Terrorism a Bush before September 11 b They Hate Freedom c The Bush Doctrine d The Axis of Evil Current Lecture The Regan Revolution Regan became president in 1980 Conservatives and Reagan o Reagan in some ways disappointed ardent conservatives even though he implemented some of their policies o The administration lef intact core elements of the welfare state such as Social Security Medicare and Medicaid which many conservatives wished to curtail significantly or repeal o Abortion remained legal women continued to enter the labor force in unprecedented numbers and Regan appointed the first female of the Supreme Court o Bowers v Hardwick 1986 rare victory for cultural conservatives Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of state laws outlawing homosexual acts 2003 decision was reversed due to unconstitutionality Reagan and the Cold War o In foreign policy Reagan resumed vigorous denunciation of the Soviet Union evil empire and sponsored the largest military buildup in American history New long range bombers and missiles o In 1983 he proposed an entirely new strategy the Strategic Defense Initiative which would develop a space based system to intercept and destroy enemy missiles Idea was not feasible technologically and also would violate the AntiBallistic Missile Treaty of 1972 o Reagan came to office with a desire to overturn the Vietnam syndrome as widespread public reluctance to commit American forces overseas was called o He sent American troops to the Caribbean island of Grenada to oust a pro Cuban government o In 1982 Reagan dispatched marines as a peacekeeping force to Lebanon where civil war raged between the Christian government supported by Israeli forces and Muslim insurgents Quickly they were removed afer a bomb exploded at their barracks killing 241 Americans o Reagan realized that the public would support minor operations like Grenada but remained unwilling to sustain heavy casualties abroad o Abandoning the Carter administration s emphasis on human rights Reagan embraced the idea that the US should oppose totalitarian communists but to assist authoritarian noncommunist regimes o UN and US stepped up alliances with Third World anticommunist dictatorships o Administration poured in funds to combat insurgencies against the governments of El Salvador and Guatemala whose armies and associated death squads committed flagrant abuses against their own citizens When El Salvador s army massacred hundreds of civilians in the town of El Mozote in 1981 the State Department denied that the event widely reported in the press had taken place Iran Contra Affair o American involvement in Central America produced the greatest scandal of Reagan s presidency the Iran Contra Affair o 1984 Congress banned military aid to the Contras derived from the Spanish word for against fighting the Sandinista government of Nicaragua which had ousted the American backed dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979 o 1985 Reagan secretly authorized the sale of arms to Iran now involved in a war with its neighbor Iraq in order to secure the release of a number of American hostages held by Islamic groups in the Middle East o CIA director William Casey and Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North of the National Security Council set up a system that diverted some of the proceeds to buy military supplies for the Contras in defiance of the congressional ban Scheme continued for nearly two years o 1987 afer Middle Eastern newspaper leaked the story Congress held televise hearings that revealed a pattern of official duplicity and violation of the law reminiscent of the Nixon era o Reagan denied knowledge of the illegal proceedings but the Iran Contra affair undermined confidence that he controlled his own administration Reagan and Gorbachev o In his second term Reagan sofened his anticommunist rhetoric and established good relations with Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev o Gorbachev had come to power in 1985 bent on reforming the Soviet Union s repressive political system and reinvigorating its economy Inaugurated policies Glasnost political openness Perestroika economic reform o Gorbachev realized that the significant change would be impossible without reducing the country s military budget o A series of talks between 1985 1987 between Reagan and Gorbachev yielded more progress on arms control than in the entire postwar period to that point including an agreement to eliminate intermediate and short range nuclear missiles in Europe o In 1988 Gorbachev began to pull troops out of Afghanistan o Reagan lef office with hostilities between the superpowers much diminished He repudiated his earlier comment that Soviet Union was an evil empire saying that it referred to another era Reagan s Legacy o In some ways the Reagan Revolution undermined the very values and institutions conservatives held dear o Intended to discourage reliance on government handouts by rewarding honest work and business initiative Reagan s policies inspired a speculative frenzy that enriched architects of corporate takeovers and investors in the stock market while leaving in their wake plant closings job losses and devastated communities o Nothing proved more threatening to local traditions or family stability than deindustrialization insecurity about employment and the relentless downward pressure on wages The Post Cold War World The Crisis of Communism o April 1989 tens of thousands of students occupied Tiananmen Square in the heart of Beijing demanding greater democracy in China Erected figure similar to Statue of Liberty called The Goddess of Democracy and Freedom June Chines troops crushed