The Super Summary of World History (88 page)

The Kennedy assassination was a blow to the upbeat nature of the nation. The 1950s was an era of growth and change, but the changes were moderate. The death of Kennedy threw a wet blanket on the times and the message was things were not as they once were. The newspapers were full of reports about the war in Vietnam, small as it was, and the continuing strife of the civil rights movement. The Space Race was proceeding and even there it seemed the communists were winning. Nonetheless, prosperity was evident, and the future seemed to promise more of the same. Europe started talking about a new organization, a kind of economic United States of Europe, where trade barriers would come down and laws could be homogenized. France was pushing the idea as they believed they would be the natural leader of any such organization, thus, enabling a further distancing from America and its inordinate influence on European affairs.

Most European states were unhappy with the US involvement in Vietnam, and they resisted pressure to fight the communist assault on the South. The world had larger problems, they thought, and a lot of those problems were just to the east of Europe as the Soviet Union gained economic and military power.

Lyndon
B.
Johnson:
Worthless
Cold
Warrior

November
1963-1968

After Kennedy’s assassination, Lyndon B. Johnson became president. Johnson, who had been a leader of Congress for years, had large plans. He launched the “War on Poverty,” “War on Crime,” and many other social wars for his “
Great
Society
”; however, he did all this while engaging in and massively expanding a real shooting war in Vietnam. Johnson, who witnessed the importance of price controls during World War II, stated that the nation would enjoy both “
guns
and
butter
” with his administration. This statement illustrates an unrivaled irrationality. Wars bring inflation, normally on a massive scale; thus, governments move to inhibit inflation by imposing wage and price controls at the outset of a conflict. Discovered in World War I, this was not a secret and wage and price controls were immediately initiated in World War II. Johnson knew all of this and chose to ignore it (he also ignored his economists).

The predictable result of this economic policy was massive inflation and economic stagnation. The impacts on the American economy were intensely negative which affected the Cold War. With America focused on Vietnam the troops and equipment in Europe, and other areas, languished. The Soviets upheld the peace, but if they had struck the US Army and its European Allies would have faced conquest from the east. All over the world communists were making progress in their insurgencies because the attention of the United States was on Vietnam. Johnson failed at fighting the Vietnam War and the Cold War. During his final years in office antiwar protests swept the nation. As the press turned against him Johnson watched his presidency implode.

We
will
handle
Vietnam
in
a
special
section
.

President Johnson began what he termed the Great Society which was a bundle of welfare programs designed to pull the poor out of poverty, decrease crime, improve education, and otherwise make the United States into the true workers’ paradise he thought it could be. The megacities continued to grow and during the 1970’s and the urban welfare programs did not alleviate the problems. All these Great Society programs were costly failures. His expensive programs, plus the Vietnam War, led to massive inflation coupled with an economic contraction. Presidents must make good decisions, and Johnson made some of the worst decisions in the history of the US presidency. He failed as few others have.
[341]

Nixon:
Winning
Cold
Warrior

1968
to
August
1974

The antiwar movement, rallying around Robert F. Kennedy for president, drove Johnson from office; however, after winning the California primary in 1968, which all but guaranteed him the democratic presidential nomination, a Muslim terrorist murdered RFK.
[342]
In his place the Democratic Party nominated US Senator Hubert H. Humphrey. His opponent was Republican Richard Nixon, John Kennedy’s opponent in 1960. The Republicans won the presidential race, but Congress remained strongly democratic and antiwar. Nixon extracted the United States from Vietnam by 1973; however, South Vietnam fell to an all-out communist invasion from the North in 1975.
[343]

Nixon was the first US president to visit China in an attempt to bring about a new relationship between the two nations. China greeted Nixon warmly, but overtly little happened. The real “victory” was sub-rosa because just by visiting the communist nation he put pressure on North Vietnam. Nixon’s visit was a key moment in opening up China to capitalism. Nixon also signed arms limitation treaties with the USSR; thus, lowering atomic war tensions. Nixon was attempting to limit the possibility of atomic war by allowing Red China, and the USSR, an equal place in the world which was the goal of every US president since Truman. What none of them seemed ready to acknowledge was the communist commitment to the destruction of the United States in particular and democracy in general. By following a course of live and let live they were giving the communist unlimited time to destroy the West.

Nixon inherited a contracting economy with enormous new government programs doling out billions of dollars to millions of people and institutions. Nixon, remembered as a conservative,
increased
these payments until they became the largest part of the federal budget. At the same time, he imposed wage and price controls to hold inflation in check because of the Vietnam War spending—but this came much too late to do any good. Government expansion continued under the Nixon administration. Nixon thought big and attempted significant changes to the world and the nation; however, Nixon could not overcome the hostility of Congress and the weak economy in his search for grand accomplishments. And his wage and price controls did nothing to improve the economic situation.

Nixon ordered the CIA to “spy” on US citizens which was against its charter, but they had previously engaged in many non-charter ventures. Nixon was convinced communist agents sponsored the antiwar movement; however, no proof was found. A break-in at Democratic Headquarters in the
Watergate
Building in Washington DC was traced back to the Committee To Re-elect the President, a Nixon campaign organization. A Congressional investigation accused Nixon of covering up for his White House staff and impeached him for obstruction of justice. Nixon resigned in 1973 to avoid, he said, putting the nation through an impeachment. The Watergate scandal drove Nixon from office. The new president, Gerald Ford, was not in office long enough to achieve any real change in economic or national policy.
[344]

After Nixon left office
Gerald
Ford
, the vice president appointed by Congress after the resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew, assumed the presidency. After Ford came into office North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam in violation of the treaty signed with Nixon in 1973 and in violation of numerous UN Charter provisions. Ford did nothing because Congress had cut off all aid to the former ally. The United Nations also refused to act, in contradiction of its own charter. Ford, president for over two years, listened to Henry Kissinger on foreign policy matters and Kissinger advised doing nothing about the invasion of South Vietnam. Ford’s biggest foreign policy decision was to forgo defending South Vietnam after the communist invasion. South Vietnam quickly fell to the North Vietnamese.

Europe was making progress toward joining into an economic union. This was tempered by the problems of socialism, because the new socialist world that Europe created after World War II was running into a funding problem. It was apparent that Europeans were not having enough children to replace themselves. One-child families were the norm, and this meant a shrinking young population would soon be supporting a fast growing retired population. The only way to handle the growing number of people, retired or otherwise, on the government dole was to raise Europe’s already high taxes. High taxes were already hurting the European economy and increasing them would only do additional harm. The politicians in Europe had to keep increasing the dole to stay in office because powerful trade unions demanded increasing benefits; however, to do so was irresponsibly selling the future for the present. This demonstrates a significant problem in democracies adopting a Socialist or Wealth redistribution philosophy. When powerful groups gain control of the government they can force policies into law benefitting their groups at the expense of the nation as a whole.

The Muslim populations in Europe were growing. At first the Islamic people were an underclass who kept to themselves and seemed to bother no one; however, as their numbers increased so did their power. By the year 2000 they were a massive group demanding vast cultural changes in Europe to correspond to their view of religion and life. Using democratic processes these Muslim groups have demanded changes to Western law to meet their cultural views. From the first moment they began to establish themselves in Europe they refused to adopt Western ideas, dress, or culture. Now Europe faces a dynamic but growing minority that may soon be majorities in some nations. The failure to notice and deal with the non-assimilation of the Muslims now challenges Europe with massive change.

During the 1970’s, satellite development made space a very important place. Telecommunications satellites began to tie the world together through television and radio signals sent to satellites in space that beamed them back to earth. This made it possible to televise events from anywhere in the world. As this theme progressed, it would lead to Global Positioning Systems (satellite tracking of positions on the earth’s surface), cellular telephones enabling a phone the size of a deck of cards to communicate with anyone anywhere on earth, and a host of other wonders advancing our ability to tell each other “what’s for dinner.” It also enhanced the military’s ability to put a bomb through a bathroom window from half way around the world. Now a guy’s not safe anywhere.

Another innovation hit the streets in 1974, the
microprocessor
. This tiny, well . . . not so tiny at first . . . innovation allowed computers to be made a lot smaller—and cheaper. As the microprocessor improved, it helped telecommunications satellites, cellular telephones, cars, plus a lot more, to operate better. This was THE invention that put tabletop computing on the world scene. The invention of the microprocessor will probably rank with the printing press as one of the most important inventions in world history.

Carter:
Incompetent
Cold
Warrior

1976
to
1980

Worldwide, the Western Democracies began losing the Cold War after the fall of South Vietnam in 1975. The United States was no longer viewed as an impeccable partner, and Soviet influence grew in Europe, Africa, and South America while Chinese influence expanded in Southeast Asia. Gerald Ford lost the next presidential election to
Jimmy
Carter
in 1976, in part because he opposed a massive loan to New York when it was in financial difficulty. Mr. Carter was the former governor of Georgia, and before that he grew peanuts.

As Carter took office, the communists stepped up their march to world power and increasing the isolation of the United States. The Soviet Union invaded
Afghanistan,
turning the nation into a Soviet satellite. The Carter administration responded by canceling the US participation in the Moscow Olympics. To hardnosed Soviet and Chinese leaders this proved the United States was powerless against communist expansion. In Iran, radical fundamentalist Muslims overthrew the Shah and replaced him with a radical Muslim religious leader pulled home from exile. The Muslim radicals then seized the US Embassy, taking sixty-six Americans hostages and holding them until the end of Carter’s term (444 days). This was additional proof the United States could be intimidated by bold actions.