Week 12

During the last three class periods, we covered the Vietnam Era, the Nixon years and their aftermath.  Here are the relevant questions addressed in lectures; I am assuming that students were able to devote some effort to reading about the period from 1965 to the present, but for the purposes of the final test, you should be able to discuss the following issues:

1. What were the goals of the United States in Vietnam from 1954-1975?  What major factors made an American victory an impossibility?
2. Why did the Nixon administration pursue a policy of detente during the late 1960s and early 1970s?  In what respects did these efforts find success?  What objections did critics raise about detente?
3. What major factors led to the Watergate break-in, and how did Watergate bring an end to the Nixon administration?
4. What were the major arguments raised by the so-called “New Right” during the 1970s?  Why did conservatives believe the US had strayed from its “mission?”