History of the United States (1964-1980)

While the cold war itself, the United States stepped in, ended up conceding Viet Nam war. As a result, a social schism in the society in which women, minorities and young people rebelled. This resulted in the biggest crisis for the country since the American civil war. Other manifestations of the unrest were among other things the murders of Robert Kennedy, the brother of former president John f. Kennedy, and [http://www.microsofttranslator.com/bv.aspx?from=nl&to=en&a=http%3A%2F%2Fnl.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FMartin_Luther_King_jr. Martin Luther King Jr.], the fighter for racial equality, in 1968, especially the murder of King took care of many race riots in which struggling cities like Detroit had.

At the end of the 1960s hippie movement came on stream at the youth, where the civil moral values of the older generation were put into question. This movement was associated with "free" sex and the frequent use and experiment with hallucinogenic drugs such as lsd and hashish.

Lyndon Johnson who had become by the murder of his predecessor president, was in favour of a solution to the racial conflict that above all the South – from which he himself came – occupied for so long. He dreamed of a Great Society in which everyone could live in prosperity and justice and could fully develop his or her talents. However, little came of those big plans because he is vastbeet in the Viet Nam conflict. He saw it as a battle of democratically-minded Vietnamese against a totalitarian Communist regime, which would extend all across South Asia itself if it does not stop in Viet Nam was stopped.

That Vietnamese – with the French interference in their affairs still fresh in our minds – that itself sometimes different saws and the domino theory a chimera would show didn't occur to him. He was facing large demonstrations of young Americans – often themselves veteran – that had come to a different understanding. Many conscripts refused service and weeks even forward to Canada. There was a large generation gap between the young and the older generation that the prevailing ideas of patriotism and anti communism still believe donated. Johnson stated that he has no ambition of bitter re-election. Thereupon the Democratic Party nominated someone of its left wing, which among the elderly was completely unacceptable. This paved the way for a Republican in the White House.

During the 1970s that followed the United States had to do with a period of malaise caused by the unprecedented phenomenon of 'stagflation', the Watergate scandal and the first cases of international terrorism and unrest around the oil price.

Although the election of Nixon in part was due to the dissatisfaction with the Viet Nam conducted by the Democrats of politics, initially wanted to know Nixon in this war. He left North Viet Nam repeatedly bombing and extended the war even forward to Cambodia (Vietnamisering). There followed large protests around the world and eventually saw Nixon compelled the other tack. He visited-to great bewilderment of the conservative wing of his own party-the people's Republic of China and knew as a wedge in the crack that ran by the Communist bloc anyway. This he laid the basis for a retreat from Viet Nam. Initially it was called that the Government could stand on its own feet now in Saigon, but followed the collapse in 1975 and the reunification under the Communist regime of the North.

Although Nixon was re-elected with a landslide in 1972, he could not resist to commit espionage at his democratic opponents and then ran against the lamp as a result of journalism research. President Richard Nixongot so embroiled in the Watergate affair in 1974 which culminated in a threat of Impeachment after which Nixon resigned and pulled his conclusions so far, the only president who did that. His successor Gerald Ford – who previously had been appointed by Nixon as Vice President for the even though because of scandals resigned Agnew – could not make name for themselves. Especially when he granted Nixon a general pardon, he lost much support in the exasperated Americans. Only at his death (2006) there is recognition for the fact that he derailed the whole polity could get back on track and that the pardon had been indispensable for that.

In 1976 Jimmy Carter was elected president. The election of a relative outsider was seen by many as a good chance to keep into the Lake once clean sweep of perdition of the corrupt capital. Carter, however, but little grip on the ins and outs of capital and its powerful bureaucracy and got to make with many problems.

The u.s. experienced a further diminishing sense of self-confidence during years under Ford and Carter and the Misery index, an indicator that the economic situation said, the pan out. It went very bad economic and especially the oil supply bore great concern. Carter saw in that this is a problem of the longer term was that only could be solved by new technology and that is why he founded the Solar Energy Research Institute in Golden CO (now the National Renewable Energy Laboratory NREL) with a budget no less than half a billion dollars a year.

Carter also set out the situation in the Middle East to calm a bit further and reached an important progress through the conclusion of the Camp David Accords in 1977 that an end to the State of war between Israel and Egypt.

Also for the first time Terrorism began to focus on the United States. Since the days of Iran that Mossadegh had had a prowesters regime under the Shah, to overthrow this regime and knew there was a theocratic government into power that of further American interference did not want. In 1979 was in the Iranian capital Tehran were occupied the u.s. Embassy and American diplomats held hostage for over a year. An attempt to free the hostages by military means failed miserably and Carter was increasingly accused of ignorance. His popularity slumped to a level that would be equaled only by George w. Bush.

Also attacked the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, leading to a US-led boycott of the Moscow Olympics in led. Critics of the us saw in this period, a sign that the United States had lost its importance and was waning and ideals. In 1980 there was an old Hollywood actor and Governor of California, Ronald Reagan elected president, an ardent anti-Communist who wanted to give confidence to the us again.

More or less at the same time, the tide began to turn against the communism itself on several fronts: the economies of the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc countries stagnated and remained technologically still further behind the West, and the Soviet Union turned out to be in Afganistan to have found his own ' Viet Nam '. In addition, the Communist revolutions in Southeast Asia turned on major disasters from; approximately 2 million desperate boat people left Viet Nam; a forced Vietnamese industrialization plan failed and the Pol Potregime in Democratic Kampuchea made itself guilty of mass murder on an unprecedented scale. In addition, raged there short wars between Viet Nam and China, of the other part, on the one hand and Kampuchea. This was a new phase ushered in the cold war .