American History Since 1900 assignment four - Essay Example

This of course leads to abuses against due process that is guaranteed in the constitution. The idea that someone is innocent until proven guilty was perverted by the weight of congressional hearings during the McCarthy Era. If a person chose to refuse to incriminate himself or herself by claiming their 5th amendment rights, they would be viewed as guilty. On the other hand, if they chose to testify on their own behalf, then they could be forced to incriminate others. This placed citizens accused of un-American activities in an unjust situation.

One Hollywood personality that chose to testify was Edward Dmytryk. He naively thought that if he testified, the public would back him and the left-leaning friends he had would come to his rescue. He attempted to testify and he was made to appear guilty. He lost many friends and his job as a result. Lillian Hillman refused to testify by invoking her 5th amendment rights. Many thought this would only serve to make her appear guilty, but she reports hearing individuals in the audience making positive comments about her willingness to stand-up to the congressional committee.

Vietnam was another country in Asia that was under pressure to become a Communist country. President Kennedy described the countries falling in Asia as dominoes. If one falls then another will follow. America tried to create a government in the south to withstand Communist pressure from the north. This failed so the United States chose to escalate the war through a campaign of bombing. Ground troops were added but proved largely ineffective. America divided between supporters and protestors of the war in Vietnam.

President Nixon finally got the Vietcong to come to the peace table. The war was a defeat for America. With the election of President Reagan in 1980, America took a large turn towards becoming a more conservative nation. President Reagan worked hard to incorporate a new conservative agenda into domestic policy. Government funding of abortions through Medicaid was banned. Many gains for gays and lesbians at the local lever were overturned and the overall size of government was reduced. Taxes were cut because Reagan believed that free enterprise was the best way to grow an economy.

Spending on the military was increased in an effort to out-produce the Soviet Union. This resulted in the Soviet Union failing eventually, but also made government deficits. Richard Nixon’s political strategy reflected the racial and radicalism of his era in several ways. He ran on a strong platform of law and order. He wanted to show America that the hippies and their kind were actually the minority of people in America, not the majority. The complete chaos created by rioting minorities in urban areas and the debacle of the Democratic convention in Chicago played into Nixon’s hand.

Many Americans actually expressed their view that the students at Kent State deserved to get shot. This need for law and order is what Nixon was able to tap into. He was easily elected as President. The main causes of the Watergate Scandal were the illegal and unethical methods that the Nixon administration were employing to find out about their Democratic challenger’s strategy. They hired individuals to steal secrets and the thieves were caught. What added to the scandal was the fact that Nixon denied that