1
10
26
-
Diary/Letter
Text
Any textual data included in the document.
<p>December 7 </p>
<p>10-11:55 </p>
<p>Met with President, Shultz, Don Regan, John McMahon, Mc F Farlane, John Poindexter – in a upstairs residence of WH (end of corridor sitting room) – re NSC Iran proposal — President wants to free hostages — thinks a Hawks and TOWs would only go to “Moderate Elements in Army” + would help overthrow Iranian gov’t. I argued strongly that we have an Embargo that Makes Arms Sales to Iran illegal + President couldn’t violate it + that “washing” transaction thru Israel wouldn’t’ make it legal — Shultz, Don Regan agreed. President sd. he could answer charges of illegality but he couldn’t answer charge that “big strong President Reagan passed up a chance to free hostages”. Preside President left to do his noon radio</p>
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Title
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"Big Strong President Reagan" Encourages Sale of Weapons to Iran
Language
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English
Publisher
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American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
Description
An account of the resource
The first attempt to sell weapons to Iran through Israeli middlemen failed. Reagan then convened a group of advisors, including Secretary of State George Shultz and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. Both Shultz and Weinberger, as well as White House Chief of Staff Don Regan, objected to selling weapons directly to Iran, which the U.S. had declared a state sponsor of terrorism. As Weinberger’s diary reveals, Reagan pushed for the sales anyway, even if they were illegal.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Caspar W. Weinberger
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Caspar W. Weinberger, Diary Entry for 7 December 1985, (Washington, DC: National Archives); available from The National Secruity Archive, <em>The Iran-Contra Affair 20 Years On</em>, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB210/index.htm.
Primary
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1
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1985
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Contemporary US (1976 to the present)
Cold War
Iran-Contra Affair
-
Teaching Activity
Objectives
<ul>
<li>
<p>Students will be able to describe the events of the Iran-Contra Affair.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Students will analyze the motivations of Reagan Administration officials during the Iran-Contra Affair. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Students will appraise U.S. foreign policy in the late Cold War period. </p>
</li>
</ul>
Materials
1584, 1583, 1580, 1579, 1578, 899, 780
Historical Context
<p>Throughout his presidency, Reagan pursued an aggressively anti-Communist foreign policy. Early in his first term, Reagan had authorized a covert CIA operation to overthrow leftist governments in Nicaragua. Radicals known as Sandinistas had overthrown Nicaragua's military dictatorship and were threatening to do the same in El Salvador. The Contras were a coalition of paramilitary groups that opposed the Sandinistas. Fearing the spread of communism in the Western hemisphere, Reagan dubbed the Contras “freedom fighters” and channeled weapons and C.I.A. support to them. Congress remained skeptical, though; in 1984, it passed the Boland Amendment banning U.S. military aid to the Contras. Administration officials did not give up their support of the Contras, however; they merely looked for new sources of funds, other than federal appropriations from Congress, to send to Nicaragua. </p>
<p>National security advisors hatched a plan to fund the Contras with money brought in by the sale of weapons to Iran. Officials also hoped the weapons sales would make Iran more favorable to helping the U.S. negotiate with Islamic radicals who had taken several Americans hostage in Lebanon. The proposed sale of weapons, however, was illegal; the U.S. had passed an embargo and publicly denounced Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism since the Iran hostage crisis in 1979. In order to hide U.S. actions, Reagan officials sold millions of dollars worth of weapons secretly through an intermediary.</p>
<p>The profits from this illegal arms trade, along with other money that was raised secretly from foreign governments, were then used to fund the Contras in their war against Nicaragua’s radical Sandinista government. Several NSC officials went to jail, and much evidence suggested that Reagan had condoned the illegal acts. At the very least, it is clear that he supported the sale of weapons to Iran for the release of hostages and he supported the covert aid to the Contras. No one ever testified that he approved the weapons sales in order to fund the Contras. Although Democratic lawmakers shied away from any effort to impeach the still-popular president, the Iran-Contra Affair nonetheless deprived Reagan of his ability to set the national political agenda for the remainder of his term.</p>
Lesson Plan Text
<p><strong>Step 1:</strong> First review with students the basic tenet of the Monroe Doctrine: that the U.S. has the right to intervene in Latin America in order to protect its interests in the Western hemisphere. Ask students to think of other events in U.S. history where the Monroe Doctrine was invoked. Then review with students what the Iran-Contra Affair was. The teacher may wish to share the background information provided in the historical context section of this activity plan or to review a textbook's account of the events. Enforce the basic definition of the Iran-Contra Affair: The Reagan Administration secretly sold weapons to Iran in order to fund anti-Communist fighters in Nicaragua known as Contras. </p>
<p><strong>Step 2:</strong> Hand out the timeline of the Iran-Contra Affair. Go over the events with students. Ask students to identify which aspects of the timeline reflect Cold War policies and which events indicate the new threat the U.S. faced from Islamic fundamentalists. Reinforce with students that the Iran-Contra Affair happened at a time when the threats to the United States were shifting from the Cold War to terrorism. Ask students to tell which threat in the 1980s seems more pressing, based on what they have learned about the Cold War to that point and what they know about U.S. foreign policy today. Tell students to keep the timeline as reference for the rest of the activity. </p>
<p><strong>Step 3: </strong>Pass out the "Decoding U.S. Foreign Policy" worksheet and the document "Reagan Administration Officials Debate How to Support the Contras." Before reading the document, ask students to note when this document was created and what type of document it is. Ask students to "place" this document on their timeline of the Iran-Contra Affair. </p>
<p><strong>Step 4: </strong>Ask for seven volunteers to read the "script" of the meeting. Before beginning, read the description. The different roles are:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Secretary/Narrator (Reads the time/place/persons present)</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Robert McFarlane, National Security Advisor</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>George P. Shultz, Secretary of State</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Caspar W. Weinberger, Secretary of Defense</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Edwin Meese, Attorney General</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>George H.W. Bush, Vice President</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Ronald Reagan, President</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Now model "decoding" the document with the worksheet. Together, fill out the worksheet, making sure that students know how to answer each part of the worksheet. Before moving on, make sure that students know how this event fits on the timeline and what it tells us about the motivations and thinking of Reagan Administration officials at the beginning of the Iran-Contra Affair. </p>
<p><strong>Step 5:</strong> Divide students into groups of four. The teacher can divide students into groups according to skill level or create mixed-skill level groups. Below are suggested "reading levels" for each document. In their groups, students should read one of the four documents and decode it using a second copy of the worksheet. </p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Beginning: The CIA Advises Nicaraguans How to Sabotage the Sandinista Government</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Mid-Level 1: "Big Strong President Reagan" Encourages Sale of Weapons to Iran</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Mid-Level 2: The Deputy Director of the CIA Advises on the Situation in Nicaragua</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Advanced: Nicaragua's President Challenges U.S. Intervention in His Country</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>If working in mixed-skill level groups, students should share out their documents with each other before the next step.</p>
<p><strong>Step 6:</strong> Ask students to share their findings from their documents with the whole class, focusing on their responses in Section III of the worksheet. Project the documents as the students discuss them and place them on the timeline. Possible discussion questions include:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Were the actions of Reagan's administration in the Iran-Contra Affair justifiable? Why or why not? </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Had Reagan or his administration officials committed illegal acts and should they have been held accountable? Why or why not? </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>What do these documents tell us about U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War? </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Do these events challenge the assumptions of the Monroe Doctrine? Is the Monroe Doctrine a sound foreign policy? </p>
</li>
</ul>
Dublin Core
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Language
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English
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American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
Title
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Decoding U.S. Foreign Policy: The Iran-Contra Affair
Description
An account of the resource
In this activity students analyze a timeline and official and unofficial documents that reveal the events of the Iran-Contra Affair. This activity also models the types of questions that can help students analyze foreign policy documents from other events. The activity instructions include suggestions for how to differentiate the activity for students with different reading levels.
Creator
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American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning
Source
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American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning, 2010.
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Copyright American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning
<div><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/" rel="license"><img style="border-width: 0;" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-nd/3.0/88x31.png" alt="Creative Commons License" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/" rel="license">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License</a>.</div>
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2010
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The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Contemporary US (1976 to the present)
Cold War
Group Work
Iran-Contra Affair
Monroe Doctrine
Reading Supports
Role Play and Debate
-
https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/files/original/big-strong-president-reagan_361fcc53ca.pdf
078cf9551f904331cad8b4da4951cb2c
Diary/Letter
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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"Big Strong President Reagan" Encourages Sale of Weapons to Iran
Language
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English
Publisher
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American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
Description
An account of the resource
The first attempt to sell weapons to Iran through Israeli middlemen failed. Reagan then convened a group of advisors, including Secretary of State George Shultz and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. Both Shultz and Weinberger, as well as White House Chief of Staff Don Regan, objected to selling weapons directly to Iran, which the U.S. had declared a state sponsor of terrorism. As Weinberger’s diary reveals, Reagan pushed for the sales anyway, even if they were illegal.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Caspar W. Weinberger
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Caspar W. Weinberger, Diary Entry for 7 December 1985, (Washington, DC: National Archives); available from The National Secruity Archive, The Iran-Contra Affair 20 Years On, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB210/index.htm.
Primary
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1
Relation
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1582
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1985
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Contemporary US (1976 to the present)
Cold War
Iran-Contra Affair
Reading Supports
-
https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/files/original/manualusedp1_ca2e6b28ed.tif
035f66d9cc42bdeb03e6394ecfae9a18
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Height
719
https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/files/original/manualusedp2_80f671413e.tif
d89ed0fadfaca9595de5f05a043ea575
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Width
1335
Height
1240
Pamphlet/Petition
Dublin Core
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Title
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The C.I.A. Advises Nicaraguans How to Sabotage the Sandinista Government
Language
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English
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American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
Description
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The C.I.A. airdropped thousands of these 15-page illustrated manuals telling "Nicaraguans who love their country and cherish freedom" how they could sabotage the Sandinista-led government. The leftist Sandinistas had overthrown a military dictatorship in 1979; the U.S. supported rightwing Contras in their efforts to remove the Sandinistas from power. A Contra fighter in Honduras, where the C.I.A. based its anti-Sandinista efforts, gave a copy of the manual to a reporter in 1984.
Creator
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Central Intelligence Agency
Source
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United States Central Intelligence Agency, <em>The Freedom Fighter's Manual</em> (New York: Grove Press, [1985]).
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1
Relation
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1582
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1983 (Circa)
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Contemporary US (1976 to the present)
Cold War
Iran-Contra Affair
-
Biography/Autobiography
Biographical Text
<p>I had long been drawn to socialism and communism, and Russia had appealed to me. Much in Soviet Russia I dislike—the ruthless suppression of all contrary opinion, the wholesale regimentation, the unnecessary violence (as I thought) in carrying out various policies. But there was no lack of violence and suppression in the capitalist world, and I realized more and more how the very basis and foundation of our acquisitive society and property was violence. Without violence it would not continue for many days. A measure of political liberty meant little indeed when the fear of starvation was always compelling the vast majority of people everywhere to submit to the will of the few, to the greater glory and advantage of the latter. </p>
<p>. . . With all her blunders, Soviet Russia had triumphed over enormous difficulties and taken great strides toward this new order. While the rest of the world was in the grip of the depression and going backward in some ways, in the Soviet country a great new world was being built up before our eyes. Russia, following the great Lenin, looked into the future and thought only of what was to be, while other countries lay numbed under the dead hand of the past and spent their energy in preserving the useless relics of a bygone age. . . . [T]he presence and example of the Soviets was a bright and heartening phenomenon in a dark and dismal world. . . .
</p>
<p>It seemed clear to me that nationalism would remain the outstanding urge, till some measure of political freedom was attained. Because of this the Congress had been, and was still (apart from certain labor circles), the most advanced organization in India, as it was far the most powerful. During the past thirteen years, under Gandhi’s leadership, it has produced a wonderful awakening of the masses, and, in spite of its vague bourgeois ideology, it had served a revolutionary purpose. It had not exhausted its utility yet and was not likely to do so till the nationalist urge gave place to a social one. . . .
</p>
<p>[I]t is absurd to say that the leaders [of the Indian movement] betray the masses because they do not try to upset the land system or the capitalist system. They never claimed to do so. Some people in the Congress, and they are a growing number, want to change the land system and the capitalist system, but they cannot speak in the name of the Congress. . . .
</p>
<p>I write this sitting in a British prison. . . . I dislike British imperialism, and I resent its imposition on India; I dislike the capitalist system; I dislike exceedingly and resent the way India is exploited by the ruling classes of Britain. But I do not hold England or the English people as a whole responsible for this. . . .</p>
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Title
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An Indian Politician Debates the Limitations of Communism
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English
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American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
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Writing from a British prison in 1941, Jawaharlal Nehru, the future post-Independence prime minister of India, attempts to explain his political outlook. In these excerpts, Nehru gives particular vent to his thoughts on Communism and the Soviet Union. Nehru's views on Soviet Russia typify those of many post-colonial leaders, who admired the Soviets' command economy but were wary of domination by either the Soviet Union or the West. As India's first Prime Minister after independence, Nehru attempted to define such a "third path" for his country, adopting elements of socialism but avoiding direct alignment with either the U.S. or U.S.S.R.
Creator
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Jawaharal Nehru
Source
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Jawaharlal Nehru, <em>Toward Freedom: The Autobiography of Jawaharlal Nehru </em>(1941), excerpted in Michael H. Hunt, <em>The World Transformed: 1945 to the Present</em> (New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004), 121-122.
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1
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1941
Coverage
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Postwar America (1946-1975)
Cold War
-
TV/Film
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound.
...Why is it that the US President Kennedy’s much-advertised Peace Corps was met with such universal opposition? As a matter of fact, there is nothing new about the Peace Corps. As early as the beginning the 19th century, the American church under the signboard of “religious salvation” carried out activities similar to those of the Peace Corps in foreign countries. Actually, the Peace Corps has taken over the heritage of the American church and other instruments of US imperialism in carrying out aggressive activities abroad.<br /><br />As the people can see from the Peace Corps, the imperialists know how to tell lies. But they are often stupid enough to let the cat out of the bag when they make certain statements. Sargent Shriver, chieftain of the Peace Corps, has admitted that in the long run the Peace Corps as he put it may create a substantial popular base for responsible American polices toward the world…<br /><br />… The New York Times reported that Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army G.H. Decker has said frankly that the mission of the Peace Corps will be taken up by the U.S. Army. In foreign lands U.S. soldiers will play the double role of peacetime and wartime troops.<br /><br />It is crystal clear, then, that the so-called U.S. Peace Corps is nothing but a contingent of troops serving the two purposes just mentioned. In peacetime it can carry out espionage work and hoodwink people according to the wishes of the U.S. ruling circles. In the event of war it will be turned immediately into a commando unit for suppressing the national liberation movement and the revolutionary movement of the people.
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TV/Radio/Film
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A Chinese Radio Broadcast Denounces the Peace Corps
Language
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English
Publisher
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American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
Description
An account of the resource
After the creation of the Peace Corps in 1961, communist newspapers and other propaganda outlets in Asia, Africa, and, South American were quick to denounce the U.S. humanitarian program as a trick to stop the spread of revolution in underdeveloped countries. At the time, the Kennedy Administration was considering a proposal to use U.S. army personnel to help carry out civic programs such as road-building and bridge-building. Kennedy's brother-in-law and Peace Corps director, Robert Sargent Shriver, urged the President to oppose the proposal, and enclosed this transcript of a Chinese broadcast attacking the Peace Corps.
Creator
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Unknown
Source
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Memorandum from Robert Sargent Shriver to the President, 8 January 1962, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum; from <em>The Presidential Timeline of the Twentieth Century</em>, http://www.presidentialtimeline.org.
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1
Date
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1961
Coverage
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Postwar America (1946-1975)
Cold War
Peace Corps
-
Speech
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound.
….We meet together as firm and ancient friends, united by history and experience and by our determination to advance the values of American civilization. For this New World of ours is not a mere accident of geography. Our continents are bound together by a common history, the endless exploration of new frontiers. Our nations are the product of a common struggle, the revolt from colonial rule. And our people share a common heritage, the quest for the dignity and the freedom of man….<br /><br />As a citizen of the United States let me be the first to admit that we North Americans have not always grasped the significance of this common mission, just as it is also true that many in your own countries have not fully understood the urgency of the need to lift people from poverty and ignorance and despair. But we must turn from these mistakes from the failures and the misunderstandings of the past to a future full of peril, but bright with hope….<br /><br />I have this evening signed a request to the Congress for $500 million….This is the first large-scale Inter-American effort, instituted by my predecessor President Eisenhower, to attack the social barriers which block economic progress. The money will be used to combat illiteracy, improve the productivity and use of their land, wipe out disease, attack archaic tax and land tenure structures, provide educational opportunities, and offer a broad range of projects designed to make the benefits of increasing abundance available to all….<br /><br />To achieve this goal political freedom must accompany material progress. Our Alliance for Progress is an alliance of free governments, and it must work to eliminate tyranny from a hemisphere in which it has no rightful place. Therefore let us express our special friendship to the people of Cuba…and the hope they will soon rejoin the society of free men, uniting with us in common effort.<br /><br />….And so I say to the men and women of the Americas--to the campesino in the fields, to the obrero in the cities, to the estudiante in the schools--prepare your mind and heart for the task ahead--call forth your strength and let each devote his energies to the betterment of all, so that your children and our children in this hemisphere can find an ever richer and a freer life.<br />
Dublin Core
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Speech
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President Kennedy Proposes an Alliance for Progress
Language
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English
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American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
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Kennedy had first spoken of an "Alliance for Progress" between the United States and Latin America in his inaugural address. Citing a shared heritage, Kennedy outlined his vision for a "large-scale Inter-American effort... to attack the social barriers which block economic progress" at a 1961 White House reception for Latin American diplomats.
Creator
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John F. Kennedy
Source
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John F. Kennedy, "An Address at a White House Reception for Members of Congress and for the Diplomatic Corps of the Latin American Republics," <em>Public Papers of the Presidents from the United States</em> (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1962): 170-175; from John Woolley and Gerhard Peters, <em>The American Presidency Project</em>, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=8531.
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1
Date
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1961
Coverage
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Postwar America (1946-1975)
Subject
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Expansion and Imperialism
Cold War
John F. Kennedy
-
Speech
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound.
Tonight I want to talk about peace—and how to get peace. Never have the common people of all lands so longed for peace. Yet, never in a time of comparative peace have they feared war so much. . . .During the past year or so, the significance of peace has been increased immeasurably by the atomic bomb, guided missiles and airplanes which soon will travel as fast as sound. . . . We cannot rest in the assurance that we invented the atom bomb—and therefore that this agent of destruction will work best for us. He who trusts in the atom bomb will sooner or later perish by the atom bomb—or something worse. . . .
<p>To achieve lasting peace, we must study in detail just how the Russian character was formed—by invasions of Tartars, Mongols, Germans, Poles, Swedes, and French; by the czarist rule based on ignorance, fear and force; by the intervention of the British, French and Americans in Russian affairs from 1919-1921; by the geography of the huge Russian land mass situated strategically between Europe and Asia; and by the vitality derived from the rich Russian soil and the strenuous Russian climate. Add to all this the tremendous emotional power which Marxism and Leninism gives to the Russian leaders—and then we can realize that we are reckoning with a force which cannot be handled successfully by a 'Get tough with Russia' policy. 'Getting tough' never brought anything real and lasting—whether for schoolyard bullies or businessmen or world powers. The tougher we get, the tougher the Russians will get. . . .</p>
<p>We most earnestly want peace with Russia—but we want to be met half way. We want cooperation. And I believe that we can get cooperation once Russia understands that our primary objective is neither saving the British Empire nor purchasing oil in the Near East with the lives of American soldiers. . . .</p>
<p>On our part we should recognize that we have no more business in the political affairs of Eastern Europe than Russia has in the political affairs of Latin America, Western Europe and the United States. . . The Russians have no more business in stirring up native communists to political activity in Western Europe, Latin America and the United States than we have in interfering in the politics of Eastern Europe and Russia. We know what Russia is up to in Eastern Europe, for example, and Russia knows what we are up to. We cannot permit the door to be closed against our trade in Eastern Europe any more than we can in China. But at the same time we have to recognize that the Balkans are closer to Russia than to us—and that Russia cannot permit either England or the United States to dominate the politics of that area . . . .</p>
<p>Russian ideas of social-economic justice are going to govern nearly a third of the world. Our ideas of free enterprise democracy will govern much of the rest. The two ideas will endeavor to prove which can deliver the most satisfaction to the common man in their respective areas of political dominance. . . . Under friendly peaceful competition the Russian world and the American world will gradually become more alike. The Russians will be forced to grant more and more of the personal freedoms; and we shall become more and more absorbed with the problems of social-economic justice.</p>
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The Secretary of Commerce Urges Peaceful Coexistence With Russia
Language
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English
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American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
Description
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Henry A. Wallace, Franklin D. Roosevelt's vice president and Secretary of Commerce under Harry Truman, delivered this speech to a gathering of leftist and liberal groups in New York's Madison Square Garden in 1946. In it, he urges taking a more conciliatory approach in America's foreign policy toward the Soviet Union. In contrast to Truman's increasingly "get-tough" rhetoric, Wallace insists that peaceful coexistence represents the best policy in an era of atomic warfare. Truman, however, viewed the speech as undermining his foreign policy, and asked for Wallace's resignation a week later.
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Henry A. Wallace
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In James Roark, et. al., <em>The American Promise</em>, third edition (New York: Bedford/St.Martin's, 2005), 957-958.
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1
Date
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1946
Coverage
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Postwar America (1946-1975)
Cold War
-
Speech
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At the present moment in world history nearly every nation must choose between alternative ways of life. The choice is too often not a free one.
<p>One way of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is distinguished by free institutions, representative government, free elections, guarantees of individual liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political oppression.</p>
<p>The second way of life is based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed upon the majority. It relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio, fixed elections, and the suppression of personal freedoms.</p>
<p>I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.</p>
<p>I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way.</p>
<p>I believe that our help should be primarily through economic and financial aid which is essential to economic stability and orderly political processes. . . .</p>
<p>Should we fail to aid Greece and Turkey in this fateful hour, the effect will be far reaching to the West as well as to the East.</p>
<p>We must take immediate and resolute action.</p>
<p>The seeds of totalitarian regimes are nurtured by misery and want. They spread and grown in the evil soil of poverty and strife. They reach their full growth when the hope of a people for a better life has died.</p>
<p>We must keep that hope alive.</p>
<p>The free peoples of the world look to us for support in maintaining their freedoms.</p>
<p>If we falter in our leadership, we may endanger the peace of the world—and we shall surely endanger the welfare of this Nation.</p>
<p> </p>
Dublin Core
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Type
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Speech
Title
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President Truman Announces a New Foreign Policy
Language
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English
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American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
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President Harry S. Truman proclaimed the Truman Doctrine in a speech addressed to Congress on March 12, 1947. In addition to drawing a stark contrast between the two different "ways of life" represented by the United States and the Soviet Union, the speech marked a shift in American foreign policy toward a policy of "containment" of Soviet expansion. Truman pledged assistance to Greece and Turkey, then threatened by aggressive Soviet expansion in the region and by their own Communist movements, in the form of military and economic aid. The Doctrine would come to be seen, along with the Marshall Plan, as one of the "founding documents" of the Cold War, and would continue to provide the rationale for American foreign intervention in the years to come.
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Harry S. Truman
Source
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Harry S. Truman, "Address of the President to Congress, Recommending Assistance to Greece and Turkey," 12 Mach 1947, Harry S. Truman, Elsey Papers, http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/doctrine/large/documents/index.php?documentdate=1947-03-12&documentid=5-9&pagenumber=1.
Primary
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1
Date
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1947
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Postwar America (1946-1975)
Cold War
-
https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/files/original/fallout-2_2860f3fe83.tif
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Height
1140
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1033
https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/files/original/fallout-1_2c55eaf87f.tif
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Omeka Image File
The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files.
Height
1147
Width
1043
https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/files/original/fallout-3_ef31b3b5d3.tif
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Omeka Image File
The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files.
Height
1140
Width
1033
https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/files/original/fallout-4_18f06ec316.tif
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Omeka Image File
The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files.
Height
1140
Width
1033
Pamphlet/Petition
Dublin Core
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Pamphlet
Title
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"Facts About Fallout"<br />
Language
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English
Publisher
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American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
Description
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This 1955 government pamphlet, issued by the Federal Civil Defense Administration, warns Americans about the dangers of radioactive fallout in the event of a nuclear explosion, and suggests measures citizens can take to protect themselves. With its upbeat tone and cartoon illustrations, the pamphlet seems to downplay the danger presented by a nuclear event. During the 1950s thousands Americans constructed backyard bomb shelters. The protection they offered was dubious at best against the aftermath of a nuclear attack.
Creator
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U.S. Government
Source
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"Facts About Fallout, 1955," National Archives, <em>Teaching With Documents: Photographs and Pamphlet About Nuclear Fallout,</em> http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/fallout-docs/#documents.
Primary
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1
Date
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1955
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Postwar America (1946-1975)
Cold War