History-American Civilization

HIST 1700 Final

Keep in mind that if you use any sources that are not lecture or the book (I don’t recommend it, unless they are academic quality), you MUST cite them.

Term Identification (40%)

There are ten terms below, selected from either lectures or our book (or both). You must respond to EIGHT (discard two). You are expected to define the term, place it in American history, and identify its significance (significance = what makes it important/why we care today) in a short answer (multiple sentences in a paragraph format).

Cahokia

disestablishmentarianism

telegraph

Agriculture Adjustment Act (AAA)

Battle of Liberty Place

Tuskegee Airmen

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

women’s suffrage

Santeria

mass incarceration

Essays (40%)

Write two essays in response to two of the following three prompts (discard one):

1. Why did Reconstruction fail?

1. Identify two ways in which World Wars I and/or II changed America and explain why those two changes happened.

1. Pick one of the following issues:

women’s role in society

the role of religion in America

which Americans deserve a say in how things work; which Americans do not (who

counts as a “real” American)

freedom/human rights

the United States’ role in world affairs

Next, describe how Americans’ perceptions of the issue you chose have changed and/or remained the same over time. Reference historical events to prove your argument.

Primary Source Analysis (20%)

Identify the editors and their place in society. Identify any arguments the editors are presenting. Identify and explain any historical facts or concepts that the selected passage provides direct or indirect evidence of. If necessary (especially for anything learned through implication), explain how the passage provides evidence for these facts or concepts.

During the Berlin crisis, most of our contingency planning for military options had been based on estimates of impressive Soviet conventional and nuclear capabilities. For that reason, we had thought the possibility of escalation into a nuclear war was likely, and the Soviets could hit us very hard. However since then, the double agent Penkovskiy had confirmed what our own intelligence had been suggesting: that Soviet nuclear capabilities had been overestimated, and that we held the advantage-evidently one of the reasons why Moscow was putting intermediate and medium range missiles in Cuba. I viewed the existence of the missiles as a serious threat. They could reach any number of targets in the United States in a short time and, since we had set up no southern early warning system, a surprise attack would put us in a difficult position.

As a result of the new intelligence on Soviet nuclear forces, and the fact that what was happening was in our backyard where we enjoyed a substantial advantage in conventional forces (unlike in Europe during the Berlin crisis), I was hawkish about what our response should be. I did not think the risk of war, while extremely serious, was as great as I had believed the year before. Like General Maxwell Taylor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I thought we could-and should-strike quickly and knock out the bases before they were operational, destroying the missiles and bombers while they were still in crates.

Looking back at the transcripts of the early ExComm discussions, I am struck that many of us considered military action almost inevitable almost from the outset. As I recall, much of the discussion about the use of force, especially an invasion of Cuba, hinged upon whether the Soviets had already deployed nuclear warheads to the island. We operated on the assumption that it was unlikely Moscow would take such a risk, but that these could arrive at any time. As it turned out, at a conference in 1989 on the Cuban Crisis, a Soviet participant revealed that they had already delivered some warheads, so the possibility of war had been greater than suspected.

Even enforcing the naval quarantine the President decided to impose had its risks. If in the course of stopping a Soviet vessel we had to fire at it, and sank it, the Soviets might respond by ordering their submarines escorting the ships to torpedo our warships. They might also retaliate by taking out our missiles based in Turkey or Italy, which would soon escalate into a nuclear war. However, I thought that an air attack on the bases in Cuba would not prompt the same reaction. Cuba was not a Warsaw Pact ally, and an air attack on it would not require a prompt military response. Fortunately, no incident arose to put any of these theories to a practical test. All Soviet ships carrying missiles or equipment halted before encountering our blockade line, and we were selective in stopping others that we knew probably were not carrying contraband. However, I do recall one incident in which we intercepted radio calls between a Soviet ship and its headquarters. The captain reported that he had been located by American submarines and was now surrounded. He asked whether he should let the Americans board or abandon and then sink his ship. I recommended that we jam the radio frequency before the Soviets made up their minds, prevent them from sinking the ship, board it and take it to a US port as a prize-of-war. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara disagreed, and urged that we give the Soviets a dignified way out and permit the ship to head home untouched. Thus the ship got away, much to my frustration!