Andrew L. Johns
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813125725
- eISBN:
- 9780813135427
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813125725.003.0009
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
In the story of Theseus, the hero volunteers to slay the Minotaur in the labyrinth created by the master craftsman Daedalus. Ariadne, Daedalus's daughter, who had fallen in love with Theseus, taught ...
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In the story of Theseus, the hero volunteers to slay the Minotaur in the labyrinth created by the master craftsman Daedalus. Ariadne, Daedalus's daughter, who had fallen in love with Theseus, taught him the way to reach the center of the maze, where the half-man, half-bull lived. She also gave him a ball of string that would help him escape after completing his task. Theseus would have been doomed to wander the labyrinth forever—or until he randomly stumbled on the right sequence of decisions that would lead him to the exit. This chapter analyzes how the Nixon administration did just that, taking multiple steps and missteps in an effort to end the war, all while facing keen domestic pressure from all sides and a new international system largely of Nixon's own making.Less
In the story of Theseus, the hero volunteers to slay the Minotaur in the labyrinth created by the master craftsman Daedalus. Ariadne, Daedalus's daughter, who had fallen in love with Theseus, taught him the way to reach the center of the maze, where the half-man, half-bull lived. She also gave him a ball of string that would help him escape after completing his task. Theseus would have been doomed to wander the labyrinth forever—or until he randomly stumbled on the right sequence of decisions that would lead him to the exit. This chapter analyzes how the Nixon administration did just that, taking multiple steps and missteps in an effort to end the war, all while facing keen domestic pressure from all sides and a new international system largely of Nixon's own making.
Jussi Hanhimäki
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195172218
- eISBN:
- 9780199849994
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195172218.003.0011
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
In the long series of negotiations with Le Duc Tho, Kissinger informed Nixon that he had hammered out an acceptable agreement that could end America's longest war by the end of the year, a crowning ...
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In the long series of negotiations with Le Duc Tho, Kissinger informed Nixon that he had hammered out an acceptable agreement that could end America's longest war by the end of the year, a crowning achievement in the first Nixon administration's foreign policy. Nixon saw this as an opportunity to maximize his political gain and a useful tool for the upcoming November 1972 election. However, the October agreement fell victim to many problems embedded in Kissinger and Nixon's Vietnam policy. The South Vietnamese president rejected Kissinger's offer. Also, throughout the fall of 1972, the rift between Kissinger and Nixon grew wider with Nixon contemplating letting go of Kissinger as part of his reorganization of his foreign policy team. These events are presented in detail in this chapter.Less
In the long series of negotiations with Le Duc Tho, Kissinger informed Nixon that he had hammered out an acceptable agreement that could end America's longest war by the end of the year, a crowning achievement in the first Nixon administration's foreign policy. Nixon saw this as an opportunity to maximize his political gain and a useful tool for the upcoming November 1972 election. However, the October agreement fell victim to many problems embedded in Kissinger and Nixon's Vietnam policy. The South Vietnamese president rejected Kissinger's offer. Also, throughout the fall of 1972, the rift between Kissinger and Nixon grew wider with Nixon contemplating letting go of Kissinger as part of his reorganization of his foreign policy team. These events are presented in detail in this chapter.
David Hamilton Golland
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813129976
- eISBN:
- 9780813135472
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813129976.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
A Puerto Rican and two African American trained steamfitters were rejected when they applied for “A Branch” journeyman membership. Since the union did not want to refer them to work, the Mechanical ...
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A Puerto Rican and two African American trained steamfitters were rejected when they applied for “A Branch” journeyman membership. Since the union did not want to refer them to work, the Mechanical Contractors' Association's (MCA) members all denied them jobs. The steamfitters of Local #629 had two grades — “A Branch” that encompassed specialized construction jobs and the “B Grade” that accounted for maintenance work. After an investigation pursued by the New York City Human Rights Commission, the A Branch hired its first black worker in 1967. While the Nixon administration only furthered the Philadelphia Plan for political purposes, this chapter reveals how Nixon neglected this support after gaining more power. The plan, however, survived and was able to integrate skilled construction unions successfully. Ultimately, employment discrimination persisted in skilled trades because of industry changes.Less
A Puerto Rican and two African American trained steamfitters were rejected when they applied for “A Branch” journeyman membership. Since the union did not want to refer them to work, the Mechanical Contractors' Association's (MCA) members all denied them jobs. The steamfitters of Local #629 had two grades — “A Branch” that encompassed specialized construction jobs and the “B Grade” that accounted for maintenance work. After an investigation pursued by the New York City Human Rights Commission, the A Branch hired its first black worker in 1967. While the Nixon administration only furthered the Philadelphia Plan for political purposes, this chapter reveals how Nixon neglected this support after gaining more power. The plan, however, survived and was able to integrate skilled construction unions successfully. Ultimately, employment discrimination persisted in skilled trades because of industry changes.
William M. LeoGrande and Peter Kornbluh
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469626604
- eISBN:
- 9781469626628
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469626604.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
This chapter discusses the most serious effort to normalize relations between the United States and Cuba since Washington broke ties with Havana in January 1961. In 1974, Secretary of State Henry ...
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This chapter discusses the most serious effort to normalize relations between the United States and Cuba since Washington broke ties with Havana in January 1961. In 1974, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger opened communications with Fidel Castro, anxious to discuss bilateral issues and to do so discreetly, through intermediaries. Kissinger’s message set in motion a protracted effort to achieve an “opening” to Cuba comparable to the opening to China—an effort to extend the Nixon-Kissinger strategy of détente with the Soviet Union to its Communist ally in the Caribbean. Over the next eighteen months, emissaries traveled back and forth between Washington and Havana, and Kissinger’s deputies quietly met with Cuban officials in airport lounges, New York hotels, and private homes to discuss the issues that divided the United States and Cuba.Less
This chapter discusses the most serious effort to normalize relations between the United States and Cuba since Washington broke ties with Havana in January 1961. In 1974, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger opened communications with Fidel Castro, anxious to discuss bilateral issues and to do so discreetly, through intermediaries. Kissinger’s message set in motion a protracted effort to achieve an “opening” to Cuba comparable to the opening to China—an effort to extend the Nixon-Kissinger strategy of détente with the Soviet Union to its Communist ally in the Caribbean. Over the next eighteen months, emissaries traveled back and forth between Washington and Havana, and Kissinger’s deputies quietly met with Cuban officials in airport lounges, New York hotels, and private homes to discuss the issues that divided the United States and Cuba.
Stephen G. Rabe
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781501706295
- eISBN:
- 9781501749476
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501706295.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, Political History
This chapter details how the first crisis for the Nixon administration came with the news that leftist Salvador Allende had captured a plurality of the vote in the September 1970 presidential ...
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This chapter details how the first crisis for the Nixon administration came with the news that leftist Salvador Allende had captured a plurality of the vote in the September 1970 presidential election. It reviews the U.S. role in destabilizing the Allende government. The historical literature tends to give scant attention to the United States and Chile after September 11, 1973. To recount the complete story about the U.S. role in Chile demands investigating not only the war against Allende but also the myriad of ways that the Nixon and Ford administrations and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger bolstered the Pinochet dictatorship. The chapter also analyzes Kissinger's lead role in encouraging the overthrow of President Juan José Torres (1970–1971), the socialist political and military leader of Bolivia.Less
This chapter details how the first crisis for the Nixon administration came with the news that leftist Salvador Allende had captured a plurality of the vote in the September 1970 presidential election. It reviews the U.S. role in destabilizing the Allende government. The historical literature tends to give scant attention to the United States and Chile after September 11, 1973. To recount the complete story about the U.S. role in Chile demands investigating not only the war against Allende but also the myriad of ways that the Nixon and Ford administrations and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger bolstered the Pinochet dictatorship. The chapter also analyzes Kissinger's lead role in encouraging the overthrow of President Juan José Torres (1970–1971), the socialist political and military leader of Bolivia.
Tanya Harmer
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807834954
- eISBN:
- 9781469602721
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807869246_harmer
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
Fidel Castro described Salvador Allende's democratic election as president of Chile in 1970 as the most important revolutionary triumph in Latin America after the Cuban revolution. Yet celebrations ...
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Fidel Castro described Salvador Allende's democratic election as president of Chile in 1970 as the most important revolutionary triumph in Latin America after the Cuban revolution. Yet celebrations were short lived. In Washington, the Nixon administration vowed to destroy Allende's left-wing government while Chilean opposition forces mobilized against him. The result was a battle for Chile that ended in 1973 with a right-wing military coup and a brutal dictatorship lasting nearly twenty years. This book argues that this battle was part of a dynamic inter-American Cold War struggle to determine Latin America's future, shaped more by the contest between Cuba, Chile, the United States, and Brazil than by a conflict between Moscow and Washington. Drawing on firsthand interviews and recently declassified documents from archives in North America, Europe, and South America—including Chile's Foreign Ministry Archive—the author provides a comprehensive account of Cuban involvement in Latin America in the early 1970s, Chilean foreign relations during Allende's presidency, Brazil's support for counterrevolution in the Southern Cone, and the Nixon administration's Latin American policies. The Cold War in the Americas, she reveals, is best understood as a multidimensional struggle, involving peoples and ideas from across the hemisphere.Less
Fidel Castro described Salvador Allende's democratic election as president of Chile in 1970 as the most important revolutionary triumph in Latin America after the Cuban revolution. Yet celebrations were short lived. In Washington, the Nixon administration vowed to destroy Allende's left-wing government while Chilean opposition forces mobilized against him. The result was a battle for Chile that ended in 1973 with a right-wing military coup and a brutal dictatorship lasting nearly twenty years. This book argues that this battle was part of a dynamic inter-American Cold War struggle to determine Latin America's future, shaped more by the contest between Cuba, Chile, the United States, and Brazil than by a conflict between Moscow and Washington. Drawing on firsthand interviews and recently declassified documents from archives in North America, Europe, and South America—including Chile's Foreign Ministry Archive—the author provides a comprehensive account of Cuban involvement in Latin America in the early 1970s, Chilean foreign relations during Allende's presidency, Brazil's support for counterrevolution in the Southern Cone, and the Nixon administration's Latin American policies. The Cold War in the Americas, she reveals, is best understood as a multidimensional struggle, involving peoples and ideas from across the hemisphere.
Stephen G. Rabe
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781501706295
- eISBN:
- 9781501749476
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501706295.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Political History
This introductory chapter provides an overview of U.S. policies toward Latin America during Henry Kissinger's career as national security adviser and secretary of state. Henri Kissinger directed ...
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This introductory chapter provides an overview of U.S. policies toward Latin America during Henry Kissinger's career as national security adviser and secretary of state. Henri Kissinger directed inter-American relations between 1969 and 1977. Like his predecessors, Kissinger judged relations with Western Europe, the Soviet Union, and China as strategically more important than relations with Latin America. But Kissinger launched noteworthy initiatives, such as the attempt to normalize relations with Cuba and to transfer the canal to Panama. The Kissinger years were also historically significant for Latin Americans. The 1970s represented the most violent period in the history of post-independence (1825) South America. This book provides a comprehensive investigation of the foreign policies of the Nixon and Ford administrations toward Latin America and Kissinger's central role in formulating and implementing those policies.Less
This introductory chapter provides an overview of U.S. policies toward Latin America during Henry Kissinger's career as national security adviser and secretary of state. Henri Kissinger directed inter-American relations between 1969 and 1977. Like his predecessors, Kissinger judged relations with Western Europe, the Soviet Union, and China as strategically more important than relations with Latin America. But Kissinger launched noteworthy initiatives, such as the attempt to normalize relations with Cuba and to transfer the canal to Panama. The Kissinger years were also historically significant for Latin Americans. The 1970s represented the most violent period in the history of post-independence (1825) South America. This book provides a comprehensive investigation of the foreign policies of the Nixon and Ford administrations toward Latin America and Kissinger's central role in formulating and implementing those policies.
Jerome Slater
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- November 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780190459086
- eISBN:
- 9780190074609
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190459086.003.0010
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
During the Cold War, the Arab-Israeli conflict became entangled in the global rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union. American policymakers, particularly Henry Kissinger, believed ...
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During the Cold War, the Arab-Israeli conflict became entangled in the global rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union. American policymakers, particularly Henry Kissinger, believed that the Soviets wanted to exploit the Arab-Israeli conflict to drive the West from the Middle East and dominate the region. To prevent that, the Nixon administration sought to end Soviet influence there and exclude it from all efforts to reach a negotiated settlement. However, the American view was based on misperceptions about Soviet interests and objectives in the region. In fact, fearing American dominance and a war with the United States, the Soviets proposed a joint superpower-guaranteed or even imposed comprehensive peace settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Because the United States spurned these proposals, the Cold War was exacerbated, there were several near-confrontations between the superpowers, and important opportunities to reach a comprehensive settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict were permanently lost.Less
During the Cold War, the Arab-Israeli conflict became entangled in the global rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union. American policymakers, particularly Henry Kissinger, believed that the Soviets wanted to exploit the Arab-Israeli conflict to drive the West from the Middle East and dominate the region. To prevent that, the Nixon administration sought to end Soviet influence there and exclude it from all efforts to reach a negotiated settlement. However, the American view was based on misperceptions about Soviet interests and objectives in the region. In fact, fearing American dominance and a war with the United States, the Soviets proposed a joint superpower-guaranteed or even imposed comprehensive peace settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Because the United States spurned these proposals, the Cold War was exacerbated, there were several near-confrontations between the superpowers, and important opportunities to reach a comprehensive settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict were permanently lost.
Sebastián Hurtado-Torres
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781501747182
- eISBN:
- 9781501747205
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501747182.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This chapter describes the efforts by the United States and Eduardo Frei to prevent Salvador Allende from attaining the presidency. The Nixon administration, after choosing not to involve itself in ...
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This chapter describes the efforts by the United States and Eduardo Frei to prevent Salvador Allende from attaining the presidency. The Nixon administration, after choosing not to involve itself in the 1970 presidential race to the extent the Johnson administration had in the 1964 election, reacted with great alacrity to Allende's victory in the popular election. Richard Nixon himself instructed CIA director Richard Helms to conduct covert operations in Chile, behind Ambassador Korry's back. In addition, Chilean politicians, particularly Christian Democrats of the Frei line, tried or at least explored ways of averting an Allende victory and sought for that purpose the support of the U.S. embassy in Santiago. Though many of the documents that tell this part of the story have been available to researchers since at least the early 2000s, only one scholarly work has treated these attempts by Chilean politicians, especially Eduardo Frei, in depth. The tendency of scholars of U.S. foreign relations during the Cold War to assume rather uncritically that the only decisions that mattered were taken in Washington has narrowed the perspectives from which the history of Cold War Chilean politics has been studied and interpreted.Less
This chapter describes the efforts by the United States and Eduardo Frei to prevent Salvador Allende from attaining the presidency. The Nixon administration, after choosing not to involve itself in the 1970 presidential race to the extent the Johnson administration had in the 1964 election, reacted with great alacrity to Allende's victory in the popular election. Richard Nixon himself instructed CIA director Richard Helms to conduct covert operations in Chile, behind Ambassador Korry's back. In addition, Chilean politicians, particularly Christian Democrats of the Frei line, tried or at least explored ways of averting an Allende victory and sought for that purpose the support of the U.S. embassy in Santiago. Though many of the documents that tell this part of the story have been available to researchers since at least the early 2000s, only one scholarly work has treated these attempts by Chilean politicians, especially Eduardo Frei, in depth. The tendency of scholars of U.S. foreign relations during the Cold War to assume rather uncritically that the only decisions that mattered were taken in Washington has narrowed the perspectives from which the history of Cold War Chilean politics has been studied and interpreted.
Tanya Harmer
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807834954
- eISBN:
- 9781469602721
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807869246_harmer.12
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
This chapter argues that achieving unity and guaranteeing the success of a coup in Chile still remained a big “if” in mid-1973. In the months between May and September 1973, U.S. officials monitoring ...
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This chapter argues that achieving unity and guaranteeing the success of a coup in Chile still remained a big “if” in mid-1973. In the months between May and September 1973, U.S. officials monitoring plotting in the country had been relatively unimpressed with the progress toward this goal. Although the Nixon administration was highly sympathetic to the prospect of a coup, its reading of the situation within Chile and its concern for its own image also meant that this did not translate into a precise policy to accelerate military intervention against Allende. Instead, as Kissinger himself admitted days after 11 September, the United States “created the conditions as great as possible.”Less
This chapter argues that achieving unity and guaranteeing the success of a coup in Chile still remained a big “if” in mid-1973. In the months between May and September 1973, U.S. officials monitoring plotting in the country had been relatively unimpressed with the progress toward this goal. Although the Nixon administration was highly sympathetic to the prospect of a coup, its reading of the situation within Chile and its concern for its own image also meant that this did not translate into a precise policy to accelerate military intervention against Allende. Instead, as Kissinger himself admitted days after 11 September, the United States “created the conditions as great as possible.”
Jon Wiener
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520216464
- eISBN:
- 9780520924543
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520216464.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This book tells the story of the author's remarkable fourteen-year court battle to win release of the FBI's surveillance files on John Lennon under the Freedom of Information Act. The files had been ...
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This book tells the story of the author's remarkable fourteen-year court battle to win release of the FBI's surveillance files on John Lennon under the Freedom of Information Act. The files had been withheld on the grounds that releasing them would endanger national security. Lennon's file was compiled in 1972, when the war in Vietnam was at its peak, when Nixon was facing re-election, and when the “clever Beatle” was living in New York and joining up with the New Left and the anti-war movement. The Nixon administration's efforts to “neutralize” Lennon are the subject of Lennon's file. The documents are reproduced in facsimile so that readers can see all the classification stamps, marginal notes, blacked out passages and—in some cases—the initials of FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover. The file includes lengthy reports by confidential informants detailing the daily lives of anti-war activists, memos to the White House, transcripts of TV shows on which Lennon appeared, and a proposal that Lennon be arrested by local police on drug charges. The book documents an era when rock music seemed to have real political force and when youth culture challenged the status quo in Washington. It also delineates the ways the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations fought to preserve government secrecy, and highlights the legal strategies adopted by those who have challenged it.Less
This book tells the story of the author's remarkable fourteen-year court battle to win release of the FBI's surveillance files on John Lennon under the Freedom of Information Act. The files had been withheld on the grounds that releasing them would endanger national security. Lennon's file was compiled in 1972, when the war in Vietnam was at its peak, when Nixon was facing re-election, and when the “clever Beatle” was living in New York and joining up with the New Left and the anti-war movement. The Nixon administration's efforts to “neutralize” Lennon are the subject of Lennon's file. The documents are reproduced in facsimile so that readers can see all the classification stamps, marginal notes, blacked out passages and—in some cases—the initials of FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover. The file includes lengthy reports by confidential informants detailing the daily lives of anti-war activists, memos to the White House, transcripts of TV shows on which Lennon appeared, and a proposal that Lennon be arrested by local police on drug charges. The book documents an era when rock music seemed to have real political force and when youth culture challenged the status quo in Washington. It also delineates the ways the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations fought to preserve government secrecy, and highlights the legal strategies adopted by those who have challenged it.
Eric Grynaviski
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801452062
- eISBN:
- 9780801454653
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801452062.003.0006
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
This concluding chapter argues that cooperation is often best secured because of misperception. When actors hold flase intersubjective beliefs (FIBs)—in which agents wrongly believe that their ...
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This concluding chapter argues that cooperation is often best secured because of misperception. When actors hold flase intersubjective beliefs (FIBs)—in which agents wrongly believe that their understanding of a relationship is shared—cooperation may be much more likely to happen, especially if there are principled differences or conflicts of interest. The case of détente—the most robust period of cooperation between the superpowers—was only possible because of FIBs. Détente to the Soviets meant that they could safely support national liberation movements without US meddling. On the other hand, the Nixon administration thought that Soviet strategic parity meant that military competition had been replaced by political competition.Less
This concluding chapter argues that cooperation is often best secured because of misperception. When actors hold flase intersubjective beliefs (FIBs)—in which agents wrongly believe that their understanding of a relationship is shared—cooperation may be much more likely to happen, especially if there are principled differences or conflicts of interest. The case of détente—the most robust period of cooperation between the superpowers—was only possible because of FIBs. Détente to the Soviets meant that they could safely support national liberation movements without US meddling. On the other hand, the Nixon administration thought that Soviet strategic parity meant that military competition had been replaced by political competition.
James Edward Miller
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807832479
- eISBN:
- 9781469606002
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807887943_miller.15
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History
This chapter focuses on an event on August 5, 1974, in which Henry Kissinger addressed a meeting of disgruntled State Department officials and defended his handling of the Cyprus crisis. The crisis ...
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This chapter focuses on an event on August 5, 1974, in which Henry Kissinger addressed a meeting of disgruntled State Department officials and defended his handling of the Cyprus crisis. The crisis left Kissinger's diplomacy in tatters but not his self-confidence. Failure to preserve peace and stability in the eastern Mediterranean, the secretary of state was soon explaining, was the responsibility of everyone except himself. He rewarded those junior State Department officials who had warned him of the dangers that his actions were creating with a systematic effort to destroy their careers. The secretary refused to provide Congress with a complete account of his actions and pointed the finger of blame for the Cyprus mess at the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, which, after years of supinely accepting Nixon administration policies, finally nerved themselves to take back part of their constitutional role in the management of foreign affairs.Less
This chapter focuses on an event on August 5, 1974, in which Henry Kissinger addressed a meeting of disgruntled State Department officials and defended his handling of the Cyprus crisis. The crisis left Kissinger's diplomacy in tatters but not his self-confidence. Failure to preserve peace and stability in the eastern Mediterranean, the secretary of state was soon explaining, was the responsibility of everyone except himself. He rewarded those junior State Department officials who had warned him of the dangers that his actions were creating with a systematic effort to destroy their careers. The secretary refused to provide Congress with a complete account of his actions and pointed the finger of blame for the Cyprus mess at the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, which, after years of supinely accepting Nixon administration policies, finally nerved themselves to take back part of their constitutional role in the management of foreign affairs.
Stephen Skowronek, John A. Dearborn, and Desmond King
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780197543085
- eISBN:
- 9780197543115
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780197543085.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
Since its founding of the republic, Americans have devised a variety of different ways to reconcile unity with depth, separation with checks, and presidentialism with republicanism. This chapter ...
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Since its founding of the republic, Americans have devised a variety of different ways to reconcile unity with depth, separation with checks, and presidentialism with republicanism. This chapter surveys the succession of informal institutional and organizational improvisations that periodically altered practical working relationships within the American constitutional system. These extra-constitutional contrivances created several distinctive “systems” of administration, each of which preserved the republican idea of inter-branch collaboration. Nineteenth-century remedies were party-based; twentieth-century remedies were administration-based. The move from one system to the next marked a profound change in the operation of government at large, but at every turn, a more powerful presidency was corralled into novel arrangements that reaffirmed collective responsibility. The origins of our beleaguered republic lay in the 1970s, when that spirit of accommodation began to break down. Presidents grew more independent in their political and institutional powers, and they asserted their right to unitary control over the executive branch more vigorously. In the congressional pushback, collaboration gave way to a constitutional face-off.Less
Since its founding of the republic, Americans have devised a variety of different ways to reconcile unity with depth, separation with checks, and presidentialism with republicanism. This chapter surveys the succession of informal institutional and organizational improvisations that periodically altered practical working relationships within the American constitutional system. These extra-constitutional contrivances created several distinctive “systems” of administration, each of which preserved the republican idea of inter-branch collaboration. Nineteenth-century remedies were party-based; twentieth-century remedies were administration-based. The move from one system to the next marked a profound change in the operation of government at large, but at every turn, a more powerful presidency was corralled into novel arrangements that reaffirmed collective responsibility. The origins of our beleaguered republic lay in the 1970s, when that spirit of accommodation began to break down. Presidents grew more independent in their political and institutional powers, and they asserted their right to unitary control over the executive branch more vigorously. In the congressional pushback, collaboration gave way to a constitutional face-off.
Peter Maguire and Mike Ritter
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231161343
- eISBN:
- 9780231535564
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231161343.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History
This chapter gives an overview of the drug trade surrounding the seedless cannabis sativa—the marijuana plant used for the potent, high-grade Thai sticks. Such wares fetched a premium price on ...
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This chapter gives an overview of the drug trade surrounding the seedless cannabis sativa—the marijuana plant used for the potent, high-grade Thai sticks. Such wares fetched a premium price on American soil, and their trade continued to addle the Nixon administration even in the face of a much larger threat—heroin trafficking. Given how limited a commodity this prime quality, perfectly dried and packaged Thai and Laotian pot was, in the 1970s it was a seller's market with no end in sight. Unlike other drugs whose distribution was tightly controlled at the upper levels by syndicates, the Thai marijuana trade was controlled only by the laws of supply and demand.Less
This chapter gives an overview of the drug trade surrounding the seedless cannabis sativa—the marijuana plant used for the potent, high-grade Thai sticks. Such wares fetched a premium price on American soil, and their trade continued to addle the Nixon administration even in the face of a much larger threat—heroin trafficking. Given how limited a commodity this prime quality, perfectly dried and packaged Thai and Laotian pot was, in the 1970s it was a seller's market with no end in sight. Unlike other drugs whose distribution was tightly controlled at the upper levels by syndicates, the Thai marijuana trade was controlled only by the laws of supply and demand.
Mark Rifkin
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816677825
- eISBN:
- 9781452948041
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816677825.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Native American Studies
In 1970 the Nixon administration inaugurated a new era in federal Indian policy. No more would the U.S. government seek to deny and displace Native peoples or dismantle Native governments; from now ...
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In 1970 the Nixon administration inaugurated a new era in federal Indian policy. No more would the U.S. government seek to deny and displace Native peoples or dismantle Native governments; from now on federal policy would promote “the Indian’s sense of autonomy without threatening his sense of community.” This book offers a telling perspective on what such a policy of self-determination has meant and looks at how contemporary queer Native writers use representations of sensation to challenge official U.S. accounts of Native identity. The book focuses on four Native writers—Qwo-Li Driskill (Cherokee), Deborah Miranda (Esselen), Greg Sarris (Graton Rachería), and Chrystos (Menominee)—approaching their fiction and poetry as forms of political theory. The book shows how the work of these queer or two-spirit Native writers affirms the significance of the erotic as an exercise of individual and community sovereignty. In this way, we come to see how their work contests the homophobic, sexist, and exclusivist policies and attitudes of tribal communities as well as those of the nation-state.Less
In 1970 the Nixon administration inaugurated a new era in federal Indian policy. No more would the U.S. government seek to deny and displace Native peoples or dismantle Native governments; from now on federal policy would promote “the Indian’s sense of autonomy without threatening his sense of community.” This book offers a telling perspective on what such a policy of self-determination has meant and looks at how contemporary queer Native writers use representations of sensation to challenge official U.S. accounts of Native identity. The book focuses on four Native writers—Qwo-Li Driskill (Cherokee), Deborah Miranda (Esselen), Greg Sarris (Graton Rachería), and Chrystos (Menominee)—approaching their fiction and poetry as forms of political theory. The book shows how the work of these queer or two-spirit Native writers affirms the significance of the erotic as an exercise of individual and community sovereignty. In this way, we come to see how their work contests the homophobic, sexist, and exclusivist policies and attitudes of tribal communities as well as those of the nation-state.
Richard Revesz and Jack Lienke
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- November 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780190233112
- eISBN:
- 9780197559536
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190233112.003.0006
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Pollution and Threats to the Environment
For polluters, America in 1970 was still something of a Wild West. A number of federal, state, and municipal laws aimed at improving air quality were already on the ...
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For polluters, America in 1970 was still something of a Wild West. A number of federal, state, and municipal laws aimed at improving air quality were already on the books, but few were enforced, and pollution from the nation’s ever-growing stock of motor vehicles, power plants, and factories remained uncontrolled in much of the country. A passage from the Ralph Nader Study Group’s Vanishing Air, published in May 1970, vividly illustrates the extent to which dirty air was a fact of life for city dwellers of the period: . . . The New Yorker almost always senses a slight discomfort in breathing, especially in midtown; he knows that his cleaning bills are higher than they would be in the country; he periodically runs his handkerchief across his face and notes the fine black soot that has fallen on him; and he often feels the air pressing against him with almost as much weight as the bodies in the crowds he weaves through daily. . . . New York’s problems with air quality were hardly unique. In an October 1969 letter to the Senate Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution, a resident of St. Louis expressed similar sentiments about the sheer pervasiveness of pollution in her community: . . . What really made me take the time to write this letter was the realization that I had begun to take the haze and various odors for granted. Close the doors and windows and they’ll be less noticeable[. I]t is very disturbing to think I’ve become used to the burning-rubber smell in the evening and the slightly sour smell in the morning. What does air smell like? . . . And air pollution’s costs went far beyond sour smells and dirty handkerchiefs, as a series of deadly “inversions” both here and abroad had made dramatically clear beginning in the late 1940s. Typically, the air at higher altitudes is cooler than that below. This is because the surface of the earth absorbs sunlight and radiates heat, warming the air closest to the ground. That warm surface air then cools as it rises higher into the atmosphere.
Less
For polluters, America in 1970 was still something of a Wild West. A number of federal, state, and municipal laws aimed at improving air quality were already on the books, but few were enforced, and pollution from the nation’s ever-growing stock of motor vehicles, power plants, and factories remained uncontrolled in much of the country. A passage from the Ralph Nader Study Group’s Vanishing Air, published in May 1970, vividly illustrates the extent to which dirty air was a fact of life for city dwellers of the period: . . . The New Yorker almost always senses a slight discomfort in breathing, especially in midtown; he knows that his cleaning bills are higher than they would be in the country; he periodically runs his handkerchief across his face and notes the fine black soot that has fallen on him; and he often feels the air pressing against him with almost as much weight as the bodies in the crowds he weaves through daily. . . . New York’s problems with air quality were hardly unique. In an October 1969 letter to the Senate Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution, a resident of St. Louis expressed similar sentiments about the sheer pervasiveness of pollution in her community: . . . What really made me take the time to write this letter was the realization that I had begun to take the haze and various odors for granted. Close the doors and windows and they’ll be less noticeable[. I]t is very disturbing to think I’ve become used to the burning-rubber smell in the evening and the slightly sour smell in the morning. What does air smell like? . . . And air pollution’s costs went far beyond sour smells and dirty handkerchiefs, as a series of deadly “inversions” both here and abroad had made dramatically clear beginning in the late 1940s. Typically, the air at higher altitudes is cooler than that below. This is because the surface of the earth absorbs sunlight and radiates heat, warming the air closest to the ground. That warm surface air then cools as it rises higher into the atmosphere.
Paul Lauter
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- November 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780195055931
- eISBN:
- 9780197560228
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780195055931.003.0014
- Subject:
- Education, Philosophy and Theory of Education
When part of this article was first written in 1974, large-scale retrenchment of college faculty was a relatively new phenomenon. To be sure, there had ...
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When part of this article was first written in 1974, large-scale retrenchment of college faculty was a relatively new phenomenon. To be sure, there had been occasional layoffs when an institution threatened to go broke, and the 1940 AAUP statement on tenure provided that it could be nullified for reasons of “financial exigency.” But such cutbacks were infrequent and unusual, the exceptions that proved the solidity of college job security. What was new in the early 1970s was the invocation of retrenchment processes not necessarily because a college was edging toward bankruptcy but because it wanted to change its programs, its “product.” That seemed to many of us an outrageous violation of collegiate norms. Many faculty had been led into teaching precisely because of its stability and its insulation from market forces. Now the market in all its worst forms was invading the campus. Furthermore, we believed, decisions about what could be taught were being removed from the hands of their proper judges, the faculty, and appropriated by a fleet of increasingly remote administrators. No one's work was safe! The essential quality of the academic community was at stake! Thus, when colleagues in History or English or Education received pink slips, we bitterly protested. But it rapidly became clear that protest was not enough, that the new breed of collegiate managers, whose skills had been honed by the student activism of the previous decade, were not going to be impressed with impassioned speeches at faculty Senate meetings or with letters to the student newspaper—or, indeed, to the New York Times. Nor were faculty unions— such as they then were—going to be much help; indeed, our union president shrugged that “you can't force Ford to keep making Edsels forever”—a remark which hardly endeared him to laid-off historians. We found that we had to understand this new phenomenon better if we were to have any chance to organize against it. Why was retrenchment coming upon faculties at this historical moment? How valid were the arguments of declining enrollments and needed flexibility being made by college managers?
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When part of this article was first written in 1974, large-scale retrenchment of college faculty was a relatively new phenomenon. To be sure, there had been occasional layoffs when an institution threatened to go broke, and the 1940 AAUP statement on tenure provided that it could be nullified for reasons of “financial exigency.” But such cutbacks were infrequent and unusual, the exceptions that proved the solidity of college job security. What was new in the early 1970s was the invocation of retrenchment processes not necessarily because a college was edging toward bankruptcy but because it wanted to change its programs, its “product.” That seemed to many of us an outrageous violation of collegiate norms. Many faculty had been led into teaching precisely because of its stability and its insulation from market forces. Now the market in all its worst forms was invading the campus. Furthermore, we believed, decisions about what could be taught were being removed from the hands of their proper judges, the faculty, and appropriated by a fleet of increasingly remote administrators. No one's work was safe! The essential quality of the academic community was at stake! Thus, when colleagues in History or English or Education received pink slips, we bitterly protested. But it rapidly became clear that protest was not enough, that the new breed of collegiate managers, whose skills had been honed by the student activism of the previous decade, were not going to be impressed with impassioned speeches at faculty Senate meetings or with letters to the student newspaper—or, indeed, to the New York Times. Nor were faculty unions— such as they then were—going to be much help; indeed, our union president shrugged that “you can't force Ford to keep making Edsels forever”—a remark which hardly endeared him to laid-off historians. We found that we had to understand this new phenomenon better if we were to have any chance to organize against it. Why was retrenchment coming upon faculties at this historical moment? How valid were the arguments of declining enrollments and needed flexibility being made by college managers?
Paul Lauter
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- November 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780195055931
- eISBN:
- 9780197560228
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780195055931.003.0017
- Subject:
- Education, Philosophy and Theory of Education
When you feel yourself beginning to slide down a cliff, you are not likely to think too hard about what it is you grab to stop the fall. But the choice of ...
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When you feel yourself beginning to slide down a cliff, you are not likely to think too hard about what it is you grab to stop the fall. But the choice of handholds makes a difference—the difference between continuing to plunge and holding on long enough to plant your feet. As you descend, what seems a vine turns out to be a viper, and what seems a solid trunk proves rootless and tears away. So it is as faculty have contended with the growing shelf of studies criticizing, occasionally analyzing, and mostly prescribing for, higher education. We feel the structure, the norms of our profession, shifting and sliding beneath our feet. We reach for a handhold, a point of stability, and discover, alas, that there’s little that is reliable, much that is frail and fragile. Three of the mid-1980s higher education studies1 were among the opening shots in what has become an extended battle over the character and quality of the institutions in which professors work, as well as over what exactly it is that faculty and staff do. One could, of course, dismiss these and more recent studies, perhaps citing their manifold banalities as sufficient reason for indifference. Or, as faculty, we could acquiesce, agreeing to such changes as the reformists are able to compel, but doing little more than what is necessary to protect our turf. Either course is rationally defensible. Neither is advisable for the academic community. It seems to me that either indifference or generalized resistance would be mistaken—for at least two reasons. First, this has proven to be an unusually strong tide of reform, and even now, half a decade later, it seems still to be waxing. Even from the perspective of strict self-interest, not an unfamiliar ground for academics to stand upon, it would be dangerous to ignore what is a continuing effort to reshape the character of our work and lives. Second, the drive to reform college education presents faculty and staff with an opportunity to shape the direction of change, and in particular to raise what none of these reports really contends with: What political values, what economic forms, what social objectives do we really wish to pursue?
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When you feel yourself beginning to slide down a cliff, you are not likely to think too hard about what it is you grab to stop the fall. But the choice of handholds makes a difference—the difference between continuing to plunge and holding on long enough to plant your feet. As you descend, what seems a vine turns out to be a viper, and what seems a solid trunk proves rootless and tears away. So it is as faculty have contended with the growing shelf of studies criticizing, occasionally analyzing, and mostly prescribing for, higher education. We feel the structure, the norms of our profession, shifting and sliding beneath our feet. We reach for a handhold, a point of stability, and discover, alas, that there’s little that is reliable, much that is frail and fragile. Three of the mid-1980s higher education studies1 were among the opening shots in what has become an extended battle over the character and quality of the institutions in which professors work, as well as over what exactly it is that faculty and staff do. One could, of course, dismiss these and more recent studies, perhaps citing their manifold banalities as sufficient reason for indifference. Or, as faculty, we could acquiesce, agreeing to such changes as the reformists are able to compel, but doing little more than what is necessary to protect our turf. Either course is rationally defensible. Neither is advisable for the academic community. It seems to me that either indifference or generalized resistance would be mistaken—for at least two reasons. First, this has proven to be an unusually strong tide of reform, and even now, half a decade later, it seems still to be waxing. Even from the perspective of strict self-interest, not an unfamiliar ground for academics to stand upon, it would be dangerous to ignore what is a continuing effort to reshape the character of our work and lives. Second, the drive to reform college education presents faculty and staff with an opportunity to shape the direction of change, and in particular to raise what none of these reports really contends with: What political values, what economic forms, what social objectives do we really wish to pursue?
Jocelyn Olcott
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- June 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780195327687
- eISBN:
- 9780199344833
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780195327687.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter focuses on a protest at the US embassy in which women of color, particularly Wynta Boynes of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and Esther Urista of La Raza Unida, protested that the ...
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This chapter focuses on a protest at the US embassy in which women of color, particularly Wynta Boynes of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and Esther Urista of La Raza Unida, protested that the US delegation to the intergovernmental conference was insufficiently representative of US women. The episode signals the ways in which, in the wake of the US civil rights movement, race had emerged as the principal gauge of representation and identification. US delegation leaders claimed the confrontation as a victory, indicating that it demonstrated a “free and uninhibited exchange” and offered “an impressive and persuasive example of U.S. participatory democracy at work.Less
This chapter focuses on a protest at the US embassy in which women of color, particularly Wynta Boynes of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and Esther Urista of La Raza Unida, protested that the US delegation to the intergovernmental conference was insufficiently representative of US women. The episode signals the ways in which, in the wake of the US civil rights movement, race had emerged as the principal gauge of representation and identification. US delegation leaders claimed the confrontation as a victory, indicating that it demonstrated a “free and uninhibited exchange” and offered “an impressive and persuasive example of U.S. participatory democracy at work.