domestic factors in US foreign policy

• McCarthyism (and the Red Scare)

  McCarthyism was part of the "Red Scare", which was a form of anti-communist hysteria. McCarthyism was a witch hunt of federal and state government employees
• McCarthyism heightened the fear of communism

  It made the Cold War more extreme by leading Americans to believe that many events were part of a worldwide communist conspiracy
• McCarthyism

  it reinforced the view that anti communist should be the main aim of US foreign policy.
• many very able federal employees lost their jobs, especially in the State Department, which dealt with foreign affairs.
• McCarthyism damaged americas reputation abroad, especially in Europe, because it was seen as undemocratic
• McCarthys reputation was destroyed when he held the Army - McCarthy hearings into his accusations that the US army was harbouring communists. - but McCarthyism - suspicion of communists everywhere - remained in the US
• Anti war movement

  Movement opposing war
• Anti war movement during Korean War

  Composed of well known individuals such as singer, Paul Robinson

  Small organisations such as the War Resisters League or Mothers Against War
• As anti communist feelings rose during the Cold War, anti war movement was critiqued by newspapers, government, and Senator Joe McCarthy
• As the Korean war dragged on Americans hoped it would come to an end soon
• As a result of Americans hoping for an end to the Korean War the democrats did badly in the 1952 elections
• Republican candidate, General Dwight Eisenhower, got elected as President on the promise that he would end the Korean War
• Anti war movement

  • during the Vietnam war, the anti war movement began amongs university students. These were members of the Student for a Democratic Society (SDS).
• the SDS was opposed to the Vietnam war because:

  • they did not want the war to take money away from president Johnsons Great Society Programme
  • they saw the Vietnam war as a civil war
  • television pictures showed aspects of the war - such as saturation bombing - which they did not like
  • they did not want to see the US defeated, but wanted a divided Vietnam with two governments
• the DSD organised demonstrations and protest marches. one of the larges was when 300,000 people marched past the White House in 1969, each carrying the names of a dead soldier or destroyed Vietnamese village
• initially the anti war movement had little support, but gradually the huge cost of the war, and the greater number of soldiers fighting and dying, increased support for the anti war movement.
• the Tet Offensive in the early 1968 undermined Americans credibility in what their government was telling them about winning the war.

  there was increasing violence and clashes between demonstrators and polic
• They were joined by senior politicians, such as Senator Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy, who began campaigning for the presidency. The maid also felt deceived, so many questioned the war
• the anti war movement forced President Johnson to change his polices on Vietnam; he called a partial halt to the bombings of North Vietnam and began talks in Paris with the North Vietnamese
• president Nixon ordered a US invasion of Cambodia; this led to the death of four students in a protest at Kent State University.
• the anti war movement gained widespread public sympathy when news of the My Lai Massacre was made public.
• the Pentagon Papers showed that the US government had deceived the people about the war
• the Pentagon Papers were a series of documents that revealed the US government's involvement in the Vietnam War
• the anti war movement undermined the US’s will to fight; it contributed to the eventual peace.
• Race relations and US foreign policy

  1. US presidents were concerned with the image of the bad race relations within the country
• Truman and Eisenhower desegregated the US armed forces.

  Kennedy was worried that clashes in Alabama between black Americans and the police would undermine the US claim to be the Free World against communism
• As many black Americans enlisted in the Vietnam War as did white; but a higher proportion of black americans were killed in the war

  This turned some black Americans against war
• Black political leaders, including MLK, were against the Vietnam war because they feared it would take money needed for social and economic improvement for black Americans under Johnsons Great Society Programme
• Black Americans were now more opposed to the war than white Americans. They were less willing to serve in the war than before. This also undermined the US’s fight, and contributed to the eventual peace