American history from 1948 to 1988

And this is Doug Johnson with THE MAKING OF A NATION -- a VOA Special English program about the history of the United States.. Today, we continue the story of the thirty-seventh preside[r]

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Dewey Defeats Truman in 1948 Oops, Make It Truman Defeats Dewey

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THE MAKING OF A NATION – a program in Special English by the Voice of America. Presidential elections are exciting events in American politics Few elections for the White House have been as exciting as the one in 1948 And few have had such surprising results Four candidates were nominated for president in the 1948 election One was the man already in the White House, the candidate of the Democratic Party, President Harry Truman Truman had been the party's successful vice presidential candidate in 1944 When President Franklin Roosevelt died a year later, Truman became president

Truman did not well during his first few months in office He made several serious mistakes He had trouble with the economy and organized labor His party lost control of the Senate and the House of Representatives in the congressional elections of 1946

Most Americans had little faith in Truman's ability as a leader They expected that he would lose the presidential election in 1948 if he chose to be a candidate

President Truman chose to run for another term in the White House And he planned to win In the months following the democratic defeat in the congressional election, he took several strong steps to show his leadership

Truman called on the Congress to pass a number of laws to help black people He took firm actions in his foreign policy toward the Soviet Union And he began to speak out with much more strength to the American people

Truman succeeded in winning the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party "I will win this election," Truman told the Democratic convention that nominated him "And I will make the Republicans like it!"

The Republicans nominated New York state Governor Thomas Dewey

Dewey was a wise and courageous man He also was very serious Truman campaigned by telling the voters that Dewey did not understand the needs of the average American He called Dewey a candidate of rich people

One day, Dewey got angry at a railroad engineer because his campaign train was late for a speech Truman charged that this proved that Dewey did not understand the problems of railroad engineers and other working Americans He tried to make the election a choice between hard-working Democrats and rich Republicans

Two other men also were candidates for the presidency Both were from newly created parties

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white Americans from the southeastern part of the country They opposed giving full rights to black people

The other candidate was Henry Wallace of the Progressive Party His supporters believed that Truman had turned away from the progressive ideas of Franklin Roosevelt

Both Thurmond and Wallace had broken away from the Democratic Party Most political experts believed those two candidates would take votes away from President Truman They believed Republican candidate Dewey surely would win the election This seemed especially true because President Truman did not have strong public support

Harry Truman, however, was a fighter He did not believe the election was lost He took his campaign to the American people

"I had always campaigned," said Mr Truman, "by going around talking to people and meeting them Running for president was no different

"I just got on a train," Truman said, "and started across the country to tell people what was going on I wanted to talk to them face to face When you are standing there in front of them and talking to them, the people can tell whether you are telling them the facts or not."

Truman campaigned with great energy He made hundreds of speeches as his train moved across the country He spoke to farmers in Iowa He visited a children's home in Texas And he discussed issues with small groups of people who came to visit his train when it stopped in rural areas of Montana and Idaho

Dewey and the Republicans laughed at Truman's campaign They said it showed that Truman needed votes so badly that he had to spend his time looking for them in small villages

Truman said the criticism proved that Republicans did not care for the average American Dewey also campaigned across the country by train But he showed little of the fire and emotion in his speeches that made Truman's campaign so exciting A reporter wrote:

"Governor Dewey is acting like a man who has already been elected and is only passing time, waiting to take office "

Dewey had good reasons to feel so sure of being elected Almost every political expert in the country said Truman had no chance to win The Wall Street Journal newspaper, for example, printed a story about what Dewey would in the White House after the election And the New York Times said that Dewey would win the election by a large vote

Truman refused to accept these views Instead, he spoke with more and more emotion against Dewey Most Americans still believed that Truman would lose But they liked his courage in fighting until the end At the end of one speech, a citizen shouted, "Give them hell, Harry! We will win!" And soon, Truman supporters across the country were shouting, "Give 'em hell, Harry!"

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Republicans across the country greeted Election Day happily They were sure that this was the day that the people would choose to send a Republican back to the White House after 16 years

Some of the early voting results from the northeastern states showed Truman winning But few Republicans worried They were sure Dewey would be the winner when all the votes were counted

The editor of the Chicago Tribune newspaper also was sure Dewey would be the next president He published a newspaper with a giant story that said "Dewey Defeats Truman." The Chicago Tribune was wrong Everyone was wrong Everyone, that is, except Harry Truman and the Americans who gave him their votes Truman went to bed on election night before all the votes were counted He told his assistant that he would win

Truman woke early the next morning to learn that he was right Not only did he defeat Dewey, but he won by a good number of votes And he helped many Democratic congressional candidates win as well The Democrats captured both houses of Congress Harry Truman would go on to serve four more years in the White House He would make many difficult decisions as America moved into the second half of the twentieth century Many of the decisions were necessary because of America's new responsibilities as leader of the Western world

Mr Truman would send American troops to South Korea to help the United Nations defend South Korea against aggression from North Korea He would join other Western leaders in establishing a new alliance, NATO, to provide for the joint defense of Europe and North America Mr Truman and later presidents would make decisions to send economic and military aid, in huge amounts, to countries all around the world

These worldwide responsibilities produced many changes in the United States, especially in the policies and actions of the United States government But the system of the government did not change It remained the same as that created by the Constitution in 1787 Only a few details were changed to better protect and represent the people of the United States

You have been listening to THE MAKING OF A NATION, a program in Special English by the Voice of America Your narrators have been Harry Monroe and Rich Kleinfeldt Our program was written by David Jarmul The Voice of America invites you to listen again next week to THE MAKING OF A NATION

Truman Faced Communist Fears, Real or Imagined

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And this is Phil Murray with THE MAKING OF A NATION, a VOA Special English program about the history of the United States

Before the election of 1948, Harry Truman sometimes was called an accidental president That meant the citizens had not elected him to lead the nation He became America's thirty-third president because he was vice president when Franklin Roosevelt died Today, we tell about President Truman and events during his second term in office

In 1948, Harry Truman had been America's leader for more than three years The people now voted for his return to office They chose him over Republican Party candidate, Thomas Dewey, governor of New York The voters also elected a Congress with a majority from Mr Truman's Democratic Party

The president might have expected such a Congress to support his policies It did not, however, always support him Time after time, Democrats from the southern part of the United States joined with conservative Republicans in voting Together, these lawmakers defeated some of Truman's most important proposals This included a bill for health care insurance for every American

Fear of communism was a major issue during Truman's second term After World War Two, Americans watched as communists took control of one east European nation after another They watched as China became communist They watched as the leader of the Soviet Union, Josef Stalin, made it clear that he wanted communists to rule the world

At this tense time, there were charges that communists held important jobs in the government of the United States Many citizens accepted the charges The fear of communism, real or imagined, threatened the American legal tradition that a person is innocent until proven guilty A Republican senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy, led the search for communists in America In speeches and congressional hearings, he accused hundreds of people of being communists or communist supporters His targets included the Department of State, the Army and the entertainment industry in Hollywood

Senator McCarthy often had little evidence to support his accusations Many of his charges would not have been accepted in a court of law But the rules governing congressional hearings were different So he was able to make his accusations freely

Some people denounced as communists lost their jobs Some had to use false names to get work A few went to jail briefly for refusing to cooperate with him

Joseph McCarthy continued his anti-communist investigations for several years By the early 1950s, more people began to question his methods Critics said he had violated democratic traditions In 1954, the Senate voted to condemn his actions Soon after, he became sick with cancer, and his political life ended He died in 1957

In addition to the problems caused by the fear of communism at home, President Truman had to deal with the threat of communism in other countries

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The defense of Western Europe against communism led president Truman to support the North Atlantic Treaty This treaty formed NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, in 1949 In the beginning, NATO included the United States, Britain, Canada, France and eight other nations More nations joined later

The NATO treaty stated that a military attack on any member would be considered an attack on all of them

Truman named General Dwight Eisenhower to be supreme commander of the new

organization General Eisenhower had been supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe in World War Two

President Truman believed that other problems in the world could be settled by cooperative international efforts In his swearing-in speech in 1949, he urged the United States to lend money to other countries to aid their development He also wanted to share American science and technology

Months later, Congress approved twenty-five thousand million dollars for the first part of this program

In 1951, President Truman asked Congress to establish a new foreign aid program The aid was for some countries in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, East Asia and South Asia, and Latin America These countries were threatened by communist forces President Truman believed the United States would be stronger if its allies were stronger

Harry Truman supported and used military power throughout his presidency

On June twenty-fifth, 1950, forces from North Korea invaded South Korea Two days later, the United Nations Security Council approved a resolution on the conflict It urged UN members to help South Korea resist the invasion President Truman approved sending American planes and ships Then he approved sending American ground forces

The president knew his decision could start World War Three if the Soviet Union entered the war on the side of North Korea Yet he felt the United States had to act Later, he said it was the most difficult decision he made as president

General Douglas MacArthur was named commander of all United Nations forces in South Korea By the autumn of 1950, the UN forces had pushed the North Koreans back across the border People talked hopefully of ending the war by the Christmas holiday on December twenty-fifth

In late November, however, troops from China joined the North Koreans Thousands of Chinese soldiers helped push the UN troops south General MacArthur wanted to attack Chinese bases in Manchuria President Truman said no The fighting must not spread outside Korea Again he feared that such a decision might start another world war

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Most of the fighting in the Korean war took place along the geographic line known as the thirty-eighth parallel This line formed the border between the North and South Many victories were only temporary One side would capture a hill Then the other side would recapture it

Ceasefire talks began in July 1951 But the negotiations failed to make progress By the time the conflict ended two years later, millions of soldiers on both sides had been killed or wounded

Nineteen fifty-two would be a presidential election year in the United States Harry Truman was losing popularity because of the Korean War At the same time, the military hero of World War Two, General Dwight Eisenhower, was thinking about running for president The need to make difficult choices had made Harry Truman's presidency among the most decisive in American history In March, he made another important decision He announced that he would not be a candidate for re-election

Truman said: "I have served my country I not think it my duty to spend another four years in the White House."

This program of THE MAKING OF A NATION was written by Jeri Watson and produced by Paul Thompson This is Doug Johnson And this is Phil Murray Join us again next week for another VOA Special English program about the history of the United States

War Hero Is Elected President in 1952

This is Doug Johnson And this is Phil Murray with THE MAKING OF A NATION a VOA Special English program about the history of the United States

America's presidential election campaign of 1952 probably opened on the day President Harry Truman said "no." He said he would not be a candidate for re-election

In later years, Harry Truman would be called one of America's better presidents Near the end of 1951, however, he had lost the support of many Americans

The continuing war in Korea, and economic problems at home, had robbed him of much of his popularity His Democratic Party needed a new candidate for president

In the spring of 1952, Mr Truman named the man he wanted the party to nominate His choice was Adlai Stevenson, governor of Illinois

Mr Stevenson, however, said he was not interested in any job except the one he had

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So, President Truman and other party leaders discussed different candidates Each one, however, seemed to have some political weakness

The Republican Party also was discussing possible candidates It was much easier for the Republicans to choose Earlier, General Dwight Eisenhower had said he would campaign "Ike" Eisenhower was the hugely popular commander of Allied forces in Europe during World War Two Many members of both parties wanted him as their candidate General Eisenhower agreed to campaign as a Republican

His closest competitor for the Republican nomination was Robert Taft, a senator from Ohio He was the son of a former president, William Howard Taft

Senator Taft sometimes was called "Mr Republican." He had strong party support for his conservative policies However, he did not receive enough votes at the party's national convention to defeat Eisenhower for the nomination

In his acceptance speech, Eisenhower told the convention delegates that they had called him to lead a great campaign He described it as a campaign for freedom in America and for freedom in the world

Eisenhower chose Senator Richard Nixon of California as his vice presidential candidate By that time, Mr Nixon was known throughout the United States for his strong opposition to communism

Earlier, as a member of the House of Representatives, he had led the investigation of a former State Department official, Alger Hiss Hiss was accused of helping provide secret information to the Soviet Union Hiss denied the accusation He was never officially charged with spying But he was tried and found guilty of lying to a grand jury and was sentenced to prison

The Democratic Party held its national convention ten days after the Republicans Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson welcomed the delegates The words of his speech made it seem that he did not want to be a candidate for president This made the delegates want him even more

They voted two times No one received enough votes to win the nomination On the third vote, Governor Stevenson did And he accepted In his acceptance speech, he urged Democrats to campaign with honor

After the conventions, a political expert wrote about the differences between Adlai Stevenson and Dwight Eisenhower The expert said Stevenson was a man of thought, and Eisenhower was a man of action

The Republican Party quickly employed an advertising company to help its candidates Advertising companies mostly designed campaigns to sell products In the presidential election of 1952, the company designed a campaign to "sell" Mr Eisenhower and Mr Nixon to the American public

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There was no question that the Democratic candidate, Adlai Stevenson, had a brain He was known as an intellectual or "egghead" When he launched his campaign, he dismissed some traditional political advisers and replaced them with eggheads

Communism was the biggest issue in the campaign Governor Stevenson said America needed to guard against it Yet he repeatedly criticized the actions of Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin For years, the senator had been denouncing government officials and others as communists

Eisenhower did not criticize McCarthy, even when the senator accused Eisenhower's good friend, General George Marshall, of being a traitor

The Republican campaign went smoothly until someone discovered that Richard Nixon had received money for extra campaign costs Some newspapers said Nixon should withdraw That led to his famous "Checkers" speech

Nixon made the speech on national television In it, he defended his decision to keep a special gift from a political supporter That gift was a dog, named Checkers He said he kept the dog because his two little girls loved it

The speech was a success Thousands of voters told the Republican Party that Nixon should remain as the vice presidential candidate

A few weeks before the election, Eisenhower made a powerful speech He talked about ending the war in Korea

DWIGHT EISENHOWER: "Now, where will a new administration begin It will begin with its president taking a firm, simple resolution That resolution will be to forego the diversions of politics and to concentrate on the job of ending the Korean War, until that job is honorably done That job requires a personal trip to Korea Only in that way could I learn how best to serve the American people in the cause of peace I shall go to Korea."

Adlai Stevenson ended his campaign with a powerful speech, too In it, he told of his vision of America

I see an America where no man fears to think as he pleases, or say what he thinks I see an America where no man is another's master where no man's mind is dark with fear I see an America at peace with the world I see an America as the horizon of human hopes

The people voted in November Eisenhower won almost thirty-four million votes That was more votes than a presidential candidate had ever received Stevenson won about twenty-seven million votes

Dwight Eisenhower was sworn in as America's thirty-fourth president in January, 1953 He was sixty-two years old Many problems awaited him

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President Eisenhower did not seem troubled by these problems After all, he had been called on many times to help his country

Eisenhower came from a large family in Abilene, Kansas His family did not have much money He received a free university education when he went to the United States military academy at West Point, New York

He remained in military service for many years By the time the United States entered World War Two in 1941, he had become a top officer In 1944, he led the allied invasion of Europe In 1950, president Harry Truman named him supreme commander of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization

When Dwight Eisenhower ran for president, people shouted, "I like Ike!" Voters liked him because he always seemed calm, even in difficult situations As the country's president, he would face a number of difficult situations One of the first was the continuing war in Korea That will be our story next week

This program of THE MAKING OF A NATION was written by Jeri Watson and produced by Paul Thompson Stan Busby read the words of Adlai Stevenson This is Phil Murray And this is Doug Johnson Join us again next week for another VOA Special English program about the history of the United States

Conflict in Korea Spills Over Into Eisenhower's Presidency

Today we tell about the Korean War

The biggest problem facing Dwight Eisenhower when he became president of the United States was the continuing conflict in Korea

Eisenhower was elected in November 1952 At the time, the United States had been helping South Korea fight North Korea for more than two years About twenty other members of the United Nations were helping South Korea, too They provided troops, equipment, and medical aid

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The war started when North Korean troops invaded South Korea Both sides believed they should control all of the country

The dream of a united Korea was a powerful one

From 1910 until World War Two, Japan ruled Korea In an agreement at the end of the war, Soviet troops occupied the North They accepted the surrender of Japanese troops and set up a military government American troops did the same in the South The border dividing north and south was the geographic line known as the thirty-eighth parallel

A few years later, the United Nations General Assembly ordered free elections for all of Korea With U.N help, the South established the Republic of Korea Syngman Rhee was elected the first president

On the other side of the thirty-eighth parallel, however, the Soviets refused to permit U.N election officials to enter the North They established a communist government there, called the Democratic People's Republic of Korea Kim Il-sung was named premier

Five years after the end of World War Two, the United States had withdrawn almost all its troops from South Korea It was not clear if America would defend the South from attack South Korea had an army But it was smaller and less powerful than the North Korean army North Korea decided the time was right to invade On June twenty-fifth, 1950, North Korean soldiers crossed the thirty-eighth parallel

The U.N Security Council demanded that they go back Two days later, it approved military support for South Korea The Soviet delegate had boycotted the meeting that day If he had been present, the resolution would have been defeated

The U.N demand did not stop the North Korean troops They continued to push south In a week, they were on the edge of the capital, Seoul

America's president at that time, Harry Truman, ordered air and sea support for South Korea A few days later, he announced that American ground forces would be sent, too Truman wanted an American to command U.N troops in Korea The U.N approved his choice: General Douglas MacArthur

Week after week, more U.N forces arrived Yet by August, they had been pushed back to the Pusan perimeter This was a battle line around an area near the port city of Pusan in the southeast corner of Korea

North Korean forces tried to break through the Pusan perimeter They began a major attack August sixth They lost many men, however By the end of the month, they withdrew The next month, general MacArthur directed a surprise landing of troops in South Korea They arrived at the port of Inchon on the northwest coast

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The landing at Inchon was successful The additional troops quickly divided the North Korean forces, which had been stretched from north to south At the same time, UN air and sea power destroyed the northern army's lines of communication

On October first, South Korean troops moved into North Korea They captured the capital, Pyongyang Then they moved toward the Yalu River, the border between North Korea and China China warned against moving closer to the border General MacArthur ordered the troops to continue their attacks He repeatedly said he did not believe that China would enter the war in force

He was wrong Several hundred thousand Chinese soldiers crossed into North Korea in October and November Still, General MacArthur thought the war would be over by the Christmas holiday, December twenty-fifth

This was not to happen The U.N troops were forced to withdraw from Pyongyang And, by the day before Christmas, there had been a huge withdrawal by sea from the coastal city of Hungnam

In the first days of 1951, the North Koreans recaptured Seoul The U.N troops withdrew about forty kilometers south of the city They reorganized and, two months later, took control of Seoul again

Then the war changed The two sides began fighting along a line north of the thirty-eighth parallel They exchanged control of the same territory over and over again Men were dying, but no one was winning The cost in lives was huge

General MacArthur had wanted to cross into China and drop bombs on Manchuria He also had wanted to use Nationalist Chinese troops against the communists

President Truman feared that these actions might start another world war He would not take this chance When MacArthur disagreed with his policies in public, Truman dismissed him In June, 1951, the Soviet delegate to the United Nations proposed a ceasefire for Korea Peace talks began, first at Kaesong, then at Panmunjom By November, hope was strong for a settlement But negotiators could not agree about several issues, including the return of prisoners The U.N demanded that prisoners of war be permitted to choose if they wanted to go home

The different issues could not be resolved after more than a year Finally, in October 1952, the peace talks were suspended

Fighting continued during the negotiations As it did, President Truman lost support This was one reason why he decided not to run for re-election The new president, Dwight Eisenhower, took office in January 1953

Eisenhower had campaigned to end the war He was willing to use severe measures to this Years later, he wrote that he secretly threatened to expand the war and use nuclear weapons if the Soviets did not help restart the peace talks

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The treaty provided for the exchange of about ninety thousand prisoners of war It also permitted prisoners to choose if they wanted to go home

The war in Korea damaged almost all of the country As many as two million people may have died, including many civilians

After the war, the United States provided hundreds of thousands of soldiers to help the South guard against attack from the north

Half a century has passed since the truce Yet Korea is still divided And many of the same issues still threaten the Korean people, and the world

1950s Popular Culture Helped Take Minds Off Nuclear Fears

This is Phil Murray And this is Rich Kleinfeldt with THE MAKING OF A NATION a VOA Special English program about the history of the United States

Today, we tell what life was like in American during the 1950s

Imagine that you are visiting the United States What would you expect to see?

In the 1950s, America was a nation that believed it was on the edge of nuclear war It was a nation where the popular culture of television was gaining strength It was a nation whose population was growing as never before

After the terrible suffering of World War Two, Americans thought the world would be peaceful for awhile By 1950, however, political tensions were high again The United States and the Soviet Union, allies in war, had become enemies

The communists had taken control of one east European nation after another And Soviet leader Josef Stalin made it clear that he wanted communists to rule the world

The Soviet Union had strengthened its armed forces after the war The United States had taken many steps to disarm Yet it still possessed the atomic bomb America thought it, alone, had this terrible weapon

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The race was on The two nations competed to build weapons of mass destruction Would these weapons ever be used?

The American publication, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, always showed a picture of a clock By 1949, the time on the clock was three minutes before midnight That meant the world was on the edge of nuclear destruction The atomic scientists were afraid of what science had produced They were even more afraid of what science could produce In 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea The Korean conflict increased efforts in the United States to develop a weapon more deadly than an atomic bomb That was the hydrogen bomb The Soviets were developing such a weapon, too

Many Americans were afraid Some built what they hoped would be safe rooms in or near their homes They planned to hide in these bomb shelters during a nuclear attack

Other Americans, however, grew tired of being afraid In 1952, the military hero of World War Two, Dwight Eisenhower, was elected president The economy improved Americans looked to the future with hope

One sign of hope was the baby boom This was the big increase in the number of babies born after the war The number of young children in America jumped from twenty-four million to thirty-five million between 1950 and 1960 The bigger families needed houses In ninetee fifty alone, one million four hundred thousand houses were built in America

Most new houses were in the suburbs, the areas around cities People moved to the suburbs because they thought the schools there were better They also liked having more space for their children to play

Many Americans remember the 1950s as the fad years A fad is something that is extremely popular for a very short time one fad from the 1950s was the Hula Hoop The Hula Hoop was a colorful plastic tube joined to form a big circle To play with it, you moved your hips in a circular motion This kept it spinning around your body The motion was like one used by Polynesian people in their native dance, the hula

Other fads in the 1950s involved clothes or hair Some women, for example, cut and fixed their hair to look like the fur of a poodle dog Actress Mary Martin made the poodle cut famous when she appeared in the Broadway play, "South Pacific."

In motion pictures, Marilyn Monroe was becoming famous Not everyone thought she was a great actress But she had shining golden hair And she had what was considered a perfect body Marilyn Monroe's success did not make her happy She killed herself in the 1960s, when she was 36 years old

Another famous actor of those days was James Dean To many Americans, he was the living representation of the rebellious spirit of the young In fact, one of his films was called, "Rebel Without a Cause." James Dean died in a car accident in 1955 He was twenty-four

The 1950s saw a rebellion in American literature As part of society lived new lives in the suburbs, another part criticized this life These were the writers and poets of the Beat

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Jackson Pollock represented the rebellion in art Pollock did not paint things the way they looked Instead, he dropped paint onto his pictures in any way he pleased He was asked again and again: "What your paintings mean?" He answered: "Do not worry about what they mean They are just there like flowers."

In music, the rebel was Elvis Presley He was the king of rock-and-roll

Elvis Presley was a twenty-one-year-old truck driver when he sang on television for the first time He moved his body to the music in a way that many people thought was too sexual Parents and religious leaders criticized him Young people screamed for more They could not get enough rock-and-roll They played it on records They heard it on the radio And they listened to it on the television program "American Bandstand."

This program became the most popular dance party in America Every week, young men and women danced to the latest songs in front of the television cameras

During the 1940s, there were only a few television receivers in American homes Some called television an invention for stupid people to watch By the end of the 1950s, however,

television was here to stay The average family watched six hours a day

Americans especially liked games shows and funny shows with comedians such as Milton Berle and Lucille Ball They also liked shows that offered a mix of entertainment, such as those presented by Arthur Godfrey and Ed Sullivan

People from other countries watching American television in the 1950s might have thought that all Americans were white Christians At that time, television failed to recognize that America was a great mix of races and religions

Few members of racial or religious minorities were represented on television Those who appeared usually were shown working for white people

A movement for civil rights for black Americans was beginning to gather strength in the 1950s Many legal battles were fought to end racial separation, especially in America's schools By the 1960s, the civil rights movement would shake the nation

Dwight Eisenhower was president for most of the 1950s He faced the problems of

communism, the threat of nuclear war, and racial tensions He had a calm way of speaking And he always seemed to deal with problems in the same calm way Some citizens felt he was like a father to the nation

With Mr Eisenhower in the White House, they believed that even in a dark and dangerous world, everything would be all right

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A Freeze Hits US-Soviet Relations After World War Two

Today, we tell about the period known as the Cold War

The Cold War began after World War Two The main enemies were the United States and the Soviet Union

The Cold War got its name because both sides were afraid of fighting each other directly In such a "hot war," nuclear weapons might destroy everything So, instead, they fought each other indirectly They supported conflicts in different parts of the world They also used words as weapons They threatened and denounced each other Or they tried to make each other look foolish

Over the years, leaders on both sides changed Yet the Cold War continued It was the major force in world politics for most of the second half of the twentieth century

Historians disagree about how long the Cold War lasted Some believe it ended when the United States and the Soviet Union improved relations during the 1960s and early 1970s Others believe it ended when the Berlin Wall was torn down in 1989

The Cold War world was separated into three groups The United States led the West This group included countries with democratic political systems The Soviet Union led the East This group included countries with communist political systems The Non-Aligned group included countries that did not want to be tied to either the West or the East

Harry Truman was the first American president to fight the Cold War He used several policies One was the Truman Doctrine This was a plan to give money and military aid to countries threatened by communism The Truman Doctrine effectively stopped communists from taking control of Greece and Turkey

Another policy was the Marshall Plan This strengthened the economies and governments of countries in Western Europe

A major event in the Cold War was the Berlin Airlift In June 1948, the Soviets blocked all ways into the western part of Berlin, Germany President Truman quickly ordered military planes to fly coal, food, and medicine to the city

The planes kept coming, sometimes landing every few minutes, for more than a year The United States received help from Britain and France Together, they provided almost two and one-half million tons of supplies on about two hundred-eighty thousand flights

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The first members of NATO were Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, and the United States

The Soviet Union and its east European allies formed their own joint military group the Warsaw Pact six years later

In 1953, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin died His death gave the new American president, Dwight Eisenhower, a chance to deal with new Soviet leaders

In July, 1955, Eisenhower and Nikolai Bulganin met in Geneva, Switzerland The leaders of Britain and France also attended

Eisenhower proposed that the Americans and Soviets agree to let their military bases be inspected by air by the other side The Soviets later rejected the proposal Yet the meeting in Geneva was not considered a failure After all, the leaders of the world's most powerful nations had shaken hands

Cold War tensions increased, then eased, then increased again over the years The changes came as both sides actively tried to influence political and economic developments around the world

For example, the Soviet Union provided military, economic, and technical aid to communist governments in Asia The United States then helped eight Asian nations fight communism by establishing the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization

In the middle 1950s, the United States began sending military advisers to help south Vietnam defend itself against communist North Vietnam That aid would later expand into a long and bloody period of American involvement in Vietnam

The Cold War also affected the Middle East In the 1950s, both East and West offered aid to Egypt to build the Aswan High Dam on the Nile River The West cancelled its offer, however, after Egypt bought weapons from the communist government of Czechoslovakia

Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser then seized control of the company that operated the Suez Canal A few months later, Israel invaded Egypt France and Britain joined the invasion For once, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed on a major issue Both supported a United Nations resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire

The Suez crisis was a political victory for the Soviets When the Soviet Union supported Egypt, it gained new friends in the Arab world

In 1959, Cold War tensions eased a little The new Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, visited Dwight Eisenhower at his holiday home near Washington The meeting was very friendly But the next year, relations got worse again

An American military plane was shot down over the Soviet Union Eisenhower admitted that such planes had been spying on the Soviets for four years In a speech at the United Nations, Khrushchev got so angry that he took off his shoe and beat it on a table

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The exiles had been trained by America's Central Intelligence Agency The United States failed to send military planes to protect them during the invasion As a result, almost all were killed or taken prisoner

In Europe, tens of thousands of East Germans had fled to the West East Germany's communist government decided to stop them It built a wall separating the eastern and western parts of the city of Berlin Guards shot at anyone who tried to flee by climbing over During Kennedy's second year in office, American intelligence reports discovered Soviet missiles in Cuba The Soviet Union denied they were there American photographs proved they were

The Cuban missile crisis easily could have resulted in a nuclear war But it ended after a week Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles if the United States agreed not to interfere in Cuba

Some progress was made in easing Cold War tensions when Kennedy was president In 1963, the two sides reached a major arms control agreement They agreed to ban tests of nuclear weapons above ground, under water, and in space They also established a direct telephone line between the White House and the Kremlin

Relations between East and West also improved when Richard Nixon was president He and Leonid Brezhnev met several times They reached several arms control agreements One reduced the number of missiles used to shoot down enemy nuclear weapons It also banned the testing and deployment of long-distance missiles for five years

A major change in the Cold War took place in 1985 That is when Mikhail Gorbachev became leader of the Soviet Union Gorbachev held four meetings with President Ronald Reagan He withdrew Soviet forces from Afghanistan And he signed an agreement with the United States to destroy all middle-distance and short-distance nuclear missiles

By 1989, there was widespread unrest in eastern Europe Gorbachev did not intervene as these countries cut their ties with the Soviet Union

The Berlin Wall, the major symbol of communist oppression, was torn down in November In less than a year, East and West Germany became one nation again A few months after that, the Warsaw Pact was dissolved The Cold War was over

The Space Race Heightens Cold War Tensions

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Today, we tell about the race to explore outer space

On a cold October day in 1957, the Soviet Union launched a small satellite into orbit around the Earth Radio Moscow made the announcement

RUSSIAN: "The first artificial Earth satellite in the world has now been created This first satellite was today successfully launched in the USSR."

The world's first satellite was called Sputnik One Sputnik was an important propaganda victory for the Soviets in its Cold War with the United States

Many people believed the nation that controlled the skies could win any war And the Soviet Union had reached outer space first

The technology that launched Sputnik probably began in the late 19th century A Russian teacher of that time, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, decided that a rocket engine could provide power for a space vehicle

In the early 1900s, another teacher American Robert Goddard tested the idea He experimented with small rockets to see how high and how far they could travel In 1923, a Romanian student in Germany, Hermann Oberth, showed how a spaceship might be built and launched to other planets

Rocket technology improved during World War Two It was used to produce bombs Thousands of people in Britain and Belgium died as a result of two rocket attacks The V-two rockets were launched from Germany

After the war, it became clear that the United States and the Soviet Union allies in wartime would become enemies in peacetime So, both countries employed German scientists to help them win the race to space

The Soviets took the first step by creating Sputnik This satellite was about the size of a basketball It got its power from a rocket It orbited Earth for three months Within weeks, the Soviets launched another satellite into Earth orbit, Sputnik Two It was much bigger and heavier than Sputnik one It also carried a passenger: a dog named Laika Laika orbited Earth for seven days

The United States joined the space race about three months later It launched a satellite from Cape Canaveral, in the southeastern state of Florida This satellite was called Explorer One It weighed about 14 kilograms Explorer One went into a higher orbit than either Sputnik And its instruments made an important discovery They found an area of radiation about nine hundred-sixty kilometers above Earth

The next major space victory belonged to the Soviets They sent the first man into space In April, 1961, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was launched in the vehicle known as Vostok He remained in space for less than two hours He landed safely by parachute near a village in Russia Less than a month later, the United States sent its first astronaut into space He was Alan Shepard Shepard remained in space only about 15 minutes He did not go into Earth orbit That flight came in February, 1962, with John Glenn

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person to so A special rope connected him to the spacecraft It provided him with oxygen to breathe And it permitted him to float freely at the other end

After about ten minutes, Leonov had to return to the spacecraft He said he regretted the decision He was having such a good time!

A little more than two months later, an American would walk outside his spacecraft Astronaut Edward White had a kind of rocket gun This gave him some control of his movements in space Like Leonov, White was sorry when he had to return to his spacecraft Later that year, 1965, the United States tried to have one spacecraft get very close to another spacecraft while in orbit This was the first step in getting spacecraft to link, or dock, together Docking would be necessary to land men on the moon The plan called for a Gemini

spacecraft carrying two astronauts to get close to an unmanned satellite

The attempt failed The target satellite exploded as it separated from its main rocket America's space agency decided to move forward It would launch the next in its Gemini series Then someone had an idea: why not launch both Geminis The second one could chase the first one, instead of a satellite Again, things did not go as planned

It took two tries to launch the second Gemini By that time, the first one had been in orbit about eleven days Time was running out The astronauts on the second Gemini moved their spacecraft into higher orbits They got closer and closer to the Gemini ahead of them They needed to get within six hundred meters to be considered successful

After all the problems on the ground, the events in space went smoothly The two spacecraft got within one-third of a meter of each other The astronauts had made the operation seem easy

In January, 1959, the Soviets launched a series of unmanned Luna rockets The third of these flights took pictures of the far side of the moon This was the side no one on Earth had ever seen The United States planned to explore the moon with its unmanned Ranger spacecraft There were a number of failures before Ranger Seven took pictures of the moon These pictures were made from a distance The world did not get pictures from the surface of the moon until the Soviet Luna nine landed there in February, 1966

For the next few years, both the United States and Soviet Union continued their exploration of the moon Yet the question remained: which one would be the first to put a man there In December, 1968, the United States launched Apollo eight with three astronauts The flight proved that a spacecraft could orbit the moon and return to Earth safely

The Apollo nine spacecraft had two vehicles One was the command module It could orbit the moon, but could not land on it The other was the lunar module On a flight to the moon, it would separate from the command module and land on the moon's surface Apollo ten

astronauts unlinked the lunar module and flew it close to the moon's surface

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The two vehicles separated It was a dangerous time The Eagle could crash Or it could fall over after it landed That meant the astronauts would die on the moon

Millions of people watched on television or listened on the radio They waited for

Armstrong's message: "The Eagle has landed." Then they waited again It took the astronauts more than three hours to complete the preparations needed to leave the lunar module

Finally, the door opened Neil Armstrong climbed down first He put one foot on the moon Then, the other foot And then came his words, from so far away:

NEIL ARMSTRONG: "That's one small step for (a) man; one giant leap for mankind." Armstrong walked around Soon, Aldrin joined him The two men placed an American flag on the surface of the moon They also collected moon rocks and soil

When it was time to leave, they returned to the Eagle and guided it safely away They reunited with the Columbia and headed for home The United States had won the race to the moon This program of THE MAKING OF A NATION was written by Jeri Watson and produced by Paul Thompson This is Rich Kleinfeldt And this is Phil Murray Join us again next week for another VOA Special English program about the history of the United States

Election of 1960 Brings Close Race Between Kennedy, Nixon

This is Richard Rael And this is Doug Johnson with THE MAKING OF A NATION a VOA Special English program about the history of the United States

Dwight Eisenhower was elected president in 1952 By 1960, he had served two terms The twenty-second amendment to the Constitution said he could not be re-elected Eisenhower was hugely popular when he first came to office And his first term was considered

successful

He created a new government agency for education and health care He led a congressional effort to improve the tax system And, under his leadership, a peace treaty ending the Korean War was signed

Eisenhower also met with Soviet leaders Nikolai Bulganin and Nikita Khrushchev This began a tradition of meetings between the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union Experts believe these meetings probably helped prevent a nuclear war between the two countries

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Stevenson They had been the candidates in the presidential election four years earlier This time, Eisenhower won almost ten million votes more than Stevenson That was an even bigger victory than in 1952

Eisenhower's second term, however, presented problems The Soviet Union launched the space age by putting the world's first satellite into earth orbit Fidel Castro established a communist government in Cuba Many white Americans were fighting the Supreme Court's decision to end racial separation in schools And the American economy suffered a recession Eisenhower's popularity dropped during his second term This would make it more difficult for the Republican Party's next candidate for president

The delegates who attended the Republican nominating convention in the summer of 1960 feared that the party would lose the election in November They had to find the strongest candidate possible Many believed that Richard Nixon was the strongest

Nixon had been a senator and a member of the House of Representatives He had been Eisenhower's vice president for eight years When Eisenhower suffered several serious illnesses, Nixon had a chance to show his abilities to lead the nation He showed great strength while facing an angry crowd during a trip to South America He also gained support when he defended the United States in an unofficial debate with Khrushchev during a trip to the Soviet Union

Nixon's closest opponent for the Republican nomination was Nelson Rockefeller Rockefeller was governor of New York He came from one of the richest families in America At the convention, Richard Nixon easily won the support of the Republican Party The delegates elected him on the first vote He accepted the nomination And he called for new efforts for peace and freedom around the world

The race for the Democratic nomination was much more difficult He Democratic Party thought it would have no problem winning the presidential election Many candidates entered the competition for the nomination One was Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota

Another was Senator John Kennedy of Massachusetts

Humphrey had been elected to the Senate three times He was a strong activist for civil rights, peace, and social improvements Kennedy was a Navy hero in World War Two He was handsome and only forty-three years old He also was a member of the Roman Catholic Church And no catholic had ever been elected president of the United States

Kennedy and Humphrey began to enter local primary elections in different states The purpose of the primaries is to test voter support for candidates Kennedy won an important primary in the state of Wisconsin However, the Protestant Christian areas of the state did not support him The question then became: Could he win in West Virginia? Most of the voters in that state were Protestants

On the last night of the primary campaign in West Virginia, Kennedy spoke about his religion He said the president of the United States promises to defend the Constitution And that, he said, includes the separation of the government from any religion or church

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In his acceptance speech, he said he would ask Americans to help their country He said he would ask them to sacrifice for their country

After the party conventions, the two candidates Kennedy and Nixon began to campaign around the nation Nixon charged that Kennedy was too young to be president He said Kennedy did not know enough about governing Kennedy attacked the Republican record of the past eight years He said president Eisenhower and Vice President Nixon had not done enough to bring progress to the nation

Protestant groups expressed concerns about Kennedy's religion They wondered if he would be influenced by the Pope They asked if the leader of the Roman Catholic Church would try to make policy for the United States Kennedy answered by repeating his strong support for the constitutional guarantee of separation of church and state

Public opinion studies showed the election campaign to be very, very close Then, the candidates agreed to hold four debates The debates would be broadcast on television In the first debate, they showed they did not differ too widely on major issues Kennedy, however, appeared calm and sure Nixon, who did not feel well, appeared thin and tired Many people who had not considered voting for Kennedy now began to change their minds To them, he looked like a president

In the fourth debate, they expressed widely different opinions about whether the United States was making progress Kennedy believed there had been little progress under Eisenhower and Nixon He said:

KENNEDY: "Franklin Roosevelt said in 1936 that that generation of Americans had a

rendezvous with destiny I believe in nineteen sixty and sixty-one and two and three, we have a rendezvous with destiny And I believe it incumbent upon us to be defenders of the United States and the defenders of freedom And to that, we must give this country leadership And we must get America moving again."

Nixon disagreed sharply He believed the United States had not been standing still Yet he believed it could not rest, either He said:

NIXON: "It is essential with the conflict that we have around the world that we not just hold our own, that we not keep just freedom for ourselves It is essential that we extend freedom, extend it to all the world And this means more than what we've been doing It means keeping America even stronger militarily than she is It means seeing that our economy moves forward even faster than it has It means making more progress in civil rights than we have, so that we can be a splendid example for all the world to see."

Another issue of the 1960 presidential debates was the Chinese attack on the islands of Quemoy and Matsu in the Formosa [Taiwan] Strait Another was how to deal with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev Most people seemed to feel that Kennedy won the first debate Experts thought Nixon probably won the second one And both men did about the same in the last two

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On Election Day in November, the voters chose John Kennedy His victory, however, was a close one Almost sixty-nine million people voted He won by fewer than one hundred twenty thousand votes The United States now had its thirty-fifth president He was the youngest and the first Roman Catholic The beginning of John Kennedy's administration will be our story next week

This program of THE MAKING OF A NATION was written by Jeri Watson and produced by Paul Thompson This is Doug Johnson And this is Richard Rael Join us again next week for another VOA Special English program about the history of the United States

Kennedy Begins His Presidency With Strong Public Support

This is Rich Kleinfeldt And this is Phil Murray with THE MAKING OF A NATION a VOA Special English program about the history of the United States

Our program today is about the beginning of the administration of President John Kennedy January twentieth, 1961 John Kennedy was to be sworn-in that day as president of the United States

It had snowed heavily the night before Few cars were in the streets of Washington Yet, somehow, people got to the ceremony at the Capitol building

The outgoing president, Dwight Eisenhower, was seventy years old John Kennedy was just forty-three He was the first American president born in the twentieth century

Both Eisenhower and Kennedy served in the military in World War Two Eisenhower served at the top He was commander of allied forces in Europe Kennedy was one of many young navy officers in the pacific battle area

Eisenhower was a hero of the war and was an extremely popular man Kennedy was extremely popular, too, especially among young people He was a fresh face in American politics To millions of Americans, he represented a chance for a new beginning

Not everyone liked John Kennedy, however Many people thought he was too young to be president Many opposed him because he belonged to the Roman Catholic Church A majority of Christians in America were Protestant There had never been a Roman Catholic president of the United States John Kennedy would be the first

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Many Americans supported Nixon They believed he was a stronger opponent of communism than Kennedy Some also feared that Kennedy might give more consideration to the needs of black Americans than to white Americans

The election of 1960 was one of the closest in American history Kennedy defeated Nixon by fewer than one hundred-twenty thousand popular votes Now, he would be sworn-in as the nation's thirty-fifth president

One of the speakers at the ceremony was Robert Frost He was perhaps America's most popular poet at the time Robert Frost planned to read from a long work he wrote especially for the ceremony But he was unable to read much of it The bright winter sun shone

blindingly on the snow The cold winter wind blew the paper in his old hands

John Kennedy stood to help him Still, the poet could not continue Those in the crowd felt concerned for the eighty-six-year-old man Suddenly, he stopped trying to say his special poem Instead, he began to say the words of another one, one he knew from memory It was called "The Gift Outright."

Here is part of that poem by Robert Frost, read by Stan Busby: The land was ours before we were the land's

She was our land more than a hundred years before we were her people Something we were withholding made us weak

Until we found out that it was ourselves

We were withholding from our land of living Such as we were we gave ourselves outright

Soon it was time for the new president to speak People watching on television could see his icy breath as he stood He was not wearing a warm coat His head was uncovered

Kennedy's speech would, one day, be judged to be among the best in American history The time of his inauguration was a time of tension and fear about nuclear weapons The United States had nuclear weapons Its main political enemy, the Soviet Union, had them, too If hostilities broke out, would such terrible weapons be used?

Kennedy spoke about the issue He warned of the danger of what he called "the deadly atom." He said the United States and communist nations should make serious proposals for the inspection and control of nuclear weapons He urged both sides to explore the good in science, instead of its terrors

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Kennedy also spoke about a torch a light of leadership being passed from older Americans to younger Americans He urged the young to take the torch and accept responsibility for the future He also urged other countries to work with the United States to create a better world JOHN KENNEDY: "The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it and the glow from that fire can truly light the world And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can for you ask what you can for your country My fellow citizens of the world: Ask not what America will for you, but what together we can for the freedom of man."

John Kennedy's first one hundred days as president were busy ones

He was in office less than two weeks when the Soviet Union freed two American airmen The Soviets had shot down their spy plane over the Bering Sea About sixty million people watched as Kennedy announced the airmen's release It was the first presidential news

conference broadcast live on television in the United States Kennedy welcomed the release as a step toward better relations with the Soviet Union

The next month, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev made another move toward better relations He sent Kennedy a message The message said that disarmament would be a great joy for all people on earth

A few weeks later, President Kennedy announced the creation of the Peace Corps He had talked about this program during the election campaign The Peace Corps would send thousands of Americans to developing countries to provide technical help

Another program, the alliance for progress, was announced soon after the peace corps was created The purpose of the alliance for progress was to provide economic aid to Latin American nations for ten years

The space program was another thing Kennedy had talked about during the election campaign He believed the United States should continue to explore outer space

The Soviet Union had gotten there first It launched the world's first satellite in 1957 Then, in April, 1961, the Soviet Union sent the first manned spacecraft into orbit around the earth The worst failure of Kennedy's administration came that same month On April seventeenth, more than one thousand Cuban exiles landed on a beach in western Cuba They had received training and equipment from the United States Central Intelligence Agency They were to lead a revolution to overthrow the communist government of Cuba The place where they landed was called Bahia de Cochinos the Bay of Pigs

The plan failed Most of the exiles were killed or captured by the Cuban army

It had not been President Kennedy's idea to start a revolution against Cuban leader Fidel Castro Officials in the last administration had planned it However, most of Kennedy's advisers supported the idea And he approved it

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John Kennedy's popularity was badly damaged by what happened in Cuba His next months in office would be a struggle to regain the support of the people That will be our story next week

This program of THE MAKING OF A NATION was written by Jeri Watson and produced by Paul Thompson This is Phil Murray And this is Rich Kleinfeldt Join us again next week for another VOA Special English program about the history of the United States

The Presidency of John Kennedy Begins With Great Energy, but Ends in Tragedy

This is Rich Kleinfeldt And this is Stan Busby with THE MAKING OF A NATION a VOA Special English program about the history of the United States

Today, we continue the story of President John Kennedy

John Kennedy began his administration in 1961 with great energy to good things After just three months in office, however, he had to take responsibility for a big failure

On April seventeenth, Cuban exiles, trained by America's Central Intelligence Agency, invaded Cuba Their goal was to overthrow Cuba's communist leader, Fidel Castro Most of the exiles were killed or captured

The last administration had planned the invasion But Kennedy had approved it After the incident, some Americans wondered if he had enough experience to lead the nation Some asked themselves if the forty-three-year-old Kennedy was too young to be president, after all Kennedy soon regained some public approval when he visited French leader General Charles de Gaulle The French were very interested in the new American president They were even more interested in his beautiful wife The president said with a laugh that he was the man who had come to Paris with Jacqueline Kennedy

In Vienna, Kennedy met with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev Their relations would always be difficult

Khrushchev did not want to compromise on any issue He threatened to have the East Germans block all movement into and out of the western part of the city of Berlin

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About a year later, in October, 1962, President Kennedy said the United States had discovered that the Soviets were putting nuclear missiles in Cuba He took several actions to protest the deployment

One was to send American ships to the area They were to prevent Soviet ships from taking missile parts and related supplies to the Cuban government In a speech broadcast on television, Kennedy spoke about the seriousness of the situation

JOHN KENNEDY: "It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile

launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States."

No fighting broke out between the United States and the Soviet Union because of the Cuban missile crisis The Soviet ships carrying missile parts to Cuba turned back And President Kennedy promised that the United States would not invade Cuba if the Soviet Union removed its missiles and stopped building new ones there

The two sides did, however, continue their cold war of words and influence

In Asia, the Soviet Union continued to provide military, economic, and technical aid to communist governments The Kennedy administration fought communism in Vietnam by increasing the number of American military advisers there

The United States and the Soviet Union did make some progress on arms control, however In 1963, the two countries reached a major agreement to ban tests of nuclear weapons above ground, under water, and in space The treaty did not ban nuclear tests under the ground On national issues, President Kennedy supported efforts to guarantee a better life for African-Americans One man who pushed for changes was his younger brother, Robert Robert Kennedy was attorney general and head of the Justice Department at that time

The Justice Department took legal action against Southern states that violated the voting rights acts of 1957 and 1960 The administration also supported a voter registration campaign among African-Americans The campaign helped them to record their names with election officials so they could vote

As attorney general, Robert Kennedy repeatedly called on National Guard troops to protect black citizens from crowds of angry white citizens Incidents took place when blacks tried to register to vote and when they tried to attend white schools

President Kennedy said the situation was causing a moral crisis in America He decided it was time to propose a new civil rights law The measure would guarantee equal treatment for blacks in public places and in jobs It would speed the work of ending racial separation in schools

Kennedy wanted the new legislation badly But Congress delayed action It did not pass a broad civil rights bill until 1964, after his presidency

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He arrived in the city of Dallas in the late morning of November twenty-second Dallas was known to be a center of opposition to Kennedy Yet many people waited to see him

A parade of cars traveled through the streets of Dallas Kennedy and his wife were in the back seat of one Their car had no top, so everyone could see them easily Another car filled with Secret Service security agents was next to the president's

Suddenly, there were gunshots Then, many Americans heard this emergency report from television newsman Walter Cronkite:

WALTER CRONKITE: "Here is a bulletin from CBS news In Dallas, Texas, three shots were fired at President Kennedy's motorcade in downtown Dallas The first reports say that President Kennedy has been seriously wounded by this shooting."

The cars raced to Parkland Memorial Hospital But doctors there could little Thirty minutes later reporters, including Walter Cronkite, broadcast this announcement:

WALTER CRONKITE: "From Dallas, Texas the flash apparently official President Kennedy died at one p.m., Central Standard Time "

As the nation mourned, police searched for the person who had killed John Kennedy They arrested a man named Lee Harvey Oswald Oswald worked in a building near the place where Kennedy had been shot People had seen him leave the building after the shooting He had a gun

Lee Harvey Oswald was a man with a strange past He was a former United States Marine He was also a communist He had lived for a while in the Soviet Union and had tried to become a Soviet citizen He worked for a committee that supported the communist government in Cuba Police questioned Oswald about the death of president Kennedy He said he did not it After two days, officials decided to move him to a different jail

As they did, television cameras recorded the death of Lee Harvey Oswald Oswald was being led by two police officials Suddenly, a man stepped in front of them There was a shot, and Oswald fell to the floor

The gunman was Jack Ruby He owned an eating and drinking place in Dallas He said he killed Oswald to prevent the Kennedy family from having to live through a trial

President Kennedy's body had been returned to Washington After a state funeral, he was buried in Arlington National Cemetery, across the Potomac River A gas flame burns at his burial place, day and night

An official committee was formed to investigate his death It was headed by the chief justice of the United States, earl Warren, and was known as the Warren commission In its report, the Warren commission said that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone It said there was no plot to kill the president

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The truth of what happened to John Kennedy may be what was stated in the Warren

Commission report: that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone Or, perhaps, the complete truth may never be known

This program of THE MAKING OF A NATION was written by Jeri Watson and produced by Paul Thompson This is Rich Kleinfeldt

And this Stan Busby Join us again next week for another VOA Special English program about the history of the United States

Johnson Takes Over Presidency After Kennedy's Murder

This is Phil Murray And this is Richard Rael with THE MAKING OF A NATION a VOA Special English program about the history of the United States

Today, we begin the story of President Lyndon Johnson

Lyndon Baines Johnson became America's thirty-sixth president very suddenly It happened on November 22, 1963 On that day, President John Kennedy was murdered

Kennedy and Johnson his vice president were visiting Dallas, Texas Kennedy was shot to death as his open car drove through the streets of the city Within a few hours, Johnson was sworn in as president on a plane that would take him back to Washington The new president said, "I will my best That is all I can I ask for your help, and God's."

Before being elected vice president, Lyndon Johnson had served for many years in both the Senate and the House of Representatives He liked making decisions And he loved politics He grew up in small towns in Texas After completing high school, he traveled and worked for a while He said he was afraid of more studying But after a few years, he entered

southwest Texas State Teachers College There he was a student leader and political activist Johnson went to Washington as secretary to a congressman in 1931 Four years later,

President Franklin Roosevelt named him to a leadership position in a national social program for young people Two years after that, he decided to campaign for a seat in the House of Representatives

When World War Two began, Johnson was the first member of Congress to join the armed forces

He served in the House for twelve years After the war, he campaigned for the Senate, where he also served for twelve years As a senator, he became an expert in the operation of

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Lyndon Johnson would need all of this knowledge as president On the day he was sworn in, American faced serious problems Communist forces in Vietnam were fighting troops supported by the United States There was a continuing possibility of nuclear war with the Soviet Union At home, there was racial conflict Many Americans did not have jobs And there was a threat of a major railroad strike

President Johnson began his White House days by working hard for legislation President Kennedy had proposed Although he had voted against civil rights legislation when he served in the Senate, he now urged Congress to pass a civil rights bill Congress did

The 1964 Civil Rights Act was a law to help guarantee equal chances for jobs for all

Americans It also helped guarantee equal treatment for minorities in stores, eating places, and other businesses

When Johnson signed the bill, he said:

JOHNSON: "We believe that all men are created equal Yet many are denied equal treatment We believe that all men have certain unalienable rights Yet many Americans not enjoy those rights We believe that all men are entitled to the blessings of liberty Yet millions are being deprived of those blessings not because of their own failures but because of the color of their skin."

The president said that such a situation could not continue in America To treat people unfairly because of their race, he said, violated the Constitution, the idea of democracy, and the law he was about to sign

Lyndon Johnson succeeded in getting Congress to pass more civil rights legislation in 1965 and 1968 The 1965 bill said states could not prevent citizens from voting just because they did not well on reading or other tests The purpose of the law was to make sure all black Americans could vote

The civil rights law of 1968 dealt with housing For many years, black Americans could not get the home they wanted in the place they wanted Many times, property companies forced them to pay a lot for poor housing The purpose of the bill was to guarantee free choice and fair treatment in the housing market

Political experts said president Johnson succeeded with Congress in a way that President Kennedy could never have equaled Because Johnson was from the South, he could talk easily with Southern members of Congress He was able to get them to agree that African

Americans were treated unfairly In addition, his own years in Congress had taught him how to get people to what he wanted

President Johnson gave a name to his dream of a better America He called it the "Great Society " He spoke about it in a speech at the University of Michigan:

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The Great Society was both an idea and a goal To reach that goal, Johnson created several government programs One was the "war on poverty " The war on poverty was a series of bills to help poor people It was designed to create new jobs and build the economy

Congress did not approve a large amount of money for the war on poverty But it did strongly support the president's early proposals Support dropped, however, when Congress said the nation could not pay for both social programs at home and a war overseas

Vietnam was not the only place where Johnson used American troops to fight communism He would send about twenty thousand soldiers to the Dominican Republic, too He feared that a rebellion there would lead to a communist takeover of the country

Lyndon Johnson served the last 14 months of John Kennedy's term In 1964, he campaigned for election to a full term of his own His Democratic Party gave him the strongest support possible It accepted his choice of Hubert Humphrey to be the party's candidate for vice president Humphrey was a liberal senator from the state of Minnesota

Unlike the Democrats, the Republicans had a difficult time choosing their candidates for the election Delegates to the party's national convention finally chose Barry Goldwater to be their candidate for president Goldwater was a strongly conservative senator from the state of Arizona The delegates chose William Miller, a congressman from New York State, to be their candidate for vice president

The nation voted in November, 1964 Lyndon Johnson won more than sixty percent of the popular votes Strangely, however, he was not pleased He had wanted the largest victory in American history He had wanted proof that Americans were voting for him, and not for the shadow of John Kennedy

In his inaugural speech, Johnson talked of changes He said his Great Society was never finished It was always growing and improving To Johnson, this meant passing a health care plan for older Americans It meant appointing blacks to important national positions

He succeeded in these goals and more during the next four years Congress passed the Medicare bill to provide health care for older people And Johnson appointed Thurgood Marshall to be the first black justice to the Supreme Court

As Johnson went back to work in the White House, however, a huge problem awaited him Americans were fighting to stop the spread of communism in Southeast Asia More and more were being killed The war in Vietnam would become extremely unpopular among American citizens It would destroy Johnson's chances of being remembered as a great president

That will be our story next week

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Johnson Wins a Full Term in 1964, Defends Vietnam Policies

Today, we continue the story of America's thirty-sixth president, Lyndon Johnson

After John Kennedy was murdered, Vice President Lyndon Johnson served the last 14 months of Kennedy's term He then was elected to his own full term It began in January, 1965 Much of his time and energy would be taken up by the war in Vietnam

By early 1964, America had about seventeen thousand troops in Vietnam The troops were there to advise and train the South Vietnamese military

Vietnam had gained its independence from France in 1954 The country was divided into North and South The North had a Communist government led by Ho Chi Minh The South had an anti-Communist government led by Ngo Dinh Diem

In 1957, Communist rebels Vietcong began a campaign of terrorism in South Vietnam They were supported by the government of North Vietnam and later by North Vietnamese troops Their goal was to overthrow the anti-Communist government in the South

President Johnson believed that the United States had to support South Vietnam Many other Americans agreed They believed that without American help, South Vietnam would become Communist Then, all of Southeast Asia would become Communist, too

As Johnson's term began, his military advisers told him the Communists were losing the war They told him that North Vietnamese troops and Vietcong forces would soon stop fighting On February sixth, however, the Vietcong attacked American camps at Pleiku and Qui Phon The Johnson administration immediately ordered air attacks against military targets in the North

Some observers in the United States questioned the administration's policy For example, a leading newspaper writer, James Reston, said President Johnson was carrying out an undeclared and unexplained war in Vietnam

Johnson defended his policies He said withdrawal would not bring an end to the conflict He said the battle would continue in one country, and then another

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For six days in May, the United States halted air attacks on North Vietnam The administration hoped this would help get the North Vietnamese government to begin negotiations

The North refused And the United States began to build up its forces in the South By July, one hundred twenty-five thousand Americans were fighting in Vietnam

Some Americans became angry Anti-war demonstrations took place in the cities of San Francisco and Chicago More and more students began to protest They wanted the war to end quickly

Writer James Reston commented that the anti-war demonstrations were not helping to bring peace to Vietnam He said they were postponing it He believed the demonstrations would make Ho Chi Minh think America did not support its troops And that, he said, would make president Ho continue the war

In December, 1965, the United States again halted air attacks against North Vietnam Again, it invited the North Vietnamese government to negotiate an end to the fighting And again, the North refused

Ho Chi Minh's conditions for peace were firm He demanded an end to the bombing and a complete American withdrawal

Withdrawal would mean defeat for the South It would mean that all of Vietnam would become Communist President Johnson would not accept these terms So he offered his own proposals The most important was an immediate ceasefire Neither side would compromise, however And the fighting went on

In 1966, President Johnson renewed the bombing attacks in North Vietnam He also increased the number of American troops in South Vietnam He condemned those who opposed his policies He said: "The American people will stand united until every soldier is brought home safely They will stand united until the people of South Vietnam can choose their own

government."

Local and state elections were held in the United States that year The war in Vietnam had an effect on those elections The opposition Republican Party generally supported the president's war efforts Yet it criticized him and other Democrats for economic problems linked to the war

The war cost 2,000 million dollars every month The price of many goods in the United States began to rise The value of the dollar began to drop The result was inflation Then economic activity slowed, and the result was recession

To answer the criticism, administration officials said progress was being made in Vietnam But some Americans began to suspect that the government was not telling the truth about the war

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Studies were done to measure Americans' opinion on the issue In a study in July, 1967, a little more than half the people questioned said they did not approve of the president's policies Yet most Americans believed he would run again for president the next year

Johnson strongly defended the use of American soldiers in Vietnam In a speech to a group of lawmakers he said: "Since World War Two, this nation has met and has mastered many challenges challenges in Greece and Turkey, in Berlin, in Korea, in Cuba We met them because brave men were willing to risk their lives for their nation's security And braver men have never lived than those who carry our colors in Vietnam this very hour."

Then came Tet the Vietnamese lunar new year in January 1968 The Communists launched a major military campaign They attacked thirty-one of the 44 provinces of South Vietnam They even struck at the American embassy in the capital, Saigon

Fifty thousand Communist soldiers were killed during the Tet offensive 14,000 South Vietnamese soldiers were killed And 2,000 American soldiers were killed Thousands of Vietnamese civilians were killed, too

Many Americans were surprised, even shocked, that the Communists could launch such a major attack against South Vietnam For several years, they had been told that Communist forces were small and were losing badly As a result, popular support for the administration fell even more

Democrats who opposed President Johnson seized this chance Several ran against him in the primary elections held before the party's presidential nominating convention These included Senator Robert Kennedy of New York and Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota Kennedy and McCarthy did well in the early primary elections Johnson did poorly

At the end of March, 1968, the president spoke to the American people on television He told of his proposal to end American bombing of North Vietnam He told of the appointment of a special ambassador to start peace negotiations And he told of his decision about his own future:

LYNDON JOHNSON: "I not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office the presidency of your country Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president."

This program of THE MAKING OF A NATION was written by Jeri Watson and produced by Paul Thompson This is Phil Murray And this is Doug Johnson Join us again next week for another VOA Special English program about the history of the United States

Civil Rights Movement: In the '60s, a Struggle for Equality in US

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This is Richard Rael And this is Rich Kleinfeldt with THE MAKING OF A NATION a VOA Special English program about the history of the United States

Today, we tell about the movement for civil rights for black Americans

The day is August twenty-eighth, 1963 More than two hundred fifty-thousand people are gathered in Washington Black and white, young and old, they demand equal treatment for black Americans The nation's most famous civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, is speaking

MARTIN LUTHER KING: "I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration of freedom in the history of our nation "

Early in its history, black Africans were brought to America as slaves They were bought and sold, like animals By the time of America's Civil War in the 1860s, many had been freed by their owners Many, however, still worked as slaves on the big farms of the South By the end of the war, slavery had been declared unconstitutional But that was only the first step in the struggle for equality

Most people of color could not get good jobs They could not get good housing They had far less chance of a good education than white Americans For about one hundred years, blacks made slow gains Widespread activism for civil rights did not really begin until after World War Two During the war, black Americans earned respect as members of the armed forces When they came home, many demanded that their civil rights be respected, too An

organization, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, led the way In 1951, the organization sent its lawyers to help a man in the city of Topeka, Kansas The man, Oliver Brown, and twelve others had brought legal action against the city They wanted to end racial separation in their children's schools At that time, two of every five public schools in America had all white students or all black students The law said all public schools must be equal, but they were not Schools for white children were almost always better than schools for black children The situation was worst in Southern states

The case against the city of Topeka Brown versus the Board of Education was finally settled by the nation's highest court In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled that separate schools for black children were not equal to schools for white children The next year, it said public schools must accept children of all races as quickly as possible

In September 1957, a black girl tried to enter an all-white school in the city of Little Rock, Arkansas An angry crowd screamed at her State guards blocked her way The guards had been sent by the state governor, Orville Faubus After three weeks, a federal court ordered Governor Faubus to remove the guards The girl, Elizabeth Eckford, and seven other black students were able to enter the school After one day, however, riots forced the black students to leave

President Dwight Eisenhower ordered federal troops to Little Rock They helped black students get into the white school safely However, angry white citizens closed all the city's public schools The schools stayed closed for two years

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help him James Meredith became the first black person to graduate from the University of Mississippi

In addition to fighting for equal treatment in education, black Americans fought for equal treatment in housing and transportation In many cities of the South, blacks were forced to sit in the back of buses In 1955, a black woman named Rosa Parks got on a bus in the city of Montgomery, Alabama She sat in the back The bus became crowded There were no more seats for white people So, the bus driver ordered Mrs Parks to stand and give her seat to a white person She refused Her feet were tired after a long day at work Rosa Parks was arrested

The Reverend Martin Luther King organized the black citizens of Montgomery They were the major users of the bus system They agreed to stop using the buses The boycott lasted a little more than a year It seriously affected the earnings of the bus company In the end, racial separation on the buses in Montgomery was declared illegal Rosa Parks's tired feet had helped win black Americans another victory in their struggle for equal rights And, the victory had been won without violence

The Reverend King was following the teachings of Indian spiritual leader, Mohandas Gandhi Gandhi urged his followers to reach their political goals without violence One of the major tools of nonviolence in the civil rights struggle in America was the "sit-in" In a sit-in,

protesters entered a store or public eating place They quietly asked to be served Sometimes, they were arrested Sometimes, they remained until the business closed But they were not served Some went hours without food or water

Another kind of protest was the "freedom ride." This involved buses that traveled through states from the North to the South On freedom rides, blacks and whites sat together to make it difficult for officials to enforce racial separation laws on the buses Many freedom rides and much violence took place in the summer of 1964 Sometimes, the freedom riders were arrested Sometimes, angry crowds of whites beat the freedom riders

Perhaps the most dangerous part of the civil rights movement was the campaign to win voting rights for black Americans The Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution said a citizen could not be denied the right to vote because of race or color Several Southern states, however, passed laws to try to deny voting rights to blacks for other reasons

Martin Luther King and his supporters demonstrated to demand new legislation to guarantee the right to vote They held protests in the state of Alabama In the city of Birmingham, the chief law officer ordered his men to fight the protesters with high-pressure water hoses and fierce dogs People throughout the country watched the demonstration on television The sight of children being beaten by policemen and bitten by dogs awakened many citizens to the civil rights struggle Federal negotiators reached a compromise The compromise was, in fact, a victory for the protesters They promised to stop their demonstrations In exchange, they would be permitted to vote

President Johnson signed a major civil rights bill in 1964 Yet violence continued in some places Three civil rights workers were murdered in Mississippi One was murdered in

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A wave of unrest followed the murder of Martin Luther King Blacks in more than one hundred cities in America rioted In some cities, areas affected by the riots were not rebuilt for many years The movement for civil rights for black Americans continued But it became increasingly violent The struggle produced angry, bitter memories Yet it also produced some of the greatest words spoken in American history

MARTIN LUTHER KING: "When we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: 'Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty, we are free at last!'"

This program of THE MAKING OF A NATION was written by Jeri Watson and produced by Paul Thompson This is Rich Kleinfeldt And this is Richard Rael Join us again next week for another VOA Special English program about the history of the United States

The '60s Become a Time of Social Revolution and Unrest

Today, we tell about life in the United States during the 1960s

The 1960s began with the election of the first president born in the twentieth century John Kennedy For many Americans, the young president was the symbol of a spirit of hope for the nation When Kennedy was murdered in 1963, many felt that their hopes died, too This was especially true of young people, and members and supporters of minority groups

A time of innocence and hope soon began to look like a time of anger and violence More Americans protested to demand an end to the unfair treatment of black citizens More protested to demand an end to the war in Vietnam And more protested to demand full equality for women

By the middle of the 1960s, it had become almost impossible for President Lyndon Johnson to leave the White House without facing protesters against the war in Vietnam In March of 1968, he announced that he would not run for another term

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The unrest and violence affected many young Americans The effect seemed especially bad because of the time in which they had grown up By the middle 1950s, most of their parents had jobs that paid well They expressed satisfaction with their lives They taught their children what were called "middle class" values These included a belief in God, hard work, and service to their country

Later, many young Americans began to question these beliefs They felt that their parents' values were not enough to help them deal with the social and racial difficulties of the 1960s They rebelled by letting their hair grow long and by wearing strange clothes Their

dissatisfaction was strongly expressed in music

Rock-and-roll music had become very popular in America in the 1950s Some people, however, did not approve of it They thought it was too sexual These people disliked the rock-and-roll of the 1960s even more They found the words especially unpleasant

The musicians themselves thought the words were extremely important As singer and song writer Bob Dylan said, "There would be no music without the words," Bob Dylan produced many songs of social protest He wrote anti-war songs before the war in Vietnam became a violent issue One was called Blowin' in the Wind

In addition to songs of social protest, rock-and-roll music continued to be popular in America during the 1960s The most popular group, however, was not American It was British the Beatles four rock-and-roll musicians from Liverpool

That was the Beatles' song I Want to Hold Your Hand It went on sale in the United States at the end of 1963 Within five weeks, it was the biggest-selling record in America

Other songs, including some by the Beatles, sounded more revolutionary They spoke about drugs and sex, although not always openly "Do your own thing" became a common

expression It meant to whatever you wanted, without feeling guilty

Five hundred thousand young Americans "did their own thing" at the Woodstock music festival in 1969 They gathered at a farm in New York State They listened to musicians such as Jimi Hendrix and Joan Baez, and to groups such as The Who and Jefferson Airplane Woodstock became a symbol of the young peoples' rebellion against traditional values The young people themselves were called "hippies." Hippies believed there should be more love and personal freedom in America

In 1967, poet Allen Ginsberg helped lead a gathering of hippies in San Francisco No one knows exactly how many people considered themselves hippies But twenty thousand attended the gathering

Another leader of the event was Timothy Leary He was a former university professor and researcher Leary urged the crowd in San Francisco to "tune in and drop out" This meant they should use drugs and leave school or their job One drug that was used in the 1960s was lysergic acid diethylamide, or L-S-D L-S-D causes the brain to see strange, colorful images It also can cause brain damage Some people say the Beatles' song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was about L-S-D

As many Americans were listening to songs about drugs and sex, many others were watching television programs with traditional family values These included The Andy Griffith Show

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times These included Doctor Strangelove and The Graduate Others offered escape through spy adventures, like the James Bond films

Many Americans refused to tune in and drop out in the 1960s They took no part in the social revolution Instead, they continued leading normal lives of work, family, and home Others, the activists of American society, were busy fighting for peace, and racial and social justice Women's groups, for example, were seeking equality with men They wanted the same chances as men to get a good education and a good job They also demanded equal pay for equal work

A widely popular book on women in modern America was called The Feminine Mystique It was written by Betty Friedan and published in 1963 The idea known as the feminine

mystique was the traditional idea that women have only one part to play in society They are to have children and stay at home to raise them In her book, Mizz Friedan urged women to establish professional lives of their own

That same year, a committee was appointed to investigate the condition of women It was led by Eleanor Roosevelt She was a former first lady The committee's findings helped lead to new rules and laws The 1964 civil rights act guaranteed equal treatment for all groups This included women After the law went into effect, however, many activists said it was not being enforced The National Organization for Women NOW was started in an effort to correct the problem

The movement for women's equality was known as the women's liberation movement

Activists were called "women's libbers." They called each other "sisters." Early activists were usually rich, liberal, white women Later activists included women of all ages, women of color, rich and poor, educated and uneducated They acted together to win recognition for the work done by all women in America

This program of THE MAKING OF A NATION was written by Jeri Watson and produced by Paul Thompson This is Rich Kleinfeldt And this is Stan Busby Join us again next week for another VOA Special English program about the history of the United States

1968 in America: a Year of Social Unrest and a Presidential Election

This is Stan Busby And this is Rich Kleinfeldt with THE MAKING OF A NATION a VOA Special English program about the history of the United States

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President Lyndon Johnson had helped win major civil rights legislation Yet he had also greatly expanded American involvement in the war in Vietnam By early 1968, it was almost impossible for him to leave the White House without facing anti-war protesters Johnson wanted to run for another four-year term But his popularity kept dropping as the war continued He understood that he no longer had the support of a majority of the people In March, he announced that he would not be a candidate

One reason Johnson decided not to run was a senator from Minnesota, Eugene McCarthy McCarthy competed against Johnson in several primary elections The primaries are held months before a political party holds its presidential nominating convention Delegates to the convention often are required to vote for the candidate their party members chose in the primary Thousands of college students helped the McCarthy campaign before the primary election in New Hampshire They told voters all over the state that their candidate would try to end the war McCarthy received almost forty-two percent of the votes in New Hampshire Johnson received less than fifty percent For a president in office, the vote was an insult After McCarthy's success, Senator Robert Kennedy of New York decided to enter the

campaign, too He was a brother of president John Kennedy, who had been murdered in 1963 Robert Kennedy had served as Attorney General, the nation's highest legal officer, in his brother's administration Many people were pleased when Robert Kennedy announced his decision They liked his message He said: "I run to seek new policies to end the bloodshed in Vietnam and in our cities I seek to lessen the differences between black and white, between rich and poor, between young and old, in this country and around the world."

On April fourth, 1968, the nation's top civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, was shot to death in Memphis, Tennessee Robert Kennedy spoke about king's death to a crowd of black citizens

ROBERT KENNEDY: "What we need in the United States is not division What we need in the United States is not hatred What we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom And compassion toward one another And a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black."

No words, however, could calm the anger of America's black community Martin Luther King had led the civil rights movement with peaceful methods Yet his death led to violence in almost one hundred-thirty cities in America Soldiers were called to crush the riots Hundreds of people were killed or injured After the riots, another man decided to campaign for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party The new candidate was Vice President Hubert Humphrey Traditional Democrats supported him

The primary elections continued Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy tried to show how different they were Many voters, however, saw little difference between their positions on major issues Both men opposed the war in Vietnam Both sought social reforms Both sought improvement in civil rights in America Kennedy defeated McCarthy in primaries in Indiana and Nebraska McCarthy defeated Kennedy in Oregon The next big primary was in

California Kennedy said that if he did not win this important contest, he would withdraw He won

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was leaving the hotel, he was shot He died a few hours later The man who shot him was Sirhan Bishara Sirhan He was a Palestinian refugee He said he blamed Robert Kennedy for the problems of the Palestinians

The nation's two major political parties held their nominating conventions in the summer of 1968 The Republicans met first It was soon clear that Richard Nixon would control the convention Nixon had run for president in 1960 He lost to John Kennedy Eight years later, he won several primary elections He was a strong candidate to win the Republican

nomination again The other candidates were Ronald Reagan, governor of California, and Nelson Rockefeller, governor of New York On the first ballot, Nixon got more than two times as many votes as Rockefeller Reagan was far behind Most of the delegates then gave their support to Nixon, and he accepted the nomination The delegates chose the governor of Maryland, Spiro Agnew, to be their vice presidential candidate

The convention of the Democratic Party was very different from the convention of the Republicans The Democrats were the party in power Protests against the war in Vietnam were aimed at them Thousands of anti-war protesters gathered in the city of Chicago during the political convention The city's mayor, Richard Daley, had ordered the police to deal severely with all protesters Many of the young people were beaten Much later, the federal government ordered an investigation The report said that the riots in Chicago were a result of the actions of the police themselves

Inside the convention building, the delegates voted for their presidential candidate They did not choose the man who had done so well in the early primary elections, Eugene McCarthy Instead, they chose the more traditional candidate, Hubert Humphrey For their vice

presidential candidate, they chose Edmund Muskie, a senator from Maine

The two men running for president, Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey, supported

American involvement in Vietnam Yet during the campaign, both spoke about finding ways to end the conflict Both also spoke about finding ways to end social unrest in the United States Many voters saw little difference between the two candidates About six weeks before election day, public opinion studies showed that the contest was even

Nixon's major problem was his past He had made enemies during his early political life These people now tried to renew public fears about his record as a man who made fierce, unjust attacks on others Vice President Humphrey's major problem was that he was vice president He had to defend the administration's policies, even the unpopular ones If he said anything that was different, another member of the administration intervened

Once, for example, Humphrey said the United States would stop dropping bombs on north Vietnam But President Johnson did not act for a month He gave the order to stop only four days before the election Later, Humphrey said the delay harmed his campaign so badly that he could not recover from the damage

On Election Day, Richard Nixon won but not by much He received a little more than forty-three percent of the votes Hubert Humphrey received just a half a percent less Nixon was about to become president

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Nixon Promises to 'Bring the American People Together' After '68 Win

Today, we begin the story of America's thirty-seventh president, Richard Nixon

Richard Nixon was sworn-in as president in January 1969 It was a difficult time in the United States American forces, allied with the army of South Vietnam, were continuing to fight against the communist forces of North Vietnam

Thousands of soldiers and civilians were dying Yet the Americans and South Vietnamese were making little progress Critics of the war said they were making no progress at all At home, there were demonstrations against the war There were demonstrations against racial injustice Friends and families were in dispute as they took opposing positions on these issues Fighting the war also meant there was less government money to spend on social problems Former President Lyndon Johnson had proposed new legislation to help poor people and minorities In some cases, Congress approved less money than he had requested In other cases, lawmakers did not approve any money at all

Richard Nixon seemed well prepared to deal with the difficulties of being president He was known for his ability to fight, to lose, and to keep trying Nixon was born in California His family was poor When he was about ten years old, he harvested vegetables to help earn money for his family He earned the money he needed to go to college

Then he decided to study law He was among the top students in his class During World War Two, he served in the United States Navy in the Pacific battle area When he came home, he campaigned for and won a seat in the Congress

As a member of the House of Representatives, Nixon became known throughout the nation for his part in the Alger Hiss case Alger Hiss was a former official in the State Department He had been accused of helping provide secret information to the Soviet Union He denied the accusation

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Some Americans disliked Richard Nixon for the way he treated people during the

investigation They felt that some of his attacks were unjust Fear of communism was very strong at that time They thought he was using the situation to improve his political future The future did, in fact, bring him success

In 1950, he ran for the Senate He competed against Helen Gahagan Douglas He accused her of not recognizing the threat of Communism in America Nixon won the election In 1952, the Republican Party chose him as its candidate for vice president Dwight Eisenhower was the candidate for president

Eisenhower and Nixon won a huge victory over the candidates of the Democratic Party They won again in 1956

During his eight years as vice president, Nixon visited sixty countries He faced violent protesters during a visit to South America in 1958 He was praised for acting bravely under dangerous conditions

A year later, he visited the Soviet Union He and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev had a famous debate about world peace Nixon became very angry At one point, he said to Khrushchev: "You not know everything."

In 1960, Nixon accepted the Republican Party's nomination for president He had many years of political experience and had gained recognition as vice president Many people thought he would win the national election easily But he lost to the young John Kennedy

It was the closest presidential election in American history since 1884 After losing to Kennedy, Nixon moved back to California He worked as a lawyer In 1962, he ran for governor, and lost

It seemed that Nixon's political life was over He moved again, this time to New York City He worked as a lawyer But he made it clear that he would like to return to public life some day Many Republicans began to see Richard Nixon as the statesman they wanted in the White House

By then, President Johnson had decided not to run for re-election His Democratic Party was divided The Republicans believed they had a good chance to win the election of 1968

Nixon campaigned hard against the Democratic candidate, Hubert Humphrey Humphrey was vice president under President Johnson Throughout the campaign, he had to defend the policies of the Johnson administration

The policies on Vietnam had become very unpopular Some Americans felt the war should be expanded Many others demanded an immediate withdrawal

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Once in office, President Nixon proposed legislation to deal with problems at home He called his proposals the "New Federalism." One proposal was for revenue sharing Under this plan, the federal government would share tax money with state and local governments For three years, Congress blocked its passage In 1972, the revenue sharing plan was finally approved Lawmakers also approved legislation for some of President Nixon's other ideas One changed the way American men were called into military service

The new law said young men would now be called to serve by chance, with a lottery This was a big change Many people had criticized the earlier system They said it had taken too many poor men and too many men from minority groups These were the men who were fighting, and dying, in Vietnam

Congress also approved a change to the Constitution The amendment would permit younger people to vote It decreased the voting age from 21 years to 18 years Supporters of the amendment said that if citizens were old enough to fight and die in the nation's wars, they were old enough to vote in the nation's elections, too

The amendment became law when three-fourths of the states approved it in 1971

One of President Nixon's most important proposals was to build a system to defend against enemy missiles He said the system was needed to protect American missile bases The issue caused much debate Critics said it would add to the arms race with the Soviet Union

Congress approved the plan in August 1969

Nixon's first appointments to the nation's highest court also caused much debate He named two conservative judges from the southern United States to serve on the Supreme Court Congress rejected the nomination of the first one, Clement Haynsworth Lawmakers said his court decisions had been unfair to black Americans

Congress also rejected the nomination of the second one, G Harold Carswell Lawmakers said he was not prepared for the job

President Nixon faced these disappointments, and others Yet he still had moments of great celebration during his first term One came on July twentieth, 1969 On that day, he and millions of people around the world watched as two American astronauts became the first humans to land on the moon We will continue the story of Richard Nixon next week This program of THE MAKING OF A NATION was written by Jeri Watson This is Stan Busby And this is Rich Kleinfeldt Join us again next week for another VOA Special English program about the history of the United States

Vietnam War: Nixon Tries Secret Talks, but Also Invades Cambodia

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This is Rich Kleinfeldt And this is Doug Johnson with THE MAKING OF A NATION a VOA Special English program about the history of the United States

Today, we continue the story of the thirty-seventh president of the United States, Richard Nixon

It is 1969 in America Richard Nixon is in the first year of his first term in office His biggest foreign policy problem is the continuing war in Vietnam

During the election campaign, he had promised to something to end the war Some Americans believe the United States should withdraw from Vietnam immediately Bring the soldiers back home, they say

Others believe the United States should take whatever measures are necessary to win Expand the ground war, they say, or use nuclear weapons

The decision is not easy Withdrawing allied troops would leave South Vietnam alone to fight against communist North Vietnam And that was the reason the United States became

involved in the conflict It wanted to prevent the Communists from taking over the South Expanding the military effort would mean more deaths

Already, by 1969, more Americans had died in Vietnam than in the Korean War

For Richard Nixon, the war is a terrible test If he is not able to deal with it, his presidency could end like Lyndon Johnson's ended Johnson decided not to run for re-election after he lost public and political support for his war policies

How did the new president deal with the problem? Like Johnson, he made decisions based on information from his advisers His most important adviser was Henry Kissinger Kissinger was an expert on foreign relations He later served as Nixon's secretary of state

Together, they tried many ways to settle the conflict in Vietnam It took several years to end American involvement there

The American efforts were both diplomatic and military The Nixon administration started new, secret peace talks in Paris The official peace talks were taking place in Paris at the same time The administration withdrew some troops from Vietnam

Yet it sent other troops into Cambodia secretly And it began dropping bombs on Laos It also started dropping bombs on North Vietnam again Former president Johnson had stopped the bomb attacks a few years earlier

Efforts to end American involvement did not begin suddenly For his first eight months in office, President Nixon made no major policy changes Then, in October 1969, he ordered the withdrawal of sixty thousand troops

He said he acted to speed the peace talks He also ordered American commanders to give the South Vietnamese most of the responsibility for fighting

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in the autumn of 1969 On November fifteenth, several hundred thousand people protested in Washington, D.C

President Nixon tried to explain his policy to anti-war protesters A slow withdrawal of troops is not the easy way, he told them, but it is the right way He also continued his efforts for a military victory

In the spring of 1970, American and South Vietnamese troops invaded Cambodia They attacked Communist supply centers there Early the following year, the Nixon administration decided to provide air and artillery support for a South Vietnamese invasion of Laos The goal was to stop supplies from reaching North Vietnam through that country

The military action in Laos lasted forty-four days South Vietnamese forces destroyed many enemy weapons However, they also suffered many deaths and injuries And many American planes were shot down After six weeks, the South Vietnamese were forced to withdraw Many members of the United States Congress were angry They said the invasion of Laos was another in a long series of failures The Nixon administration had said that the United States was winning the war Opposition lawmakers said the administration was lying Criticism by the American public grew louder, too

President Nixon answered by saying again that the United States must not permit North Vietnam to take over South Vietnam Former president Johnson had said the same thing For a long time, many Americans accepted it As the war continued, however, public opinion changed

In 1965, sixty-one percent of those questioned approved the war By 1971, sixty-one percent did not approve

The official peace talks in Paris offered little hope of settlement Over a period of several years, each side made proposals Then each side rejected the proposals One American observer said: "As long as either side thinks it can win a military victory, there is no hope for official peace talks."

President Nixon wanted to ease public tension and anger over the war So he announced that Henry Kissinger had held twelve secret meetings with North Vietnamese officials But the secret meetings made no more progress than the official talks

In late March 1972, North Vietnam launched a major offensive In May, Nixon ordered increased bomb attacks against roads and railways in the North By the end of August, the communist offensive had been stopped Yet many lives had been lost The pressure to withdraw American forces grew stronger

For the next five months, the Nixon administration continued a policy of official talks, secret meetings, and increased military action Finally, the president announced that an agreement had been reached at the peace talks in Paris There would be a ceasefire And negotiators from the United States, South Vietnam, North Vietnam, and the Viet Cong would sign the official agreement

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RICHARD NIXON: "At twelve-thirty Paris time today, January 23, 1973, the agreement on ending the war and restoring peace in Vietnam was initialed by Doctor Henry Kissinger on behalf of the United States and special adviser Le Duc Tho on behalf of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam The agreement will be formally signed by the parties participating in the Paris conference on Vietnam on January 27, 1973, at the international conference center in Paris

"The United States and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam express the hope that this agreement will insure stable peace in Vietnam and contribute to the preservation of lasting peace in Indochina and Southeast Asia."

Another foreign policy problem during the Nixon administration was China The president had much greater success dealing with this problem than with Vietnam Communists took power in China in 1949 However, the United States did not recognize the Communist government Instead, it recognized the Nationalist government in Taiwan

In the early 1970s, the Nixon administration began trying to improve relations It eased restrictions on travel to China And it supported a visit to China by the United States table tennis team Then, President Nixon made a surprise announcement He, too, would visit China

The historic event took place in February, 1972 Chinese leaders Mao Zedong and Zhou En-lai greeted the American president Nixon and Zhou held talks that opened new possibilities for trade The next year, Nixon sent a representative to open a diplomatic office in Beijing After more than twenty years, the two countries were communicating again They established official relations in 1979

Many Americans expressed pleasure that tensions between the two countries had decreased Many were proud to see their president standing on the Great Wall of China

History experts would later agree that it was the greatest moment in the presidency of Richard Nixon

This program of THE MAKING OF A NATION was written by Jeri Watson and produced by Paul Thompson This is Rich Kleinfeldt And this is Doug Johnson Join us again next week for another VOA Special English program about the history of the United States

Watergate: How a Name, and a Failed Break-In, Became a Symbol of Political Corruption

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Richard Nixon's first term as president ended with hope for complete American withdrawal from the fighting in Vietnam Yet Americans still were very angry about the war and its effects on life at home Paying for it was difficult Inflation was high Unemployment was high, too Some political observers thought the president would not be elected to a second term Nixon, however, was sure the American people would support him

He did not campaign in the local primary elections before the Republican convention Instead, in the winter and spring of 1972, he visited China, Canada, Iran, Poland, and the Soviet Union

On June seventeenth, 1972, something happened in Washington, D.C It was a small incident But it would have a huge effect on the United States

Five men broke into a center of the National Committee of the Democratic Party The building was called the Watergate That name would become a symbol of political crime in the nation's highest office

At the time, the incident did not seem important Police caught the criminals Later, however, more was learned The men had carried papers that linked them to top officials in the

administration

The question was: Did President Nixon know what was going on? He told reporters he was not involved In time, though, the Watergate case would lead to a congressional investigation of the president

For a while, the political conventions of the summer of 1972 pushed the story of the Watergate break-in out of the major news of the day

The Democratic Party met and chose George McGovern as its candidate for president McGovern was a senator from the state of South Dakota The choice of the Republican Party was no surprise Delegates re-nominated Richard Nixon

McGovern attacked Nixon for his policies about Vietnam McGovern's anger made many voters see him as an extremist

Nixon won the election of 1972 by a huge popular vote He would not be able to complete his second term, however This was because Watergate would not go away

Early in 1973, reporters found the evidence that linked the Watergate break-in to officials in the White House The evidence also showed that the officials tried to use government agencies to hide the connection

Pressure grew for a complete investigation In April, President Nixon ordered the Justice Department to this A special prosecutor was named to lead the government's

investigation

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A federal judge ordered the president to surrender the tapes Lawyers for the president took the case to the nation's highest court The Supreme Court supported the decision of the lower court

After that, pressure increased for Nixon to cooperate In October, he offered to provide written versions of the most important parts of the tape recordings The special prosecutor rejected the offer So, Nixon ordered the head of the Justice Department to dismiss him The Attorney General refused to this, and resigned

President Nixon had another political problem, in addition to Watergate In late 1973, his vice president, Spiro Agnew, was forced to resign A court had found Agnew guilty of violating tax laws

President Nixon asked Gerald Ford to become the new vice president Ford was a long-time member of Congress from the state of Michigan

By that time, some members of Congress were talking about removing President Nixon from office This is possible under American law if Congress finds that a president has done something criminal Was Richard Nixon covering up important evidence in the case? Was he, in fact, guilty of wrongdoing?

In April 1974, Nixon surrendered some of his White House tape recordings However, three important discussions on the tapes were missing The Nixon administration explained The tape machine had failed to record two of the discussions, it said The third discussion had been destroyed accidentally Many Americans did not believe these explanations

Two months later, the Supreme Court ruled that a president can not hold back evidence in a criminal case It said there is no presidential right of privacy in such a case

A committee of the House of Representatives also reached an historic decision in July 1974 It proposed that the full House put the president on trial If Richard Nixon were found guilty of crimes involved in the Watergate case, he would be removed from office

Finally, Nixon surrendered the last of the documents They appeared to provide proof that the president had ordered evidence in the Watergate case to be covered up

The rights of citizens, as stated in the Constitution, are the basis of American democracy Every president promises to protect and defend these Constitutional rights During the congressional investigation of Watergate, lawmakers said that President Nixon had violated these rights

They said he planned to delay and block the investigation of the Watergate break-in and other unlawful activities They said he repeatedly misused government agencies in an effort to hide wrongdoing and to punish his critics And they said he refused repeated orders to surrender papers and other materials as part of the investigation

Richard Nixon's long struggle to remain in office was over He spoke to the nation on August eighth

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have a strong enough political base in the Congress to justify continuing that effort Therefore, I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow."

Never before had a president of the United States resigned And never before did the United States have a president who had not been elected Gerald Ford had been appointed to the office of vice president Now, he would replace Richard Nixon On August ninth, 1974, he was sworn-in as the nation's thirty-eighth president

Soon after becoming president, Gerald Ford made a surprise announcement He pardoned Richard Nixon Many Americans criticized Ford for doing this But he believed he had good reasons

Ford wanted to move ahead and deal with the other problems that faced the nation He did not want Watergate to go on and on The case did go on, however Several top officials in the Nixon administration were tried, found guilty, and sent to prison

The effects of the case went on, too Watergate influenced government policy and public opinion for years

For example, laws were passed to prevent an administration from using its power to punish opposition political groups Intelligence agencies were forced to provide Congress with more information about their activities And rules were approved to restrict the activities of public officials

The American public, and especially the press, felt the effects of Watergate Many citizens and reporters felt less able to believe their government As one writer said, "Never again will we trust our public officials in quite the same way."

Ford Leads Nation Through Difficult Days of Watergate

This is Mary Tillotson And this is Steve Ember with THE MAKING OF A NATION a VOA Special English program about the history of the United States

Today, we tell about the administration of the thirty-eighth president of the United States, Gerald Ford

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If he had not resigned, he probably would have been removed from office A Congressional investigation had found evidence that Nixon violated the Constitutional rights of the

American people during the Watergate case

The new president spoke about Watergate, and what it meant to America, on the day he was sworn-in

FORD: "Our long national nightmare is over Our Constitution works Our great republic is a government of laws and not of men Here the people rule As we bind up the internal wounds of Watergate more painful and more poisonous than those of foreign wars let us restore the 'Golden Rule' to our political process and let brotherly love purge our hearts of suspicion and of hate."

Gerald Ford became the only president in American history to serve as vice president and president without being elected

Richard Nixon nominated him for vice president in October, 1973 That was when Nixon's vice president, Spiro Agnew, resigned When Nixon himself resigned, Ford became president Ford was a long-time Congressman from the state of Michigan He was well-liked He had been a good student and a good athlete He studied economics and political science at the University of Michigan The he studied law at Yale University During World War Two, he served as a Navy officer in the Pacific battle area

After the war, Ford entered politics He was a member of the Republican Party He was first elected to Congress in 1948 He won re-election twelve times Other Republican members of the House of Representatives elected him minority leader during the presidential

administration of Democrat Lyndon Johnson

Ford was still minority leader when Republican Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968 In his leadership position, he helped win approval of a number of Nixon's proposals He became known for his strong loyalty to the president It was no surprise, then, that Nixon named Ford vice president

Gerald Ford became president suddenly Almost as suddenly, he had to decide what to about former President Nixon After Nixon left office, he could have been charged with crimes for his part in the Watergate case Instead, one month after Nixon resigned, President Ford settled the question He pardoned Nixon of any crimes for which he might have been responsible

The pardon made many Americans angry Some believed Nixon should have been put on trial They thought he might have answered more questions about Watergate if he had not been pardoned

The new president did what he thought was right He said he pardoned Nixon to end divisions in the country For a while, however, his action seemed to increase the divisions

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President Ford received much better public support when he asked Congress to control and limit the activities of the nation's intelligence agencies He hoped this would prevent future administrations from interfering with the Constitutional rights of citizens

Other problems also caused trouble for President Ford As vice president, he had described inflation as America's 'public enemy number one' He proposed several measures to fight it As president, he was forced to cancel some of these measures because there was an economic recession

During the recession, inflation decreased But fewer Americans had jobs Unemployment in 1975 was at its highest rate since the great economic depression of the 1930s

In foreign policy, Ford usually took the advice of Henry Kissinger Kissinger served as President Nixon's assistant for national security and as secretary of state He kept those jobs under President Ford

Kissinger won much praise for his service to Richard Nixon Yet he received much criticism, too He was accused of interfering with civil liberties in the name of national security And he was accused of supporting the overthrow of the leftist government of Salvador Allende in Chile

Still, President Ford was pleased that Kissinger would remain in the administration Even Kissinger's worst critics admitted that he was excellent negotiator

At the time Ford became president, America's situation in the world was generally hopeful Former President Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev had signed two agreements to limit the spread of nuclear weapons Also, relations with China were less tense than before However, American policy in parts of Southeast Asia had failed completely

American involvement in the Vietnam war officially ended the year before Ford became president But fighting continued between South Vietnam and communist forces from North Vietnam The peace agreement signed by the United States and North Vietnam in 1973 left South Vietnam to defend itself By 1975, it became clear that South Vietnamese forces were in danger of defeat

President Ford tried to prevent a total communist take-over of the south He asked Congress to approve seven hundred-million dollars in military aid for South Vietnam The American people, however, were tired of paying for the war Their representatives in Congress said no What happened in Vietnam was like a bad dream Communist forces moved into Saigon, capital of the south Ford ordered the rescue of American citizens and of Vietnamese who had supported American efforts Few who saw people trying to escape Saigon will ever forget the day

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The Ford administration also faced trouble in the Middle East Israel and an alliance of Arab nations had fought two wars in about ten years After the war of 1973, Henry Kissinger led negotiations to settle some issues

Israel agreed to give up some of the territory it had seized during the fighting In return, the United States made a promise It would not recognize or deal with the Palestine Liberation Organization as long as the P-L-O failed to meet certain conditions In September, 1975, Israel and Egypt signed a ceasefire agreement They also agreed to permit American civilians to act as observers along the ceasefire lines

Henry Kissinger received widespread praise for his peacemaking efforts Yet the situation in the Middle East remained tense

The Ford administration could not fix all the problems of the world Still, as the presidential election campaign of 1976 began, things seemed better The United States was not fighting any wars Unemployment was high But inflation had improved a little Most important, Gerald Ford had led the country through the difficult days after Watergate

The election will be our story next time

This program of THE MAKING OF A NATION was written by Jeri Watson and produced by Cynthia Kirk This is Mary Tillotson And this is Steve Ember Join us again next week for another VOA Special English program about the history of the United States

-Editor's Note: Gerald Ford died December 26, 2006, at his home in Rancho Mirage, California, at the age of 93

Jimmy Carter Wins the 1976 Presidential Election

This is Rich Kleinfeldt And this is Richard Rael with THE MAKING OF A NATION a VOA Special English program about the history of the United States

Today, we tell about the presidential election of 1976

When Vice President Gerald Ford became president in 1974, he took office during a crisis For the first time in American history, a president Richard Nixon had resigned

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After Vietnam and Watergate, many Americans no longer believed their public officials At this difficult time, Gerald Ford dealt with the public calmly In one speech, for example, he said, "The state of the Union is not good."

One political observer said President Ford brought respect back to the government Yet just a little more than two years after Ford became president, American voters rejected him In the presidential election of 1976, they chose the Democratic candidate, Jimmy Carter, instead Why?

One reason was that Ford had pardoned Nixon He announced a presidential pardon for any crimes for which Nixon might have been responsible This made many people angry Another reason was that Ford refused to give federal money to New York and other cities with special needs Many voters felt this showed that he was not concerned about poor people and their problems

Others believe that unemployment and inflation defeated Gerald Ford He was not able to deal effectively with these problems during his short presidency

For these reasons, there was competition for the Republican Party nomination in 1976 Ford's chief opponent was Ronald Reagan, governor of California

The Democratic Party thought that voter anger about Watergate would help the Democratic candidate become president Eleven Democrats campaigned for the nomination Two well-known politicians did not campaign But they said they would serve if no other candidate won the party's support They were former Vice President Hubert Humphrey and Senator Edward Kennedy

One of the lesser-known candidates was the former governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter Political experts gave him little chance of winning the nomination, because most Democrats did not know him Whenever his supporters talked about him, others always seemed to say, "Jimmy, who?"

Carter used this problem to help win more recognition Whenever he met voters, he would say, "Hello! I am Jimmy Carter, and I am running for president."

People liked Jimmy Carter Before becoming governor of Georgia, he had been a nuclear engineer and a peanut farmer Again and again, he told people that he was not part of the established political power system in Washington He also had strong religious beliefs This appealed to a lot of Americans

Many voters supported Carter in the local Democratic primary elections before the party's nominating convention His victory in the Florida primary was especially important He defeated another southern politician, Governor George Wallace of Alabama

Carter represented what was called the "New South" in the United States He made it clear that he opposed ideas of the "Old South" These included racial separation and mistreatment of black Americans

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The Republican primaries had mixed results for President Ford In New Hampshire, he won only fifty-one percent of the vote Ronald Reagan won forty-nine percent It was a poor showing for a president in office But in Massachusetts he got two votes for every one vote that Reagan got

Reporters said Ford and Reagan debated about issues that were not very important or

interesting The campaign did show, however, that Reagan was more conservative than Ford For example, Reagan talked strongly about United States control of the Panama Canal "We built it," he said "We paid for it And we are going to keep it." In his campaign speeches, Ford denounced extremism It was clear he was speaking about Reagan

Ford and Reagan won almost the same amount of support in the Republican primaries Yet many convention delegates remained undecided This was a dangerous situation for the Republican Party Party leaders did not want a fight over undecided votes at the nominating convention Such disunity could damage the chances of the party's candidate against the Democratic candidate in the general election

The situation was similar in the Democratic Party As support for Jimmy Carter increased, Democrats who did not like him began to say, "Anybody but Carter." But Carter was not to be stopped He kept repeating that he did not have ties to groups that tried to influence

government policies He would be different, he said And that sounded like what the people wanted

Carter won the Democratic primaries in Georgia, Alabama, and Indiana The other candidates fell hopelessly behind

At the party convention, he was nominated on the first vote In his acceptance speech, he repeated the line he had made famous: "I am Jimmy Carter And I am running for president." Carter said there was a fear that America's best years were over He said the nation's best was still to come

The Democratic convention chose Walter Mondale, a senator from Minnesota, to be the party's vice presidential candidate

A month before the Republican Party convention, Ronald Reagan made a costly political mistake He said that if he won the nomination he would want Senator Richard Schweiker of Pennsylvania to be the vice presidential candidate

Conservatives were angry, because Schweiker was a liberal Republican Some political observers say this is why Reagan lost the nomination to President Ford Ford won by one hundred-seventeen votes

Many of the delegates then wanted Reagan to be the party's vice presidential candidate But Reagan was not interested Instead, the nomination went to Senator Robert Dole of Kansas The general campaign started in September 1976 In one speech, President Ford said, "The question in this campaign is not who has the better vision of America The question is who will act to make the vision a reality."

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Ford and Carter agreed to debate each other on television Nobody had done that since Nineteen-Sixty, when Richard Nixon and John Kennedy held several television debates Many people thought Ford did a little better than Carter in the first debate In the second debate, however, President Ford made a mistake He said the Soviet Union did not control eastern Europe and never would in a Ford administration For some voters, the statement added to their belief that President Ford was not very intelligent

The third debate did not have a clear winner Public opinion studies showed that many voters were still undecided

The race for the presidency was very close Jimmy Carter won with fifty-one percent of the popular vote President Ford won forty-eight percent

Two years before, most Americans had not known Jimmy Carter's name Now, many of those same people had elected him the thirty-ninth president of the United States

This program of THE MAKING OF A NATION was written by Jeri Watson and produced by Paul Thompson This is Richard Rael And this is Rich Kleinfeldt Join us again next week for another VOA Special English program about the history of the United States

Fuel Prices, Iran Hostage Crisis Weigh on Carter

Today, we tell about the administration of the thirty-ninth president of the United States, Jimmy Carter

It is January 20, 1977 Inauguration Day America's newly elected president, Jimmy Carter, is on his way to the White House after his swearing-in ceremony at the Capitol building

But the new president is not riding in a car He is walking His wife, Rosalynn, and his daughter, Amy, walk with him Crowds along Pennsylvania Avenue cheer Bands play On this cold day in Washington, Americans look to the future Watergate the crisis that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon is several years in the past The Vietnam War is history, too

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The nation still has problems Unemployment is high So is inflation But the future of the nation looks bright Jimmy Carter feels sure about his future, too On the day before his inauguration, he said:

CARTER: "I feel that the people of this nation and, I think, the entire world wish me well and want to see me succeed as president And that gives me a sense of reassurance and confidence I think I'm ready now to be president."

During the election campaign, Carter often said he would be different from other presidents He was not a member of the Washington political establishment So he would things in his own independent way

Carter was from Georgia the "Deep South" of the United States There had not been a president born in the South in more than one-hundred years Carter studied nuclear

engineering and attended the United States Naval Academy He planned to stay in the Navy Then his father died And he decided to return to Georgia to operate the family peanut farm Carter began his political life on the committee that supervised schools in his hometown He also served in other local offices In 1966, he failed to win the Democratic nomination for governor of Georgia For the next four years, he traveled around the state gathering support He won the next election

As governor, Carter earned praise for reorganizing the state government He also reformed state programs dealing with prisons and mental health care In 1972, he offered himself as a candidate for vice president with presidential candidate George McGovern But the

Democratic Party chose someone else

Carter did not wait long to begin his next political move He would try to win the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976

Jimmy Carter was not well-known outside the state of Georgia Political experts gave him little chance Even his mother was surprised to learn that he wanted to be president "President of what?" she asked

The farmer and former governor had a plan, however He would try to win his party's primary elections in the South He believed this would give him enough support at the party

convention to win the nomination

Other Democratic candidates tried to stop him, but his plan worked By the time of the convention, he had enough support to win the nomination on the first ballot

In the general election, Carter defeated President Ford by about two percent of the popular vote He lost in the West and Middle West, but won the South and Northeast

President Carter believed strongly in human rights He hoped he could use his new position to support human rights throughout the world On this and other issues, he was not afraid of being criticized when he believed he was right

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it was right to continue negotiations with the Soviet Union about limiting nuclear weapons, even though he denounced human rights violations there

In 1979, Carter and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev signed the SALT Two treaty However, Carter decided not to send the treaty to the Senate for approval after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan later that year

One of the finest moments of his presidency took place at Camp David That is the holiday home of American presidents There, in March 1979, President Anwar Sadat of Egypt met with Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel They signed a peace treaty ending thirty years of war between their countries Both men said the treaty would not have been possible without President Carter's help

President Carter was not as successful in dealing with the economy High unemployment and inflation continued The federal deficit increased, although he had promised to end it And there was a shortage of gasoline

The shortage resulted when oil-producing countries limited production and exports Carter urged American companies to develop new sources of energy, in addition to oil He said the United States must this, because it could not always depend on getting enough oil from other countries

During the gasoline shortage, Americans had to wait in long lines to buy fuel They did not like it and were angry Many were even more angry about a different situation Like the gasoline shortage, it was a result of actions in another place

In November 1979, Muslim extremists in Iran seized the American Embassy in Tehran They took many hostages, including more than sixty Americans The extremists said they were punishing the United States for being friendly with ousted Iranian leader, Shah Reza Pahlavi The extremists refused to negotiate They refused to release the hostages In early April 1980, President Carter broke relations with Iran He then ordered American military forces to try to rescue the hostages in Tehran The operation failed A sandstorm caused two of the aircraft to crash into each other They went down in the desert hundreds of kilometers away

The failed rescue attempt had a major effect on the presidency of Jimmy Carter Many Americans felt it showed that he could not the job Their respect for him continued to decrease as the hostages continued to be held

Other things were beginning to go wrong, too The president's younger brother admitted receiving a large amount of money from Libya He took the money in exchange for

supporting Libyan interests with American lawmakers His mistake was that he did not list his name as a representative of a foreign government

Nineteen eighty was a presidential election year in the United States President Carter was expected to be the candidate of the Democratic Party He almost ruined his chances, however, because of the situation in Iran Carter hoped that concern for the hostages would unite the country behind him Instead, support turned to blame

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enough The party re-nominated Carter Kennedy offered Carter his support, but not very strongly This left the party divided

The Republicans got ready to win back the White House They hoped to it with a strong appeal to American voters The appeal came from a man who would become one of America's most popular presidents Ronald Reagan

That will be our story next time

Election of 1980 Launches the 'Reagan Revolution'

This is Rich Kleinfeldt And this is Doug Johnson with THE MAKING OF A NATION a VOA Special English program about the history of the United States

Today, we tell about the campaign for president in 1980 and the election of President Ronald Reagan

The president of the United States in 1980 was Jimmy Carter, a Democrat The months before Election Day were difficult for him Many Americans blamed Carter for high inflation, high unemployment, and the low value of the United States dollar Many blamed him for not gaining the release of American hostages in Iran

About a year earlier, Muslim extremists had taken the Americans prisoner after seizing the United States embassy in Tehran President Carter asked all Americans to support his administration during the crisis

As months went by, however, he made no progress in bringing the hostages home The Iranians rejected negotiations for their release Sometimes, they did not communicate with the Carter administration at all The president appeared powerless

Carter's political weakness led another Democrat to compete for the party's presidential nomination It was Edward Kennedy, brother of former President John Kennedy He was a powerful senator from Massachusetts

Carter was re-nominated So was his vice president, Walter Mondale Kennedy did not support them very strongly So the Democratic Party was divided for the general election The Republican Party, however, was united behind a strong candidate That was Ronald Reagan, a former actor and former governor of California Reagan's vice presidential candidate was George Bush Bush had served in Congress and as head of the Central

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The troubles of the Carter administration caused many Americans to feel that their country was no longer strong Ronald Reagan promised to make it strong again

Several weeks before the election, Carter and Reagan debated each other on television Some observers said Carter seemed angry and defensive They said Reagan seemed calm and thoughtful On Election Day, voters gave Reagan a huge victory He won by more than eight million popular votes Republicans called it the "Reagan Revolution."

On Inauguration Day, the new president spoke about the goals of his administration A major goal was to reduce the size of the federal government Reagan and other conservatives

believed that the nation's economy was suffering because of high taxes and unnecessary laws In this crisis, he said, government was not the solution to the problem, government was the problem

He urged Americans to join him in what he called a "new beginning." And he expressed hope that the people would work with him

REAGAN: "The economic ills we suffer have come upon us over several decades They will not go away in days, weeks, or months But they will go away They will go away because we as Americans have the capacity now as we have had in the past to whatever needs to be done to preserve this last and greatest bastion of freedom."

Ronald Reagan was born in 1911, in the little town of Tampico, Illinois He was a good student and a good athlete During the summer, he worked as a lifeguard at a local swimming area One summer, he saved the lives of twenty-seven people

He studied economics and sociology at Eureka College, a small school in Illinois At the college, he saw a theater production When it was over, he said, "More than anything in the world, I wanted to speak the actor's words."

Reagan did not have enough money to go to New York or Hollywood to be an actor Instead, he tried to get a job as a sports announcer on radio To show his abilities, he made a recording of an American football game in which he announced all the plays There really was no game, however He had invented all the action

A radio station in the small city of Davenport, Iowa, was pleased with his creativity He got the job

Later, he worked at a radio station in Des Moines, Iowa And then he moved to the big city of Chicago, Illinois There he announced the action of baseball games

When the team went to California to play, Reagan went, too This gave him a chance to take a screen test to become a movie actor The Warner Brothers Motion Pictures company liked the friendly, handsome young man and offered him a job

Before long, Ronald Reagan was a Hollywood star He appeared in many movies These included "The Knute Rockne Story," "Bedtime for Bonzo," and "King's Row." They were not the very best motion pictures made in Hollywood, but they were popular During one movie, he met actress Nancy Davis They married after he was divorced from his first wife

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actors He was noted for his opposition to anyone in the movie industry who supported communism

By the early 1950s, Reagan had stopped appearing in movies Instead, he appeared on television He made advertisements and also presented a series of dramatic shows By 1960, he was making speeches for conservative Republican candidates In 1966, he became a candidate himself He ran for governor of California The Democrats did not think he was a serious candidate They told jokes about some of his movies They made a mistake When the voting was over, Reagan had won by almost one million votes

As governor, Reagan was praised for reducing the state's huge debt However, he was

criticized for raising taxes He also was criticized for his severe policies for controlling unrest at the state's colleges Yet, he won re-election in 1970

Reagan campaigned for the Republican nomination for president in 1976 He almost defeated President Gerald Ford for the nomination One of the party's older senators spoke with

Reagan after the convention He said, "Son, you will be president some day This just was not your year." Four years later, with President Jimmy Carter in trouble, Reagan's day had

arrived

Ronald Reagan was sworn-in as America's 40th president on January 20, 1981 For many Americans, the day turned out even happier than expected Iran finally announced that it would free the hostages in Tehran

One of President Reagan's earliest proposals made many Americans happy, too He began to work to get Congress to reduce taxes He also began a weekly series of radio broadcasts In these programs, he commented on developments in American life and political policy The broadcasts were similar to those made by President Franklin Roosevelt during the 1930s Some people started to call Reagan "The Great Communicator."

Two months after Reagan took office, something unexpected and terrible happened The president was leaving a meeting at a hotel in Washington A gunman began to fire A man guarding the president fell to the ground So did the president's press assistant Both were seriously wounded

Other guards quickly helped Reagan into his car At first, observers did not think the president had been hit But he had There was a bullet in his left lung, close to his heart Doctors

removed the bullet Reagan fought courageously to get well and he did We will continue the story of President Ronald Reagan next week

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President Reagan's Main Goal was to

Shrink Government But Budget Deficits Created a Huge National Debt.

This is Rich Kleinfeldt And this is Warren Scheer with THE MAKING OF A NATION a VOA Special English program about the history of the United States

Today, we continue the story of America's fortieth president, Ronald Reagan

Soon after Ronald Reagan's presidency began, there was an attempt on his life A gunman shot him in March, 1981 Doctors removed the bullet He rested, regained his strength, and returned to the White House in twelve days

The new president's main goal was to reduce the size of the federal government He and other conservative Republicans wanted less government interference in the daily lives of

Americans

President Reagan won Congressional approval for his plan to reduce taxes on earnings Many Americans welcomed the plan Others were concerned about its affect on the national debt They saw taxes go down while defense spending went up

To save money, the Reagan administration decided to cut spending for some social programs This pleased conservatives Liberals, however, said it limited poor peoples' chances for good housing, health care, and education

President Reagan also had to make decisions about using military force in other countries In 1983, he sent Marines to Lebanon They joined other peacekeeping troops to help stop fighting among several opposing groups On October 23rd, a Muslim extremist exploded a bomb in the building where the Marines were living Two-hundred forty-one Americans died Two days later, Marines led an invasion of the Caribbean island nation of Grenada

Communist forces were rebelling against the government there Cuban soldiers were guarding the streets President Reagan said he feared for the safety of American students at Grenada's medical school He sent the Marines to get them out safely The Marines quickly defeated the communist forces Many Americans were pleased Others were angry They said Grenada was invaded only to make people forget about what happened in Lebanon

The next year, Nineteen-Eighty-Four, was another presidential election year It looked like no one could stop President Reagan His warm way with people had made him hugely popular He gained support with the military victory in Grenada And, by the time the campaign started, inflation was under control The Republican Party re-nominated Ronald Reagan for president and George Bush for vice president

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The candidate who finally won the nomination was Walter Mondale He had been a senator and had served as vice president under President Jimmy Carter The vice presidential

candidate was Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro It was the first time a major political party in the United States had nominated a woman for national office

One of the big issues in the campaign was taxes Most candidates try not to talk about them Democrat Mondale did He said taxes would have to be raised to pay for new government programs This was a serious political mistake President Reagan gained even more support as a result

The two candidates agreed to debate on television During one debate, President Reagan looked old and tired He did not seem sure of his answers Yet his popularity was not damaged On Election Day, he won fifty-nine percent of the popular vote On Inauguration Day, the weather was not so kind It was bitterly cold in Washington All inaugural activities, including the swearing-in ceremony, were held inside

President Reagan's first term began with an attempt on his life Six months after his second term began, he faced another threat Doctors discovered and removed a large growth from his colon The growth was cancerous The president was seventy-four years old Yet, once again, he quickly regained his strength and returned to work

For years, the United States had accused Libyan leader Muammar Kaddafi of supporting international terrorist groups It said he provided them with weapons and a safe place for their headquarters

In January, Nineteen-Eighty-Six, the United States announced economic restrictions against Libya Then it began military training exercises near the Libyan coast Libya said the Americans were violating its territory and fired missiles at them The Americans fired back, sinking two ships

On April Fifth, a bomb destroyed a public dance club in West Berlin Two people died, including an American soldier The United States said Libya was responsible President Reagan ordered bomb attacks against the Libyan cities of Tripoli and Benghazi Muammar Kaddafi escaped unharmed But one of his children was killed

Some Americans said the raid was cruel Others praised it President Reagan said the United States did what it had to

The president also wanted to intervene in Nicaragua About 15,000 rebel troops, called Contras, were fighting the communist government there Reagan asked for military aid for the Contras Congress rejected the request It banned all aid to the Contras

At that same time, Muslim terrorists in Lebanon seized several Americans The Reagan administration looked for ways to gain the hostages' release It decided to sell missiles and missile parts to Iran in exchange for Iran's help After the sale, Iran told the terrorists in Lebanon to release a few American hostages

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President Reagan said he regretted what had happened But he said he had not known about it Investigations and court trials of those involved continued into the Nineteen-Nineties Several people were found guilty of illegal activities and of lying to Congress No one went to jail Most Americans did not blame President Reagan for the actions of others in his

administration They still supported him and his policies They especially supported his efforts to deal with the Soviet Union

At the beginning of his first term, President Reagan called the Soviet Union an "evil empire" To protect the United States against the Soviets, he increased military spending to the highest level in American history Then, in Nineteen-Eighty-Five, Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union

The two leaders met in Switzerland, in Iceland, in Washington, and in Moscow Each agreed to destroy hundreds of nuclear missiles President Reagan also urged Mr Gorbachev to become more democratic He spoke about the wall that communists had built to divide the city of Berlin, Germany

RONALD REAGAN:

"No American who sees first-hand can ever again take for granted his or her freedom or the precious gift that is America That gift of freedom is actually the birthright of all humanity And that is why, as I stood there, I urged the Soviet leader, Mr Gorbachev, to send a new signal of openness to the world by tearing down that wall."

Ronald Reagan was president as the American economy grew rapidly He was president as a new sense of openness was beginning in the Soviet Union Yet, at the end of his presidency, many Americans were concerned by what he left behind Increased military spending,

together with tax cuts, had made the national debt huge The United States owed thousands of millions of dollars The debt would be a political issue for presidents to come

On our next program, we will discuss some social and cultural issues of the Reagan years This program of THE MAKING OF A NATION was written by Jeri Watson and produced by Paul Thompson This is Warren Scheer And this is Rich Kleinfeldt Join us again next week for another VOA Special English program about the history of the United States

1970s and '80s Were a Period of Change in American Society

This is Rich Kleinfeldt And this is Ray Freeman with THE MAKING OF A NATION a VOA Special English program about the history of the United States Today, we tell the story about some social and cultural issues of the 1970s and 1980s

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Clearly, his answer was far too simple Still, many observers would agree that great numbers of Americans in the 1980s were concerned with money These people wanted the good life that they believed money could buy

In some ways, the 1980s were the opposite of the 1960s

The 1960s were years of protest and reform Young Americans demonstrated against the Vietnam War African Americans demonstrated for civil rights Women demonstrated for equal treatment For many, society's hero was the person who helped others

For many in the 1980s, society's hero was the person who helped himself Success seemed to be measured only by how much money a person made

The period of change came during the 1970s For a while, these years remained tied to the social experiments and struggles of the 1960s Then they showed signs of what American would be like in the 1980s There were a number of reasons for the change

One reason was that the United States ended its military involvement in Vietnam Another was that the civil rights movement and women's movements reached many of their goals A third reason was the economy During the 1970s, the United States suffered an economic recession Interest rates and inflation were high There was a shortage of imported oil As the 1970s moved toward the 1980s, Americans became tired of social struggle They became tired of losing money They had been working together for common interests Now, many wanted to spend more time on their own personal interests

This change appeared in many parts of American society It affected popular culture, education, and politics

For example, one of the most popular television programs of that time was about serious social issues It was called "All in the Family" It was about a factory worker who hates black people and opposes equal rights for women His family slowly helps him to accept and value different kinds of people

Other television programs, however, were beginning to present an escape from serious issues These included "Happy Days" and "Three's Company."

Music showed the change, too In the 1960s, folk music was very popular Many folk songs were about social problems In the 1970s, groups played hard rock and punk music, instead Self-help books were another sign that Americans were becoming more concerned about their own lives These books described ways to make people happier with themselves One of the most popular was called I'm Okay, You're Okay It was published in 1969 It led the way for many similar books throughout the 1970s

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By the middle 1970s, however, more young people decided it was acceptable to make a lot of money Higher education was a way to get the skills to this Law schools and medical schools soon had long lists of students waiting to get in

Politically, the United States went through several changes during the 1970s There were liberal Democratic administrations for most of the 1960s Then a conservative Republican, Richard Nixon, was elected During his second term, President Nixon was forced to resign because of the Watergate case

Vice President Gerald Ford became president after Nixon's resignation About two years later, he was defeated by Democrat Jimmy Carter The election showed that Americans were angry with the Republican Party because of the Watergate case But they soon became unhappy with President Carter, too They blamed him for failing to improve the economy He lost his campaign for re-election to conservative Republican Ronald Reagan

The 1980s were called the Reagan years, because he was president for eight of them During his first term, the recession ended Inflation was controlled He reduced taxes Americans felt hopeful that they could make money again

Observers created several expressions to describe some groups of people at that time One expression was "the 'me' generation" This described Americans who were only concerned about themselves Another expression was "yuppie" It meant "young urban professional" Both these groups seemed as if they lived just to make and spend money, money, and more money

Entertainment in the 1980s showed the interest society placed on financial success The characters in a number of television programs, for example, lived in costly homes, wore costly clothes, and drove costly automobiles They were not at all like average Americans They lived lives that required huge amounts of money

Two of these television programs became extremely popular in the United States and in other countries They were called "Dallas" and "Dynasty"

At the movie theater, a very popular film was called "Wall Street" It was about a young, wealthy, dishonest powerful man who traded on the New York Stock Exchange Power was a popular program idea in action films, too The most successful action films were about a man called "Rambo" Rambo was impossibly heroic Naturally, he always won The films showed good winning over evil But Rambo rejected established rules and was extremely violent

Another form of entertainment became popular in the 1980s It was the television talk show People appeared on these shows mostly to talk about themselves: their politics, their families, their sexual relations They talked in public about things that were once considered private Much of the popular music of the time also showed this new openness Heavy metal rock groups sang about sex and drugs And then there was the new form of music called "rap" In this form, words are spoken, not sung, over a heavy beat Many Americans found all these kinds of music to be too shocking, too violent, too lawless, and too damaging to the human spirit

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and drugs became deadly A new disease appeared at that time It was called AIDS, Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome The disease spread in several ways One was through sexual relations Another was through sharing the needles used to take illegal drugs

A big change in American life during the 1980s came as a result of the computer Computers were invented forty years earlier They were large machines and were used only at

universities, big companies, and in the military

By the 1980s, computers had become much smaller Anyone could learn how to use them, even children Millions of Americans soon had a 'personal' computer in their home They could use it to read newspaper stories, buy things, schoolwork, and play games

Such technological improvement and a bright economy filled Americans of the early and middle 1980s with hope Many felt there were almost no limits on the good life they could lead

This program of THE MAKING OF A NATION was written by Jeri Watson and produced by Paul Thompson This is Rich Kleinfeldt And this is Ray Freeman Join us again next week for another V-O-A Special English program about the history of the United States

George Herbert Walker Bush Is Elected President in 1988

This is Rich Kleinfeldt And this is Tony Riggs with THE MAKING OF A NATION a VOA Special English program about the history of the United States

Today, we tell the story about the presidential election of 1988

America's fortieth president, Ronald Reagan, was one of the most popular During his eight years in office, many Americans did well financially Many felt more secure about the future of the nation and the world The threat of nuclear war did not seem so strong or frightening American law does not permit presidents to serve more than two terms So, in 1988, the country prepared to elect a new one

There were three main candidates for the Republican Party nomination They were George Bush, Robert Dole, and Pat Robertson Bush had just served eight years as vice-president Dole was the top Republican in the Senate Robertson was a very conservative Christian who had a nation-wide television program

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convention The delegates accepted his choice for vice president, Senator Dan Quayle of Indiana

Eight candidates competed for the Democratic Party's nomination One was Michael Dukakis He was governor of Massachusetts Another was Jesse Jackson He was a Protestant

clergyman and a long-time human rights activist He had competed for the nomination four years earlier

In 1988, Jesse Jackson received about twenty-five percent of the votes in local primary elections But he did not win his party's nomination Delegates at the convention chose Governor Dukakis, instead For vice president, they chose Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas For a time after the party conventions, public opinion studies showed that a majority of Americans would vote for Dukakis Then, however, Dukakis began to lose popularity Political observers said he campaigned too long in his home area before starting the national campaign

Dukakis also suffered from criticism from George Bush Bush attacked his record as governor He said Dukakis had not been severe enough with criminals He said Dukakis would weaken America’s military power and he accused Dukakis of not protecting the environment

Governor Dukakis made charges of his own He accused Bush of not telling the truth about his part in what was called the Iran-Contra case He said Bush knew that the government had sold weapons to Iran in exchange for Iran's support in winning the release of American hostages in Lebanon And he said Bush knew that the money received for the weapons was being used illegally to aid Contra rebels in Nicaragua He also criticized Bush for being part of an administration that reduced social services to poor people and old people

Television played a large part in the campaign of 1988 Each candidate made a number of short television films Some of these political advertisements were strong, bitter attacks on the other candidate Sometimes it seemed the candidates spent as much time on negative

campaign advertisements as they did on advertisements that made themselves look good In the end, Bush's campaign was more effective He succeeded in making Dukakis look weak on crime and military issues He succeeded in making himself look stronger and more

decisive

On Election Day in November, Bush defeated Dukakis by almost seven million popular votes George Bush was sworn-in on January twentieth, 1989 In his inaugural speech he said: BUSH: "No president, no government can teach us to remember what is best in what we are But if the man you have chosen to lead this government can help make a difference, if he can celebrate the quieter, deeper successes that are made not of gold and silk, but of better hearts and finer souls if he can these things, then he must We as a people have such a purpose today It is to make kinder the face of the nation and gentler the face of the world My friends, we have work to do."

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When America entered World War Two, George decided to join the Navy He became a pilot of bomber planes He was just 18 years old at that time the youngest pilot the Navy ever had He fought against the Japanese in the Pacific battle area He completed many dangerous bombing raids He was shot down once and was rescued by an American submarine

George came home from the war as a hero He became a university student and got married He and his wife, Barbara, then moved to Texas where he worked in the oil business He ran for the United States Senate in 1964, and lost Two years later, he was elected to the House of Representatives

He ran for the Senate again in 1970, and lost again But by that time, he had gained

recognition Over the next eight years, he was appointed to a series of government positions He was ambassador to the United Nations He was chairman of the Republican National Committee He was America's representative in China before the two countries had diplomatic relations And he was head of the Central Intelligence Agency

In 1980, Bush competed against Ronald Reagan for the Republican nomination for president He lost But the party chose him to be its vice presidential candidate Bush gained more power in the position than many earlier vice presidents After two terms, he felt ready to lead the nation

The new president took seven foreign trips during his first year in office Observers said his visit to Europe in the spring was especially successful President Bush met with the leaders of the other countries in NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization He proposed a major agreement on reducing troops and non-nuclear weapons in Europe The Soviet Union called this proposal a serious and important step in the right direction

In June, the government of China crushed pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing

President Bush ordered some restrictions against China to protest the situation Many critics, however, felt that this action was not strong enough

Unlike in China, communist governments in central and eastern Europe were not able to prevent the coming of democracy Since 1987, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had permitted members of the Warsaw Alliance to experiment with political and economic reforms Reforms were not enough, however One after the other, these countries rejected communism Communist governments were removed from office in Bulgaria,

Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Romania

In the middle of the summer, President Bush visited Hungary and Poland Both nations were trying to reform their economies Both were suffering from severe problems as they changed from a centrally controlled economy to an economy controlled by free market forces

President Bush promised America's advice and financial help For almost 50 years, the United States had led the struggle against communism around the world Now, many of its former enemies needed help

In the autumn of 1989, there was a dramatic expression of the changes taking place in the world

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All over the world, people renewed their hopes and dreams of living in peace And former enemies looked to the United States to lead the way

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