Turning points often produced a combination of economic, social, cultural and political transformations. The assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 was a moment that left a lasting impression on many Americans. Body The assassination of President John F. Kennedy (JFK) is an actual turning point and not just another event, as it is one of the most widely studied, controversial events in the United States (U.S.) history. Kennedy had plans to limit the powers of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and possibly disengage from Vietnam. Many U. S. citizens believed that powerful forces within the government committed the crime and then covered it up.
In January 1973 the seven indicted men were tried before the U.S. District court in Washington, D.C. Five had plead guilty and two were convicted of illegal wiretapping, burglary, and conspiracy. American’s began to notice the possibility of the break-in being a part of a program of espionage which caused the U.S. Senate to conduct an investigation. When the senate had discovered that Nixon had been recording all phone conversations that were held in the oval office, there was no longer a way to cover up the scandal which had occurred. When the people have an administration under a President accused of being part of a cover-up of criminal activity, it shakes their faith in government and leads to a questioning of the morals of their leaders. (Leanne Belair, 2007) On August 8, 1974 Nixon had resigned as president of the United States to avoid being the first president being convicted in a Senate impeachment trial.
On November 22, 1963 John F. Kennedy as the thirty-fifth President of the United States was assassinated. To this day the American people are left with suspicious gaps toward the government explanation of his death and questions are still arise as to who was actually responsible for the assassination. A theory that has aroused is that the CIA and the FBI were linked to the assassination. Although it is a bit extreme to consider that the government would kill its own president, there are a considerable amount of reasons for their desire to organize an assassination plot. The Bay of Pigs is believed to be the central cause to plot against kennedy.
Dewey was in the perfect position to strike, and when given his orders to attack on May 1, 1898, the American navy was ready. Those who look back with fondness on American military triumphs must count the BATTLE OF MANILA BAY as one of the greatest success stories. The larger, wooden Spanish fleet was no match for the newer American steel navy. After Dewey's guns stopped firing, the entire Spanish squadron was a hulking disaster. The only American casualty came from sunstroke.
It was only a few days until the NLF troops had been beaten back and the American troops once again occupied Saigon and their own embassy. The Americans were not Militarily defeated, in actual fact defeating and killing 58,000 north Vietnamese troops (Wiest, 2008) however this attack is ranked high above others as the start of the downward spiral that ended the war. Despite the offensive by the North Vietnamese forces the standoff had not changed anything, Lawrence in, the Vietnam War a concise international history, claims it “merely changed the nature of the stalemate” and that the Tet offensive was “confirming opposition to the war among American public.” (Lawrence, 2008 P116). The North Vietnamese forces being able to take and hold the supposed hub of American power in Saigon, to then have the image of the Vietcong on the roof waving the flag of the opposing army is crushing blow to the American public. This Kind of image and media brought about the anti war movement that believed the war was a ‘quagmire’ and needed to be
CIA Beach Party: The Bay of Pigs By: Lee Mcginnis [pic] The United States Central Intelligence Agency spent its first two decades dealing with Communist incursions into western spheres of power in the same way: over throwing foreign governments from within. This response was the US golden standard until the CIA decided to try this against the great white whale of Communism in the western hemisphere: Castro’s Cuba. This doomed to fail from the start plan was executed in a series of errors that led several hundred Cuban exiles to slaughter against Cuba’s Military and bring the world to the brink of nuclear Armageddon and signal a falling out of favor of the CIA among American government for the next twenty years until the Soviet
There was a populous presence of law enforcement there from cops to militant members and everything in-between. The guards ordered everyone to disperse or risk getting detained. That then sparked a “pigs get off campus” chant by the protesters. The protesters started throwing things at the guards and the guards responded by tear-gassing them. When that didn’t work and it became clear that they were not going to disperse, at around 12:24 pm 77 National Guard members fired 67 rounds from M1 Garand rifles into the croud killing 4 and wounding 9 others, thus violently ending the protests.
In order to understand the reasons for the invasion we must look at the fear and loathing the U.S. had for Communism. The “Red Scare” and the “Domino Theory” were dominating American Culture and America had an extreme paranoia against the Soviet Union and the spread of Communism. Cuba was a country that sat about 90 miles off the shores of Florida and had a fierce dictator in charge, Fulgencio Batista. Fidel Castro had overthrown the government of Batista and established a new government. A few weeks after the ousting of Batista, Castro is appointed premier.
This has been a corrupt system for as long as people can remember so who can they trust? “The system of a working relationship between Mexican authority’s and drug lords prevailed between 1940’s and 1990’s.” In 1997, the president was exposed as a top leader in the Juarez cartel. (Francisco Gonzales, John Hopkins University press 2008) To try and make a difference, when Enrique Pena Nieto took presidency in Dec. 2012, he pledged to “add a new 10,000 member security force to concentrate on the drug war, separate from the federal police.” (La Times 12/17/12) The United States helped in the war by working with the Mexican government, by giving a 1.4 billion dollar initiative for technology and training. (Francisco Gonzales) They added security to rural areas, and cameras with ground sensors to main crossing points of the Rio Grande. This helps the Border patrol to find immigrants trying to sneak over in the middle of the night.
The arms race began in 1945 when the US dropped their atomic bomb on Japan. Not only did this demonstrate the power of the USA but was the catalyst for an age of rapid weapon development, the arms race. This ended with the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1963, an event that bought the superpowers dangerously close nuclear war. A number of factors other than the accumulating advancements in weaponry lead to the Cuban missile crisis, the personalities of the leaders and the national interests of each country all effected how the arms race developed, leading to the inevitable situation where the USA and USSR were left hovering over the trigger. The main aspect that lead to the Cuban missile crisis was the arms development between 1945-1963.