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middle of 1960s Cold War begins to decay

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settles into its second decade

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relations become routine

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both sides stepped back from the brink of the Cuban Missile Crisis

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both sides seem to want to make the conflict just a part of ordinary life

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popular culture reactions

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movies

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1964: Fail Safe

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about a nuclear crisis where the Soviets are not the villains and the United States is not the hero or the villain

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both superpowers find themselves trapped by the malfunctions of their own technology

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1964: Seven Days in May

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plot to take over American government in order to keep the president from signing an arms control treaty with the Soviets

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1965: Dr. Strangelove

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the nuclear build up is seen as a form of collective insanity fit only for the subject of satire and the darkest of dark humor

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Europe

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Soviets have given up their effort to change the status quo in Europe

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National security states

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large, Cold War bureaucracies

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hierarchies are in charge of most important areas

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managerial states

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United States

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Neil McElroy

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president of Procter & Gamble

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1957-1959: Secretary of Defense

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Robert McNamara

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president of Ford Motor Company

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1961-1968: Secretary of Defense

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Communist countries

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the gray, almost faceless members of the Soviet Politburo

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each person providing guidance to various government ministries

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the government of one communist country looked like the next

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managerial state is being challenged

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Mao Zedong's revolutionary Great Leap Forward

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not only leading a war against the recalcitrant countryside, but against his own powerful ministries who are sapping the zeal out of the revolution

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China is actually being managed by people like Liu Shaoqi

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very planned economy

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liberation

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liberation from stifling hierarchy

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1962 book: Catch-22, Joseph Heller

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a novel based on his WWII experience in Italy, B-25 bomber squadron

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the enemy never appears

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the enemy turns out to be the managerial state itself, the military bureaucracy, insane, plodding, throwing bomber crews into more meaningless missions in which they might get killed

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1962 book: Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates

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the young husband and wife, full of dreams

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find themselves settling down in suburbia

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meaning seems to be draining out of their lives

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the societal structures suffocate them and lead to personal crises

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rights revolution

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started in 1960s and expanded into the 70s

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was domestic and international at the same time

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the United States plays a catalytic role

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because of the civil rights turmoil

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there was a big push to get civil rights for African American, in 1950s coming to a climax in the 1960s

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government may not dicriminate based on race

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e.g. segregation of public schools or bus system

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this is a law which refers to the government

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however, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 stated that even private firms and individuals cannot discriminate based on race or sex

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this was an enormous extension of the scope of these changes

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set precedents which spread around the world beginning in Europe, e.g. in Britain in the 1970s

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so part of the rights revolution is how people in the United States and in other countries began to see the extensiveness of these laws, and the power of these precedents

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this is a challenge to the big, managerial state

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more formal calls for freedom

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from not only racial groups but other kinds of groups

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not only against governments and big business but against big unions

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groups against those being favored who are already on the inside

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1968: the famous year of disruption

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Prague

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Czech people are trying to through out Soviet dominated communist rule but Soviets crush this revolution and reinstate the rule of orthodox communists

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Paris

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rebellion against the structures of the structures of President de Gaulle's government (President 1959-1969)

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against the big institutions of French life

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America

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anti-Vietnam protests

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Mexico

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rebellion against democratic socialism decaying into a government of cronies helping each other out

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China

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Mao leading revolution against government institutions

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encourage his guards to attack the aging intellectuals who are now obstructing the revolution

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leading common causes of the Great Disruption

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balancing local vs. transnational

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to what extent are all of the protests in 1968 a series of coincidences and to what extent are they connected as an international movement

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what portion are local and what portion are common and transnational

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what is the connection between various countries

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hypothesis #1: China is different

•

since you have there Mao leading a revolution against his own government

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hypothesis #2: living on a quiet volcano

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millions of people been living under the shadow of imminent world war for decades

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created society-wide, existential unease

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as it becomes more routine, there is a reaction against this kind of world of permanent conflict

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hypothesis #3: students

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in many of the affected countries, students are key actors

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there is an infrastructure of new universities, many just a generation old

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they are being empowered with a vocabulary of mobilization

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opportunities to mobilize in the university's structures environment

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its hard for many of these countries to attack their young people

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hypothesis #4: American turmoil with Vietnam as a catalyst

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Vietnam War is a catalyst which sets off broader challenges to the managerial state

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people around the world are noticing and inspired by what is happening in the United States

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one of the most interesting aspects of the Great Disruption of 1968 is that the protesters did not overturn society

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much of society reacts with fear to the breakdown of public order

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societies become more polarized as the forces of order strike back

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China

•

China's "secret years of terror" begins to get out of hand

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Liu Shaoqi expelled from the Party as a renegade and traitor, then dies of injuries from abuse he received

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United States

•

1968 the Johnson administration decides it can't escalate the war

•

when Johnson leaves office, he is replaced not by anti-war dissidents

•

replaced by Richard Nixon, he has two options

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option #1: escalate the war by attacking the North in a ground war

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option #2: slowly Vietnamize the war by getting the American troops out and letting Vietnam fight its own civil war

•

takes a middle road

•

launches campaign into Cambodia

•

hoping North Vietnam will quit

•

Soviets

•

Leonid Brezhnev (General Secretary from 1964-1982)

•

increase military power

•

feel they are equivalent to United States in military power

•

wants to maintain superpower status

•

break-away republics will be forced back in to the communist bloc

•

China

•

Mao increasingly worried about the Soviet Union as being a more dangerous enemy than the United States

•

Mao therefore warms up to the United States

•

this is over portrayed as "Nixon's opening to China" but the real variable which created that opening came from the Chinese side