First Inaugural Address of Richard Nixon
18: Turbulent 1960s
Second Inaugural Address of Richard Nixon
Full text from the The Avalon Project
Vietnam - Escalation of Conflict
Lesson plans from the US State Department
The Trial of The Chicago Seven (or Chicago Eight)
Comprehensive collection of articles, artifacts and documents from the "Famous Trials" site at the University of Missouri - Kansas City
American Experience . My Lai | PBS
Companion site for American Experience documentary with articles, timeline and links to resources
What makes a great presidential speech?
Ten top moments from Ted Sorensen and John F. Kennedy. - Article from Boston Globe
Put This On: LBJ Buys Pants on Vimeo
In 1964, Lyndon Johnson needed pants, so he called the Haggar clothing company and asked for some. The call was recorded (like all White House calls at the time), and has since become the stuff of legend. Johnson’s anatomically specific directions to Mr. Haggar are some of the most intimate words we’ve ever heard from the mouth of a President.
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and Escalation of the Vietnam War | EDSITEment
This lesson raises a number of questions relating to the Gulf of Tonkin incident and subsequent decisions. How important was flawed, manipulated, or disregarded intelligence in the American decision to escalate our military involvement in Vietnam following the Gulf of Tonkin incident in August 1964? Did American officials, including President Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, intentionally manipulate the information they were receiving to reach the conclusion they wanted? What does historical hindsight teach us about this one specific event and, more broadly, about presidential decision-making in times of crisis? What lessons can be learned that have bearing on current and future policies?
Asia Finest Discussion Forum Old Pictures of Colonial Vietnam
BBC NEWS | Americas | Vietnam: The music of protest
The Sixties and Protest Music | The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
This essay can be used for contextual background for a focused lesson on this topic
Catonsville Nine: Fire Sparked Push to End Vietnam War : NPR
In May of 1968, priests and other members of the Catholic Church broke into a Selective Service office and took hundreds of dratt records, piled them up in the parking lot and set them on fire with home-made napalm. This NPR story and the article that accompanies it demonstrates for students the extent of the anti-war movement. Make sure to place this event in the torrent of events in the turbulent spring of 1968
Trial of the Catonsville Nine
Script to a play about the trial of the Catonsville Nine, a group of priests, former nuns and other Catholics who broke into a draft office in Maryland, took files out into the parking lot, burned them and then waited for police to arrest them. The script of this play about the trial exposes many of the forces at work in the late 1960s and the ant-war movement. Are the sections of this that can be read in class. Can this be used for a DBQ?
50th Anniversary of the Vietnam War Commemoration | Vietnam War Commemoration
Exploring how a nation remembers war may tell us something about the war, both when it was fought and how it is remembered today. How have the sharp divisions brought by Vietnam surfaced in our remembrance of it? On another note - now that we are 50 years beyond the Vietnam War, shouldn't most high school students get beyond it in their US History classes?
American Soldiers as Victims in Vietnam
David Parsons uses Arthur Greenspon’s 1968 photograph of a U.S. Army paratrooper in Vietnam to explore the different versions of history that have been presented to the public since 1968.
Lyndon Johnson and 1960s Political Culture
The unit consists of four tracks. The first three focus on separate content areas from the 1960s--foreign policy, civil rights, and electoral politics. Each of these three tracks is structured similarly and contains about the same amount of work, allowing the instructor to choose which track best fits his or her course. The fourth track examines events of the 1960s in the context of the Cold War, and thus reverses the order of the previous three tracks (here the documents are first, and the tapes second). By clicking on the link for the selected track, a series of separate pages appear that can be presented to the students, with the assignments for only that option. Instructors should not give access to this entire page to students, since it has tended to overwhelm them in the past.
Woodstock CBS coverage 8-18-1969 - YouTube
Beneath all of the mythology, music and fashion of teaching the counter-culture of the 1960s, there was a reality for the people who lived through the period. Why not put your students in front of a television in August of 1969 to see the CBS News's coverage of Woodstock? This clip even includes the commercials. What makes it truly exceptional is the commentary of a reporter, this is the first draft of history, within days of the event. How much has changed?
The Vietnam Drug User Returns - Defense Depart Report
This study of 953 servicemen returning from Vietnam details drug use in Vietnam. This can be shared with students doing specific research or, more likely, teachers who want to learn more about the prevalence of drug use in Vietnam
Woodstock ABC coverage 8-18-1969 - YouTube
Students comparing this coverage of Woodstock to the CBS coverage may come to a different conclusion about the popular reaction to the counter-culture.
What we wore to Woodstock
Photo essay of quality pictures of the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival
Woodstock photos
Was Nixon Robbed? - The Legend of the stolen 1960 presidential election
This article for teachers illustrates the massive gulf between the content exposed to most high school students and the deep historical record of the past. Most students will perhaps only read a paragraph or copy two or three slides worth of notes on this election, yet the struggle to verify the results went on for months.
A Day in the Life of SchoolWide Critical Friends Groups
This short section from a larger book gives Social Studies teachers a view view of CFGs from the teacher's perspective. Interested teachers could read through the section of the teacher trying to improve his Vietnam project in a couple minutes and know why getting this type of assistance from colleagues may be more valuable than just asking them a question out of the blue
“American Experience: Last Days in Vietnam”: A Classroom-Ready Resource | EDSITEment
Lesson and guides to accompany American Experience video
The Ballad Of The Green Berets by Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler Songfacts
For all the teachers who use music to teach the 1960s - make sure you choose examples that charted at number 1. This was the most popular song of 1966. How does this counter-fact fit into the "culture-rebellion" narrative?
Burns and Novick, Masters of False Balancing | Public Books
Teachers showing Burns's "Vietnam" to students a year or two from now should accompany it by this piece or excerpts from it to show the every interpretation of history is subject to dispute
Phone call between Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon - November 3, 1968
Just a few days before the presidential election in 1968, Richard Nixon called Lyndon Johnson regarding his denial of any efforts on his part or his team to convince South Vietnam to boycott the Paris Peace talks. It is treason for private citizens to contact the leaders of a foreign power. There is a great deal of evidence that the Nixon team did do this and LBJ knew it. This is an audio recording of the conversation supplemented by the transcript as part of the video
The Ken Burns Vietnam War Documentary Glosses Over Devastating Civilian Toll
"War is not combat, though combat is a part of war. Combatants are not the main participants in modern war. Modern war affects civilians far more and far longer than combatants"
Theodore H. White Reacts to President Kennedy's Death Video - ABC News
Does your class read an excerpt from Theodore White's "Making of the president 1960?" Show them this 3 minute video after your lesson - what do you think about what he wrote now? Is this an unbiased source? Does the level of his bias change how you judge the conclusions he makes in his book?
JFK Assassination Conspiracy Part 2: Jim Garrison's Johnny Carson Interview 1968 - YouTube
Just 3 minutes of video that students should see if their teacher shows them the Oliver Stone film JFK. This is a primary source document showing a thoroughly incredulous Carson questioning Jim Garrison, who was played by Kevin Costner in the film. Rather than simply showing the film and entertaining the conspiracy theory, teachers should teach students about the attraction of conspiracy theories and why they are so enticing, and so wrong. This lesson can be taken a step further by culling comments from the video and having students judge them - this is historical debate of the masses, notice how it is different than academic debates?