HISTORY 323:  Discussion questions                                          

November 16, 1999

1.    Why does Nixon win in 1968?  What were the factors which contributed to his winning the presidency?

2.    From Nixon's speech on vietnamization, what was his analysis of the conflict?  Does his perception differ in any manner from the earlier presidential and government statements on Vietnam that we have examined to this point?

3.    Why was Nixon the first president who was actually willing to end the war, when his predecessors had refused?

4.    "By 1968", according to Farber, "...the line separating the antiwar movement and the counterculture had blurred."  How?  Why?

5.    What happens to the antiwar movement when the issue becomes 'political' in 1968?

6.    What happens by 1969 to the black civil rights/white New Left coalition which had been so evident in 1964?

7.    Is 1970 a turning point for the antiwar movement?  Is there a new level or a new element to the antiwar protest by 1970?

8.    According to Farber, "...much of what people remember (or call pejoratively) 'sixties' activism or 'sixties' challenges to 'traditional values' occurred in the first half of the 1970s."  If that is so, what then did the activism of the 1960s create or change?