Directions: These Questions Are Based on the Accompanying Documents

question 22

Essay

Directions: These questions are based on the accompanying documents.The documents have been edited for the purpose of this exercise.
In your response you should do the following:
•State a relevant thesis that directly addresses all parts of the question.
•Support the thesis or a relevant argument with evidence from all,or all but one,of the documents.
•Incorporate analysis of all,or all but one,of the documents into your argument.
•Focus your analysis of each document on at least one of the following: intended audience,purpose,historical context,and/or point of view.
•Support your argument with analysis of historical examples outside the documents.
•Connect historical phenomena relevant to your argument to broader events or processes.
•Synthesize the elements above into a persuasive essay that extends your argument,connects it to a different historical context,or accounts for contradictory evidence on the topic.
-To what extent did American foreign policy evolve following the conclusion of World War II? Discuss both continuities and changes during the period from 1945 to 1980.
Document 1
Source: Speech on the Marshall Plan by President Harry Truman, 1948
In considering the requirements for the rehabilitation of Europe the physical loss of life … was probably less serious than the dislocation of the entire fabric of European economy… The truth of the matter is that Europe's requirements for the next 3 or 4 years of foreign food and other essential products -- principally from America -- are so much greater than her present ability to pay that she must have substantial additional help, or face economic, social, and political deterioration of a very grave character.… It is logical that the United States should do whatever it is able to do to assist in the return of normal economic health in the world, without which there can be no political stability and no assured peace. Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos. Its purpose should be the revival of working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist
Document 2
Source: The North Atlantic Treaty, 1949

The Parties to this Treaty… are resolved to unite their efforts for collective defense and for the preservation of peace and security…
Article 2 The Parties will contribute toward the further development of peaceful and friendly international relations by strengthening their free institutions… and will encourage economic collaboration between any or all of them.
Article 3 In order more effectively to achieve the objectives of this Treaty, the Parties… will maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack…
Article 5 The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defense recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked
Document 3
Source: Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, 1965

The Congress approves and supports the determination of the President, as Commander in Chief, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.
Section 2. The United States regards as vital to its national interest and to world peace the maintenance of international peace and security in southeast Asia. Consonant with the Constitution of the United States and the Charter of the United Nations …the United States is, therefore, prepared, as the President determines, to take all necessary steps, including the use of armed force, to assist any member or protocol state of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty requesting assistance in defense of its freedom.
Document 4
Source: President Richard Nixon, Address to the Nation on the War in Vietnam, November 3, 1969
For the future of peace, precipitate withdrawal would thus be a disaster of immense magnitude…
--Our defeat and humiliation in South Vietnam without question would promote recklessness in the councils of those great powers who have not yet abandoned their goals of world conquest.
--This would spark violence wherever our commitments help maintain the peace—in the Middle East, in Berlin, eventually even in the Western Hemisphere.
Ultimately, this would cost more lives. It would not bring peace; it would bring more war.
…The defense of freedom is everybody's business--not just America's business. And it is particularly the responsibility of the people whose freedom is threatened. In the previous administration, we Americanized the war in Vietnam. In this administration, we are Vietnamizing the search for peace.
… Under the new orders, the primary mission of our troops is to enable the South Vietnamese forces to assume the full responsibility for the security of South Vietnam.
…Let historians not record that when America was the most powerful nation in the world we passed on the other side of the road and allowed the last hopes for peace and freedom of millions of people to be suffocated by the forces of totalitarianism.
Document 5
Source: Declassified Notes from Meeting between President Nixon and Prime Minister Chou, February 1972
Prime Minister Chou: Of course, Mr. President…we have no interest in asking you not to have good relations with the Soviet Union… And we also hope that you will reach agreements with the Soviet Union on disarmament and other matters. We have even expressed the wish that you visit the Soviet Union first… You have dared to have contact with China. [Some] said that ‘he wouldn’t have had the courage to come.’ …We believe this unprecedented event [Nixon’s visit to China] is a correct action. Although there are four forces that oppose you, pro-Soviet, pro-India, pro-Japanese, and pro-Chiang Kai-shek, yet the strength combined of their voices is not very loud.
President Nixon: …Maybe we have some disagreements, but we know that there will be changes, and we know that there can be a better, and I trust safer, world for our two peoples regardless of differences if we can find common ground.

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Definitions:

Poverty Line

The minimum level of income deemed necessary to achieve an adequate standard of living in a given country.

Invisible Hand

A metaphor introduced by Adam Smith to describe how an individual's pursuit of self-interest in a free-market economy inadvertently benefits society as a whole.

Allocation of Resources

The process of allocating resources among competing uses or projects in order to achieve desired outcomes.

Poverty Rate

The percentage of the population whose family income falls below an absolute level called the poverty line.