America at 250
The cold war, Vietnam and a fractured America
May 14, 2026
1950s-1970s
Peace without peace
At the end of the second world war two great powers eyed each other across a ruined Europe. America and the Soviet Union, once allies, were now ideological rivals. The cold war had begun. Under the doctrine of containment, America not only resisted Soviet expansion but sought to anchor a liberal order abroad, backing western Europe’s reconstruction through the Marshall Plan and binding the region into NATO.
Peace without peace
At the end of the second world war two great powers eyed each other across a ruined Europe. America and the Soviet Union, once allies, were now ideological rivals. The cold war had begun. Under the doctrine of containment, America not only resisted Soviet expansion but sought to anchor a liberal order abroad, backing western Europe’s reconstruction through the Marshall Plan and binding the region into NATO.
The Soviet Union consolidated its grip on eastern Europe, installing loyal regimes and suppressing dissent. The sense of danger deepened in 1949, when the Soviets tested an atomic bomb, ushering in a nuclear arms race that produced arsenals capable of destroying the planet many times over. Confrontation shifted to the periphery, where the superpowers fought by proxy in wars on the Korean peninsula and in Vietnam.
This rivalry defined the next four decades, creating a permanent state of tension. It was a new kind of conflict—ideological, global, yet without direct war thanks to deterrence by the too-apt acronym MAD, or mutually assured destruction.
The revolution was televised
There may be nothing more American than the notion that America did not really become “America” until it was televised, like a product. That happened in the 1950s and 1960s, when television became a common good. In 1954 the leading face of America’s “red scare”, Senator Joe McCarthy, was humiliated on a live nationwide broadcast when an Army lawyer asked him, “Have you no sense of decency, sir?” In Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963 Bull Connor’s use of high-pressure firehoses and police dogs against black children protesting against segregation shocked millions of viewers nationwide, galvanising the civil-rights movement. In 1968 Walter Cronkite, the country’s best-known news presenter, declared that America was “mired in stalemate” in Vietnam, a turning point in that war.
There may be nothing more American than the notion that America did not really become “America” until it was televised, like a product. That happened in the 1950s and 1960s, when television became a common good. In 1954 the leading face of America’s “red scare”, Senator Joe McCarthy, was humiliated on a live nationwide broadcast when an Army lawyer asked him, “Have you no sense of decency, sir?” In Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963 Bull Connor’s use of high-pressure firehoses and police dogs against black children protesting against segregation shocked millions of viewers nationwide, galvanising the civil-rights movement. In 1968 Walter Cronkite, the country’s best-known news presenter, declared that America was “mired in stalemate” in Vietnam, a turning point in that war.
Meanwhile, entertaining shows like “Bonanza”, “Perry Mason” and “Leave it to Beaver” beamed an idealised (although mostly white Protestant) vision of American liberty, progress and moral justice into countries around the world. It was a lavishly produced vision, for truly there was nothing more American than the advertisements that came with—and paid for—all this news and entertainment.
1961-63
The days of Camelot
The days of Camelot
The first televised presidential debate pitted a youthful, smiling senator from Massachusetts against a tired-looking vice-president who melted under the hot lights. John F. Kennedy went on to win narrowly over Richard Nixon in 1960. Just 43, Kennedy was the youngest person ever elected president (and the first Catholic). Appropriate to the television age, his brief presidency was a triumph in image-making, beginning with his inaugural address. “Ask not what your country can do for you,” he told Americans. “Ask what you can do for your country.” Overseas he projected a benevolent vision of America as protector of the free world. “Ich bin ein Berliner,” he declared in front of the Berlin Wall.
His years in office were shaped by America’s communist neighbour to the south, Cuba. In his first year a botched attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro, known since as the Bay of Pigs fiasco, embarrassed him. But in 1962 Kennedy managed the most serious nuclear showdown of the cold war, the Cuban missile crisis, with a cool head and deft diplomacy, averting potential catastrophe. He died by assassination, in November 1963, an almost mythical figure, with a sense of promise unfulfilled. Much like his country.
He had a dream
In 1954, in Brown v Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that segregation of public schools denied black Americans equal treatment, violating their rights under the 14th Amendment. By overturning the “separate but equal” ruling in Plessy v Ferguson almost 60 years earlier, the justices struck a first blow to the Jim Crow era, energising the civil-rights movement. The next year Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. In 1957 President Dwight Eisenhower enforced the Brown decision by ordering federal troops to escort nine black students into a school in Little Rock, Arkansas.
In 1954, in Brown v Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that segregation of public schools denied black Americans equal treatment, violating their rights under the 14th Amendment. By overturning the “separate but equal” ruling in Plessy v Ferguson almost 60 years earlier, the justices struck a first blow to the Jim Crow era, energising the civil-rights movement. The next year Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. In 1957 President Dwight Eisenhower enforced the Brown decision by ordering federal troops to escort nine black students into a school in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Martin Luther King led non-violent demonstrations, but he was long unpopular among white Americans, who viewed him and the movement as divisive even after his “I have a dream” speech in 1963. It was repeated television footage of violence by police against protesters that helped shift white opinion decisively in favour of the cause. Congress passed a Civil Rights Act in 1964 and a Voting Rights Act in 1965. In 1968 King was assassinated while campaigning for economic justice for poor Americans of all races to match the newly won legal rights for black people.
Guns and butter
The assassination of Kennedy thrust Lyndon Johnson into the Oval Office. He quickly set about trying to make America not just “the rich society and the powerful society” but “the Great Society”. Some policies he nicked from Kennedy. But Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal was his greater influence. Johnson declared a “war on poverty”, providing health insurance for the old and the poor and setting up programmes to boost employment and education.
The assassination of Kennedy thrust Lyndon Johnson into the Oval Office. He quickly set about trying to make America not just “the rich society and the powerful society” but “the Great Society”. Some policies he nicked from Kennedy. But Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal was his greater influence. Johnson declared a “war on poverty”, providing health insurance for the old and the poor and setting up programmes to boost employment and education.
Johnson saw through the elimination of draconian immigration quotas that had been in place for decades, and cajoled Congress into passing historic civil-rights legislation that finally ended the Jim Crow era. But Johnson’s presidency, and America’s image in the world for years to come, would be defined by his greatest foreign-policy failure, or “practising ‘escalatio’ on the Vietnamese”, as Tom Lehrer, the period’s top satirist, put it.
One giant leap
July 20th 1969 was the apogee of the American century; the day the Eagle, Apollo 11’s lunar module, set down two astronauts in the magnificent desolation of the Sea of Tranquility. The plaque they left there said “We came in peace for all mankind”, and if “in peace” was a stretch—Apollo was a creature of war, even if the war in question was a cold one—“for all mankind” had a certain truth to it. A remarkable nation was doing a remarkable thing, and the claim to be doing it for everyone was more a generosity, less an arrogation.
July 20th 1969 was the apogee of the American century; the day the Eagle, Apollo 11’s lunar module, set down two astronauts in the magnificent desolation of the Sea of Tranquility. The plaque they left there said “We came in peace for all mankind”, and if “in peace” was a stretch—Apollo was a creature of war, even if the war in question was a cold one—“for all mankind” had a certain truth to it. A remarkable nation was doing a remarkable thing, and the claim to be doing it for everyone was more a generosity, less an arrogation.
The space age was to deliver much more, and much of it mattered more: eyes in the sky for arms control and spying, monitoring the environment and fighting wars; satellites for telecoms, broadcasting and internet access; positioning systems that have done for “where am I?” what the watch did for “what time is it?”; pictures of the furthest reaches of heaven; echoes of the earliest moments of time. But nothing resonated like the delivering of that plaque to that dusty plain.
1965-75
The unwinnable conflict
America came to see communist expansion as a global threat. If one country fell, others might follow. This “domino theory”—and a fear by successive presidents of appearing weak—underpinned America’s intervention in Vietnam. What began with a handful of military advisers to the non-communist government in Saigon escalated into full-scale war with Ho Chi Minh’s communists in the north. By 1969 America had deployed more than half a million troops to Vietnam and was bombing North Vietnam as well as neighbouring Laos and Cambodia. Officials cited enemy body counts and kill ratios as evidence of progress.
The unwinnable conflict
America came to see communist expansion as a global threat. If one country fell, others might follow. This “domino theory”—and a fear by successive presidents of appearing weak—underpinned America’s intervention in Vietnam. What began with a handful of military advisers to the non-communist government in Saigon escalated into full-scale war with Ho Chi Minh’s communists in the north. By 1969 America had deployed more than half a million troops to Vietnam and was bombing North Vietnam as well as neighbouring Laos and Cambodia. Officials cited enemy body counts and kill ratios as evidence of progress.
But America’s conventional superiority proved ill-suited to a guerrilla war rooted as much in nationalism as in ideology. Its support for an unpopular authoritarian regime further weakened its cause. A war fought to “save” Vietnam relied on tactics that devastated it, from the destruction of villages to the use of chemical defoliants such as Agent Orange. When America withdrew—having lost more than 58,000 soldiers and having contributed to the deaths of more than 1m Vietnamese—it was left questioning its power, its purpose and its liberal values.
Make love, not war
As the war in Vietnam grew, so did opposition to it. Dismissed early on as a fringe cause of leftist university students, anti-war protests eventually attracted the support of millions of Americans. Students, clergy (including civil-rights leaders) and disillusioned veterans spoke out. A secretive government, prone to spin (and lies), eroded public trust. Outside the Democratic convention in 1968, police clashed with protesters in scenes broadcast nationwide. In 1970 the National Guard killed four students at Kent State University in Ohio, shocking the country.
As the war in Vietnam grew, so did opposition to it. Dismissed early on as a fringe cause of leftist university students, anti-war protests eventually attracted the support of millions of Americans. Students, clergy (including civil-rights leaders) and disillusioned veterans spoke out. A secretive government, prone to spin (and lies), eroded public trust. Outside the Democratic convention in 1968, police clashed with protesters in scenes broadcast nationwide. In 1970 the National Guard killed four students at Kent State University in Ohio, shocking the country.
Anti-war feeling became the heart of a broader counterculture that rejected hierarchy, authority and materialism while embracing personal liberation—sexual, spiritual and psychological. But many older Americans were repulsed by people they saw as lawless, drug-addled, naive and unpatriotic. Twice American voters elected a man who promised to restore law and order, and who would become the counterculture’s most despised figure of authority, Richard “Tricky Dick” Nixon.
1972-74
A crisis of trust
In June 1972 two nosey journalists—Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post—began looking into a break-in at the Watergate complex, home to the Democratic National Committee. Gradually, inexorably, the trail of evidence they uncovered led to the White House. Their reporting sparked congressional hearings which revealed that Nixon kept a secret “enemies list”, sabotaged rivals and secretly recorded his conversations in the Oval Office. Nobody proved Nixon ordered the crime, but Americans came to see he was behind the cover-up.
A crisis of trust
In June 1972 two nosey journalists—Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post—began looking into a break-in at the Watergate complex, home to the Democratic National Committee. Gradually, inexorably, the trail of evidence they uncovered led to the White House. Their reporting sparked congressional hearings which revealed that Nixon kept a secret “enemies list”, sabotaged rivals and secretly recorded his conversations in the Oval Office. Nobody proved Nixon ordered the crime, but Americans came to see he was behind the cover-up.
Dirty tricks are as old as the republic. But Nixon’s prevarications caught up with him. Americans were glued to nightly broadcasts of the Watergate hearings. Nixon’s ratings sank and in August 1974, facing certain impeachment, he became the first president to resign. The saga made journalists into heroes—Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman portrayed Mr Woodward and Mr Bernstein on screen. And it badly damaged Americans’ trust in government. It has risen to pre-Watergate levels only once since, after 9/11. (We will let you know in a future chapter how that goes.)
1973
That time the Supreme Court legalised abortion
If Brown v Board marked the beginning of a historic, progressive era for the Supreme Court, Roe v Wade was the blockbuster bookend. The 1973 ruling struck down abortion bans across the country by establishing that women had a right to autonomy over their own bodies without government intrusion, unless the government could establish a compelling public interest to the contrary. The court ruled that the government had no such interest in the first trimester of pregnancies, and that even late in pregnancies, restrictions on abortion could not take priority over the health of the mother.
That time the Supreme Court legalised abortion
If Brown v Board marked the beginning of a historic, progressive era for the Supreme Court, Roe v Wade was the blockbuster bookend. The 1973 ruling struck down abortion bans across the country by establishing that women had a right to autonomy over their own bodies without government intrusion, unless the government could establish a compelling public interest to the contrary. The court ruled that the government had no such interest in the first trimester of pregnancies, and that even late in pregnancies, restrictions on abortion could not take priority over the health of the mother.
The ruling was a triumph for feminist politics, entrenching (so it seemed) for women a constitutional right to privacy, which had been established by the court in 1965 to protect the use of the contraceptive pill. But Roe provoked an angry backlash, fuelling the rise of a Christian conservative movement that was determined to elect anti-abortion candidates, change the political character of the court and overturn the decision.
A religious revival: the new right
The abortion issue was just one catalyst for a political and cultural reaction to the emergence in the 1960s of a progressive and (some would say overly) interventionist state. Conservatives chafed at affirmative action, the women’s-rights movement and the regulatory state. Nixon’s talk of a “silent majority” struck a chord with those who felt disregarded or looked down upon by elites. The mood spread among suburban white voters. They were joined by religious conservatives mobilised by battles over federal authority—not least moves against racially segregated Christian schools, seen as intrusions into church affairs.
The abortion issue was just one catalyst for a political and cultural reaction to the emergence in the 1960s of a progressive and (some would say overly) interventionist state. Conservatives chafed at affirmative action, the women’s-rights movement and the regulatory state. Nixon’s talk of a “silent majority” struck a chord with those who felt disregarded or looked down upon by elites. The mood spread among suburban white voters. They were joined by religious conservatives mobilised by battles over federal authority—not least moves against racially segregated Christian schools, seen as intrusions into church affairs.
Evangelical leaders such as Jerry Falwell and organisations like the Moral Majority brought new energy and structure to the movement. Phyllis Schlafly campaigned against the Equal Rights Amendment, rebranding feminism as a threat to women—who, she said, would be herded into unisex bathrooms and made eligible for the military draft. The religious right was an upstart at first, consigned to the fringes of mainstream politics. But it quickly became ascendant.
1973-79
A real shock
In the 1950s and 1960s a consensus formed around the Keynesian idea that governments could manage the economy by increasing government spending when private demand slacked off and increasing taxes when inflation threatened to take hold. Then came the oil shocks of the 1970s. America had become dependent on imported energy. When Egypt and Syria attacked Israel in 1973, Arab oil producers imposed an embargo on countries supporting the Jewish state, while cutting production to drive up prices. The effects rippled through America’s economy. Price controls on domestic oil and petrol worsened shortages. Queues formed at filling stations.
A real shock
In the 1950s and 1960s a consensus formed around the Keynesian idea that governments could manage the economy by increasing government spending when private demand slacked off and increasing taxes when inflation threatened to take hold. Then came the oil shocks of the 1970s. America had become dependent on imported energy. When Egypt and Syria attacked Israel in 1973, Arab oil producers imposed an embargo on countries supporting the Jewish state, while cutting production to drive up prices. The effects rippled through America’s economy. Price controls on domestic oil and petrol worsened shortages. Queues formed at filling stations.
As energy costs surged, firms raised prices. Higher costs reduced output and dampened investment. The result was “stagflation”—simultaneous stagnation and inflation. A second shock came with the Iranian revolution in 1979, disrupting global supply. This was a crisis that politicians could not wish away with Keynesian principles, but they tried: raising taxes worsened stagnation; boosting spending worsened inflation. President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, came to represent America’s feeling of malaise and fecklessness. A new president, a charismatic standard-bearer of the new right, was about to enter the picture, championing a different model.■