Regional Studies US Übung, Homework for Week 10

Here is the timeline of key dates connected with US espionage introduced in class today (we will expand on this context in next week's class and in January when we look at the Watergate scandal; most important points are in bold):

•       Washington: secret service fund 10% of federal budget

•       1810-1812: Madison employs agents and paramilitary to gain Florida from Spain

•       Polk shoots down attempt from Congress to gain oversight of secret fund

•       1880s: Office of Naval Intelligence and Army Military Intelligence Division

•       1898: agents resort to covert operations; interception of telegraphs between Havana and Spain

•       1908: “regular force of special agents” for special cases for Dept. of Justice

•       1916: FBI serves in counterintelligence role

•       1917: Espionage Act

•       1942: Office of Strategic Services (OSS) (precursor to the CIA)

•       October 1945: OSS disbanded, distributed to State and War departments

•       January 1946: Truman establishes CIG

•       1947: National Security Act (National Security Council and CIA formed)

•       1949: Central Intelligence Agency Act

•       1952: NSA founded

•       1978: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)

•       2001: Patriot Act

•       2002: NSA data mining program, Bush authorizes monitoring of phone calls and emails of US citizens

Questions for next week's class: 
Chapter 16: A People's War
1. Which US presidents have won Nobel prizes? Why were they awarded the Prize? (The official Nobel website can be helpful in investigating this: https://www.nobelprize.org/
2. (pgs. 409-416) What were the conditions surrounding the US' entry into WWII? According to Zinn, what was the motivation of the US to enter?
3. Using pgs. 421-425 as well as outside sources, address the historical question concerning whether the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary to end the war.
4. How many nuclear weapons does Russia, the US, the UK, and France have today? 
5. What was the Manhattan Project and who was involved in it?
6. What were the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan?
7. (pgs. 427-428) Why was the US involved in the Korean War?

The following links might be of interest to you:
Online encyclopedia of philosophy: http://www.iep.utm.edu/home/about/
Snowden interview with ABC news: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Flej-73VLW8
"Milestones" pages of the US Office of the Historian (obviously be critical of any country's history pages, but these include some useful images/documents): https://history.state.gov/milestones
Conan O'Brien's "Serious Jibber Jabber" interviews, which include those with historians and biographers of US presidents: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=conan+serious+jibber+jabber