Cambridge A Level World History (9489): American option: The USA, 1945-93 – Revision Notes

The American option of Cambridge 9489 Paper 4 is a depth study of the USA from 1945 to 1993, in three topics: Truman, Eisenhower and post-war USA (1945-61); a time of challenges (1961-74); and the USA, 1974-93. Each topic has four key questions covering domestic politics, social change, civil rights and protest, and foreign policy, and you write two 30-mark essays that assess or evaluate an issue with balanced, criteria-led argument.

Related: American option study guide and practice questions.

Syllabus coverage (9489, 2027-2029, Paper 4)

Topic	Key questions
4 Truman, Eisenhower and post-war USA, 1945-61	4.1 Truman and internal issues; 4.2 How effective was Eisenhower as President?; 4.3 Economic and social change, 1945-61; 4.4 Foreign policies of Truman and Eisenhower compared
5 A time of challenges: the USA, 1961-74	5.1 Significance of Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon; 5.2 Cuba and Vietnam; 5.3 Progress in civil rights for African Americans; 5.4 Why were there challenges to authority?
6 The USA, 1974-93	6.1 Problems of the late 1970s; 6.2 Impact of the New Conservatism, 1981-92; 6.3 Carter’s foreign policies, 1977-81; 6.4 Why did US-USSR relations change?

Topic 4: 1945-61 key facts

Key question	Evidence to know
4.1 Truman at home	Employment Act (1946); Taft-Hartley Act passed over his veto (1947); Fair Deal (1949): Housing Act (1949), minimum wage raised to 75 cents, national health insurance defeated. Loyalty programme (1947); HUAC and the Hollywood Ten (1947); Hiss case; McCarthy’s Wheeling speech (February 1950); Army-McCarthy hearings and Senate censure (1954). 1948 victory over Dewey despite Thurmond and Wallace splitting the Democrats; whistle-stop campaign. Civil rights: To Secure These Rights (1947); Executive Order 9981 desegregating the armed forces (1948)
4.2 Eisenhower	1952: war-hero appeal, TV advertising, “I shall go to Korea”; 1956 landslide. “Modern Republicanism”: Social Security extended, Department of Health, Education and Welfare (1953), Federal-Aid Highway Act (1956), balanced budgets in some years; farewell warning on the “military-industrial complex” (1961). Civil rights: Brown v. Board of Education (1954); Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-56); Little Rock and federal troops (1957); Civil Rights Act (1957); SCLC (1957); sit-ins and SNCC (1960)
4.3 Society and economy	Consumer boom, credit, television, suburbs (Levittown); GI Bill; defence spending; youth culture, rock and roll, teen marketing; women’s employment rising alongside the suburban “return to normal”; persistent poverty in the rural South, inner cities and among minorities
4.4 Foreign policy	Containment: Truman Doctrine (March 1947), Marshall Plan (1947), Berlin Blockade and Airlift (1948-49), two German states (1949); Korea (1950-53), crossing the 38th parallel and Chinese intervention, MacArthur sacked (1951). Eisenhower: New Look and nuclear deterrence, Geneva Summit (1955), Hungary (1956), Suez (1956), Berlin crisis (1958-59), Khrushchev’s US visit (1959), U2 affair (1960); covert action in Iran (1953) and Guatemala (1954); support for Diem in South Vietnam

Topic 5: 1961-74 key facts

Key question	Evidence to know
5.1 Presidencies	1960: New Frontier, youth, TV debates, Johnson’s Texas appeal, African American vote. Kennedy: Area Redevelopment Act, minimum wage rise, Equal Pay Act (1963), Medicare blocked in Congress. Johnson’s Great Society: Economic Opportunity Act (1964), Civil Rights Act (1964), Voting Rights Act (1965), Medicare and Medicaid (1965), Elementary and Secondary Education Act (1965). Nixon: 1968 law-and-order campaign; New Economic Policy (1971) wage-price freeze; New Federalism; EPA (1970); Watergate break-in (1972); resignation (August 1974)
5.2 Cuba and Vietnam	Bay of Pigs (April 1961); missile crisis (October 1962), quarantine, Kennedy-Khrushchev letters, secret Turkey deal, hotline and Test Ban Treaty (1963). Vietnam: Geneva Accords (1954), domino theory, Diem’s fall (1963), Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (1964), Rolling Thunder and combat troops (1965), Tet Offensive (1968), My Lai, Vietnamisation, Cambodia (1970), Paris Peace Accords (1973), fall of Saigon (1975)
5.3 Civil rights	Freedom Riders (1961); Birmingham (1963) and Bull Connor; March on Washington (August 1963); Freedom Summer (1964); Selma and Bloody Sunday (March 1965); Wallace’s resistance in Alabama; Klan violence; Civil Rights Acts (1964, 1968), Voting Rights Act (1965), Fair Housing Act (1968), Equal Employment Opportunity Act (1972), Loving v. Virginia (1967)
5.4 Challenges to authority	Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique (1963), NOW (1966), Roe v. Wade (1973); Malcolm X, Carmichael and Black Power (1966), Black Panthers (1966) and their community programmes; Stonewall (1969), Gay Liberation Front and Gay Activists Alliance; American Indian Movement; Watts riots (1965), 1968 riots after King’s assassination, Chicago Democratic Convention (1968), Kent State (1970)

Topic 6: 1974-93 key facts

Key question	Evidence to know
6.1 Late 1970s	Ford’s pardon of Nixon (1974); stagflation and “Whip Inflation Now”; busing conflict in Boston. Carter (1976): outsider appeal; Department of Energy (1977); energy crisis and “malaise” speech (1979); Energy Security Act (1980); poor relations with a Democratic Congress. New Right: evangelical groups such as the Moral Majority (1979); reaction against abortion, gay rights and the counter-culture. Reagan 1980: personal appeal, supply-side ideas, the hostage crisis
6.2 New Conservatism	Economic Recovery Tax Act (1981); deregulation; air traffic controllers’ (PATCO) strike and mass dismissals (1981); rising deficits as defence spending grew; criticism of the response to AIDS. Bush: 1990 budget deal broke “read my lips”, Americans with Disabilities Act (1990), Clean Air Act (1990); 1992 recession, Perot’s candidacy, Clinton’s appeal. Democrats: Carter-Kennedy contest (1980), Mondale’s 1984 defeat, weakness in the South
6.3 Carter abroad	Human rights in foreign policy: Nicaragua (Somoza falls 1979), Chile, Argentina and Brazil. Camp David Accords (September 1978) between Begin and Sadat; Egypt-Israel treaty (1979). Iran: Shah falls (January 1979); hostages seized (November 1979), failed rescue (April 1980), released January 1981
6.4 US-USSR	Détente: SALT I (1972), Helsinki Accords (1975), technical and trade co-operation. Failure: Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (December 1979), SALT II unratified, Olympic boycott. Reagan: “evil empire”, SDI (1983), Reagan Doctrine in Nicaragua (Contras), Afghanistan and Angola; Gorbachev (1985); summits at Geneva (1985), Reykjavik (1986) and Washington (1987, INF Treaty)

Worked example: setting a criterion

Question: “Johnson’s Great Society was a failure.” Assess this view.

• Criterion: judge against Johnson’s own aims – ending poverty, extending health care and education, securing civil rights.
• Successes: the official poverty rate fell during the 1960s; Medicare and Medicaid became permanent; the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts transformed Southern politics.
• Failures: Vietnam spending drained resources; urban riots from 1965 showed problems untouched; conservative backlash helped Nixon in 1968.
• Judgement: a partial success whose limits came largely from Vietnam rather than from the programmes themselves.

Common mistakes / exam traps

• Describing presidencies in sequence. Essays need analysis against criteria, as the AO2 grid requires.
• Confusing dates across topics. The fall of Saigon (1975) belongs in 5.2 as the ending of the war, even though it falls after 1974.
• Treating civil rights as one movement. Distinguish King and the SCLC from SNCC, Black Power and the Black Panthers.
• One-sided foreign policy essays. “How different?” questions (4.4) need continuity as well as change.
• Unsupported claims about Reaganomics. Use specific measures and outcomes, not slogans.

Frequently asked questions

How are Paper 4 essays marked? Out of 30: 15 for AO1 (selected, precise knowledge) and 15 for AO2 (criteria, analysis, balance and judgement), each on five levels in the published mark schemes.

Do I need to revise all three topics? The syllabus sets no rotation for Paper 4, so revising all three keeps your choice of two questions open.

Is Watergate part of 5.1 or 6.1? Both: Nixon’s fall is in 5.1, and the post-Watergate loss of trust is a problem Ford faced in 6.1.

Self-test

1. What did Executive Order 9981 do? Ordered equal treatment in, and ended segregation of, the armed forces (1948).
2. Which Supreme Court case ended “separate but equal” in schools? Brown v. Board of Education (1954).
3. What was the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution? Congress’s 1964 authorisation for Johnson to use force in Vietnam.
4. Name two measures of the Great Society. Medicare and Medicaid; Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
5. Which treaty did Reagan and Gorbachev sign in 1987? The INF Treaty.