Gary McDonogh. Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture

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Wall Street Journal

newspapers; Wall Street

Walters, Barbara

news, television

Walton, Sam

b. 1918; d. 1992

A successful Arkansas five-and-ten entrepreneur, Walton opened his first discount

Walmart in 1962, building it into the largest retailer in the US. Slashing costs through

lower profit margins, computerized inventory control and high volume with limited

service, his “big-box” stores mushroomed in malls and small towns. While the latter

came to see Walmarts as threats to local economic life, the company continually

advertises “Americanness,” community involvement and support for workers. By the

mid-1980s, Walton became the richest man in America; his 1992 autobiography is

Sam

Walton: Made in America

GARY McDONOGH

war

The United States Constitution grants the power to declare war to

Congress

(Article 1:

Section 8; clause 11) and given this definition, the United States has not been to war

since the Second World War. However, employing an alternative definition (such as that

of von Clausewitz) in which war is described as an act of violence by a state intended to

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 1186

compel its opponents to fulfill its will, the United States has been in an almost constant

state of warfare since 1945. That both accurately apply to the United States characterizes

the nation’s equivocal approach to war in the last half of the twentieth century.

One aspect of the country’s ambivalence was the proliferation of conflicts that stopped

short of being full-fledged wars. The overarching framework for the first forty years o

the US after the Second World War was the

“Cold War,”

a term used to designate the

prolonged struggle with the Soviet Union and to a lesser degree the People’s Republic o

China

. Although this “war” shaped and structured American politics, economics, social

institutions and, especially military policy the US and the Soviet Union never sent troops

against each other and the US and Chinese only fought against each other in the

Korean

War

. There were also a series of “covert” or “surrogate” wars, such as those against the

governments of Guatemala and

Iran

in the 1950s, Cuba in the 1960s and Nicaragua in

the 1980s. These were armed conflicts sanctioned by the US and often conducted by US

intelligence agencies

(CIA)

. Although not publicly involved, US personnel performed

assassinations,

mined harbors, engaged in psychological operations, as well as supplying

arms, training, logistical support and intelligence to groups engaged in overt hostilities

against US

enemies

. A second feature was the increasing power of the presidents to

unilaterally decide whether to engage in a conflict and how exactly that conflict would be

conducted. Harry

Truman’s

decision to lead the country to war in Korea under UN

auspices, rather than seek a formal declaration from Congress, provided a blueprint that

both George

Bush

in the

Gulf War

(1990) and Bill

Clinton

in Bosnia (1996) and

Kosovo (1999) followed. In each case the president chose when to start and when to

conclude hostilities and left Congress to cast largely symbolic votes whether to support or

denounce the policy Although the

Vietnam War

was not a UN operation, both Lyndon

Johnson

and Richard

Nixon

also followed Truman’s example of ignoring Congress,

arguing that the Constitution gave the president war-making powers in his role as

commander in chief. There was an attempt to undercut this tactic by passage of the War

Powers Act (1973), which held that the president could send troops into battle for sixty

days, but then had to seek congressional approval. However, this proved largely

ineffectual.

A third effect, related to the second, was the use of euphemisms, like “police action” in

Korea (1950–3) and Vietnam (1962–74), “peacekeeping mission” in the Dominican

Republic (1965) and Bosnia (1991–3) and “rescue operations” in

Grenada

(1984) to

describe events that were, for all intents and purposes, wars. These often grew out of the

Cold War and were situations where the two superpowers would actively involve

themselves on opposing sides of a regional conflict, but did not wish to take the final step

of declaring war. On the other hand, the government began to increasingly characterize

non-military social-

olicy initiatives in explicitly military terms. From the 1960s to the

1980s there were a number of “wars” declared by the government on such things as

poverty drugs,

crime, AIDS

and

cancer

A fourth feature of this ambivalence was the way it contributed to the rise of what

Eisenhower

called the military-industrial complex; a relationship that grew to include the

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cooperation of the government, scientific community higher education and organized

labor. According to the congressional Budget Office, the

Pentagon

budget for military

spending, if measured in real terms, continued to remain at the same level of the height o

the Cold War of the early 1960s. As a result, 10 percent of all US business was derived

from military-related production. The argument given in support of such enormous

expenditures was that it was only through continued strength and readiness that the US

could avoid the horrors of the wars of the first half of the century.

The ambivalence about war was also reflected in other ways in post-Second World

War popular culture. While the Civil War, the Spanish American War, and both world

wars produced a number of highly popular songs that promoted the cause, this was

virtually non-existent for any of the conflicts after 1945. Only Vietnam produced any

significant number of songs, directed mostly against the war, and none of them achieved

the status of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” or “Over There.” Representations of war

on television were relatively scarce with only two successful series using war as their

backdrop,

Combat

(1962–7) and

M*A*S*H

(1972–83). There was an interesting contrast

in the film industry between the popularity of

sciencefiction

war films versus those about

real wars. The most successful reality-

ased war films tended to present complex and

highly critical views of war, while the science-fiction films were marked by a stark

contrast between good and evil and glorified war while ignoring its costs. However,

despite the large number of movies explicitly about real wars made since the Second

World War, only a handful gained any widespread popularity:

The Bridge on the River

wai

(1957);

M*A*S*H

(1970);

Platoon

(1986); and

Saving Private Ryan

(1998). When

adjusted for inflation only

The Best Years of Our Lives

(1946), about the aftermath o

war, is in the top sixty most successful films. This is in stark contrast to the immense

popularity of fantasy war films such as the

Star Wars Anthology

(1977; 1980; 1983;

1999) and

Independence Day

(1996), which are among the thirtytwo most popular films

of all time.

ee also:

war movies; Latin America

RODGER JACKSON

Warhol, Andy

b. 1928; d. 1987

Ensconced during the 1960s in the subcultural scene of his

New York

studio, “The

Factory” Andy Warhol transposed and transcended the defining ethos of his industrial

Pittsburgh

origins. In his silkscreen icons of American consumer culture and its

celebrities,

from Campbell’s Soup and Coca-Cola to Marilyn

Monroe

and Jacqueline

Kennedy

Onassis,

Warhol turned mass culture into high art. As such, his work was the

pop art

avatar of

postmodernism,

fundamentally blurring and destabilizing the

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 1188

boundary between “avant-garde and kitsch” that had been so rigorously maintained in

high modernist criticism and practice.

LISA SALTZMAN

war movies

One of the most influential, profitable and popular genres in American cinema. Although

influenced by films and film-makers in the silent and early talking picture eras, war films

as a

Hollywood

genre came of age during and after the Second World War. From the

1940s to the 1990s these Second World War films, and related movies about Korea and

Vietnam, both reflected and effected changes in American cinema and society.

Initial Second World War movies mobilized the American people for the war effort,

usually through patriotic tales of bravery and defiance in defeat (

Wake Island,

1942),

martyrdom (

The Purple Heart,

1944), resistance to fascism (

The North Star,

1943),

family sacrifice (

The Sullivans,

1944), women in war (

So Proudly We Hail,

1943) and the

home front (

Mrs Miniver,

1942). Because many of these films were either subsidized or

supported by various government agencies, there was little cinematic criticism of the

armed services and of war policy and strategy.

Propaganda gave way to realism and social commentary in many postwar films, which

explored the plight of returning

veterans

(

The Best Years of Our Lives,

1946), the toll on

those who fought and commanded (

Twelve O’Clock High,

1949), racism (

Home of the

rave,

1949) and the conditions of physical and mental misery which faced the common

soldier (

Battleground,

1949).

Mixed messages of

patriotism,

sacrifice and uncertainty about the necessity of war

continued through the Korean and

Cold War

eras of the 1950s and 1960s, up to the early

years of the

Vietnam War

. Yet, such films did little to advance the structure of the

genre, established in the 1940s. Since that decade a number of common themes in plot,

dialogue and direction have resulted in distinct subgenres of war movies. “Platoon” films

portray a cross-section of American society who find themselves thrown together to face

unknown and savage perils (

Bataan,

1943;

Platoon,

1986). The emotional and physical

difficulties in ordering men to their deaths shape “Commander” movies (

The Dawn

atrol,

1938;

Command Decision,

1948). Those who wait and serve the war effort in

non-combatant roles are the focus of “Home Front” films (

Since You Went Away,

1944;

Coming Home,

1978). “Epics” provide semi-documentary accounts of campaigns, battles,

or heroes’ accomplishments (

The Longest Day,

1962;

A Bridge Too Far,

1977). While

antiwar sentiments are part of every war movie, some, like Kubrick’s

Paths of Glory

(1957) clearly convey pacifist messages. Some of the best of these have been black

comedies that satirized war and the politicians and generals who started and continued

them (

M*A*S*H,

1970;

Catch-22,

1970).

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The evolution of war movies can be seen in the works of two directors, Lewis

Milestone (

All Quiet on the Western Front,

1930;

A Walk in the Sun,

1946;

The Halls o

ontezuma,

1950;

Pork Chop Hill,

1959) and Sam Fuller (

The Steel Helmet,

1951;

Fixe

ayonets,

1951;

The Big Red One,

1980). Their influential films encompass a number o

the subgenres and have been benchmarks in the changing images of American war and

society. Since 1998, new attention has been paid to war movies due to the critical and

popular success of Steven

Spielberg’s

Saving Private Ryan

Further reading

Dick, B.F. (1985)

The Star-Spangled Screen,

Lexington: The University Press of

Kentucky.

THOMAS M.WILSON

War on Drugs

drug policy; Reagan, Ronald

War on Poverty

In 1962 Michael Harrington published

The Other America,

arguing that one-fifth o

Americans lived in substandard housing, suffered from malnutrition and received

inadequate medical care. Harrington’s shocking revelations influenced many in America,

including Lyndon

Johnson,

a man of humble beginnings with whom the problem o

poverty resonated deeply The sudden death of President John

Kennedy

in 1963 moved

many in the government, first among them the new President Johnson, to fulfill the goals

Kennedy had targeted, one of which was the creation of a War on Poverty.

The War on Poverty had its roots in the New Deal of the 1930s. In terms of enlarging

the powers of the federal government, the two reform movements were equally

ambitious. But unlike the 1930s, the early 1960s was an era of unprecedented prosperity

in America, which emboldened Johnson and others all the more to believe that poverty

could be erased from the American landscape.

At the same time, many researchers began to talk about a “culture of poverty” in

America, arguing that poverty tended to strike certain groups more than others, and to be

handed down through generations. That is, nonwhites, the elderly those with less

education, and female-headed households were much more likely to be affected by

overty and to pass down this condition to future generations. How to break this cycle

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 1190

was a much more difficult question.

The ambitions of the War on Poverty included Medicare, a national health-insurance

rogram initially created in 1964 for the elderly and then expanded to include recipients

welfare

. In addition, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 gave aid to

underfunded

public schools,

while the Higher Education Act of the same year allocated

funds for needy

college and university

students. Johnson’s administration also created

the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

But the War on Poverty involved individuals at the grassroots level as well as the

highest levels of the government. In this regard, Johnson’s vision was premised on the

elief that the poor needed to be involved in the programs that were to affect them i

those programs were to succeed. In this spirit, the Johnson administration created the

Office of Economic Opportunity in 1964. First headed by R.Sargent Shriver, John

Kennedy’s brother-in-law, the OEO administered a budget of $800 million to a variety o

programs geared to community development and job training.

Some of the more notable programs of the War on Poverty included: legal services for

the poor; Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), a form of domestic Peace Corps,

training the young as teachers to be sent to underprivileged school districts; the Job

Corps, which attempted to train those who had dropped out of formal education; and

Project Head Start, initiated to provide preschool education for poor children. Some o

these programs, such as Head Start and Food Stamps, are still current, but for the most

art the War on Poverty had a minimal impact. Many have argued that the programs fell

victim to the

Vietnam War’s

voracious appetite for funding, while others have charged

that the entire enterprise was little more than a superficial attempt to mend a system with

deep structural problems.

Further reading

Matusow, A. (1984)

The Unraveling of America,

New York: Harper & Row.

Patterson, J. (2000)

America’s Struggle Against Poverty, 1900–1994,

Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press.

SUSAN SCHULTEN

Warren, Earl (Court)

b. 1891; d. 1974

Earl Warren emerged from a working-class family to become Alameda County district

attorney Attorney-General of California, three-term governor of California and chie

ustice of the Supreme Court. Appointed in 1953 by President

Eisenhower,

Warren

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served until 1969. He transformed the Court from one sharply divided between justices

favoring judicial restraint and practitioners of

judicial activism

into a more unified body

that moved from a focus on economic issues to confront many of the most significant

issues in the Court’s history. The

Warren Court

had a willingness to overturn legislative

enactments, especially those from the state level, employing a methodology rooted in

social justice, morality and fairness rather than strict doctrinal constitutional analysis.

Most notable are:

Brown

Board of Education

(1954), unanimously holding racial

segregation unconstitutional and triggering the

Civil Rights movement;

Baker

Carr

(1962), requiring reapportionment of congressional voting districts;

Roe v. Wade

(1973),

recognizing a privacy right for women to choose

abortion;

and decisions expanding the

rights of criminal defendants. Warren’s enduring legacy is the modern era of the Supreme

Court in which groups concerned with

women’s liberation, environmentalism,

gay and

lesbian politics, criminal justice, poverty and

immigration

could utilize the Supreme

Court and other levels of the judicial system, rather than the legislative process, as

instruments for social change and protection of the disadvantaged.

Further reading

Schwartz, B. (1983)

Super Chief: Earl Warren and His Supreme Court,

New York: New

York University

JAMES KRAUS

Warren Commission

Named after its chairperson, Earl

Warren,

chief justice of the US

Supreme Court,

the

Warren Commission probed the

assassination

of John F.

Kennedy

from December 1963

until its report in September 1964. The Commission concluded Lee Harvey Oswald,

angered by Kennedy’s anti-

Castro

policies, acted alone. While the report was extensive,

debates linger as to its exhaustiveness, fueling conspiracy theories (see Oliver

Stone’s

FK,

1991). Left unexplained were several sightings of a second gunman on the “grassy

knoll” and Jack Ruby’s rationale for killing Oswald in the Dallas

police

headquarters.

Assistant Counsel Arlen Specter, later senator from Pennsylvania, explained the amazing

trajectory of a single bullet, later called derisively the “magic-bullet” theory.

ROBERT GREGG

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 1192

Washington, DC

Washington, DC, the capital of the United States, has become increasingly central to

American culture in the postwar period as the federal government has grown in size and

power. Once almost universally described as a “sleepy Southern” town, Washington, DC

was often viewed dismissively well into the 1960s. President John F.

Kennedy,

for

example, quipped that the city was the worst of all worlds, a city of “

orthern charm and

Southern efficiency”

But, by the 1990s, Washington, DC boomed: the population of its metropolitan area

had quadrupled to more than 4 million since the 1950s (although the city itself had been

losing population since 1950). It had incontestably become one of the nation’s leading

media centers (especially for political journalism and commentary) and became a

headquarters for corporate associations (which increasingly needed to lobby the

government). Its monuments and

museums,

such as those of the

Smithsonian

Institution,

had become cultural icons and meccas for domestic and international

tourists. Its universities had gained in stature and prominence (in part because of access

to the media) and its arts community expanded: the Kennedy Center strove—largely

unsuccessfully—to be a national center for the performing arts. The city and suburban

opulation became more diverse as an expanding government attracted workers from

more parts of the nation and as refugees—Vietnamese, Central American, Ethiopian—

and immigrants began to move to the area. Even its economic base became more diverse

as biotechnology firms formed near the National Institutes of Health in the Maryland

suburbs and as the Internet spawned high-technology industry in its Virginia suburbs.

By the 1990s, Washington, DC and its inhabitants were more likely to be resented than

dismissed—a resentment often expressed through the contemptuous phrase “inside the

Beltway.” The phrase, popularized by Reagan conservatives in the early 1980s, suggests

that Washingtonians—particularly politicians, federal employees and lobbyists—are cut

off from the “real world” and have no sense of the problems faced by and the values

cherished by, the rest of the nation. (The Beltway is the interstate highway loop, I-495,

which, since the 1960s, has circled the city. The metropolitan population is indeed

statistically wealthier and better educated than the national average.)

But official Washington, DC has been only part of the city’s public face and private

existence. The city’s tortured history of race relations has also been part of its reputation

and its contribution to postwar culture. The population of Washington, DC proper had

long been overwhelmingly minority and African Americans accounted for about two-

thirds of the city’s population in 1990. While Washington, DC had begun officially

desegregating in the 1950s—before other Southern cities—its residential and social

atterns as well as its politics continued to be racially polarized through the 1990s.

Entries A-Z 1193

Washington, DC was a center of local black civil-rights activism throughout the 1960s, as

well as host to such central civil-rights events as the 1963 March on Washington.

Racial tensions boiled over in 1968 when two days of rioting followed the

assassination of Martin Luther

King,

Jr. As many as 20,000 Washingtonians participated

in the riots, which led President Lyndon

Johnson

to call out federal troops, who occupied

the city for a week. The riots killed twelve people, caused about $15 million in damage,

led many businesses and residents to quit the city and left blocks of the city in ruins,

some of which were still evident at the end of the 1990s.

Race relations hit another low in 1990 when Washington Mayor Marion Barry was

arrested by the

Federal Bureau of Investigation

in a drug bust. While Barry was a

controversial figure even in the black community many of his supporters viewed the bust

as a concerted attack against a black with political power. Barry’s arrest brought

increased national attention to the city’s drug problem, which had led the city to have the

highest murder rate per capita in the country in the late 1980s.

Barry’s arrest also set back the cause of “home rule.” For most of its history

Washington, DC had been governed by

Congress,

increasing racial tensions as white

members of Congress oversaw a largely black populace. Washington, DC was unable to

cast electoral votes until the ratification of the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution in

1961. In 1974 Congress granted limited “home rule,” allowing Washingtonians to elect a

mayor. Barry’s arrest killed any immediate chances that “home-rule”

owers would be

expanded.

Racial conflict—the aspect of local Washington, DC most apparent to the nation as a

whole—was only part of the story of black Washington, DC though. While Washington,

DC had long had a thriving black middle class, black prosperity expanded after the 1960s

as desegregation and affirmative action enabled blacks to benefit from the expanding

number of government and private jobs. However, the black middle class often moved

out of the city especially to Maryland’s once rural Prince Georges County which became

a predominantly black suburb.

Further reading

Abbott, C. (1999)

Political Terrain,

Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina.

Jaffee, H. and Sherwood, T. (1994)

Dream City

New York: Simon & Schuster.

DAVID GOLDSTON

Washington, Denzel

b. 1954

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 1194

Television and movie actor of the 1980s and 1990s. Washington’s first movie role,

Carbon Copy

(1981), was followed by a stint as the resident Dr Chandler on NBC’s

doctor show

St Elsewhere

(1982–8). A part in the Civil War movie

Glory

(1989) earned

him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. His performance in this movie led to

roles in other bigbudget productions, including

The Pelican Brief

(1993),

Philadelphia

(1993) and

Courage Under Fire

(1996). His portrayals of

Malcolm

X (1992), directed by

Spike

Lee

(with whom he has worked in two other films), and the South African Steve

Biko, in

Cry Freedom

(1987), received critical acclaim. Washington also starred in

evi

in a Blue Dress

(1995), the inaugural movie of his production company Mundy Lane

Entertainment, and

Hurricane

(1999) for which he was nominated for Best Actor. He

continues to mix box office hits with serious films.

ee also:

actors

ROBERT GREGG

Washington press corps

Beginning in the 1960s, the relationship between the American press and elected officials

Washington, DC

changed from informal gatherings to ceremonious, and often

contentious, events. The shift was symbolized by President Richard

Nixon’s

converting

the White House swimming pool into a press briefing room in 1969.

Television,

particularly 24-hour

news

stations, helped create this new environment. The medium

contributed to the rise of political commentators and made news from Washington

available continuously and instantaneously. A mistrust between the press and

Washington officials—largely the result of the Vietnam War and Watergate—

ecame

part of this atmosphere.

JAMES DEVITT

WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant)

upper class; white

waterfronts

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