What were the main terrorist threats faced by the U.S.A. during the 1960s and 1970s? Natalie Blight - AM-338 The United States of America, during the 1960s and 1970s, oversaw a dramatic turn in the nature of terrorism. Revolutionary terrorism was the primary tactic utilised in order to encourage ‘fundamental political change’ on a domestic level. 1 This would extend to a global scale facilitating a key transition from an era of domestic threats to international terrorism, which J. Bowyer Bell and Ted Gurr claim to be ‘the mo st dramatic innovation in violent politics of this generation.’ 2 This essay shall discuss how notions of revolution, and a transition to terrorism on an international level, are represented through the main terrorist threats during these turbulent decades. The youth movements of the early 1960s adopted acts of violence and symbolic threats to promote their anti-war sentiments, an overstated threat that would eventually dissipate as the Vietnam War ended. Anti-Colonialism, portrayed through the actions of Puerto Rican Separatists and Croatian Nationalists, employed revolutionary terrorism in their fight for independence from America. This would be a rising threat from earlier decades that would escalate to a critical level during the 1970s. The increased number of hijackings and hostage situations encouraged widespread media involvement and exposure to the horrific nature of terrorism, but would also force the
1 J. Bowyer Bell and Ted Robert Gurr, ‘Terrorism and Revolution in America’, in Violence in America: Historical and Comparative Perspectives , ed. by Hugh Davis Graham and Ted Robert Gurr (United States: SAGE Publications, 1979), p. 330. 2 Ibid, p. 333.
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