HIST HESEN

 Best and worst times in history  Postwar economy peaked in 1960s  Racial strife, Vietnam, radicalism tore country apart  U.S. learned its limits in East Asia and at home

 Election of 1960  Republicans – Richard Nixon  Democrats – John F. Kennedy  Results – Kennedy won by 100,000 votes

 The New Frontier  Called aid to education  Federal support for health care  Urban renewal  Civil rights  Mostly were struck down in Congress  Most were passed under Johnson

 Bay of Pigs Invasion (1961)  Fidel Castro – Cuba  Central Intelligence Agency  Anti-Castro followers  Kennedy denied the incident

 Berlin Wall (1961)  Called to meet with Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna  Demanded U.S. troops pulled out of Berlin  Soviets built wall separating East and West Berlin  1963 – JFK – “Ich bin ein Berliner”

 Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)  Intel – Soviet missiles in Cuba  ICBMs could reach U.S. in minutes  U.S. naval blockade – 13 days  Nuclear Test Ban Treaty – no more testing of nukes

 Flexible response  Proactive rather than reactive  Rely heavily on intelligence from CIA  Use of Special Forces (Green Berets)  RETALIATE ONLY IF NECESSARY!

 November 22, 1963  Dallas, TX  Two bullets critically injured JFK (throat and head)  Lee Harvey Oswald  Warren Commission – Chief Justice Earl Warren  Conspiracies abound!

 Johnson becomes president after JFK  Johnson wanted:  Civil Rights Act – 1964  Outlawed major forms of discrimination against racial, ethnic, national and religious minorities, and also women  Voter’s Rights Act – 1965  outlawed discriminatory voting practices  Cut income taxes

 Democrats – LBJ/Hubert Humphrey  Republicans – Barry Goldwater  Extreme conservatism  Hawkish qualities  1964 commercial

 Medicare/Medicaid  Elementary and Secondary Education Act  Cut quota laws on immigration  Department of Transportation  Increased funding for public education and housing

 Riots in Harlem and Bedford- Stuyvesant, New York City  Riots in the Watts section of Los Angeles. Malcolm X killed in New York (Mujahid Abdul Halim)  Martin Luther King, Jr. killed on April 4 th (James Earl Ray); Robert Kennedy killed on June 5 th (Sirhan- Sirhan)  Race riots broke out around the country.

 Early stages:  Eisenhower  Kennedy – “domino theory”  Sent “advisors” to Vietnam  By 1963 – 15,000 troops in Vietnam

 Tonkin Gulf Resolution  Gulf of Tonkin  N. Vietnamese gunboats  Resolution gave LBJ power to take “all necessary measures” in Vietnam

 Operation Rolling Thunder  USAF bombing attacks  1965 – 184,000 troops in Vietnam  1967 – 480,000 troops/16,000 dead  Gen. Westmoreland – “light at the end of the tunnel”

 1968  Tet Offensive  Massive invasion on U.S.  N. Vietnamese attacked U.S. positions in S. Vietnam  Attacks seen on TV  LBJ doesn’t run for reelection

 Election of 1968  Democratic convention in Chicago  Herbert Humphrey  George McGovern  Antiwar demonstration  Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)  Richard Daley’s response  Richard Nixon  Won election  Pledged for “victory with honor” in Vietnam