1. Kennedy and Johnson Administrations
The 1960s
Kennedy and Johnson Administrations

2. Significances of the 1960 Nixon Kennedy Campaign
Television debate : Appearance versus substance
Television ads: campaign spending $
Main Issues:
“missile gap”
religion
Close election results
Won by 100,000 votes, youngest to win via electoral college/last dem to take wh not from south

3. Inauguration Speech http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xE0iPY7XGBo

4. Text of Inaugural Address

5. Text of Inaugural Address

6. Text of Inaugural Address

7. Kennedy’s Charisma:
“…Our faith in him and in what he was trying to do was absolute, and he could impart to our work together a sense of challenge and adventure-a feeling that he was moving, and the world with him, toward a better time.” Pierre Salinger, Press Secretary
Glencoe text p. 842

8. “New Frontier” Goals Increase aid to education
Provide health insurance to the elderly
Create Dept. of Urban Affairs
Help Migrant Workers

9. Kennedy’s Critics:
Despite Democratic large majorities in House and Senate, Kennedy could not pass his New Frontier legislation.
WHY?

10. Kennedy’s Critics Congress could follow their own interest:
“A good many [congressional representatives] were elected in 1960 in spite of his presence on the ticket rather than because his name was there.” Congressional Democrat
US News & World Report

11. Kennedy’s Critics
Republicans and Southern Democrats viewed New Frontier as too costly
Southern Democrats controlled Congress

12. Kennedy: the Pragmatist
Minor deficit spending
Increased funding for defense and space exploration
Supported supply-side economics and tax cuts
“A rising tide lifts all boats.”
Congress denied tax cuts out of fear of inflation

13. Early Civil Rights Movement- 1950s
Brown vs BOE of Topeka, Kansas (1954)
Little Rock Nine (Eisenhower)
Montgomery Bus Boycott

14. Kennedy: the Civil Rights Movement

15. Sit-Ins

16. Freedom Rides

17. Voter Registration

18. Marches

19. Police Brutality Against Protestors

20. JFK, RFK, MLK

21. Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam

22. Kennedy: the Pragmatist
Less of Ike’s “brinkmanship” and more
“flexible response”
more conventional troops and weapons
Support of Special Forces
“Green Berets”

23. A “Marshall Plan” for Latin America?
Poverty and corruption in Latin America
Kennedy wants to thwart communist expansion in Latin America
Alliance for Progress
$20 billion aid for better schools, housing and health care
Designed to counter leftist movements
Chile, Colombia, Venezeula, and Central America benefited
Bogot�, December 17, "Here is inaugurated the first school of 22,000 to be constructed by the Colombian government within the Alliance for Progress with the assistance of the President of the United States of America, John F. Kennedy.” colombia/alianzas.jpg

24. The Space Race: “man on the moon”
JFK at Rice University 9/12/62

25. Kennedy and the Vietnam War
PHASE 1 - A WAR OF
COLONIAL INDEPENDENCE
AGAINST THE FRENCH
Vietnam had been a French
colony under the name of
French Indochina (along with
Cambodia and
Laos)
Vietnam began to fight for its independence from France during WW II ( when France was preoccupied with European conflict)
the Vietnamese revolutionary leader was Ho Chi Minh, a Communist
wanted to be the leader of
an independent, communist Vietnam; Ho received support
from both the USSR and “Red” China

26. This colonial war raged from 1946-54, culminating in the French defeat at Dienbienphu
France decided it wanted out and called a peace conference in Geneva, Switzerland (attended by France, Vietnam, the US, and the USSR)
The decision of the conference was to partition Vietnam into a communist North led by Ho and a “democratic” South Vietnam led by Ngo Dinh Diem
The settlement was an outgrowth of basic Cold War tensions between the Americans and Soviets and clearly reflected the US policy of containment with respect to Soviet communist expansionism
The US came to see South Vietnam as a “domino” that they couldn’t afford to lose
“American Escalation and Actual Military Involvement”- this phase originated with “Ike” and JFK but was
intensified under Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ), who
assumed the presidency after JFK’s assassination

27. Bay of Pigs, Cuba: April 17, 1961 CIA trained 1,400 Cuban Exiles
Kennedy cancelled air support
Cubans did not rise up in support of exiles
Castro personally led defense of island
1,189 captured/100 killed
US paid $53 in food and medicine for their release

28. Berlin Wall June 1961

29. Glencoe THE AMERICAN VISION Ch. 28 page 840-860
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERNCE SITES:
Glencoe THE AMERICAN VISION Ch. 28 page

30. Cuban Missile Crisis http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2ZyeG4tdOQ

31. Kennedy’s Enduring Legacy: The Peace Corps
Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their needs for trained men and women.

Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.

Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of all Americans.
On March 1, 1961, President Kennedy signed this executive order establishing the Peace Corps. On September 22, 1961, Congress approved the legislation that formally authorized the Peace Corps. Goals of the Peace Corps included: 1) helping the people of interested countries and areas meet their needs for trained workers; 2) helping promote a better understanding of Americans in countries where volunteers served; and 3) helping promote a better understanding of peoples of other nations on the part of Americans.The founding of the Peace Corps is one of President John F. Kennedy's most enduring legacies. Yet it got its start in a fortuitous and unexpected moment. Kennedy, arriving late to speak to students at the University of Michigan on October 14, 1960, found himself thronged by a crowd of 10,000 students at 2 o'clock in the morning. Speaking extemporaneously, the Presidential candidate challenged American youth to devote a part of their lives to living and working in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Would students back his effort to form a Peace Corps? Their response was immediate: Within weeks, students organized a petition drive and gathered 1,000 signatures in support of the idea. Several hundred others pledged to serve. Enthusiastic letters poured into Democratic headquarters. This response was crucial to Kennedy's decision to make the founding of a Peace Corps a priority. Since then, more than 168,000 citizens of all ages and backgrounds have worked in more than 130 countries throughout the world as volunteers in such fields as health, teaching, agriculture, urban planning, skilled trades, forestry, sanitation, and technology.

32. The Assassination

33. The Assassin

34. PRESIDENT LYNDON JOHNSON
The Great Society, War on Poverty
The War in Vietnam
The Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Voting Rights Act of 1965

35. LBJ’s Resume 26 years of experience Congressional Staffer
Member of the House of Representatives
U.S. Senator
Majority Leader
Vice-President
26 years of experience

36. War on Poverty
“There are tens of millions of Americans who are beyond the welfare state.
Taken as a whole there is a culture of poverty…bad health, poor housing, low levels of aspiration, and high levels of mental distress. Twenty percent of a nation, some 32,000,000.”
Michael Harrington, author of the Culture of Poverty 1962

37. War on Poverty
“The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice.” LBJ 1964
Medicare and Medicaid
Head Start
HUD
Job Corps
Water Quality and Clean Air Acts
Highway Safety Act
Fair Packaging and Labeling Act

38. The 1964 Election

39. 1964 Republican Candidate AZ Sen. Barry Goldwater
Conservatives take over the 1964 Republican National Convention
Ronald Reagan campaigns for AgH20

40. Johnson/Humphrey

41. The Results

42. Civil Rights Legislation
“WE SHALL OVERCOME”
Civil Rights Legislation
Civil Rights Act 1964
Voting Rights Act 1965
PRESIDENT JOHNSON “TREATS” SENATE MAJORITY LEADER RUSSELL IN ORDER TO SECURE VOTES TO PASS CIVIL RIGHTS LEGISLATION

43. “We Shall Overcome”

44. Changes in the Civil Rights Movement

45. “Black Power”- 1968 Olympics

46. MLK Assassination- April 4, 1968

47. RFK Assassination- June 1968

48. PHASE 2 – AMERICAN ESCALATION AND MILITARY INVOLVEMENT
Intensified under Lyndon
Baines Johnson (LBJ), who
assumed the presidency
afterJFK’s assassination
The U.S. never formally
issued a declaration of war, but
after the Gulf of Tonkin Incident,
where 2 American
destroyers were apparently
fired upon by the North
Vietnamese, Congress
passed the Gulf of Tonkin
Resolutions (August 1964)
- Congress gave LBJ
their support in sending
American personnel and materiel

49. In spite of ongoing escalation
throughout the 1960s, the US
experienced a lack of success
against the Vietnamese
guerrilla forces in S.
Vietnam (the Vietcong) as the
US Army was unprepared for
their tactics and mentality
The US was also never entirely
successful in shutting
down the Ho Chi Minh Trail, a
supply line that ran between
North and South Vietnam via
difficult jungle terrain,
often underground and
through neighboring nations
like Cambodia

50. The war definitely turned against the US in 1968, when the NVA’s General Giap began the Tet
Offensive, a surprise offensive on a major Vietnamese holiday that saw attacks all over the country, including in Saigon itself
Ongoing US casualties and losses saw an increase in antiwar sentiment on the American Home Front,
in large part because Vietnam was a TV War where American audiences saw the brutality of war firsthand

51. THE COUNTERCULTURE –
Scott Masters
Crestwood College

52. Women’s Rights Movement and Feminism

53. Farm Workers and A.I.M

54. Environmentalism

55. The “Hippie” Movement