1. Kennedy and the Cold War

2. Joseph Kennedy Sr SEC Ambassador to Court of St. James Steel
Appeasement
Family ambitions

3. Election of 1960 Democrat – John F. Kennedy
“get America running again”
Republican – Richard M. Nixon
Ike’s VP – ride coattails

6. Televised Debate affects Votes
First televised debate between presidential candidates (Sept. 26, 1960)
70 million viewers
Kennedy – well-coached and articulate
Kennedy attacked a “missile gap” – accurate?

7. Civil Rights
Kennedy worked to get MLK, JR out of jail after demonstrating at a segregated lunch counter in ATL
Nixon took no public position
This gave Kennedy many Af. American votes

8. Roman Catholic in the White House?
Kennedy wins, closest election since 1884
Things working against him – age, religion
TX and IL political machines?

9. Camelot
Americans began a love affair with the Kennedy family – Jackie, Caroline, John Jr.

11. Eisenhower’s Warning
Military-industrial complex military and industry would become too powerful, eclipsing the government.

12. Kennedy’s Cabinet
John Kenneth Galbraith
Robert McNamara

13. Flexible Response
Kennedy and Sec. of Defense (R. McNamara) – preparing for a variety of responses to internat’l crises other than nuclear war

14. Cuba
Fidel Castro seizes power and turns Cuba into a communist country

17. Communism in Cuba
Castro seizes oil refineries and turns commercial farms into communes

18. Cuban exiles
Many Cuban exiles go to Miami

19. Bay of Pigs
Eisenhower gave CIA permission to train exiles for invasion of Cuba.
Kennedy reluctantly went along with plan.

20. FAILURE Advance group never reached shore
Air strike failed to knock out Cuban air force
Some exiles killed, others imprisoned
Kennedy paid $53 million in food and medical supplies to ransom captives

21. Effects of Bay of Pigs U.S. was embarrassed
Cuba moved closer to the Soviets

22. Cuban Missile Crisis
Soviets sent many weapons to Cuba (Nikita Khrushchev to Fidel Castro)
Kennedy warned that American would not tolerate nuclear weapons in Cuba

23. October 1962 – US aerial photos showed Soviet missile bases in Cuba – ready to launch

24. Cuban Missile Crisis (continued)
Kennedy warns that attack from Cuba on US will signal US nuclear attack on USSR
Soviet ships headed toward Cuba, while US ships and planes quarantined the island

25. American military buildup in Miami
Soviet ships stopped suddenly, Khrushchev pulls missiles out of Cuba (in return for a promise to move outdated US missiles out of Turkey)

29. Effects of Cuban Missile Crisis
Khrushchev’s prestige in USSR and world severely damaged
Kennedy criticized for practicing brinksmanship

30. Berlin Wall
Khrushchev and Soviets have a wall erected between East and West Berlin.
Many refugees had been fleeing from East Berlin to West Berlin to escape communism

31. Berlin Wall US and Soviet Tanks face off Kennedy calls up reserves
“we have never had to put up a wall to keep our people in…Ich bin ein Berliner” -1963

34. Trying to ease tensions?
1963 – hot line established between White House and Kremlin
Limited Test Ban Treaty – banned nuclear testing in atmosphere

35. Flexible Response
Kennedy and McNamara move away from Dulles’ idea of massive retaliation and nuclear weapons
Increased spending on conventional (nonnuclear) weapons

36. Flexible Response
Dealt with “brushfire” wars in Africa and Southeast Asia
Congo (Zaire)
Laos
Vietnam
Green Berets all over the world