Kennedy and Johnson
Liberal Ascendancy and Turmoil,
1961-1961
1960 Election
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Nixon v. Kennedy
Catholic Issue
TV Debate
JFK through Bobby intervened to secure
MLK’s release from jail
• Close election—118,000 popular votes
difference and 303 to 219 in electoral
college
JFK Cabinet
• “Best and Brightest” – “Whiz Kids”
• “I just wish one of them had run for sheriff
once.” Sam Rayburn.
• Robert McNamara headed Defense; Robert
Kennedy was AG
Jack and Bobby
Apex of American Liberalism
“Let the word go forth from this time and place, that the torch
has been passed to a new generation of Americans
. . . Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that
we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship,
support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and
success of liberty;
And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can
do for you—ask what you can do for your country.
Domestic Policy Initiatives
• Faced opposition from Southern
segregationist Democrats
• Alliance for Progress
• Peace Corps
• Trade Expansion Act
• Housing Act/Area Redevelopment Act
Civil Rights
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Freedom Rides
James Meredith and Ole Miss
MLK and Birmingham
Washington Mall March
James Meredith
Foreign Policy
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Bay of Pigs
Berlin Crisis
Cuban Missile Crisis
Assassination of Diem
Lee Harvey Oswald
JFK’s funeral: JFK, Jr., Salutes His Father’s
Funeral caisson, Caroline and JFK, Jr., place
JFK’s P.T. 109 pin on their father’s grave;
Jackie and Teddie walk behind the caisson.
LBJ
• Kennedy Assassination
and LBJ’s use of it
• War on Poverty
• Economic Opportunity
Bill (Job Corps, Head
Start, Work Study—etc.)
• Great Society
• 1964 Election vs. Barry
Goldwater
• Medicare/Medicaid
• 1964 CRA
• 1965 VRA
• Elementary and
Secondary School Act
• Appalachian
Redevelopment Act
• 1965 Immigration Act
• 435 Total Bills of
Great Society
Legislation
Black Power
• Freedom Summer
• Frustration with slow pace of social and economic
change
• Riots in Watts, Chicago, Cleveland, Newark, and
Detroit (1965-67)
• Problems with defacto versus dejure segregation
• Black Panthers—Huey Newton and Eldridge
Cleaver
• Malcolm X
Vietnam
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Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
1965—Ground troops committeed
Mission Creep
Ia Drang Conflict
Anti-war movement at home
Tet Offensive
Bob Moses
M is for Mississippi and M is
for Murder—Mickey
Schwerner, J. E. Chaney, and
Andrew Goodman
Vietnamese Civilians Killed by American Service
Personnel at My Lai—March 16, 1968
Search and Destroy Mission
1968—The Year Everything
Went Wrong
• Tet Offensive
• Assassinations of MLK and RFK
• Riots and police brutality at Chicago
Democratic Convention
• Nixon and Silent Majority
Robert
Kennedy