President John F. Kennedy:
35th President of the United States
1961-1963
Democrat
From Massachusetts
Vice President: Lyndon B. Johnson
I.
The 1960 Election:
1. Senator John F. Kennedy ran for President against Vice President Richard M. Nixon.
2. The Key issues of the Election were:
A. Who would be tougher fighting the Communists?
B. Who did the nation trust to lead it in the 1960’s?
C. Could the nation elect a Roman Catholic President?
3.
The election was decided by a series of Televised Presidential Debates which showed
Kennedy as the more “youthful” candidate.
4. The election was one of the closest in American History, with Kennedy winning by just
119,450 votes, or less than 3/10ths of 1%.
II.
The Inauguration:
1. Kennedy’s inauguration is one of the most memorable in American History.
“Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to
a new generation of Americans-born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter
peace, proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those
human rights to which this Nation has always been committed…And so, my fellow Americans-Ask Not
what your country can do for you-ask what you can do for your country…And to our fellow citizens of the
world. Ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the good of mankind.”
-John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, January 20th, 1961.
III.
The New Frontier:
1. Kennedy’s Administration was called the “New Frontier”, a time of new Domestic and
International Policies which he highlighted in his Acceptance Speech at the Democratic
National Convention.
2. Many found Kennedy fascinating and believed he had a “Mystique”.
3. To Create these policies, President Kennedy created a Presidential Cabinet which many
called, “The Best and the Brightest”.
4. The Best and the Brightest were:
A. McGeorge Bundy: National Security Advisor
B. Robert McNamara: Secretary of Defense
C. Dean Rusk: Secretary of State
D. Robert F. Kennedy: Attorney General
5. Kennedy & The Economy:
A. President Kennedy increased minimum wage
B. Extended Social Security benefits
C. Increased Unemployment benefits
D. Allowed 10% of U.S. clothing sales to come from imports. (This would open the door
for U.S. clothing manufacturers to ship their goods from other countries. By 1990,
over 90% of all clothing sold in the U.S. was made in another country.)
6. Kennedy & Civil Rights:
A. During the Kennedy Administration, College Students and Civil Rights Activists
boarded buses and headed for the deep south into Mississippi.
B. The bus riders were referred to as the “Freedom Riders” .
C. Over 200 angry white protestors firebomb the busses to stop them.
D. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy reinforced the idea of supporting the rides by
sending 400 Federal Marshals to protect the busses as they drove into Mississippi.
E. In 1962 President Kennedy supported the integration of the University of Mississippi
by student, James Meredith, with the help of 5,000 Federal Troops forcing the
University to open.
F. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., leader of the Southern Christian Leadership
Council,(SCLC) was arrested for leading a civil disobedient movement in
Birmingham, Alabama.
G. While arrested, Dr. King wrote his piece, “Letters from a Birmingham Jail.”
H. On June 11th, 1963 Kennedy asked the nation for stronger civil rights legislation.
That evening, Medgar Evers, the head of the NAACP in Mississippi was murdered
outside his home.
I. On August 28th, 1963 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., led more than 250,000 people
to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in the “March on Washington.”
J. At the March on Washington, King delivered his “I Have A Dream Speech”.
7. Kennedy & Cuba:
A. The Bay of Pigs was a failed invasion of Cuba by the CIA and Cuban Exiles on April
17th, 1961.
B. As a result of the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy fires the head of the CIA, and refuses to
continue to take the advice of his military commanders.
C. On October 14th of 1962, Soviet Nuclear Missiles were found in Cuba.
D. President Kennedy orders a blockade and “quarantine” to prevent further offensive
weapons from being delivered to Cuba.
E. A 13 Day standoff between the President Kennedy and Soviet Premier Khrushchev
resulted in what was called, “The Cuban Missile Crisis”.
F. These 13 days were the closest the world has ever come to nuclear war.
G. Negotiated peace:
U.S. agrees to remove missiles from Turkey
Soviets agree to remove missiles from Cuba
H. A “hotline” telephone between Washington and Moscow will be installed so that the
two world leaders will be able to communicate to avoid another nuclear crisis.
8.
Kennedy and Latin America:
A. In March of 1961, President Kennedy introduced the “Alliance for Progress”
B. Alliance for Progress was designed to help the countries of Latin America raise their
standard of living and create strong democratic governments.
C. Kennedy’s brother-in-law Sargent Shriver led the “Peace Corps,” a movement of
young College students, meant to go into developing countries in Asia, Africa, and
Latin America to; dig wells, build schools, and educate students.
D. Both programs were designed to spread democratic ideas and prevent the spread of
Communism.
9. Kennedy, The Vienna Summit, and Berlin Wall:
A. Kennedy was invited to Vienna, Austria by Khrushchev for a conference discussing
removing the U.S. from Berlin.
B. Kennedy refused to move troops from Berlin, and Khrushchev ordered the building
of the “Berlin Wall”, a wall dividing the city East and West.
C. People in Communist East Berlin flee to the West before the wall could be finished.
D. By June of 1963 Kennedy goes to Berlin and says, “Ich Bin Ein Berliner” (I am a
citizen of Berlin)[He actually says in German, “I am a Jelly Donut”]
E. The Wall would not fall until November 1989.
10. Kennedy and the Space Race:
A. First man launched into space that orbited (went around the earth) was by the
Soviet Cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin.
B. The U.S. worried that they were falling further behind in the space race, and
President Kennedy challenged Congress and the Country to land a man safely on the
moon by the end of the decade.
C. The first U.S. astronaut into space was Allen Shepard aboard Freedom 7.
D. The first U.S. astronaut to orbit the earth was John Glenn aboard Friendship 7
11. Kennedy and The Flexible Response:
A. To meet the needs of a changing world, Kennedy and Secretary McNamara create
the policy of “Flexible Response.”
B. Flexible Response means that US troops can be deployed anywhere in the world at
any time, responding to any problem.
C. These changes in the military enabled the US to fight limited wars around the world
while maintaining a balance of nuclear power with the Soviet Union.
D. The US Army will create a new elite group called: The Green Berets.
12. Kennedy and Vietnam:
A. President Kennedy believed in the Domino Theory, that if the Communists were
able to take over Vietnam, Communism would spread throughout the rest of Asia.
B. On his first day in office, Kennedy sent in 15,000 military “Advisors” and the Green
Berets into Vietnam to help Democratic South Vietnam, fight off Communist North
Vietnam.
C. Communist North Vietnam was led by Ho Chi Minh.
D. Democratic South Vietnam was led by Ngo Dinh Diem.
E. When Kennedy found out that Diem was taking U.S. $ and then dealing with the
Communists on the side, the CIA assassinated Diem on November 1st, 1963.
13. The Kennedy Assassination:
A. November 22, 1963
B. President Kennedy had traveled to Dallas, Texas with Vice President Johnson, to
gain support for his reelection in 1964.
C. President Kennedy was traveling in a motorcade in downtown Dallas with Texas
Governor John Connally.
D. Kennedy is shot in the neck and head by a former Marine, Lee Harvey Oswald,
standing in the open window of a book warehouse.
E. Oswald will flee the warehouse and run to a movie theater where he confronts and
kills police officer J.D. Tippit.
F. Oswald is later captured and charged with killing the President and Tippit. Oswald’s
response, “I’m a patsy”.
G. Oswald is killed on live television by a night club owner Jack Ruby.
H. Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in as the 36th President of the United States.
I. Johnson calls a special commission led by Chief Justice Earl Warren to investigate
the idea of a conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy.
J. The Warren Commission will report on September 24th, 1964 that Lee Harvey
Oswald acted alone, and that there was not a conspiracy to assassinate President
Kennedy.
K. In 1979 a later reinvestigation pointed the fact that Oswald, “may have been” part
of a conspiracy.
L. Critics of the Commission believe that the idea of a “magic bullet theory” is proof of
a conspiracy.
M. In 1992, after the release of the Oliver Stone Movie, “JFK”, the Government will
create the JFK Records Act, which established the Assassination Archive and
Research Center.