Flexible Response


Moving away from Dulles’ idea of brinkmanship and nuclear weapons
McNamara (Secretary of Defense)
 Increase spending on conventional (non-nuclear) arms and mobile military forces

Bay of Pigs Invasion



March 1960—Ike gives CIA permission to train Cuban exiles
Kennedy approved it upon taking office
April 17, 1961

 15,000 Cuban exiles landed on Bay of Pigs
 Met by 25,000 Cuban troops backed by Soviet tanks and jets
Kennedy embarrassed but accepted the blame

Berlin Wall



Kennedy and Khrushchev meet in Vienna, June 1961
Kennedy refused to pull troops out of Berlin like Soviets wanted
August 13, 1961


 Construction of the Berlin Wall began
Kennedy: “I am a Berliner”
Since 1 st Berlin Crisis, 20% of East Berliners had fled to West Berlin

Cuban Missile Crisis
 October 15, 1962
 US recon planes discovered Soviets underground sites in
Cuba to launch missiles that could reach the US in minutes

What should Kennedy do?...Let’s consult our advisors (October 19, 1962)
Take notes on each advisor’s opinion and reasons why they think their way is the best
Members of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council
(EXCOMM)
 Secretary of Defense: Robert McNamara
 Secretary of State: Dean Rusk
 Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: Gen. Maxwell Taylor
 CIA Director: John McCone
 Secretary of the Treasury: C. Douglass Dillon
 Attorney General: Robert F. Kennedy
 National Security Advisor: MacGeorge Bundy
 CIA Special Intelligence Estimate

Gen. Maxwell Taylor
MacGeorge Bundy
Robert McNamara
Dean Rusk
John McCone
RFK
C. Douglass Dillon

A decision must be made. Time is of the essence… http://teachingamericanhistory.org/neh/interactives/cubanmissi lecrisis/

 November 22, 1963
 Kennedy was in Dallas visiting; riding with Governor of
Texas
 Shot twice
 Alleged Assassin: Lee Harvey Oswald
▪ Killed two days later by Jack Ruby


Various conspiracy theories: organized crime, CIA, Castro
Zapruder film http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iU83R7rpXQY




Texas native
Graduate of a teacher’s college
Experienced lawmaker and more political experience than JFK
 Spent over 30 years in Congress before becoming
Vice President
 Sworn into office 2 hours after JFK’s assassination



Medicare
 Health insurance for elderly over 65
Medicaid

 Healthcare for the poor and disabled
Elementary and Secondary Education Act

 Aid for schools—specifically those in poor school districts
National Foundation for Arts and Humanities
 Federal money for creative/scholarly projects




Immigration Laws
 Abolish discrimination quotas based on national origin from the 20s
Two new departments created
 DOT: Department of Transportation
 HUD: Department of Housing and Urban Development
Increased Funding for…
 Higher education
 Crime prevention
 Public Housing

 Michael Harrington
 The Other America (1962)
 40 million Americans living in poverty
 Johnson: “unconditional war on poverty”
 Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO)
▪ Head Start programs
▪ Job Corp: vocational/literacy programs



Johnson wins in a landslide
Vice President—Minnesota Senator Hubert
Humphrey
 Republicans: Barry Goldwater
**Johnson in a good place to push through reforms Truman initially tried**

 Unsafe at Any Speed (1965)
 Ralph Nader

 Programs to create a safer automobile industry
Silent Spring (1962)
 Rachel Carson

 Clean air and water laws
Ladybird Johnson
 Beautify America Campaign
 Interstate highways

 Chief Justice of Supreme Court
 1953-1969
 Supreme Court changed a lot during the term of
Warren

Mapp v. Ohio (1961)
 “illegally seized evidence cannot be used in court against the accused”
Gideon v. Wainwright (1963)
 “state courts must provide law representation for poor defendants”
Miranda v. Arizona (1966)
 Police must inform arrested person of their right to remain silent and their right to an attorney being present during police questioning

Baker v. Carr (1962)
 “one man, one vote”
 It is unconstitutional for states to draw representational lines in such a way that rural areas have more representation in state government that large, urban areas

Yates v. United States (1957)
 1 st Amendment protects radical and revolutionary speech, even by communists, unless there is a “clear and present danger” to the country
Engel v. Vitale (1962)
 States laws requiring Bible readings and prayers in schools, violate the 1 st Amendment’s provision of separation of church and state
Griswold v. Connecticut (1965)
 A state could not prohibit the use of contraceptives by adults

 1962, Students for Democratic
Society (SDS)
 Meet in Port Huron, Michigan
 University decisions should be made through participatory democracy


Activists became known as New
Left
Many students across the nation began protesting various aspects of society
 War, gender rights, civil rights/equality
 Berkeley—Free Speech Movement




Rebellious style of dress, music, drug use, communal living—”hippies”
Voice through folk music—Bob Dylan
 Other inspiration—Rolling Stone, Jim Morrison
Beatlemania
 1969, Woodstock
 Music festival in NY
 Movement slowed afterwards
 Haight-Ashbury
 San Francisco
 Hippie capital of the world

National Organization for Women (1966)
 Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique
1972—Equal Rights Amendment passed by Congress
 But did not receive approval from the 38 required states (35 only)



Lyndon B. Johnson
 US Commander in Chief
Ho Chi Minh

 Leader of North Vietnamese
Viet Cong

 South Vietnamese Communist guerillas
General William Westmoreland
 Commander of US forces in Vietnam

 Kennedy bought into Ike’s idea of the domino theory
 When fighting increased between North and
South, Kennedy provided additional military aid to South Vietnam—military advisors
 By 1963, 16,000+ US troops in Vietnam

 South Vietnam’s government
 Ngo Dinh Diem was horrible
 Diem was assassinated two weeks before
Kennedy
 Kennedy administration was aware of assassination plan
 1964, South Vietnamese had 7 different governments

 After having been president for a short time,
Johnson used the Tonkin Gulf Incident as reason to convince Congress WAR needed to be declared
 Tonkin Gulf Incident
▪ North Vietnam gunboats fired on US warships in Gulf of
Tonkin
 Congress said the president could “use all necessary measures”



After Viet Cong attack at US base…
 Johnson ordered Operation Rolling Thunder
▪ Prolonged air attack from Thailand using B-52 bombers against North Vietnam targets
April 1965
 Johnson used ground troops for the first time to fight the Vietcong
 By the end of 1965, there were over 184,000 US troops in South Vietnam



By the end of 1967
 US had over 485,000 troops in Vietnam
General Westmoreland assured the American public that he could see the “light at the end of the tunnel”
 Role of Television
 Allows Americans to see travesties of war
 Brings fight right in front of Americans
 National news coverage

 Why?
 Misinformation coming from the war leaders in
Vietnam
 Johnson unwilling to speak directly to American public
 Lack of understanding by the Washington administrators of the enemy they were fighting

 “Hawks”
 War supporters
 Believed the war was a good war against communism
 To stop the spread of Communism in Southeast Asia, the war must be fought
 “Doves”
 Against the war
 Conflict is a Civil War within the boundaries of a foreign country
 No business interfering
 Opposition due to cost in terms of money and lives
 Huge opposition from college students

 During the Lunar New Year (Tet), January 1968
 The Viet Cong launched all-out attack on nearly every major US military base in South Vietnam
 Although America counterattacked and recovered, this was a set-back for the Johnson administration
 Television: seeing footage, casualty accounts

 LBJ responds to Tet by requesting 200,000 more troops to win the war
 Advisors said not to escalating the war further
 March 31, 1968
 LBJ went on TV and said he was going to
▪ Limit bombing and begin peace talks
▪ Not run for president in 1968
 May 1968, peace talks begin in Paris…but unsuccessful