JFK & LBJ
1960-68
APUSH ch. 28 part 1
JFK
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Who did JFK run against in 1960?
– Richard Nixon
What advantages did each candidate have?
– Nixon –
• well known (Ike’s VP)
• Good track record vs. communism (McCarthy era)
– JFK
• Wealthy background
• War hero & Pulitzer Prize winner
– How did JFK win?
• Televised debates – advantage for JFK (more telegenic)
JFK Administration
• Describe JFK’s Cabinet:
– “the best & brightest” – elite intellectuals
• Scholarly & academic (unlike Ike’s cabinet, which was more
business-oriented)
• No women in cabinet
• Brother Robert was Attorney General
– Major issues for JFK?
• Cold War
• Civil Rights
• Environment
– Priorities?
• Cold War #1
• Everything else secondary
Kennedy & The Cold War
•
Philosophy?
– “Flexible response” – ability to confront communist aggression in several different ways
• Nuclear, conventional, or unconventional tactics
– JFK’s policies/actions?
• Peace Corps – volunteers to bring American “goodwill” to Third World
• Funding of space race/NASA – embarrassed by Sputnik, wanted to be 1st to moon
– Alan Shepherd, John Glenn
• Expansion of US Army Special Forces (created by Ike)
– Green Berets
– Soldiers specially trained in political warfare, counterinsurgency,
unconventional warfare, psychological operations, training allies to combat
communism, and direct action when necessary
Cold War Incidents – JFK
• What happened in Germany?
– Soviets put up Berlin Wall in 1961
• What did JFK plan for Cuba?
– Use Cuban exiles to oust communist Castro
– Plan drawn up during Ike years – executed by JFK
– Bay of Pigs Invasion 1961
• Huge blunder, didn’t work
– Effect?
• US embarrassed
• JFK determined to redeem himself
• Cuba becomes paranoid of US invasion
– What happens next?
Cold War Incidents – JFK
•
What happened in Cuba after the Bay of Pigs fiasco?
– Cuba imports Soviet missiles
– US sees them with spy plane recon photos
– Missiles could reach US in minutes
– JFK blockades Cuba – calls it a quarantine – why?
• Also vows to get rid of missiles already in Cuba
• By force if necessary
– Showdown between US (JFK) and USSR (Khrushchev)
– World at brink of nuclear war
Cold War Incidents – JFK
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•
Cuban Missile Crisis – how did it end?
– USSR “blinks”
– Vows to remove missiles from Cuba
– US will not invade Cuba
– US secretly removes missiles from Turkey (JFK saving face)
Effects?
– Hotline – White House to Kremlin
– US builds nuclear arsenal – feels need to have more nukes than USSR
Cold War Incidents – JFK
• What was JFK’s attitude toward Vietnam?
– Steps up US involvement
– Lots of $$$ and aid flowing to SVN
– Uses military advisors (lots of them), Special Forces, CIA mostly (not
conventional troops)
– Wants to keep it a small war
– Diem hated in SVN
• Assassinated, replaced by military dictators
Social Movements under JFK
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•
Environment
– Clean Air Act
– Warned against pesticides
• “Silent Spring” – Rachel Carson
Civil Rights
– Mostly let events play out, intervened if necessary
– Sit-ins and lunch counter demonstrations
– Birmingham, 1963
• Bull Connor
• Protesters attacked with cattle prods, fire hoses, dogs
• Turned public opinion against segregation (TV coverage)
– U of Mississippi
• James Meredith integrates
Major Court cases during JFK’s administration
• Baker v. Carr (1962) –
– apportionment – made sure voting districts not
drawn in a way that made minority voters a
non-factor
• Engel v. Vitale (1962) –
– bans prayer in public school
• Abington v. Schempp (1963) –
– bans reading of Bible in public schools
• Although…..Mrs. Shangraw’s 4th
grade classroom in Tenn began
every day with a story from this
book.
• And before you ask, she was
NOT born before 1963, thank
you.
LBJ & The Great Society
• How does LBJ become Pres.?
– JFK assassinated in Texas in 1963
• Shot by Lee Harvey Oswald
• Oswald murdered by Jack Ruby before he can stand trial
• Numerous conspiracy theories
– LBJ faces re-election in 1964 again Barry Goldwater
• Opponent of civil rights reform, welfare programs, gov’t spending,
– LBJ wins – how?
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Portrays Goldwater as reckless in nuclear policy (because being a racist is ok)
Goldwater would consider using nukes vs. Cuba or North Vietnam
“Daisy” commercial – brilliant and groundbreaking
Goldwater loses but launches modern republican strategy (Here you go, Matt and
Sean!)
– Coalition of southern & western conservatives
LBJ & The Great Society
• What is LBJ most known for?
– Great Society
– Civil Rights legislation
– Increasing US involvement in VN
• Gulf of Tonkin Incident (1964)
• Why does LBJ pursue civil rights so aggressively?
– Partly b/c he believed in it
– Also b/c of his background – wanted to make sure he didn’t
appear a racist southerner
– Supposedly wanted to be remembered as one of greatest
presidents
Civil Rights & Social Progress
•
Major Milestones under LBJ:
– Civil Rights act of 1964 – public segregation illegal
– Voting Rights Act of 1965 – grandfather clause, literacy tests illegal
• Also voter registration movement
– Civil Rights Act of 1968 – prohibited disc. in housing
– 24th Amendment – poll tax illegal
– Motor Vehicle Safety Act – federal standards
• Inspired by Ralph Nader – “Unsafe at Any Speed”
– Gideon v. Wainwright – state-provided lawyers ”
My Dad’s next car.
– Miranda v. Arizona – rights of the accused must be stated
– Loving v. Virginia – strikes down state laws outlawing interracial marriage
– Engel v. Vitale – no school prayer
– Econ. Opportunity Act (and other programs) – War on Poverty
• Inspired by Michael Harrington
– Education Acts (1965)
– Medicare & Medicaid
– Immigration Act (1965)
– March on Washington, 1963