Campaign issues:
 Kennedy’s Catholicism
 Age/experience
 Civil rights- able to
secure MLK’s release
from jail
 The economy
The election:
 Televised debates
give JFK the edge
 Thin margin of
victory in popular
vote 34.2 million to
34.1 million
 Electoral victory: JFK
303 to Nixon’s 219
We stand on the
edge of a New
Frontier—the
frontier of
unfulfilled hopes
and dreams, a
frontier of
unknown
opportunities and
beliefs in peril.
Beyond that
frontier are
uncharted areas
of science and
space, unsolved
problems of
peace and war,
unconquered
problems of
ignorance and
prejudice,
unanswered
questions of
poverty and
surplus.

Alliance for Progress:
a 10 year, multibillion
dollar investment in
Latin America to
reduce poverty &
illiteracy

Goal: to prevent
Castro’s exploitation of
South American
grievances against the
U.S.

Each year since 1961
between 5,000 and
15,000 volunteers
have helped people in
developing nations
confront the
challenges they face

Goal to offer
educational/technical
services to
underdeveloped
nations

Goal: to stop
atmospheric nuclear
testing.

On August 5, 1963, after
more than eight years of
difficult negotiations, the
United States, the United
Kingdom, and the Soviet
Union signed the Limited
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.



Fair Housing Act: to
prevent discrimination
in housing
Fair Labor Standards
Act: raise minimum
wage
Committee on Equal
Employment
Opportunity:
desegregate large
companies
Fair Housing Act signed by LBJ

Civil Rights Act of 1964:
JFK calls segregation a
moral wrong. He
introduces the Civil Rights
Act in 1961. It stalls in
Congress.

“I hope that every
American, regardless of
where he lives, will stop
and examine his
conscience about this and
other related incidents.
This Nation was founded
by men of many nations
and backgrounds. It was
founded on the principle
that all men are created
equal, and that the rights of
every man are diminished
when the rights of one man
are threatened.”



The President’s
Commission on the
Status of Women:
established in 1961
Chaired by Eleanor
Roosevelt until her
death in 1962
Focused on equity in
education and
workplace

The Bay of Pigs Invasion was
an unsuccessful action by a CIAtrained force of Cuban exiles to
invade southern Cuba, with
support and encouragement from
the US government, in an
attempt to overthrow the Cuban
government of Fidel Castro.

The conflict was launched in April
1961, less than three months
after John F. Kennedy assumed
the presidency in the United
States. The Cuban armed forces,
trained and equipped by Eastern
Bloc nations, defeated the
invading combatants within three
days.


On October 14, 1962, a
United States Air
Force U-2 plane on
a photoreconnaissance
mission captured
photographic proof of
Soviet missile bases
under construction in
Cuba.
The threat of a
showdown with the
USSR was imminent.

The confrontation
ended on October
28, 1962, when
President
Kennedy and the
United Nations
SecretaryGeneral reached a
public and secret
agreement with
Nikita Khrushchev.
In August 1961 the Soviets
erected the Berlin Wall to
stop the mass exodus of
people fleeing Soviet East
Berlin for West Berlin and
the non-Communist world.
The wall was a mass of
concrete, barbed wire, and
stone that cut into the heart
of the city, separating
families and friends.
 For 28 years, it stood as a
grim symbol of the gulf
between the Communist
East and the nonCommunist West.


“And so, my fellow
Americans: ask not what
your country can do for
you - ask what you can
do for your country.”

“Well, space is there,
and we're going to climb
it, and the moon and the
planets are there, and
new hopes for
knowledge and peace
are there. And,
therefore, as we set sail
we ask God's blessing
on the most hazardous
and dangerous and
greatest adventure on
which man has ever
embarked.”
“I am the man who
accompanied Jacqueline
Kennedy to Paris, and I
have enjoyed it.”
John F. Kennedy
Friday, November 22, 1963



The Warren Commission, was
established on November 29, 1963,
by Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate
the assassination of United States
President Kennedy on November 22.
Its 888-page final report was
presented to President Johnson on
September 24, 1964, and made
public three days later.
It concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald
acted alone in the killing of Kennedy
and the wounding of Texas Governor
John Connally, and that Jack Ruby
acted alone in the murder of Oswald.
The Commission's findings have
since proven controversial and been
both challenged and supported by
later studies.

"No memorial oration
or eulogy could more
eloquently honor
President Kennedy's
memory than the
earliest possible
passage of the civil
rights bill for which he
fought so long.“
March 26, 1964

The sixth-most lopsided presidential
election in the history of the United States
behind the elections of 1936, 1984, 1972,
1864, and 1980.

Republican Senator Barry Goldwater of
Arizona, as a right-wing legislator who
wanted to abolish the social welfare
programs created in the 1930s.

LBJ advocated more such programs, and
after 1965, instituted three: Medicare,
Medicaid, and the War on Poverty.

Johnson easily won the Presidency,
carrying 44 of the 50 states and the District
of Columbia.

Johnson won 61.1% of the national popular
vote, which remains the highest popularvote percentage won by a U.S. presidential
candidate since 1820.

The election is also remembered because
of Goldwater's status as a pioneer in the
modern conservative movement.





University of Michigan, May 22, 1964
Economic Opportunity
Act, 1964
Volunteers in Service
to America (VISTA),
1964
Medicare, 1965
Medicaid, 1965
Elementary and
Secondary Education
Act of 1965



Immigration Act of
1965
Department of Housing
and Urban
Development, 1965
Voting Rights Act of
1965
March 31, 1968

President Johnson announces a
unilateral bombing halt. At the
end of the speech, Johnson
stuns the nation by announcing
that he will not run for a second
full term as president.

After stepping down from the
presidency in January 1969,
Johnson returned to his ranch in
Texas. There he and his aides
prepared his memoirs, which
were published in 1971.

Johnson died on Jan. 22, 1973,
five days before the conclusion of
the treaty by which the United
States withdrew from Vietnam.

Making poverty a national
concern set in motion a
series of bills and acts,
creating programs such as
Head Start, food stamps,
work study, Medicare and
Medicaid, which still exist
today.

The programs initiated
under Johnson brought
about real results, reducing
rates of poverty and
improved living standards
for America's poor.

A key element of LBJ's
leadership was the famous
"Johnson treatment." No
president has been so
celebrated for his powers
of persuasion in face-toface confrontations.

A combination of flattery,
cajolery, logic,
sentimentality, and threats,
the Johnson treatment also
included a measure of
physical assault.