Chapter 30 Outline: “The Turbulent Sixties”
I.
The New Frontier, 1960-1963
a. The Election of 1960
i. Kennedy
1. Excited younger population
a. “had little kids…like to play football”
b. new life and direction for nation
2. middle-aged voters liked Eisenhower’s stability and wanted
a continuation of “middle way”
ii. Nixon
1. Republican candidate who promised continuation of
“middle way”
2. Better known and more experienced
3. Scorned for McCarthyism
iii. Televised debate
1. Reached over 70 million
2. First televised presidential debate
3. Listeners vs. viewers
a. Listeners thought it was a tie
b. Viewers thought Kennedy won
i. Kennedy: tan, dynamic, confident
ii. Nixon: pale, sickly, insecure
iv. Kennedy benefits from economic recession, U-2 incident, and
selection of Lyndon B Johnson as running mate
v. Closest election since 1888
1. Shows nation’s fear of change and of catholic president
a. Religion cost millions of votes in the south
2. Nixon had states, Kennedy had minorities
vi. “the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans”
1. recruited the “best and the brightest”
2. selected brother for attorney general
3. allowed press conferences to be televised live
4. hid behind television
a. always appeared vibrant, a hero, and an adoring
husband
b. fragile heath, mood-altering drugs, marital issues
b. Kennedy’s Domestic Record
i. Passive leadership and disinterest in domestic affairs
ii. Lacked votes on Capitol Hill to overcome conservative coalition
iii. Rarely asked Congress to enact reform measures
1. Little significance in social legislation
iv. Economic growth in domestic policy
1. Invested in capital growth by combining inducements and
private enterprise with increased defense and space
expenditures
2. Boosted defense budget in 1961 by 20%
a. Increased nuclear stockpile
b. Strengthened military forces
c. “Green Berets”
3. “race to the moon”
a. $25 billion
4. lower business taxes through investment credits and
depreciation allowances
a. business groups resented anti-inflammatory efforts
that cancelled the rise in U.S. Steel’s prices
5. rejected proposals for increased social spending in 1963
a. lower personal ad corporate taxes
i. encouraged investment and consumption
ii. never made it out of Congress
v. doubled rate of economic growth, decreased unemployment, kept
inflation at 1.3% a year
1. longest uninterrupted economic boom ever
2. “3rd Eisenhower administration”
vi. Environmentalism
1. Emphasized efficient use of resources
2. Preservation movement
a. Focused on preserving the wilderness
b. Grew during fallout scare of 1950’s and ‘silent
spring”
c. Aided by postwar prosperity
3. Advisory committee on pesticides
4. Clean Air Act regulated emissions
c. Kennedy and Civil Rights
i. Racial equality
1. Divide nation
2. Split Democratic Party
3. Immobilize Congress
4. Jeopardize reelection hopes
ii. Tried not to deal with racial problems
iii. High number of African Americans for high office with white
racists to federal judgments
iv. Wanted to speed up desegregation but stalled two years before
issuing the weakest order that banned discrimination
v. CORE organized a “freedom ride” in 1961 to show segregation
violations in transportation
1. Beating of riders by racists
2. Bus burned
3. Kennedy finally sends marshalls to stop violence
vi. U. Mississippi enrolls James Meredith in 1962
1. Whites protest
2. 2 dead, 110’s injured
d. The African American Revolution
II.
i. Martin Luther King, Jr.
1. Good Friday 1963
a. Organized marches, sit-ins, and pray-ins
b. Eugene “Bull” Conner attacks the non-violent
protestors
c. Got more whites to want equality for African
American
2. Kennedy ends demonstrations in exchange for
desegregation of Birmingham stores
3. Governor George Wallace refuses to let two black students
to U. Alabama
a. Kennedy forces Wallace to abide by law
4. Television appearance
a. June 11-civil rights was a “moral issue”
b. “race has no place in American life or law”
5. Tried to institute a comprehensive civil-rights measure but
Congress was against it
a. August 28: 250,000 people marched on Capitol Hill
6. Medgar Evans murdered on night of presidential address
7. September bombing of black church killed four girls
New Frontiers Abroad, 1960-1963
a. Cold War Activism
i. Approved plans for “La Brigada” to storm Bay of Pigs
1. Thought it would inspire Cubans to overthrow Castro
2. Troops easily defeated by Cubans
ii. Kennedy met in Vienna with Nikita Khrushchev in July 1961
1. Tried to develop a peace treaty with Germany
2. Kennedy declares the defense of west Berlin
a. Doubled draft calls
b. Reservists ordered to active duty
c. Asked Congress for $3 billion
3. Moscow signed treaty with East Germany
b. To the Brink of Nuclear War
i. October 1962: America discovers that the Soviet Union has
missiles in Cuba
1. Kennedy responds with the quarantine of Cuba
a. Naval blockade to prevent more missiles from being
sent over
2. “eyeball to eyeball”…”I think the other fellow just blinked”
a. Soviet ships stop in the water
b. No more missiles if America doesn’t invade Cuba
i. Then U.S.A forced to move missiles out of
Turkey (did not agree to but ended up doing
anyway)
ii. R. Kennedy meets with Soviet ambassador
c.
d.
e.
f.
3. After Cold War U.S.A. discovered 36 nuclear warheads in
Cuba
ii. Kremlin-White house “hotline” established so the countries would
have contact in future crisis
iii. In 1963 agreed on treaty that outlawed atmospheric and undersea
nuclear testing
iv. Détente: superpowers turn to negotiation instead of confrontation
v. Race for more destructive weapons
Kennedy and Indochina
i. Civil war between American supported forces and Lao rebels in
Laos created by Geneva Agreement 1954
ii. In July 1962 Kennedy restored neutralist government but left some
communists
iii. Ordered shipments of weaponry to South Vietnam and increased
American forces
iv. Moved Vietnamese peasants to fortified villages
v. Pressed Diem to make economic and political reforms
1. Ended up crushing demonstrations of Buddhists
a. Monks set themselves on fire to protest
b. Diem’s officials planning coup
2. November 1 military leader staged coup
The Thousand Day Presidency
i. Kennedy assassinated on November 22, 1963
1. Lee Harvey Oswald murdered in jail
2. More admired in death
ii. Only 1/3rd of legislative proposals became laws
iii. Mixed record
1. 1st nuclear war test ban treaty-massive nuclear buildup
2. recognized need for social reform in Latin America-didn’t
fund the Alliance for Progress well enough
3. ended conflict in Laos-expanded war in Vietnam
iv. “left the stage before his glory tarnished”
The Great Society
i. Johnson was not as well received as Kennedy at first
ii. Most government experience than any other president
iii. Complete opposite to Kennedy regarding Capitol Hill and
legislation
iv. Very successful, very big ego
1. Did not think that he got enough attention as president
2. “Why don’t people like me?”
Toward the Great Society
i. In February 1964 Congress passed a $10 billion tax-reduction Bill
ii. In July 1964 passed the Civil Rights Act
1. Banned discrimination and segregation in public
accommodations
2. Government has new power to fight black disfranchisement
3. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
iii. “unconditional war on poverty in America”
1. public support
2. “The Other America” by Michael Harrington
a. pointed out “hidden” poverty in America
3. instituted training programs (“hand, not a handout”)
4. Economic Opportunity Act
a. Establishes Office of Economic Opportunity
i. Funded Job Corps that trained young people
5. Volunteers in Service to America
a. Peace corps who worked in poverty areas
6. Project Head start
a. Provided compensatory education for preschoolers
n disadvantaged families
7. Community Action Program
a. Maximum participation of poor in decisions that
involved them
b. Public training works program
8. Quality over quantity
g. The 1964 Election
i. Young Americans for Freedom and John Birch Society didn’t like
the Great Society
ii. Barry Goldwater
1. Senator of Arizona
2. Criticized Johnson’s program
a. Problem with big government, deficit spending,
racial liberalism, and social-welfare programs
3. Most people in the south like him
4. Ran against Johnson in the 1964 election (lost)
5. Opposed civil rights acts
6. Wanted to use nuclear weapons in Cuba and Vietnam
7. “in you heart you know he’s right” vs. “in your gut you
know he’s nuts”
8. Hubert Humphrey was his running mate
h. Triumphant Liberalism
i. Johnson sent 63 proposals to Congress in 1965
1. Got most of what he wanted
ii. Medicare and Medicaid programs provide health care and
insurance to the needy
iii. Education reforms provide funds for all grade levels
iv. Laws passed to re-vitalize inner-city neighborhoods
v. National Endowments for the Arts and humanities funded the
fields
vi. LAX becomes as important for immigration as Ellis Island
vii. Environment
1. Established national parks
III.
2. Strengthened Clean Water and Air Acts
3. Protected endangered species
4. Preserved the wilderness
5. No dam in Colorado River or flooding in Grand Canyon
6. Fewer junkyards and billboards
viii. Great Society was more of a dream than reality
ix. Johnson spent 20 times more in Vietnam than on poverty in 1966
i. The Warren Court in the Sixties
i. Kennedy and Johnson both appointed liberals as Supreme Court
Justices
1. Separation of church and state
2. Limited local censorship of books and films
3. Overturned state bans on contraceptives
ii. “one man, one vote”
iii. upheld the rights of accused criminals in court
iv. Court Rulings see chart on pg. 855
The Changing Struggle for Equality, 1964-1968
a. Voting Rights Act of 1965
i. Mississippi Freedom Summer Project of 1964
1. 100 college-student volunteers helped blacks to register to
vote and organize “Freedom Schools”
2. had trouble from KKK and Mississippi law officials
ii. Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
a. Wanted seats in delegation
b. Johnson gives 2 seats and bars any delegation
excluding blacks
i. Angered southern segregationalists
iii. Selma, Alabama
1. Blacks were 50% but only 1% were registered to vote
2. Jim Clarck attacks protestors like “Bull” Connor did
iv. Voting Rights Act
1. August 1965
2. Expanded black suffrage
v. Supreme Court gets rid of poll tax in 1966
b. The Long, Hot Summers
i. Watts, LA; August 11, 1965
1. 6 days-blacks looted and fire-bombed white-businesses and
sniped officers, firefighters, and National Guard troops
ii. Riots became increasingly frequent and violent
iii. National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (Kerner
Commission)
1. Blamed white racism
c. “Black Power”
i. Malcolm X
1. Converted to Islam while in prison (Black Muslim)
a. Founded by Elijah poole in Detroit 1931
b. “wake up, clean up, stand up”
2. seize power by any means necessary
3. assassinated in February 1965
ii. Black panther Party
1. Strike by night, spare no one
2. Most extreme-not much black support
d. Ethnicity and Activism
i. Declaration of Purposes composed by representatives of 67 tribes
1. Criticized termination policy
2. Publicized plight and cultural pride
ii. Johnson establishes National Council on Indian Opportunity in
1965
1. Helped impoverished Native Americans
iii. “Red Power” and Native American over Indian demanded
1. Native American study programs, reimbursement for land,
preferential hiring
iv. Protests/demonstrations
1. Puyallup-“fish-ins”
2. Wampanoag-Thanksgiving=Day of Mourning
3. Navajo and Hopi-protest strip mining
4. “Indians of All Tribes”-2 year sit in at Alcatraz
v. American Indian Movement
1. Rights to control own affairs
vi. National farm Workers Association formed by Cesar Chavez
1. Gain union recognition
2. Improve working conditions
3. Used religion and non-violence
4. Took many personal hunger strikes and organized boycotts
vii. Began to use Chicano and Chicana as names for identity
1. Demanded bi-lingual education
2. Alianza formed to recapture territory taken by whites
3. Brown Berets similar to Black Panthers
viii. Asian-Americans dislike “oriental”
e. A Second Feminist Wave
i. JFK establishes Presidential Commission on the Status of Women
ii. Women received less pay and had a higher unemployment rate
iii. National Organization for Women founded in 1966
1. Lobbied for equal opportunity
2. Filed lawsuits against inequality
iv. The Feminine Mystique: women should be wives and mother (not
true)
v. Women came together to share grievances and experiences
vi. Crowned sheep Miss America in 1968 to show how the contest
degraded women
vii. Health centers, day cares, abortion counseling services, protested
the negative wraps for women in the media
IV.
viii. Women’s Strike for Equality
1. Brought thousands together for equal rights
The Lost Crusade in Vietnam, 1964-1968
a. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
i. Johnson ordered Pentagon to prepare air-strikes against N.
Vietnam
ii. Maxwell Taylor appointed in June
iii. Attack of N. Vietnamese patrol boats and U.S. destroyers in Gulf
of Tonkin?
1. Johnson called the attacks unprovoked
iv. Gulf of Tonkin Resolution passed (grandma’s nightshirt)
1. Gave Johnson a blank check against N. Vietnam
b. Americanization of the War
i. “Operation Rolling Thunder”=bombing of N. Vietnam
1. accomplished none of its purposes
ii. Between 1965 and 1968 U.S. dropped 800 tons of bombs on
Vietnam a day
1. Didn’t work
a. Never was stronger (both equal in number)
iii. No end in sight
c. Opposition to the War
i. U. Michigan conducted “teach-in” to raise awareness of war and
discuss questions
ii. Rallies in Washington against the Vietnamese “civil war”
iii. Hundreds of thousands on anti-war matches
iv. Most debt felt by the poor
v. Television helped to spread anti-war feeling
vi. “I want to get out but I don’t want to give up”
vii. Johnson seen as a villain
1. Refused to de-escalate
2. “hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?”