1960’s War, Society, & Politics
JFK
• 1960 Election
• JFK v. Nixon
• New Frontier
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Health insurance for elderly
Anti poverty
Tax cuts
Peace Corps
Alliance for Progress
Civil rights bill
Power of image
LBJ
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November 22, 1963
Lee Harvey Oswald
Carry on New Frontier
Great Society
1964 election
– Barry Goldwater
– Ronald Reagan
Great Society
• Civil rights
• Poverty
– Eradicate poverty
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Education
Head Start
Job Corps
VISTA
Great Society
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Elementary and Secondary Education Act
Medicare (old)
Medicaid (poor)
HUD
Immigration Act of 1965
Vietnam (1954-1975)
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France, Japan, France controlled Indochina
Truman and Eisenhower send money to France
Ho Chi Minh- Free Vietnam, Vietminh
1954: Dien Bien Phu fell
– End of French Indochina War, French lost
• Geneva Accords
– Vietnam partitioned (17), communist north,
democratic south under Diem
• 1956: South refused to hold elections
– Ho Chi Minh would have won
• North Vietnamese invade S. Vietnam (Ho Chi
Minh Trail)
• Vietcong (VC)
• Kennedy send advisors to South Vietnam
• 1963: President Diem (South) assassinated
Tonkin Gulf Resolution
1964
• “Attacks” on U.S. destroyers
• War powers authorization
• Joint Resolution=“Blank Check”
Vietnam
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U.S. troop build up begins 1965
Domino Theory
Strong support for war
Ballad of the Green Berets (JFK)
General Westmoreland
ARVN
1967- 500,000 troops
Operation Rolling Thunder
Troop Deployment
Vietnam
• VC used guerilla tactics
• War of attrition
• Keep support of the South Vietnamese,
“hearts & minds”, failing
• Napalm
• Agent Orange
• Search and destroy missions, zippo raids
Napalm
Vietnam
• Homefront turning against war
• Living Room war, televised war
• Credibility gap
• U.S. Soldiers
– Morale low
– Drugs
– Fragging
Vietnam Protest
• Draft
• Rich man’s war, poor man’s fight (CCR)
• Blacks served disproportionate to whites
– 20% died only made up 10% of population
– MLK spoke out
– Black Panthers
Vietnam Protest
• The New Left- sweeping change, gay rights, gender
issues,war
– Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
• Tom Hayden
• Participatory democracy
• Port Huron Statement
– Free Speech Movement
• Berkeley
• “machine”
• Campus Activism
– Columbia, Berkeley, Kent, dress codes, classes, Vietnam
• Doves vs. Hawks
• Selective Service Act 1967
Vietnam Protest
• Civil Disobedience
– Go to Canada
– Burn draft cards
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Teach-Ins
Marches
Music
Hippies
Culture & Counterculture 1960s
• Idealism
• “Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out”
• Hippie Culture
– Haight Ashbury
• Decline
– Hendricks, Morrison, Joplin deaths
– Violence
– drugs
Changing Culture
• Art
– psychedelic
– pop art
– Andy Warhol
• Rock music
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The Beatles, Rolling Stones
Woodstock
political expression
Motown
• Changing attitudes
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“do your own thing”
casual/permissive attitudes toward sex
violence
moral decay
long hair as rebellion
1968
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Tet Offensive
Walter Cronkite
Johnson doesn’t run
MLK assassinated
Robert Kennedy assassinated
Democratic National Convention in Chicago
Nixon Elected
1968 Election
• Nixon
– Silent Majority
– Southern Strategy
– Southern whites vote Republican
• Gene Mc Carthy (D)
– Anti-war
• Hubert Humphrey (D)
• George Wallace
– Segregationist
– Law & order
Richard Nixon
• Vietnamization
• Henry Kissinger
• Invades Cambodia
My Lai
Kent State
Pentagon Papers (1971)
• Daniel Ellsberg
– revealed U.S. govt. lied about
Tonkin Gulf
“Peace with Honor”
• 1973:
withdraw US
troops
• POWs come
home
• 1975: Saigon
fell
Vietnam Timeline Recap
• 1945-1955 (Truman)
– U.S. sends money to France
– France out of Indochina
• 1955-1961 (Eisenhower)
– Money and weapons and advisors to South Vietnam
• 1961-1964 (Kennedy)
– Advisors
• 1964-1969 (Johnson)
– Combat Troops
• 1969-1975 (Nixon)
– Vietnamization, Cambodia Invaded
• 1975
– Saigon collapses, Vietnam unified
Vietnam Memorial
• Maya Ying Lin
• 1982
• 58,000 names
Results of Vietnam
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PTSD
War Powers Act
Cynicism
Back lash against liberals
Cambodia will fall to Communism
Conservative Response
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White backlash
Richard Nixon
J Edgar Hoover
revolutionary terrorism
Rise of the Religious Right part 1
Rise of the Religious Right part 2