Chapter 38 The Stormy Sixties
Kennedy’s New Frontier
• His youth brought vigor and a hope of renewal
– “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you
can do for your country.”
– Peace Corps
• Program for the nations youth to bring American skills to underdeveloped
countries.
– .Domestic ideas
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.Medical assistance for the aged
.Increased federal aid to education
.Had a difficult time with a hostile conservative congress
.Tried to hold down inflation with noninflationary wage agreement with the
steel industry
– )Failed because industry still raises prices
• Land a man on the moon by the end of the decade
– )Would be good military strategy
– )Good economic stimulus
Kennedy’s Foreign Policy
• Berlin Crisis
• Soviets begin construction of the Berlin Wall in Aug.
1961
• Trade Expansion Act of 1952
• Cut tariffs up to 50%
• To promote trade with common market
• Increased trade
• Flexible Response
• Was the brain child of defense Sec. Robert McNamara
• Was created to deal with the brush fire war that could not be controlled by
massive retaliation
• Developing an array of military options that could be precisely matched tot
he scope and importance of the crisis like the Green Berets
• Helps us into the Vietnam War
Alliance for Progress
• Marshall plan for Latin America
• Close the gap between rich and poor
• Slow communist agitation
• Had little impact because of other factors.
Bay of Pigs April 1961
• Planned by CIA and Eisenhower Admin.
• Idea to help anti-Castro forces take back the island
• The U.S. was going to train and give them air support
• Kennedy let the pan go but refused to lend a hand
• Failed miserably and hurt U.S. Latin America
relations
Cuban Missile Crisis
• Soviets try to build missile bases in Cuba as we
discover form U-2 photographs
• In October of 1962 Kennedy orders a naval blockade of Cuba
• Kennedy said any attack on the U.S. from Cuba would be seen as an
attack from Russia
• If we seized or sunk a Russian ship approaching the blockade Russia might
retaliate.
• The world was extremely tense
• Russia finally backs down.
• Fallout of crisis
– Khrushchev was disgraced and toppled
– Launched more military expansion
– Kennedy pushed for test ban treaty and gets one
– Sets up hot line
• Brings on Kennedy’s policy of Peaceful Coexistence
Kennedy Assassination
• Nov. 22,1963
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In Dallas Texas
By Lee Harvey Oswald who was later Killed by Jack Ruby
Question of conspiracy
Probably remembered more for the ideals he had enunciated and
the spirit he had kindled than the concrete goals he had achieved
LBJ
• Election of 1964
• Johnson the DemocratThe Living Room Candidate - Commercials 1964 - Accomplishments
• Goldwater the Republican.
• Goldwater seen as to conservative and Hawkish
•Johnson used the gulf of
Tonkin incident to escalate
the war
Great Society
• War on poverty
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Flood of new legislation similar to the New Deal
Office of Economic Opportunity given 2 billion budget
Improves education in Appalachia
Creates Medicare for the elderly
Creates the Dept. of Transportation.
Project Head Start
Created the Dept. of housing and Urban Development
– Robert Weaver Sec. of HUD first black cabinet Mem.
– Creates a demonstration cities program
– Combats urban blight
Civil Right in the Johnson Era
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Civil rights of 1964
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Gave federal government more power to enforce school desegregation.
Prohibits racial discrimination in public Accommodations and employment
Freedom riders
– 24th amendment does away with poll tax
– Voting rights act of 1965
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Outlaws literacy tests
Sent voter registrars to the south
Ended the era of civil rights in the south
– Violence in the North
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Watts riot
Movement towards the radical call for militant tactics
Malcolm X
– Preaches blacks separatism
– Condemns whites.
Stokeley Carmichael
Lead the Student non Violent Coordinating Committee SNCC
Pushes another voter registration march in Miss.
Encourages Black and peaceful demonstrations
Riots in Newark
– Kills 29
– Riots in Detroit kills 43
Martin Luther King Jr. killed in Tenn. In April of 1968
Election of 1968
• Robert Kennedy strong democratic challenger until
assassinated in 1968
– Eugene McCarthy for Minn. Strong peace candidate
– Humphrey gets Democratic Nomination
– Strong Demonstration at the Chicago Convention
• Mayor creates for Daley
• Calls out the national guard
• Many arrested and jailed
– Republicans nominate Nixon
• Says he has a program to end the war
• Really has no program but eventually came up with Vietnamization
– Nixon wins
Counter Culture of the 60s
• Struggles with racism, poverty, Vietnam
• Young People disillusioned with
American Society
– Lost their moral rudders
– “Trust no one over thirty”
• Free Speech Movement at Berkley
• Some turned to
– Drugs
– Acid Rock
– Dropped out of straight society