CHAPTER 29
The Turbulent Years, 1960 - 1968
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Early Tests
 JFK’s Presidency
 Social Security increased
 Peace Corps
 Space research

John Glenn
 Cuba’s Bay of Pigs failure
 Fidel Castro
 Soviet Union erects Berlin Wall
 Freedom Riders desegregate transportation
 Congress of Racial Equality
 JFK sees economy as first priority
Social and Political Challenges
 James Meredith enters University of Mississippi
 JFK sent in 23,000 National Guards
 October 1962, Cuban Missile Crisis
 U-2 spotted Soviets’ nuclear missile silos in Cuba
 JFK blockaded Cuba
 Last minute negotiation avoided nuclear war
 JFK increases U.S. presence in Vietnam
 Ngo Dingh Diem’s government overthrown in military
coupe in 1963
 U.S. has 16,000 “advisors” in South Vietnam
The Rights Revolution: Early Steps
 Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers
 Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK)
 Southern Christian Leadership conference
 Birmingham boycotters gain sympathy of white
Americans
 March of Washington provides forum for MLK’s “I Have
a Dream” speech
 Feminist movement
 Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan
Tragedy and Transition
 Kennedy assassination, November 1963
 Lee Harvey Oswald
 Jack Ruby
 Assassination controversy still exists
 Lyndon Johnson (LBJ) replaces fallen president
 LBJ and Congress passes Civil Rights Act over
filibuster
 Created Equal employment Opportunity Commission
 LBJ wins landslide victory in 1964
 Firebombing and riots indicate problems ahead
 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
The Election of 1964
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The Great Society
 Johnson declares “war on poverty”
 VISTA
 Head Start
 Food stamps
 Medicare and Medicaid are created
 American Medical Association complained of socialized
medicine
 Immigration laws are relaxed
 Immigration Act of 1965
The Expanding War
 LBJ sends escalated forces in Vietnam
 20,000 to 500,000 in three years
 Selective service
 Operation Rolling Thunder
 Relentless war with elusive enemy
 University campuses erupt in anti-war protests
 Students for a Democratic society
 “New Left”
Vietnam War
Rights Revolution: Center Stage
 Major legislation improves civil rights
 Voting Rights Act (1965)
 Watts riots shock nation in 1968
 14,000 National Guards, 34 people killed, 1,000 injured
 Black Muslims and Black Panthers
 Stokely Carmichael
 Malcolm X
 Feminists push for Equal Rights Amendment
 National Organization of Women (NOW)
 Hippies and the counterculture
The Struggle for the Equal Rights Amendment
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A Divided Nation
 Tet Offensive convinces many Americans
Vietnam is lost cause

General William Westmoreland
 LBJ chooses not to seek another term
 Assassinations
 MLK killed by James Earl Ray in Memphis in April
1968
 Robert Kennedy killed by Sirhan Sirhan in LA in June
1968
 Democratic convention brings discord
 Hubert Humphrey wins nomination
 Republicans nominate Richard Nixon
 Nixon wins narrow victory
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Vietnam War
Election of 1968
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Discussion Questions
 In assessing the presidency of JFK, what were
his greatest achievements? Greatest failures?
Why is he still so popular?
 What part did JFK play in increasing U.S.
presence in Vietnam? What part did LBJ play?
 Discuss the presidency of LBJ and evaluate
whether the Great Society was a success?
 After the Tet offensive, how did the American
people feel about the Vietnam War? Were the
problems of 1968, and after, indicators of this?