The Stormy

1
The Stormy 60s

• Chapter 38

2
Kennedys New Frontier Spirit

• JFK is the youngest President elected glamorous
• Cabinet is young Robert Kennedy.
• Kennedy inspires idealism
• New Frontier
• Peace Corps
• Kennedy is Harvard educated, glib and personable.

3
The New Frontier At Home

• JFK had only a narrow Democratic majority in
  Congress hard to get proposals through Congress.
• Kennedys disputes with Big Business.
• Announces project to put a man on the Moon.
• Costs 24 Billion, but was successful in 1969.

The Right Stuff
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Rumblings In Europe

• June 1961 Kennedy meets with Khrushchev in Vienna
  
• Berlin Dispute.
• Berlin Wall.
• Becomes symbol of Soviet domination and
  repression of E. Europe

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Stubborn French

• Kennedy European tariff policy.
• Charles De Gaulle refused to join the Atlantic
  Community and blocks British application to the
  Common Market in 1963. Why?
• French policy toward NATO.

7
Flexible Response

• With the end of colonization, the newly
  independent colonies became a headache as they
  flared into civil wars.
• Congo
• Laos
• Leads Kennedy to move away from Ikes massive
  retaliation and to adopt the doctrine of
  flexible response
• develop an array of military responses that can
  be precisely calibrated to the gravity of the
  crisis.
• Kennedy increases military spending and bolstered
  the special forces.

8
Stepping into the Vietnam Quagmire

• Corrupt right-wing, pro-US government in South
  Vietnam.
• Communists in the south, Viet-Cong, waging
  guerrilla civil war.
• Late 1961 Kennedy sharply increases US military
  advisors.
• Coup against South Vietnamese leader.
• Kennedy increases military and economic aid.

9
Cuban Confrontations

• Latin American attitude toward the US.
• Alliance for Progress doesnt have much effect.
• Bay of Pigs Plan
• 4/17/61 invasion at Bay of Pigs. Dismal failure.
• Kennedy assumes full responsibility.

10
Cuban Missile Crisis

• Castro pushed into the arms of the Soviets.
• Khrushchev starts to install nuclear tipped
  missiles in Cuba
• Spy photos reveal the missiles.
• Kennedy rejects air strike instead orders a
  military blockade and demands immediate removal
  of missiles.

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Cuban Missile Crisis

• What does JFK says an attack from Cuba would
  mean?.
• Russian ships and quarantine line.
• Khrushchev finally blinks when he agreed to a
  compromise.
• Details
• Seems to be a clear US victory

12
Missile Crisis Fallout

• Khrushchev forced out of power
• Kremlin begins an aggressive program of military
  expansion New Arms Race
• Democrats gain in the midterm elections.
• Kennedy begins to push for arms control and
  greater communications between Russia and the US.
• Hotline
• Ban on above-ground nuclear tests agreed to in
  1963
• Kennedy urges Americans to live with the Soviets
  as they are and find a method of peaceful
  coexistence.
• Origins of the policy of Détente.

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The Struggle For Civil Rights

• Kennedy moved very slowly on Civil Rights
• Reasons
• Blacks impatient
• Events forced the Presidents hand.
• Freedom Riders
• Kennedy works with SCLC to promote civil rights
  and to register black voters

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Civil Rights Violence

• Integrating Southern universities.
• Kennedy forced to send in 3000 troops.
• Spring 1963 King begins a campaign against
  discrimination in Birmingham.
• Police reaction .
• June 11, 1963 Kennedy responds.
• Calls for new Civil Rights legislation.

15
I Have a Dream

• Medger Evers
• August 1963, March on Washington and Kings I
  have a Dream Speech.
• September 1963 bombing of black Birmingham church
  kills 4 black girls at Sunday School.

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THE KILLING OF KENNEDY (students on their own
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The LBJ Brand On The Presidency

• Lyndon Johnson was profane, earthy, vain,
  idealistic.
• Master politician former Senate Majority Leader
  in the Senate.
• Political ideology.
• He hit Washington like a thunder-bolt, seizing
  hold of the Presidency once the shock of
  Kennedys death had abated.

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Johnsons Great Society

• Johnson puts power behind Civil Rights Bill.
• Civil Rights Act of 1964.
• Prohibits discrimination in facilities open to
  the public
• Strengthened power to end segregation in schools
• Created federal Equal Employment Opportunity
  Commission
• Prevents both race and gender discrimination.
• Southern Senators try to kill with a lengthy
  filibuster.
• Johnson launches a war on poverty designed to
  help those not yet getting the benefits of
  Americas vast wealth.
• Dubbed the Great Society Program.
• Medicare/Medicade central pillar

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Johnson Battles Goldwater In 1964

• Johnson is easily nominated in 1964 runs on a
  very liberal platform.
• Republicans nominate Senator Barry Goldwater
• very, very conservative.
• Strongly anti-red, strongly anti-New Deal.
• Believes in small national government
  (Jeffersonian)
• Wanted American field commanders to have
  authority to use tactical nukes in the battle
  field.

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Election of 1964

• In your heart you know hes right vs. In your
  gut you know hes nuts
• Reaction of average voters to Goldwater.
• Johnson convinces national that Goldwater scary
• Johnson wins biggest landslide in US history.
• Solid South?

21
Tonkin Gulf Resolution

• Tonkin Gulf incident August 1964.
• Johnson calls the attack unprovoked.
• Johnson uses to get Tonkin Gulf resolution
• Consequences?
• Gives the president a virtual blank check to use
  force in Southeast Asia against the North
  Vietnamese.
• Gives Johnson discretion to widen the war, which
  he does after the election.

22
The Great Society Congress

• Johnson has 2-1 democratic majority in both
  houses of Congress.
• Legislative slate passed by Johnson after the
  1964 election was comparable to FDRs 100-days.
• Sweeping package of social reform and new aid to
  the poor and down-trodden.
• Continues the war on poverty
• Created the Dept. of Transportation and Housing
  and Urban Development.
• Names the first Black cabinet secretaryRobert
  Weaver
• Creates national Endowment for the arts.

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Legislative Landmarks

• Four legislative achievements at heart of Great
  Society
• Federal Aid to Education
• Medicare for the Elderly/Medicaid for the Poor
• Immigration Reform
• Voting Rights Act
• Medicare and Medicaid provide medical insurance
  at governmental expense for elderly and poor
• Medicare and Medicaid join social security and
  unemployment insurance as part of social safety
  net.

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Voting Rights Act

• In 1964 Voting Rights becomes the main goal of
  civil rights movement.
• Freedom Summer of 1964
• Voting Rights Act of 1965.
• Johnson sends in federal officials to oversee
  voter registration.
• Over the next 25 years totally transforms the
  south because blacks are voting.

25
Black Power

• Civil Right movement moves north and out of the
  control of MLK.
• 1965Watts riots.
• New voices advocate confrontation, violence and
  separatism.
• Malcolm X
• Stokely Carmichael
• Black Panthers.
• Civil Rights Movement increasingly focuses on
  economic demands
• MLK assassinated in 1968 wisest black voice gone.

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Vietnam Escalation

• 1965 Johnson escalates the war
• Starts bombing and the use of troops on the
  ground.
• By end of 1965, 184,000 America troops involved.
• Believes American escalation will show US resolve
  and north will back down.
• Believes in domino theory.
• US casualties start to mount

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Vietnam Vexations

• World opinion was turning against the US.
• Appeared that US was beating up a third-world
  nation over US zeal to spank communism.
• Made it harder for US to respond elsewhere.
• Led to a lot of domestic discontent.
• Anti-war demonstrations gradually mounted on
  campuses.
• Draft resisters flee to Canada, burn draft cards,
  burn flags

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War Protests

• Many blamed Johnson.
• Major protests in San Francisco, New York and on
  college campuses.
• Attitude of Average Americans
• Economic impact of War.

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Quagmire

• By late 1960s opposition to the war was
  hardening.
• Fullbright hearings.
• Public feels increasingly misled about the war
  and ability to win.
• By 1968 had become the longest and most unpopular
  foreign war in US history.
• Government had failed to adequately explain why
  we were fighting there and/or what was at stake.

31
Johnson Under Attack

• Johnson, orders the CIA to spy on American
  anti-war activists.
• FBI turns against peace groups
• Johnson stubbornly continues to assert that
  victory is just around the corner.

32
Vietnam Topples Johnson

• Jan. 1968 Tet offensive.
• Military demands 200,000 more troops.
• Johnson challenged from within his party by
  Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy.
• New Hampshire Primary
• Johnsons announcement

33
1968 Election Chaos

• Hubert Humphrey front-runner for the democratic
  nomination.
• Stance on war?
• Strong challenge from Robert Kennedy.
• Stance on war?

34
Convention Chaos

• Democratic convention in Chicago in chaos.
• Democrats were bitter, divided and angry over the
  death of Kennedy, the war, etc.
• Mayor Daley and the police.
• Democrats came off looking like a disorganized,
  fratricidal mob.
• Humphrey wins the nomination on the first ballot.

35
Richard Nixon

• Republicans nominate Richard Nixon who is running
  as a conservative-moderate.
• Platform
• Which Dems vote for Nixon?

36
Return of the Dixiecrats

• George Wallace
• American Independent Party.
• Wallace ardently anti-integration
• Segregation Now, Segregation tomorrow,
  Segregation forever.

37
Victory For Nixon

• Nixon and Humphrey have similar policies on VN.
  No real choice between the two.
• As a result, many doves sat out the election
  because no standard-bearer for their views.
• Nixon wins by half a percentage point without
  carrying a single major city and with no
  coat-tails.
• Both houses of Congress remain Democratic.
  Democrats win 95 of the black vote.
• Nixon wins only 43 of the vote because Wallace
  had siphoned off votes from both. No mandate.
• Wallace wins 46 electoral votes from the deep
  south. Largest third-party electoral vote in
  American history.

38

• THE OBITUARY OF LYNDON JOHNSON
• Students on their own

39
Cultural Upheaval

• Vietnam, Civil Rights Struggle and materialism
  undermine faith of youth in government and
  establishment
• Values in flux
• Peace movement
• Hippie movement
• Sexual Revolution