Chapter 20 Lesson 1 Kennedy and The Cold War
- J.F.K was the 35th President to the United States.
The Election of 1960
- Voters had a restless mood in 1960.
- The USSR had launched Sputnik, they developed long-range missiles, and had aligned
themselves with Cuba.
- These issues made Americans fearful.
- The Democrats nominated Mass. senator J.F.K. And Republicans nominated Nixon.
- Both candidates had similar positions on policy issues.
- Two factors helped put Kennedy over the top: television and civil rights.
- Kennedy was the second youngest president. He has a well organized campaign, a
wealth family, and handsome and charismatic.
- 70 million viewers watched two articulate and knowledgeable candidates debating
issues on September 26, 1960.
- Kennedy had been coached by the producers and was able to leek better and out
speaks Nixon.
- Kennedy’s success in the debate launched a new ear in American politics.
- Kennedy took a stand on Civil Rights even before he was president. Kennedy called
Kings Wife while he was in prison in Georgia and Kennedy’s brother got King out of jail
on bail.
- This captured the African American community.
Camelot Years
- November 1960 was the closest election since 1884.
- His inauguration set the tone for a new era at the White House.
- During his term, Kennedy and his wife invited artists, and celebrities tot eh White
House.
- Kennedy often appeared on television.
- Critics of Kennedy’s presidency argued that his smooth style lacked substance.
- JFK could read 1600 words/minute, thousands of people enrolled in speed reading.
- The first lady captivated with her eye for fashion and culture.
- Kennedy surrounded himself with the “best and the brightest”
McGeorge Bundy- Harvard Dean- National Security Advisor
Robert McNamara- President of Ford- Secretary of Defense
Dean Rusk- President Rockefeller Foundation- Secretary of State
Kennedy relied most on his brother Robert Kennedy- Attorney General.
New Military Policy
- Kennedy focused on the Cold War
- He was mad at the Republicans for allowing communism to develop is Cuba.
- Kennedy developed flexible response- responding to a particular situation according to
the severity of the incident.
- Kennedy increased defense spending in order to boost conventional military forces.
- Kennedy also created the Special Forces, Green Berets.
- Kennedy hoped to reduce the risk of nuclear war but America came very close to a
nuclear crisis in Cuba.
Crisis Over Cuba
- Two weeks before Kennedy took office. Eisenhower cut off diplomatic relations with
Cuba because of a revolutionary leader named Fidel Castro.
- Castro gained power with promise of democracy.
- 1956-1959 Castro led a guerrilla movement to topple the dictator.
- U.S. was suspicious of Castro’s intentions, but recognized a new government.
- Castro seized three American and British oil refineries; relationships then worsened.
- Castro broke up commercial farms; American sugar companies controlled 75% of
cropland in Cuba. They appealed to Congress who erected trade barriers against
Cuban sugar.
- Cuba relied increasingly on the Soviet Union. People against Castro were sent into
exile to the United States Miami, Florida. There a counterrevolutionary movement took
shape.
- In March of 1960 Eisenhower gave the CIA permission to train the exiles for a Cuban
invasion.
Crisis Over Cuba (continued)
- They hoped it would spark a massive uprising in Cuba to overthrow Castro.
- Kennedy learned of it nine days after he took office. He had doubts, but approved. April
17, 1961 1,300-1,500 exiles and military landed in the Bay of Pigs. Nothing went as
planned. They failed to take out the Cuban air force, the distraction failed to reach the
shore, and the main commando landed to 25,000 Cuban troops backed by Soviet tanks
and air craft. Some of the invading exiles were killed, others imprisoned.
- Kennedy was embarrassed and took the blame publicly. Kennedy negotiated with
Castro for the release of surviving commandos and paid a ransom of $53 million in food
and medical supplies.
- Kennedy warned that he would resist further Communist expansion, Cuban defiantly
welcomed further Soviet aid.
- Castro had a powerful ally in Moscow: Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.
- Khrushchev had promised to defend Cuba with Soviet arms.
- In the summer of 1962 there was an increase in the flow of weapons from Soviet Union
to Cuba. Kennedy responded with American would not tolerate offensive nuclear
weapons in Cuba.
Crisis Over Cuba (continued)
- October 14 American planes revealed Soviet missile bases in Cuba, some missiles
were already launched. These could reach the U.S. in minutes.
- October 22 Kennedy informed the nation of the missiles and told them that an attack
from Cuba would trigger an all out attack on the Soviet Union.
- For the next few days the world faced the terrifying possibility of nuclear war.
- Soviet ships presumably carrying missiles were on the way to Cuba, U.S. Navy
prepared to quarantine Cuba and prevent the ships from coming within 500 miles of it,
and 100,000 troops waited.
- The first break in the crisis occurred when the Soviet ships stopped suddenly to avoid a
confrontation at sea.
- Then Khrushchev offered to remove the missiles in exchange for America not invading
Cuba.
- The U.S. also secretly agreed to remove missiles from Turkey.
- The crisis damaged Khrushchev’s reputation in the Soviet Union. Kennedy also did
not escape criticism.
- Kennedy was criticized for practicing brinkmanship and criticized for passing up an
opportunity to invade Cuba and oust Castro.
Crisis In Berlin
- In 1961 Berlin was in a great turmoil
- In 11 years since the Berlin Airlift, almost 3million East Germans had fled to West Berlin
because it was free from Communist Rule.
- Because the people were leaving it showed how the East Germany Communist
government was not working and weakened the country’s economy.
- Khrushchev realized this was a problem so on August 31 1961 his people started
unloading concrete posts and barbed wire and constructed a wall on the border of East
and West Berlin.
- The wall solved Khrushchev’s problems but became an ugly symbol of Communist
oppression.
- Kennedy and Khrushchev tried to ease the tension.
- Kennedy announced in 1963 that the two leaders had a hotline between the White
House and the Kremlin.
- The Soviet Union and the United States agreed to a Limited Test Ban Treaty that
barred nuclear testing in the atmosphere.
Chapter 20 Lesson 2 The New Frontier
- May 5 1961 Alan Shepard got into Freedom 7. Shepard left the earth’s atmosphere in
a ball of fire and returned the same way.
- Thus, he becomes the first American to travel to space. The entire trip only took 15
minutes.
The Promise of Progress
- Kennedy called American in the age of the “New Frontier.”
- But Kennedy had trouble to turn his vision into reality.
- Kennedy set many proposals to Congress such as medical care for the aged, rebuild
blighted urban areas, and aid education, but congress did not approve them.
- He was facing the same people who blocked Truman’s Fair Deal.
- And Kennedy did not have the mandate- a clear indication that voters approved of his
plans, because he had won by such a slim margin.
- Kennedy had to stimulate the economy and reduce the 6% unemployment rate.
- His advisor’s pushed for the use of deficit spending. Kennedy sent a proposal to
Congress that did call for increased spending. .
- Department of Defense got a 20% increase, Congress also approved increased
minimum wage, extended unemployment insurance, and provided assistance to cities
with high unemployment.
- Kennedy fulfilled the promise to establish the Peace Corps- a program of volunteer
assistance to the developing nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
- Critics called the Peace Corps “Kennedy’s Kiddie Korps” because many of the
volunteers were just out of college.
- The Peace Corps became a huge success. By 1968 more than 35,000 volunteers had
served in 60 countries around the world.
- The second foreign aid program was the Alliance for Progress. It offered economic and
technical assistance to Latin American countries.
- Between 1961 and 1969 the U.S. invested $12 billion in Latin America. This was
important so those countries would not pick up Castro’s revolutionary ideas.
- April 12, 1961Yuri A. Gagarin Soviet cosmonaut became the first human in space.
- Less than a month later the U.S. had duplicated the Soviet feat. Later that year, a
communications satellite called Telstar relayed live television pictures across the Atlantic
Ocean.
- On July 20, 1969 the U.S. would achieve its goal. An excited nation watched with bated
breath as U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong took his first steps on the moon.
- Result, universities expanded t heir science programs. Federal funding for research
and development gave rise to new industry and also in new consumer goods.
- Space- and defense- related industries sprang up in the Southern and Western states.
- In 1962 the problem of poverty in America was brought to national attention in Michael
Harrington’s book The Other America. Harrington profiled the 50 million people in
America who scraped by each year on less then $1,000 per person.
- The fight against segregation took hold. Demonstrations raised their voices in what
would become some of the most controversial civil rights battles of the 1960’s.
- In 1963 Kennedy began to focus on the issues at home. HE also ordered Robert
Kennedy’s Justice Department to investigate racial injustices in the South.
- He presented Congress with a sweeping civil rights bill and a proposal to cut taxes by
over $10 billion.
Tragedy in Dallas
- Fall of 1963 Kennedy was loosing popularity because of his advocacy of civil rights.
- November 22, 1963 Air Force One landed in Dallas. He came to Dallas to mend
political fences with members of the state’s Democratic Party.
- He basked in the warm waves of applause from crowds that lined the streets of
downtown Dallas.
- The Kennedy’s were seated in the back of an open air limousine. The Texas Governor
and his wife were in the car in front.
- A few seconds later, rifle shots rang out, and Kennedy was shot in the head. His car
raced to a nearby hospital, where doctors frantically tried to revive him, but it was too
late. President Kennedy was dead.
- People reacted with disbelief. During the next four days, television became “the
window of the world.”
- The Dallas police charged Lee Harvey Oswald with the murder. Oswald was a 24 year
old Marine had a suspicious past and had received a dishonorable discharge.
- He had lived in the Soviet Union and supported Castro.
- On Sunday, November 24, millions watched live television coverage of Oswald being
transferred between jails, a nightclub owner named lack Ruby broke through the crowd
and shot and killed Oswald.
- All work stopped for Kennedy’s funeral. The assassination and televised funeral
became a historic event.
- In 1963, the Warren Commission investigated and concluded that Oswald had shot the
president while acting on his own.
- 1979 a reinvestigation concluded that Oswald was part of a conspiracy.
- Americas did learn from the Kennedy assassination was that their system of
government is remarkable sturdy.
- A crisis that would have crippled a dictatorship did not prevent a smooth transition to the
presidency of Lynda Johnson.
Chapter 20 Lesson 3 The Great Society
LBJ’S PATH TO POWER
LBJ was legendary for his ambition and drive.
LBJ entered into politics in 1937 in a vacant seat in the House of Representatives.
He supported the New Deal and was a voice for the small ranchers and struggling
farmers.
Roosevelt took Johnson under his wing and helped him to get committee assignments to
help get electrification and water projects to his district in TX.
Johnson rose to Senate majority leader by 1955 for his party politics and behind the
scenes maneuvering.
Johnson helped to get the Civil Rights Act of 1957 passed through Congress.
Because of his Congressional connections and his Southern Protestant background JFK
invited LBJ to be his vice presidential candidate.
LBJ accepted and brought in key southern states, especially TX.
JOHNSON’S DOMESTIC AGENDA
“All I have I would have given gladly not to be standing here today,” is how Johnson
began his address to the joint session of Congress 5 days after Kennedy was
assassinated.
Johnson urged Congress to pass the civil rights and tax-cut bills that Kennedy had sent
to Capitol Hill.
February 1964- $10 billion tax cut was passed. This led to people buying more which
meant profits for businesses, which increased tax revenues and lowered the federal
budget deficit from $6 billion to $4 billion.
July 1964- Civil Rights Act of 1967 was pushed through Congress. It prohibited
discrimination based on race, religion, national origin, and sex and granted federal
government new powers to enforce its provisions.
In 1964 Johnson declared an unconditional war on poverty.
August 1964 the Economic Opportunity Act was passed. It approved nearly $1 billion for
youth programs, antipoverty measures, small-business loans, and job training.
In the election of 1964 the Republicans nominated Barry Goldwater of Arizona.
Goldwater believed that the government had no business trying to right social and
economic wrongs.
Johnson believed that government could and should help solve the nation’s problems.
LBJ won the election by a landslide, winning 61% of the popular vote and 486 electoral
votes.
BUILDING THE GREAT SOCIETY
In May of 1964 Johnson outlines his idea for the country. It was called the Great
Society, it introduced legislation programs that would end poverty and racial injustice.
LBJ wanted to change America and by the time he left office Congress had passed 206
of his measures.
Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965- provided $1 billion in federal aid to
help public and parochial schools purchase textbooks and new library materials.
Medicare- provided hospital insurance and low-cost medical insurance for almost every
American age 65 or older
Medicaid- extended health insurance to welfare recipients.
Immigration Act of 1965- opened the door for many non-European immigrants to settle in
the U.S. by ending quotas based on nationality.
Water Quality Act of 1965- required states to clean up rivers.
REFORMS OF THE WARREN COURT
The Warren Court made several major decisions during Johnsons time in office.
The Warren Court banned states sanctioned prayer in public schools and declared state
required loyalty oaths unconstitutional.
Mapp v. Ohio 1961 ruled that evidence seized illegally could not be used in state court
cases.
Gideon v Wainwright 1963 required criminal courts to provide free legal counsel to those
who could not afford it.
Escobedo v. Illinois 1964 ruled that the accused person has a right to have a lawyer
present during police questioning.
Miranda v. Arizona 1966 ruled that all suspects must be read their rights before
questioning.
IMPACT OF THE GREAT SOCIETY
The Great Society and the Warren Court changed the US.
People debate about if the changes were good or bad for our country.
No one since Johnson has extended the power and reach of the federal government.
Johnson fueled an activist era in all three branches of government for years.
The “war on poverty” did help. The number of poor people fell from 21% of the
population in 1962 to 11% in 1973.
The tax cuts stimulated the economy but the Great Society contributed to a growing
budget deficit.