Chapter 38- “The Storming Sixties” (1960-1968)
AP FOCUS
President Kennedy launches his New Frontier. His domestic program addresses education, health care, and equal
employment opportunities. He also calls for a more vigorous space program.
The Soviet decision to stem the tide of refugees from East Berlin to the West by constructing the Berlin Wall
exacerbates Cold War tensions and exposes the nature of Soviet hegemony.
Inheriting a CIA-backed scheme, developed during the Eisenhower administration, JFK approves the plan to help
Cuban exiles bring down Castro’s regime. The attempted coup fails miserably.
In a standoff that brings the superpowers close to a military confrontation, the Cuban missile crisis is, to the relief of
the world, resolved after considerable maneuvering by both sides.
The struggle for racial equality continues, despite interference and obstructionism by assorted local and state
governments. The Kennedy administration works to confront these obstacles, but it is often grassroots
movements that propel the crusade. See the quote from Kennedy’s 1963 civil rights address in The American
Pageant (13th ed., p. 917/14th ed., p. 982).
Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 stuns the nation. Lyndon Johnson finishes out JFK’s term and wins election in his
own right in a landslide victory in 1964, over his conservative Republican opponent, Barry Goldwater.
Johnson launches an ambitious program, the Great Society, designed to address poverty and a multitude of
other societal problems and promote racial justice. Two key civil rights bills pass despite efforts by southern
congressmen to block them: the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The Great Society
brought dramatic reform (an AP theme).
As a growing insurgency, supported by communist North Vietnam, threatens to topple the U.S.-backed government
of South Vietnam, Johnson escalates U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia. With the 1968 Tet offensive, the
tide of the Vietnam War turns against the United States.
The 1960s is a turning point in the civil rights movement (for blacks, women, Native Americans, and gays).
Concurrently, people begin to challenge what they view as oppressive cultural, social, and moral norms of
American society; some even identify with the “counterculture.” Seeing the direction the nation is taking as
secular and valueless, many turn to Christian fundamentalism. Religion—an AP theme—will increasingly
become enmeshed in politics.
CHAPTER THEMES
Theme: The Kennedy administration’s flexible response doctrine to combat Third World communism bore ill fruit
in Cuba and especially Vietnam. Johnson’s massive escalation of the war failed to defeat the Communist
Vietnamese forces, while growing domestic opposition finally forced him from power.
Theme: The Kennedy administration’s domestic stalemate ended in the mid-1960s, as Johnson’s Great Society and
the black civil rights movement brought a tide of liberal social reform. But the diversion of resources and the social
upheavals caused by the Vietnam War wrecked the Great Society.
FOCUS QUESTIONS
1.
What was Kennedy’s New Frontier? How was that philosophy played out, both domestically and
internationally, within the first few years of Kennedy’s administration?
2.
What was flexible response and how was that different from the foreign policy philosophy of the previous
administrations?
3.
How did Kennedy and Johnson deal with the civil rights issue? What were their goals and were these goals
actualized by the end of the decade?
4.
What role did each of the presidents have within the Vietnam conflict?
5.
What were the major goals of Johnson’s Great Society? How successful were they?
CatchPhrases
New Frontier
Peace Corps
Apollo
Berlin Wall
European Economic Community (EEC)
Bay of Pigs Invasion
Cuban Missile Crisis
Freedom Riders
Voter Education Project
March on Washington
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Affirmative Action
Great Society
Freedom Summer
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
Voting Rights Act of 1965
Black Panther Party
Black Power
Six-Day War
Stonewall Rebellion
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)