Transcript The Stormy Sixties powerpoint

The Stormy
Sixties
Introduction
• In the 1960’s the
Americans have elected
a young president who
pledged to get the
country moving again.
The 1960’s will bring in a
youth culture, a
devastating war in
Vietnam, civil rights and a
feminist revolution. By the
end of the century many
Americans would yearn
nostalgically for the
comparative calm of the
fifties.
Kennedy’s New Frontier
Spirit
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Kennedy’s Description: He was tall,
elegantly handsome, speaking crisply
and with staccato finger jabs at the
air, Kennedy personified the glamour
and vitality of the new administration.
He was the youngest president ever
and one of the youngest cabinets in
history. Along with the youthfulness
they are the most talented advisers,
and these appointees made up an
inner circle of the best and the
brightest men around the president.
Kennedy had the best expectations
and his challenge of a New Frontier
quickened many pulses. He brought
in the Peace Corps with the idea to
help underdeveloped countries and
bring American skills with youthful
volunteers.
Kennedy was an Ivy League student
from Harvard and radiated
confidence in his abilities. He exuded
a sense of vibrant life and humor that
seemed natural.
The New Frontier at
Home
• New Frontier programs such as medical assistance for
the aged and increased federal aid to education were
on the top of his list. Kennedy won the first round, but
the New Frontier program did not expand quickly, and
those bills remained stalled in Congress.
• Kennedy’s New Frontier program vision also extended to
the final frontier. Early in his term, the president
promoted a multi-billion dollar project dedicated to
landing on the moon. 24 billion dollars later two (Neil
Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin) NASA astronauts triumphantly
planted their footprints and the American flag on the
moon’s dusty surface. Many huddled around the TV to
watch the Apollo mission live and the world never
seemed so small and interconnected at the same time.
Rumblings in Europe
• In June of 1961 the Soviet
leader adopted an
attitude, threatening to
make a treaty with East
Germany and cut off
Western access to Berlin.
The President refused to
be bullied and the Soviets
backed off and built the
Berlin Wall in August of
1961. The wall will stand
for three decades as an
ugly scar symbolizing the
post-WWII division of
Europe into two hostile
camps.
Stepping into the Vietnam
Quagmire
• The corrupt right wing government of Ngo Diem in
Saigon and American dollars ruled in Vietnam in 1954.
Anti-Diem agitators threatened to topple the proAmerican government from power. Kennedy ordered
an increase in the number of military advisors.
• American forces entered Vietnam to help with political
stability, and to help Diem from the communists long
enough to allow him to enact basic social reforms
favored by Americans. Kennedy eventually despaired
of the reactionary Diem and encouraged a successful
coup against him in November 1963. Ironically, the
United States and Kennedy still told the South
Vietnamese that it was their war and now had
dangerously deep political commitments.
Stepping into the Vietnam
Quagmire
• The modernization theory provided the
underpinnings for US foreign policy in the
underdeveloped world. They believed that
traditional societies of Asia, Africa, and Latin
America could develop into modern industrial and
democratic nations by following the West’s own
path. Though this theory would be under attack,
modernization theory offered a powerful intellectual
framework for policy makers ensnared in the Cold
War.
Cuban Confrontations
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In 1961 Kennedy extended the hand
of friendship with the alliance plan for
progress, which was like the Marshall
Plan for Europe. Their primary goal
was the help good neighbors to close
the gap between the rich and the
poor. The results were disappointing
there was little alliance and even less
progress, and they had little positive
impact on Latin America’s intense
social problems.
Kennedy struck a first blow on April
17, 1961 some 12 hundred exiles
landed at Cuba’s Bay of Pigs. The
Bay of Pigs was a mission to invade
Cuba with anti-communists exiles and
when the invasion got bogged down
Kennedy stood fast and a band of
anti-Castroites’ surrendered.
President Kennedy assumed full
responsibility for the failure. The Bay
of Pigs and continuing efforts to
assassinate Castro and over throw his
government was leading the Cuban
leader even further into the Soviet
embrace.
Cuban Confrontations
• In October of 1962 American spy planes revealed that the
Soviets were secretly and speedily installing nuclear weapons
to shield Castro and to blackmail the United States into
backing down in Berlin and other trouble spots.
• Kennedy and Khrushchev began to play a game of nuclear
chicken. In October of 1962 Kennedy ordered a naval
quarantine of Cuba and demanded immediate removal of
the weapons. He also said that any attack from Cuba would
be regarded as an attack on the Soviet Union and the United
States would retaliate if necessary.
• Americans for anxious weeks waited while Soviet ships
approached while US ships were just off the island of Cuba.
Only in 1991 did the US finally realize that the Soviets already
had nuclear weapons at their disposal and were authorize to
launch them if attacked.
Cuban Confrontations
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On October 28 Khrushchev finally flinched and compromised and
would pull out the missiles. The United States would agree to end
the quarantine and not invade the island. The Americans also
agreed that it would remove their missiles from Turkey.
The Fallout from the Cuban Missile Crisis was considerable.
Khrushchev was hounded out of the Kremlin, and Moscow
vowing never to be humiliated again. The Soviets vowed to
catch up when it came to the arms race.
However, Kennedy after prolonged negotiations in Moscow, a
pact prohibiting trial nuclear explosions in the atmosphere was
signed in late 1963. Kennedy then talked to the American people
and told them to abandon a view of the Soviet Union as a devil
ridden land filled with fanatics and instead to deal with the world
as it is and what it might have been if things had been different.
Kennedy tried to lay down a peaceful coexistence with the
Soviet Union which will become known as détente (Relaxation of
tension).
Struggle for Civil Rights
• Kennedy campaigned with a strong appeal to
black voters. He had pledged to eliminate racial
discrimination in housing “with a stroke of the pen.”
Kennedy was slow in keeping his campaign
promises due to the fact that he needed the
support of the southern legislators to pass his
economic and social legislation, especially his
medical and educational bills. He believed that
those measures would eventually benefit black
Americans at least as much as specific legislation
on civil rights.
Freedom Riders
• In the early 1961-1962,
groups of freedom riders
fanned out to end
segregation in facilities
serving interstate bus
passengers. Attorney
General Robert Kennedy’s
own personal representative
was beaten unconscious in
an anti-freedom ride riot in
Montgomery, Alabama.
When southern officials
proved unwilling or unable
to stem the violence,
Washington dispatched
federal marshals to protect
the freedom riders.
University Integration
• Integrating southern
universities threatened to
provoke wholesale
slaughter. Some
desegregated painlessly,
but the University of
Mississippi was a nightmare.
29 year old air force veteran
James Meredith
encountered violent
opposition when he
attempted to register in
October 1962. President
Kennedy was forced to
send in 400 federal marshals
and 3,000 troops to enroll
Meredith in his first class.
Martin Luther King Jr.
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In the spring of 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. started a campaign
against discrimination in Birmingham, Alabama, the most
segregated big city in America. Previous attempts to crack the
city’s racial barriers had produced more than 50 cross burnings
and 18 bomb attacks since 1957. King told his supporters to
expect violence. King was right.
Television watchers around the nation saw peaceful civil rights
marchers repeatedly repelled by police with attack dogs and
electric cattle prods. Some marchers, including children, were
bowled over by the high-pressure water hoses.
Kennedy was jolted by these vicious confrontations. He called for
new civil rights legislation to protect black citizens.
In August of 1963, King led 200,000 black and white
demonstrators on a peaceful march on Washington, D.C. in
support of the proposed legislation. In perhaps his most famous
speech, King declared,
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but
by the content of their character.”
Assassination of JFK
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On November 22, 1963, in Dallas,
Texas, President Kennedy was shot in
the head and killed while riding in an
open limousine. The alleged assassin,
Lee Harvey Oswald, was himself shot
to death in front of television cameras
by a self-appointed avenger Jack
Ruby. With these bizarre events, even
the official investigation conducted
by Chief Justice Earl Warren could not
quiet all doubts and theories about
what had really happened.
Vice President Johnson was promptly
sworn in aboard Air Force One and
flown back to Washington with the
late president’s body. Johnson
pledged to continue with Kennedy’s
policies.
LBJ- Brand on the
Presidency
• the House of Representatives in 1937. Johnson was an ardent
supporter of the New Deal. He ran for and won a Senate seat
in 1948. Once in the Senate, Johnson developed into a
masterful wheeler-dealer. He became the Democratic
majority leader in 1954.
• He became known for the “Johnson treatment”—a flashing
display of backslapping, flesh-pressing, and arm-twisting that
overbore friend and foe alike. His ego and vanity were
legendary. On a visit to the Pope, Johnson was presented
with a precious 14th century painting from the Vatican art
collection; in return, LBJ gave the Pope a bust—of LBJ.
• Johnson pressed hard for Kennedy’s civil rights legislation.
Congress at last passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The act
banned racial discrimination in most private facilities open to
the public, including theaters, hospitals, and restaurants. It
strengthened the federal government’s power to end
segregation in schools and other public places. It also
created the federal Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC) to eliminate discrimination in hiring.
LBJ- Brand on the
Presidency
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Johnson also launched his own domestic program called the “Great
Society.” This program was a sweeping set of economic and welfare
measures aimed at transforming the American way of life.
• 1964 Presidential Election- Johnson Battles Goldwater
The Democratic Party nominated Johnson for president in 1964.
The Republican Party nominated Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona.
Goldwater was ultra-conservative and his supporters began to proclaim
“In your heart you know he’s right.” The Democrats mocked this by saying
“In your guts you know he’s nuts!”
Democrats exploited the image of Goldwater as a trigger-happy
cowboy who would “Barry us” in the debris of WWIII.
Johnson had military issues of his own to deal with in 1964. Two U.S.
destroyers were “fired upon” while on patrol in the Gulf of Tonkin near
North Vietnam. Johnson called the attack unprovoked and ordered a
limited retaliatory air raid against the North Vietnamese bases. He also
used the incident to spur Congress into passing the Gulf of Tonkin
Resolution. This resolution virtually gave war-declaring power to the
president and handed him a blank check to use further force in
Southeast Asia.
Johnson won a spectacular victory in November 1964. Electoral votes
were 486 for Johnson to 56 for Goldwater.
The Great Society
Legislation
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Congress doubled the money set
aside for the Office of Economic
Opportunity to $2 billion and set aside
$1 billion for redevelopment of
Appalachia. Johnson also prodded
Congress into creating two new
cabinet level offices: the Department
of Transportation and the Department
of Housing and Urban Development
(HUD). Johnson also appointed the
first black cabinet secretary in the
nation’s history to HUD. Johnson also
established the National Endowments
for the Arts and Humanities designed
to lift the level of American cultural
life.
Medicare for the elderly and
Medicaid for the poor were passed in
1965. These programs provided
healthcare for many people who
could not afford it previously. These
programs improved the lives of
millions of Americans—but also
eventually undermined the federal
government’s financial health.
Voting Rights Act, 1965
• Early in 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr. resumed the voterregistration campaign in Selma, Alabama, where blacks
made up 50% of the population but only 1% of the voters.
State troopers with tear gas and whips assaulted King’s
demonstrators as they marched peacefully to the state
capital at Montgomery.
• President Johnson gave a televised speech soon after the
events in Alabama. He said that the events in Alabama
concerned all Americans. He followed his words with actions
as he pushed the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 through
Congress then signed it into law. The new law outlawed
literacy tests and sent federal voter registrars into several
southern states.
• The act did not end oppression overnight but it placed great
power for change in the hands of blacks: the ballot. White
southerners began to court black votes and business as never
before.
Black Power
• Just five days after LBJ signed the Voting Rights Act into law, a
bloody riot erupted in the black ghetto of Watts in Los Angeles.
Blacks were enraged by police brutality burned and looted
their own neighborhoods for nearly a week. When it ended,
31 blacks and three whites were dead, more than a thousand
people had been injured and hundreds of buildings stood
charred and gutted. The Watts explosion ushered in a new
phase of the black struggle—increasingly marked by militant
confrontation led by radical and sometimes violent
spokespersons aiming for black separatism.
• Martin Luther King, Jr. began to come under heavy criticism
from younger black leaders. One of those leaders was the
Nation of Islam’s Malcolm X. Malcolm X was a gifted
preacher who trumpeted black separatism and told blacks to
fight against the “blue eyed white devils.” Eventually Malcolm
X’s message mellowed as he moved away from the Nation of
Islam and closer to mainstream Islam. Unfortunately, early in
1965 while giving a speech in New York City, Malcolm X was
assassinated by a Nation of Islam gunman.
Black Power
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On the west coast, the Black
Panther Party openly brandished
weapons in the streets of
Oakland, California. The phrase
“Black Power” began to be used
and increased violence
threatened. African Americans
began to emphasize their
distinctiveness by promoting
“Afro” hairstyles and dress, shed
their “white” names for new
African identities and demanded
black studies programs in schools
and universities.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was
silenced by an assassin’s bullet in
Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4,
1968. The nation exploded once
again in violence that cost over
40 lives.
Combating Communism
in Two Hemispheres
• In February 1965, LBJ ordered bombing raids on North
Vietnam in retaliation for an attack on a U.S. airbase in
South Vietnam. Before 1965 ended, nearly 184,000
American troops were on the ground in Vietnam.
Johnson and his advisors felt that a gradual escalation of
the American force would drive the enemy to defeat
with minimal loss of life on both sides. The bombardment
only strengthened the Viet Cong will to fight their
guerrilla war.
• The South Vietnamese were increasingly becoming
spectators in their own war as more and more U.S. troops
became involved. Washington spokesmen defended
the military action as simply fighting to prevent the
spread of communism (domino theory). By 1968, the
U.S. had half a million troops in Southeast Asia and the
annual cost of the war was exceeding $30 billion
Combating Communism
in Two Hemispheres
• As the war dragged on, antiwar protests blossomed. The
protests had begun small but had grown very large. As the
draft called more men into the military, many chose to flee to
Canada or to publicly burn their draft cards. “Hell no, we
won’t go!” and “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill
today?” became the popular chants of the protests.
• Within the administration itself, doubts were deepening about
the wisdom of the war in Vietnam. In 1966, LBJ ordered a halt
to the bombing in an attempt to lure the Viet Cong to the
peace table.
• By early 1968, the Vietnam War had become the longest and
most unpopular foreign war in U.S. history. The government
had failed to explain to the American public what was
supposed to be at stake in Vietnam. Casualties already
exceeded 100,000 and more bombs had been dropped on
Vietnam than on all enemy territory in WWII.
Tet, 1968
• In January, 1968 the Viet
Cong launched the Tet
offensive. This action was
a coordinated attack on
27 key South Vietnamese
cities. The attack was
eventually stopped and
the attackers were
forced to retreat but it
showed the American
public that the war was
far from over. American
public opinion began to
call loudly for a speedy
end to the war
1968 Presidential Election
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LBJ began to feel sharp challenges from
within his own party. One of the biggest
challengers was Robert F. Kennedy.
Kennedy was a “dove” (wanting peace)
when it came to Vietnam and was
becoming very popular among workers,
African Americans, Hispanics, and young
people.
The president dropped a bombshell on the
American public on March 31, 1968 when
he announced that he would freeze troop
levels in Vietnam and gradually shift more
responsibility to the South Vietnamese for
fighting the war. At the end of the speech,
Johnson announced that he would not
seek reelection.
Three days later, North Vietnam expressed a
willingness to talk about peace.
Johnson’s heir was Vice President Hubert
Humphrey. Bobby Kennedy and other
Democrats battled in primary elections
across the nation. On June 5, 1968,
Kennedy’s campaign was ended when an
assassin shot and killed him after winning
the California primary.
The Democrats held their convention in
Chicago under bitter and
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The Democrats held their
convention in Chicago under
bitter and frustrating
circumstances. Inside the
convention, Humphrey rolled
easily to the nomination.
Outside however, many
demonstrators protested and
clashed with Chicago police.
Police brutally broke up the
demonstrators with tear gas
and clubs. All of this was
televised nationally.
The Republicans held their
convention in August and
chose Richard Nixon and
Spiro Agnew as their ticket.
The nation voted to raise
Nixon to the highest office in
the land.