Chapter38

The Stormy Sixties

Kennedy’s “New Frontier” Spirit
Kennedy was the youngest president ever elected
 JFK personified optimism
Longtime FBI head J. Edgar Hoover did not like the reforms.
Robert McNamara left a business background to become head of the Defense Department.
Kennedy started the Peace Corps where mostly young, idealistic Americans would go to third world nations to help out and teach. Usually the fields were health, agriculture, languages and math.
Kennedy was wealthy, Harvard-educated, witty. He and his cabinet went to the White House very confident.
The New Frontier at Home
Kennedy initiated the quest to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. The goal was almost unthinkable when he said it, but in July, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the moon.
Rumblings in Europe
Western Europe had made a great turn-around, thanks in large part to the Marshall Plan's help.
To further help Western Europe, Kennedy got the Trade Expansion Act passed. It was to lower tariffs by up to 50% and thus help the new Common Market in trade. Lowering the tariffs did increase trade substantially.
Foreign Flare-Ups and “Flexible Response”
When the French left Southeast Asia in 1954, Laos was left without a government and a civil war started.
Stepping into the Vietnam Quagmire
By the time of his death, JFK had sent about 15,000 "advisers." It was now becoming difficult to just leave without looking bad.
Cuban Confrontations
Added to secret American attempts to get Castro assassinated, the Bay of Pigs pushed Castro even more toward communism.
JFK took full responsibility for the attack, and in doing so, his popularity actually went up.
Cuba was again on the world stage with the Cuban Missile Crisis that took place in October of 1961.
Khrushchev promised to run the blockade and continue assembling the missile sites.
Kennedy slowly stepped into the civil rights movement.
John Kennedy did help SNCC get started with funds. They started the Voter Education Project to register southern black voters.
Despite Brown v. Board 6+ years prior, integration was slow.
Martin Luther King, Jr. organized a peaceful protest of segregation in Birmingham, AL in early 1963.
The protesters were attacked by police dogs, electric cattle prods, and high pressure water hoses.
America watched these vicious scenes on TV. These types of instances helped to slowly start changing public opinion in favor of the protesters.
The Killing of Kennedy
Oswald was shot and killed on TV a couple of days later by Jack Ruby.
Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as president on Air Force One heading back to Washington.
America was stunned. Her young, charismatic and idealistic president was gone.
Sadly, his reputation would later be hurt when his womanizing and connections to organized crime came to light.
The LBJ Brand on the Presidency
Lyndon Baines Johnson was a former senator and held FDR as his hero. LBJ was a master at getting Congress to go his way by giving the "Johnson treatment"—getting up-in-the-face and jabbing a finger-in-the-chest.
LBJ was a true cuss from Texas. He was vain, super egotistical, and crude.
LBJ went liberal as president. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act that JFK had called for and LBJ signed it.
The law banned discrimination in public facilities and sought to end segregation.
Johnson Battles Goldwater in 1964
Goldwater criticized income taxes, Social Security, the TVA, civil rights laws, nuclear test bans, and the Great Society.
LBJ countered as being a more poised statesman.
LBJ won the election 486 to 52.
The Great Society Congress
Democrats also won large victories in the Congress. This opened the door for the Great Society programs.
The War on Poverty was stepped up. The Office of Economic Opportunity had its budget doubled to $2 billion. Another billion was to be spent on Appalachia, a region of America that had been little touched by modern prosperity.
Johnson's Great Society sought to improve the Big Four areas:
Education - Money was given to students and not schools to thus get around the separation of church and state issue. Project Head Start was preschool for kids who otherwise couldn't afford it.
Battling for Black Rights
The Voting Rights Act (1965) sought to end the racial discrimination that accompanied voting. It banned literacy tests and it sent registrars to the polls to watch out for dirty dealings.
The Twenty-fourth Amendment forbade poll taxes where you had to pay to vote.
The Civil Rights Movement marched on.
In the "Freedom Summer" (1964), blacks and whites joined hands and sang "We Shall Overcome" to protest racism.
In June of that year, three civil rights workers were found beaten to death in Mississippi (one black, two white). 21 whites were arrested, including the sheriff. The white jury did not convict anyone.
State police used tear gas, whips. Two people died in the chaos.
Lyndon Johnson joined the Civil Rights Movement by calling for an end to "bigotry and injustice." This is when the Voting Rights Act gained steam and passed.
Black Power
Martin Luther King's approach was nonviolent. By 1965, he was making progress, though it was slow. To many young blacks, it was too slow—they wanted to take matters into their own hands.
A riot broke out in the Watts area of Los Angeles. The ghetto burned for a week, 34 people died.
Malcolm X later turned away from Elijah Muhammad, toward mainstream Islam. He was shot and killed in 1965 by Nation of Islam gunmen.
The Black Panthers roamed the streets of Oakland armed with powerful weapons "for protection."
Carmichael spoke of Black Power, a phrase calling for blacks to carry out their political and economic power.
Unfortunately, the voice of nonviolence ended when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in April of 1968.
Combating Communism in Two Hemispheres
When a revolt broke out in the Dominican Republic, Johnson saw it as communism trying to crop up. He sent 25,000 troops to quell the revolt. He was criticized for making a knee-jerk reaction.
In Vietnam, things were stepping up in a big way.
America's was "all in" in Vietnam at this point, win or lose. It was costing up to $30 billion per year too.
Vietnam Vexations
In the Six-Day War (June 1967), Israel shocked and beat U.S.S.R.-supported Egypt. Israel gained land in the Sinai Peninsula, Golan Heights, Gaza Strip, and the West Bank of the Jordan River (including Jerusalem).
These lands brought 100,000 Palestinians under Israeli control. This situation still breeds problems.
America was being split into "doves" against the war and "hawks" who supported the war.
By 1968, the war had become the longest and most unpopular in U.S. history. LBJ said the war's end was near, but it was not.
Vietnam Topples Johnson
The war was taking a toll on Johnson too, emotionally and physically.
American brass asked for more troops, but Johnson would not send them.
Days later, Robert Kennedy entered the race, also as a dove. He brought the Kennedy name and charisma.
The Presidential Sweepstakes of 1968
LBJ out of the race, V.P. Hubert H. Humphrey seemed the next logical choice. It was now McCarthy, Kennedy, and Humphrey for the Democrats.
Richard Nixon would run as the Republican. He was a "hawk" and spoke of getting law-and-order in the cities at home.
Another candidate, George C. Wallace, ran for the American Independent party. He ran almost exclusively on a pro-segregation ticket saying "Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!"
Nixon would win the election, 301 to Humphrey's 191. Wallace got 46 southern electoral votes.
The Obituary of Lyndon Johnson
Lyndon Johnson and his Great Society was drug down by Vietnam.
He was in a position where no matter what he did in Vietnam, either the hawks or doves would not be happy.
He went home to his Texas ranch and died in 1973.
The Cultural Upheaval of the 1960s
The 1960's were a boom of cultural changes and challenges. Young people propelled the cultural changes—the slogan was, "Trust no one over 30."
Movies hinted at a frustrated youth too, like The Wild One with Marlon Brando and Rebel Without a Cause with James Dean.
One of the first big protests took place at Univ. of California at Berkeley in 1964 called the "Free Speech Movement." This protest was rather clean-cut, later ones would be "far out" with psychedelic drugs, "acid rock", and the call to "tune in and drop out" of school.
A "sexual revolution" took place in the 1960's.
A drug culture emerged. Smoking "grass" turned into dropping LSD. The dirty underworld of drug dealers and drug addicts emerged.