Kennedy and Johnson

Liberal Ascendancy and Turmoil, 1961-1961

1960 Election

• Nixon v. Kennedy• Catholic Issue• TV Debate• JFK through Bobby intervened to secure

MLK’s release from jail• Close election—118,000 popular votes

difference and 303 to 219 in electoral college

JFK Cabinet

• “Best and Brightest” – “Whiz Kids”

• “I just wish one of them had run for sheriff once.” Sam Rayburn.

• Robert McNamara headed Defense; Robert Kennedy was AG

Jack and Bobby

Apex of American Liberalism

“Let the word go forth from this time and place, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans

. . . Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty;

And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.

Domestic Policy Initiatives

• Faced opposition from Southern segregationist Democrats

• Alliance for Progress

• Peace Corps

• Trade Expansion Act

• Housing Act/Area Redevelopment Act

Civil Rights

• Freedom Rides

• James Meredith and Ole Miss

• MLK and Birmingham

• Washington Mall March

James Meredith

Foreign Policy

• Bay of Pigs

• Berlin Crisis

• Cuban Missile Crisis

• Assassination of Diem

Lee Harvey Oswald

JFK’s funeral: JFK, Jr., Salutes His Father’sFuneral caisson, Caroline and JFK, Jr., placeJFK’s P.T. 109 pin on their father’s grave;Jackie and Teddie walk behind the caisson.

LBJ• Kennedy Assassination

and LBJ’s use of it• War on Poverty• Economic Opportunity

Bill (Job Corps, Head Start, Work Study—etc.)

• Great Society• 1964 Election vs. Barry

Goldwater• Medicare/Medicaid• 1964 CRA• 1965 VRA

• Elementary and Secondary School Act

• Appalachian Redevelopment Act

• 1965 Immigration Act• 435 Total Bills of

Great Society Legislation

Black Power

• Freedom Summer• Frustration with slow pace of social and economic

change• Riots in Watts, Chicago, Cleveland, Newark, and

Detroit (1965-67)• Problems with defacto versus dejure segregation• Black Panthers—Huey Newton and Eldridge

Cleaver• Malcolm X

Vietnam

• Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

• 1965—Ground troops committeed

• Mission Creep

• Ia Drang Conflict

• Anti-war movement at home

• Tet Offensive

M is for Mississippi and M is for Murder—Mickey Schwerner, J. E. Chaney, and Andrew Goodman

Bob Moses

Vietnamese Civilians Killed by American ServicePersonnel at My Lai—March 16, 1968

Search and Destroy Mission

1968—The Year Everything Went Wrong

• Tet Offensive

• Assassinations of MLK and RFK

• Riots and police brutality at Chicago Democratic Convention

• Nixon and Silent Majority

Robert Kennedy