Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

New Frontier & Great Society

Not all legislation on domestic issues during the 1960s concerned civil rights. Kennedy's programs, known as the New Frontier, and Johnson's, known as the Great Society, continued and expanded upon traditions begun during Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal of the 1930s.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

Kennedy

Following the successful launch of a Soviet cosmonaut in 1961, the first man in space, President Kennedy committed the nation to a space program with the goal of landing a person on the moon by the end of the 1960s.

In July 1969, six years after Kennedy's death, that goal was met when astronaut Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon's surface.

The effort had cost some $25.4 billion.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

KennedyThe Peace Corps program sent thousands of

American volunteers to developing nations where they trained local people in technical, educational, and health programs.

The Peace Corps program was intended to offset the growth of communism in such nations.

The program is still in existence. . . . My fellow citizens of the world: ask not

what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man. . . .”-John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, 1961 3

Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

Johnson

The Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) program was meant as a domestic Peace Corps, aiding poor citizens in rural and impoverished areas.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

Johnson

The Office of Economic Opportunity set up in 1964, was a directing agency in President Johnson's War on Poverty.

Its branches included Project Head Start (to provide education for preschoolers from low-income families), Project Upward Bound (to assist high-school students from low-income families to attend college), and the Job Corps (to provide vocational training for high school dropouts)

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

Johnson

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act passed in 1965 was a measure that provided more than $1 billion in federal aid to education, with the greatest share going to school districts with large numbers of students from low-income families.

Sections of the bill required that schools accepting the money be integrated.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

Johnson

Medicare Amendments to the Social Security Act provided health insurance and some types of health care to those over the age of 65.

A Medicaid program provided states with funds to help the needy who were not covered by Medicare.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

Johnson

The Department of Housing and Urban Development was a cabinet post that was meant to oversee federal efforts to improve housing and aid economic development of cities.

Its first head, Robert C. Weaver, was the first African American to hold a cabinet post.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

Foreign Policy in the 1960’s

United States foreign policy under Kennedy and Johnson continued Truman's cold war policy of containment of communism.

As you remember, the United States has been deeply involved in the affairs of Latin America since early in its history. Latin American nations often resented such intervention, and United States policies have left a legacy of anger and hostility.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

Kennedy and Latin America

Kennedy hoped to improve relations with Latin America and stop the spread of communism there through the Alliance for Progress, which pledged $20 billion to help economic development in the region.

However, funds often went to aid repressive governments simply because they were anticommunist.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

Kennedy and Latin America

After President Kennedy took office, he approved a CIA plan to overthrow Fidel Castro, the communist leader of Cuba.

The plan called for Cuban exiles —supplied with U.S. arms, material, and training—to invade Cuba and set off a popular uprising against Castro.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

Kennedy and Latin America

The invasion took place on April 17, 1961, at a location called the Bay of Pigs, about 90 miles from Havana.

No uprising followed, and Castro's troops quickly crushed the invading forces, to the embarrassment of Kennedy and the United States government.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

Kennedy and Latin America

Fearing another U.S. invasion attempt, Castro agreed to a Soviet plan to base nuclear missiles aimed at the United States in Cuba. Kennedy learned of the plan while the bases were under construction.

On October 22, 1962, he announced a naval blockade of Cuba and demanded that the Soviets withdraw the missiles. The Cuban missile crisis brought the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of war, but the Soviets backed down and withdrew their missiles.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

Kennedy and Latin America

Fearing another U.S. invasion attempt, Castro agreed to a Soviet plan to base nuclear missiles aimed at the United States in Cuba. Kennedy learned of the plan while the bases were under construction.

On October 22, 1962, he announced a naval blockade of Cuba and demanded that the Soviets withdraw the missiles. The Cuban missile crisis brought the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of war, but the Soviets backed down and withdrew their missiles.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

Kennedy and Latin America

Kennedy had clearly demonstrated that the United States would not tolerate a Soviet presence in the Western Hemisphere just 90 mile, from its shores.

By doing so, Kennedy also helped the nation recover some of the prestige it had lost in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

Kennedy and Latin America

In 1963, the United States, Soviet Union, and Great Britain signed a nuclear test ban treaty in which they agreed not to test nuclear weapons in the air, in outer space, or under the sea.

Underground testing was permitted.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

Kennedy and Berlin

Since World War II, the division of Germany into a Communist East Germany and a democratic West Germany had added to cold war tensions.

President Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev met in Austria in June 1961 to discuss relations between the United States and the Soviet Union.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

Kennedy and Berlin

Khrushchev thought that the Bay of Pigs disaster revealed American weakness, and he tried to threaten Kennedy into removing NATO troops from Europe. Instead, Kennedy increased U.S. military and financial commitment to West Germany.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

Kennedy and Berlin

Response to the American moves came in August 1961, when the East German government built a wall between East and West Berlin.

The Berlin Wall was meant to stop the flood of East Germans escaping to freedom in the West and quickly became a symbol of tyranny.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

Kennedy and Berlin

In June 1963, Kennedy visited West Berlin, renewing the American commitment to defend that city and Western Europe.

In a famous speech, he said that he and all people who wanted freedom were citizens of Berlin.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

Kennedy and Berlin

The Berlin Wall stood as a strong cold war symbol until 1989.

In that year, political change sweeping through Eastern Europe led East Germany to tear down the wall.

By October 1990, the rapid political changes in the region had led to the reunification of the two Germanys as a single nation for the first time since the end of World War II.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

Kennedy’s Death

Kennedy's energetic voice for world democracy and his multilingual wife, Jacqueline, helped to make friends for the United States in many areas of the world.

His tragic and unexpected assassination in November 1963 caused an outpouring of grief from around the world as dozens of foreign heads of state came hurriedly to Washington, D.C., for Kennedy's funeral.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

Vietnam War

Fear of communist expansion led the United States to become deeply involved in Southeast Asia.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

Kennedy and Vietnam

President Kennedy shared Eisenhower's belief in the domino theory.

He, therefore, continued to support the Diem regime.

By 1963, the number of United States "advisers" in South Vietnam totaled about 17,000.

That year, 489 Americans died in the fighting in Vietnam.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

Involvement

American advisers urged Diem to adopt reforms to broaden his support.

Diem, however, brutally suppressed all opponents and ruled as a dictator.

On November 2, 1963, the South Vietnamese military overthrew Diem, with the knowledge and approval of the United States.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

Involvement

Around the same time, the White House announced that it intended to withdraw all United States military personnel from Vietnam by 1965.

Kennedy was unable to keep this promise, because he was assassinated in 1963.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

Johnson and Escalation

Under the constitution, only Congress can declare war.

However, in 1964, three Presidents—Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson—had sent United States aid and troops into Vietnam.

Each did so by acting as the commander in chief of the nation's military

forces.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

Tonkin GulfOn August 4, 1964, President Johnson

escalated the war dramatically . He announced on television that American

destroyers had been the victim of an unprovoked attack by North Vietnamese gun boats. (It later appeared that the ships might have been protecting South Vietnamese boats headed into North Vietnamese waters.)

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

Tonkin GulfThe next day, Johnson asked Congress for the

authority to order air strikes, against North Vietnam.

With only two dissenting votes, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

The resolution empowered "the President, as commander in chief, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

Tonkin GulfJohnson used the resolution to justify

expansion of the war. By April 1965, U.S. planes regularly bombed

North Vietnam.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

War

At first, United States military leaders expected that the nation's superior technology would guarantee victory.

However, they soon found themselves bogged down in a guerrilla war fought in the jungles of Southeast Asia.

The enemy did not wear uniforms, and no clear battlefront emerged.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

WarThousands of Vietnamese casualties occurred

each month as the United States dropped more bombs on Vietnam, an area about twice the size of New York State, than it had used on Nazi Germany during the heaviest months of fighting during World War II.

Laos shares a long border with North Vietnam. During the Vietnam War, the dense jungle

terrain made it difficult for U.S. and South Vietnamese forces to cut off the supply lines that ran between Laos and North Vietnam.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

Reasons for War

The massive commitment in Vietnam raised questions in the minds of many Americans about why the United States got involved in Vietnam and why it stayed there.

The administration argued that the United States was involved in Vietnam to prevent the fall of Vietnam to communism, to stop the rise of aggressor governments, and to protect the nation's position as a superpower and defender of democracy.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

Reasons for War

However, as the war dragged on, many Americans began to question these motives.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

Resistance to War

By late 1965, an antiwar movement had begun to take shape in the United States.

In Congress, there were differences of opinion concerning the war. Some stood solidly behind the President and argued in favor of victory at any cost. These members were known as hawks.

Those who favored immediate withdrawal and an end to the war were known as doves.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

Student Protests

College campuses became centers of political protest against the war.

Students organized a new form of protest called teach-ins, or meetings in which speakers, usually promoting unconditional American withdrawal from Vietnam, held study sessions and rallies.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

Student Protests

The strongest antiwar group in the 1960s was Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), founded in 1960. SDS was antiestablishment, or against big business and government. It led demonstrations, sit-ins, draft-card burnings, and protests against universities with "pro-establishment" regulations.

By 1969, the organization had collapsed into a number of splinter groups. However, SDS's legacy of protest against authority remained a strong force into the 1970s.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

Protest Marches

People of all ages joined in protest marches against the war. The first huge march took place in Washington, D.C., in 1965.

In 1967, some 300,000 Americans marched in New York City. That same year, another 50,000 tried to shut down the Pentagon.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

Draft Resisters

By 1968, about 10,000 draft resisters, people unwilling to serve in the military after being drafted, had fled the country for Canada.

The nation's youth became increasingly divided as some chose to fight for the United States in Vietnam, while others sought deferments to go to college.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

Draft Resisters

A large number of minorities, who could not afford the cost of college, responded to the draft and went to Vietnam.

The attitude of American youth became increasingly hostile toward the Johnson administration and all war-related issues.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

1960’s

Some political analysts who studied the events of 1968 believed the nation had survived one of the biggest tests to its political institutions since the Civil War.

The 1960s had been shaped by two movements: the civil rights movement and the antiwar movement. The political turmoil of the decade helped produce great social upheaval, especially among the nation's youth.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

1960’s

Some young people became disillusioned with traditional American values. For the first time in United States history, thousands of Americans flaunted the use of illegal drugs, often popularized in rock music.

Many young Americans referred to themselves as hippies or flower children. They claimed to be searching for a freer, simpler way of life.

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Mrs. Fenton US: Decade of Change (1960’s)

1960’s

Communal living attracted thousands of youths who adopted lifestyles foreign to older Americans. Some spoke of a generation gap between youth and people over 30.

The civil rights movement and the Vietnam War also divided Americans. The assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., heightened emotions.

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