KENNEDY & JOHNSON

AN ERA OF CHANGE

ELECTION OF 1960KENNEDY* Catholic* Harvard Elite* “The spender”* Democrat

NIXON* Protestant* Middle America* “The fiscal conservative”* Republican

VERSUS

ELECTION OF 1960

• When it came to the issues, the two men were similar in their opinions in both domestic and foreign policy.

• So, the contest became Kennedy’s style and wit versus Nixon’s experience.

• The Kennedy/Nixon race would turn out to be the closest in history.

• The televised debates between Kennedy and Nixon gave Kennedy the edge he needed to pull off the victory.

• Nixon had adopted a “whistle stop” campaign. He had lost weight and looked haggard.

• Kennedy was fresh off vacation with a tan.

ELECTION OF 1960

ELECTION OF 1960

• Kennedy won 49.7 percent of the popular vote and Nixon, 49.5 percent (a difference of 119,000 votes).

• Once in office, Kennedy’s focus became the Cold War. He did not think Eisenhower and the republicans did enough to stop the spread of communism.

KENNEDY’S FOREIGN POLICY

• Kennedy did not like Eisenhower’s policy of brinkmanship. He and his team developed a policy of flexible response —relying on nuclear weapons allowed for only one response which meant suicide. Kennedy broadened the range of options by strengthening and modernizing the military’s ability to fight war.

KENNEDY AND CUBA• In 1959, Fidel Castro (a

lawyer and a communist) overthrew Batista’s government in Cuba and created a communist government. Castro became a dictator in Cuba.

• Kennedy took advice of CIA operatives and ordered La Brigada (a militarily trained group of Cuban rebels) to land secretly in Cuba and inspire a popular uprising.

BAY OF PIGS INVASION• The invasion on April 17, 1961, failed miserably.• When the 1,500 commandos tried to land at the

Bay of Pigs on Cuba’s southern coast, they met disaster at every turn.

• Their boats ran aground on coral reefs. Kennedy cancelled their air support to keep U.S. involvement secret and the promised uprising of the Cuban people never happened.

• Within 2 days Castro’s forces killed several hundred members of La Brigada and captured nearly all the rest.

• This was a dark moment for Kennedy and the action exposed an American plot to overthrow a neighboring government.

BAY OF PIGS INVASION SITE

CUBAN EXILES INVADING CUBA WITH THE HELP OF THE US, APRIL 1961

KENNEDY AND CUBA• Kennedy searched for

other ways to unseat Castro. Using the CIA in a plan called Operation Mongoose, he interrupted Cuban trade, ordered more raids by exiles and even plotted Castro’s assassination.

KENNEDY AND CUBA• Castro and Khrushchev's solution was to

install Soviet nuclear missiles and bombers near Havana, Cuba’s capital, as a warning to the U.S.

CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS• Oct. 14, 1962, a U.S. spy

plane flying over Cuba took clear photos of crews installing Soviet missiles.

• For a solid, nerve-racking week, the government thrashed out every possible response: negotiations (ruled out at once because it would give them time to install weapons), bombing and invasion.

Why did the United States freak???

CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS

• Kennedy finally decided to block Cuban shipping lanes to halt further deliveries of nuclear weapons and then quietly push Khrushchev to remove the missiles.

CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS

• Oct. 22, Kennedy announced this decision on national television.

• Within 2 days 180 warships were sailing to Cuba, B-52 bombers loaded with nuclear weapons were in the air, and military forces worldwide were on alert.

CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS

• For the next two days, Soviet ships steamed toward Cuba, and the world waited to see what would happen next.

• The ships turned back. Oct. 26, Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles if the U.S. vowed never to attack Cuba. The next day he demanded the removal of U.S. missiles from Turkey.

CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS• Kennedy agreed to the first demand, but ignored the

second (although later he secretly agreed to do so). He also ordered Khrushchev to get the missiles out of Cuba—or the U.S. would take them out.

• Finally on Oct. 28, Khrushchev backed down and the crisis ended.

• At last the U.S. and the Soviet Union accepted each other’s power and admitted to the importance of negotiation.

• Kennedy and Khrushchev would later have a “hot line”—a direct line of communication.

• Also signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty—barred nuclear testing in the atmosphere.

CRISIS OVER BERLIN• In the years

following the Berlin Airlift, 3 million East Germans fled to West Germany (20% of the population).

CRISIS OVER BERLIN• 1961, Khrushchev ordered the Berlin Wall to

be built. Khrushchev had threatened to sign a treaty with East Germany that would enable the country to close all access roads to West Germany. The reality was that he couldn’t carry out this threat, so he shocked the U.S. by building the wall.

IN JUNE OF 1963 PRESIDENT KENNEDY WENT TO BERLIN AND DELIVERED HIS FAMOUS “ICH BIN EIN BERLINER” ( I AM A BERLINER)

TO SHOW U.S. DETERMINATION TO KEEP BERLIN FREE.

THE NEW FRONTIER

THE NEW FRONTIER• Kennedy came into office with a narrow

victory—not enough to claim a mandate—a clear endorsement of his ideas.

• He faced a powerful conservative coalition in Congress.

• The New Frontier became a label for Kennedy’s vision for progress at home.

• It was not an organized set of legislative initiatives.

THE NEW FRONTIER• Programs at home included raising minimum

wage from $1.00 to $1.25.• The Alliance for Progress was a series of aid

projects undertaken cooperatively with Latin American countries that agreed to democratic reform.

• The Peace Corps sent volunteers to developing countries, where they lived among the local people and assisted them in education and rural development.

IN HIS INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF JANUARY 20, 1961, PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY CHALLENGES A NEW GENERATION OF

AMERICANS TO JOIN "...A GRAND AND GLOBAL ALLIANCE...TO FIGHT TYRANNY, POVERTY, DISEASE, AND WAR..." KENNEDY CONTINUES IN HIS SPEECH, "TO THOSE PEOPLE IN THE HUTS

AND VILLAGES ACROSS THE GLOBE STRUGGLING TO BREAK THE BONDS OF MASS MISERY, WE PLEDGE OUR BEST EFFORTS TO

HELP THEM HELP THEMSELVES."

THE NEW FRONTIER• However, the President’s interests were

primarily centered on foreign policy—the cold war and containment of communism.

THE SPACE RACE• The Soviet Union gained an edge in the so-

called “space race” when they were the first to orbit earth.

• Kennedy’s response asked for a commitment to the goal of “landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth” before 1970.

• The space agency, NASA developed a three-stage program to put Americans into space.

• The third stage—Apollo Program is when the moon landing was accomplished (1969).

The Apollo 11 Crew

Armstrong, Collins, Aldrin

American flag on the moon

TRAGEDY IN DALLAS• CBS news anchor Walter

Cronkite cried as he gave the nation the news: The Kennedy assassination took place on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas at 12:30 PM. Kennedy was fatally wounded by gunshots while riding in a presidential motorcade.

TRAGEDY IN DALLAS

Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in immediately.

KENNEDY’S ASSASSINATION

• Police determined that the shots had been fired from a warehouse that overlooked the route of the motorcade.

• Lee Harvey Oswald, a 24-year-old warehouse worker was arrested for the murder.

KENNEDY’S ASSASSINATION

• As Oswald was transferred from the city jail to the county jail, a Dallas nightclub owner, Jack Ruby, pushed through a circle of police officers and journalists and shot and killed Oswald at point-blank range.

Timeout….A quick lesson on the importance of credible sources….

THE GREAT SOCIETY

THE GREAT SOCIETY• Johnson carried forward Kennedy’s dream of a

New Frontier, then went beyond Kennedy’s domestic programs to launch his own vision of the Great Society.

• He felt he could become the first president to create a just society that eliminated poverty and hardship in the U.S.

• Johnson moved to push the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act through Congress.

THE GREAT SOCIETY• He launched his war on poverty with the

Economic Opportunity Act —it established Volunteers in Services to American (VISTA), a domestic peace corps of citizens working in poor neighborhoods.

• The Act also funded Project Head Start, to give preschoolers from disadvantaged families a leg up on elementary education.

THE GREAT SOCIETY• Among the most significant pieces of legislation

were Medicare, federally funded health care for the elderly and Medicaid, its companion program for the needy who were too young to qualify for Medicare.

• He added a new cabinet department—Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

• He also appointed the first African American cabinet member—Robert Weaver.

THE GREAT SOCIETY• The Great Society also reformed the restrictive

immigration policy that had been in place since 1924. The Immigration Act of 1965 eliminated the quotas that had discriminated against all immigrants from areas outside northern and western Europe. It created a flexible limit of 170,000 people from the Eastern hemisphere and 120,000 from the Western hemisphere. Family members of U.S. citizens and refugees were exempted.

48

Highly controversial ad sponsored by the Johnson campaign

Aired only once on NBC television, ad was pulled after complaints by Goldwater camp

Ad showed picture of young girl pulling petals from daisy, and then a nuclear mushroom cloud. Johnson’s voice can be heard in the background saying, “…these are the stakes, to make a world in which all of God's children can live, or to go into the darkness. We must either love each other, or we must die.”

Ad is considered to be one of the first examples of negative television campaigning

The “Daisy girl” commercial

THE WARREN COURT

THE WARREN COURT• The Supreme Court has the power of judicial

review—the power to determine the constitutionality of laws.

• If the court finds a law unconstitutional, the law essentially can no longer exist.

• This power can be controversial because it allows the court to engage in judicial activism—when the court engages in policy making or reform (a power given to Congress).

THE WARREN COURT• Dwight D. Eisenhower

did not realize it, but when he appointed Earl Warren as chief justice of the Supreme Court, he created a supreme court that went further in making reform its business than any other court in history.

Chief Justice Earl Warren 1953-1969

THE WARREN COURT• The Court took far-reaching action to correct

what it saw as the nation’s social ills.• In 1962, changes in the makeup of the Supreme

Court gave Warren a clear majority of judges who were likely to side with him on most issues.

• In the 60’s the Court handed down a series of historic decisions affecting the nation’s political progress, the civil liberties of individuals, and the operation of the criminal justices system.

Let’s look at some Warren Court cases…

BAKER V. CARR• Baker v. Carr (1962)—Some background..• Each state gets a number of representatives in

The House of Representatives (one of two houses in Congress) based on population (to total 435 members).

• So Ohio has 18 representatives, California has 53 (because of its large population) and Alaska has 1 (due to its small population).

• When a state knows how many representatives it will get (might be changed every ten years based on the Census), it divides into that number of districts.

BAKER V. CARR• Here is Ohio divided up into 18 districts.

Each district elects one of Ohio’s 18 representatives.

• We are district

# 12 and have

elected Pat

Tiberi to be our

representative.

BAKER V. CARR• Congressional districts are drawn by the State

Legislature. In the past this has led to some unfair practices.

• Gerrymandering—when a state draws its congressional districts to give benefit to one group over another. So, in other words, if the Ohio State Legislature consisted of mostly republicans, they might be tempted to draw the U.S. congressional districts to give the benefit to the republican candidates running in those districts.

• Malapportionment—when the districts are drawn with an unequal number of people in each district.

BAKER V. CARR• When districts are gerrymandered or

malapportioned, this means that the vote of one person was not equal to the vote of another.

• In Baker v. Carr some citizens in Memphis, TN argued that malapportionment took place in their area, and therefore their votes were worth less than citizens living in rural areas.

BAKER V. CARR• So, if you lived in a district with 50,000 people

your vote would be worth 1/50,000 and let’s say I lived in a district with 500,000 people. My vote would only be worth 1/500,000 (a lot less).

• The Warren Court Ruled that the federal courts would have to settle these issues because the Constitution stated “one man, one vote” in other words that all individuals’ votes were to be equal.

Other Cases from the Warren Court

• Mapp vs. Ohio (1961) – ruled evidence seized illegally could not be used in court.

• Gideon vs. Wainwright (1963) – criminal courts must provide free legal counsel to those who could not afford it.

• Escobedo vs. Illinois (1964) – accused have the right to have an attorney present during police questioning.

• Miranda vs. Arizona (1966) – ruled all suspects must be read their rights before questioning.

Impact of the Great Society

• Most agree that no president in the post-WWII era extended the power and reach of the federal government more than Lyndon B. Johnson

• “War on Poverty” worked:– # of poor people fell from 21% in 1962 to 11% in 1973

• Tax cuts spurred the economy• But, funding the Great Society caused a growing

budget deficit, questions about gov. spending and debate about the effectiveness of his programs = conservative backlash as many Republicans rose to power throughout the country.