JFK & LBJPresidential policies in the 60s

1960 Presidential election

"I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic Party's candidate for President who also happens to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my Church on public matters — and the Church does not speak for me."

Campaign issues: Kennedy’s Catholicism Age/experience Civil rights- able to

secure MLK’s release from jail

The economy

The election: Televised debates

give JFK the edge Thin margin of victory

in popular vote 34.2 million to 34.1 million

Electoral victory: JFK 303 to Nixon’s 219

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We stand on the edge of a New Frontier—the frontier of unfulfilled hopes and dreams, a frontier of unknown opportunities and beliefs in peril. Beyond that frontier are uncharted areas of science and space, unsolved problems of peace and war, unconquered problems of ignorance and prejudice, unanswered questions of poverty and surplus.

A New Frontier abroad

Alliance for Progress: a 10 year, multibillion dollar investment in Latin America to reduce poverty & illiteracy

Goal: to prevent Castro’s exploitation of South American grievances against the U.S.

Peace Corps

Each year since 1961 between 5,000 and 15,000 volunteers have helped people in developing nations confront the challenges they face

Goal to offer educational/technical services to underdeveloped nations

Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

Goal: to stop atmospheric nuclear testing.

On August 5, 1963, after more than eight years of difficult negotiations, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union signed the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

A New Frontier at home

Fair Housing Act: to prevent discrimination in housing

Fair Labor Standards Act: raise minimum wage

Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity: desegregate large companies

Fair Housing Act signed by LBJ

Equal Rights Civil Rights Act of 1964: JFK

calls segregation a moral wrong. He introduces the Civil Rights Act in 1961. It stalls in Congress.

“I hope that every American, regardless of where he lives, will stop and examine his conscience about this and other related incidents. This Nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.”

Equal rights for Women The President’s

Commission on the Status of Women: established in 1961

Chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt until her death in 1962

Focused on equity in education and workplace

Foreign Affairs: Bay of Pigs The Bay of Pigs Invasion was an

unsuccessful action by a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba, with support and encouragement from the US government, in an attempt to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro.

The conflict was launched in April 1961, less than three months after John F. Kennedy assumed the presidency in the United States. The Cuban armed forces, trained and equipped by Eastern Bloc nations, defeated the invading combatants within three days.

Cuban Missile Crisis On October 14, 1962, a

United States Air Force U-2 plane on a photoreconnaissance mission captured photographic proof of Soviet missile bases under construction in Cuba.

The threat of a showdown with the USSR was imminent.

Crisis resolved The confrontation

ended on October 28, 1962, when President Kennedy and the United Nations Secretary-General reached a public and secret agreement with Nikita Khrushchev. 

Berlin Crisis: “Ich bin ein Berliner” In August 1961 the Soviets

erected the Berlin Wall to stop the mass exodus of people fleeing Soviet East Berlin for West Berlin and the non-Communist world. The wall was a mass of concrete, barbed wire, and stone that cut into the heart of the city, separating families and friends.

For 28 years, it stood as a grim symbol of the gulf between the Communist East and the non-Communist West.

Kennedy: the visionary “And so, my fellow

Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.” 

“Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.”

Camelot: The legacy  “I am the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris, and I have enjoyed it.”John F. Kennedy

JFK is assassinated, LBJ assumes presidency

Friday, November 22, 1963

The Warren Report The Warren Commission, was

established on November 29, 1963, by Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the assassination of United States President Kennedy on November 22. Its 888-page final report was presented to President Johnson on September 24, 1964, and made public three days later.

It concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the killing of Kennedy and the wounding of Texas Governor John Connally, and that Jack Ruby acted alone in the murder of Oswald.

The Commission's findings have since proven controversial and been both challenged and supported by later studies.

Civil Rights at last "No memorial oration

or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy's memory than the earliest possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he fought so long.“

March 26, 1964

Election of 1964 The sixth-most lopsided presidential

election in the history of the United States behind the elections of 1936, 1984, 1972, 1864, and 1980.

Republican Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, as a right-wing legislator who wanted to abolish the social welfare programs created in the 1930s.

LBJ advocated more such programs, and after 1965, instituted three: Medicare, Medicaid, and the War on Poverty.

Johnson easily won the Presidency, carrying 44 of the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Johnson won 61.1% of the national popular vote, which remains the highest popular-vote percentage won by a U.S. presidential candidate since 1820.

The election is also remembered because of Goldwater's status as a pioneer in the modern conservative movement.

Great Society

Economic Opportunity Act, 1964

Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), 1964

Medicare, 1965 Medicaid, 1965 Elementary and

Secondary Education Act of 1965

University of Michigan, May 22, 1964

Great Society Immigration Act of

1965 Department of Housing

and Urban Development, 1965

Voting Rights Act of 1965

The End for LBJ President Johnson announces a

unilateral bombing halt. At the end of the speech, Johnson stuns the nation by announcing that he will not run for a second full term as president.

After stepping down from the presidency in January 1969, Johnson returned to his ranch in Texas. There he and his aides prepared his memoirs, which were published in 1971.

Johnson died on Jan. 22, 1973, five days before the conclusion of the treaty by which the United States withdrew from Vietnam.

March 31, 1968

War on Poverty Making poverty a national

concern set in motion a series of bills and acts, creating programs such as Head Start, food stamps, work study, Medicare and Medicaid, which still exist today.

The programs initiated under Johnson brought about real results, reducing rates of poverty and improved living standards for America's poor.

The Johnson Treatment

A key element of LBJ's leadership was the famous "Johnson treatment." No president has been so celebrated for his powers of persuasion in face-to-face confrontations.

A combination of flattery,

cajolery, logic, sentimentality, and threats, the Johnson treatment also included a measure of physical assault.