Kennedy Kicks Off

The Election of 1960

• Nominations?• Republican – Richard Nixon• Democrat – John F. Kennedy

• Issues with Kennedy• Young• Catholic• Issues are moot after WV primary

The “Great Debates”

• The Debates

• Platforms• Kennedy

• Nation is stagnant “New Frontier”• “Let’s get the country moving again”

• Nixon• “We never had it so good. I say we can do

better.”

Down the stretch they come!

• Who wins?!• Well, duh, we know• BUT• It was a close one…REALLY REALLY close

Can Kennedy do this?

• He has all the tools• Nice guy, good looking, courageous,

intelligent

• Can he follow through though?• Young, inexperienced

• Inaugural Address

Starting with a bang

• Laos• French Indochina• CIA help• Communists attempt to takeover

• Truce of 1962• Warring factions come together• “coalition government”• Geneva peace 2 years only

Bay of Pigs

• This is a MAJOR embarrassment for Kennedy and his administration

• April 1961• Force trained and supplied by US to overth

row Castro

Uh-Oh

• 1500 Refugees land

• Not successful

• USSR threatens to aid Cuba if USA does not back off

• 1200/1500 are captured• Freed only after a $53 million total ransom

Vienna

• Krushchev again calls for Berlin to be “free”• Make an alliance with E. Berlin and

suffocate W. Berlin

• West Berlin is thriving

• Peaceful moves by USSR?

Vienna “summit

• Krushchev and Kennedy meet for the first time

• Kennedy holds fast

• “I see it’s going to be a very cold winter.”

It goes up

• Kennedy will fight for Berlin• Begins preparation

• August 1961 • Troops sent in

• 1963• “I am a Berliner”

“Flexible Response”

• Not the least and not the greatest but somewhere in between

Alliance for Progress

• Latin American focus• Just like the Marshall Plan• We give you money, you better your

society• Not really going to work out like we

planned• Never really attempted reforms• Real focus is supporting anti-communist

governments

The Peace Corps

• Response to accusation• US wants to fight communism more than

promote freedom

• Thousands of young ones• All expenses paid but are volunteers• Serve as whatever they were needed as

How is this going to work out?

• Good or bad?• List of what needed to be done outstrips

the effort to take care of things

• Culture problems?

• Some don’t want us

• Patriotism for Americans

Communist Challenges

• “Fire ze missile!”• Are we or are we not behind the Soviets?

• Election Issue• We aren’t! Nixon was right

• Arms Race Get a bigger dog

• Mutual Assured Destruction

Results?

• ICBMs

• SLBMs• Nautilus

The Great Race of the Space Variety

• Get Some

• Russians• Yuri Gagarin – First Man in Space• We race to equal them

• “We will land on the moon before 1970”

YAY!!! No Tests!

• Radiation = Bad

• No more testing the atmosphere• Soviet Union continues to do it• United States begins to test underground

• UN Meeting – Full Disarmament!

Test-Ban Treaty

• 1963, July• Great Britain, Soviet Union and US

• No more atmospheric testing

• Underground still allowed and current weapon caches not touched

Vietnam Problems…Again

• Geneva Convention from 1954• Everyone go back to square one• Elections in 1956

• SV doesn’t think elections will help• Ngo Dinh Diem

• 1960 – the real trouble starts

Viet-Cong

• 1960• National Liberation Front – Viet-Cong (NV)• Eisenhower supports SV and troops are

sent in

• Kennedy is on the fence about sending in more troops• Let them deal• Diem goes down

The New Frontier

• Kennedy tries to talk the talk and walk the walk….YO

• Burned – Education Bill and “socialized medicine” are shot down

It’s Business Time

• Ownage • Minimum wage goes up• More urban renewal• 24th Amendment• Retrain unemployed workers

Economy

• Mini-Recession = Gone

• Problems still going on?• Inflation• Unemployment

“Wage-Price Guidelines”

• Increase in Output = Increase in Wages• Combats which of the two problems?

• Steelmakers’ Problem• Major price increase• Kennedy’s Reaction

Back to Civil Rights

• Where did we leave off in our story?

• Kennedy supports Civil Rights and wants to move forward with them

• What concerns does he face as President about pushing through Civil Rights legislation?

Actions

• 1962 – desegregation of public housing projects supported by federal funds

• Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity

• Justice Movements• Thurgood Marshall• Blacks in federal government

Violence

• Freedom Riders• Protest of ICC

• James Meredith• Air Force Veteran• Wants to go to school

Non-Violent Protest

• Sit-Ins

• Southern Christian Leadership Conference• Battle against Birimingham

• MLK and his people march into Birmingham• Police armed with dogs, fire hoses and cattle

prods

Civil Rights in 1963

• Kennedy Bill• Not passed until 1964• Prohibits discrimination in public,

government and employment

• MLK, DC, and his Dream

“I have a dream”

• Part of the Speech

• 200,000 people watching

• Theme of the Movement

• America is still not ready

Tragedy

• The Killing

• Kennedy is assassinated

Who did it?

• Belief is Lee Harvey Oswald• But…

• Warren Commission• Attempts to find out information behind

assassination

Kennedy Debate

• Overrated or deserving of praise?