LECTURE #22: THE NEW FRONTIER & GREAT SOCIETY ERA (1961-1969)

1. LECTURE #22: THE NEW FRONTIER & GREAT SOCIETY ERA(1961-1969) Derrick J. Johnson, MPA, JD Advanced Placement United States History, School for Advanced Studies

2. The Election of 1960 • President Eisenhower had not been able to transfer his popularity to other Republicans, and the Democrats retained control of Congress through Eisenhower’s last two years in office. • At their convention in 1960, the Republicans unanimously nominated 47 year old Vice President Richard M. Nixon for president. • During the eight years as Eisenhower’s vice president, Nixon gained a reputation as a seasoned campaigner and a statesman in his diplomatic travels to Europe and South America. • In visiting Moscow, he stood up to Khrushchev in the so-called kitchen debate over the merits of communism and capitalism. • Through the early months of 1960, several Democrats competed for the nomination. Liberal Democrats supported Adlai Stevenson and Southern conservatives supported Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ).

3. The Election of 1960 • In the primaries, 43 year old Senator John F. Kennedy defeated his rivals. To balance the ticket, LBJ was named his running mate for Vice President. • As the first Catholic presidential candidate since Al Smith (1928), Kennedy’s religion became an issue in the rural South whereas it actually helped Kennedy in the urban North. • The dynamics of the 1960 campaign was for ever changed with television. The televised Nixon-Kennedy debates played a crucial role in highlighting the differences between the two candidates. During the four debates, Kennedy appeared comfortable and vigorous, while Nixon looked pale and tense.

4. The Election of 1960 • Kennedy criticized the Eisenhower Administration’s economic policies (which led to the recession) and its foreign policy for allowing the Soviets to take the lead in the in the arms race. • Kennedy emerges victorious with 303 electoral votes (34,220,911 popular votes) to Nixon’s 219 electoral votes (34,108,157 popular votes). • Kennedy ‘s election marks the first time a Roman Catholic is elected to the presidency.

5. The John F. Kennedy Presidency President John F. Kennedy Born: May 29, 1917 Died: November 22, 1963 Term in Office: (1961-1963) Political Party: Democrat

6. The John F. Kennedy Presidency

7. The John F. Kennedy Presidency Supreme Court Appointments by President Kennedy Byron Raymond White – 1962 Arthur Joseph Goldberg – 1962 Territories Recognized by the Electoral College District of Columbia – March 28, 1961

8. The New Frontier • JFK’s youthful energy and sharp wit gave a new personal style to the presidency. • He spoke of “the torch being passed to a new generation” and promised to lead the nation into a New Frontier. • Along with his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, Kennedy brought a sense of glamour to the White House. The press dubbed Kennedy’s Administration as Camelot. • JFK called for aid to education, federal support of healthcare, urban renewal and civil rights. However, his domestic programs languished in Congress.

9. The Moon Race Begins • On 20 April 1961, about one week after the Soviets launch the first man into space, Yuri Gagarin, President John F. Kennedy sent a memo to Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, asking him to look into the state of America's space program, and into programs that could offer NASA the opportunity to catch up. • Johnson responded about one week later, concluding that the United States needed to do much more to reach a position of leadership. Johnson recommended that a piloted moon landing was far enough in the future that it was likely that the United States could achieve it first.    • His justification for the Moon Race, was that it was both vital to national security and it would focus the nation's energies in other scientific and social fields. He expressed his reasoning in the famous "We choose the Moon speech," on 12 September 1962, before a large crowd at Rice University Stadium, in Houston, Texas, near the site of the future Johnson Space Center.

10. The Moon Race Begins • On 25 May, Kennedy announced his support for the Apollo program and redefined the ultimate goal of the Space Race in an address to a special joint session of Congress:"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth."   • His justification for the Moon Race, was that it was both vital to national security and it would focus the nation's energies in other scientific and social fields. He expressed his reasoning in the famous "We choose the Moon speech," on 12 September 1962, before a large crowd at Rice University Stadium, in Houston, Texas, near the site of the future Johnson Space Center.

11. Bay of Pigs Invasion • Kennedy made a major blunder shortly after entering office. He gave approval to a CIA scheme planned under the Eisenhower Administration to use Cuban exiles to overthrow Castro’s regime in Cuba. • In April of 1961 the CIA trained force of Cubans landed at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba but failed to set off a general uprising as planned. • Trapped on the beach, the anti-Castro Cubans had very little choice but to surrender after Kennedy rejected the idea of using U.S. forces to save them. • Castro used the invasion to get more aid from the U.S.S.R. and to strengthen his grip on Cuba.

12. The Berlin Wall • After the Bay of Pigs affair, JFK agreed to meet Khrushchev in Vienna in the summer of 1961. • Khrushchev renewed his demands that U.S. troops leave Berlin and Kennedy refused. • In August of 1961, the East Germans built a wall around West Berlin, to stop East Germans from fleeing to West Germany. • JFK travelled to West Berlin and he gave his famous “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech to a large cheering crowd. The purpose of the speech was to show the U.S. resolve to stop completion of the completion of the wall and his dedication to West Berlin. • The wall was ultimately completed and it remained in existence until 1989, when rebellious East Berliners toppled it.

13. The Civil Rights Movement • Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK) emerged as a key leader of the civil rights movement during the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott. King and other southern ministers founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), which taught that civil rights could be achieved through non-violent protest. • In 1960, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was formed which were made up of both black and white students. They put on many sit-ins in protest to the many segregation actions of public southern facilities.

14. The Civil Rights Movement • In May of 1961, the Congress for racial equality sponsored the Freedom Rides. During the previous year, the Supreme Court had ruled that bus stations and waiting rooms in stations had to desegregate. The freedom rides started in Washington and they rode through the South to see if there was compliance to the Supreme Court decision. • Many of these freedom riders faced beatings and other forms of violence from white mobs. • Many Americans were horrified at the violence they witnessed.

15. JFK & Civil Rights • JFK was slow on the civil rights issue, but he did push for passage of a Civil Rights Act that would have withheld federal money to states that practiced segregation • Under U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, the federal government became much more involved in enforcing federal civil rights.

16. March on Washington • To muster support for this bill, civil rights leaders organized the August 28, 1963 March on Washington. • More than 200,000 people showed up to protest for civil rights legislation. It was at this rally that MLK gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

17. Cuban Missile Crisis • The most dangerous challenge from the Soviets came in 1962.U.S. reconnaissance planes discovered that the Russians were building underground sites in Cuba for launching of offensive missiles that could reach the U.S. in minutes. • JFK responded by announcing to the world that he was setting up a naval blocked of Cuba until the weapons were removed. • A full scale nuclear war between the superpowers seemed likely if the Soviets challenged the blockade. • After days of tension, Khrushchev finally agreed to remove missiles from Cuba in exchange for JFK’s promise not to invade Cuba.

18. The John F. Kennedy Assassination • After two and a half years in office, JFK’s promising career was cut short. • On November 22, 1963, in Dallas Texas, as two bullets from an assassins rifle found struck the president as he was riding with his wife in a motorcade. • Kennedy became the eighth president to die in office and the fourth to be assassinated.

19. The John F. Kennedy Assassination • News of Kennedy’s murder shocked millions of Americans who were fixed on their television for days. They witnessed the murder of alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby, two days after JFK’s death. • Two hours after Kennedy’s assassination, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) took the oath of office as president aboard an airplane at the Dallas airport. He became the eighth vice president to ascend to the presidency upon the death of the incumbent.

20. The John F. Kennedy Assassination • Kennedy was received a state funeral on November 25, 1963. • Afterwards, the Warren Commission, lead by Chief Justice Earl Warren, concluded that Oswald was a lone assassin. However, there were many unanswered questions about the Kennedy Assassination, which have led to many conspiracy theories. Because of these unanswered questions, a cloud of distrust in government was cast over American politics through the 1960s and 1970s.

21. The Lyndon B. Johnson Presidency President Lyndon B. Johnson Born: August 27, 1908 Died: January 22, 1973 Term in Office: (1963-1969) Political Party: Democrat

22. The Lyndon B. Johnson Presidency

23. The Lyndon B. Johnson Presidency Supreme Court Appointments by President Johnson Abe Fortas – 1965 Thurgood Marshall – 1967

24. The Great Society: War on Poverty • As the new president, LBJ was determined to expand the social reforms of the new deal. Having spent 30 years in Congress, he had the clout to get things done. • Shortly after taking office, LBJ got Congress to pass an expanded version of JFK’s civil rights bill and Kennedy’s proposal for an income tax cut, which ultimately sparked an increase in consumer spending. • In 1963, there were 40 million Americans who were living in poverty. Johnson declared an “unconditional war on poverty.” • The Democratic controlled Congress gave LBJ everything he wanted by creating the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) and giving it a billion dollar budget. OEO sponsored many anti-poverty initiatives like Head Start, Job Corps and literacy programs.

25. The Great Society: War on Poverty • Like the New Deal, some of LBJ’s programs were successful while others were not. However, overall, the War on Poverty did significantly reduce the number of American families living in poverty. • Perhaps the biggest achievement of his presidency was the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which made segregation illegal in all public facilities, including restaurants, and gave the federal government additional powers to enforce school desegregation. • The 24th Amendment was also passed which abolished the poll tax, which had discouraged poor persons from voting.

26. The Election of 1964 • Johnson was the obvious choice for the Democrats going into the 1964 presidential election. The Republicans nominated Arizona U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater . • Johnson and his running mate, Senator Hubert Humphreys, went into the 1964 election with a clearly liberal agenda. In contrast, Senator Barry Goldwater ran an ultra conservative campaign. • A television ad by the Democrats pictured Goldwater as a dangerous extremist who would be quick to involve the U.S. in a nuclear war.

27. The Election of 1964 • Johnson won the election in a landslide with 486 electoral votes (43,127,041 popular votes) to Goldwater’s 52 electoral votes (27,175,754 popular votes). • The Democrats, with a super majority in both houses of Congress, were finally in a position to pass economic and social legislation that were originally proposed by President Truman in the 1940s and 1950s.

28. The Great Society: Legislative Agenda • Johnson’s legislative achievements in 1965 and 1966 were impressive and they would forever change American society. They included: • Medicare • Medicaid • The Elementary and Secondary School Act • A new immigration law (overturned the discriminatory acts of the 1920s). • The National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities • Increased funding for higher education, public housing and crime prevention. • Creation of two cabinet positions: Department of Transportation and Department of Housing and Urban Development.

29. Rise of the Counter Culture • A new counter culture was expressed by young people in rebellious styles of dress, music drug use and for some, communal living. • The apparent dress code of the “hippies” and “flower children” of the 1960s included long hair, beards, beads, and jeans. • Folk music of Joan Baez and Bob Dylan gave voice to the younger generation’s protests, while rock and roll music of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison, provided the lyrics to the counter culture.

30. Rise of the Counter Culture • They experimented with hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD, which made many of them drug addicts. In 1969, the Woodstock Music Festival in upper state New York represented the last fling of the hippie era. • The 1960s also ushered in the sexual revolution. Traditional beliefs about sexual attitudes and expression had been challenged in the 1940s and 1950s by the research of Alfred Kinsey. His research proved that there was a rise in homo sexuality, premarital sex and marital infidelity.

31. The Women’s Movement • Increased education and employment of women in the 1950s, the civil rights movement, and the sexual revolution all contributed to a renewal of the women’s movement in the 1960s. • Betty Friedan’s book The Feminine Mystique (1963) gave the movement a new direction by encouraging middle class women to seek fulfillment in professional careers rather than confining themselves to the roles of wife, mother, and homemaker. • Friedan help to found the National Organization for Women (NOW), which adopted the activist tactics of other civil rights movement to secure equality for women. • Their efforts led to the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (which fell short of the necessary 38 states needed for ratification).

32. The Nation of Islam & The Black Panthers • One group that preached opposition to integration was the Nation of Islam. Represented by Malcolm X, the nation preached that it was to the benefit of white society to keep blacks poor and in ghettos, and if African Americans wanted to improve their positions, they would have to do it themselves. • Eventually, Malcolm X rejected the more extreme concepts of the nation and he was killed in February 1965. • The most visible group supporting “black power” were the Black Panthers, who were founded by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton. The concept of black power stated that blacks should create their own society apart from the all controlling white society. • Many members of The Black Panthers died in violent gun battles with the police in San Francisco.

33. Initial Stages of the Vietnam War • JFK accepted Eisenhower’s domino theory and he sent U.S. military aid to South Vietnam. By 1963, there were more than 16,000 U.S. troops in South Vietnam, but they served as military advisors. • The South Vietnamese government was far from popular. The Ngo Dinh Diem regime lost the support of peasants in the countryside. • JFK began to question whether the Diem government could defeat the communists. • Diem was eventually assassinated and replaced by his generals, two weeks before Kennedy was also assassinated.

34. Gulf of Tonkin Resolution • When LBJ took over, South Vietnam was coming undone. The country has several different governments in the wake of Diem’s assassination. • In August of 1964, LBJ used a naval incident in the Gulf of Tonkin off Vietnam’s coast to secure congressional authorization for U.S. forces going into combat. • The resolution gave Johnson carte blanche to protect U.S. interests in that region.

35. Gulf of Tonkin Resolution • Some charged that the war was illegal because Congress did not invoke its war declaration powers under the U.S. Constitution. • However, Congress did not withdraw the resolution because a majority of Americans supported the effort to contain communism in Southeast Asia. • LBJ was in a politic dilemma. If he pulled out of Vietnam, he would look weak, if he stayed, he would have to risk thousands of American lives to defend a weak South Vietnamese government.

36. Escalation of the Vietnam War • After the Vietcong attacked the U.S. base at Pleiku in 1965, LBJ authorized Operation Rolling Thunder, a prolonged air attack using B-52 bombers against targets in North Vietnam. • By the end of 1965, there were over 184,000 U.S. troops in South Vietnam. • LBJ continued step by step escalation of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. • Hoping to win a war of attrition, U.S. Generals used search and destroy tactics, which only further alienated the peasants. By 1967, the U.S. had over 485,000 troops in Vietnam and 16,000 Americans had already died in the conflict . • Nevertheless, General William Westmoreland assured the American public that victory was a hand.

37. The Tet Offensive • On the occasion of their Lunar New Year (Tet), in January 1968, the Vietcong launched an all-out, surprise attack on almost every provincial capital and American base in South Vietnam. • Although the attack took a toll in the cities, the U.S. counter attack inflicted much heavier losses on the Vietcong. • In political terms, it was a loss for the Johnson Administration, because it demoralized the American public who witnessed the chaos and destruction. • In the New Hampshire Primary, LBJ lost 42% of the vote to anti war candidate Eugene McCarthy. • On March 31, 1968, LBJ went on television to announce that he would limit the bombing of North Vietnam. He then surprised everyone by announcing that he would not run for president again.

38. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Assassination • On March 29, 1968, MLK traveled to Memphis, Tennessee in support of the black sanitary public works employees. • On April 3, while in Memphis, King addressed a rally and delivered his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" address at Mason Temple, the world headquarters of the Church of God in Christ. King's flight to Memphis had been delayed by a bomb threat against his plane. Many had said that he prophesized his own death in his last speech.

39. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Assassination • Early morning, April 4, 1968, shots rang out in the Memphis sky that killed Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The bullet entered through his right cheek, smashing his jaw, then traveled down his spinal cord before lodging in his shoulder. • Many cities erupted into riots over MLK’s death. • Two months after King's death, escaped convict James Earl Ray was captured at London Heathrow Airport while trying to leave the United Kingdom on a false Canadian passport in the name of Ramon George Sneyd on his way to white-ruled Rhodesia. • Ray was quickly extradited to Tennessee and charged with King's murder. He confessed to the assassination on March 10, 1969, though he recanted this confession three days later.

40. The Robert F. Kennedy Assassination • In 1964, Robert F. Kennedy, JFK’s younger brother, had become a senator from New York. Four years later, Bobby Kennedy entered the 1968 presidential race and he mobilized the traditional Democratic blue-collar and minority vote. • On June 5, 1968, he won a major victory in California’s primary, but immediately after his victory speech, he was shot and killed by a young Arab nationalist who opposed Kennedy’s support for Israel.

41. The Election of 1968 • After Robert Kennedy’s death, the election of 1968 turned into a three-way race between two conservatives – George Wallace and Richard Nixon – and one liberal Nixon, Vice President Hubert Humphrey. • When the Democrats met in Chicago for their party convention, it was clear that Humphrey had enough delegates to win the nomination. • Antiwar demonstrators protested the war on the streets and Chicago Mayor, Richard Daley, sent his police out in mass, which resulted in violence. • Humphrey left the convention as the nominee of a badly divided Democratic Party. • The growing hostility of many whites to federal desegregation, antiwar protests and race riots propelled George Wallace’s candidacy. He ran the first “anti-Washington establishment” campaign.

42. The Election of 1968 • Many observers thought that Richard Nixon’s political career was over after an unsuccessful run for the presidency in 1960 and then another failed run in 1962 for California governor. However, a new and more confident Nixon announced his candidacy for president and he became the Republican front runner. His running mate was Maryland Governor Spiro Agnew, who was a staunch conservative. • Nixon ran as the “law and order” candidate and he promised to end the Vietnam War by achieving “peace with honor.”

43. The Election of 1968 • Nixon emerged victorious with 301 electoral votes (31,783,783popular votes) to Humphrey’s 191 electoral votes (31,271,839 popular votes) and Wallace’s 46 electoral votes (9,901,118 popular votes). • The 1968 election was viewed as a turning point for the New Deal Coalition. It foreshadowed the rise of the conservative tide of the 1970s and 1980s.

44. The Moon Landing • 1969 saw the final leg of the Moon Race, with the United States leading it after the flight of Apollo 8. • Unbeknownst to the Americans, the Soviet moon program was in deep trouble. Without the N-1 rocket, the Soviets had no way to land on the Moon. The next two Apollo missions proved that the Lunar Module worked well, both in low-Earth orbit and in lunar orbit. It was time to proceed to an actual landing mission.

45. The Moon Landing • The Apollo 11 crew consisted of commander (CDR) Neil Armstrong, command module pilot (CMP) Michael Collins, and lunar module pilot (LMP) Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin. They were selected as the crew in January 1969, and they trained for the mission until just before the actual launch day. On 16 July 1969, at exactly 9:32 a.m. EDT, the Saturn V rocket – serial number SA-506 – lifted off from Launch Complex 39A, with Apollo 11 on board. • The lunar trip took just over three days. After achieving orbit, Armstrong and Aldrin transferred into the Lunar Module, named Eagle, and began their descent. After overcoming several computer malfunctions, Armstrong took over manual-flight-control at about 180 metres (590 ft), and guided the Lunar Module to a landing on the Moon's Sea of Tranquility at 4:17 p.m. EDT, 20 July 1969. • The first humans on the Moon would wait another six hours before they ventured out of their craft. At 10:56:15 p.m. EDT, Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the Moon. The moon landing represented the final act of hope & achievement in a decade of great turmoil.

46. THE END OF LECTURE #22