1960’s -- What’s going on?

  1. President John F Kennedy – JFK was the first President born in the 20th Century
    1. He identified the Soviet Union as our greatest enemy, but said that the US cannot solve every problem around the world.
    2. Krushchev and Kennedy both felt that the third world countries would be a battleground.
    3. JFK had a two pronged strategy

                                                               i.      Develop the economy through assistance – either financial or through organizations such as the Peace Corps.

                                                             ii.      Counterinsurgency – Use the CIA and elite military groups like the Green Berets to teach countries how to resist Communism militarily

  1. Bay of Pigs (Bahia de Cochinas)
    1. Kennedy ok’s the CIA plan to invade Cuba with 1200 former Cubans.
    2. They land at the Bay of Pigs on the S coast of Cuba – the invasion is stopped and identified as an American operation.  Kennedy refuses to send military aid to the force – all are captured, and many are executed.
    3. The CIA conducts “Operation Mongoose” to assassinate Castro, and to encourage resistance to Castro.  The operation only succeeds in irritating Castro.
  2. Early Vietnam (1960-1963)
    1. Kennedy did not want to send a military force in to stop the Viet Cong.
    2. JFK sends a small Green Beret force to teach the South Vietnamese how to fight.  He resists the Army’s request to send 10,000 US troops.
    3. Diem loses the support of the South Vietnamese

                                                               i.      Buddhist monks set themselves on fire (covered by US TV.) to protest the gov’t.

                                                             ii.      Kennedy urges Diem to remove his brother from power (he was in charge of their secret police).

                                                            iii.      S Vietnam’s generals get the message that the US would support them if Diem were removed

                                                           iv.      They execute Diem and his brother on the capital steps in early 1963 and take over the power.

                                                             v.      Kennedy opposes moving troops into Vietnam “it is their war.  They are the ones who have to win it or lose it.

    1. Flexible Response – Sec of Defense Robert McNamara adjusts the US military preparedness – the US can move up or down in level of readiness to go to war.
    2. US intelligence shows a “missile gap” it is (wrongly) believed that the Soviet Union has more nuclear weapons than the US.
    3. The US builds thousands of missiles causing the Soviets to build up their military.
    4. Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) – the idea that if both sides can destroy the world neither would ever start anything.
  1. Krushchev blinks
    1. The Soviets are embarrassed by the 30,000 refugees who move into West Berlin each month from East Germany.
    2. On August 13th 1961 the Soviets build the Berlin wall and order those trying to get into W. Berlin shot.
    3. Summer 1962 – Krushchev starts to put missiles into Cuba
    4. US intelligence discovers the missiles – Kennedy tells the Soviets that the missiles must be removed.

                                                               i.      Some advisors tell Kennedy to bomb Cuba which would destroy the missile site

                                                             ii.      Kennedy goes with a naval blockade of Cuba, along with the demand that the existing missile structure be removed.

                                                            iii.      For six days there is a stalemate (with Soviet ships getting closer and closer to Cuba) then they turn back to the Soviet Union.

    1. Kennedy wins this showdown – Krushchev is removed from power and replace by Leonid Brezhnev.
  1. Space – the next frontier (or my astronauts can beat up your astronauts)
    1. April 1961 – Yuri Gregarin is first man to orbit the Earth
    2. May 1961 – Kennedy says that the US will land a man on the moon and bring him back by the end of the decade
    3. February 1962 – John Glenn orbits the Earth.
    4. 1963 – Kennedy offers to work with the Soviets on getting a man on the moon – they decline.
    5. July 16, 1969 – Apollo 11 is launched, and Neil Armstrong walks on the moon.
  2. Civil Rights
    1. Kennedy displeases his black supporters by doing little to combat racism early in his tenure.
    2. Southern actions force JFK and his brother Attorney General Robert Kennedy (RFK) to get involved.
    3. Freedom Riders – black and white northern student ride buses together into the Deep South.  They are met with brutality and many are arrested for inciting the beatings they received upon arrival.
    4. James Meredith enrolls at the University of Mississippi – JFK sends troops to protect him.
    5. In Birmingham, Alabama, Police Chief Bull Connor turns fire hoses and dogs on children marching for equal rights.
    6. In a march to Montgomery police beat unarmed marchers (this is shown on national television).
    7. The publicity surrounding these events, the dynamic leadership of Martin Luther King, and the non-violent methods of the protesters results in increasing support in the north and west.
    8. Civil Rights organizations

                                                               i.      Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) – led by Martin Luther King.  They use non-violence and the southern churches to organize resistance.

                                                             ii.      Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) – branched off from freedom riders – white and black students moved throughout the south using segregated facilities.

                                                            iii.      National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) – tried to use the federal courts to win equal rights.

                                                           iv.      Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) – student led organization that moved away from Martin Luther King and towards Malcolm X as the 60’s progressed.  They later became the Black Panthers and used the slogan “by any means necessary”.

                                                             v.      List of notable events –Montgomery bus boycott (Rosa Parks and emergence of Martin Luther King), March on Washington – MLK’s “I have a dream speech”, Civil Rights Act of 1964

                                                           vi.      List of notable people – Malcolm X, A. Philip Roth, Stokely Carmichael, Medger Evers.

  1. President Johnson
    1. Kennedy is assassinated on November 22, 1963.
    2. Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) is a southern new dealer.  LBJ is able to pass anything after JFK is killed.
    3. LBJ labels his program the Great Society and passes:

                                                               i.      The Civil Rights Act of 1964

                                                             ii.      Medicare and Medicaid

                                                            iii.      Low income housing

                                                           iv.      The Voting Rights Act of 1965

                                                             v.      An affirmative action policy

                                                           vi.      National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities – establishes public TV and Radio

                                                          vii.      Created the Department of Transportation and the Housing and Urban Development

                                                        viii.      VISTA, Job Corps, and Head Start

    1. The rate of Americans living in poverty drops from 20+% in 1959 to less than 10% in the mid 1960’s.
  1. Vietnam 1963-1967
    1. The Viet Cong now has about 100,000 troops.  LBJ orders secrets raids on N. Vietnam.
    2. N. Vietnam boats fire on the Maddox in the gulf of Tonkin.  Johnson asks for and gets from Congress permission to send troops at his discretion (Gulf of Tonkin resolution).
    3. Rolling Thunder – the US begins its strategy of intense bombing of the Ho Chi Minh Trail and N. Vietnamese cities.
    4. US troops are moved into S Vietnam 5000 troops in 1964, 184,300 by the end of 1965.
    5. The CIA is involved in a secret operation in Laos – they are attempting to organize an army to resist the Laotian leadership (which was helping the N. Vietnamese).
    6. General Westmoreland is in charge of the US force in Vietnam – he says we are winning, but he keeps requesting more troops – 538,300 troops are in Vietnam by 1968.
    7. The US drops 3.2 million tons of bombs on Vietnam by the end of 1968 – more than all the bombs dropped everywhere in WWII. 

                                                               i.      US philosophy seemed to be “it became necessary to destroy the town to save it” – quote is from a US Major after the village of Ben Tre is destroyed.

                                                             ii.      US students intensify their resistance to the war (especially after student deferments are removed).  Campus protests intensify.

  1. Women Protest
    1. To the surprise of most males, many women felt they had fewer rights and privileges than men.
    2. Following WWII the number of women employed and enrolled in colleges had dropped dramatically.
    3. Women with a college education earned less than men with a high school education.
    4. Betty Friedan writes the book The Feminine Mystique in 1963 and establishes the National Organization for Women (NOW) in 1966.  They call for an equal rights amendment to the Constitution.
  2. Violence explodes
    1. Northern ghettos were increasingly hostile toward mainstream America

                                                               i.      Many of those drafted to go to Vietnam were black.

                                                             ii.      Jobs, schools, and opportunities were all lower in the urban areas.

    1. Riots break out from 1965 – 1967 in Watts, Chicago, Tampa, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Newark, and Detroit
    2. Governor Kerner of Illinois states that the US is “moving toward two societies, one black, one white – separate but unequal.”
    3. April 1968 – Martin Luther King is assassinated.
    4. June 1968 – Robert F. Kennedy is assassinated while running for President.
    5. August 1968 – Chicago police beat student protesters outside of the Democratic Convention – shown live on TV.
    6. Student protests became more visible and more violent.

                                                               i.      SDS – Students for a Democratic Society – group is formed in Ann Arbor to protest bureaucracy, and the Vietnam War.  Tom Hayden is a student leader (he is now a Congressperson from Cal.); a popular slogan is “you can’t trust anyone over 30.”  The Who song My Generation is released (hope I die before I get old).

                                                             ii.      The Weathermen – society is corrupt – the only way to fix it is to destroy it.

                                                            iii.      Counterculture – “Hippy” communes are formed in Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco, as well as in L.A. and New York.  Drug use is common.

  1. Nixon is elected
    1. The Tet offensive by the N. Vietnamese shows that the war is far from over as Johnson had been saying
    2. Johnson drops out of the race; Kennedy is the early favorite until he is assassinated.
    3. Richard Nixon is able to defeat Vice Pres. Hubert Humphrey and racist candidate George Wallace.
    4. Nixon campaigns against the liberal Warren Supreme Court which had decided unpopular cases such as Escobedo v Illinois and Miranda v Arizona, which gave those accused of a crime the right to a lawyer and required police officers to inform those accused of their rights.
    5. Nixon also calls on the “Silent Majority” of Americans who are tired of “hippy freaks” and those who want to “tear down the country”.