America in the

1960s
1960 Presidential Election
❖ John F. Kennedy vs. Richard Nixon
❖ Nixon; Eisenhower’s Vice President
❖ First televised presidential debate
❖ First time Hawaii & Alaska participate
❖ Kennedy wins election
❖ First Roman Catholic President
John F. Kennedy
❖ “New Frontier”
❖ Inherited New Deal commitment of social welfare system
❖ Endorsed Cold War policy of containment
❖ Fought in World War 2
❖ Required lots of bed rest; Addison’s disease
❖ Critical of Eisenhower & Cold War policy
❖ Alliance for Progress & Peace Corps
Soviet-American Tensions
❖ JFK more willing to talk to Soviet Union
❖ U.S. & Soviet Union could not agree on peace
❖ Arms race ramps up
❖ U.S. nuclear weapons increase 150%
❖ Govt. advises to build fallout shelters
❖ Berlin Wall (1961)
Operation Paperclip
❖ Office of Strategic Services
❖ 1,600 German scientist
❖ U.S. Postwar military research
❖ Assimilation of individuals linked to war crimes
❖ Propels U.S. into space race
❖ NASA
Bay of Pigs Invasion
❖ Soviet assistance to Fidel Castro & Cuba
❖ CIA plan to overthrow Castro
❖ Democratic Revolutionary Front
❖ Kennedy approves plan; plan fails
❖ Anti-American sentiment grows in Latin America
❖ Castro seeks more aid from Soviet Union afterwards
❖ Operation Mongoose
Cuban Missile Crisis
❖ Soviet Union places nuclear weapons in Cuba
❖ ExComm & McNamara decide on naval quarantine
❖ JFK addresses nation
❖ Soviets & U.S. come to agreement
JFK & Civil Rights
❖ Martin Luther King Jr.; Birmingham, Alabama
❖ JFK gives speech on civil rights legislation
❖ Governor George Wallace blocks two students; University of Alabama
❖ March on Washington; 250,000 Americans (1963)
● “I Have a Dream” speech
❖ JFK pushes administration for civil rights bill
Malcolm X
❖ Father was murdered; family denied benefits
❖ Moved from foster home to foster home
❖ Civil rights activist
❖ Believed in separation of whites & blacks
❖ Later years, racism was the problem, not whites

“The true brotherhood I had seen had influenced me to recognize that anger
can blind human vision.”
Robert F. Williams
❖ Armed Black self-defense
❖ Set up National Rifle Association (NRA) charter
❖ Flees to Cuba; Free Radio Dixie & The Crusader
❖ Negroes with Guns (1962)
❖ Black Panther Party
Assassination of JFK
Lyndon B. Johnson
❖ Sworn in on Air Force One
❖ Picks up where JFK left off
❖ Believed govt. had to improve lives
❖ Makes civil rights top priority
Mendez v. Westminster (1947)
❖ School segregation at the state-level
❖ Sylvia Mendez & Mendez Family
❖ Discrimination based on ancestry & language
❖ Set the precedence for future cases
❖ “Lack of exposure due to segregation”
Brown v. Board of Education (1951)
❖ School segregation at the federal-level
❖ U.S. Supreme Court landmark decision
❖ Overruling of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
● “Separate but equal”
Civil Rights Act (1964)
❖ Prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national
identity
❖ Impacted civil and labor law
❖ Segregation becomes illegal
❖ Department of Education & desegregation
Election of 1964
❖ Barry Goldwater vs. Lyndon B. Johnson
❖ Goldwater opposed Civil Rights Act & Social Security system
● “Individual liberty, not equality”
● Promoted use of nuclear weapons
❖ Landslide victory for Johnson
❖ Johnson & his “Great Society”
Selma to Montgomery March
❖ 3 marches
❖ MLK wins Nobel Peace Prize (1964)
❖ Purpose to bring awareness for black voters
❖ Only 2% of black voters registered
❖ Voting Rights Act (1965)
❖ Malcolm X
assassinated, 1965
❖ Martin Luther King
Jr. assassinated, 1968
LBJ & The Great Society
❖ Break the cycle of poverty
❖ Created Job Corps; 300,000 Americans
❖ Work Study Program
❖ Medicare & Medicaid
❖ Head Start Program; 500,000 children
❖ National Endowment for the Humanities
❖ Immigration & Naturalization Act
Road to Vietnam War
❖ Imperial Japan imposes protectorate in Vietnam (1940)
❖ Viet Minh (1941)
❖ Japan overthrows French control (1945)
❖ What else happens in 1945?
❖ Korean War (1950)
❖ Indochina War (1946-1954)
❖ South Vietnam refuses Geneva Accords (1955)
❖ U.S. & Ngo Dinh Diem; South Vietnam (1954)
❖ Diem assassinated (1963)
Vietnam War
❖ JFK
● More importance placed on Latin America
● Against troop deployment
● Increase in military assistance
● South Vietnam leader assassinated; U.S. assisted
❖ Lyndon B. Johnson
● Gulf of Tonkin Incident (1964)
● Operation Rolling Thunder
● “...open the floodgates.”
Vietnam War CONT.
❖ China & Soviet Union increase material assistance; North Vietnam
❖ Booby traps & land mines
❖ North Vietnamese blended into civilian population
❖ Jungle terrain
❖ They were (Vietcong) “wearing us down, driving us mad, killing us.”
- U.S. Marine Officer Philip Caputo
American Response to War
❖ First televised war
❖ The “Young Man’s War”
❖ Teachers, students, & engineers could defer
❖ Students eventually are chosen through lottery
❖ Protest on college campuses
Tet Offensive (1968)
❖ North Vietnamese coordinated attacks on South Vietnam
❖ Wedge between U.S. & South Vietnam troops
❖ U.S. embassy attacked & televised
❖ “End of war was in sight”
❖ American anti-war movement
❖ 20 million Americans view execution
❖ U.S. & South Vietnam win but what was the cost?
My Lai Massacre (1968)
❖ Rape & murder of civilians
❖ Massacre was kept secret for one year
❖ American anti-war sentiment grew
❖ All officers involved acquitted
President Nixon (1968)
❖ Richard Nixon becomes president
❖ Vowed to end Vietnam War & establish peace
❖ Invasion of Cambodia (1970)
❖ War Powers Act
❖ Christmas bombing (1972)
❖ Nixon Doctrine (1969); “Vietnamization”
❖ Détente (1969-1979)
End of Vietnam War
❖ Cease-fire agreement signed (1973)
❖ U.S. promised to withdraw all troops in 60 days
❖ Cease-fire is broken; North & South Vietnam battle again
❖ South Vietnam is defeated
❖ Vietnam reunified under communist regime (1975)
Watergate Scandal (1972)
❖ Office of Democratic Committee
❖ Burglars connected to White House/Nixon
❖ Nixon is re-elected
❖ Nixon tries to get CIA to impede FBI investigation
❖ Vote was passed to impeach; resigns instead
❖ Gerald Ford becomes president; pardons Nixon
❖ Impact of the scandal