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| The 1960s the Democratic Party took control of the government. The would look to expand help for the poor and unemployed an tried to address the issue of racism. |
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| Democrats saw the President as activists. In 1960 John F. Kennedy became the symbol for the times. He was young, vigorous, and articulate. He realized the power of TV to achieve his goals. In 1960 he ran against Nixon and saw the first TV debates. This helped him win the election. Kennedy came up with the Great Frontier to address poverty, space program and helping others. "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." He surrounded himself with well-educated people. He created a feeling of Camelot. Kennedy won the election, but by the smallest of margins. Thus he had very little support in Congress. In 1963 Kennedy was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald in Texas while campaigning. This had a huge impact on the American people. His VP Lyndon B. Johnson became President. He was the exact opposite of Kennedy. He was unrefined, vulgar, a gambler, and very good at getting things done. He had a ton of experience in Congress and knew everyone and how to get along with them. Johnson also used Kennedy's death to get things done. |
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| By 1960 the government played a part in everyone's life. In 1950 government employed 2.5 million people. Money spent continued to increase on defense spending and old age pensions. Many wanted to see the government expand more to help more social needs |
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| Kennedy looked to expand the economic system and also social warfare. He was looking to fix economic conditions. He pressed the steal industry to lower prices, which sent the market spinning down. Kennedy increased the deficit spending. When he tried for social reform he had no success. He could never get measures through Congress. He tried to get school funding to Catholic Schools, Space program, and Peace Corps. |
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| Lyndon Johnson had tremendous success with Congress. He was able to push through the most extensive reform program in American history. Johnson started with measure the Kennedy could not get through. He called his program the Great Society. In 1964 he got elected and also took control of Congress. He also saw this as a mandate for change. Programs: 1. Civil Rights 2. Tax cuts 3. War on Poverty 4. Medicare and Medicaid 5. Education 6. Conservation. |
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| Supreme gets Soft Hearted |
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| Four new justices were appointed during the JFK & LBJ administrations. Under Warren there were civil rights expansions. The court no longer upheld discriminatory practices. Many civil rights were upheld, like the right to have a lawyer present during questioning. These were the Miranda Rights. They also struck down prayer in public schools. |
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| For the first couple of years the Great Society was working well. It was not as good as many people had hoped for. The party started to split over the cots of the programs. Also the Vietnam War started to destroy the Great Society. This led to a decline in social reform. |
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| Liberalism on the decline |
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| By 1968 many people would question the Democratic leadership. Many felt there was too much emphasis on the poor and on the war. |
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| In 1968 Johnson would not run again. The Democrats put forward VP Hubert Humphrey. The Democratic Party was in shambles. The convention in Chicago had turned violent. George Wallace ran as an independent with very racist motives.The Republicans put up Nixon who ran on the fears of the people. He selected Spiro Agnew as his VP. Nixon got 43% of the vote and won. The Democrats controlled both houses. Nixon was a very complex and remote man. He was very removed, paranoid, and very scheming. He had very few close friends except for Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Gerald Ford became VP when Agnew resigned, then became President when Nixon resigned. |
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| The Plan that the Republicans had |
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| They were looking to scale back the welfare state. Inflation had been running higher and higher. Farm prices were way up and they sold wheat to the USSR. Arab oil embargo caused prices to up four fold. Loaf of bread went from .28 cents to .89 cents in 5 years. Inflation was 11% and unemployment was 9%, which was the highest since the Great Depression. Welfare was very costly and many became anti-youth and anti-protest. Nixon started to attach everyone and he appointed four new justices. These were more conservative with their biggest decision was the 1973 Roe vs. Wade, which made abortion illegal. |
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| Pure Awesomeness (Watergate) |
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| Nixon was stalemated with Congress. He wanted to win the election of 1972 and get control of Congress. He had a very well organized and ruthless group he used for re-election. They planned to wire tap the Democratic headquarters at Watergate. On June 16th an arrest was made for wire tapping. Nixon said he knew nothing about it. Nixon won the election, but did not win Congress. The Watergate issue continued to linger until arrests were made. John Dean was arrested and testified that Nixon knew what was going on and had the tapes to prove it. Nixon refused to turn over the tapes and people called for impeachment and for the Supreme Court to force him to hand over the tapes. On August 5th he turned them over but there is still an 18 1/2 minutes of silence on the tapes. On August 9th Nixon became the first President to resign. This greatly affected the trust that the U.S. people had in the office of the Presidency. |
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| Gerald Ford... Wait.. Who? |
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| Ford was put in a very hard spot. People didn't trust the him and his goal was to restore trust in the government. It worked for a short period of time until Ford pardoned Nixon. Inflation was still rising and in 1975 unemployment reached 12%. Ford basically filled a void until a new president was selected. |
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| Peanuts, Presidents, and Peasants. |
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| In 1976 it was Ford vs. Jimmy Carter, who was a Democratic governor from Georgia. He was seen as a Washington outsider and more of a common man. Carter won the election and tried to lighten up the presidency. Since he was an outsider he was unable to get things done. Inflation continued to grow and oil prices kept going up. He had no success with Congress. |
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| The Cold War continued to expand during the 1960s and 1970s. This caused the U.S. to have even greater involvement in world affairs. The Cold War turned hot. |
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| Kennedy was a strong anti-communist, and would go to any extent to protect the spread of communism. In the spring of 1961 the Bay of Pigs Invasion occurred and Kennedy feared the communist country of Cuba, which was under Fidel Castro. The CIA trained former Cubans to invade Cuba with hopes of a popular uprising. April 17th 1961 the invasion was a disaster from the start. The Cuban army stopped the invasion was a disaster from the start. The Cuban army stopped the invasion and there was no popular uprising and the U.S. was embarrassed. |
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| Kruschev, Kennedy, and More Pigs |
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| In June 1961 Kennedy met with Kruschev to discuss the Berlin situation and the Berlin wall went up shortly after that. On October 1962 the U.S. received photos showing that Cuba had missile sites that were built by the USSR. Kennedy called for a blockade of Cuba to stop the completion of the site. USSR ships were headed toward Cuba and the world waited to see if there was a war. The USSR backed down and had three ships turn back. The USSR and U.S. made two agreements. 1. The USSR would agree to remove the missiles that they had in Cuba if the U.S. agreed to not invade. 2. The U.S. removed the missiles that they had in Turkey. The U.S. agreed but never removed the missiles. Kennedy came out of the crisis as a hero. Many people were upset that we were so close to war. They also felt that Kennedy just had dumb luck and that the U.S. didn't go to war. This led to a hotline between the U.S. and USSR and a Soviet Nuclear build up. |
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| Kennedy and the beginning of Vietnam |
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| Kennedy was looking for a Cold War victory. U.S. had been sending advisors to Vietnam. In 1961 there were 675 and in 1963 there were 16,000.U.S. had supported Diem, but later withdrew their support and he was killed. Kennedy died and Johnson took over and had to decide what to do. Like Kennedy, Johnson believed in the Domino theory and he took a very firm stance in Vietnam. The south was losing the civil war, mostly due to the Viet-cong, which were south Vietnamese who supported the North. |
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| In the 1964 Johnson said he wanted peace, but was really preparing for war. In August 1964 in the Gulf of Tonkin, North Vietnamese boats attacked U.S. ships in international waters. The U.S. was in the wrong but Johnson asked for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. This gave the President a lot of power to prevent further aggression. In February 1965 the U.S. started to escalate the war. They began with bombing raids and more troops. In the beginning of 1965 there were 25,000 and at the end there were 184,000. These numbers increased for the next three years. They also introduced fragment bombing and napalm. |
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| In March of 1965 Michigan saw the first anti-war protest. They said to make love not war, and "Hey hey LBJ how many kids did you kill today." This became the TV war, which exposed all of the problems of war.This increased demonstrations and Kent State students burned down the ROTC building and the National Guard was called in. They opened fire on the students killing four and wounding nine. At Jackson State, Mississippi, the same thing happened and two were killed. |
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| Nixon.. Need we say more? |
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| In 1969 Nixon was now president and he wanted out of the war, but with victory. Tried to Vietnamization of the war. U.S. supported it, but did not take the full burden. U.S. troops dropped, but bombings increased. In 69 & 70 protests increased, mostly in part of the My Lai Massacre. A village was said to be harboring 250 Viet Cong, mostly women and old men were all killed. In 69 Nixon invaded Cambodia, who he said was supplying North Vietnam.In 1971 the Pentagon Papers were released showing that the government was lying to the people about winning the war. In 1972 Nixon was re-elected and he increased the bombing raids. In 1973 the U.S. signed a peace treaty and withdrew from Vietnam. This was the longest war in U.S. history at the time with 58,000 killed and cost 150 billion dollars. |
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| Nixon attempted to make peace with the communist powers of the USSR and China. In 1971 he played table tennis to open up relations. He also visited China in 1971. This was very good for his image and peace began in the two countries. Nixon also visited the USSR to talk about arms reduction, trade agreements, and a joint space program. When Ford took office he signed the SALT treaty. SALT= strategic arms limitation treaty. |
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| Carter tried to make peace in the Middle East. He helped get the Camp David Accord signed, which brought peace between Israel and Egypt after 30 years of warring. U.S. also gave the Panama Canal to Panama in 2000 to try to keep peace with China and expand trade with them. In June 1977 SALT II was signed to limit arms. In 1979 the USSR invaded Afghanistan and SALT II was put on hold. The U.S. boycotted the 1980 Olympic games and Iran took over the U.S. embassy and kept 53 hostages for 444 days. |
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