Discussion B

Kennedy and His New Frontier

The Election of 1960

• Richard Milhouse Nixon ran against John F. Kennedy.

• These two candidates were about as different as any two people could be.

John F. Kennedy

• A very young candidate.

• Came from a very rich family.

• Believed communism was America’s worst enemy.

• Good television speaker and due to his good looks many believed he would win the election.

• Kennedy won the election by one of the smallest margins in history.

Kennedy’s “New Frontier”

• This was an extension of FDR’s New Deal and Truman’s Fair Deal.

• Kennedy will quickly be at odds with business leaders in the United States, especially in steel.

Kennedy and Steel

• Kennedy told steel companies to hold down prices to allow economic growth, but they didn’t listen.

• He threatened them by saying the US would buy foreign steel and sent the Justice Department to investigate their business practices.

Other “New Frontier” Ideas

• Kennedy went to work on funding public schools by passing new bills.

• He tried fighting poverty in the South and in big cities.

• He supported the Area Development Act which encouraged businesses to move into economically depressed areas.

• The Housing Act asked for $5 billion for urban renewal

NASA

• One of Kennedy’s biggest accomplishments was the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

• Part of this reason was to compete with the Soviets in the Cold War.

Kennedy at Odds

• Kennedy was frequently at odds with the legislative branch.

• Southern senators and representatives blocked many of the measures that he tried to pass partly because he was for civil rights.

Bay of Pigs Invasion, Berlin Crisis, and Cuban Missile Crisis

What impact did the Bay of Pigs, Berlin Crisis, and Cuban Missile Crisis

have on the Cold War?

Kennedy took responsibility for the mission’s failure.

The President said, however, that he would continue to resist efforts by the communists to control other countries in Western Hemisphere.

Started with Eisenhower and followed with Kennedy. Conceived by the CIA to overthrow Fidel Castro, the invasion involved Cuban exiles who had fled Castro’s rule and settled in the United States.

The Bay of Pigs mission failed.

The Bay of Pigs Invasion

Bay of Pigs Invasion

The Failed Invasion

• Information was leaked early- New York Times

• Air strikes failed.

• Castro prepared for a land attack.

• Invaders were captured and ransomed back to United States for $52 million in food and aid.

• Strengthened Castro’s ties to the Soviet Union

The Berlin Crisis

Disagreement over Berlin led to the building of the Berlin Wall.

Khrushchev insisted the U.S. end its military presence in

West Berlin.

Kennedy refused.

Khrushchev ordered the building of the Berlin Wall separating East and West Berlin.

In response to Khrushchev’s actions, Kennedy requested a large increase in military spending.

He also sent 1,500 more U.S. soldiers to West Berlin.

The Berlin Wall became a symbol of the gulf between

the communist Eastthe democratic West and the communist East

In 1962, American intelligence agencies photographed Soviet nuclear missile installations in Cuba.

Cuban Missile Crisis

The missiles at these

Cuban sites threatened

major cities in the United

States.

The Cuban Missile Crisis

• Khrushchev agreed to dismantle the missiles if the United States pledged to never invade Cuba.

• Both Kennedy and Khrushchev took steps to ease tensions between their countries.

• They set up a hotline to allow direct communication during times of crisis.

Managi ng the

Crisis

• Kennedy assembled a group of advisors, known as the ExComm, to help him plan a response.

– ExComm military members favored an air strike, perhaps followed by a land invasion of Cuba.

– Others argued for a naval blockade. Kennedy agreed with this plan.

• The world watched as Soviet ships carrying missile parts approached the naval blockade. They turned back.

Effects of the Crisis

In Public Behind the Scenes

In a television address,

Kennedy blamed Khrushchev

for reckless action that

threatened world peace.

Kennedy initiated a U.S.

naval blockade of Cuba.

Kennedy told the Soviets that

the United States would

remove U.S. missiles from

Turkey and Italy if the Soviets

removed their missiles from

Cuba.

To resolve the Cuban missile crisis, Kennedy worked

After six tense days, the Soviets backed off.

Nikita Khrushchev agreed to honor the blockade and removed the missiles.

The crisis prompted the two leaders to establish a period of détente. They set up a hot line between Washington, D.C. and Moscow to improve communication.

Kennedy’s Death

• When Kennedy went to Dallas to try and stir up support for his programs, he was assassinated on November 22, 1963.

• When he was killed, it seemed as if time stopped in this country.

• This also affected people around the globe specifically allies that Kennedy had made in many third world countries.

Lyndon B. Johnson

• Lyndon B. Johnson would take over for Kennedy.

• Only 5 days after Kennedy’s death, Johnson made a speech to the American public saying he would continue on with JFK’s plans.

• He came up with a new term for the new America called the Great Society.

The Great Society

• Johnson tried to fight poverty, pollution, unemployment, discrimination, and everything else that was wrong with this country.

• To fight poverty and unemployment, Johnson launched the Office of Economic Opportunity

Office of Economic Opportunity

• This organization sent workers to poor neighborhoods to help people get back on their feet.

• Job Corps, Project Head Start, and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act were all examples of Johnson’s war on poverty.

More Johnson Programs

• Johnson passed the Medicare Act through Congress.

• He responded to immigration by passing the Immigration Act which allowed more people from the far east and deleted the national quota system.

Government Spending

• Even with all the good things Johnson was attempting to do, his government spending was out of hand.

• The Vietnam War was part of the problem because it was eating up $20 billion a year.

1960’s: An Important Time

• During Johnson presidency, the American public had become deeply divided.

• We had seen the emergence of the youth during this time, but we also saw three of the most important young people killed (JFK, Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert Kennedy)

• Division would continue into Nixon’s presidency.

Nixon and the Presidency

At the Beginning

• Richard Nixon was elected in 1968 after losing the previous election to LBJ.

• At the beginning of Nixon’s presidency, the US was in shambles.

• Vietnam had become an enormous disappointment, the country itself was divided, and the assassinations of two very popular figures had made Americans feel unsafe.

A Nixon Success

• One of the biggest successes of Nixon was his war on crime.

• This was suppose to weaken the rights of the accused because Nixon felt they had gotten out of had.

• He blamed the Supreme Court for these problems in the American judicial system.

War on Crime…

• Soon after Nixon was elected, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Earl Warren, resigned.

• Nixon began to win battles with the Supreme Court.

War on Crime continued…

• Warren Burger, a conservative and favorite of Nixon, became the chief justice and Nixon also place three other conservative justices on the court.

• It looked as if Nixon was going to get his way with the court (they even reversed the decision that capital punishment was illegal and unconstitutional.

National Debt

• Nixon did inherit a huge national debt because of LBJ’s Great Society and the Vietnam War.

• Nixon tried a variety of methods to try and solve this problem, but what he ended up doing was to freeze wages, rents, and product prices

National Debt continued…

• Nixon also cut taxes to try and stimulate the economy.

• The balance of payments began to become a problem as the US was spending far more than it was making.

• Nixon just happened to be President in one of the worst economic periods in US history.

New Federalism

• Nixon’s program to reduce the federal gov’t role and put more emphasis on the state and local gov’t.

• It called for revenue sharing in which the federal gov’t would give the state gov’t money for them to spend as they saw fit.

1973

• Arab nations placed an embargo on oil shipments to the United States.

• Nixon urged Americans to take measures to lead toward self-sufficiency in energy usage.

• OPEC began to raise prices on oil after the embargo was lifted which contributed to the economic problems that faced the US throughout the 70’s.

Election of 1972

• Nixon ran against George McGovern.

• McGovern, although supported by many people, did not even come close to winning this election because he ran such a bad campaign.

Nixon’s 1972 Campaign

• Even though Nixon won, you could see that he could be dirty.

• His political advisors organized CREEP to receive campaign contributions, many of which were received illegally.

Committee for Re-election of the President. (CREEP)

• A group of CREEP members were caught bugging the Democratic headquarters in 1972.

• The trial of these members was watched by many Americans.

• The trial for all the issues discussed in the Watergate investigation led back to Nixon.

• As members were sent to prison for their involvement, Nixon feared it would get to him.

• He claimed executive privilege on tapes that had been discovered about the Watergate break-in.

On June 17, 1972, five men carrying wiretapping equipment were arrested breaking into the Democratic

National Committee’s headquarters located in the Watergate Complex in Washington D.C.

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Questioned by the press, the White House dismissed the incident as “a third- rate burglary attempt.” Pressed further, President Nixon himself denied any

White House involvement.

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In fact, G. Gordon Liddy & E. Howard Hunt, were former FBI and CIA agents currently working for Nixon’s Committee to Re-elect the President. Their job

was to protect the Nixon administration, anyway necessary, legal or not.

Howard HuntG. Gordon Liddy http://www.helmr.com/images/liddy.jpg http://media.keprtv.com/images/070124_Howard_Hunt.jpg

Hunt and Libby had arranged for the illegal wiretaps (listening devices) at the Democratic headquarters, part of their campaign of ‘dirty tricks’ against the

rival Democratic party.

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The Watergate incident was not an isolated incident. It was part of a pattern of illegality and misuse of power by a paranoid and ruthless White House.

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Nixon could have dissociated himself from the break-in by dismissing his guilty aides, but it was election time. Fearful of bad press, he arranged hush money for the burglars and instructed the CIA to stop the FBI investigation.

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Ordering the CIA to stop the FBI from investigating the Watergate incident was an obstruction of justice, a criminal offense.

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Nixon managed to keep the lid on the incident until after his re-election, but eventually the lid blew off due to congressional investigations.

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In the meantime, two reporters at the Washington Post, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, uncovered the Committee’s to Re-elects illegal “slush fund’

and its links to key White House aides.

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The slush fund received its money illegally from the campaign contributions of the Republican party to finance “mischief” against anyone that posed a

threat to the Nixon administration.

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In May, a Senate committee began holding nationally televised hearings, at which it was discovered that the Watergate break-in was linked to the White House.

Attorney General John Mitchell,

controlled secret “slush fund.”

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The guilty White House officials implicated President Nixon. During the testimony, it was discovered that Nixon had installed a secret taping system in the Oval office.

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Claiming executive privilege, Nixon refused to surrender the White House tapes. Under enormous pressure, he

eventually released some of the tapes. One of the tapes was suspiciously missing 18-minutes of recording.

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Finally on June 23, 1974, the Supreme Court ordered Nixon to release the unaltered tapes. Lawyers were shocked to find concrete evidence that the

president had ordered the cover-up of the Watergate break-in.

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By then, the House of Representatives had began to consider articles of impeachment, to remove the president from office.

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Certain that he would be convicted by the Senate, on August 9, 1974, Nixon became the first U.S. president to resign from office.

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Gerald Ford swears in as President of the United States.

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The next day, Vice President Gerald Ford was sworn in as president. Congressman Ford had replaced Vice President

Spiro Agnew, who had himself resigned in 1973 for accepting “kickbacks” while governor of Maryland.

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A month later, Ford stunned the nation by granting Nixon a “full, free, and absolute “pardon” for all offenses he had committed or might have

committed during his presidency.”

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President Ford took that action, he said, to spare the country the agony of Nixon’s criminal prosecution. He felt the country needed to move on.

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In Moscow, puzzled Soviets leaders could not understand, how a powerful president could be forced to resign,

because of what they viewed as a minor offense.

President Nixon shaking hands with Soviet PremierBrezhnev.

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Soviet history knew no parallel. That was one lesson of Watergate – that, in America, the rule of law prevailed. No one is above the law, not even the

president.

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A second lesson involved the constitutional separation of powers. As commander-in-chief, Nixon asserted unlimited

authority, excusing his wiretapping. The president does not have absolute power due to checks & balances.

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Congress pushed back against the abuses of the Nixon administration, passing the War Powers Act (1973), limiting the president’s ability to deploy U.S. forces without congressional approval.

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Congress passed the Freedom of Information Act (1974), protecting privacy and access to federal records, and the Fair Campaign Practices Act (1974),

limiting and regulating contributions in presidential campaigns.

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Lastly, Congress passed the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act (1978), prohibiting domestic wiretapping without a warrant.

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Gerald Ford: Vice President

• Nixon appointed Gerald Ford as his new VP.

• Nixon did release written transcripts of the tapes although they were heavily edited.

• The Supreme Court ordered Nixon to hand over the tapes and he did.

• The tapes revealed direct evidence of a cover up of the break-in.

Nixon resignation….

• In 1974, Nixon resigned fearing a certain impeachment by Congress.

• Gerald Ford immediately pardoned Nixon for all crimes, but that did not sit well with the public.

• The issue of presidential power was huge at the end of the Nixon administration.

Ford and Congress

• They did not help each other

• Although leeway was given to Ford, he still couldn’t pass many things through Congress.

• In turn, Ford would veto many of the bills Congress sent him.

• Aid for Asian countries was not granted to Ford, even though he asked, and Vietnam and Cambodia fell to communist gov’t.

• The only real positive thing that came out of the 70’s was the bicentennial which brought a new sense of hope for Americans.

• Vietnam

The war was fought over the North Vietnamese and the south

Vietnamese because the north invaded the south

The reason America got involved was because we are allies

with South Vietnam and so we helped them

North Vietnam was a communist country and America was

fighting to preserve democracy

John F Kennedy sent in 400 Green Berets

What started the war?

Lyndon B. Johnson’s Speech Peace Without Conquest

April 7, 1965

“We fight because we must fight if we are to live in a

world where every country can shape its own destiny.

And only in such a world will our own freedom be

finally secure.”

“The first reality is that North Vietnam has attacked

the independent nation of South Vietnam.”

“And it is a war of unparalleled brutality”

“We are there because we have a promise to

keep. Since 1954 every American President has

offered support to the people of South Vietnam.”

What were the key battles and areas of conflict?

Timeline of Key Events

1975 Fall of Saigon

1973 Paris Peace Agreement

1968 Tet

Offensive

1964 Gulf of Tonkin

1954 Battle of

Dien Bien Phu

-Battle of Dien Bien Phu (1954)

Starts US Evolvement in Vietnam War http://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/audio#dien-bien-phu-falls

-Gulf of Tonkin (1964)

US destroyer Maddox was fired on by North

Vietnamese torpedo boats

Gave broad congressional approval for the expansion

of the Vietnam War

-Tet Offensive (1968)

Consisted of a series of sharp attacks on urban and

rural areas in South Vietnam by the Vietcong

-Paris Peace Agreement (January 1973)

United States and North Vietnam signed which

provided the withdrawal of all remaining U.S. forces

from Vietnam

-The Fall of Saigon (April 30, 1975)

Capture of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam by

North Vietnamese Army; event marked the end of the

Vietnam War

How much did the war cost in lives and money?

The U.S. spent over $140 billion

58,000 U.S. soldiers were killed

350,000 were wounded

Most of the U.S. soldiers who fought in Vietnam were drafted

As the number of U.S. troops in Vietnam grew it became more

costly and the U.S. economy suffered. President Johnson

increased taxes to monitor inflation.

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Wounded soldier being taken off the battlefield

What were the negative effects of the war?

War demonstrated the increasing dominance of the presidency

within the Federal Government

Destroyed political credibility within the American process

The public began to distrust its leaders and vice versa

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Young

Vietnam

Soldier

Negative Effects Contined

# of U.S. troops in Vietnam grew, making the war more costly so the U.S. economy suffered. President Johnson increased taxes to monitor inflation

About 15% of the 3.3 million Vietnam veterans (495,000) developed P.T.S.D. and several thousand committed suicide

The U.S. was full of controversy between pro and anti war feelings

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Conditions of Combat Zones

•Filled with bugs because of the

humidity and rain

•Dangerous due to booby traps

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gpx90C5n1fU

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What were mental effects on the soldiers?

Many of the soldiers that came home had developed Post

Traumatic Stress Syndrome

Symptoms: Problems with marriage, Depression,

Fatigue, and chronic colds

How were veterans received by the American public when they

returned?

There have been many accounts of veterans of the Vietnam War

claiming that they were spat at, called names such as “baby killer” and

denied services such as restaurants, taxis and buses. Although these

claims are very commonly heard, there has been no acknowledgement of

this by the U. S. Government, and many books about the 70’s have

declared the claims an urban legend. So anything that might be true

would come down to one group of people’s word against another’s.

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What was the public view of the war before, during, and after the

war?

The public view of the Vietnam War was probably more erratic in

its changes than any other war in American history. Approval

ratings after escalation had begun were 70% for the President

(LBJ), and 80% for the militaries involvement in Vietnam. Not

four months later the approval ratings had dropped by 10% and a

series of war protests had occurred in the U. S. the largest of

which in Washington were 35,000 strong marched around the

White House, being led by 5 Medal of Honor recipients.

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