History 2

profilesthapa55
PoliticsofExpectationLecture.ppt
Home>History homework help>American history homework help>History 2

John F. Kennedy, Civil Rights, and the Politics of the New Frontier

  • Inspiration for a new generation of Americans
  • JFK was a Cold Warrior
  • Political orientation of America shifts
  • Nation is ripe for change
  • Class of ‘46 (Congress)
  • Election to Senate in 1952
  • Joseph Kennedy and the Kennedy Machine
  • Profiles in Courage
  • McClellan Committee and Television
  • From Whittier to Congress
  • Anticommunism

-Jerry Voorhis, 1946

-Alger Hiss, 1948

-Helen Gahagan- Douglas aka “the

pink lady”

  • Tapped as Eisenhower’s 1952 Running mate
  • Questionable tactics, funders, personal finance, etc.
  • “Checkers”…
  • The Nixon-Kennedy Debates
  • West Virginia: Joe Kennedy’s money
  • Illinois and Mayor Richard Daley
  • Kennedy wins close AND controversial victory
  • South is key to JFK win
  • Reluctant to govern with a lot of authority
  • Cuban Revolution and Fidel Castro
  • American Intervention: the Bay of Pigs
  • Dismal Failure; Castro survived and became stronger
  • Became very embarrassing for Kennedy Administration
  • East Germany
  • Human suffering from the destruction of WWII
  • Soviets cannot remedy the situation; East Germans flee
  • Berlin Wall: symbol of the Cold War
  • Effective tool for the Cold War
  • Soviets Move Nuclear Missiles into Cuba
  • Countered American threat in Turkey, NATO
  • JFK demands they be removed
  • Negotiation: U.S. pulls out of Turkey, Soviets removed missiles
  • The Peace Corps
  • This was Idealism but also a Tool in the Cold War Struggle
  • Agency for International Development: Food for Peace, End World Hunger
  • Alliance for Progress: $20 billion to combat poverty across the world
  • Space Race and Space Exploration
  • Area Redevelopment Act of 1961: gave businesses incentives to relocate in economically depressed areas
  • Manpower Development and Training Act of 1962: Job Training for Unemployed
  • Expanded Social Security and Raised Minimum Wage
  • Promise to Expand the Ideals of the New Deal
  • A proposed end to the nuclear arms race
  • Reached out to Soviet women
  • Communist infiltration?
  • Communist housewives?
  • The Emergence of the New Left
  • Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
  • The Port Huron Statement
  • Move away from class struggle, push for material wealth sponsored by “Old Left”
  • Emphasis on civil rights, political reform: end to discrimination, end to Cold War policies
  • Demand the government is proactive in both ends