The Six Foot Three Inches Texan
President Lyndon Baines Johnson's Time in Office
Election of Johnson
Takes Over Kennedy:
- Sworn in quickly on airplane back to Washington with Kennedy's body following his death on November 22, 1963
- Claimed "No memorial or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy's memory than the earliest possible passage of the Civil Rights Bill for which he fought so long."
- Pushed Kennedy's stalled tax bill through Congress - added provisions for billion-dollar "War on Poverty"
Election of 1964:
- Democratic Party candidate: Lyndon Baines Johnson
- Republican Party candidate: Barry Goldwater
- Goldwater attacked federal income tax, Social Security, Tennessee Valley Authority, civil rights legislation, nuclear-test ban treaty, and Great Society
- Johnson appeared statesmen by seizing upon Tonkin Gulf episode back in August
- Great victory: 43,192,566 votes compared to 27,178,188 votes for Goldwater; 486 electoral votes to 52 for Goldwater
The Great Society
- Vision he shared at all times
- New Deal-style economic and social welfare actions
- Demonstrated commitment to care for Americans
- March 16, 1964: secret message sent to Congress to declare "war on poverty"
- Proposed $962 million program - becomes $3 million in 1966 - to relieve poverty-stricken areas
- Also strove for programs to provide jobs, medical assistance, education, and civil rights
- Created Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) to provide volunteers to help underprivileged areas
- Medicare for seniors, Medicaid for poor established
- Head Start for preschoolers established as well as job corps
- Initiated programs to protect consumers and safeguard environment
- Also initiated food stamp programs
- Department of Housing and Urban Development created
- Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed
24th Amendment
- Ratified January 1964
- Abolished poll tax in federal elections
- Blacks joined white civil rights workers in voter-registration drive in Mississippi during "Freedom Summer" of 1964
- Late June 1964: 1 black, 2 white civil rights workers disappeared in Mississippi
- Bodies found badly beaten and buried in eastern dam
- FBI arrested 21 Mississippians, including local sheriff
- White juries refused to convict the whites in connection with the murders
Tonkin Gulf Resolution and Vietnam War
Tonkin Gulf Resolution:
- U.S. Navy ships had been working with South Vietnamese gunboats in raids along North Vietnam
- 2/3 American destroyers allegedly fired upon by North Vietnamese August 2 & 4
- Johnson ordered retaliatory air raid against North Vietnamese bases, claiming he sought "no wider war"
- Incident used to gain passage of Tonkin Gulf Resolution - it passed
- Passed August 7, 1964
Vietnam War:
- Expanded presence by signing secret National Security Council "findings" permitting U.S. cover operation sin North Vietnam
- After attacks on U.S. vessels, authorized limited bombing raids on North Vietnam
- Passed Tonkin Gulf Resolution as result on August 7, 1964
- Given "blank check" from Congress to do whatever necessary to end war
- First bombing raids on North Vietnam began later that year
- End of 1965: 184,000 troops in Vietnam
- 1966: 385,000 troops
- Americans grew distraught with U.S. policy
- Anti-war demonstrations, picket lines, and teach ins were demonstrated by Americans
- 1966: Senator J. William Fullbright opens Congressional hearings to debate need of continued presence in Vietnam
- 1967: 485,000 troops in Vietnam
- Promise made that victory for America imminent
- North Vietnamese siege of Khesanh and National Liberation Front's "Tet Offensive" proved U.S. far from victory
- 1968: Bombings ended, withdraw of troops, and agreement to peace talks in Paris
Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act
- Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed promptly after entering office following Kennedy which created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
- 1965: Determined federal contractors take "affirmative action" against discrimination
- August 1964: Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party denied seat in Democratic convention
- Early 1965: Martin Luther King, Jr. resumed voter-registration campaign in Selma, Alabama
- State troopers assaulted King and his demonstrators on their peaceful march to Montgomery
- Voting Rights Act of 1965 speedily pushed through Congress and signed into law August 6
1968-A "Watershed" Year
- January 10: 10,000 passenger U.S. airplane lost over Vietnam
- January 17: Johnson delivers State of Union address
- January 31: Tet Offensive launched by North Vietnam
- March 22: Czechoslovakia Antonin Novotny resigns Czech presidency - next day leaders of Warsaw Pact meet at Dresden, East Germany
- April 4: Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated and riots break out in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Kansas City, Newark, and Washington D.C.
- June 3: Andy Warhol shot in New York City loft by struggling actress and writer, Valerie Solanis
- October 11: Apollo 7 launched from Florida for eleven day journey to orbit Earth 163 times
- October 31: Johnson announces total halt to U.S. bombing in North Vietnam
- December 11: Unemployment rate is 3,3 percent-lowest in fifteen years
- December 21; Appollo 8 is launched and begins U.S.' first mission to orbit Moon