President Kennedy
Alex Johnson
Election of Kennedy
The Election
- 1960
- he was the youngest president
- Kennedy was the democratic candidate
- Nixon was the republican candidate
- Kennedy didn't win by much
The New Frontier
- revitalize the economy after the small recession under Eisenhower
- the Peace Corps would bring American skills to underdeveloped countries
- stop inflation
- cut taxes
- less government spending on projects and more money directly to individuals
- land a man on the Moon by the end of the decade
The Cold War
- Flexible Response proposed developing more military options to enable us to react to any situation
- many people were leaving East Berlin to seek safety in West Berlin, so the Berlin Wall began construction in 1961
- 1961 Kennedy increased the number of "Military Advisers" in Vietnam to protect Diem
- after Diem continued steal US military and economic aid, Kennedy launched a coup that killed Diem
- Alliance for Progress was like the Marshall Plan for Latin America: it tried to decrease the gap in wealth to prevent communism
- at the Bay of Pigs Kennedy dropped 1200 exiles to invade Cuba, the were forced to surrender because Kennedy refused to offer air support, this pushed Cuba closer to communism
- the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred between October 22 and 28 1962, American ships quarantined Cuba for a weak as Russian ships carrying missiles approached, Khrushchev came to a compromise after a week and the quarantine was removed
Civil Rights
- Freedom Riders spread out across the south to end segregation at bus facilities
- Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. would close allies
- MLK led the peaceful March on Washington in support of Kennedy;s devotion to finding a solution to racial problems
Kennedy's Assassination
- Dallas, Texas
- Lee Harvey Oswald shot him from a nearby building then fled the scene
- Oswald was later killed by Jack Ruby
- LBJ, the vice president, was sworn into office
- Kennedy is remember more for what he idealized and said than for what he actually accomplished