Kennedy
The Dashing President
Election of Kennedy
a. 1960
b. Democrat
c. 301 electoral votes to 219
d. Popular vote: only won by 118,574 votes out of over 68 million casts
e. Ran on New Frontier platform
i. Medical assistance for the aged
ii. Increase federal aid to education
iii. Free Enterprise
iv. General tax-cut bill
The Cold War
a. “Flexible Response”
i. The buildup of conventional troops and weapons to allow a nation to fight a limited war without using nuclear weapons
ii. Gave money to Asian and African counties to fight their “brushfire wars”
b. Kennedy and Vietnam
i. In 1961, sharp increase in the number of “military advisers” (US Troops) in South Vietnam
ii. Promised the Vietnamese social reforms
iii. Made it difficult to pull out of war
c. Cuba
i. No improved relationship
ii. April 17,1964- Cuba’s Bay of Pigs
1. Failed attempt to kill Castro
iii. Cuban Missal Crisis
1. 1962- aerial photographs showed soviets were keeping missals
2. Threat of actual nuclear war fair
d. Berlin Crisis
i. Occupational crisis of Berlin between the communist east and Capitalist West
ii. Marshall Plan made people want to escape
iii. Lead to the construction of the Berlin Wall
e. Construction of the Berlin Wall
i. Soviets began to build the wall in August 1961 to keep people from fleeing to West Germany
Kennedy and Civil Rights
a. Promised civil rights reforms, but it took 2 years for any reforms to happen
b. Voter Education Project—register people in the south
c. James Meredith—enrolled into Ole Miss with the help of 400 federal marshals and 3000 troops
d. Held a memorial for people who died in protest on June 11, 1963
e. Civil Rights bill had little headway before his death
Kennedy's Assassination
a. Touring through Dallas, TX
i. November 22, 1963
b. 3 shots fired
c. Lee Harvey Oswald was charged with the assassination
i. Shot 2 days later by Jack Ruby