John F. Kennedy
1961-1963
Election
Election of 1960
Democratic Candidate: John. F. Kennedy
- Kennedy was a senator from Massachusetts and he came from wealth
- Kennedy faced prejudice for his young age and his religion (Catholicism)
- The New Frontier: Kennedy's plan to supports civil rights, push for a space program, cut taxes, and increase spending for defense and military
- gained the black vote by stating that he would pass civil rights legislation
Republican Candidate: Richard Nixon
supported moderate reform
everyone thought he would become president
barely lost
Popular Vote:
- Kennedy won 49.9% of popular votes
- Nixon won 49.6% of popular votes
- Kennedy won 303 electoral votes
- Nixon 219 electoral votes
The Cold War
"Flexible Response"
- Kennedy abandoned Eisenhower's theory of massive nuclear war
- in favor of a military that could respond quickly to any situation, at any place, in different ways
- Pushed by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara
- Strategy in response to the foreign conflicts including
- 1954: Laos gained its independence from France and erupted in violence
- 1960: African Congo receiving independence from Belgium and immediately exploding in violence
-the US had to sent troops and pay to pacify the conflict
-1962: Geneva conference which imposed peace of Laos
- Kennedy increased spending on conventional military forces
- provided a mechanism for a progressive stepping up of the use of force in Vietnam
Kennedy and Vietam
- 1961: Kennedy increased the number of "military advisors" in South Vietnam
- Strove to help protect Diem from the communists long enough to allow him to enact basic social reforms favored by the Americans
- Kennedy got fed up with the US economic aid being embezzled by Diem
- November 1963: Kennedy encouraged a successful coup and killed Diem
Cuba
- 1961: Kennedy extended the American hand of friendship to Latin America with the Alliance for Progress
- Strove to help the Latin American nations close the gap between the rich and poor (quieting communist agitation)
- Few results came with the Alliance for Progress
- April 17, 1961: 1,200 exiles landed at Cuba's Bay of Pigs
- Kennedy was against the direct intervention of the overthrow of Fidel Castro in Cuba, failing to provide air support for the exiles (invasion failed and exiles surrender)
- Bay of Pigs blunder pushed the Cuban leader further into Soviet embrace
- 1962
- Russians were secretly building nuclear missile launch sites in Cuba, which could have been used for a sneak attack on the US
- Kennedy discovered this and announced a quarantine of Cuba (really a blockade but could not be called that due to international law)
- 13 days of confrontation lead to the brink of nuclear war
- Khrushchev backed down and agreed to dismantle sites
- 1963: pact prohibiting trial nuclear explosions in the atmosphere was signed
- June 1963: Kennedy gave a speech encouraging Americans to abandon the negative views of the Soviet Union
- tried to lay the foundations for a realistic policy of peaceful coexistence with the Soviets
Berlin Crisis
- 1961
- Occupational crisis of Berlin between the Communist East Germany and the Capitalist West Germany
- Thousands of high educated fled from East to West, which hurt the East German economy
- East declared all Germany belonged the East Germany (ultimatum)
- Lead to the building of the Berlin Wall
Construction of the Berlin Wall
- the Soviet Union was under the control of Nikita Khrushev at the time of construction
- the Soviet Union erected a wall between East and West Berlin
- Purpose: to keep the people from fleeing from the East
- afterwards, Kennedy asked for an increase in defense funds to counter Soviet aggression
Kennedy and Civil Rights
- 1960: groups of Freedom Riders spread out across the South to end segregation in facilities serving interstate bus passengers
- May 1961: a white mob torched a freedom ride bus near Anniston, Alabama
- Southern officials officials proved unwilling to stop the violence
- federal marshals were dispatched to protect the freedom riders
- the Kennedy Family and the Kind Family had a good relationship
- SNCC and other civil rights groups inaugurated a Voter Education project to register the South's historically disfranchised blacks
- Spring 1963: Martin Luther King Jr. launched a campaign against discrimination in Birmingham, Alabama (most segregated big city in America)
- Civil rights marchers were repelled by police with attack dogs and high-pressure water hoses
- June 11, 1963: Kennedy delivered a speech to the nation in which he dedicated himself to finding a solution to racial problems
- August 1963: Martin Luther Kind Jr. led 200,000 black and white citizens on a peaceful "Match on Washington" in support of the proposed new civil rights legislation
Kennedy's Assassination
- November 22, 1963
- President Kennedy was shoot while riding in an open limousine in Dallas, Texas
- the alleged gunman was Lee Harvey Oswald
- Self-appointed avenger, Jack Ruby shot and killed Oswald
- Vice president Lyndon B. Johnson became president