President Kennedy
Anvita Devineni - Furnish - 1
Election of John F. Kennedy
Date of Election: November 9th, 1960
Political Party: Democratic
Election Details:
- the election was close
- Kennedy had 303 electoral votes with 34,220,984 popular votes
- Republican candidate Nixon had 219 electoral votes with 34,108,157
- Kennedy gained since there was an economic recession
- He also had the advantage of 17 million more registered Democrats than Republicans
- new votes that Kennedy gained among Catholics almost neutralized the new votes Nixon gained among Protestants
The New Frontier
- campaign program advocated by Kennedy in the 1960 election
- promised to revitalize the stagnant economy and enact reform legislation in education, health care, and civil rights
The Cold War
Flexible Response (ID)
- a buildup of conventional troops and weapons to allow a nation to fight a limited war without using nuclear weapons
- defense strategy implemented by Kennedy in 1961
- address the Kennedy administration's skepticism of Dwight Eisenhower's New Look and its policy of Massive Retaliation
Kennedy and Vietnam
- fervent believer in containing communism
- made it clear that he would follow the former policy of Eisenhower and support the government of Diem in South Vietnam
- supported the "Domino Theory"
- convinced that if South Vietnam fell to communism, other states would also as a consequence
Kennedy and Cuba
Cuban Missile Crisis (ID)
- October 1962 - American U-2 spy plan photographed Soviet nuclear missiles being built on Cuba
- Kennedy didn't want Soviet Union and Cuba to know he discovered them
- met in secret with advisors
- decided to place a naval blockade (ring of ships) around cuba
- "quarantine" to prevent Soviets from bringing in more supplies
- incident where Soviet missiles were
- Bay of Pigs (ID) - American attempt to overthrow the newly established communist government in Cuba by training and sending cuban rebels
- ended in a disaster due to the lack of support by Americans
- embarrassment for US and led to Castro pleading for Soviet aid
Kennedy and Berlin Crisis
Construction of the Berlin Wall
- made of concrete and barbed wire
- prevent East Germans from escaping to West Berlin
- one of the most visible signs of the Cold War and the Iron Curtain
- Berlin wall was constructed as a barrier during the 1961 Berlin Crisis
Berlin Crisis of 1961 was the last major politico-military European incident of the Cold War about Berlin.
- JFK and Kruschev met in the Vienna summit on June 4th, 1961
- Kennedy conveyed US acceptance to the permanent division of berlin
Kennedy and Civil Rights
The Ongoing Struggle
- JFK gained the black population's vote when he promised to pass civil rights legislation
- in 1960, groups of Freedom Riders spread out across the South to end segregation
- Kennedy family and King family (Martin Luther King Jr.) (ID) had a good relationship
- SNCC & other civil rights groups inaugurated a Voter Education Project to register the South's historically disfranchised blacks
Civil Rights Act of 1964 (ID) - outlawed segregation of public accommodations
- established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to enforce the law
- made the federal government responsible for finding instances of discrimination
- made illegal discrimination based on race, religion, ethnic origin, or gender
- did not effectively address problems with voting rights
Kennedy's Assasination
November 22, 1963
- Dealy Plaza, Dallas, Texas
- shot by a sniper while traveling with his wife Jacqueline, Texas Governor Connally, and Connally's wife Nellie
- assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone
- Jack Ruby killed Oswald before he could stand trial