The Nineteen-Sixties, 1960–1968

This is Unit Fourteen, part one, on Kennedy's promise and Johnson's Great Society. Unit Thirteen closed on McCarthy and the politics he gave a name to, and carried both arcs of civil rights into the nineteen sixties. Carry one comparison through this part: a promise against a record. Kennedy's presidency, the anchor says, was a promise; at the end of his entries the course weighs it. Then Johnson turns much of the decade's ambition into law. By the end you will be able to explain how television changed the verdict on the first debate. To explain the missile crisis as a trade, including its secret half. To weigh Kennedy's promise against his record. To describe the War on Poverty and the Great Society's major laws. And to explain what the Immigration Act of nineteen sixty-five reversed.

Five entries on a new kind of leader: the election, the debate, the address, the programme, and the volunteers.

The election of nineteen sixty.

USH2 1951 The Election of 1960

In nineteen sixty the Democrat John F. Kennedy defeated Vice President Richard Nixon, who had first made his name pursuing Communists such as Alger Hiss, and Kennedy's style, the anchor says, was most evident on television. He won Black support, Digital History notes, by helping secure the release of the jailed Martin Luther King Junior weeks before the vote.

The first televised debate.

USH2 1952 Radio and Television

On September twenty-sixth, nineteen sixty, seventy million viewers watched the first televised presidential debate, between Kennedy and Nixon. Radio listeners judged Nixon the winner; those who watched on television thought the more telegenic Kennedy did better. The medium changed the verdict.

The inaugural address.

USH2 1953 Ask Not

At his inauguration on January twentieth, nineteen sixty-one, Kennedy told Americans: ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country. The National Archives notes that the line was honed from a thought on sacrifice Kennedy had long voiced in campaign speeches. The next entries follow what the promise became.

The New Frontier.

USH2 1954 The New Frontier

Kennedy's domestic programme expanded unemployment benefits, piloted a food stamps programme and extended school lunches to more students, the anchor records, and he created the Agency for International Development to oversee foreign aid. Later in this lecture the course weighs these measures against the promise of the inaugural.

The Peace Corps.

USH2 1955 The Peace Corps

On March first, nineteen sixty-one, Kennedy established the Peace Corps by executive order, and Congress formally authorised it that September, the National Archives records, sending young volunteers to projects in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The anchor calls them a form of Cold War soft power. Digital History counts some one hundred fifty thousand who have served.

Three entries on Cuba: an invasion that failed, a crisis at the edge of nuclear war, and the treaty that followed.

The Bay of Pigs.

USH2 1956 The Bay of Pigs

In April nineteen sixty-one about fourteen hundred Cuban exiles, under plans inherited from Eisenhower, landed at the Bay of Pigs to overthrow Fidel Castro, and Cuban soldiers quickly overwhelmed and imprisoned most of them, as the Yawp describes. It says the fiasco strengthened Castro and embarrassed Kennedy, and Digital History records the prisoners exchanged in nineteen sixty-two for food and medicine.

The missile crisis.

USH2 1957 The Cuban Missile Crisis

On October fourteenth, nineteen sixty-two, American spy planes photographed Soviet missile sites in Cuba. On October twenty-second Kennedy demanded their removal, and on October twenty-sixth Khrushchev agreed, in exchange for a promise not to invade Cuba; the anchor says the agreement was made public on the twenty-seventh, and the Yawp dates the Soviet agreement to the twenty-eighth. The familiar story ends with Khrushchev backing down. The sources record a trade. Kept secret, but part of the agreement, was an American promise to remove weapons from Turkey, which the anchor calls warheads and both witnesses call missiles, about as near to Soviet targets as the Cuban missiles were to American ones. The secret half is the lesson.

The test ban.

USH2 1958 The Test Ban Treaty

In July nineteen sixty-three the United States, the Soviet Union and Britain approved a treaty halting nuclear tests in the atmosphere, in outer space and under water, Digital History records, nine months after the missile crisis. The treaty's three settings left underground testing outside its terms.

Three entries on Kennedy and civil rights, and on the advisers he sent to Vietnam.

James Meredith.

USH2 1959 James Meredith

In September nineteen sixty-two a federal court ordered the University of Mississippi to admit James Meredith, a nine-year Air Force veteran, Digital History records, and Meredith entered escorted by federal marshals as riots broke out on campus. The anchor says Meredith had been encouraged by Kennedy's speeches.

Kennedy's civil rights record.

USH2 1960 Kennedy and Civil Rights

Kennedy had voted against the Civil Rights Act of nineteen fifty-seven, Digital History notes, and moved cautiously once in office, though his administration filed twenty-eight suits to protect Black voting rights, against ten in the Eisenhower years. The civil rights bill he sent Congress in nineteen sixty-three became law only after his death.

Vietnam.

USH2 1961 Advisers in Vietnam

Continuing Eisenhower's policy, Kennedy supplied money and military advisers to prop up South Vietnam's government under Ngo Dinh Diem, and by November nineteen sixty-three sixteen thousand American troops were in Vietnam, training special forces and spraying defoliants over the countryside. The anchor traces the commitment to a small advisory group Truman sent in nineteen fifty.

Two entries: Dallas, and what the Kennedy promise amounted to.

Dallas.

USH2 1962 Dallas

On November twenty-second, nineteen sixty-three, Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, and Vice President Lyndon Johnson took the oath of office before leaving the city. Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested, and shot two days later by the nightclub owner Jack Ruby. The Warren Commission concluded that Oswald acted alone and that there had been no conspiracy, the anchor records.

The Kennedy promise.

USH2 1963 The Kennedy Promise

The anchor calls Kennedy's presidency a promise, and the word is exact. The inaugural summoned Americans to service, the Peace Corps sent them abroad, and the debate showed a new kind of leader. The record is thinner: the Bay of Pigs failed, sixteen thousand American troops were in Vietnam by his death, and his civil rights bill passed only after it. The misreading lets memory of the promise stand for the record. His administration filed more voting rights suits than Eisenhower's, and the test ban followed the missile crisis; the larger domestic programme of the decade was Johnson's. Keep the word promise, and weigh it.

Seven entries on Johnson's Great Society: the man, the War on Poverty, community action, and the laws of nineteen sixty-five.

Lyndon Johnson.

USH2 1964 Johnson Takes Office

Lyndon Johnson, raised in poverty in the Texas Hill Country, idolised Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, the Yawp records, a politician who, in its words, scratched and clawed his way up the political ladder. The Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty-four was, Digital History says, skilfully pushed through Congress by Johnson.

The War on Poverty.

USH2 1965 The War on Poverty

The Economic Opportunity Act of nineteen sixty-four funded programmes to help the poor find work, among them the Job Corps and the Neighborhood Youth Corps, and Head Start prepared low-income children for elementary school. The Yawp says public debate centred on the three billion dollars spent on War on Poverty programmes under the Act.

Community Action.

USH2 1966 Community Action

The most controversial programme under the Act, the Yawp says, was Community Action, meant to involve poor citizens in running antipoverty programmes themselves, what the planners called maximum feasible participation. The Yawp adds that it empowered later generations of community activists who had never felt they had a voice.

The Great Society.

USH2 1967 The Great Society

In May nineteen sixty-four, speaking at the University of Michigan, Johnson called for an end to poverty and racial injustice, the Yawp records, and the Great Society followed. In nineteen sixty-five Congress passed Medicare and Medicaid, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Higher Education Act and a new immigration law, and Johnson signed laws creating national endowments for the arts and the humanities. The anchor records that by the time Johnson left office the proportion of Americans in poverty had fallen by nearly half. The Yawp notes that later presidents and Congresses left most of it in place. Whether it succeeded is the question of this unit's first closing entry, in part three.

Medicare and Medicaid.

USH2 1968 Medicare and Medicaid

On July thirtieth, nineteen sixty-five, Johnson signed Medicare, health insurance for Americans sixty-five and older, and Medicaid, for people with limited incomes, the National Archives records, at the Truman Library beside Harry Truman. Unit eleven's Social Security Act lacked health insurance, and unit thirteen's Truman lost the fight for it; this completes that arc.

Schools and the arts.

USH2 1969 Schools and the Arts

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of nineteen sixty-five sent over a billion dollars to public schools, in the Yawp's words the first sustained federal investment, and the Higher Education Act offered scholarships and low-interest loans for poor students. Johnson also signed laws creating the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities, the anchor records.

The immigration act.

USH2 1970 The Immigration Act of 1965

The Immigration and Nationality Act of nineteen sixty-five abolished the national-origins quotas of nineteen twenty-four, the Yawp records, opening the country to immigrants from beyond northern and western Europe; the anchor says it overturned laws of the nineteen twenties that favoured western and northern Europeans. Unit nine taught the quota formula; this is its reversal.

Look at what you can now do. You can explain how the medium changed the verdict: radio listeners judged Nixon the winner, and television viewers Kennedy. You can explain the missile crisis as a trade: Soviet missiles out of Cuba, a promise not to invade, and, kept secret, American weapons out of Turkey. You can weigh Kennedy's promise against his record: the inaugural and the Peace Corps, beside the Bay of Pigs, sixteen thousand troops in Vietnam, and a civil rights bill passed after his death. You can describe the War on Poverty and the Great Society: the Job Corps and Head Start, community action, Medicare and Medicaid, and federal money for schools. And you can explain what the Immigration Act of nineteen sixty-five reversed: the national-origins quotas of nineteen twenty-four.