Knowt
JFK Notes
Thaws and Freezes
Throughout all the crises, every superpower could not interpret each other’s strategies.
The Russians exploited nationalist revolutions when possible. It was not successful in Egypt and Cuba.
During the final 18 months of his presidency, Eisenhower chose to improve Soviet American relations. It was easier to do so after Dulled died and American intelligence said that the missile gap was not real.
Eisenhower and Khrushchev took a tour across America.
The U-2 Incident
Eisenhower’s plans to return to the USSR were cancelled after a U-2 American spy plane was shot down over Soviet territory.
Gary Powers, the CIA pilot who was flying the shot-down U-2 plane, was captured alive. After he was captured, Eisenhower admitted that he sent U-2 overflights for national security reasons.
The U-2 incident ended Eisenhower’s hopes that his diplomacy could get rid of Cold War tensions.
Eisenhower left office with a warning that too much military spending would lead to unnecessary influence by the military-industrial complex at the expense of democratic institutions.
He was not impressed by the promises for new weapons systems or talks about a missile gap between the US and the USSR.
The Cold War on a New Frontier
The 1960 election promised to bring change to Washington.
JFK and Richard Nixon were the first major presidential candidates born in the 20th century. Kennedy would be the youngest person ever elected.
Both candidates tried to make themselves look good instead of attacking each other.
The Catholic Issue
Jack Kennedy’s biggest hurdle to election was social as much as political. He was a Roman Catholic, and no Catholic was ever elected president.
Kennedy chose to enter the issue head-on: the issue that a Catholic president could not exercise his own judgement if the pope ordered otherwise.
In September, Kennedy addressed an association of hostile Protestant ministers in Houston. The speech he gave was the best of his campaign.
Televised Presidential Debates
Both candidates stressed the Cold War themes.
Kennedy attacked Eisenhower and Nixon for not better managing tensions between Communist China and the nationalists on Formosa.
Nixon ran his campaign on his record as an experienced leader and an anticommunist. His campaign went south in October as unemployment rates increased.
Nixon and Kennedy agreed to a set of debates that would be on TV.
Based on one poll, radio listeners believed that Nixion won the debate, but Nixon refused to use TV makeup. Kennedy used TV to convince that he could handle the job.
Religion, ethnicity, and race played decisive roles in Kennedy’s triumph. In some states, Catholic support made a difference.
When MLK was protested during a protest in Georgia, Kennedy attracted the support of black Americans by phoning MLK’s wife.
Interest in the elections ran so high that the voter turnout was 64%.
The Hard-Nosed Idealists of Camelot
Many observers compared the Kennedy White House to Camelot, King Arthur’s magical court.
Kennedy brought bright, energetic advisors into his administration. He and his wife invited artists, musicians, and intellectuals to the White House.
Kennedy possessed an ironic, self-deprecating humor. He was also handsome and intelligent.
Robert McNamara
Robert Strange McNamara was an American businessperson and government official who served as the 8th US Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968 under JFK and Lyndon B. Johnson.
As a Harvard Business School professor and president of Ford Motor Company, he specialized in using quantitative tools to streamline business.
When McNamara became Secretary of Defense, he wanted to find more flexible and efficient ways of conducting the Cold War.
Kennedy liked McNamara because he was witty, bright, and ambitious. He also seemed comfortable with power and was not afraid to use it.
The (Somewhat) New Frontier at Home
Despite bold campaign promises, the domestic legislative achievements were modest. Once Kennedy entered office, he found himself working with a Democratic Congress dominated by conservatives.
Kennedy did manage to convince Congress to raise the minimum hourly wage to $1.25. However, on key issues like aid to education and medical insurance, he could not do anything.
Kennedy hoped to work with the leaders of big business to promote growth for the US. He believed that the government should limit wages and prices for large corporations and unions.
Showdown With Big Steel
To prevent inflation, the Council of Economic Advisers proposed to stabilize prices by tying wage increases to improved productivity.
The United Steelworkers and many other major unions agreed to a contract that followed the guidelines of the COEA. However, they raised steel prices.
When major unions broke their promises, Kennedy ordered that they be investigated. The pressure caused the big companies to drop the price hikes.
Kennedy’s Cold War
During the 1960 election, Kennedy pledged to fight the Cold War with new vigor. Once elected, he was determined to not be seen as soft towards communism.
Kennedy argued that the Cold War had shifted from the struggle over Europe to the developing nations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
Alliance for Progress and Peace Corps
The “Alliance for Progress” was announced in the spring of 1961. This indicated the course Kennedy would follow.
He promised $20 billion in foreign aid to Latin America over 10 years.
Latin American countries would have to agree to reform unfair tax policies and begin agricultural land reforms.
If successful, it would discourage future Castro-style revolutions.
The Pentagon created jungle warfare schools in North Carolina, which trained Latin American police and paramilitary groups to fight guerrilla wars.
American special forces, such as the Green Berets, were trained in the arts of jungle warfare.
Space Program
Kennedy believed that the Soviets had made space the final frontier of the Cold War.
After a Russian cosmonaut orbited the world for the first time, Kennedy challenged Congress to authorize a staffed space mission to the moon that would land by the end of the decade.
In February 1962, John Glenn circled the earth 3 times in a “fireball of a ride.”
Cold War Frustrations
Elevated ideals did not translate easily into practical results. In the first 5 years of the alliance, 9 Latin American governments were overthrown by military coups.
The Peace Corps was a public relations success and helped thousands of Third World farmers on a people-to-people basis. However, they could not do much to change corrupt policies on a national level.
Bay of Pigs Invasion
Kennedy’s primary target was Fidel Castro’s communist regime in Cuba. After breaking diplomatic relations in 1960, the Eisenhower administration authorized the CIA to organize an invasion of Cuba.
The CIA assured Kennedy that Cuba would be overthrown. Kennedy chose to approve of the attack. But the invasion was a complete disaster.
In 2 days, Castro’s army managed to round up the CIA agents. Kennedy was embarrassed for the failed operation.
Kennedy and Vietnam
Kennedy’s advisors took a similar covert approach in South Vietnam.
Ngo Dinh Diem was a dictator who ruled Vietnam. South Vietnamese communists waged a guerrilla war against Diem with support from North Vietnam.
Buddhist elements backed the rebellion against Diem, who was a Catholic. 1 month after the Bay of Pigs invasion, Kennedy secretly ordered 500 Green Berets and military advisors to go to Vietnam to help Diem.
Diem Falls
Diem’s corruption, police state tactics, and a ruthless campaign against his Buddhist opposition isolated his regie.
The Kennedy administration encouraged a military coup by South Vietnamese miliary officers. They captured and shot Diem in November 1963.
The US found itself mired in a Vietnamese civil war, and the US had no strategy for winning.
The Berlin Wall
June 1961 was the president’s first chance to take the measure of Nikita Khrushchev at a summit meeting held in Vienna.
During the meeting, Khrushchev demanded that East and West Germany be reunited.
People from East Germany were crossing into the free western zone as a way of escaping communist rule. Khrushchev insisted that this problem would be solved within 6 months.
Kennedy tried to stand up to Khrushchev’s bullying, but he left Vienna worried that Khrushchev thought he was weak and inexperienced.
In August that same year, the Soviets threw up a wall sealing off any entry into West Berlin.
A Flexible Nuclear Response
Tensions with the USSR led the Kennedy administration to rethink nuclear strategy. Under Dulles, anything could trigger the launch of a nuclear missile.
Kennedy and McNamara looked to replace the policy of mutually assured destruction with a “flexible response doctrine.”
By limiting the level of a first nuclear strike, Kennedy and McNamara could leave room for negotiations. This meant that conventional forces in Europe had to be built up so that they could better deter aggression.
A question arose: what if the Soviets launched a first-strike attack? McNamara's policy required that enough missiles survive so that the US could retaliate.
McNamara began a program to place missile sites underground and to develop submarine-launched missiles. This was a 15% increase in the 1961 military budget.
The Missiles of October
The period of nuclear confrontation became clear in the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962.
Kennedy kept saying that the US would treat any attempt to place offensive weapons in Cuba as a threat. Khrushchev promised that the USSR had no intention.
On October 14, overflights of Cuba by U-2 spy planes revealed the offensive missile sites.
For a week, American security advisors met in secret strategy sessions. The advisors talked about what to do.
What if there were more concealed bases with missiles ready to fire? The Soviets could launch a nuclear attack despite the air strikes.
A Naval Blockade
Although the Joint Chiefs of Staff continued to press for a large air attack, Kennedy chose the more restraining option.
Tensions grew over the next few days as a Soviet submarine approached American ships.
In Cuba, Issa Pliyev sent a coded to Moscow because he feared the worst – an American invasion of Cuba was being prepared.
Pliyev believed that the US air strike would occur in the night between October 26 and October 27 or at dawn on October 27.
The morning of October 27, Soviet technicians found a U-2 plane flying over Cuba. They were not allowed to do anything unless Khrushchev said so.
When the technicians went to find Khrushchev, they could not find him. So, they shot the plane down, killing the pilot.
On October 26, Kennedy received a message from Khrushchev agreeing to remove the missiles in return for a promise not to invade Cuba.
The next day, Kennedy got a message with a condition – the US had to dismantle its missile bases in Türkiye.
Kennedy did not decide because he was worried that the events would spiral out of control. He ignored the second letter and accepted the first offer.
In Moscow, Khrushchev agreed to the deal. He told his advisors that there were times to advance and times to retreat.
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
The Kennedy administration and the Soviets negotiated a nuclear test ban, prohibiting all aboveground nuclear tests.
A telephone was installed to provide communication between the White House and the Kremlin in times of crisis.
Newer Civil Rights Organizations
The new generation of younger activists shaped and altered civil rights organizations.
Beginning in the 1960s, the push for desegregation moved to newer groups determined to act.
Since the Montgomery boycott, MLK and the SCLC continued to advocate nonviolent protest. The CORE was more willing than the SCLC to force confrontations with the segregationist system.
In May 1961, CORE director James Farmer led a group of freedom riders on a bus trip into the South. The goal was to get national attention on the inequality of segregated facilities.
In South Carolian, John Lewis was beat up as he was trying to enter an all-white waiting room. Mobs assaulted the freedom fighters, and the police ignored the violence.
Kennedy sought to avoid intervention in the South. He tried to convince Alabama officials to protect the demonstrators so he would not have to send federal forces.
However, due to the constant violence and the police doing nothing to stop it, Kennedy had no choice but to intervene.
Freedom Riders Attacked
Robert Kennedy ordered in 400 federal marshals, who barely managed to hold off the crowd.
MLK phoned the attorney general to say that the church was surrounded by an angry mob of several thousand people.
Robert Kennedy and JFK knew that civil rights were the most divisive issue that the Kennedy administration has faced. For liberals, civil rights measured Kennedy’s credentials as a reformer.
Kennedy chose to introduce civil rights legislation so that he could get white Southerners to support the Democratic Party.
Through executive orders, black leaders were assured that Kennedy would get rid of discrimination. He appointed several African Americans to high administrative positions.
Despite these things, the freedom riders wanted Kennedy to do more.
Civil Rights at High Tide
By the fall of 1961, Robert Kennedy persuaded the SNCC to shift tactics to voter registration, where Kennedy believed that there would be less violence.
SNCC and CORE workers discovered that voting rights were not a peaceful issue as they arrived in southern towns.
Angry racists attacked SNCC and CORE workers with legal harassment, jailings, beatings, bombings, and murders.
The workers made it clear that they were not going to go anywhere despite the violence. They spoke with farmers who had not voted before.
James Meredith
Confrontation increased after a federal court ordered the University of Missouri to accept James Meredith, an African American student.
Kennedy had to send the National Guard to protect Meredith because a mob threatened to kill him. 2 people were killed and 375 people were wounded.
Kennedy announced on TV that the University of Missouri was integrated, and students had to follow the law of the land.
“Letter from Birmingham Jail”
In Mississippi, Kennedy began to lose control of the civil rights issue. The House introduced several civil rights measures. MLK led a group to Birmingham and got arrested.
In jail, MLK produced one of the most eloquent documents of the civil rights movement, the “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”
King addressed the local ministers. He defended the use of civil disobedience. The choice was not between obeying the law and nonviolently breaking it to bring about change.
Once freed, MLK led new demonstrations.
Bull Connor, a police officer, used dogs, club-wielding police, and fire hoses powerful enough to peel the bark off trees. Black mobs retaliated. In 10 weeks, more than 750 riots erupted in 186 cities and towns.
Kennedy sensed that he could no longer compromise on civil rights. He threw behind a bill that could end segregation and protect black voters.
When King announced a massive march on Washington, Kennedy said that it would undermine support for his bill. King never launched a protest before.
The March on Washington
On August 28, around 250,000 people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial to protest for civil rights.
MLK reminded that the DOI was a promise that applied to all people. He had a dream that one day everyone would come together.
After the protests, Congress began working on a civil rights bill, which was reported out of the Judiciary Committee on October 23.
Tragedy in Dallas
Kennedy scheduled a trip to Texas to get some southern support because civil rights were dividing up the Democratic Party.
On November 22, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated JFK with a sniper’s rifle. Oswald was caught several hours later. He was emotionally unstable and had spent several years in the USSR.
For the Civil Rights Movement, JFK’s assassination was a big blow.
Many young black leaders saw that civil rights received the greatest national coverage when white demonstrators were killed. They wondered how Lyndon B. Johnson would approach the civil rights issues.
LBJ and the Civil Rights Act of 1964
Lyndon B. Johnson saw the need for action when he came into office.
On November 23, he promised civil rights leaders that he would pass Kennedy’s bill. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 became law the following summer.
The bill marked one of the greatest moments in the history of American reform. It ended discrimination in public accommodations and it authorized desegregation in public facilities.
