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Mac history- the 60's

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Change in constitution
presidents can now only serve 2 terms
Election of 1960
Republicans choose Nixon to run for president, Democrats choose Sen. JFK; both young, both served in WWII, first 2 ppl to run for the presidency who were born in the 20th century
Kennedy
Kennedy was catholic, none of which had ever been elected; the big problem was the question of whether he’d follow the constitution or listen to the Pope over in Vatican city;
who wins and what does this mean
Kennedy wins... the old catholic issue in elections goes away
Kennedy's biggest issue
missile gap
missile gap
the US is behind the USSR in the manufacturing of Russia, a gap between our technology and the advancements made by the Russians in their technology; after the election it was learned that there was no missile gap, it was a political ploy invented to make Ike look bad, the US was actually ahead of the USSR
what had been special about the 1960 election
TV Debates- first time they televised their debates; 90% of the people who listened to them on the radio thought Nixon won, because he sounded more polished, those who watched it on TV thought Kennedy won because of his appearance: he was comfortable with himself sat straight up in his chair, looked healthy; Nixon: was in pain, had hurt himself, sweating, suffering from 5 o’clock shadow; so Kennedy got a big boost out of his debates, apparently got a TON of female votes
Chicago
became the center of attention because rumors started going around that Kennedy was given a little boost, that there was a little fraud; mayor was Richard Daley; Nixon concedes because he didn’t want the election to drag on for a few months with the Cold War going on Russians might see weakness
Bay of Pigs
Kennedy's generals come in and say they’re ready to invade Cuba with Cubans who had been run out by Castro, they’ve been trained, they’re ready, but you have to give us the green light and sign off on it. K. insists that they have to be set and totally guaranteed, they say yeah, they’ll totally win and no connection made to the US, so K. says okay. it’s a disaster; the tide is wrong, once they finally get to the beach they have 8000 Cuban troops firing on them; the US is in radio contact and runs to the white house and begs him to send American bombers to take out the Cubans, but the Cubans were in cahoots with the USSR, and we didn’t want to tip the balance and set off WWIII, so K. says no. Huge embarrassment, K. promises that he will never again rely solely on the Generals, from now on, he’ll get other people’s advice
Cuban Missile Crisis
In Oct. 1962, so we’re flying spy planes over Cuba, it’s a soviet satellite, 90 mi from Key West; well one day the CIA notices that there are a lot of staging areas out of the wilderness with huge crates with what appeared to be missiles, soviet military personelle walking around, and they appear to be setting up missile sites (places to fire them from); so they go and tell K., who pulls everyone in, the closest confidant of who was the Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy, his brother, who he pulls aside and asks him to be his ears and report everything and be in every meeting
Kennedy in Chacago
JFK has this huge speech to do in Chicago, and not wanting to alarm the press and the country or give any hints away to the USSR, so he goes to his speech, then all of a sudden he got “sick” and had to return to the white house, this way he could return to his meetings
2 groups that have split
1) Military says we have to bomb them before their missiles are up and running and level the place, because those missiles could get to DC in 25 min.
2) Other groups says that’s too risky, WWIII, b/c there are soviets there and the USSR could get pissed; then RFK doesn’t want to have my brother being labeled as someone who pulled a Pearl Harbor; so group suggests a blockade; send US Naval ships out to stop more missiles from getting to Cuba
JFK takes the 2nd groups suggestion
So JFK gets on TV
to tell the Americans what’s going on b/c war could be involved; Americans are frightened; closest they ever felt to have come to nuclear war
Politicians get special treatment
Politicians were told to be ready, that they were gonna wisk them out of DC and throw them in a bunker in West VA

RFK refused to take his family to a bunker, not wanting to living in a world destroyed by nuclear war
The results
The USSR ships come right up on the US ships and turn around and go back
secret discussions
RFK had been involved in secret discussions w/the Soviet ambassador to the US; the soviets turned around because we secretly agreed to remove missiles we had pointed at them in Turkey, and they took theirs out of Cuba; secret because the deal would make the Americans look weak...The Soviets didn’t realize that the pentagon had already decided to remove the missiles from Turkey before RFK’s secret meeting
Boost for Kennedy
So JFK comes out of this with a huge amount of popular support and a big chance to win a 2nd term; he stood out as the leader of the free world
Oversees results
Even the Soviets trust JFK, even Khrushchev is now willing to work with Kennedy, to talk about treaties to limit nuclear weapons
South Vietname
in foreign policy in ’63, JFK is agreeing to send more military advisors to advise South Vietnamese troops, a tradition which was started by Ike; firmly believed that the S. Vietnamese need to be invested in the fight against communism
Texes Trip
So elections are coming up, and JFK’s sitting around dreading this campaign trip to Texas, because everyone down there hates him; anyways he has to go as a favor to his VP, LBJ

Well he goes, and on Nov. 22, 1963, JFK is assassinated in Dallas, TX
Zepruder Film
of Kennedy being assassinated...tourist was running his camera during the assassination
Jackie Kennedy
Jackie Kennedy knows that LBJ must be sworn in ASAP, so after a quick autopsy, the “president” is put in a casket, brought to the airport, and they swear LBJ in on the flight; in a picture of this, Jackie K. is still wearing that same bloody dress; she kept it on all day so that the whole world could see what “they” had done to her husband
Jackie remarries Onassis and is buried next to JFK, as is a child born to them when he was president, stillborn named Patrick; about fifty feet away from them, at the base of the hill is a simple white cross marking the grave of Robert FK
Funeral
Funeral is televised nationally, world leaders come from everywhere to walk behind the caisson and show their respect (see earlier on in notes for oddities)...Jackie gets people together to have them research in the Library of congress, and had them reproduce Lincoln’s funeral to the last detail for JFK
Theodore White
A few weeks after event, first interview to Theodore White, he asks Jackie what the good things she remembered abt the white house; she says they’d listen to a record of the musical, the name of which was used to label their years in the white house by White to use the years, “Camelot”
Warren Commission
In comes LBJ, 1964, he gets together some of the top legal minds in the country in the W.H., gets the Chief Justice, Earl Warren, to form a commission to get to the bottom of the assassination...finds that Lee Harvey Oswald was the one who shot him; lone gunman theory
Oswald
ran from the book depository where he shot from, was walking down the street and a description was sent of him, a cop stops him to question him, O. pulls out a pistol and kills him, then runs to a movie theater, people call the cops from the theater and he’s arrested; he’s held for a bit, then moved over to the courthouse to be arraigned, as he walks down a corridor on national TV, a guy, Jack Ruby, hops out of the crowd, sticks a gun in his gut and shoots him
Inncedent at Ole miss
tried to get a Civil Rights Act through Congress, because the whole country was riveted by an incident at Ole Miss because for the first time a black student, James Meredith, was going to break the color barrier there; people come in by the hundreds to block him from getting to the registers to enrollSo the US Marshalls are protecting him, a gunfight breaks out (this is all on TV, btw) and one Marshall is killed, and it is clear that there’s going to have to be some intervention at a higher level..Now, JFK is watching this, and he doesn’t really worry abt civil rights, not how he was raised, but he was disgusted by such a level of hate, so he sends in the National Guard, will force them if they refuse, or send in the 87th airborne if they refuse..Well, Meredith gets to enroll, but JFK decides to tamp down the hatred, to protect people’s right to vote, and put through a Civil Rights Bill before they can avoid discrimination at the polls
LBJ
In 1964 LBJ is able to complete JFK’s work and get the Civil Right’s Act into law; this was really hard, even though 99% of the southern democrats who wouldn’t help were actually democrats
South
When LBJ signed this into law he said, “well, we just lost the south for a generation”, because suddenly the south is no longer a guarantee
Democrats in the south slowly started switching to the republican party; this act is the catalyst for the political earthquake of ‘64
1964 Election
LBJ vs Barry Goldwater AuH2O
AuH2O
big time conservative, gets killed, but lays the foundation for his type of politics, because one of his biggest disciples in 1980 became president (Regan)
what does LBJ want to do
fight a war against poverty
-medicare, medicade, welfare state
LBJs era
Great Society
Response to vietnam war
So in 65-68 Vietnam is raging, growing worse and worse every year; so in 68 he has all these problems, riots, hippies burning draft cards… in 68 he decides not to run again (because remember the first time he came in he didn’t run…), because Vietnam was too much a strain on him
1968 election
So Nixon is basically crowned Nominee in Republicans
One of the big nominee runners for democrats was LBJ’s VP was Hubert Humphrey, but is was gonna be tight because RFK throws his name in
RFK wins the CA primary, huge boost for him for nomination
that evening, he gives a thank you speech, people assume he’s gonna win; it’s so crowded he decides not to go through the crowd but around back through the kitchen, where he meets up w/Sirhan Sirhan, who shoots him several times before being wrestled to the ground—but why was S.S. waiting in the kitchen? How did he know? RFK wasn’t planning on that
In the late 60s things were really bad between the Egypt and Israel, and he thought RFK was too cozy w/Israel, that was the reason he gave for shooting RFK, who eventually died of the gunshot wounds
So RFK’s body is taken back to NY, big funeral, brought to DC to be buried abt 40 feet from the Eternal Flame, down the path from his brother
1968
one of the most tragic, violent years of our history, RFK is killed, student unrest, body bags from Vietnam, and of course in April 1968 Martin Luther King Junior is assassinated, all of these very public figures were being shot
end of 1968 election
the democrats choose Humphrey, but Nixon barely wins

Nixon attributes his victory to the silent majority of people who aren’t freaking out and rioting and crap

In 1974 Nixon ends up being the only president in history to resign from office
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