all right uh welcome back we are starting with this lecture a new unit it's going to be Unit 13 in which we will look at the 1960s and the Vietnam War it's going to be organized uh pretty much like it says just right there we're going to go through sort of the happenings and the politics of the 1960s and then we will do a focused look at the Vietnam War so let's get started we talked about previously at the end of I believe it was unit 12 about the election of 1960 and John F Kennedy won the election and became president in 1961. now so far this semester we've had a square deal with TR a new deal with FDR and a fair deal with Truman so Kennedy is getting away from the deals and he is going to talk about taking the country into a new frontier that was his catchphrase now what Kennedy had above all was a certain style for one thing Kennedy was the youngest man ever elected to the presidency he was 43 years old now I know y'all are saying wait a minute you said TR was the youngest and he was the youngest to be president but not to be elected president remember TR became president um when the president before him died he was the vice president JFK is the youngest guy to ever be elected to the presidency when TR won his election a few years later he was older than that now back to JFK he was a very intelligent man um he was known for it and he used it in a very critical fashion um he would read he was very well read he would read several books a day he would read newspapers he was always very well up and very educated current events past events he was he was extremely intelligent uh people remember him representing Youth and intelligence and energy and wit especially his wit at Prince at press conferences he was incredibly funny and comfortable in front of people and of course the Press ate that up they would ask him questions and he would come back with some hilarious quippy remark very witty very able to think on his feet and to say um it's a very memorable things so Kennedy was mostly Style because he wasn't able to get much done as president a lot of people remember him as one of our greatest presidents that just doesn't add up he wasn't present very long and he didn't really get a chance or he didn't take the chance to get that much done but he was absolutely very memorable uh pop culture icon like I said Kennedy had style and grace and wit and intelligence and that's what people tend to remember him for now he wasn't president very long and he didn't get a ton accomplished but that's also not to say he didn't do anything he did have some accomplishments one thing that he actually accomplished in office uh was his work with the space program remember um Kennedy announced Kennedy announced in 1961 that the U.S was going to put a man on the moon in a decades time which seemed very wild at the time he's busting out with this in 1961 and people criticized him for it very heavily at the time but did he do it yes Yes actually the United States did in 1969 we put a man on the moon so he did do it within a decade so Kennedy put a big emphasis on the Space Program very early on during his presidency and it paid off huge dividends even after he was gone another thing that he did accomplish was he promoted civil rights now keep in mind don't get carried away remember I told you in the previous uh unit on civil rights that Kennedy and was not exactly the biggest champion of civil rights and that is still the case uh he was very conservative with the actions that he took um it was not a big cause for JFK Civil Rights was not a big cause that he devoted himself to but he did promote it and he did push it to progress to tell you the truth um by the time Kennedy takes office in 1961 the Civil Rights Movement had gained such a momentum thanks a great deal um to what African Americans themselves were already doing and had already kind of forced the issue and they forced it to a point that no president could ignore it so it's hard to say Canada's true motivation um did he really care about civil rights or is he taking these actions because they forced him to ask forced him to act it's hard to say uh but either way he did make some accomplishments in the arena of of civil rights uh one one big um advancement that he was involved with was the desegregation of the University of Mississippi which you remember we talked about in the last uh the last unit unit 12. and um he also was very involved in the University of Alabama the desegregation of the University of Alabama in 1963. other places um he was he was getting involved the freedom rides if you remember that which we talked about last um last unit we talked about the freedom rides and everywhere they went they were met with violence and the African-Americans were pushing hard for equal rights they were demanding to be heard in the Kennedy administration had to respond there was no choice in the matter they simply could not ignore it and like I said the fact of the matter is that African Americans were beginning to challenge these institutions that had been around forever like Jim Crow laws and they were demanding action so again it's a little bit muddy a little gray area whether or not Kennedy wanted to act or was forced to act but the end result is the same and that some progress was being made so again all these things happen under under Kennedy's presidency the desegregation of the universities uh the the situation with the freedom rides and then in 1963 the Kennedy administration goes to work on another Civil Rights Act uh one that's going to Outlaw discrimination in all public places and in hiring and again we talked about this last unit uh it was going to become the most important Civil Rights Act in the history of the country it's passed in 1965. it will not pass by Kennedy's president he dies so so his administration creates this bill this very important bill but he's not able to get it through Congress drags their feet they want no part of it he doesn't have the power or the creativity or the skills to push it through he dies while it's still um still not passed and if you remember we talked about this last unit LBJ President Johnson who was his vice president gets involved and gets it passed so these are the Civil Rights advancements that we make Under the Kennedy administration as far as the cold war is concerned JFK began with a very serious mistake which is the Bay of Pigs invasion so let's get more into that now it all began with Eisenhower he was President right before Kennedy and he had been training we talked about this in unit uh you know 11. one of those units the unit about the Cold War um Eisenhower had been training Cuban refugees to go back into Cuba and to overthrow Fidel Castro who was the leader of Cuba at the time now remember Castro came to Power by commanding Guerrilla forces and overthrowing the existing government of Cuba and in the beginning he said he was a friend of the United States but then public opinion began to turn against him against Castro after a series of public executions of government officials businessmen teachers it began to get really nasty in Cuba and American public opinion was like you know I don't think we could support this we can't support what's going on in Cuba and then the final straw was Castro's alliance with the Soviet Union now his alliance with the Soviet Union meant that the Soviet Union now has a presence 90 miles off the coast of the United States so here's Cuba here is the U.S this is Florida these are the Florida Keys the U.S is not okay with a country friendly to the Soviets friendly to Communism 90 miles off our borders we considered that at the time to be a very big security risk now Cuban nationalists had been planning a return to go back into invade Cuba which again like I mentioned Eisenhower president Eisenhower signed off on this he agreed to help these Cuban nationalists go back in and take back over their country then JFK becomes president in 1961 and he learns of the mission that they have planned and he also signs off to help them so The Invasion comes in April of 1961 so right after he takes office and it is in a place called the Bay of Pigs right here that's where the invasion is to take place and again we send these Cuban refugees that we had helped train believing that the Cubans when the refugees got there would rush to help them they would rush in and welcome these Cuban nationalists with open arms and and sort of help them and back them and fight off uh Castro and his followers but that was the plan that didn't happen uh what these refugees got there they backed Castro the Cuban people backed Castro and to complicate matters we did not send in any of our troops there were no American troops on the ground in Cuba for this Invasion we promised air support from U.S warplanes to help the rebels after um they got the um and after they got the invasion started but JFK called off the planes at the last second when he realized that the invasion was failing so basically uh what we did was just enough to be implicated just enough to have everyone know that the Americans were behind this but yet we didn't do enough to help to actually make this Invasion successful it was a complete embarrassment both to the country and to President Kennedy it was put nicely a disaster for everyone involved these are the captured um refugees anti-kia and anti-castro Cubans that were captured um yeah it just it didn't look good I can't go there's a lot more into it than this this is sort of like the glossary version but suffice it to say it was embarrassing and Castro of course was indignant you know look at these Americans look what they're doing they're training forces to to try to um hijack my country take it away you know they think that they can control things and it just it was it was a PR nightmare now JFK actually did salvage a little bit of his reputation by going on national television and addressing the American people directly and in his address he takes full responsibility for the incident he doesn't try to blame anybody he doesn't try to make excuses he just comes right out and says we made a mistake I made a mistake and so um the American people respond to that that he's not you know pushing blame or making excuses and he was able to save a little bit of his reputation with the country but still a huge embarrassment for him his administration and the country in general significance of the Bay of Pigs invasion is it was a great embarrassment to JFK and his administration that's number one number two the Cubans were already suspicious of the United States and now it reaches a level of Hysteria over the U.S Invasion Cubans were already suspicious of us and our motives now it's reaching a level of Hysteria after this failed U.S invasion okay that is the Bay of Pigs now let's turn to the Berlin Wall the Berlin Wall is another major thing um involving the cold war that happened during Kennedy's Administration the Berlin Wall was built in 1961. uh the construction was started actually in August of 1961. and they the purpose of the wall it was built to prevent East Germans from escaping into West Germany if you remember in the unit on the Cold War Germany had been divided um into East Germany and West Germany and after World War II and the city of Berlin was also divided now if you remember from that lecture the intent was never to keep the two there was never to be two countries and to keep things separated it was just to sort of help in the rebuilding process and then they were supposed to reunite but because the Cold War comes in and the United States and the West cannot get along with the Soviets that things remained separated all right so we have two countries we have East Germany and West Germany and the Soviets decide to build a wall build a wall preventing the Germans East Germans and the Germans in East Berlin from moving to the West West Berlin West Germany by night this is a real problem for them because by 1961 4 million East Germans had moved West now this shows several things it shows their level of unhappiness in East Germany and East Berlin and it's also a major economic threat because East Germany with that kind of a migration is losing its workers so they decide to build a wall like just build straight up wall and um they arm it heavily so that anyone that tries to cross is going to be shot or arrested or no good can come from this all right so there was no warning they did not warn the citizens you know we're going to build this wall you need to get where you're going to be they just started building a hall super early in the morning uh the berliners woke up to find that the freedom to pass between the two sides of the city was over that the wall was there soldiers were already guarding it and that was the end of it and that was August of 1961. um it was it was a really big deal at the time and it was considered to be just such a horrible thing I mean just literally a wall right down the middle of the city nobody was allowed near it or to cross it the wall um here's a picture uh the wall was eventually torn down as we know now um we get we're lucky we get we get the other side of History decades later the wall does eventually come down in November of 1989 and it's a huge symbol of the fall of the Soviet Union but again this happens during uh Kennedy's presidency and he was involved in speaking out against the Berlin Wall um he wasn't able to do much to stop it things were complicated there was a lot of complicated uh foreign relations going on at the time and so he was unable to stop it or have it removed but he did speak out against it all right the next major issue with the Cold War is the Cuban Missile Crisis now the Cuban Missile Crisis was a huge deal at the time like I can't emphasize this enough to you this is the kind of thing that people that lived through this will they will remember it you could ask them where they were what they were doing and this this affected almost every American in a very big way so let me give you the background on the Cuban Missile Crisis uh Castro remember from Cuba Castro asks the Soviets to put nuclear weapons into Cuba in order to try to stop the US from invading Cuba and after the Bay of Pigs invasion that it doesn't sound as crazy as it might be I mean obviously we tried to help an invasion already a year ago so the Soviets agree and they want to protect Cuba one reason they want to protect Cuba they also want to counter the U.S missiles that um are are um pointed at their country located in Turkey so the U.S United States has missiles with nuclear warheads um stationed and ready to go in the country of Turkey that is directly they're directly pointed at the at Russia and at the Soviet Union and so they're like well hey you know they've they've got their missiles on us why don't we put some missiles in Cuba and sort of return the favor offs will offset their missiles in turkey with our missiles in Cuba and perhaps the United States will think twice before using theirs in Turkey you know like if we have some pointed at them might slow them down if they ever want to use theirs in Turkey so this opens up the possibility of making a deal now in the fall of 1962 U.S intelligence gets pictures of approximately 40 missiles being set up in Cuba uh this is the The Source biplane that obtains the pictures this is sort of where they're being set up now there were two types of missiles for anyone that's curious about this they were medium range ballistic missiles medium range ballistic missiles that could reach anything inside this circle they also had set up um intermediate range ballistic missiles this ir and B and that range as you can see is a much bigger Circle including almost the entire country and parts of Canada so they are setting up missiles that can reach anywhere in the country say they can set off nuclear missiles anywhere they want in our country with these missiles that they have located in Cuba so that's a very scary thing right um JFK President Kennedy cannot allow nuclear missiles that close to the United States where anyone that feels like it at anyone anytime that the Soviets get mad they can literally destroy the country that's that's a real security risk JFK cannot allow that now many of JFK's advisors top militaries advisors and his generals were telling him to just nuke Cuba use nuclear warheads on Cuba and just blow them out of the water and the and the Soviet Union you know we can't take this this is this is um too big at risk let's just blow them up while we have the chance but Kennedy was actually very reluctant to listen to them after the day of pigs because during the Bay of Pigs he was their advice that he took in going ahead with that invasion they assured him it couldn't lose and you know that everything would go great and obviously it didn't and it was a huge embarrassment so JFK is really reluctant to listen to their advice this time remember I said he was very intelligent and he was and he was a very quick study so he learned a really big lesson from the Bay of Pigs and he was not going to repeat it so he does not like their advice of why don't we just blow Cuba up and a Soviet Union while we're at it so he tries a different plan in October of 1962 he announces that the U.S Navy is going to surround Cuba to deter or to stop any more missiles from being brought into Cuba so they already have several missiles quite a few missiles set up we are going to stop any more from coming in he calls this a quarantine instead of a blockade now that's essentially what it is it is essentially a blockade he's using U.S ships to stop anyone from coming into Cuba and anyone um trying to trying to get in anywhere this this dotted line is right here now that is definitely a blockade but he's calling it a quarantine because blockade is a term of War and he he can't have that it's too sensitive A term so they call it a quarantine he said that the U.S would stop any ships headed to Cuba and would sink them if necessary so for six days the world watches waiting to see what's going to happen if a Soviet ship tries to get Within this area because there were Soviet ships on the way to Cuba when we made this announcement so these ships and they're coming along this dotted line by the way these ships are already in route and everybody knows it so it's basically a giant game of chicken are they gonna try to cross in here is the U.S gonna blow them out of the water um is this going to start a nuclear war because here's the deal if a Soviet ship tried to get past the quarantine the U.S would have no choice but to fire on the ship and possibly start World War III because if the U.S would allow them to go in through the quarantine the U.S looks weak and the Soviets win so we can't take that chance so again for six days the world watches we've got Soviet ships headed right for Cuba and it's a standoff at the uh at the very last moment the Soviet ships actually stop turn around and head back to the Soviet Union so that's how it ends um it ends very well but there was a lot going on behind the scenes that made that happen behind the scenes let me explain to you this is called the resolution that was the quarantine let's talk about the resolution behind the scenes the U.S and the Soviet diplomats met in secret to try to defuse the situation because again this was a six day super intense situation while the world was watching and waiting to see if we're going to blow each other up meanwhile the U.S and the Soviet diplomats are meeting in secret to try to defuse this situation JFK actually sent his brother uh Robert Kennedy who he had made Attorney General as his negotiator because he didn't trust anyone else he was there were a lot of people a lot of his advisors and potentially diplomats that really wanted to go to war with the Soviet Union and could have presented information in a way that was misleading but he trusted his brother completely and so he actually sent his brother as the main negotiator because he could trust that his brother would be telling him the truth so here's here's the deal they hammered out on the record we promised not to invade Cuba and the Soviets agree that they're going to remove their missiles from Cuba so we have a mutual agreement here we won't invade they're going to remove their missiles in secret in private off the Record that we don't make public we agree the US agrees to remove our missiles in Turkey after a period of time they couldn't do it right away because then that would be pretty obvious and they didn't want to tell everyone because it was sort of like a space-saving thing we couldn't admit while we agreed to this the Soviets talked us into this so they agreed to wait a an interval of time and then in secret we would remove our missiles from Turkey which would give the Soviets a little bit of security as well um Americans were terrified during this situation during these six days when we don't know what's going to happen um with the Soviet ships they were terrified it was the end of days we have nuclear missiles pointed directly at our country um we have two world leaders standing off in a giant game of chicken and yeah it was it was a terrifying time for a lot of Americans especially those that lived in large cities because it was believed that that's where the Soviets would probably send the um the nuclear bombs first the nuclear missiles would be two cities because that would do the most damage so um kids were doing drills bombing drills you know hiding under the desks in case nuclear nuclear missile hits which I don't know how the desk is going to save them but it was it was a very tense time in the country and Americans literally feared for their lives they didn't know when they woke up that day if that was going to be their last day on Earth the significance of the Cuban Missile Crisis which luckily ended ended happily thanks to some great negotiating between the Soviets and the US significance of the Cuban Missile Crisis number one this is the closest that the human race has ever come to blowing up the entire planet closest if the human race has ever come to blowing up the entire planet this could have meant the end of human existence second significance is that JFK President Kennedy comes out of this looking like a really strong leader he handled this really well um this negotiation that they went through greatly subsided the tensions between the U.S and the USSR thanks to the removal of missiles I'm sorry this is number three by the way the the tension is greatly subsided number three tension's greatest subsided between the U.S and the Soviets thanks to the removal of the missiles and they also installed a direct telephone line between the White House to Moscow to provide direct contact between the heads of government instead of having to negotiate through third parties again I said that you know Kennedy felt he couldn't really completely trust his advisors and it was the same on the Soviet side and so they actually installed a direct telephone line that way if the president needed to speak with the Soviet leader he could so number two JFK comes out of this looking like a strong leader number three this greatly subsided tensions between the U.S and the Soviet Union thanks to the removal of missiles and the installation of the direct telephone line all right now let's look at the nuclear Test Ban Treaty the other big thing the other main main accomplishment of the Cold War is Kennedy was actually able to go forward in 1963 and get the Soviets to sign an agreement with us a mutual agreement to stop testing um to stop nuclear testing above ground now they would still they agreed they did not agree to stop all nuclear testing but they did agree to stop nuclear testing above ground so they are still testing nuclear weapons below ground but they agree to stop testing above ground and this is known as the nuclear Test Ban Treaty now again this isn't a huge step forward but it is an important step forward in reducing the Cold War tension so Kennedy makes a few mistakes early on in his presidency he was an experienced he really didn't have a lot of experience on being president or any of these kinds of things that he was being asked to do as president but he got a much better footing as time went on he was a quick study um but as you know you know how the story is going to end he was assassinated in Dallas on November 22nd in 1963. many Americans believed he had the potential to be a really great president if he'd um gotten a chance at a second term unfortunately we will never know right um that's that's one of those things about history you'll never know it's the big what if and there are those that say that Kennedy was one of the greatest U.S presidents but there's just not a real historical basis to that um I think it was best said when someone said that what was killed in Dallas was not the president but the promise of what JFK could have been he had a lot of potential and he was really picking up speed as president as a world leader um but again he was assassinated and that was the end that was the end of him and the presidency now when he was assassinated in Dallas that was a huge deal I mean it was massive the whole country stopped down and went into mourning and I mean stop down like um like after what happened with the quarantine uh with covid like restaurants closed movie theaters closed everything was closed the country literally stopped for several days and it was a time of massive grief and Mourning here we have so I think you guys are probably all really familiar with this Kennedy was assassinated um driving down the street in Dallas in the back of a convertible this is his vice president and successor uh President Johnson being sworn in uh taking the oath of office on Air Force One uh in between his wife and Jackie Kennedy the former first lady this is JFK's funeral so LBJ becomes president as we've seen the last picture this is a he has a massive State funeral um many businesses schools everything was closed on the day of his funeral so that way people could pay their respects JFK becomes revered as a great figure perhaps even much bigger than he actually was in real life he was young when he died and it was a very sudden thing and he was he was assassinated so to the people in the country at the time it was it was a great tragedy they had lost something that they felt strongly about and he becomes revered almost as a martyr in terms of who shot him there are a lot of conspiracies that abound but the bottom line is he was shot by a single gunman Lee Harvey Oswald now I know that that is hard to believe um I know a lot of people still kind of hold on to the belief that there has to be something bigger in play here but all the evidence every every scientific fact points to the fact that it was a lone gunman and I think that that is so hard to believe um when somebody that important like a president like President Kennedy is killed by someone so seemingly unimportant like like Oswald we don't want to believe it we want to believe that there's a much bigger greater force at play here and that's that's just not the case in this one um it's hard it's hard to wrap your mind around the fact that someone who seems so significant can be um can have their life taken away by somebody so seemingly insignificant all right that moves us on to Johnson's presidency now again I mentioned Lyndon Bain Johnson becomes the next president and he had a real uphill battle set up for him um JFK was beloved no one wanted LBJ as president uh he had the fight to be taken seriously he was JFK's opposite in so many ways um everything everything Kennedy was Johnson was not and vice versa um sort of compared to something similar that we've talked about this semester like FDR and Truman when President um President Roosevelt was when he died at the end of World War II and Truman took over again complete opposites Truman was very different than FDR and nobody thought that Truman could fill FDR's shoes same type of same type of situation here nobody thought President Johnson or LBJ could sell Kennedy's shoes he's the first Texas president so that's something and um LBJ had actually been a senator for many many years before becoming vice president which gave him a unique skill set that President Kennedy did not have Kennedy was not much of a legislator but Johnson LBJ definitely knew how to get things done and how to push bills through when he becomes president he says his catchphrase is going to be let us continue let us continue now that's to be expected right he wants to continue JFK's programs and do things that President Kennedy had wanted sort of like in his memory and um he actually was able to deliver on his promise LBJ was he began his term as president um like a new dealer he was FDR was his hero he he got into politics during the time of the new deal and his plan was he wanted to use the national government to improve life in this country in all kinds of ways for all kinds of people he talked about wanting to build a great society so he takes advantage of the martyrdom of the Kennedy Legacy he takes advantage of everyone's feelings about Kennedy like I said he was revered and he uses it he uses JFK's memory to push things through he uses that saying this is what President Kennedy would have wanted um you know this is his vision let's see it through for him since he's not here to see it through for himself kind of talk and he was able to accomplish a lot of things a lot of things the county probably wouldn't have been able to pull off on his own some examples of some things that Johnson did during his um one year finishing out Kennedy's term uh tax reform bill of 1964. was a tax reform bill that was passed cut taxes on the rich but it also cut taxes across the board now what are taxes supposed to do they stimulate the economy and put money back in the hands of the people and this actually worked really well after passing this the economy began to Boom another thing he got done was the Civil Rights Act of 1964. this is arguably the most important Civil Rights Act that has been passed in this country um we talked about this in Unit 12. A Brief um brief refresher for you is a Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination in all public accommodations no more separate but equal anywhere it also created the EEOC the equal employment opportunities Commission which did not allow discrimination in hiring or firing now when Johnson signs this act he turned to his Aid one of his aides and said okay I've just given the Republican party to the South and he did that's the truth because the South has voted Republican pretty much ever since this Act was to be the beginning of the South going Republican it was also considered to be sort of a culmination of the Reconstruction on civil rights the second reconstruction of civil rights which we talked about in unit 12. all right he also uh gets through the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. again this was something that Johnson forced through Congress he said he wanted to wage war on poverty this had something like this act had something like 10 separate measures aimed at fighting poverty throughout the country it created the Office of Economic Opportunity to administer um 11 new community-based programs many of which still exist um one example of these community-based programs is the job corpse this was a program aimed at training inner city youth to help them get good jobs another program was called Head Start which was an educational program to give a head start to disadvantaged preschoolers I know that one's still going and there were many other programs I can't get into them all but those are just some examples all of them had really good records they helped a lot of people although many people view as to whether or not this is a good thing a lot of a lot of Americans don't think that the government should be getting this involved in the lives of people but you can see where he's going with these programs right these are government programs aimed at helping people escape poverty and that was his main goal now after he's president about a year um we have another election 1964. so Johnson's actually doing pretty well about being president on his own terms when here comes the election of 1964. he of course runs on what he's done so far he's done gotten a lot done in one year and he promises that he's going to continue doing these kinds of things his opponent is Republican senator from Arizona and he's a Barry Goldwater he is an all-out Republican conservative um if he'd had his way he would have rolled back every program in the New Deal he's against Social Security all civil rights legislation he thought it was all completely unnecessary that the government had no business getting this involved in people's lives the Democrats during this election are doing are going to do a really good job in painting Goldwater as a right wing extremist uh they also paint him as an extremist in terms of military policies he wasn't one to shy away from using the nuclear option and so they made the most of that and made a big deal about you know if you elect him he's going to blow up the country we're going to have nuclear war on our hands there's a very famous commercial um you guys have probably heard of it maybe if not uh check it out YouTube it's about a nuclear bomb going off behind the little girl picking a flower that's right along these lines so here's our election LBJ receives something like 61 of the vote and he wins however notice the Deep South right here goes to Goldwater LBJ did lose the Deep South just like he said he was going to and they promised him if he tried to push these civil rights laws through that that was going to happen but um in the end he didn't he didn't need them he did just fine in 1964 without them now he still did get Texas that's his home state that's a hard one to lose most people are able to get the votes in their own home state so in 1964 we have LBJ elected to a term in his own right so no longer serving out the remainder of Kennedy's term now he's on his own and so Johnson takes this takes this election takes this next these next four years in his own term um and spends his time on the years between 1965 and 68 passing more legislation he gets more legislation passed through Congress in any time on our country's history since the New Deal he knew he was making a lot of enemies getting this legislation passed so he knew he had to work very quickly he went on building his Great Society sort of laid out the plan for it started passing bills prior to the election now he's just going to take off with his Great Society with great success um at this point he finally has Kennedy's ghost behind him that people have kind of moved on from that and he feels like he has a massive mandate from the People by by being elected um with um not not having such a close election but not really a landslide but he feels that winning winning to that level is a mandate from the people saying this is what we want we want this Great Society and so that's what he does um as far as his war on poverty as against as it begins to gather momentum his already outsized Ambitions are going to grow even more in May of 1964 he announced a plan to create his plan to create an array of ambitions excuse me an array of programs and that will provide a great society that's going to end poverty and racial Injustice and provide and this is a quote abundance and a liberty for all he wants people to have complete Liberty complete freedoms and an abundance of the things that they need and into poverty and an interracial Injustice he asserts that a nation like the United States has the resources to do so much more than just fight poverty he says we have the opportunity not to move not only towards a rich society and a powerful Society but upward to a great society so that's that's sort of his thing that's going to be the the theme of his second term here so one of the first things he does is um he gets the voting right Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed this is the last piece of civil rights legislation that we're going to see under the Civil Rights Movement and it required the federal government um to get into the business of actually registering voters in areas where there was a low percentage of of people being registered and it still operates today and they are attempting to end any discrimination of voting so the federal government's getting in involved in voter registration he also um makes Great accomplishments in terms of Federal Aid to education and by the way there are so many things that LBJ does in terms of his Great Society we can't get into them all this is just um for the kind of the bigger ones for the more memorable ones but there's so much more than this so one we got the Voting Rights Act second we got federal aid to education there was something like 24 acts passed providing federal aid to education past during Johnson's Administration billions of dollars of Federal Aid things like increased federal grants to universities uh they created scholarships for low-income students and they provided low interest loans for students and I know many people that have taken advantage of these programs to go to college the low interest student loans LBJ considered access to education to be the absolute key to advancement and thus a key to his Great Society um number three is Medicare and Medicaid um Medicare I'm sure most of you have probably heard of it it's a health insurance program for the elderly and Medicaid is a program of Federal grant grants to states to help cover medical expenses for the poor so we have health insurance for the elderly we have grants for federal for medical expenses to cover for the poor and the fourth one is um the water quality Act of 1965 so this was an advancement in terms of environmentalism the water quality act required states to develop water quality standards and gave the federal government the power to impose Federal standards if the state's water standards were not adequate this is an attempt to limit water pollution and again to provide everyone with clean water that required States again to test water quality and gave the federal government power to impose standards if the water quality is not up to Snuff okay so there's a couple examples of things that he did during his term to build his Great Society so let's talk about the success of the Great Society the success of the Great Society this is also the significance number one many of its programs were successful and created lasting results which from which we still reap the benefits today many programs were successful in creating lasted created lasting results which we still benefit from today provides help for the elderly at-risk kids improved nutrition increased access to higher education and civil rights so it provided a lot of great thanks for the people of this country number two the Great Society begins to lose Steam thanks to the Vietnam War taking Center Stage so it begins to lose steam when the Vietnam War begins to take Center Stage both in terms of the interests of the American people and the finances of the government so when Vietnam starts to take control of the country the American people's focus is no longer on the Great Society it's on the Vietnam War and the same thing with the money of the government the government is now pumping a ton of money into Vietnam and they're less concerned about helping out um everyday Americans in a great society number three uh this great society and this plan of lbjs is going to create a conservative backlash among middle class Americans it's going to lead to a republican resurgence it's going to create a conservative backlash among middle class Americans that's going to lead to a republican Resurgence and that's what we're going to see very soon all right let's look at the summary of the Johnson Administration all right summary of the Johnson Administration so Johnson's time 1963-1968 left some lasting some lasting Legacies number one it increased the welfare state which is the uh the government helping the people even more than the New Deal it increases the welfare state number two we see increased activism that was a direct result of Johnson's Administration environmentalism and women's rights will both become very powerful in the 1970s and 80s and they both had Roots during the Johnson Administration number three LBJ makes bad foreign policy decisions and Vietnam War quickly gets out of hand which in turn destroys his popularity his presidency and his legacy when people think about President Johnson today his failures in Vietnam is generally what he's remembered for in Vietnam the Vietnam War in itself is going to have lasting effects on American culture for decades number four it's going to lead to the creation of the conservative coalition lbj's term as president creates a surge of conservatism that's going to last for decades it leads to scale back and government spending and a decrease in the interest of helping others and a decrease in the interest in programs to improve lives of Americans and again this is a direct result of LBJ and his Great Society kind of forcing that on everybody it makes everybody want to break from it it creates more conservatism and it makes Americans want to break from helping others and programs to improve the lives of others all right that brings us to the crisis of 1968. now the 1960s were a very tumultuous decade filled with a lot of change but the most traumatic and dramatic year of that decade was 1968. there were a lot of things going on in Vietnam the Tet Offensive and then the My Lai Massacre which we're going to talk about um very shortly when we get to the part of Vietnam but both of those things early in the year combined with the country filled with protests especially young people who were protesting a war they wanted no part of and Johnson's Administration Johnson administration's support of this war that they wanted no poor no part of but they're also protesting main aspects of American Life sort of the mainstream culture of America including family middle class work ethics universities religion and the um integrationist philosophy of the non-violent civil rights movement that was led by Martin Luther King this is when we start to see uh the hippies hippies that believe they can overthrow a corrupt and outdated way of life they think that the American way of life is outdated and it needs a dramatic change so into all this we have a presidential election coming this is 1968 again and um on April 4th which is just a few days after LBJ announces his shocking withdrawal announcing that he will not run for president again which we will cover shortly um Martin Luther King was shot and killed by James Earl Ray as he stood on the second floor balcony in Lorraine of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis Tennessee all right so we have in 1968 the Ted offensive the my Massacre um protests happening non-stop protests from all kinds of things protesting the war protesting civil rights and then we have Martin Luther King shot and killed in April his murder set off a wave of violence through the country riots occurred in over a hundred American cities pretty much every major city in the country had a riot as a result of his assassination and um violence riots and violence many citizens were afraid to leave their homes 20 000 Army troops and 34 000 National Guardsmen were mobilized to stop the violence across the country Chicago mayor um Daley Chicago Mayor Daley ordered his police to shoot and kill arsenals excuse me arsonists anyone that was setting fires ordered police to shoot to kill anyone starting a fire and to shoot to maim looters across the country it left 3 500 people injured 43 killed and 27 000 arrested now one of the few exceptions to this violence was in Indianapolis Indiana Robert F Kennedy JFK's little brother who was the former Attorney General was running for president and he was there giving a speech the night that Martin Luther King died immediately upon hearing the news of Martin Luther King's assassination he gave a heartfelt speech to a grieving crowd of African Americans and it saved the city from destruction and violence now sadly uh Robert Kennedy or RFK as he was known was himself killed two months later after winning the California Democratic presidential primary on June 6th Sirhan Sirhan who was a Palestinian immigrant who didn't like Kennedy's policy on Israel shot him in the head along with five others and he died of his wounds the next day he was 42 years old a father of 10 kids with another on the way and I forgot to mention um Martin Luther King was only 39 when he died these were young men cut down in the prime of their lives Martin Luther King 39 um Bobby Kennedy was 42. and many believed that with the death of Kennedy it was the death of liberal ideals the death of The Last Hope many believed that Robert Kennedy was going to fix the country he was going to heal the divides in a turmoil who knows of course if that was true we will never know but many believed when he died hope died and it was the exact same with Martin Luther King when he died many believed that it was the death of Hope um for the Civil Rights Movement for African Americans for the country in general so again we have this crisis of 1968 with all of these dramatic events happening important people being killed the significance of the crisis of 1968 was that with these deaths these important deaths of the 1960s JFK Malcolm X Martin Luther King Robert Kennedy a wealth of idealism died too having lost the leading voices for real change in the political process many young people lost hope in democracy and began to turn to radicalism and violence so again having lost these leading voices many young people lose hope in democracy and begin to turn to radicalism and violence anger and disillusionment spread over the country anger and disillusionment begin to spread over the country and into this wild horrible situation we have another election the election of 1968. so let's begin it with the Democratic National Convention in Chicago the social unrest in the nation came to a head at the Democratic National Convention which again is in August in Chicago where the delegates are there to nominate lbj's faithful vice president Hubert Humphrey as their nominee for president he's going to be the presidential candidate now again LBJ said he wasn't going to run even though he could have and so they they were there to nominate his vice president meanwhile so that's inside the convention outside the convention we have almost 20 000 police officers National Guard troops and TV reporters standing watch over a gathering of Scruffy passionate anti-war protesters so there was there was going to be a big protest a big anti-war protest going on outside the National Convention the mayor of Chicago Mayor Daley is prepared for this and has called up all kinds of police officers and National Guard the Press is there to see what's going to happen the initial protests were peaceful but the situation quickly escalates as the police begin to issue threats Stern threats and the young protesters began to taunt the police with obscenities ugly riots or ugly riots break out and are televised this is literal war in the streets of Chicago many of the protesters were students young students and they were used to protests on the safe havens of college campuses right they're used to they're College cops they are not prepared for mayor Daley's aggressive and heavily armed police force and National Guard troops that were outfitted in full riot gear so the police is using tear gas and clubs to brutally Pummel these anti-war demonstrators these young college kids meanwhile the world is watching this like this was being internationally televised by the Press Chicago's the brutality that happened at Chicago's in Chicago Streets completely overshadows the convention the Democratic National Convention and the riots sort of become the symbol of a growing sense of chaos that you know America is out of control a growing sense of chaos that's governing America now in the end the Democrats do nominate Hubert Humphrey who was Johnson's vice president and he defended lbj's actions in Vietnam which many took to mean he planned to keep us in Vietnam and keep the whole thing going which split the Democratic party and again those students had been there to protest him because they didn't agree with his policies many believed that Robert Kennedy was the best um the best chance to unify the Democratic party but of course he had already been killed several months several months prior the Republicans nominee was Richard Nixon who had been Eisenhower's vice president and he uses the turmoil of the 1960s to resurrect his political career he runs against all the problems with LBJ promising peace in Vietnam he's intentionally vague on any issue that would split the Republican Party and instead just focuses on agreeing to do the exact opposite of anything that Johnson did he offers a vision of stability of Law and Order as he calls it that was his big phrase Law and Order that would appeal to what Nixon called the silent majority is trying to appeal to what he calls the silent majority he promised to listen to the voice of great Americans excuse me the great majority of Americans the Forgotten Americans the non-shatters the non-demonstrators that are not racist or sick and that are not guilty of the crime that plagues this land so he's saying you know these are the average people we're sick of the protesting we're sick of the riots we're sick of violence in our streets he's like you know we're quiet we're the silent majority we sit quietly and we're forgotten and we're sick of all this turmoil in our country he called that group the silent majority and he tries to appeal to them he's also courting conservatives in the solid South now there was a third party for this election the American Independent party and they nominated George Wallace right here governor of Alabama and a very outspoken segregationalist um if you guys remember from unit 12 he was the one he was the governor that blocked the school room door at the University of Alabama and he has decided that both the Democrats and the Republicans are too liberal and so he creates his own party mainly on the basis to defend segregation he promises to bring stability to the nation with order and Justice and he promises to more forcefully crack down to forcefully crack down on any War protesters and the growing federal government and welfare system so he's going to crack down any War protests bring back segregation and crack down on growing federal government and Welfare systems in the end Nixon is going to win but only by 500 000 votes in the popular vote he was able to crack the solid south from and from now on the south becomes Republican the Democrats downfall was their split during the convention there was their convention was going on inside outside chaos was going down and the whole world was watching it on TV and the Republicans argued if the Democrats can't even run their own convention how are they going to run this country and it worked Nixon wins the election significance of the election of 1968. number one the Republican Party officially successfully courted new voting blocks then they the Republican party is now officially and successfully courting new voting blocks they couldn't risk a third party splitting their conservative vote again so by doing this they create the conservative Coalition that's going to dominate the next generation of politics they create the conservative Coalition that will dominate the next generation of politics moving forward the solid South will become and stay Republican and second significance of this election is Nixon is going to begin to end the Vietnam War that's his promise that's his campaign promise that he made and he sticks to it Nixon is going to begin to end the Vietnam War okay that is it for this lecture um in the next lecture we are going to look at the war in Vietnam