Chapter 28

Affluence and Its Discontents, 1954-1963

© 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved.

Foreign Policy, 1953-1960

• Leadership change in Moscow

- Stalin’s death (1953)

- Nikita Khrushchev

a. policy of “peaceful coexistence”

b. Sputnik (10-4-1957)

- US creates NASA

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The Kennedy Years: Foreign Policy

• John F. Kennedy– Groomed for political

leadership– Service in Congress

• House & Senate

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The Election of 1960

• John F. Kennedy vs. Richard M. Nixon

• 1st Televised debate

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Cuban Affairs

• From Batista to Fidel Castro

• Castro’s revolution (1956-1959)

• Eisenhower places economic boycott on Cuba

- Diplomatic/trade relations end (1960)

- Castro seeks aid from Soviet Union

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Cuban Missile Crisis

• Bay of Pigs invasion (April 1961)

• secret invasion, southern coast of Cuba

• Mission failed

• Castro turns to Soviet Union for protection

• Oct 1962- Khrushchev sends nuclear missiles to Cuba (defensive) / 90 miles

• U-2 plane

Crisis continue

• JFK decision - Naval blockade, “quarantine” (180 warships)

• Agreement Kennedy & Khrushchev

- removal of missiles / Kennedy’s promise

- Soviet ships turn around

- nuclear war avoided

Intensity of Cuban Missile Crisis

• Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara later recalled leaving a presidential conference during the 13-day crisis, looking up at the sky, and wondering if the world would still be there 24 hours later.

• Pg 749

Vietnam

• Vietnam Post- WWII• Ho Chi Minh & the Vietminh

– Dien Bien Phu (1954)• Geneva Peace Accords (1954)

- North & South Vietnam• Eisenhower’s Domino Theory

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Vietnam (continue)

• Ngo Diem

- corrupt regime

- CIA coup (1963)

• US becoming more embedded in Vietnamese affairs

- politically & economically

The Brown Cases

• NAACP & racism

• Brown v Board of Education (1954)

- segregated public schools violated constitution

• Initiated Civil Rights Movement

• racism continued in South

- Emmett Till (1955)

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• Emmett "Bobo" Till was a 14-year old African-American from Chicago, Illinois who was brutally lynched in the Mississippi Delta. His murder was one of the key events that energized the Civil Rights Movement. The main suspects for the crime--both white men--were acquitted, but later admitted to committing the crime. Till's mother had an open casket funeral to let everyone see how her son had been brutally murdered.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott and Martin Luther King Jr.

• MLK & the SCLC

- advocated nonviolence protests for social change

• Direct Action campaigns• Rosa Parks (1955, pg 741)

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The Civil Rights Movement, 1960-1963

• "Sit-in" movement (1960)

- Greensboro, N.C.• Birmingham March (1963) [p751]

- worldwide coverage• “March on Washington” (1963)

• _ “I Have a Dream” Speech– 1st Civil Rights Legislation (1964)

(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved

The Assassination of John F. Kennedy

• November 22, 1963, JFK assassinated in Dallas, TX

• Lee Harvey Oswald

• Jack Ruby

• Warren Commission

• Kennedy’s death source of conspiracy theories

(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved

Assassinations of MLK

• Lorraine motel/ sanitation strike

• James earl Ray

- pleaded guilty / 99-yr sentence

- riots followed King’s death

Assassination of Robert Kennedy

• CA primary (1968)

• sirhan sirhan

Conclusion

• 1960s- decade of political upheaval

• World reaches the brink of a nuclear war

• War in Vietnam

• Civil Rights Movement success

- passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 & Voting Rights of 1965

(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved