Kennedy and the New Frontier

John F. Kennedy, Democratic victory in the election of 1960, was at 43 the youngest man to win the presidency. His opponent was Richard Nixon. In his inaugural address Kennedy said: “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can so for your country”.

Kennedy wanted to exert strong leadership to extend economic benefits to all citizens, but conservatives (mainly Southerners) resisted plans to increase federal aid to education, provide health insurance for the elderly and create a new Department of Urban Affairs.

One priority was to end a recession and restore growth. But Kennedy lost the confidence of business leaders in 1962, when he sought to roll back what the administration regarded as an excessive price increase in the steel industry.

He also made some gestures toward civil rights leaders but gained no results, failed to aid public education and to provide medical care for the elderly. He gained only a modest increase in the minimum wage. He did secure funding for a space program, and established the Peace Corps to send men and women overseas to assist developing countries in meeting their own needs.

On November 22, 1963, he was assassinated while riding in a top-open car during a visit to Dallas, Texas.

Lyndon Johnson, Kennedy’s vice-president, was a masterful politician. He managed to gain results in the course initiated by Kennedy in his ambitious legislative program.

In 1964 Johnson used the name “Great Society” to describe his reform program. He pushed successfully for a tax cut, then established various community-action programs to give the poor themselves a voice in housing, health and education programs.

Next came medical care; Medicare (a health insurance program for the elderly) and Medicaid (a program providing health-care assistance for the poor) were enacted. He also provided aid for elementary and secondary schooling. Federal assistance went to artists and scholars to encourage their work.

Cuban crisis

Relations with Cuba were tense since Fidel Castro seized power in 1959. The diplomatic ties were broken, and the CIA began training Cuban exiles to invade their homeland. The attack at the Bay of Pigs in the spring of 1961 failed miserably. Within 48 hours the force was defeated. Kennedy who approved the plan initiated by the Eisenhower administration, accepted responsibility for the defeat.

The next year Kennedy announced that the Soviet Union was secretly installing offensive nuclear missiles in Cuba. He demanded that th4e Soviets remove the weapons. After several days of tension, the Soviets backed down. That was the turning point in the US-Soviet relations as both sides saw the need to defuse tensions that could lead to direct military conflict. The following year, the USA, the USSR, and Great Britain signed a landmark Limited Test Ban Treaty, prohibiting nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere.

The Vietnam War

Another Cold War battlefield was Indochina. France had controlled Vietnam since the middle of the 19^th century (during the WWII Japanese tool the control over the country). Ho Chi Minh, a Vietnamese communist, took the American War for Independence as his model to liberate his country from colonial rule.

After the war France insisted on returning to Vietnam. Ho refused to back down. The USA provided France with economic aid that freed resources for the struggle in Vietnam. But in 1954 France was defeated. At the international conference in Geneva Vietnam was divided, with Ho in power in the North and Ngo Dinh Diem, a Roman Catholic anti-communist in a largely Buddhist population, in the South. Elections were to be held two years later to unify the country.

Fearing that the fall of Vietnam could lead to the fall of Burma, Thailand and Indonesia, Eisenhower backed Diem’s refusal to hold elections in 1956 and began to increase economic and military aid. Kennedy increased assistance, and sent small numbers of military advisors.

Diem was overthrown and died in 1963 and the population became more unstable than before.

Guerrillas in the South, known as Viet Cong, challenged the South Vietnamese government. Determined to halt communist advances in South Vietnam, Johnson made the Vietnam War his own.

In August 1964 two US destroyers patrolling the Gulf of Tonkin off North Vietnam were attacked by North Vietnamese boats. On August 7, 1964, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving President Johnson the power to take all necessary measures to repeal any armed attacks against the forces of the US and to prevent further aggression. After Johnson’s re-election in November 1964, he embarked on a policy of escalation. From 25,000 troops at the start of 1965, the number of soldiers – both volunteers and draftees – rose to 500,000 by 1968.

During the war the US forces used carpet bombing, napalm, herbicide “Agent Orange” and new types of bombs.

On March 16, 1968, a group of soldiers under the command of Captain Ernst Medinia and Lieutenant William Caley, Jr. attacked a small Vietnamese village My Lai and killed 300 people – women, children and old men. The American Ministry of Defense accepted that the action took place only in November 1969. In 1971 a court found Lieutenant Caley (only!) guilty and sentenced him to life imprisonment, later shortened to 10 years of hard labor.

With time Americans began to protest their country’s involvement in the war. The 1968 peace negotiations were deadlocked and President Nixon announced Vietnamization of the conflict. In the USA there were a lot of demonstrations (among the opponents of the war were R. Kennedy, Noam Chomsky, Benjamin Spock, James W. Fulbright and many others) and draft evaders.

Nixon slowly withdrew American troops and at the same time ordered some of the most fearful bombing in the war. He also invaded Cambodia in 1970 to cut off North Vietnamese supply lines. As a result a lot of students went to demonstrations. In Ohio National Guard troops panicked and killed four students.

A cease-fire, negotiated for the US by Nixon’s national security advisor, Henry Kissinger, was finally signed in 1973. Although American troops departed, the war lingered on into the spring of 1975, when North Vietnam consolidated its control over the entire country.

The war had a tremendous price. The US spent over $150 thousand –million and lost 58,000 American lives (plus more than 150,000 wounded). Vietnamese losses were from two to three million people, mainly civilians.

For America it also meant the end of the Cold War foreign policy consensus. The public was horrified; among the consequences of the war there were – Vietnam syndrome (PVS - post Vietnam Syndrome), a post-traumatic stress disorder, MIA (missing in action) and others. Diplomatic relations with Vietnam were established only in 1995.

After the war, the Nixon administration began to change its foreign policy. Nixon was the first American president to visit Beijing. Several months after his trip to China, Nixon visited the USSR. During the meeting with L. Brezhnev it was agreed to limit stockpiles of missiles, cooperate in space and ease trading restrictions. The SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) culminated in 1972 in an arms control agreement limiting the growth of nuclear arsenals and restricting anti-ballistic missile systems.

Nixon confronted a series of economic problems during his presidency: in 1973 the war between Israel, Egypt and Syria prompted Saudi Arabia to impose an embargo on oil shipped to Israel’s ally, the USA. Other members of the OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) quadrupled their prices, which led to both shortages and rapidly rising prices. In 1974 inflation reached 12% (it was 9% in 1973). This period got the name of “stagflation” and brought an end to the unprecedented economic boom America had enjoyed since 1948.

Social situation in the US was difficult too – rising crime rates, political protests, increased drug use and more permissive views about sex in US universities resulted in political violence against press, students and president’s opponents. That strategy backfired in the Watergate affair.