Transcript Did JFK’s image outshine reality?

How is JFK remembered?
EQ: To what extent did JFK’s
image outshine the reality?
The Image
Election 1960
• Dem. JFK (49.7%, 303)
• Rep. Nixon (49.6%, 219)
Televised debates
Wife Jacqueline
Camelot
• “There’ll be great presidents
again… but there’ll never be
another Camelot."
– Jackie Kennedy
• “I felt as though I were
inside a golden coach drawn
by four pure-bred white
horses into the glitter of
mythic Camelot.“
– Isaac Stern on meeting JFK
Assassination
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Nov. 22, 1963
Dallas, TX
Lee Harvey Oswald
Warren Commission
The Reality
Domestic policy…
“New Frontier”
“We stand on the edge of a New
Frontier…Beyond that frontier are
uncharted areas of science and space,
unsolved problems of peace and war,
unconquered problems of ignorance and
prejudice, unanswered questions of
poverty and surplus.”
New Frontier plans
• E x p a n d e d govt role:
– Unemployment benefits
– $ to education
– Expansion of healthcare services
– Civil rights leg.
– Urban renewal
• Tax cut
• Inability to win support from (D) Congress
– Small victories ex. moderate increase to min. wage
• Many aspects passed by LBJ
Civil Rights address – June 11,
1963
Civil Rights
• 1960 campaign
• Little action until forced
– 1962 James Meredith
– 1963 University of Alabama
• Introduced legislation late
in presidency
Opposition from big business
• 1962 steel crisis
• JFK forced
rollback of price
increases
Increased spending on defense
and space exploration
• “I believe that this nation should commit itself
to achieving the goal, before this decade is
out, of landing a man on the Moon and
returning him safely to the Earth.”
– JFK, May 25, 1961
 July 16, 1969 moon landing
International Organizations
• Peace
Corps
(1961)
• Alliance for
Progress
“And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your
country can do for you – ask what you can do for your
country”
Foreign policy…
“Flexible response” to combat
communism
• Sec. Defense Robert McNamara
• Increased spending on conventional arms &
mobile military units
• Aid & “advisers” sent to South Vietnam
– By 1963 16,000+ troops
Bay of Pigs 1961
• CIA plot to use Cuban exiles to overthrow
Castro
• Big failure.
Berlin Wall 1961 - 1989
West Berlin Speech – June 26, 1963
“Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect,
but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people
in, to prevent them from leaving us. I want to say, on behalf
of my countrymen…that they take the greatest pride that
they have been able to share with you, even from a distance,
the story of the last 18 years. I know of no town, no city, that
has been besieged for 18 years that still lives with the vitality
and the force, and the hope and the determination of the
city of West Berlin.
All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and,
therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words ‘Ich bin ein
Berliner’."
1962 Cuban Missile Crisis
• Soviet missiles
found in Cuba!
• 14 day standoff
• Naval “quarantine”
• Agreement:
– Removal
– No invasion
– (removal of missiles in Turkey)
• 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty!
Scandals!
EQ: To what extent did JFK’s
image outshine the reality?
- What areas was JFK successful?
- Unsuccessful?