New Frontier and Great Society

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New Frontier and Great Society

• Section 18.1

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Style or Substance?Which is more important in
making an effective president?
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Describe Kennedy as President.

• Inaugural address
• A statement that the young were taking control
• Vigorous, energetic, bold
• Hawkish
• In Practice
• Slow, cautious to initiate new legislation
• Why?
• Lacked a mandate
• Election was slim
• Not a clear endorsement of his ideas
• Conservative Congress

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What was the New Frontier?

• Kennedys personal domestic progressive program
• Not an organized set of new laws (like the New
  Deal)
• Included legislation for public schools,
  wilderness preservation, infrastructure, medical
  insurance for elderly
• Invigorated the liberals
• Had become complacent with the economic
  prosperity of the 1950s

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What is meant by describing JFKs Administration
as Camelot?

• Seemed Royal, like a King
• JFK and Jackie (his wife) were elegant, stylish,
  and good looking
• Cultivated this image on TV, magazines

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Describe Kennedys Working Style

• Surrounded himself w/ highly educated advisers
• Called the best and the brightest
• Pragmatic
• Called himself A Practical Idealist
• Did what worked rather than what liberal ideology
  wished
• Visionary
• Set goal of landing man on moon for NASA
• John Glenn- 1st American to orbit earth (2/62)
• Peace Corps
• Volunteers sent to developing countries to assist
  in education, building
• 80 thousand sent to 88 nations

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Describe his Assassination
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Describe his Assassination
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Describe his Assassination.

• JFK went to Dallas, TX to begin campaigning for
  64 election
• Shot twice as he rode in open car
• Lee Harvey Oswald
• Ex Marine, communist, Cuba sympathizer
• Shot from 6th floor of Dallas Book Depository
• Arrested in movie theater
• Assassinated by Jack Ruby at police station

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Zapruder Film
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Zapruder Slow Motion
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What was the Warren Commission and why were its
findings controversial?

• Investigative committee headed by Chief Justice
  Earl Warren
• Concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone
  in assassination
• Controversial
• Why?

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What was the Warren Commission and why were its
findings controversial?

• Difficult shot
• 3 shots in 6 seconds
• Zapruder film
• Made it look like shot came from Grassy Knoll
• Magic Bullet
• Developed by Arlen Specter to explain how both
  JFK and Gov. Connally were hit
• Seemed impossible
• Oswald assassinated by
• Jack Ruby (nightclub owner)
• Mob hit?

Cubans? Texas oil men?
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Oliver Stones Theory
Click to Play
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Lone Assassin or Conspiracy?
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Oswald Assassinated
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How did the nation react to the assassination?
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How did the nation react to the assassination?

• Shocked and devastated
• Where were you when Kennedy was shot?
• Shattered hopes of many
• African Americans
• Liberal idealists
• Camelot image of fallen hero became legendary

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The End of Camelot
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Describe Lyndon Baines Johnsons style as
president.

• Opposite of Kennedy
• Crude, intimidating, unpolished
• Experienced Southerner (Texas)
• Coalition Builder
• The Treatment
• Flattered or threatened congressmen into voting
  for his proposals

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What was the Great Society?

• LBJs continuation and extension of JFKs New
  Frontier program
• His vision for a just, fair society without
  poverty, racism, etc.
• Declared war on poverty

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What were some of the most important laws of the
Great Society?

• Civil Rights Act of 1964/Voting Rights Act of
  1965
• Economic Opportunity Act
• Fed programs that fought poverty
• Medical Care Act
• Provided money for
• Medicare Elderly
• Medicaid Poor
• Model Cities Act
• Gave money to build housing, recreational
  facilities, transportation for poor
• Created HUD

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Was the Great Society successful?

• Poverty dropped
• 1959 22
• 1969 12
• Under funded
• War in Vietnam began to steer money away from
  programs, which continued regardless
• Liberal economists spoke of having guns and
  butter
• Resorted to deficit spending, which led in the
  1970s to double digit inflation

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Criticism

• Did it create a welfare generation?
• Give a man a fish, feed him for a day
• Teach a man to fish, feed him for life.