39 The Stormy Sixties ᇻᇾᇻ 1960–1968 Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans. JOHN F. KENNEDY, INAUGURAL 1961 omplacent and comfortable as the 1950s closed, at the air, Kennedy personified the glamour and CAmericans elected in 1960 a young, vigorous vitality of the new administration. The youngest president who pledged “to get the country moving president ever elected, he assembled one of the again.” Neither the nation nor the new president had youngest cabinets, including his thirty-five-year-old any inkling as the new decade opened just how brother, Robert, as attorney general. “Bobby,” the action-packed it would be, both at home and president quipped, would find “some legal experi- abroad. The 1960s would bring a sexual revolution, a ence” useful when he began to practice law. The civil rights revolution, the emergence of a “youth cul- new attorney general set out, among other reforms, ture,” a devastating war in Vietnam, and the begin- to recast the priorities of the FBI. The bureau nings, at least, of a feminist revolution. By the end of deployed nearly a thousand agents on “internal the stormy sixties, many Americans would yearn security” work but targeted only a dozen against nostalgically for the comparative calm of the fifties. organized crime and gave virtually no attention to civil rights violations. Robert Kennedy’s efforts were stoutly resisted by J. Edgar Hoover, who had served Kennedy’s “New Frontier” Spirit as FBI director longer than the new attorney general had been alive. Business whiz Robert S. McNamara left the presidency of the Ford Motor Company to Hatless and topcoatless in the twenty-two-degree take over the Defense Department. Along with other chill, John F. Kennedy delivered a stirring inaugural youthful, talented advisers, these appointees made address on January 20, 1961. Tall, elegantly hand- up an inner circle of “the best and the brightest” some, speaking crisply and with staccato finger jabs men around the president. 916 Kennedy in Office 917 From the outset Kennedy inspired high expec- he invited white-maned poet Robert Frost to speak tations, especially among the young. His challenge at his inaugural ceremonies. The old Yankee versifier of a “New Frontier” quickened patriotic pulses. He shrewdly took stock of the situation. “You’re some- brought a warm heart to the Cold War when he pro- thing of Irish and I suppose something of Harvard,” posed the Peace Corps, an army of idealistic and he told Kennedy—and advised him to be more Irish mostly youthful volunteers to bring American skills than Harvard. to underdeveloped countries. He summoned citi- zens to service with his clarion call to “ask not what your country can do for you: ask what you can do for The New Frontier at Home your country.” Himself Harvard-educated, Kennedy and his Ivy League lieutenants (heavily from Harvard) radiated Kennedy came into office with fragile Democratic confidence in their abilities. The president’s personal majorities in Congress. Southern Democrats threat- grace and wit won him the deep affection of many of ened to team up with Republicans and ax New Fron- his fellow citizens. A journalist called Kennedy “the tier proposals such as medical assistance for the aged most seductive man I’ve ever met. He exuded a sense and increased federal aid to education. Kennedy won of vibrant life and humor that seemed naturally to a first round in his campaign for a more cooperative bubble up out of him.” In an unprecedented gesture, Congress when he forced an expansion of the all- important House Rules Committee, dominated by conservatives who could have bottled up his entire legislative program. Despite this victory, the New Richard Goodwin (b. 1931), a young Peace Frontier did not expand swiftly. Key medical and edu- Corps staffer, eloquently summed up the cation bills remained stalled in Congress. buoyantly optimistic mood of the early 1960s: Another vexing problem was the economy. “For a moment, it seemed as if the entire coun- Kennedy had campaigned on the theme of revitaliz- try, the whole spinning globe, rested, malle- ing the economy after the recessions of the Eisen- able and receptive, in our beneficent hands.” hower years. While his advisers debated the best kind of economic medicine to apply, the president tried to hold the line against crippling inflation. His 918 CHAPTER 39 The Stormy Sixties, 1960–1968 administration helped negotiate a noninflationary For economic stimulus, as well as for military wage agreement in the steel industry in early 1962. strategy and scientific prestige, Kennedy also pro- The assumption was that the companies, for their moted a multibillion-dollar project to land an Amer- part, would keep the lid on prices. ican on the moon. When skeptics objected that the Almost immediately, steel management an- money could best be spent elsewhere, Kennedy nounced significant price increases, thereby seem- “answered” them in a speech at Rice University in ingly demonstrating bad faith. The president erupted Texas: “But why, some say, the moon? . And they in wrath, remarking that his father had once said that may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, “all businessmen were sons of bitches.” He called the thirty-five years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice “big steel” men onto the Oval Office carpet and play Texas?” Twenty-four billion dollars later, in 1969, unleashed his Irish temper. Overawed, the steel oper- two American astronauts triumphantly planted ators backed down, while displaying “S.O.B.” buttons, human footprints on the moon’s dusty surface. meaning “Sons of Business” or “Save Our Business.” The steel episode provoked fiery attacks by big business on the New Frontier, but Kennedy soon Rumblings in Europe appealed to believers in free enterprise when he an- nounced his support of a general tax-cut bill. He rejected the advice of those who wished greater A few months after settling into the White House, government spending and instead chose to stimu- the new president met Soviet premier Khrushchev late the economy by slashing taxes and putting at Vienna in June 1961. The tough-talking Soviet more money directly into private hands. When he leader adopted a belligerent attitude, threatening to announced his policy before a big business group, make a treaty with East Germany and cut off West- one observer called it “the most Republican speech ern access to Berlin. Though visibly shaken, the since McKinley.” president refused to be bullied. Troubles Abroad 919 The Soviets backed off from their most bellicose by towering, stiff-backed Charles de Gaulle, presi- threats but suddenly began to construct the Berlin dent of France. He was suspicious of American Wall in August 1961. A barbed-wire and concrete intentions in Europe and on fire to recapture the barrier, it was designed to plug the heavy population gloire of Napoleonic France. With a haughty “non,” drain from East Germany to West Germany through he vetoed British application for Common Market the Berlin funnel. But to the free world, the “Wall of membership in 1963, fearing that the British “spe- Shame” looked like a gigantic enclosure around a cial relationship” with the United States would concentration camp. The Wall stood for almost three make Britain a Trojan horse for deepening Ameri- decades as an ugly scar symbolizing the post–World can control over European affairs. He likewise War II division of Europe into two hostile camps. dashed cold water on a U.S. proposal to develop a Kennedy meanwhile turned his attention to multinational nuclear arm within NATO. De Gaulle Western Europe, now miraculously prospering after deemed the Americans unreliable in a crisis, so he the tonic of Marshall Plan aid and the growth of the tried to preserve French freedom of action by devel- American-encouraged Common Market, the free- oping his own small atomic force (“farce,” scoffed trade area later called the European Union. He his critics). Despite the perils of nuclear prolifera- finally secured passage of the Trade Expansion Act tion or Soviet domination, de Gaulle demanded an in 1962, authorizing tariff cuts of up to 50 percent to independent Europe, free of Yankee influence. promote trade with Common Market countries. This legislation led to the so-called Kennedy Round of tariff negotiations, concluded in 1967, and to a Foreign Flare-ups and significant expansion of European-American trade. “Flexible Response” But not all of Kennedy’s ambitious designs for Europe were realized. American policymakers were dedicated to an economically and militarily united Special problems for U.S. foreign policy emerged “Atlantic Community,” with the United States the from the worldwide decolonization of European dominant partner. But they found their way blocked overseas possessions after World War II. The African 920 CHAPTER 39 The Stormy Sixties, 1960–1968 Congo received its independence from Belgium in 1960 and immediately exploded into violence. The United Nations sent in a peacekeeping force, to which Washington contributed much money but no manpower. The United States was picking up the tab for U.N. operations, while the organization itself was becoming dominated by the numerous nascent nations emerging in once-colonial Asia and Africa, which were often critical of U.S. foreign policy. Sparsely populated Laos, freed of its French colonial overlords in 1954, was festering danger- ously by the time Kennedy came into office. The Eisenhower administration had drenched this jun- gle kingdom with dollars but failed to cleanse the country of an aggressive communist element. A red Laos, many observers feared, would be a river on which the influence of Communist China would flood into all of Southeast Asia.