Chapter XXXIX: The Stormy Sixties

REVISED

  1. Why did the media characterize the Kennedy administration as the "Best and the Brightest"? As "Camelot"?
  2. Which aspects of the New Frontier succeeded? Which failed?
  3. Why did Kennedy increase American involvement in Vietnam? To what ends?
  4. How did Eisenhower's plan for the invasion of Cuba cause Kennedy problems?
  5. How did the Vienna Summit conference of 1961 and the Bay of Pigs help provoke the Cuban Missile Crisis?
  6. What steps did JFK take in addressing the Cuban Missile Crisis? What was the outcome? Should Kennedy's approach to the crisis be considered a model to copy or an unnecessarily risky course of action?
  7. If Kennedy felt strongly about Civil Rights struggles, why didn't he take more aggressive action to help the cause? Is criticism of Kennedy on this issue justified? How does it tie into his
    assassination?
  8. Who killed Kennedy and why? (Make your best case for this one!)
  9. Describe Johnson's Great Society in detail. To what extent has it succeeded or failed?
  10. Why did Johnson find it so easy to win the presidency in 1964?
  11. What key legislation did LBJ secure that empowered African-Americans? Why did his efforts fail to satisfy radical members of the African-American community?
  12. What is the great significance of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution? How did it ultimately lead to Johnson's "abdication" of 1968?
  13. Saratoga High School has just introduced an elective course in social studies called "1968". How could a teacher spend a whole semester on just that year?
  14. What was the "counterculture" all about? Why did it happen when it did? Are you "hippie"? Why or why not? (Beware of stereotypes!)
  15. Identify:
    • J. Edgar Hoover
    • Robert McNamara
    • Dean Rusk
    • Robert F. Kennedy
    • Spiro Agnew
    • Jaqueline Kennedy
    • Ngo Dinh Diem
    • Ho Chi Minh Trail
    • Fidel Castro
    • James Meredith
    • Freedom Riders
    • Hubert Horatio Humphrey
    • George Wallace
    • A.I.P.
    • Lee Harvey Oswald
    • Jack Ruby
    • Barry Goldwater
    • Tet Offensive
    • Eugene McCarthy
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