Kept talking about presidents and got into vietnam
Harry Truman -33rd President (1945-1953)
- Became Vice president for FDR in January, 1945
- Took over for FDR when he died in April, 1945
- On of the most unpopular presidents of all time when he left office -22% approval rating
- Rating has improved greatly over the last 60 years
Accomplishments
- President when WWII ended with Germany and Japan
- Potsdam Conference/Declaration
- Decided to use the atomic bomb against Japan
- Had to deal with transition from wartime economy to peacetime economy
- Helped organize and later join the united Nations
- Took a hard-line stance against communism and the Soviet Union-Policy of Containment
- Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan were passed
- Created the CIA and the National Security Council
- "The buck stops here"
- The Fair deal-help people in need
- Israel- home place for the Jews
Dwight Eisenhower-34th Pres.(1953-1961)
- Famous WWII General
- Decided to join the Republican Party after WWII
- This all but guaranteed him a win in the 1952 election
- Richard Nixon was his Vice-President
- Believed in Laissez-faire
- Believed in a balance budget
- Deported around 1 million illegal immigrants
- Sent federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas to help in the desegregation of all public schools-1954-Brown case
- Helped pass the federal-Aid Highway Cat of 1956 which created the US interstate highways
Accomplishments
- Dominated by the Cold War- Containment policy
- Used CIA to do convertors to disrupt communist governments abroad
- Opened relations with Spain
- Ended the Korean Conflict as promised in his 1952 election campaign
- Defensive alliances were signed with South Korea and Taiwan
- SEATO was formed
- Developed idea that nuclear weapons would be defensive
- NASA created due to Sputnik launch
John F. Kennedy 35th pres. 1961-1963
- Served in WWII
- Was a US Representative and Senator form Massachusetts before becoming President
- Married Jacqueline Lee Bouvier
- First and only Catholic president
- Youngest elected president and second youngest president
- Assassinated in 1963 in Dallas, Texas by Lee Harvey Oswald
1960 Election
- Ran against Vice-President Richard Nixon
- First presidential televised debates took place
- Many say this helped JFK with the election
Accomplishments
- Cold War issues dominated Kennedy's presidency
- Berlin Wall was built in 1961
- Bay of Pigs invasion-1961
- Cuban Missile Crisis
- Alliance for Progress with Latin America
- Kennedy increased the number of helicopters, military advisers and undeclared special forces to Viatnam
- The CIA helped the new Ba'ath Party government overthrow Communists in Iraq.
- murdered large numbers of Iraq's educated people
- Saddam Hussein is said to have participated in this massacre
- Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was signed-1963
- Peace Corps was established in 1961 where Americans volunteer to hep underdeveloped nations in areas such as education, farming, health car, and construction
- Signed the Equal Pay Act of 1963, a federal law aimed at abolishing wage disparity based on sex
The New Frontier
- Promised federal funding for:
- education
- medical care for the elderly
- economic aid to rural regions
- government intervention to halt the recession
- end racial discrimination
President Lyndon Johnson 36th (1963-1969)
- JFK's Vice-President
- Took over as President after JFK was assassinated
- One presidential election
Accomplishments
- Put together the Warren Commission to investigate the JFK assassination
- Passed Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed most forms of racial segregation
- Passed voting Rights Act of 1965 which outlawed discrimination in voting, thus allowing millions of southern blacks to vote for the first time
- Started affirmative action lwas
- Passed Immigration Act of 1965 which allowed more non-European people to immigrate to US. Immigration more than doubled between 1965-1970.
- The Great Society
- Aid education
- attack disease
- Medicare and Medicaid
- urban renewal
- beautification, conservation, development of depressed regions
- war on poverty
- control and prevention of crime
- removal of obstacles on the right to vote
- Vietnam
- Vietnam conflict dominated much of Johnson's presidency
- Believed in Domino Theory
- Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (1964)-Congress gave Johnson power to wage war in Vietnam as he saw fit
President Richard Nixon 37th (1969-1974)
- Vice-President of Eisenhower
- Lost 1960 election to JFK
- The only person to be elected twice to both the Presidency and the Vice Presidency
- Only President to resign from office
accomplishments
- Vietnam Conflict dominated much of his presidency-war became very unpopular
- Promised to end the war-"Peace with honor"
- expanded the war to Cambodia and Laos bombing Ho Chi Minh Trail
- Started pulling troops out of Vietnam as promised
- The Nixon Doctrine- "Vietnamization" of the war
- Paris peace Accords signed in 1973 stopped the fighting and got the US out of the war
- Environmental Decade
- Clean air act of 1970
- war on drugs-1971
- saw large scale integration of schools in the south
- Supported affirmative action
- Signed Title IX prohibiting gender discrimination in all federally funded schools
- Abortion was legalized during Nixon's presidency
- US astronauts landed on the moon-1969
- Nixon approved the development of NASA's Space Shuttle program
- In 1972, President Nixon traveled to China where the president was to have direct talks with Mao Zedong and Chou En-lai
Soviet Union Visit
- Went to Moscow in 1972
- SALTI was signed, limiting nuclear weapons
Watergate
- 5 men were caught breaking into Democratic party headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington D.C. on June 17, 1972 to find dirt on the Democratic Party
- Two Washington Post reporters, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, investigated the story
- Woodward and Bernstein relied on an FBI informant known as "Deep Throat" to link the men to the Nixon White House- "follow the money"
- This became on of a series of scandalous acts involving the Committee to Re-Elect the President
- Nixon downplayed the scandal and denounced the story as biased and misleading
- FBI eventually confirmed that Nixon aides had attempted to sabotage the Democrats—many began resigning and faced prosecution
- Nixon was involved by trying to cover up the break-in (obstruction of justice) and eventually resigned from the presidency
President Gerald Ford- 38th (1974-1977)
- Nixon's Vice president
- Took over when Nixon resigned
- Only Vice President and President to never be elected
- "I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your president by your ballots, and so i ask to you to confirm me as your president with your prayers." Ford
- Had two assassination attempts within three weeks
Accomplishments
- Pardoned Nixon- a "corrupt bargain?"
- Offered conditional amnesty program for Vietnam war draft dodgers who had fled to countries such as Canada
- "Whip Inflation Now" called for Americans to reduce their spending and consumption in an attempt to stop inflation
- Education for All Handicapped Children Act (1975) established special education in school throughout the US
- Continued Detente with the USSR
- Ford wanted to hep South Vietnam when North Vietnam invaded in 1974 but congress refused
- By April 1975, all of Vietnam became communist
- Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act was passed to allow refugees to immigrate to the US
The Vietnam Conflict (1950-1975)
The French Connection
- France had gained control of Indochina in a series of colonial wars in the mid-late 1800's
- During World War II, Vichy France worked with Japanese forces in controlling Indochina during WWII
- After the Japanese surrender, the French fought to retain control of their former colony against the Viet Minh independence movement, led by communist party leader Ho Chi Minh
- After the Viet Minh defeated the French colonial army at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, The French withdrew, and the colony was granted independence
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