20.1 KENNEDY’S COLD WAR

1960 ELECTION Economy was slumping, blamed on Republicans Kennedy v. (Vice President) Nixon Youth v. experience Kennedy charmed audiences in first-ever TV debates Critics suspect Kennedy won (barely) with the help of Mafia connections & “vote-stuffing”

KENNEDY IN CAMELOT The public was infatuated with the Kennedys Jack’s personality, Jackie’s sense of fashion, their two young children Referred to as “Camelot” because they almost seemed like America’s royal family

COLD WAR CONFRONTATIONS Beefed up military spending, both for “conventional” and nuclear war Russians build the Berlin Wall, separating East (commie) and West Berlin Was built more for keeping in Communist citizens from escaping than for keeping us out

TROUBLE IN CUBA 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion: Eisenhower (and Kennedy) approved the CIA training Cuban- Americans to try to take out Fidel Castro Castro took over as a communist dictator in 1959 Bay of Pigs was a disaster: troops became lost, surrounded. We looked like fools

TROUBLE IN CUBA Cuba became very dependent on the USSR for money, food, equipment Summer of 1962, USSR steps up shipments of weapons, including nuclear missiles Oct 1962 “Cuban Missile Crisis” our ships square off in the water between the U.S. & Cuba Almost came to us nuking each other (USSR included) Closest the world has ever come to nuclear war We installed a “hot-line” between White House and USSR to avoid this thing in the future