GRC - The John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson Administrations, 1961-1969 , Continued (Lesson)

The John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson Administrations, 1961-1969 , Continued

May 28, 1964—Israel and Palestine

• Founded in Jerusalem, Israel, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) formed to liberate Palestine from Israel through armed struggle and with the demand that Palestinians should be allowed to return to their homes. From its inception, the PLO viewed itself as a government-in-exile and one decade after its formation it received observer status at the United Nations.

August 2, 1964—Vietnam

• In 1964, American involvement in the Vietnam War increased following the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Allegedly, during the incident, North Vietnamese patrol boats attacked the U.S. destroyer Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin. In response, the United States Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that allowed the president "to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States [and] all necessary steps, including the use of armed force" on behalf of South Vietnam. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson used this resolution to order the full-scale bombing of North Vietnam and to send the first U.S. ground troops into the Vietnam War.

October 1, 1964—Science & Technology

• The Japanese began service on its Shinkansen in October 1964 in time for the Tokyo Olympics. The Shinkansen was (and is) Japan's bullet train. The first line connected Tokyo with Osaka and reduced the time it took to travel between the two cities by almost three hours. With this reduction in travel time, day trips could then be made between Japan's two largest cities revolutionizing their style of business and life.

October 16, 1964—Science & Technology

• On this date, China joined the list of nations with nuclear weapons when it tested its first atomic bomb. Despite an international ban on above ground testing, the Chinese conducted an atmospheric test. Three years later, China tested its first hydrogen bomb.

August 1965—India and Pakistan

• For a few weeks in 1965, the largest engagement of armored vehicles since World War II occurred along the border of India and Pakistan as the two nations fought their second Indo-Pakistani War over Kashmir. The battles only ended when the United Nations ordered a cease-fire following diplomatic intervention by both the United States and the Soviet Union. According to the Tashkent Declaration—the peace agreement ending the war—India and Pakistan were required to return conquered lands to each other returning the original border to the line drawn during the 1949 ceasefire agreement following the first Indo-Pakistani War.

November 24, 1965—Democratic Republic of the Congo

• Following the assassination of Patrice Lumumba in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1960, Joseph Mobutu served as the army chief of staff for the nation. But in 1965, he staged another coup in the young nation. Using his role as a cult of personality, Mobutu established a one-party government with himself as "president," claiming that he would return the nation to a democracy within five years. In reality, Mobutu created a dictatorship that allowed him to exploit his nation's resources to amass his own personal fortune (even as his nation suffered) that led to his reign of over two decades to be labeled that of an "archetypal African dictator." However, due to his role as an ally against the spread of communism, he continued to receive American financial, materiel, and political support.

January 24, 1966—India

• According to the Indian constitution, no one can discriminate based on gender—and this led to the rise of the first female prime minister there in 1966. Indira Gandhi, daughter of the former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, became India's prime minister in January 1966. She served in that position until 1977 when she was voted out of office. (But she will come back.) During her first stint as the prime minister, Gandhi (who was not related to Mohandas Gandhi) saw her nation enter another war with Pakistan, the formation of Bangladesh, and the annexation of more states into India.

February 24, 1966—Ghana

• In 1966, the Ghana military overthrew Kwame Nkrumah's government and he fled to live a life of exile. The new military regime cast aside Nkrumah's socialist policies but continued to take money from the cocoa farmers. The period between 1966 and 1981 was marked by a revolving door that brought in new governments every few years. During this fifteen year period, Ghana went back and forth between military governments and civilian governments. All of this political confusion and the restrictions placed on Ghana's cocoa profits took its toll on the once optimistic Ghana and the nation fell into an intense economic depression.

May 16, 1966—China

• In an attempt to purge anything that Chairman Mao Tse-tung felt corrupted communism within China, he announced his plan for a socio-political movement known as the Cultural Revolution in May 1966. Politically weakened by the failure of his "Great Leap Forward" plan, the Cultural Revolution reaffirmed Chairman Mao's power over his nation. During the Cultural Revolution, from 1966 to 1976, Chairman Mao encouraged students known as the Red Guard to search homes, confiscate anything "old", and punish "wrong-doers." Specifically targeted were the "Four Olds." These included principles associated with old customs, old culture, old habits and old ideas. But as this wasn't a very detailed list—anything could apply—a picture of an old family member, old furniture, a souvenir…Without any specific rules on these searches and punishments, the Red Guard abused its power and brought in a decade of terror for China. If they found someone "guilty" of "wrong-doing" they would subject the person to a "struggle session" where the person was publicly displayed so crowds could humiliate or abuse the "wrong-doer." At the same time, the ownership of Quotations from Chairman Mao—commonly referred to as Mao's Little Red Book —became practically mandatory (leading it to become one of the most sold books of all time, competing with the Bible and the Qur'an.)

October 5, 1966—Korean Peninsula

• In October 1966, the Korean DMZ Conflict started and lasted for the next three years. The Korean DMZ was (and is) the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that stretches along the border between North and South Korea. Serving as a buffer between the hostile neighbors, it is 160 miles long and about 2.5 miles wide. There is a meeting point within the DMZ for the neighbors to hold negotiations. The Korean DMZ Conflict involved a series of mostly low-level skirmishes between North and South Korean troops.

March 6, 1967—Cold War

• On this date, Svetlana Alliluyeva walked into the United States Embassy in New Delhi, India and requested asylum. As a Soviet citizen, Svetlana was visiting India to deliver the ashes of her former boyfriend to his family—he had died of natural causes while in Moscow—but had made the decision not to return to the Soviet Union. Defections—as this clearly became—were not that unusual by Eastern Bloc citizens traveling abroad. But this was a special case—she was the daughter of the Joseph Stalin (the former premier of the Soviet Union.) At the age of 41 (and with adult children still living in the Soviet Union,) Svetlana moved to the United States. She remarried, had a child, moved to Great Britain, moved back to the Soviet Union, moved back to Great Britain, and finally moved back to the United States over the course of the rest of her life.

March 11, 1967—Cambodia

• Over a period of eight years, beginning in March 1967, Cambodians fought in the Cambodian Civil War. Three years into the war, General Lon Nol (who served as the Cambodian Prime Minister and the head of the army) overthrew Prince Norodom Sihanouk (a man who had been given the chance to be king of Cambodia twice since its independence in 1953 but turned down the title as he worked as Chief of State.) General Lon Nol abolished the monarchy, became president, renamed Cambodia to the Khmer Republic and engaged in a civil war against the Communist Khmer Rouge ("Red Khmer") troops for the next eight years.

March 12, 1967--Indonesia

• For almost 20 years, Sukarno served as the president of Indonesia—but over time, his rule grew increasingly dictatorial. In 1960, he dissolved the Indonesian Legislature. In 1965, he pulled Indonesia out of the United Nations. And his military killed hundreds of thousands of Indonesians in rebellions and coup attempts. In the last coup attempt in 1965, roughly 500,000 people died before the army suppressed the rebellion. The fragile balance between Sukarno's government and the military collapsed. At that point, General Suharto started to lead the nation (even as Sukarno kept his title as president.) But in January 1967, that title was stripped away; and in March, Sukarno was placed under house arrest. General Suharto became President Suharto (he also went by the one name) and immediately established a "New Order" policy in Indonesia. Under this policy, the new president ruled very strictly as protest groups, rebels and the press were squashed during his three decades in office.

June 5, 1967—Israel and the Middle East

• The Six-Day War started in June 1967 and was fought between Israel and the nations of Egypt, Jordan and Syria as one in the series of Arab-Israel Wars. The nation of Israel had access to the Red Sea by sailing through the Straits of Tiran at the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba—but Egypt had control over the Straits of Tiran. When Egypt announced in late May that it would close the Straits of Tiran to the Israelis, Israel launched a number of airstrikes into Egypt—supposedly, these were preemptive airstrikes. Egypt was not prepared and lost almost its entire air force. In the meantime, Israeli troops moved into the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula. Egypt convinced Jordan and Syria to participate in the war and Israeli troops moved into their lands located in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Golan Heights. (Look at the map to gain a sense of the land the Israeli troops captured.) Before the week was out, the various sides signed a ceasefire and Israeli troops occupied more land than ever. The capture of Egyptian, Jordanian and Syrian territories led to an increase in the number of Arab refugees (another 400,000) pushed out of their homes. The lessons learned from the war were immense—the Israeli army would no longer be underrated and the Arab world corrected military inefficiencies in preparation for further conflicts.

July 6, 1967—Nigeria

• In 1966, a military coup overthrew the Nigerian government. At that point, the Igbo people of the eastern region decided to secede from Nigeria and declare themselves the new Republic of Biafra. This secession started a three-year civil war. Two million people died as a result of the civil war and in the end Nigeria remained unified and still included its eastern region.

October 9, 1967—Cold War

• When Bolivian troops arrested Ernesto "Che" Guevara in October 1967, they arrested an Argentinian known for his work as a Marxist Revolutionary, physician, author, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and military theorist. Che Guevara spent his life traveling around Latin America working to overturn what he considered to be capitalist exploitations of the poor—he started in Guatemala by working with the its president before the CIA coup ousted him—moved to Mexico City where he worked as a doctor and news photographer—traveled with the Castro brothers to oust Batista from Cuba (where he stayed for a few years working in an advisory capacity)—spoke to the United Nations on behalf of Cuba and then commenced a world tour to promote his position against American corruptive practices—attempted to bring revolution to the Congo in Africa—and ended his career in Bolivia to form a guerrilla army to overthrow the Bolivian government. Within one day of his arrest, the Bolivian government executed Guevara and his legacy since has been a mixture of revilement and reverence. Historians—though they debate his character and legacy—point out that Guevara's image has become iconic among many movements since.

December 3, 1967—Science & Technology

• On this date, a 53-year old man in South Africa received the first human heart transplant in history. The heart functioned perfectly, but he passed away 18 days later from the double pneumonia he contracted while taking drugs that suppressed his immune system so that it would not reject the heart. The world's first pediatric heart transplant occurred on December 6^th of the same year in New York—but the infant recipient died within hours.

January 5, 1968--Czechoslovakia

• Signs that all was not well within communist Czechoslovakia appeared as early as 1966 as Slovaks complained about the lack of local autonomy, farmers complained about the lack of innovation, and urban workers complained about their poor housing and lifestyles. It seemed that they felt the Soviet Union was exploiting them. Following student demonstrations against the current leader, Alexander Dubček was chosen as a new leader of the Czech Communist Party in January 1968. Dubček maintained that the Communist Party should remain the dominant party of the nation but argued that it was time for some of its more authoritarian practices to be thrown out. The timing for this change in policy is known as the Prague Spring (named after the capital of Czechoslovakia) and included the allowance of party members to make their own decisions, the allowance of civilians to criticize the government, and the allowance of the press to speak and investigate freely. Leaders in Moscow were not impressed with Dubček's reforms and sent (a lot of) Soviet troops and tanks to squash the Prague Spring in August. Dubček, himself, was taken to Moscow for some lectures—he returned home and announced the end of the reforms. The next year he was removed from office.

January 23, 1968—North Korea

• In 1968, North Korea stepped up its involvement in the Korean DMZ Conflict by sending North Korean soldiers across the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) into South Korea. While there, the soldiers killed dozens of South Koreans in an attempt to attack the official residence of the President of South Korea. On January 23^rd, the North Koreans captured the USS Pueblo in waters off the coast of North Korea. Holding the American crew in captivity for eleven months, North Korea argued that the American vessel (which was an environmental research ship being used as a spy ship) had trespassed into North Korean waters. The United States argued that the ship was captured in international waters. The North Koreans eventually released the American prisoners after the United States admitted that the ship had trespassed and was spying (an admission that they immediately recanted once the crew was back in American hands.) However, the North Koreans did not return the USS Pueblo—it is still docked in Pyongyang and serves as a museum ship at the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum.

January 30, 1968—Vietnam

• In 1965, the United States started sending in American troops and bombing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam.) By 1968, 550,000 American soldiers were stationed in Vietnam with another 70,000 waiting in the wings. In January, the Vietcong and the North Vietnam army launched its largest military campaign of the war. The South Vietnam and U.S. armies were able to hold off a military victory by the coordinated attacks on scores of villages and cities—meaning that South Vietnam did not fall—but the Tet Offensive (as it was called) was a moral and political victory for the North Vietnamese and Vietcong. Coverage of the battles in the Tet Offensive led many in the United States to question the purpose and accomplishment of American involvement in the war. Over the next few months, U.S. President Johnson ordered the narrowing of territory in North Vietnam to be bombed and started a conversation with North Vietnamese representatives in Paris over how to end the war. Also during that year, President Johnson decided not to run for re-election as the American president.

March 16, 1968—Vietnam

• Still in the throes of the Tet Offensive, a company of American soldiers arrived at the village of My Lai. There, while under the command of Second Lieutenant William Calley, the troops brutally murdered hundreds of women, children and the elderly without provocation. Initially, the army covered up the action but the My Lai Massacre hit global headlines the next year and further eroded support of American troops in Vietnam. Two years after the massacre, fourteen officers were charged with crimes (including suppressing information) but only one was convicted—the commanding officer that had been on the scene and argued that he was only following orders. Calley received a life sentence that was eventually commuted to twenty years—of that he served less than four years under house arrest.

July 17, 1968—Iraq

• In 1968, the Ba'ath Party seized power in Iraq. While under its control, Iraq used its abundant oil revenues to build up its economy but used harsh positions to suppress internal political foes while pursuing an aggressive foreign policy. During the firsts decade of Ba'ath rule, Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr served as leader with Saddam Hussein as his vice president.

October 2, 1968—Mexico/Cold War

• As mentioned before, the Cold War pervaded all areas and people of the world—whether directly or indirectly. In Mexico, the government launched what has come to be known as the Dirty War—a domestic struggle between the Mexican right-wing government (backed by the United States) and the leftist student and guerrilla groups of the 1960s to the 1980s—in essence, it was an organized systematic campaign to eliminate leftist groups in Mexico. The Mexican military used many tactics in this campaign— "death flights," sieges on villages to cause starvation, death camps, disappearances, and open shootings. This last tactic occurred multiple times but is most remembered during the Tlatelolco Massacre in Mexico City in October 1968. On that day, hundreds of student and civilian protestors were killed as they protested the measures taken by the government to get the city ready for the Olympics (held just ten days after the massacre.) Details of the massacre and the Dirty War were swept under the rug for decades—only recently has attention turned to the government's actions and cover-ups (as well as the role that the United States played in both.)

October 5, 1968—Northern Ireland

• When the Republic of Ireland received its independence years before, the island on which it was located was partitioned into that nation and Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland remained a part of Great Britain (the United Kingdom) causing tensions between Irish Nationalists and the British government for many decades afterwards. The tensions came from frequent and violent disputes between the majority Unionists (mainly Protestants who wish to remain part of the U.K.) and Nationalists (mainly Catholics who would prefer a reunion with the Republic of Ireland) living in Northern Ireland. Included in their disputes was the denial of Civil Rights to the Catholic/Nationalist minority involving access to jobs and housing, the right to vote (one had to be a property owner in Northern Ireland,) an end to corrupt political practices, the reform of the police department and a repeal of a law that allowed police to search without a warrant and arrest without a charge. In the mid-1960s, many anti-violent Civil Rights marches occurred in Northern Ireland with these issues in mind. But in October 1968, one of the marches turned violent when police surrounded and heavily beat the protestors as camera crews filmed. And, so began a period known as "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland—a period of roughly two (or more) decades of violence led by Nationalist and Loyalist paramilitaries against each other involving riots, bombings, shootings, fights, and assassinations.

 

 

RESOURCES IN THIS MODULE ARE OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES (OER) OR CREATED BY GAVS UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED. SOME IMAGES USED UNDER SUBSCRIPTION.