Societal Responses to Government Intitiatives

Due to the overwhelming prosperity during the 1960's, people had an overall positive response to the actions taken by the government. Over the decade, the various programs dedicated to eradicating poverty, improving education, and health conditions, showed the public the care that the government had for them. Programs such as medicade, welfare aid, showed the people that their needs were being focused on, and helped them to improve their living situations.

One major oppositions to government intitiatives, was the anti-war movement. Many people did not agree with the decision to enter Vietnam, and so the war caused much conroversy and caused people to speak out against the government in this situation.

Another opposition to government intitiaves was the various race riots that were a result of the government trying to end racial segregation. People felt that that their voices needed to be heard, and so they were willing to do anything to get their ideas across.

Initiatives - Towards the end of the decade

Military spending increased as American's presence in Vietnam grew. What had started as a small military action under Kennedy transfored into a major military initiative during Johnson's presidency.Ironically, spending on both wars-the war on poverty and the fighting war in Vietnam-contributed to prosperity in the short term. But by the end of the 1960s, the government's failure to raise taxes to pay for these efforts led to accelerating inflation, which eroded this prosperity, that had existed throughout the decade.

Entertainment of the '60's

Entertainment that arose during the 1960's seemed to outlast the test of time throughout the decades. Bands such as the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Monkees,Simon and Garfunkel and others took the sixties by storm and

Richard Nixon

Nixon became the resurgence of the Republican party after the defeats of the previous Democrat presidents. In his presidency, he ended the draft, made new environmental incentives, anti crime laws, and revenue sharing. In 1969, under his office, America set foot on the moon, which is also notable. Nixon took up the end of the sixties, as he was only president in one year of it (1969). He is perhaps most famous for his “The Silent Majority” speech, in which he put forth flexible plans for the end of the war. Within the year, American soldiers had been withdrawn and the ceasefire had held.

Ho Chi Minh

Ho Chi Minh gained support and power in North Vietnam through the Chinese communists, whose military and economic contributions allowed Minh to establish a North Vietnamese government after the French left the area. In December of 1960, Minh formed the North Vietnamese military, the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF) also known as the Vietcong. The reason why Minh was able to gain so much power was through the separation of knowledge (so interrogation did not serve much of a purpose) and the fostering of alliances with peasants, which is why the Vietnam War was so hard to fight

The Assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem

After the incident in Saigon, the killing and arrests of many Buddhist bonzes, and the arrests of 4,000 students from Saigon University, the Kennedy Administration was looking to support a new South Vietnamese government. In Early November, a military group led by General Duong Van Minh held a U.S.-backed coup and overthrew Diem, killing both him and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu. On November 2, 1963, the Ngo Dinh’s were taken into custody and killed at point blank range. Many believed that this crisis would lead to American withdrawal of involvement in Vietnam, but 20 days later, Kennedy was shot, leaving Johnson to decide the rest of American policy, in which he called for further participation in Vietnam.

Ngo Dinh Diem

Diem was the anticommunist leader of South Vietnam from after WW II until 1963. As the communist threat in North Vietnam rose, so did American support for him. Kennedy sent both “military advisors” and some $201 million dollars toward Diem’s South Korea in support. In this time, the strength of the Vietcong guerilla was growing, making more authoritative decisions come from Diem, such as the calling off of an election, which would have surely gone to the communist side, under Ho Chi Minh. Diem was corrupt, though, and particularly favored the Catholic population as opposed to the Buddhist and Maoist, gaining him general disfavor and dissent. Diem’s government disfavored the Buddhists, and in 1963, there was a crisis in Siagon involving the harassment of Buddhists by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. On May 8th, the ARVN fired on protesting Buddhists, leading to the famous protesting monk who burned himself alive.