What were some of JFKs domestic policies?
 Show JFK at press conference, Kennedy's "New Frontier" is remembered today more for its foreign policy successes and blunders - the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Bay of Pigs, Vietnam - than for domestic policy. JFK was president at the height of the Cold War, and foreign policy initiatives and crisis often dominated the agenda. But President Kennedy was active on the home front as well. His brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, unleashed an unprecedented war on organized crime, one foreshadowed by the brothers' days together on the McClelland Committee. This aggressive federal effort against Carlos Marcello, Sam Giancana, Jimmy Hoffa and many others had its own political costs, and was particularly sensitive given the Democratic party's relationship with organized labor. Another hot-button area was civil rights; here Kennedy was less than fully engaged for most of his presidency, enforcing civil rights laws while attempting without success to apply the brakes to the country's looming crisis. Kennedy needed Democratic southern Senators on his side, and saw too clearly the political costs of pushing too hard on civil rights. His successor, Lyndon Johnson, would succeed in doing the right thing, enacting the Civil Rights Act introduced by Kennedy in the summer of 1963, and simultaneously triggering the great realignment where the "solid South" thereafter moved as a bloc from the Democrats to the Republicans. Beyond these two great issues of the day, JFK created the Peace Corps, initiated the "space race" which put a man on the moon in 1969, advocated on mental health issues, and worked with Congress on affordable housing, equal pay for women, and a host of other agendas. In the economic arena, JFK is remembered for his tax cuts, particularly by Republicans eager to claim their share of his memory. Often forgotten is the uneasy relationship he had with big business. The most dramatic moment came in April 1962, when Kennedy took on Big Steel, forcing rollback of price increases which he declared were not "in the public interest." RESOURCES:
Kennedy's Foreign Policy - Short History - Department History
A Short History of the Department of StateKennedy’s close advisers believed that Eisenhower’s foreign policy establishment was stultified, slow moving, overly reliant on brinksmanship and massive retaliation, and complacent. Their fear was that after eight years, the State Department would be unable to implement their new international vision. The new President was determined to control foreign policy through a young and energetic White House and NSC staffers who would make their own informal contacts within the foreign affairs bureaucracy. Furthermore, Kennedy thought that Eisenhower and Secretaries Dulles and Herter had all but ceded the newly emerging states in Latin America, Asia, and Africa to the communists. Official White House Portrait of President John Kennedy The execution of Kennedy’s foreign policy did not quite live up to the stirring rhetoric of his inaugural speech, in which he said: “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” In fact, his foreign policy was marred by a string of failures. First, Kennedy gave the green light to an Eisenhower-initiated invasion of the Bay of Pigs in Cuba in 1961. Based on faulty intelligence, the military action, which was carried out by Cuban exiles without crucial air support was a fiasco. Then in June 1961 at the Vienna Summit with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, Kennedy was unprepared and seemed to be a lightweight playboy. Next, Kennedy’s tough talk about the Soviet Union in Berlin did not improve the situation—instead, the Soviets built the Berlin Wall. Finally, his decision not to draw the line against communism in Laos, as the Eisenhower Administration had urged, left South Vietnam as the place to fight communism in Asia. Kennedy’s overall record was a mixed bag of success and failure. At the President’s urging, Congress established the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) in 1961 as a separate entity under Department of State auspices. The Administration built on Eisenhower’s extensive negotiations with the Soviet Union, but the Limited Test Ban Treaty signed by Kennedy only outlawed atmospheric but not underground nuclear testing. In Vietnam, the Kennedy Administration approved the overthrow of President Diem, believing that any successor government would have to be an improvement over Diem’s. They were wrong. Finally, U.S. initiatives in Western Europe, such as support for British entry into the European Economic Community and European defense integration, also were unsuccessful. Were JFK's domestic policies successful?Despite lasting only 1036 days, many historians have argued that Kennedy's domestic policies achieved much success in that they were wide ranging and ambitious.
What was President Kennedy's domestic challenge to the US in 1961?On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy in an address to Congress challenged the nation to “commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon.” He asked Congress to find additional funds to support the nation's space program.
|
