Part I

Acting Presidential: Viewing the Decade from the Top

In this part . . .

You can tell the overarching story of the 1960s like any historical tale by taking a look at the political side of life — the major figures and events that helped shape the decade. And that’s what we do in this part. We survey the playing field by exploring the presidencies of the decade, along with the successes, trials, and tribulations the United States went through with these men during the decade.

Political life of the 1960s was full of contradictions — the decade started out with Republican President Dwight Eisenhower leading the country. It was a time of peace, prosperity, and conformity. It was what people referred to as “the good-old days” — everyone seemed to be content, and no one wanted to make waves. Then, in November 1960, Democrat John Kennedy was elected president — the youngest man and the only Catholic ever elected to the nation’s highest office. In spite of cold war concerns, it was a time of hope and optimism. But Camelot ended with an assassin’s bullet, and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, a good-old Texas glad-handing politician, took over. His style was completely different, but Johnson continued, and actually expanded, Kennedy’s domestic programs to boost civil rights and end poverty. But the U.S. presence in Vietnam, which expanded to a full-blown war under the Johnson administration, was his undoing, and in 1968, Richard Nixon was elected, in large part because of his law-and-order platform and his vow to end the Vietnam War.