Notes

Assess the reasons why the 1960s and the 1970s were a period of short presidencies.
Dwight David Eisenhower, 1953-1961
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 1961-1963
Lyndon Baines Johnson, 1963-1969
Richard Milhous Nixon, 1969-1974
Gerald Rudolph Ford, 1974-1977



The outbreak and establishment of various organizations and movements that took place in the period of the 1960s and 1970s can be considered to play a key role in the development of America's society as we know it today. Civil rights and feminist rights movement, as well as the LGBT movement began to escalate in the early 60s, as all Americans realized that they deserve equal rights no matter the gender, race or sexuality. This occurrence various rights' movements caused a minor revolution amongst the citizens of the United States, which cause a small-by-scale, but yet by no means nugatory internal crisis in the country. Internal state in the country was struck even more by the oil crisis of the 1970s, which even further divided the country's government from its citizens, because after decades of the development and improvements the American domestic industries had abusing the US oil supply, the oil crisis managed to disrupt the us economical and internal state. For the first time in history, America found itself in a rare situation where it experienced a massive growth of inflation, without having its domestic economy growing, these rare factors all contributed to the formation of stagflation, which severely damaged America's economy. The occurrence of stagflation, with the oil embargo by the Arab nations that caused an oil crisis, along with the internal conflicts between the rights' movement activists and the bureaucracy and the government all lead to the formation of a brand-new divided American society. The American presidents did not only have to cope with the internal culmination of the country, America in this period found itself in the highest stage of the political and military tensions that arose between the two world's strongest countries, the Soviet Union and the United States, the conflict which is also more widely known as the Cold war. Even though the Cold war never had any direct battles between the two, it was held responsible for the series of conflicts and battles happening worldwide. The Cold war could be compared to the Naval race between the UK and Germany before the first world war, but this conflict was on a bigger scale. Both the Soviet Union and the United States were militarily, economically and culturally dominant. Both countries had already developed a nuclear weapon, that America already used against Japan, and most importantly both countries were led by a different system, America was democratic, The SSSR was communist. America's internal policy lead the nation to the outbreak of the red scare, which even further implemented a fear and suspicion of the spread of communism in the country, which even further divided the nation. Besides the cold war, various crisis and wars were happening around the globe, and America felt the need to implement its democracy in all of these, participating in every single war that happened in the 20th century. The conflicts on the Middle East, Vietnam war, the Congo crisis, Bay of Pigs invasion and countless others. America's domestic and foreign problems were at an all-time high, which gave enormous responsibility to the person in charge of the most powerful nation in the world. These responsibilities gave massive responsibilities to all the future presidents of the United States, which predestined and determined their future in the White House. These countless conflicts and crises ensured all the presidents in the period to make several fatal mistakes, that would end their presidencies.
Normally I would start with the Eisenhower, but taking into consideration that the majority of his presidential rule took place in the 1950s, I will not waste much attention to his mistakes. President Eisenhower failed to denounce the senator McCarthy, the person solely responsible for the outbreak of the Red scare, and the political figure that gave his best to put the nation into a state of fear of communism. Also, Eisenhower failed to provide successful leadership in the Civil rights, he never succeeded to speak against the racial violence in the South of the country, also in the Brown case of the Supreme Court he did not seem well too enthusiastic, which massively decreased his popularity and support of the minorities. As his presidency progressed, he managed to be more supportive towards the civil rights movement, but he lacked the ability to demonstrate leadership on civil rights issues, which forced the minorities and the rights' activists to lose faith in his abilities. His biggest mistake would be the progress The Cold war made during his presidency. Even though he made several attempts to defuse the scale and spread of the war, the Cold war was even more threatening after he left the office, than it was before he embarked the presidency eight years earlier.

The next president of the United states, that declared his presidency at the beginning of the 1960s was John F. Kennedy. Even though JFK was also the shortest-running president of the era, being in charge of The office for only 2 years, he made a considerable impact in both the internal and international advancement of the country. Kennedy made some admirable progress in aiding the rights' movements, the countries segregation and discrimination drastically decreased during his presidency. Kennedy defined the civil rights crisis as moral, constitutional and legal crisis. He made several announcements that civil rights would be submitted to the Congress to guarantee equal access to to public facilities, to end segregation in education, and to provide federal protection of the right to vote. John F. Kennedy was seen as a supporter of Martin Luther King's protests, and he gave several speeches and legislations supporting the cause, such as the Civil Rights Address. On June 11th, JFK proposed the Civil Rights Act, which was further implemented and legislated in 1964. He also attempted to improve America's foreign situation, booking several attempts to calm down the Cold War situation. But even though his presidency was short in time, he did not manage to keep it 100% successful. His biggest mistake was the fallacy he shown during the Cuban Missile crisis. John F. Kennedy was in responsibility of the country which was massively superior in the military aspect in comparison to the Soviet Union. John F. Kennedy was in charge of the strongest country in the world, the United States, which had superiority in both arms and weapons, most importantly nuclear weapons. The Soviet Union leaders were aware of that. This situation lead the Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to make a threat to move Soviets nuclear heads to Cuba, which was only 90miles off the coast of Florida, whilst the Soviet Union was thousands of miles away. Kennedy used this to call it a bluff, which forced the Soviets to put nuclear missiles in the Cuban area. The majority of the US public saw Kennedy's reaction as a provocation which forced the SSSR into placing the missiles in Cuban territory, major steps were taken from both the US and USSR government in order to prevent a possible, wider-scale conflict that could potentially bring the ending of both countries. Eventually, the situation calmed down, President Kennedy accepted the Soviet assurances that all nuclear weapons would be removed, and he lifted the Cuban blockade set by the US on November 20th, 1962. The presidency of JFK ended with an assassination on 1963.

The next in line of presidents was Lyndon Baines Johnson, that was unexpectedly given the authority over the country after the misfortunate assassination of the president John F. Kennedy. LBJ managed to "end" the civil rights conflict by implementing the Civil Rights Legislation Act of 1964, that guaranteed equal rights in cultural, political and economic positions, no matter the race. I acknowledge the fact that the passage of the Civil Rights Act will always be a milestone in the history of race relations in the United States. But beyond that accomplishment, Johnson's record in domestic affairs suffered from the same defect as his foreign policy did. He made unrealistic promises in his candidature that he will eliminate poverty from the country, without ever giving any plausible ways of accomplishing this goal. Johnson had a clear goal which he aimed to accomplish during his presidency, which was the formation of The Great society, where " 'every child' finds knowledge to "enrich his mind and enlarge his talents." It will also be a place where "leisure is a welcome chance to build and reflect, not a feared cause of boredom and restlessness," and also where people move beyond "the needs of the body and the demands of commerce" to strive for "beauty" and "community." Certainly, he failed to fulfill this goal, which lead to a massive drop of his popularity, but his most memorable mistake is undoubtedly the Vietnam war. His decisions were conducted with concealment of his military advisers. He tried to keep control of the war, by doubling the troops fighting in Vietnam. An important fact to consider here was that the Vietnamese war was the first televised war in the US, the normal citizens saw the battles, and the majority wanted to end the fight. Nearly nobody saw the point in the US participation in the war, and the protests to end it grew in size and strength, having support from all the civil rights' activists groups. Furthermore, Johnson gave the military most of the troops they wanted but in a way he believed would minimize threats to his Great Society and in order to keep control of the war in his hands. He rejected McNamara’s proposal to mobilize the reserves and put the nation on a war footing. He provided the troops in increments over a period of months to avoid seeking new appropriations from Congress. He rationalized and publicly defended his decisions by insisting that his low key approach would minimize the risk of a third world war. Although obviously aware of the significance of what he was doing, at his July 28 press conference, he flatly denied any change of policy. Johnson's presidency went down in flames because it could never live up to his own irresponsibly exalted standards and expectations he placed upon the common people of the US. Lyndon B. Johnson used his campaign to implement a dream of an ideal America, he urged to create a Great society, he campaigned against the war, but during his presidency he only escalated it. Despite what his apologists may think and hope, the damage to his reputation can't be erased by distracting attention from Vietnam, which was only one aspect of his multifaceted failure. His presidential rule started in 1963, when he received the office as a vice-president after the unfortunate death of JFK and it ended in 1969, passed on Richard Milhous Nixon.

Richard Milhous Nixon was the president of The United States from 1969 until 1974. Nixon's presidential rule is considered by many to be the worst one of the 20th century. His presidency is filled with various scandals and errors. And his biggest mistake was that he was not bothered to mend them, he just wanted to 'wash' himself of them in front of the nation. During the Vietnam war, started by Eisenhower, extended by every future president, and (inadvertently) exacerbated by Nixon. Nixon promised to retrieve troops from Vietnam, in order to end America's involvement in the war. He made the Vietcong sign a peace treaty, which lead to Nixon ordering a retrieval of American soldiers from the land. Nixon's mistake was that he did not pay attention to the possible consequences of his actions; and once the area was clear of American soldiers, The North continued the invasion of the South lands, which ended up in the collapsing of the South's capital, Saigon, which made the South Communist too. This caused surrounding countries to fall to Communism. Majority of American citizens blamed Nixon for this situation, because the Southern invasion was widely expected. Nixon failed to achieve his campaign's promise "Peace with Honor."
Another mistake Nixon made was the bombing of Cambodia, a neighbor country to Vietnam. This decision made Americans very angry because they did not want any involvement with the war in the first place. One of Nixon's major accomplishments was the first successful moon landing, where he took the lead in The Cold War, and showed the Soviets that America's place is on the top. Even though this move made history, and will be memorized by many future generations, it also aided to an increase of competitiveness between the Soviets and the US. But Nixon faced this issue directly, travelling to Moscow and China on various occasions in an attempt to ease tensions with these two countries. Relationship between the communists and America were slightly improved, which could be considered as a success. The most famous failure of Nixon's presidency (and the final one) was the Watergate scandal. His administration was a part of a burglary of the Watergate facility, the burglary that involved a theft of government's papers. When the people of America found out that Nixon had knowledge of this, and when they found out that he was even involved in it, they started anti-campaign groups hating him. He made a speech addressing this issue, the infamous speech "I Am Not A Crook". Soon afterwards, rumors of impeachment questioning this speech came about. Right before the house could vote on his impeachment, Nixon resigned the office of the President of the United States, in the year of 1974.

The next President of the United States was Gerald Rudolph Ford serving from 1974-1977. Ford was not elected President by the American public, he became President in 1974 after Richard Nixon decided to resign, rather than to face removal by the Congress.One of the first mistakes he made in his short presidency was regarding America's previous President Richard Nixon. Gerald Ford allowed Richard Nixon to go unpunished for the political and national crimes he did at Watergate, he pardoned Nixon before he was brought to trial or court, where he'd be convicted. The rule of law was ignored in favor of a double-standard where Presidents were not held accountable for law-breaking. But instead Ford put Republican political advantage before cleansing American politics which even further worsened his publicity in the very beginning of his presidency. Ford and his administration (and also nearly every previous president in the century) failed to fulfill his promise about improving the country's economy. The Ford administration failed to completely remedy the nation's economic problems, but by 1976 the economy had begun to slightly recover from the previous years' recession. His presidency was filled with rising unemployment, inflation and the energy crisis, aside to the nations long term economic decline. His biggest economic error was the replacement of his original economic program, which had raised taxes and capped spending to combat inflation, with a plan that cut taxes and limited government spending to fight unemployment. This turned the country and the government against him all accusing him of doing close to nothing to help Americans suffering from the 'unforgiving' economy. Ford's decisions to change course in these two policy areas raised questions about his ability to address these difficult issues. Ford's presidency was marked by several elements, firstly he faces extraordinary challenges, involving the nation's economic problems which he failed to solve. Secondly, Ford could not navigate a demanding political environment where Democrats and conservative Republicans found fault with his leadership and his foreign and domestic policies. The combination of these two brought his defeat in 1976. Ford was still seen by the Americans as a good man that would, and did bring honor to the White House. But this sentiment solely proved too little to bring him victory in 1976.

As already stated, the five presidents serving in these 16 years had absurdly difficult tasks and challenges to face during their presidencies. The arising of the Cold War conflict, various other wars worldwide, and the domestic crisis the country found itself in, all sealed the deal to the majority of them, with none of the presidents serving a second term.