American politics since 1945

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The first notable incident that happened was the failed Bay of Pigs’ invasion in Cuba in April 1961. Cuba used to be a favourite destination for rich American tourists and the US government supported dictator Batista. But in 1959, he was overthrown by a group of Marxists guerrillas led by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara who established a communist regime. For the Americans, this was unbearable, and the CIA was planning to overthrow Castro by helping the anti-Castro Cubans. In April 1961, a small force landed on the island at the Bay of the Pigs, but they were wiped out by Castro’s troops. President Kennedy accepted full responsibility for this failure, even if the decision had been taken by the previous administration.

In diplomacy, the Kennedy presidency was marked by undeniable success, the president began frank and courteous negotiations with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, and the latter even said “I don’t agree with this man, but I can talk to him”. Unofficially, it was said that Khrushchev liked to deal with Kennedy because, the newly elected president was a novice in diplomacy. The détente period that was beginning to emerge soon disappeared, and there was another period of tension, the most serious in the Cold War as it led the two superpowers on the brink of a nuclear conflict, this was the Cuban crisis in October 1962. It was rumoured that the Soviets were supplying Cuba with nuclear missiles and in October 1962, the US Army had evidence of this. First, the White House considered an invasion of Cuba, but it was feared that the Soviets, as a retaliation, would seize Berlin. Even if the Soviet diplomats said that those missiles were only defensive, the president accused them of lying in a TV address and said that an aerial and naval blockade would examine all the ships approaching Cuba. After a week, Khrushchev eventually agreed to remove those missiles from Cuba after getting JFK’s promise not to invade the island. With hindsight, this crisis led to further détente between the two countries. The hot line between the White House and the Kremlin was set up a few months later as the crisis had revealed the need of a direct link between the two leaders in case of emergencies.

During the 1960’s, American prestige remained vivid in the Western World, but the Kennedy presidency was not as ideal as it is sometimes thought to be. During his term, it was thought the Kennedy family had much influence in American politics. Not only was JFK president, but his brothers Bob and Ted also played an active role alongside him. Bob was Attorney General, while Ted quickly became a senator. And as their father, Joseph had had ties with gangsters during the 1920’s, it was also thought that the Kennedys were linked to organised crime. Nothing was proved, but doubt remains. It was also during this presidency that the USA began to intervene in Vietnam. As early as May 1961, the president had sent the Special Forces to South Vietnam which was fighting the Communist North Vietnam. In economy, inflation was beginning to grow and the president accused the steel industries of pursuing private profits at the expense of citizens. As a result those industries did not raise the prices as they wished to.

So, everything didn’t go smoothly under the Kennedy presidency, and his assassination in Dallas on November, 22nd 1963 put a brutal stop to the reforms he was trying to undertake. The official report was that he was killed by a man named Lee Harvey Oswald, but doubt remains as well. In any case this tragic event was felt as a trauma. Vice president Lyndon Johnson took over and Kennedy was buried in Washington D.C. and a million mourners lined the streets. But this tragic episode was only one of the many violent events that characterised American politics in the 1960’s.

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The Nixon presidency

The Vietnam war

After the murder of Robert Kennedy, the democrats were plunged into a deep crisis. In August 1968, the Democratic Convention in Chicago was marred by demonstrations and riots. The democratic committee refused to incorporate opponents to the Vietnam War, which led to confrontations between them and the police. Concerning the convention itself, it was “haunted” by the ghost of Robert Kennedy, and an attempt to nominate his younger brother Ted almost slipped the party. Eventually, senator Hubert H. Humphrey, Johnson’s former vice-president was nominated as the Democratic candidate, but this atmosphere of trouble and unrest favoured the Republican candidate, former vice-president Richard Nixon who had come back from political retirement. This time, Nixon called a restoration of law and order within the American nation, and his victory was narrow as George Wallace, the Independent candidate also advocated law & order and gathered about 10 million votes, compared to Nixon’s 29.7 and Humphrey’s 29.6. But it was Nixon who became the 37th president.

He remains a controversial figure, but he was a cunning politician who realised what had to be done to try and improve the social atmosphere in the country, as well as in foreign policy. The absolute priority was America’s involvement in the Vietnam war. In June 1969, the president announced that 25,000 American troops would be sent home and in July, he launched the Vietnamization Plan which called for a gradual disengagement from the conflict in order to hand over the responsibilities to South Vietnam. President Nixon realised that the US army was getting stuck in this conflict, and he thought that the best the United States had to do was to look for an honourable exit. Even if he was aware of this, the president did not really want the USA to lose this war, and as the troops were gradually withdrawn, the bombings were intensified. In late April 1970, America and South Vietnam invaded Cambodia to open another front in the war. Five days later students protested at Kent State University, Ohio, and the guardsmen retaliated which led to the deaths of four people. This tragic event was felt as yet another trauma which made Nixon unpopular for a certain time.

More generally, the president wished to set up a New Revolution corresponding to a policy in which power was turned back to the people. He called for revenue-sharing to renew local government. But, as Congress was controlled by the Democrats, this New Revolution was difficult to implement. The Nixon presidency was once defined as an imperial presidency. But it was mainly because Nixon was the first 20th-century president deprived of the majority of his own party in Congress. As a consequence, he resorted to a reinforcement of the executive power to take decisions and shift the balance of power from Congress to the