8) The Rebellious 1960s

Events and Policies

- Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969, in office 1953-1961, 34^th President)

- John F. Kennedy (1917-1963, in office 1961-1963, 35^th President): his were the first televised elections, also his assassination on 2^nd Nov 1963 by Lee Harvey Oswald was televised, his inaugural address contained his famous urge ‘Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.’

- Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973, in office 1963-1969, 36^th President)

- Richard Nixon (1913-1994, in office 1969-1974, 37^th President)

Cold War Operations (1947-1991)

- JFK increased spending on the space programme, as a result Apollo 11 landed on the Moon (1969) and Neil Armstrong became the first person to the planet (‘That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.’)

- spending on arms increased, the US Army Special Forces, known as Green Berets, engaged in covert operations

Bay of Pigs Invasion (1961)

- Fidel Castro exported products to the USSR, President Eisenhower reacted by putting economic embargo on Cuba

- US-trained Cuban exiles supported by the US government unsuccessfully attempted to overthrow Castro’s regime

Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)

- Castro asked the USSR for military help, JFK reacted by blockading all shipping to Cuba, including civil ships

- the USSR removed all the missiles from Cuba in exchange for the promise that the US will not invade Cuba

Vietnam War (1959-1975)

- Vietnam remained a part of French Indochina after the WWII, the French were defeated by the communist China under Ho Chi Minh (1954) and Vietnam was divided into the communist North and the officially democratic South where the US acted as military advisers

- the North attacked the South (1959), in the ensuing civil war the poor people of the South joined the North Vietnamese communists, Viet Cong, because the South had an unpopular ruler

- Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (1964): President Johnson announced the measures to undertake as a reaction against the alleged attack of North Vietnam on US ships

- the Vietnam War was never formally declared by the US, it started with air bombing and sending out US troops

- the US forces were on search-and-destroy missions, looking for Viet Cong but killing also many civilians in the process, also caused ecological devastation by using napalm as a herbicide

- the first televised war, sometimes even live, the nation disapproved of the drafting of young men and protested

- Tet Offensive (1968): a Viet Cong action, ended with the strategic and psychological victory of the North, the US recognized that they cannot win in Vietnam, but the withdrawing and negotiating took five more years

- President Nixon’s National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger played a major role in ending the Vietnam War

- in 1973 peace agreement was closed, in 1975 the war ended with the victory of the North which gained the South

Society

Civil Rights Movement

- Martin Luther King (1929-1968, assassinated): a clergyman, Civil Rights leader, admirer of Mahatma Gandhi, advocate of non-violent resistance and civil disobedience

- the Nashville (Tennessee) sit-ins (1960): one of a series of large-scale protest sit-ins, directed against lunch counters refusing to serve black people, the demonstrators kept on sitting peacefully at the counters till closing time

- Children’s Crusade (Birmingham, Alabama; 1963): a protest march of school students who protested against the arrest of Martin Luther King who was jailed in Birmingham

- March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (1963): a protest march attended by ¼ million people, Martin Luther King delivered his most famous speech ‘I Have a Dream’ during the march at the Lincoln Memorial

- Civil Rights Act (1964): the result of the March on Washington, outlawed racial segregation

- Malcolm X (b. Malcolm Little, but dropped the white man’s name; 1925-1965, assassinated): a Muslim minister, Civil Rights leader, frustrated with the limits of non-violent protests, argued for a return to the African heritage

- Black Panther Party (1966-1976): a section of the military party Black Power Movement, followed Malcolm X

Culture

- the rebellious tradition of the Beatnik generation in 1950s was followed by the hippies in 1960s

- Summer of Love (1967): an unprecedented gathering of people in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, California, a cultural and political rebellion, an experiment in communal living, sharing of resources, and free love

- Woodstock Festival (1969): an unprecedented three-day music festival near Woodstock, New York, featured Janis Joplin, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Joe Cocker, Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana, etc.

- Timothy Leary (1920-1996): a psychologist, advocate of psychedelic drug research by the means of controlled experiments, a proponent of the therapeutic and spiritual benefits of LSD, an icon of counter-culture, a drug guru

- Merry Pranksters (1964): a group of people formed around the writer Ken Kesey, travelled the US from San Francisco to New York in a psychedelic painted bus, included also the beatniks Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, etc.

Music

- musicals: Hair (1967)

- rock’n’roll: Elvis Presley

- black music: Aretha Franklin, James Brown

- folk music: Peter, Paul, & Mary; Simon & Garfunkel (authors of music for The Graduate film of 1967)

- psychedelic rock: The Doors (singer Jim Morrison), The Velvet Underground (singer and fashion model Nico, singer and guitarist Lou Reed), The Beach Boys, Jefferson Airplane

- electro-acoustic music experimentation: the influential avant-garde composer and pianist John Cage

- others: Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Scott McKenzie (singer of ‘San Francisco’), The Who, The Mamas & The Papas

Film

Vietnam Films

- The Deer Hunter (1978)

- Apocalypse Now (1979): loosely based on Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness

- Platoon (1986): director Oliver Stone

- Full Metal Jacket (1987): director Stanley Kubrick

Other Films

- Psycho (1960): director Alfred Hitchcock

- Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961): starring Audrey Hepburn, based on the novella by Truman Capote

- To Kill a Mocking Bird (1962)

- My Fair Lady (1964): starring Audrey Hepburn

- Dr. Strangelove (1964): director Stanley Kubrick, a political black comedy

- Doctor Zhivago (1965): based on the novel by Boris Pasternak

- Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

- 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968): director Stanley Kubrick

- Rosemary’s Baby (1968): a horror

- Barbarella (1968): an erotic sci-fi starring Jane Fonda

- Planet of the Apes (1968)

- Easy Rider (1969): a road movie

- Midnight Cowboy (1969): starring John Voight, with explicitly sexual scenes

- The Wild Bunch (1969): a western

- James Bond series

Television

- sitcoms: Bewitched, The Twilight Zone, etc.

Architecture

- Walter Gropius: Pan Am Building (1963), now MetLife Building, New York City

- Charles Luckman: NASA Manned Spacecraft Centre (1963), Houston, Texas

- Frank Gehry: Walt Disney Concert Hall (2003), Los Angeles, California; Dancing House (1996), Prague

Pictorial Arts

- kinetic abstraction: Alexander Calder

- abstract expressionism: Helen Frankenthaler

- pop art: Andy Warhol, ‘Campbell’s Soup’ (1968)

- assemblage art: Robert Rauschenberg

- geometric abstraction: Frank Stella, Richard Anuszkiewicz, Alexander Liberman

- environmental art: Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty (1970)

Literature

- Truman Capote: representative of Southern Gothic, author of In Cold Blood (1967), a non-fiction novel about an actual case of mass murder, a forerunner of New Journalism

- Tom Wolfe: founder of the New Journalism movement in 1960s-1970s, author of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968), a journalistic work on the trip of Merry Pranksters