JFK - Teacher Intro

7/30/2019 JFK - Teacher Intro

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John F. Kennedy1960-1963


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Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can

do for your country. Let the word go forth from this time and

place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed

to a new generation of Americans.

Kennedys inaugeral speech, 22 January 1961.

Concerns at Home

Camelot thecharm offensive

Black Civil

Rights

Kennedy brothers

war on organised

crime

Kennedys domestic programmes did not advance

very far due to increasing problems abroad.


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Foreign Policy Problems Facing Kennedy:

The Soviet Union

Nikita Khrushchev

The Space Race

East Germany

The Berlin

Wall 1961

Cuba

Fidel Castro

Bay of Pigs Fiasco 1961

US assisted invasion of Cuba by

Cuban exiles fails disastrously

Cuban Missile Crisis

1962

Vietnam?

Cold War Rivalries with Russia


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Kennedy saw Texas as the key to his

success in the South and he decided to visit

the state in November. This was partly to be

a charm crusade but Kennedy was alsohoping to heal a damaging split which had

occurred within the Texan Democratic

Party , between the left-wing led by Senator

Ralph Yarborough and the right, led by the

State Governor, John Connally.

By the middle of 1963 Kennedy was

considering his chances of winning a

second term as President. He began

preparing for the 1964 presidential

election campaign. Kennedy faced adifficult task. Many felt that his foreign

policy had been less than successful.

The South was vital to Kennedys chancesof electoral success. But Kennedy was

distrusted by many southern whites,

partly because of his sympathy towards

the black civil rights movement and also

because of his failure to eliminate the

communist Fidel Castro in Cuba. Also,Kennedy was a northern catholic.

Texas


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DallasFort

Worth

Kennedys Texas visit

started first at Fort Worth.

Then, on the morning of the22 November, Kennedy took

the short flight from Fort

Worth to Love Airfield,

Dallas.

President Kennedy speaking to a crowd at

Fort Worth in the early morning of 22

November. Behind him [LR] are Senator

Ralph Yarborough, Governor John Connally

and Vice-President Lyndon Johnson.


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12.00 am

Arrival at Love Field airport. President Kennedy

and the First Lady are in the rear seat. GovernorConnally and his wife are in the jump seat.


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The Presidential limousine travelling through

the streets of Dallas on the way to a gathering at

the Wallmart Center.


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Kennedys car turns into Dealey Plaza


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12.30 The limousine enters Elm Street and

shots are heard. President Kennedy is struck in

the throat and, then, the head.


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1.00 pm

The stricken Kennedy is taken to the nearby Parklands

Hospital where at 1.00 pm the President is declared dead.


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2.00 pm

One hour later Lyndon Johnson, on boardAirforce

One, is sworn in as the 36th president of America.


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Afternoon

That afternoon police arrest Lee

Harvey Oswald for murdering

police officer Tippets. Later, he is

declared a suspect in the murder

of the president.


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Saturday, 23 November, 1963

The next morning the Dallas Police announced that the case

had been solved: Oswald acting alone, had shot President

Kennedy from a sixth floor window of the Texas School Book

Depository Building, where a rifle and three cartidges werefound.


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Oswald, however, maintained he was innocent. Im just a

patsy, he said. The assassination of President Kennedy

provoked speculation: Was Oswald indeed a lone assassin?

Was he involved in a conspiracy to kill the president? Was

he a hired killer acting for someone else? Was heinnocent?


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Sunday, 24 November, 1963

On Sunday morning, while millions watched on TV, Oswald was

murdered in the basement of a Dallas jail by Jack Ruby, the owner of

a Dallas strip-tease joint called the Carousel .Rumours spread

rapidly, and a shocked nation demanded answers.


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Friday, 29November, 1963 -

Lyndon Johnson calls into being the Warren Commission

charged with investigating the assassination of John

Kennedy. Its findings are published on 24 September, 1964.


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24 September, 1964

After ten months of secret hearings, Chief Justice Earl Warren

presented the Commissions report to President Johnson. The

Commission found that Oswald, acting alone, had

assassinated President Kennedy. Mainstream media hailed it

as the most massive, detailed and convincing piece of

detective work ever undertaken, unmatched in the annals of

fact finding.


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24 November, 1964

The US government releases

26 volumes of testimony and

exhibits which contained the

evidence on which theWarren Report was

purportedly based.

The New York Times reported

that the 26 volumes

overwhelmingly supported

the conclusions [of theWarren Commissions Report]

that the assassination was no

conspiracy but the work of

one unhappy man, Lee Harvey

Oswald.


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1. There were three shots fired and which struck Kennedy.

2. The shots came from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book

depository building.3. One shot fired passed through Kennedy and struck Governor

Connally.

4. The shots were fired by a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald.

5. The killing of Kennedy was due purely to a lone-nut

assassin.


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1. How many shots were fired ? - A review of the medical evidence.

2. A Lone Gunman ? - A study of the Zapruder film, and other evidence.

3. The Patsy ? - Was Lee Harvey Oswald framed ?

4. The Patriot ? - The role of Jack Ruby.

5. Who else might want Kennedy killed ? - Conspiracy Theories.

You will be divided into small groups to assess evidence which either

supports or questions the findings of the Warren Commission. You will make

presentations putting forward your conclusions.

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