The Kennedy Era 1960-1963
Emily Matio
History 2112
Semester 2
Based off of what I was taught before, if that was through history class in high school or when I took history 2112 last semester, I know some about the Kennedy era. What I knew about this time was of course President Kennedy’s assignation and all the conspiracies around it. I also have heard about Marilyn Monroe and him cheating with her. Then, in this election he beat Nixon and it was the first time TV heavily influenced the vote. JFK came off young and good looking, thus appealing to the audiences when Nixon looked very old and tired. This was the first presidential debates that were influenced by looks. Rather than that, I knew he greatly expanded our role in Vietnam and that he supported Civil Rights but that’s about it. This film clip greatly broadened my knowledge on events other than Kennedy just being good looking and famous. Three of issues in the movie that showed me more was going on during this era was the Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis and the United States space program.
The first issue was the Bay of Pigs. In 1962 the United States decided to send Cuban exiles into Cuba to overthrow Castro’s government. The United States was trying to prevent communism from getting to Americans but the invasion failed. When Castro previously helped the Cuban Revolution in 1959 it greatly concerned the United Stated. Castro was a communist and was allied with the Soviet Union. The CIA then was ordered to take on the task of overthrowing Castro’s government in Cuba. The CIA trained many exiles from Cuba when Castro became the leader. These exiles would sneak into Cuba and use the guerrilla warfare against Castro. Once the exiles invaded the island the plan was to get locals to join forces with them. They would then take over fairly quickly. “When (Kennedy) initially expressed doubts about the wisdom of such a scheme, Allen Dulles assured him that an invasion would inspire anti-Castro Cubans...