Chapter 38 Terms and Definitions

New Frontier: John F. Kennedy's domestic program, promising economic growth, aid to education, and medical care for the elderly, though much of it stalled in a conservative Congress.
John F. Kennedy: The youthful Democratic senator who narrowly won the presidency in 1960, becoming the youngest elected president and the first Roman Catholic to hold the office.
Peace Corps: A Kennedy-era program sending idealistic young Americans abroad to assist developing nations with education, agriculture, and health.
Bay of Pigs: The failed April 1961 CIA-backed invasion of Cuba by Cuban exiles, intended to overthrow Fidel Castro; it embarrassed the new Kennedy administration.
Cuban Missile Crisis: The October 1962 confrontation over Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, resolved through a naval quarantine and secret diplomacy, and the closest the Cold War came to nuclear war.
EXCOMM: The Executive Committee of the National Security Council that advised Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty: A 1963 agreement banning atmospheric nuclear weapons testing, signed by the U.S. and USSR in the aftermath of the missile crisis.
Warren Commission: The panel that investigated President Kennedy's 1963 assassination and concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone.
Lyndon B. Johnson: Kennedy's vice president and successor, a former Senate majority leader whose legislative skill pushed through the Civil Rights Act and the Great Society.
Great Society: Lyndon Johnson's sweeping program to fight poverty and inequality through new federal initiatives in education, health care, and civil rights.
War on Poverty: Johnson's set of Great Society programs, including Head Start and the Job Corps, aimed at helping the poor find education and employment.
Medicare and Medicaid: Programs created in 1965 providing federal health insurance for the elderly (Medicare) and the poor (Medicaid).
Martin Luther King Jr.: The Baptist minister and civil rights leader who championed nonviolent protest and delivered the "I Have a Dream" speech at the 1963 March on Washington.
Civil Rights Act of 1964: Landmark legislation outlawing discrimination in public accommodations and employment based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Voting Rights Act of 1965: A law banning literacy tests and authorizing federal oversight of elections in areas with a history of racial discrimination in voting.
Malcolm X: A Black nationalist leader who rejected King's integrationist, nonviolent approach in favor of Black self-determination and self-defense.
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution: An August 1964 congressional resolution granting Johnson sweeping authority to wage war in Vietnam without a formal declaration of war.
Vietcong: Communist guerrilla forces in South Vietnam, backed by North Vietnam, who fought against the U.S.-supported South Vietnamese government.
Tet Offensive: A massive, coordinated communist assault on South Vietnamese cities in January 1968 that, while a military defeat for the Vietcong, shattered American confidence in the war effort.
Counterculture: The youthful movement of the 1960s that rejected mainstream materialism and conformity through communal living, rock music, and experimentation with drugs.