Kennedy's "New Frontier" Spirit (PDF)

Kennedy’s “New Frontier” Spirit Complacent and comfortable as the 1950s closed, Americans elected in 1960 a young, vigorous president who pledged “to get the country moving again.” As John F. Kennedy announced in his stirring inaugural address on January 20, 1961, “the torch has been passe...

Kennedy’s “New Frontier” Spirit Complacent and comfortable as the 1950s closed, Americans elected in 1960 a young, vigorous president who pledged “to get the country moving again.” As John F. Kennedy announced in his stirring inaugural address on January 20, 1961, “the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans.” Speaking crisply with staccato finger jabs at the air, Kennedy personified the glamour and vitality of the new administration. The youngest president ever elected assembled one of the youngest cabinets, including his brother, Robert F. Kennedy, as attorney general. Thirty-five-year-old “Bobby” set out, among other reforms, to recast the priorities of the FBI, shifting its focus from internal security work to organized crime cases and civil rights enforcement. His efforts were stoutly resisted by J. Edgar Hoover, who had served as FBI director longer than the new attorney general had been alive. Business whiz Robert S. McNamara left the presidency of the Ford Motor Company to take over the Defense Department. Along with other young advisers (many boasting Harvard degrees), these appointees made up an inner circle notable for its aura of brash confidence and self-conscious sophistication. From the outset Kennedy inspired high expectations, especially among the young. His depiction of America’s potential for greatness as a “New Frontier” quickened patriotic pulses. He brought a warm heart to the Cold War when he proposed the Peace Corps (Definition = A federal agency created by President Kennedy in 1961 to promote voluntary service by Americans in foreign countries. The Peace Corps provides labor power to help developing countries improve their infrastructure, health care, educational systems, and other aspects of their societies. Part of Kennedy’s New Frontier vision, the organization represented an effort by postwar liberals to promote American values and influence through productive exchanges across the world.), an army of idealistic and mostly youthful volunteers bringing American know-how to underdeveloped countries. He summoned citizens to service with his clarion call to “ask not what your country can do for you: ask what you can do for your country.” ​ But the soaring rhetoric did not quite match the political situation. Kennedy came into office with fragile Democratic majorities in Congress. Southern Democrats threatened to team up with Republicans and ax New Frontier proposals. Kennedy won a first round in his campaign for a more cooperative Congress when he forced an expansion of the all-important House Rules Committee, dominated by conservatives who could have bottled up his entire legislative program. Despite this victory, the New Frontier did not expand swiftly. Key medical and education bills remained stalled in Congress. In 1963, the legislative branch even voted down an administration-endorsed bill slashing income and corporate tax rates to boost the economy. That tax bill hinted at the Kennedy administration’s complex relationship with big business. The president intended his support for tax cutting to mollify businessmen wary of a big-government liberal in the White House. But he could also be a tough negotiator with corporate titans when he wanted to, as seen in the tumultuous talks he led with steel industry bosses and labor leaders to forge a noninflationary wage agreement in 1962. When steel managers seemed to break faith with the agreement by announcing new price increases, Kennedy called them onto the Oval Office carpet and unleashed his Irish temper. Overawed, they backed down. Kennedy’s New Frontier vision also extended to the “final frontier.” Early in his term, the president promoted a multibillion-dollar project dedicated, as he put it, to “landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to earth.” Though he summoned stirring rhetoric about expanding human possibilities, the moon shot was really a calculated ploy to restore America’s international prestige, severely damaged by the Soviet Sputnik successes. Twenty-four billion dollars later, in July 1969, two NASA astronauts triumphantly planted their footprints—and the American flag—on the moon’s dusty surface. As people around the globe huddled around televisions to watch the Apollo (Definition= Program of manned space flights run by America’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The project’s highest achievement was the landing of Apollo 11 on the moon on July 20, 1969.) mission live, the world had never seemed so small and interconnected, nor the United States so dominant.