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Feb 9
Vietnam War
U.S. sends first combat troops to South Vietnam, 1965
A U.S. Marine Corps Hawk air defense missile battalion is deployed to Da Nang. President Johnson had ordered this deployment to provide protection for…
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The 1960s
Discontent, rebellion and social change defined the 1960s in the United States, shaking the country to its core.
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Henry A. Kissinger
(1923- ), foreign policy specialist, national security adviser, and secretary of state.
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1948 Election
President Harry S. Truman, who had succeeded President Roosevelt after his death in 1945, stood for reelection on the Democratic ticket with Alben Barkley of Kentucky as his running mate.
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1972 Election
In 1972 the Republicans nominated President Richard M. Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew.
The Democrats nominated Lyndon B. Johnson who had succeeded to the presidency upon the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Johnson, the first president from the South since Andrew Johnson, had been Democratic leader of the Senate. Senator Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota, a longtime liberal, was nominated as Johnson's running mate. The Republicans chose Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona for president and Congressman William E. Miller of New York for vice president.
In the campaign, conducted in the midst of the escalating Vietnam War, Goldwater, an ultraconservative, called for the bombing of North Vietnam and implied that the Social Security system should be dismantled. President Johnson campaigned on a platform of social reform that would incorporate Kennedy's New Frontier proposals. Despite the country's deepening involvement in Vietnam, the president also campaigned as the candidate of peace against the militaristic Goldwater.
Johnson won a decisive victory, polling 43,128,958 popular votes to 27,176,873 for Goldwater. In the electoral college he received 486 votes to Goldwater's 52.
The Reader's Companion to American History. Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, Editors. Copyright © 1991 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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