Theme: The Kennedy administrations flexible response doctrine to combat Third World communism bore ill fruit in Cuba and especially Vietnam. Johnsons massive escalation of the war failed to defeat the Communist Vietnamese forces, while growing domestic opposition finally forced him from power.

Theme: The Kennedy administrations domestic stalemate ended in the mid-1960s, as Johnsons Great Society and the black civil rights movement brought a tide of liberal social reform. But the diversion of resources and the social upheavals caused by the Vietnam War wrecked the Great Society.