President Roosevelt, during World War Two, was largely successful in his foreign policies. When the war first began, he enacted the “Cash and Carry” which was neutral in theory but favored Great Britain in practice. Also, Roosevelt sensed when public opinion shifted away from strict neutrality, enabling him to pass the peacetime draft known as the Selective Service Act of 1940. Moreover, Roosevelt was skilled in his foreign affair actions. He knew that he would offend isolationists by selling destroyers to Great Britain outright, so he cleverly designed a trade where the United Stated would receive areas for military bases in the Caribbean in return for old destroyers. Such insightful actions decorated President Roosevelt’s terms in office throughout the Second World War. When President Truman had to confront a war of his own, however, he was much less successful. Where Roosevelt had attempted to remain out of the war, Truman acted as a catalyst for the Cold War. Along with implementing the ‘containment policy’ that would govern the United States foreign affairs for decades, Truman delivered the Truman Doctrine. The combination of these policies pledged the United States’ assistance to any country attempting to resist the advances of Communism. As Walter Lippmann argued, these policies were too broad in that although “some areas were vital to U.S. security, while others were merely peripheral; some governments deserved U.S. support, others did not…” (AP Prep Book 552). Truman also precipitated the arms race, which had the potential of ending in deadly bombings. Overall, Truman’s foreign policies during the Cold War were less effective than those President Roosevelt enacted during World War Two.
President Kennedy was not very successful in his domestic policies. He instituted the New Frontier and attempted to pass laws pertaining to “aid to education, federal support of health care, urban renewal, and civil rights” (AP Prep Book 595). Despite the supposed soundness of the laws, President Kennedy was unable to convince Congress to enact most of the laws that he suggested. It was President Johnson, on the other hand, who was able to pass the same programs that Kennedy had proposed. Shortly after he took office, President Johnson passed two laws that Kennedy had attempted to pass, an income tax cut as well as an expanded civil rights bill. Along with passing laws that Kennedy was unable to get through Congress, Johnson was also determined to expand on the New Deal’s social reforms in his own program known as the Great Society. Within his program, various social reforms were enacted, including some that are still around today. For his first term, President Johnson waged a War on Poverty. In doing so, he created the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), which in turn sponsored self-help programs for the poor, vocational education through Job Corps, and literacy programs among others. In his second term, Johnson enacted Medicare, Medicaid, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, a new immigration law, and the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities (AP Prep Book 598). He also introduced the Department of Transportation (DOT), the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and increased the funding for higher education, public housing, and crime prevention. So, while President Kennedy was largely ineffective in regard to domestic affairs, his successor, President Johnson was not.
President Kennedy had a little more success in his foreign policy than he did in his domestic policies. One of the few positives that involved his foreign affairs was that in 1961, he set up the Peace Corps as well as the Alliance for Progress. The Peace Corps was an organization that recruited youths to give technical aid to developing countries. The Alliance for Progress promoted land reform and economic development in Latin America. Along with that, President Kennedy was able to convince Congress to pass the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which “authorized tariff reductions with the recently formed European Economic Community (Common Market) of Western European nations” (AP Prep Book 595). Despite these positive programs, it was with the Cold War where his major mistakes lay. The Bay of Pigs Invasion, for one, was an embarrassing blunder that negatively effected Kennedy’s foreign affairs. President Kennedy also toed the line to a third world war by overreacting to news that the Soviets were building missiles launch sites in Cuba that were facing towards the United States. Instead of calmly dealing with the situation, Kennedy brought the ‘crisis’ to the press and created unnecessary concern. Eventually, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union, along with one hundred other countries, was signed and war was avoided. Nevertheless, when it came to a possible war in Vietnam, President Kennedy tried to steer clear of war by only offering advisors to the South Vietnamese. President Johnson, on the other hand, was who really got the United States involved in the Vietnam war by exaggerating the events that happened at the Gulf of Tonkin so as to convince Congress to vote its approval for the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. That in itself was illegal, because the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution basically declared war on the Vietnamese, an action that only Congress is allowed to do. The Tet offensive also hurt Johnson’s foreign affairs and turned the majority of Americans against him. The Tet offensive, although it was a United States military victory, demoralized the public. Although President Kennedy had some beneficial foreign policies, both he and Johnson were ineffective in their conduct of foreign affairs.
President Roosevelt was an effective president with both his New Deal and his actions throughout the Second World War. His successor, Truman, was not effective in either the domestic affairs or the foreign policy. In fact, his programs often had a detrimental effect. Such is not the case, however, with Kennedy and Johnson. As far as domestic policies go, Johnson was the more effective president by far, thereby proving the statement that stated “Vice Presidents who have succeeded to the presidency on the death of the President have been less effective in their conduct of domestic and foreign policy than the men they replaced” to be inaccurate. Although both Johnson and Kennedy were ineffective in their foreign affairs, Johnson, the original vice president was more effective overall than Kennedy.
