Efforts at Reform: New Frontier, Great Society
APRIL 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education Adopted in California Clark Kerr, the President of the University of California from 1957 to 1967, was a key leader in the history of California higher education. Early in his presidency, Kerr called attention to an impending enrollment “tidal wave,” and he was later instrumental in creating the influential Master Plan for Higher Education that was signed into law by Governor Pat Brown in April 1960. The plan differentiated among the state’s three segments of public post-secondary education: community colleges, a state university system, and the University of California. It promised a place at one of the state’s public colleges or universities for “all who have the capacity and willingness to profit by a college education.” The plan became a model for other states with similar challenges and aspirations. It was under the auspices of the Master Plan that three new UC campuses were established in the mid-1960s at Irvine, San Diego, and Santa Cruz. NOVEMBER 1960 California Water Project Approved Because deficient rainfall is California’s major natural imperfection, there have been struggles throughout its history over control of water. These include battles between farmers and “water monopolists,” conflicts over the controversial Owens Valley-Los Angeles aqueduct in the early twentieth century, and fights surrounding the Central Valley Project, a coordinated system of dams and canals that became operational in the 1950s. Because most of California’s water is in the northern half of the state, while most of the need is in the southern half, it was widely agreed that a statewide water program was indispensable to the state’s future growth. Despite opposition from most northern Californians, funding for such a program was provided in November 1960 by voter approval of the largest bond issue ($1.75 billion) ever adopted until that time by any state for any purpose. Little more than a decade later the California State Water Project (SWP), the world’s largest publicly built and operated water and power conveyance system, was providing water for arid southern California.
1964–1967 Lyndon Johnson Champions Great Society
JULY 1964 Civil Rights Act Bans Public Discrimination
NOVEMBER 1963 President John F. Kennedy Assassinated
AUGUST 1961 Berlin Wall Erected Frustrated by the destabilizing effect that West Berlin continued to have on the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and disappointed by Soviet inability to negotiate a solution to this problem, Premier Khrushchev responded in August 1961 by directing the East German leadership to build a concrete barrier that cut off West Berlin from East Berlin and the surrounding region. In the 15 years before the wall 3.5 million East Germans had circumvented immigration prohibitions and defected to the West, largely through Berlin. Between 1961 and 1989 the Berlin wall and other physical obstacles prevented almost all such emigration. The wall allowed East Germany to improve its economic situation and thus strengthen the Communist Bloc in Eastern Europe, but the change came at the cost of largely destroying the new state’s claim to be a model of benevolent socialism. SEE FIGURE 51 Figure 51. East German workers reinforce the Berlin Wall under the watchful eye of the police. Image courtesy of United States Information Agency.
AUGUST 1963 Limited Nuclear Test–Ban Treaty
OCTOBER 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis
AUGUST 1961 Berlin Wall Erected
NOVEMBER 1960 California Water Project Approved
APRIL 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education Adopted in California
OCTOBER 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis
Called “the ultimate exercise in nuclear brinkmanship,” the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 came very close to turning the Cold War hot. Eager to regain strategic equilibrium after American satellites made United States missile superiority clear, and feeling a responsibility to protect Cuba from outside intervention, Khrushchev, in league with Fidel Castro, secretly began in August 1962 to build
EFFORTS AT REFORM: NEW FRONTIER, GREAT SOCIETY
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