especially of teenagers. By the end of the 1970s
one in three African Americans had incomes
below the poverty line, and the position of black
youths and black women was made worse by the
higher incidence of family breakdowns as many
mothers with young children became dependent
on welfare. But educational opportunities have
given a minority of African Americans middle-
class incomes and status, perhaps as many as a
third. The effect of this rise of a black middle class
has been to divide black society. It has not made
the ghettos less violent or better places to live in;
indeed, some areas of New York City, with their
burnt-down and dilapidated housing, began to
look like the bombed cities of Europe in 1945.
But in the mid-1960s, violence at home was
mirrored by violence abroad.
In 1964 the human and material costs of the war
in Vietnam were still insignificant for Americans.
Johnson saw no reason why the nation’s growing
wealth should not be simultaneously applied to
assist South Vietnam and to fund programmes at
home ensuring the welfare of all of America’s
citizens. In November 1964 he won the presi-
dential election by a landslide over a right-wing
Republican, Barry Goldwater. But a significant
conservative backlash had developed against the
Democratic notions of reform through federal-led
action. These ‘radical conservatives’ wanted a
return to American self-reliance, less government
and a much tougher war on communism. Their
time was to come with the election of Ronald
Reagan two decades later.
During his short first term in office Johnson
had already established an outstanding record as
a reformer who got things done; a tax-reduction
bill and a civil rights bill had been approved by
Congress. In his first State of the Union message
Johnson declared ‘unconditional war’ on the
greatest national blemish – the poverty and des-
titution amid plenty of a large segment of
American society. Between 1964 and 1967 the
Johnson administration spent just over $6 billion
on anti-poverty programmes, food stamps, job
training, small business loans and community-
action programmes to motivate the poor to help
themselves. Even this proved to be too little, and
federal aid did not always help the most needy.
That large enough tax revenues could be gener-
ated to help all the poor and that a huge state-
directed programme would work without large
sums being squandered or lining the wrong
pockets turned out to be illusions.
The aid was not all wasted. State education
and college education received extensive support
and improved both in quality and in the number
of students benefiting. In its provision of a welfare
and medical ‘safety net’ for the poor and elderly,
the US was far behind what was being provid-
ed in most West European countries. Even so,
interest groups such as the American Medical
Association protested against ‘socialised medi-
cine’. In 1965 Johnson secured the passage of the
Medicare legislation; financed through tax and
administered by the social security system, it pro-
vides for hospital and nursing-home care for the
elderly. Medicaid made federal funds available to
help the needy. Unfortunately medical costs
through the years soon proved an almost bot-
tomless pit. Between 1964 and 1968 Johnson,
supported by a compliant Congress, provided the
leadership that passed into law these Great Society
programmes, which included the federal funding
of urban renewal.
It is fashionable now to decry these social pro-
grammes and to label them as failures. The prob-
lems of poverty and of the lack of equal
opportunities were too deep and extensive to be
eradicated by Johnson’s Great Society pro-
grammes. But millions of Americans were helped,
not least the elderly, and new educational oppor-
tunities have provided a ladder for social advance-
ment. Nonetheless, the US government was only
providing what was regarded as a matter of course
in France and Britain in the 1960s and 1970s. As
entitlements to aid expanded over the next two
decades in the US, the total cost threatened to
make social security insolvent. In the 1980s the
Reagan administration began cutting back the
Great Society programmes while increasing
defence expenditure, so running up the largest
budget deficits of any American administration.
During the early years of his presidency
Johnson judged that American economic growth
could fund the Great Society programmes without