Lyndon Baines Johnson: Speech to Congress on Assuming the Presidency

Glossary

• 19 and 61 a slightly old-fashioned and formal way of identifying years, used here and elsewhere—“nineteen and sixty-one,” meaning 1961
• Alliance for Progress an organization of North and South American nations established by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 to counteract the influence of Communism in the Western Hemisphere
• appropriation bills legislation for the purpose of funding particular undertakings
• Peace Corps an independent federal agency, founded by President Kennedy in 1961 with the mission of promoting world peace and understanding by sending American volunteers to serve in needy communities throughout the third world
• the tax bill legislation proposed by President Kennedy in December 1962 to lower income taxes in order to increase tax revenues, an initiative that Johnson helped bring to fruition with the passage of the Revenue Act of 1964