John Fitzgerald Kennedy, often referred to by his initials JFK, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the youngest person to assume the presidency by election and the youngest president at the end of his tenure. Kennedy served at the height of the Cold War, and the majority of his foreign policy concerned communist states such as the Soviet Union and Cuba. A Democrat, Kennedy represented Massachusetts in both houses of the U.S. Congress prior to his presidency.
Born into the prominent Kennedy family in Brookline, Massachusetts, Kennedy graduated from Harvard University in 1940 before joining the U.S. Naval Reserve the following year. During World War II, he commanded a series of PT boats in the Pacific theater. Kennedy's survival following the sinking of PT-109and his rescue of his fellow sailors made him a war hero and earned the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, but left him with serious injuries. After a brief stint in journalism, Kennedy represented a working-class Boston district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1947 to 1953. He was subsequently elected to the U.S. Senate and served as the junior senator for Massachusetts from 1953 to 1960. While in the Senate, Kennedy published his book, Profiles in Courage, which won a Pulitzer Prize. Kennedy ran in the 1960 presidential election. His campaign gained momentum after the first televised presidential debates in American history, and he was elected president, narrowly defeating Republican opponent Richard Nixon, who was the incumbent vice president. He was the first Catholic elected president.
Kennedy's administration included high tensions with communist states in the Cold War. He increased the number of American military advisers in South Vietnam. He authorized numerous operations to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro, including the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion in April 1961. The following October, U.S. spy planes discovered Soviet missile bases in Cuba; the resulting period of tensions, termed the Cuban Missile Crisis, nearly resulted in the breakout of a global thermonuclear conflict. He also signed the first nuclear weapons treaty in October 1963. Kennedy presided over the establishment of the Peace Corps, Alliance for Progress with Latin America, and the continuation of the Apollo program with the goal of landing a man on the Moon. He also supported the civil rights movement but was only somewhat successful in passing his New Frontier domestic policies.
On November 22, 1963, Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. His vice president, Lyndon B. Johnson, assumed the presidency upon Kennedy's death. Lee Harvey Oswald, a former U.S. Marine, was arrested for the assassination, but he was shot and killed by Jack Ruby two days later. The FBI and the Warren Commission both concluded Oswald had acted alone, but conspiracy theories about the assassination exist. After Kennedy's death, Congress enacted many of his proposals, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Revenue Act of 1964. Kennedy ranks highly in polls of U.S. presidents with historians and the general public. His personal life has also been the focus of considerable sustained interest following public revelations in the 1970s of his chronic health ailments and extramarital affairs. Kennedy is the most recent U.S. president to have died in office.
Biography[]
John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, the son of American diplomat and bootlegger Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.. All of his grandparents were immigrants from Ireland, and John and his siblings were raised in the Catholic faith. Kennedy was a varsity swimmer while attending Harvard, and he enjoyed traveling with his father, touring Europe shortly before World War II broke out in 1941; his father and him were in London when Nazi Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939. He served in the US Navy during the war, and he became a war hero for rescuing his crewmates aboard the patrol boat PT-109 off the Solomon Islands in April 1943. Kennedy decided to enter politics on his return home in 1945, as the death of his oldest brother Joseph, Jr. left it to John to continue his family's political traditions.
Congressman from Massachusetts[]
In 1947, Kennedy was elected to the US House of Representatives, serving as a congressman for the liberal US Democratic Party for six years. In 1952, he defeated Republican senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. to become a senator, and he supported the Civil Rights movement. Kennedy was a sickly man while in office, and he was read his last rites several times in the case of his death. However, he survived several illnesses, and he became a beloved politician, marrying Jacqueline Bouvier and becoming a loving family man.
In 1960, Kennedy decided to run for the presidency of the United States, and he secured the Democratic nomination after defeating Adlai Stevenson II and Lyndon B. Johnson. Kennedy, as a northern Catholic, was unpopular with Protestant conservatives in the American South, so he chose the Southern Democrat Lyndon Johnson as his running mate to secure the votes of southerners.
This helped him in winning key southern states such as Texas, Louisiana, Georgia, and North Carolina, and Kennedy won a major televised presidential debate against Republican candidate Richard Nixon due to appearing calm and collected, while the injured and nervous Nixon looked like a wreck on television. At the age of 42, Kennedy was the youngest person to be elected President of the United States.
President of the United States[]
On 20 January 1961, Kennedy was sworn into office, and his inaugural address included the famous statement, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." Kennedy was an optimist upon entering office, and he asked for all Americans to be active citizens and to contribute to society.
Foreign policy[]
Kennedy also focused on fighting communism during the ongoing Cold War, pursuing an aggressive foreign policy against the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. On 4 April 1961, Kennedy approved the invasion of Cuba by several anti-communist exiles, but the "Bay of Pigs" invasion was crushed by the Cuban Army of Fidel Castro due to the rebels' lack of air support. Kennedy decided that invading Cuba would not overthrow the communist regime, so he imposed strict economic sanctions on the island, and he had the island blockaded in 1962 after the Soviets placed missiles on the island. For thirteen days, Kennedy had to worry about the "Cuban Missile Crisis", which almost led to the outbreak of open warfare between the USA and USSR. Kennedy's approval rating shot up from 66% to 77% after he managed to peacefully put an end to the crisis. Kennedy's foreign policy would include stopping the communist's "domino effect", which meant that one successful communist revolution would inevitably lead to another revolution elsewhere. Kennedy deployed 11,000 troops to Vietnam in 1962, and this number rose to 16,000 by 1963; these troops served in purely advisory roles as allies of South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia's armed forces.
Civil Rights[]
One of Kennedy's election promises was ending racial discrimination, and he appointed African-American lawyer Thurgood Marshall to the federal bench. On 6 March 1961, Kennedy passed an executive order that set the basis for affirmative action, and he also sent 3,000 troops to put down the Ole Miss riot of 1962, desegregating the University of Mississippi by force. Kennedy had previously shirked at the idea of sending federal troops to the American South, lest he stir up memories of Reconstruction among southerners, but he decided to push the civil rights cause after the riots. Kennedy extended his civil rights policies to immigration, removing the prioritization of immigration from certain countries in favor of prioritizing immigration from people who were rejoining their families in America.
Assassination[]
In November 1963, Kennedy decided to head to Texas to smooth out heated relations between the Democrats and the Republicans, and he was greeted with cheers by hundreds of Americans. On 22 November 1963, his motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas during his visit to the city, riding in a car with his wife and with Governor John Connally and his wife. At 12:30 PM, Kennedy was shot in the throat by a sniper, and the Zepruder video caught Kennedy choking before being shot again in the forehead, killing him. Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged gunman, fled from the local book depository, from which he was said to have shot Kennedy with a Carcano sniper rifle. Kennedy died instantly, and Oswald was shot dead two days later by nightclub owner Jack Ruby, who claimed that he wanted to avenge the president and ensure that Jacqueline Kennedy did not have to see her husband's killer in court. During the following years, various conspiracy theories would gain traction, with 60% of Americans believing that there was a conspiracy surrounding his death. Vice President Johnson succeeded Kennedy as president after his death.
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