Encyclopedia
John Fitzgerald Kennedy , also referred to as
John F. Kennedy,
JFK,
John Kennedy, or
Jack Kennedy, was the 35th
President of the United States. He served from 1961 until
his assassination in 1963. A member of the politically prominent
Irish-American Kennedy family, he is considered an icon of American liberalism. His leadership during the saga of the ramming of the
PT-109 during
World War II led to being cited for bravery and heroism in the
South Pacific. Kennedy represented
Massachusetts during 1947–1960, as both a member of the
U.S. House of Representatives and
U.S. Senate. He was
elected President in 1960 in one of the closest elections in American history. He is the only
Roman Catholic so far to serve as President of the United States.
Major events during his presidency included the
Bay of Pigs invasion, the
Cuban Missile Crisis, the building of the
Berlin Wall, the
Space Race, early events of the
Vietnam War, and the American Civil Rights Movement.
John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963. Official investigations later determined
Lee Harvey Oswald to be the assassin, though numerous conspiracy theories exist. His assassination is considered to be a defining moment in
U.S. history due to its traumatic impact on the nation as well as on the political history of the ensuing decades, his subsequent branding as an icon for a new generation of Americans and American aspirations, and for the mystery and conspiracy allegations that surround it.
Early life and education
Kennedy was born in
Brookline, Massachusetts, the son of
Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. and
Rose Fitzgerald; Rose, in turn, was the eldest child of John "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, a prominent figure in
Boston politics who was the city's mayor and a three-term member of
Congress.
Kennedy attended Edward Devotion School for four years , followed by a stint at the Dexter School in
Boston, a year at Canterbury School, and then
Choate Rosemary Hall in
Wallingford, Connecticut, one of the country's most elite private boarding schools for boys, from which he graduated in 1935. On September 25, 1935, he sailed to
London with his parents and his sister Kathleen. There he enrolled at the
London School of Economics with the intention of studying political economy for a year under the tutelage of Professor Harold Laski, but an illness hospitalized him shortly after his enrollment. His father insisted he return to the US. Later during that Autumn of 1935, he enrolled in
Princeton University, but was forced to leave after contracting jaundice. The next Autumn, he began attending
Harvard College. Kennedy traveled to Europe twice during his Harvard years, visiting Britain, when his father was serving as ambassador to the Court of St. James's. In 1937, Kennedy was prescribed
steroids to control his colitis, which only increased his medical problems causing him to develop osteoporosis of the lower
lumbar spine . After graduating from Harvard, he attended
Stanford University’s business school for a few months and then traveled to
South America.
In 1940, Kennedy wrote his honors thesis, entitled "
Why England Slept," about the British dealings concerning the
Munich Agreement. He initially intended for his thesis to be only for college use, but his father encouraged him to publish it in a book. He graduated
cum laude from Harvard with a degree in international affairs in June 1940. His thesis was published in 1940 and became a bestseller.
Years later, it was revealed that, as a young man, Kennedy had been diagnosed with Addison's Disease, a rare endocrine disorder. This and other medical disorders were kept from the press and public throughout Kennedy's lifetime.
Military service
In the spring of 1941, Kennedy volunteered for the
U.S. Army but was rejected, mainly because of his troublesome back. Nevertheless, in September of that year, the
U.S. Navy accepted him, due to the influence of the director of the Office of Naval Intelligence , a former naval attaché to Ambassador Joseph Kennedy. As an
ensign, he served in the office that supplied bulletins and briefing information for the
Secretary of the Navy. It was during this assignment that the
attack on Pearl Harbor occurred. He attended the Naval Reserve Officers Training School and Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Training Center before being assigned for duty in
Panama and eventually the
Pacific theater. He participated in various commands in the Pacific theater and earned the rank of
lieutenant, commanding a
patrol torpedo boat.
On August 2, 1943, Kennedy's boat, the
PT-109 was a PT boat [i] commanded by Lieutenant John F. Kennedy [i] in the Pacific Theater [i] ...
, was taking part in a nighttime military raid near
New Georgia when it was rammed by a
Japanese
destroyer. Kennedy was thrown across the deck, injuring his already-troubled back. Still, Kennedy towed a wounded man three miles in the ocean, arriving at an island where his crew was subsequently rescued. Kennedy said that he blacked out for periods of time during the life-threatening ordeal. For these actions, Kennedy received the
Navy and Marine Corps Medal under the following citation:
Kennedy's other decorations in
World War II included the
Purple Heart,
Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, and the
World War II Victory Medal. He was honorably discharged in early 1945, just a few months before
Japan surrendered. The incident was popularized when he became president, and would be the subject of several magazine articles, books, comic books, TV specials and a feature length movie, making the PT-109 one of the most famous US Navy ships of the century. It was the inspiration for the pilot of the McHale's Navy television series about PT boats. Scale models and even G.I. Joe figures based on the incident were still being produced in the 2000s. The coconut that was used to scrawl a rescue message given to
Solomon Islander scouts who found him was kept on his presidential desk and is still at the John F. Kennedy library.
In May 2002, a
National Geographic expedition found what is believed to be the wreckage of the
PT-109 was a PT boat [i] commanded by Lieutenant John F. Kennedy [i] in the Pacific Theater [i] ...
in the Solomon Islands. One of the Kennedy family also returned to the islands to give a gift to the scouts who are still alive today, but were turned away when they traveled to the inauguration because of communication problems. The Australian coastwatcher who dispatched the natives was also invited to the white house. .
Early political career
After World War II, Kennedy entered politics, partly to fill the void of his popular brother,
Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., on whom his family had pinned many of their hopes but who was killed in the war. In 1946, Representative
James Michael Curley vacated his seat in an overwhelmingly Democratic district to become mayor of
Boston, and Kennedy ran for that seat, beating his Republican opponent by a large margin. He was a congressman for six years but had a mixed voting record, often diverging from President
Harry S. Truman and the rest of the Democratic Party. In 1952, he defeated incumbent Republican
Henry Cabot Lodge for the U.S. Senate.
Kennedy married
Jacqueline Lee Bouvier on September 12, 1953. He underwent several spinal operations in the two following years, nearly dying , and was often absent from the Senate. During this period, he published
Profiles in Courage is a book by John F. Kennedy [i], describing acts of bravery and integrity by ei ...
, highlighting eight instances in which U.S. Senators risked their careers by standing by their personal beliefs. The book was awarded the 1957
Pulitzer Prize for Biography.
John F. Kennedy voted for final passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957, after having earlier voted for the "Jury Trial Amendment", which effectively rendered the Act toothless, because convictions for violations could not be obtained. Staunch segregationists such as
James Eastland,
John McClellan, and
Mississippi Governor James Coleman were early supporters in Kennedy's presidential campaign. [T Reeves, "A Question of Character', p 140]
Sen.
Joseph McCarthy was a friend of the Kennedy family;
Robert Kennedy worked on the staff of McCarthy's committee, and McCarthy dated Patricia Kennedy. In 1954, when the Senate was poised to condemn McCarthy, John Kennedy had a speech drafted calling for the censure of McCarthy but he never delivered it. When the Senate rendered its highly publicized decision to censure McCarthy on December 2, 1954, Senator Kennedy was in hospital and never indicated then or later how he would have voted. The episode seriously hurt Kennedy in the liberal community, especially with
Eleanor Roosevelt, as late as the 1960 election. [T Reeves, & Collier & Horowitz]
1960 presidential election
In 1960, Kennedy declared his intent to run for President of the United States. In the Democratic primary election, he faced challenges from Senator
Hubert H. Humphrey of
Minnesota, Senator
Lyndon B. Johnson of
Texas, and
Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic nominee in 1952 and 1956, who was not officially running but was a favorite "write-in" candidate. Kennedy won key primaries like
Wisconsin and
West Virginia. In the latter state, Kennedy made a visit to a
coal mine, and talked to the mine workers to win their support; most people in that
conservative, mostly Protestant state were deeply suspicious about Kennedy being a Catholic. Kennedy emerged as a universally acceptable candidate for the party after that victory.
On July 13, 1960, the Democratic Party nominated Kennedy as its candidate for President. Kennedy asked Johnson to be his Vice-Presidential candidate, despite clashes between the two during the primary elections. He needed Johnson's strength in the
South to win what was considered likely to be the closest election since 1916. Major issues included how to get the economy moving again, Kennedy's Catholicism,
Cuba, and whether both the Soviet space and missile programs had surpassed those of the U.S. To allay fears that his Catholicism would impact his decision-making, he said in a famous speech in
Houston, Texas , on September 12, 1960, "I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic Party's candidate for President who also happens to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my Church on public matters—and the Church does not speak for me." Kennedy also brought up the point of whether one-quarter of Americans were relegated to second-class citizenship just because they were Catholic.
In September and October, Kennedy debated Republican candidate Vice President
Richard Nixon in the first televised
U.S. presidential debates. During the debates, Nixon looked tense and uncomfortable, while Kennedy was composed, which led the television audience to deem Kennedy the winner, although radio listeners in general thought Nixon had won or the debate was a draw. Nixon did not wear make-up during the debate, unlike Kennedy. The debates are considered a political landmark: the point at which the medium of
television played an important role in politics.
Presidency
John Kennedy was sworn in as the 35th
President on January 20, 1961. In his inaugural address he spoke of the need for all Americans to be active citizens. "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country", he said. He also asked the nations of the world to join together to fight what he called the "common enemies of man:
tyranny,
poverty, disease, and
war itself."
Foreign policies
Cuba and the Bay of Pigs Scandal
On April 17, 1961, Kennedy gave orders allowing a previously planned invasion of Cuba to proceed. With support from the
Central Intelligence Agency , in what is known as the
Bay of Pigs Invasion, 1,500 U.S.-trained Cuban exiles, called "Brigade 2506", returned to the island in the hope of deposing
Fidel Castro. However, the United States did not offer air support, and the CIA underestimated popular support for Castro and made several mistakes in devising and carrying out the plan. By April 19, Castro's government had captured or killed most of the invading exiles and Kennedy was forced to negotiate for the release of the 1,189 survivors. After 20 months, Cuba released the captured exiles in exchange for $53 million worth of food and medicine. The incident was a major embarrassment for Kennedy, but he took full personal responsibility for the debacle.
Cuban Missile Crisis
The
Cuban Missile Crisis began on October 14, 1962, when American
U-2 spy planes took photographs of a
Soviet intermediate-range ballistic missile site under construction in Cuba. Here Kennedy faced a dilemma: if the U.S. attacked the sites it might lead to
nuclear war with the
U.S.S.R. If the U.S. did nothing, it would endure the perpetual threat of nuclear weapons within its region—in such close proximity that if the weapons were launched pre-emptively, the U.S. may have been unable to retaliate. Another fear was that the U.S. would appear to the world as weak in its own hemisphere. Many military officials and cabinet members pressed for an air assault on the missile sites, but Kennedy ordered a naval blockade in which the U.S. Navy inspected all ships. He began negotiations with the Soviets and, a week later, he and Soviet Premier
Nikita Khrushchev reached an agreement. Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles while the U.S. publicly promised never to invade Cuba and also secretly promised to remove U.S. ballistic missiles from
Turkey within six months. Following this incident, which brought the world closer to nuclear war than at any point before or since, Kennedy was more cautious in confronting the Soviet Union.
Latin America and Communism
Arguing that "those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable," Kennedy sought to contain
communism in
Latin America by establishing the Alliance for Progress, which sent aid to troubled countries in the region and sought greater
human rights standards in the region. He worked closely with Puerto Rican
Governor Luis Muñoz Marín for the development of the Alliance of Progress, as well as developments on the autonomy of the Commonwealth of
Puerto Rico.
Peace Corps
As one of his first presidential acts, Kennedy created the
Peace Corps. Through this program, Americans volunteered to help underdeveloped nations in areas such as
education,
farming, health care, and
construction.
Vietnam
Kennedy used limited military action to contain the spread of communism. Determined to stand firm against the spread of communism, Kennedy's policy included political, economic, and military support for the unstable
South Vietnamese government, which included sending 18,000 military advisors and U.S. Special Forces to the area. Kennedy also agreed to the use of
napalm, defoliants, free-fire zones and
jet planes. U.S. involvement in the area continually escalated until regular U.S. forces were directly fighting the
Vietnam War in the next administration. The Kennedy Administration increased military support, but it was not working. By July 1963 Kennedy faced a crisis in Vietnam. The Administration's response was to assist in the
coup d'état of the President of South Vietnam,
Ngo Dinh Diem . In 1963, South Vietnamese generals overthrew the Diem government, by assassinating Diem. Kennedy sanctioned Diem's overthrow. One reason for the support was a fear that Diem might negotiate a neutralist coalition government which included Communists, as had occurred in
Laos in 1962.
Dean Rusk, Secretary of State, remarked "
This kind of neutralism...is tantamount to surrender."
It remains a point of controversy among historians whether or not Vietnam would have escalated to the point it did had Kennedy served out his full term and possibly been re-elected in 1964.
West Berlin Speech
On June 26, 1963, Kennedy visited
West Berlin and gave a public speech criticizing communism. While Kennedy was speaking, some people on the other side of the wall in
East Berlin were applauding Kennedy and showing their distaste for
Soviet control. Kennedy used the construction of the
Berlin Wall as an example of the failures of communism: "Freedom has many difficulties and
democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in." The speech is known for its famous phrase
"Ich bin ein Berliner". Nearly 5/6th of the population were on the street when Kennedy said that famous phrase. He remarked to aides afterwards: "We'll never have another day like this one."
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
Troubled by the long-term dangers of
radioactive contamination and
nuclear weapons proliferation, Kennedy pushed for the adoption of a Limited or
Partial Test Ban Treaty, which prohibited atomic testing on the ground, in the atmosphere, or underwater, but did not prohibit testing underground. The United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union were the initial signatories to the treaty. Kennedy signed the treaty into law in August 1963.
Ireland
On the occasion of his visit to
Ireland in 1963, President Kennedy joined with Irish President
Eamon de Valera to form The American Irish Foundation. The mission of this organization was to foster connections between Americans of Irish descent and the country of their ancestry. Kennedy furthered these connections of cultural solidarity by accepting a grant of
armorial bearings from the Chief Herald of Ireland.
He also visited the original cottage where previous Kennedys had lived before emigrating to America, and said, "This is where it all began...."
Domestic policies
Kennedy called his domestic program the "New Frontier." It ambitiously promised federal funding for
education, medical care for the elderly, and government intervention to halt the recession. Kennedy also promised an end to
racial discrimination. In 1963, he proposed a tax reform that included income tax cuts, but this was not passed by Congress until 1964, after his death. Few of Kennedy's major programs passed Congress during his lifetime, although, under his successor Lyndon Johnson, Congress did vote them through in 1964-65.
Civil rights
The turbulent end of state-sanctioned racial discrimination was one of the most pressing domestic issues of Kennedy's era. The
U.S. Supreme Court had ruled in 1954 that
racial segregation in public schools would no longer be permitted. However, many schools, especially in southern states, did not obey the Supreme Court's injunction. Segregation on buses, in restaurants, movie theaters, bathrooms, and other public places remained. Kennedy supported
racial integration and civil rights, and during the 1960 campaign he telephoned
Coretta Scott King; wife of the jailed Reverend
Martin Luther King Jr., which perhaps drew some additional black support to his candidacy.
In 1962,
James Meredith tried to enroll at the
University of Mississippi, but he was prevented from doing so by white students. Kennedy responded by sending some 400
federal marshals and 3,000 troops to ensure that Meredith could enroll in his first class. Kennedy also assigned federal marshals to protect Freedom Riders.
As President, Kennedy initially believed the grassroots movement for civil rights would only anger many Southern whites and make it even more difficult to pass civil rights laws through Congress, which was dominated by Southern Democrats, and he distanced himself from it. As a result, many civil rights leaders viewed Kennedy as unsupportive of their efforts.
On June 11, President Kennedy intervened when
Alabama Governor
