John Kennedy (0)

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John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States , serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963.
After Kennedy's militare service as commander of the Motor Torpedo Boat PT-109 during World War II in the South Pacific, his aspirations turned political . With the encouragement and grooming of his father , Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., Kennedy represented Massachusetts's 11th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1947 to 1953 as a Democrat, and served in the U.S. Senate from 1953 until 1960. Kennedy defeated then Vice President and Republican candidate Richard Nixon in the 1960 U.S. presidential election, one of the closest in American history. He was the second-youngest President (after Theodore Roosevelt), the first President born in the 20th century, and the youngest elected to the office, at the age of 43.Kennedy is the first and only Catholic and the first Irish American president, and is the only president to have won a Pulitzer Prize. Events during his administration include the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis , the building of the Berlin Wall , the Space Race , the African American Civil Rights Movement and early stages of the Vietnam War.
Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas . Lee Harvey Oswald was charged with the crime but was shot and killed two days later by Jack Ruby before he could be put on trial . The FBI, the Warren Commission, and the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that Oswald was the assassin , with the HSCA allowing for the probability of conspiracy based on disputed acoustic evidence . The event proved to be an important moment in U.S. history because of its impact on the nation and the ensuing political repercussions. Today, Kennedy continues to rank highly in public opinion ratings of former U.S. presidents.

Early life and education

Kennedy was born at 83 Beals Street in Brookline, Massachusetts on Tuesday, May 29, 1917, at 3:00 p.m. the second son of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., and Rose Fitzgerald; Rose, in turn, was the eldest child of John "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, a prominent Boston political figure who was the city's mayor and a three- term member of Congress. Kennedy lived in Brookline for his first ten years of life. He attended Brookline's public Edward Devotion School from kindergarten through the beginning of 3rd grade , then Noble and Greenough Lower School and its successor, the Dexter School, a private school for boys , through 4th grade. In September 1927, Kennedy moved with his family to a rented 20- room mansion in Riverdale, Bronx, New York City, then two years later moved five miles (8km) east to a 21-room mansion on a six-acre estate in Bronxville, New York, purchased in May 1929. He was a member of Scout Troop 2 at Bronxville from 1929 to 1931 and was to be the first Boy Scout to become President.Kennedy spent summers with his family at their home in Hyannisport, Massachusetts, also purchased in 1929, and Christmas and Easter holidays with his family at their winter home in Palm Beach, Florida , purchased in 1933. In his primary school years, he attended Riverdale Country School, a private school for boys in Riverdale, for 5th through 7th grade.
For 8th grade in September 1930, the 13- year old Kennedy was sent fifty miles away to Canterbury School, a lay Roman Catholic boarding school for boys in New Milford, Connecticut. In late April 1931, he had appendicitis requiring an appendectomy, after which he withdrew from Canterbury and recuperated at home.
In September 1931, Kennedy was sent to The Choate School (now Choate Rosemary Hall), an elite boys boarding school in Wallingford, Connecticut, for his 9th through 12th grade years. His older brother Joe Jr., was already at Choate, two years ahead of him, a football star and leading student in the school. Jack thus spent his first years at Choate in his brother's shadow. He reacted with rebellious behavior that attracted a coterie. Their most notorious stunt was to explode a toilet seat with a powerful firecracker. In the ensuing chapel assembly the autocratic headmaster, George St. John, brandished the toilet seat and spoke of certain "muckers" who would "spit in our sea." The defiant Jack Kennedy took the cue and named his group "The Muckers Club." Kennedy remained close friends to the end of his life with several of his Choate fellows, including especially Kirk LeMoyne "Lem" Billings. Throughout his years at Choate, Kennedy was beset by health problems, culminating in 1934 with his emergency hospitalization at Yale-New Haven Hospital from January until March. In June 1934 he was admitted to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester , Minnesota and diagnosed with colitis. When Kennedy graduated from Choate in June 1935 his superlative in The Brief , the school yearbook (of which he had been business manager ), was“Most likely to Succeed.“

1960 presidential election

On January 2, 1960, Kennedy officially declared his intent to run for President of the United States. In the Democratic primary election, he faced challenges from Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota and Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon . Kennedy defeated Humphrey in Wisconsin and West Virginia and Morse in Maryland and Oregon, although Morse's candidacy is often forgotten by historians. He also defeated token opposition (often write-in candidates) in New Hampshire, Indiana, and Nebraska. In West Virginia, Kennedy visited a coal mine and talked to mine workers to win their support ; most people in that conservative, mostly Protestant state were deeply suspicious of Kennedy's Roman Catholicism. His victory in West Virginia cemented his credentials as a candidate with broad popular appeal. At the Democratic Convention , he gave the well-known "New Frontier " speech, which represented the changes America and the rest of the world would be going through.With Humphrey and Morse out of the race, Kennedy's main opponent at the convention in Los Angeles was Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas. Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic nominee in 1952 and 1956, was not officially running but had broad grassroots support inside and outside the convention hall. Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri was also a candidate, as were several favorite sons. On July 13, 1960, the Democratic convention nominated Kennedy as its candidate for President. Kennedy asked Johnson to be his Vice Presidential candidate, despite opposition from many liberal delegates and Kennedy's own staff , including Robert Kennedy. 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 Roman Catholicism, Cuba , and whether the Soviet space and missile programs had surpassed those of the U.S. To address fears that his Roman Catholicism would impact his decision -making, he famously told the Greater Houston Ministerial Association on September 12, 1960, "I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic Party 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 Roman Catholic.In September and October, Kennedy debated Republican candidate and Vice President Richard Nixon in the first televised U.S. presidential debates in U.S. history. During these programs, Nixon, nursing an injured leg and sporting "five o' clock shadow", looked tense and uncomfortable, while Kennedy appeared relaxed, leading the huge television audience to deem Kennedy the winner . Radio listeners, however, either thought Nixon had won or that the debates were a draw . Nixon did not wear make-up during the initial debate, unlike Kennedy. The debates are now considered a milestone in American political history—the point at which the medium of television began to play a dominant role in national politics. After the first debate Kennedy's campaign gained momentum and he pulled slightly ahead of Nixon in most polls. On Tuesday, November 8, Kennedy defeated Nixon in one of the closest presidential elections of the twentieth century. In the national popular vote Kennedy led Nixon by just two-tenths of one percent (49.7% to 49.5%), while in the Electoral College he won 303 votes to Nixon's 219 (269 were needed to win). Another 14 electors from Mississippi and Alabama refused to support Kennedy because of his support for the civil rights movement; they voted for Senator Harry F. Byrd , Sr. of Virginia.
Vietnam
The extent of Kennedy's involvement in Vietnam remained classified until the release of the Pentagon Papers in 1971 .In Southeast Asia , Kennedy followed Eisenhower's lead by using limited military action as early as 1961 to fight the Communist forces led by Ho Chi Minh . Proclaiming a fight against the spread of Communism, Kennedy enacted policies providing political, economic, and military support for the unstable French-installed South Vietnamese government, which included sending 16,000 military advisors and U.S. Special Forces to the area. Kennedy also authorized the use of free-fire zones , napalm, defoliants, and jet planes . U.S. involvement in the area escalated until Lyndon Johnson, his successor, directly deployed regular U.S. forces for fighting the Vietnam War.By July 1963, Kennedy faced a crisis in Vietnam: despite increased U.S. support, the South Vietnamese military was only marginally effective against pro-Communist Viet Minh and Viet Cong forces. Regarding Ngo Dinh Diem , the Roman Catholic President of South Vietnam, as insufficiently anti-Communist, the U.S. gave secret assurances of non-interference for an impending coup d'état.On November 1, 1963, South Vietnamese generals overthrew the Diem government, arresting and soon killing Diem (though the circumstances of his death were obfuscated). Kennedy sanctioned Diem's overthrow. One reason to support the coup 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.During his time in office, Kennedy increased the number of U.S. military in Vietnam from 800 to 16,300. It remains a point of some controversy among historians whether or not Vietnam would have escalated to the point it did had Kennedy served out his full term and been re-elected in 1964. Fueling the debate are statements made by Kennedy and Johnson's Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara that Kennedy was strongly considering pulling out of Vietnam after the 1964 election. In the film "The Fog of War", not only does McNamara say this, but a tape recording of Lyndon Johnson confirms that Kennedy was planning to withdraw from Vietnam, a position Johnson states he strongly disapproved of. Additional evidence is Kennedy's National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) 263, dated October 11, 1963, which ordered withdrawal of 1,000 military personnel by the end of 1963. Nevertheless, given the stated reason for the overthrow of the Diem government, such action would have been a policy reversal , but Kennedy was generally moving in a less hawkish direction in the Cold War since his acclaimed speech about World Peace at American University the previous June 10, 1963. According to historian Lawrence Freedman, regarding Kennedy's statements about withdrawing from Vietnam, it was, "less of a definite decision than a working assumption, based on a hope for stability rather than an expectation of chaos".After Kennedy's assassination, the new President Lyndon B. Johnson immediately reversed his predecessor 's order to withdraw 1,000 military personnel by the end of 1963 with his own NSAM 273 on November 26, 1963.