Biography of John Fitzgerald Kennedy

John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to as Jack Kennedy or JFK, was the 35th President of the United States (1961-1963). He was the youngest ever to be elected president (not to be confused with the youngest person ever to serve as president, a record held by Teddy Roosevelt), the first U.S. President born in the 20th century, and the youngest president to die. As of 2005, he was also the only Roman Catholic ever to be elected president, the last Democratic Party candidate from the North to be elected president, and the last President to die in office.

Following Kennedy’s assassination on November 22, 1963, the world mourned his death. Presidents, prime ministers, and members of royalty walked behind the casket at his funeral. Many Americans view Kennedy as a “martyr.”

In a survey conducted by C-SPAN that ranked American presidents, a panel of historians rated him second overall and the general populace rated him third of the forty-two presidents who have served. His agenda, however, was actually rather incomplete at his death—most of his civil rights policies came to fruition through his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson.

Early life and education

Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, the son of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. and Rose Fitzgerald. As a young man he attended The Choate School, a boarding school in Wallingford, Connecticut. Before enrolling in college, he attended the London School of Economics for a year, studying political economy. In the fall of 1935, he enrolled in Princeton University, but was forced to leave during Christmas break after contracting jaundice. The next fall, he began attending Harvard University. Kennedy traveled to Europe twice during his years at Harvard, visiting the United Kingdom, while his father was serving as ambassador to that country. In 1937, Kennedy was erroneously prescribed steroids to control his colitis, which only heightened his medical problems causing him to develop osteoporosis of the lower lumbar spine.

In 1938, Kennedy wrote his honors thesis on the British portion of the Munich Pact. He was an average student at Harvard, never earning an A, but mostly B’s and C’s, with a single D in a sophomore history course. He graduated cum laude from Harvard with a degree in international affairs in June 1940. His thesis, entitled Why England Slept, was published in 1940 and, with the aid of his affluent and powerful father, it became a best-seller.

Military service

In the spring of 1941, Kennedy volunteered for the U.S. Army, but was rejected, mainly because of his troublesome back. However, the U.S. Navy accepted him in September of that year. He participated in various commands in the Pacific Theater and earned the rank of lieutenant, commanding a patrol torpedo boat or PT boat.

On August 2, 1943, Kennedy’s boat, the PT-109, was taking part in a night-time military raid near New Georgia (near the Solomon Islands) when it was rammed by a Japanese destroyer. Kennedy was thrown across the deck, injuring his already troubled back. Still, Kennedy somehow towed a wounded man three miles through the ocean, arriving on an island where his crew was subsequently rescued. Kennedy said that he blacked out for periods of time during the ordeal. For these actions, Kennedy received the Navy and Marine Corps Medal under the following citation

“For heroism the rescue of 3 men following the ramming and sinking of his motor torpedo boat while attempting a torpedo attack on a Japanese destroyer in the Solomon Islands area on the night of Aug 1-2, 1943. Lt. KENNEDY, Capt. of the boat, directed the rescue of the crew and personally rescued 3 men, one of whom was seriously injured. During the following 6 days, he succeeded in getting his crew ashore, and after swimming many hours attempting to secure aid and food, finally effected the rescue of the men. His courage, endurance and excellent leadership contributed to the saving of several lives and was in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.”

Kennedy’s other decorations of the Second World War include 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 the Japanese surrendered.

In May 2002 a National Geographic expedition found what is believed to be the wreckage of the PT-109 in the Solomon Islands.

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 M. 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 reelected two times, but had a mixed voting record, often diverging from President Harry S. Truman and the rest of the Democratic Party.

Persistent rumors have suggested that Kennedy married Durie Malcolm briefly in early 1947. Their romance was mentioned in the January 20, 1947 issue of the New York World-Telegram, but no conclusive proof of a marriage has been found. Beyond a flat denial, Durie declined to discuss the alleged marriage. Seymour Hersh’s The Dark Side of Camelot devotes a chapter to the alleged marriage; he interviewed several of Kennedy’s friends who reported the marriage as fact, and additionally noted that Joseph P. Kennedy managed to cover-up the fling, fearing that his son’s marriage to a divorcee would harm his nascent political career. The marriage rumors were little-known until 1961, when rumors began to circulate in Washington, D.C.

A young Senator Kennedy in 1953.

In 1952, Kennedy ran for the Senate with the slogan “Kennedy will do more for Massachusetts.” In an upset victory, he defeated Republican incumbent Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. by a margin of about 70,000 votes. Kennedy adroitly dodged criticizing fellow Senator Joseph McCarthy’s controversial campaign to root out Communists and Soviet spies in the U.S. government, because of McCarthy’s popularity in Massachusetts. McCarthy was a friend of Kennedy, Kennedy’s father, dated the Kennedy sisters, and younger brother Robert F. Kennedy briefly worked for McCarthy. Although Kennedy was ill during the 65-22 vote to censure McCarthy, he was criticized by McCarthy opponents such as Eleanor Roosevelt who later said of the episode “he should have displayed less profile, and more courage”.

Kennedy married Jacqueline Bouvier on September 12, 1953. He underwent several spinal operations in the two following years, nearly dying (receiving the Catholic religion’s “last rites” four times during his life), and was often absent from the Senate. During this period, he published Profiles in Courage, 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.

In 1956, Kennedy campaigned for the Vice Presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention, but convention delegates selected Tennessee senator Estes Kefauver instead. However, Kennedy’s efforts helped bolster the young Senator’s reputation within the party.

An example of Kennedy’s political suppleness, prior to the 1960 campaign, was his handling of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. He voted for final passage, while earlier voting for the “jury trial amendment”, which rendered the Act toothless. He was able to say to both sides that he supported them.

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 and landed the nomination at the Democratic National Convention in 1960.

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. Somewhat to Kennedy’s staff’s dismay, Johnson accepted. Some theorists have speculated that Johnson had blackmailed Kennedy by threatening to expose Kennedy’s physical ailments and/or affairs, but LBJ could also deliver votes from the South. Another possibility is that Kennedy wanted to remove Johnson from the Senate Majority Leader position so that United States Senate Majority Whip Mike Mansfield would assume the leadership, as Kennedy considered Mansfield easier to work with than Johnson.

Issues in the election included how to deal with the nation’s poor, the economy, JFK’s Catholicism, Cuba, and whether or not both the Soviet space and missile programs had surpassed those of the USA.

In September and October, Kennedy debated Republican candidate Vice President Richard Nixon in the first ever televised presidential debates. During the debates, Nixon looked tense, sweaty, and unshaven contrasted to Kennedy’s composure and handsomeness, leading many to deem Kennedy the winner, although historians consider the two evenly matched as orators. Interestingly, many who listened on radio thought Nixon more impressive in the debate. The debates are considered a political landmark: the point at which the medium of television played an important role in politics and looking presentable on camera became one of the important considerations for presidential and other political candidates.

In the general election on November 8, 1960, Kennedy beat Nixon in a very close race. There were serious allegations that vote fraud in Texas and Illinois had cost Nixon the presidency Especially troubling were the unusually huge margins in Richard Daley’s Chicago — which were announced after the rest of the vote in Illinois. The only change after the official recount was a win for Kennedy in Hawaii. At the age of 43, he was the youngest man elected President, and would replace the oldest president to serve at that time, Dwight Eisenhower, who was then 70. Kennedy watched the election returns from the Kennedy Compound.

Presidency

John F. 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

On April 17, 1961, the Kennedy administration implemented a modified version of Kennedy predecessor Dwight D. Eisenhower’s plan to depose Fidel Castro, the communist leader of Cuba. With support from the CIA, in what is known as the Bay of Pigs Invasion, 1,500 Cuban exiles returned to the island to depose Castro, but the CIA had overestimated popular resistance to Castro and the exiles did not rally the Cuban people as expected. By April 19, Castro’s government had killed or captured most of the exiles and Kennedy was forced to negotiate for the release of 1,189 of them. After 20 months, Cuba released the exiles in exchange for $53 million in food and medicine. The incident was a major embarrassment for Kennedy, but he took full responsibility for the debacle (See Bay of Pigs Invasion for more information).

On August 13, 1961, the East German government began construction of the Berlin Wall separating East Berlin from the Western sector of the city, due to the American military presence in West Berlin. Some claimed this action was in violation of the “Four Powers” agreements. Kennedy initiated no action to have it dismantled, and did little to reverse or halt the eventual extension of this barrier to a length of 155 km.

The Cuban Missile Crisis began on October 14, 1962 when American U-2 spy planes took photographs of the construction site of a Soviet nuclear missile site in Cuba. Kennedy faced a dire dilemma: if the U.S. attacked the sites it would likely have led to nuclear war with Russia. If the U.S. did nothing, it would endure the perpetual threat of tactical nuclear weapons within its region, in such close proximity, that if 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. Many military officials and cabinet members pressed for an air assault on the missile sites but Kennedy ordered a naval blockade and began negotiations with the Russians. A week later, he and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev reached an agreement. Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles if the U.S. would publicly agree never to invade Cuba, and also secretly agree to remove U.S. 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.

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.

Another example of Kennedy’s belief in the ability of nonmilitary power to improve the world was the creation of the Peace Corps, one of his first acts as president. Through this program, which still exists today, Americans volunteered to help underdeveloped nations in areas such as education, farming, health care, and construction.

Kennedy also used limited military action to contain the spread of communism. Determined to stand firm against the spread of communism, Kennedy continued the previous administration’s policy of political, economic, and military support for the unstable South Vietnamese government, which included sending military advisers and U.S. special forces to the area. U.S. involvement in the area continually escalated until regular U.S. forces were directly fighting the Vietnam War in the next administration.

On June 26, 1963, Kennedy visited West Berlin and gave a public speech criticizing communism. While Kennedy was speaking, on the other side of the wall were the people of East Berlin who were applauding Kennedy showing their distaste in 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 (“I am a Berliner”).

Troubled by the long-term dangers of radioactive contamination and nuclear weapons proliferation, Kennedy also 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 does 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 1963, and believed it to be one of the greatest accomplishments of his administration.

Domestic policies

One of the most pressing domestic issues of Kennedy’s era was the turbulent end of state-sanctioned racial discrimination. The U.S. Supreme Court had ruled in 1954 that racial segregation in public schools would no longer be permitted. However, there were many schools, especially in southern states, that did not obey this decision. There also remained the practice of segregation on buses, in restaurants, movie theaters, and other public places.

Thousands of Americans of all races and backgrounds joined together to protest this discrimination. Kennedy supported racial integration and civil rights, and called the jailed Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s wife during the 1960 campaign, which drew much black support to his candidacy. However, 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 President Kennedy as unsupportive of their efforts, and some accuse it of being part of a re-election strategy.

President Kennedy had to step in June 1963, when the Governor of Alabama, George Wallace, blocked the doorway to University of Alabama to stop two Black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from enrolling. George Wallace moved aside after being confronted by federal marshalls, Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, and the Alabama National Guard.

Also on the domestic front, in 1963 Kennedy proposed a tax reform that included income tax cuts, but this was not passed by the Congress until after his death in 1964. It is one of the largest tax cuts in modern U.S. history, surpassing the Reagan tax cut of 1981.