35. JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY
1961-1963On November 22, 1963, when he was hardly past his
first thousand days in office, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was
killed by an assassin's bullets as his motorcade wound through
Dallas, Texas. Kennedy was the youngest man elected President;
he was the youngest to die.
Of Irish descent, he was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, on
May 29, 1917. Graduating from Harvard in 1940, he entered the
Navy. In 1943, when his PT boat was rammed and sunk by a
Japanese destroyer, Kennedy, despite grave injuries, led the
survivors through perilous waters to safety.
Back from the war, he became a Democratic Congressman from
the Boston area, advancing in 1953 to the Senate. He married
Jacqueline Bouvier on September 12, 1953. In 1955, while
recuperating from a back operation, he wrote Profiles in
Courage, which won the Pulitzer Prize in history.
In 1956 Kennedy almost gained the Democratic nomination for
Vice President, and four years later was a first-ballot nominee
for President. Millions watched his television debates with the
Republican candidate, Richard M. Nixon. Winning by a narrow
margin in the popular vote, Kennedy became the first Roman
Catholic President.
His Inaugural Address offered the memorable injunction: "Ask
not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for
your country." As President, he set out to redeem his campaign
pledge to get America moving again. His economic programs
launched the country on its longest sustained expansion since
World War II; before his death, he laid plans for a massive
assault on persisting pockets of privation and poverty.
Responding to ever more urgent demands, he took vigorous
action in the cause of equal rights, calling for new civil
rights legislation. His vision of America extended to the
quality of the national culture and the central role of the arts
in a vital society.
He wished America to resume its old mission as the first
nation dedicated to the revolution of human rights. With the
Alliance for Progress and the Peace Corps, he brought American
idealism to the aid of developing nations. But the hard reality
of the Communist challenge remained.
Shortly after his inauguration, Kennedy permitted a band of
Cuban exiles, already armed and trained, to invade their
homeland. The attempt to overthrow the regime of Fidel Castro
was a failure. Soon thereafter, the Soviet Union renewed its
campaign against West Berlin. Kennedy replied by reinforcing the
Berlin garrison and increasing the Nation's military strength,
including new efforts in outer space. Confronted by this
reaction, Moscow, after the erection of the Berlin Wall, relaxed
its pressure in central Europe.
Instead, the Russians now sought to install nuclear missiles
in Cuba. When this was discovered by air reconnaissance in
October 1962, Kennedy imposed a quarantine on all offensive
weapons bound for Cuba. While the world trembled on the brink of
nuclear war, the Russians backed down and agreed to take the
missiles away. The American response to the Cuban crisis
evidently persuaded Moscow of the futility of nuclear blackmail.
Kennedy now contended that both sides had a vital interest in
stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and slowing the arms
race--a contention which led to the test ban treaty of 1963. The
months after the Cuban crisis showed significant progress toward
his goal of "a world of law and free choice, banishing the world
of war and coercion." His administration thus saw the beginning
of new hope for both the equal rights of Americans and the peace
of the world.
NOTES:
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum
http://www.jfklibrary.org/
