- For other uses, see John Kennedy (disambiguation)
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to as John F. Kennedy, JFK, or Jack Kennedy, was the 35th President of the United States. He served from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. A member of the prominent Kennedy political family, he is considered an icon of American liberalism. During World War II, he served as a naval lieutenant in the Pacific theatre and was cited for exceptional bravery for the rescue of his men. Kennedy is the youngest person ever to have been elected president of the United States, at the age of 43. (Theodore Roosevelt was the youngest ever to serve as President of the United States, as he succeeded to the presidency at age 42, following President McKinley's assassination.)
Major events during his presidency included the failed 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. In rankings of U.S. presidents, historians usually grade Kennedy above average, but among the general public he is often regarded as among the greatest presidents.
Kennedy is also the first and only Roman Catholic ever to become President, the first president to serve who was born in the 20th century, the last to die while still in office, the last Democrat from the North to be elected, and the last to be elected while serving in the U.S. Senate. Kennedy died the youngest of any U.S. president, at 46 years and 177 days, when he was assassinated on November 22, 1963. The assassination is often considered a defining moment in U.S. history because of its traumatic impact on the entire nation, its impact on the political history of the ensuing decades, and because of Kennedy's elevation as an icon for a new generation of Americans and American aspirations.
Early life
Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, the son of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. and Rose Fitzgerald.
Years later, it would be revealed that Kennedy had been diagnosed as a young man with Addison's Disease, a rare endocrine disorder. This and other medical disorders were kept from the press, and the public, throughout Kennedy's life.
Kennedy attended Edward Devotion School for four years (Kindergarten in 1922 to Third Grade [1]) and then Choate Rosemary Hall in Connecticut, one of the country's most elite private boarding schools, from which he graduated in 1935. That fall (Sept 25, 1935) he sailed from New York to London with his parents and his sister Kathleen. There he enrolled at the London School of Economics with the intention of studying for a year (political economy under the tutelage of Professor Harold Laski) but an illness hospitalized him shortly after his enrollment. His father insisted he return to the US. Jack sailed from London for New York on Oct 26, 1935. Later that fall of 1935, he enrolled in Princeton University, but was forced to leave after contracting jaundice. The next fall, he began attending Harvard College. Kennedy traveled to Europe twice during his years at Harvard, visiting the United Kingdom, while 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 heightened his medical problems causing him to develop osteoporosis of the lower lumbar spine [2]. After graduating 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" on the British portion of the Munich Agreement. He initially intended for the thesis to be for college only, but his dad encouraged him to publish the book. He graduated cum laude from Harvard with a degree in international affairs in June 1940. His thesis was published in 1940 [3] and 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 with the influence of the director of the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), 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. It was also during this time that he began a romantic relationship with Inga Arvad, a suspected Nazi spy. The relationship ended, however, when Kennedy was transferred to the ONI field office in South Carolina. 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 (PT boat).[4]
John on his navy patrol boat,
PT 109.
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, awarded for heroism not involving conflict with the enemy 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 12, 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 from 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 Japan surrendered.
In May 2002, a National Geographic expedition found what is believed to be the wreckage of the PT-109 in the Solomon Islands [5].
Early political career
A young Senator Kennedy in 1953.
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 reelected twice, but had a mixed voting record, often diverging from President Harry S. Truman and the rest of the Democratic Party.
Kennedy married Jacqueline Lee Bouvier on September 12, 1953. He underwent several spinal operations in the two following years, nearly dying (receiving the Catholic faith'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.
McCarthy's support from the Kennedy family
After 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy was the nation's most prominent Irish-American along with the Kennedy family. Even before becoming famous, McCarthy forged a close friendship with Joseph P. Kennedy, who contributed thousands of dollars to McCarthy, and became one of his major supporters. Joseph Kennedy often brought him to Hyannis Port as a weekend house guest in the late 1940s. McCarthy at one point dated Patricia Kennedy, JFK's sister. In the Senate race of 1952, Joseph allegedly worked a deal so that McCarthy, a Republican, would not make campaign speeches for the GOP ticket in Massachusetts. In return, John F. Kennedy would not give any anti-McCarthy speeches that his liberal supporters wanted to hear. In 1953, at the father's urging, McCarthy hired Robert Kennedy (age 27) as a senior staff member. In 1954, when the Senate was threatening to condemn McCarthy, Senator Kennedy faced a dilemma. "How could I demand that Joe McCarthy be censured for things he did when my own brother was on his staff?" asked Kennedy. By 1954, however, Robert Kennedy and McCarthy's chief aide, Roy Cohn, had had a falling out and Robert no longer worked for McCarthy. John Kennedy had a speech drafted calling for the censure of McCarthy, but he never delivered it. When the Senate voted to censure McCarthy on December 2, 1954, Senator Kennedy was in the hospital and never indicated then or later how he would vote.
Senator, 1953-60
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.
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 his 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 some people feel rendered the Act toothless. He was able to say to both sides that he supported them.
In 1958, Kennedy published the first edition of his book A Nation of Immigrants, closely following his involvement in the Displaced Persons Act and the 1957 bill to bring families together.
Kennedy and Richard Nixon shake hands before one of the 1960 televised debates.
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, as 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 or not both the Soviet space and missile programs had surpassed those of the U.S. To allay fears that his Roman Catholicism would impact his decision making, he said in a famous speech in Houston, Texas (to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association), on September 12, 1960, "I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic Party's candidate for President who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my Church on public matters and the Church does not speak for me." [6]
In September and October, Kennedy debated Republican candidate Vice President Richard Nixon in the first televised US presidential debates. During the debates, Nixon looked tense, sweaty, and unshaven compared 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. [7] 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[8]. There were unusually large 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.
Presidency 1961-1963
Policies
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." [9]
Foreign policies
On April 17, 1961, Kennedy gave orders allowing a previously planned invasion of Cuba to proceed. With support from the CIA, 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 Castro, but the CIA had underestimated popular support for Castro, made several mistakes in devising and carrying out the plan, and the exiles did not rally the Cuban people as expected. By April 19 Castro's government had killed or captured 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 responsibility. Historians in 2006 ranked the debacle as the #8 worst presidential mistake ever made.[10]
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. Kennedy 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 a Soviet intermediate range ballistic missile site under construction in Cuba. Kennedy faced a dire dilemma: if the U.S. attacked the sites it might have led 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 as to make retaliation for a preemptive launch very unlikely. 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 quarantine 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 and Italy 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.
The
coat of arms of John F Kennedy blazoned
Sable three helmets in profile Or within a bordure per saltire Gules and Ermine.
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.
Another example of Kennedy's belief in the ability of non-military 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, 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".
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 August 1963, and believed it to be one of the greatest accomplishments of his administration.
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.
- Further information: The Ireland Funds, and [[]], and [[]], and [[]], and [[]], and [[]], and [[]], and [[]], and [[]]
Domestic policies
Kennedy used the term New Frontier as a label for his domestic programs. It ambitiously promised federal funding for education, health care for the elderly, and government intervention to halt the recession. Kennedy also promised an end to racial discrimination.
The turbulent end of state-sanctioned racial discrimination was one of the most pressing domestic issues of Kennedy's era. The 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.
Kennedy started his fight for civil rights when he appealed to African-American voters during his campaign in 1962.
In 1962, James Meredith tried to enroll at the University of Mississippi, but he was prevented by white students. Kennedy responded by sending some 400 federal marshals and 3000 troops to ensure that Meredith could enroll in his class first.
Kennedy also assigned federal marshals to protect the Freedom Riders.
Thousands of Americans of all races and backgrounds joined Kennedy in protesting racial discrimination. Kennedy supported racial integration and civil rights, and during the 1960 campaign he had his brother his brother, Robert F Kennedy, telephone Coretta Scott King, wife of the jailed Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., 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 Kennedy as unsupportive of their efforts. It is also notable that Kennedy approved warrantless wiretaps and covert surveillance of King and other civil rights leaders.
On June 11, President Kennedy intervened when the Governor of Alabama, George Wallace, blocked the doorway to the University of Alabama to stop two black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from enrolling. George Wallace moved aside after being confronted by federal marshals, Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, and the Alabama National Guard. That evening Kennedy gave his famous Civil Rights Address on national television and radio, applying the golden rule to U.S. race relations.[11] Kennedy proposed what would become the Civil Rights Act of 1964. [12] [13]
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.
Support of space programs
JFK looks at the spacecraft
Friendship 7, the spacecraft that made three earth orbits, piloted by astronaut
John Glenn.
Kennedy was eager for the United States to lead the way in the space race. Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev's son Sergei has said that JFK approached his father twice for a 'joint venture' in space exploration in June 1961 and Autumn 1963. On the first occasion Russia was far ahead of America, and Khrushchev then said 'nyet' ("no"). Kennedy later made a speech at Rice University in September 1962, in which he said, "no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in this race for space" and "we choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."[14]. On the second approach to Khrushchev, the Soviet premier was persuaded that cost sharing was beneficial, and American space technology was forging ahead - the U.S. had launched a geostationary satellite, and Kennedy had asked Congress to approve more than 22 billion dollars for Project Apollo, which had the goal of landing an American man on the Moon before the end of the decade. Khrushchev agreed to a joint venture in Autumn 1963, but JFK died in November before the agreement could be formalized. In 1969, six years after Kennedy's death, the Project Apollo goal was finally realized when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to land on the Moon.
Administration and Cabinet
Kennedy's Cabinet meets during the Cuban Missile Crisis
Supreme Court appointments
Kennedy appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
Assassination and aftermath
President Kennedy, Jackie, and Gov.
John Connally in the Presidential limousine shortly before the assassination.
- Main article: John F. Kennedy assassination
President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas on Friday, November 22, 1963 at 12:30 pm CST while on a political trip through Texas. Lee Harvey Oswald was charged at 7:00 pm for killing Dallas policeman, J.D. Tippit, by "murder with malice", and also charged at 11:30 pm for the murder of the president (there being no charge of "assassination" of a president at that time). Oswald was fatally shot less than two days later in a Dallas police station by Jack Ruby. Five days after Oswald was killed, the new president, Lyndon B. Johnson, created the Warren Commission, chaired by Chief Justice Earl Warren, to investigate the assassination. It concluded that Oswald was the lone assassin. A later investigation in the 1970s by the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) also concluded that Oswald was the assassin, however, it added that he was likely part of a conspiracy to kill the president, although the committee did not uncover sufficient evidence to identify any other members of the conspiracy.
Critics have proposed a number of Kennedy assassination theories which contradict the various theories on exactly how the assassination took place that have been proposed by the government's official reports. There is no consensus among government investigations, let alone amongst their critics, on the number of bullets fired at the president, the direction from which all the bullets were fired, and which of the bullets struck the president, and Governor John Connally, who was also wounded in the attack.
Because of his own murder by Jack Ruby, Oswald's guilt or innocence was never determined in a court of law. Some critics contend that Oswald was not involved at all and that he was framed.
Image, social life and family
- Further information: Kennedy political family, and [[]], and [[]], and [[]], and [[]], and [[]], and [[]], and [[]], and [[]]
Both Kennedy and his wife "Jackie" were very young in comparison to earlier presidents and first ladies, and were both extraordinarily popular in ways more common to pop singers and movie stars than politicians, influencing fashion trends and becoming the subjects of numerous photo spreads in popular magazines.
The Kennedy brothers during the 1960 campaign: John, Robert, and Edward (Ted)
The Kennedys brought a new life and vigor to the atmosphere of the White House. They believed that the White House should be a place to celebrate American history, culture, and achievement, and invited artists, writers, scientists, poets, musicians, actors, Nobel Prize winners and athletes to visit. Jacqueline Kennedy also gathered new art and furniture and eventually restored all the rooms in the White House. The White House also seemed like a more fun, youthful place, because of the Kennedys' two young children, Caroline and John Jr. (who came to be known in the popular press as "John-John" though years later Jacqueline Kennedy denied that the family called him by that name). Outside the White House Lawn, the Kennedys established a pre-school, swimming pool, and tree house.
Behind the glamorous facade, the Kennedys also suffered many personal tragedies. Jacqueline suffered a miscarriage in 1955, and gave birth to a stillborn daughter in 1956. (Although the daughter was unnamed and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery next to her parents with a marker reading "Daughter" Kennedy later reports indicated that the Kennedys had intended to call her Arabella.) The death of their newborn son Patrick Bouvier Kennedy in August 1963 was a great loss.
The charisma of Kennedy and his family led to the figurative designation of "Camelot" for his administration, credited by his widow to his affection for the contemporary Broadway musical of the same name.
Kennedy is the third most admired person in the 20th century, according to Gallup.
Legacy
The world mourned the assassinated president
Television became the primary source by which people kept informed of events surrounding John F. Kennedy's assassination, with newspapers the following day becoming more souvenirs than sources of updated information. U.S. networks switched to 24 hour news coverage for the first time ever. Kennedy’s state funeral and the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald were all broadcast live in America and in other places around the world. It was with this event that television matured as a news source rivaling that of newspapers.
The assassination had such an impact on every American, most that were alive when first learning of the news that Kennedy was assassinated vividly remember where they were when they received word. U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson said of the assassination that "all of us...will bear the grief of his death until the day of ours."
Kennedy's grave at Arlington National Cemetery.
On March 14, 1967 Kennedy's body was moved to a permanent burial place and memorial at Arlington National Cemetery. Kennedy is buried with his wife and their deceased children, and his brother Robert is also buried nearby. His grave is marked with an "Eternal Flame." Kennedy and William Howard Taft are the only two US Presidents buried at Arlington.
Many of Kennedy's speeches, especially his inaugural address, are considered to be inspiring and iconic. Despite his relatively short term in office and a lack of major legislative changes during his term, Americans regularly vote him as one of the best presidents, in the same league as Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Selected excerpts of Kennedy's inaugural address are engraved on marble panels at his grave at Arlington.
Memorials
Kennedy's legacy has been memorialized in various aspects of American culture. To name a few:
- New York Idlewild International Airport was renamed JFK on December 24, 1963. Even though the airport was renamed "John F. Kennedy International Airport," most people refer to it as "JFK."
- The USS John F. Kennedy was awarded on April 30, 1964 as a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier.
- The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library opened in 1979 as Kennedy's official presidential library.
- John F. Kennedy University opened in Pleasant Hill, California in 1964 as a school for adult education.
- John F. Kennedy National Historic Site preserves his home in Brookline, Massachusetts.
- The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts opened in 1971 in Washington, DC as a living memorial to him.
- A British memorial at Runnymede, England, as well as a memorial bust near Regent's Park in London.
- A memorial on the harbor at Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.
- Cape Canaveral was renamed Cape Kennedy in 1963, but reverted to its original name in 1973; John F. Kennedy Space Center, however, retained its name.
Hundreds of schools across the U.S were also renamed in his honor. Posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963, Kennedy's portrait now appears on the United States half dollar coin.
Criticism
Kennedy is among the most popular former presidents of the United States; however, a number of critics argue that his reputation is largely undeserved. His admirers argue that the opposition was so strong that he had little chance to achieve much during his presidency. However Kennedy (and Lyndon B. Johnson) were primarily responsible for sending the first combat troops into the Vietnam War. Kennedy personally took the blame for the Bay of Pigs fiasco.
In 2000, The Wall Street Journal joined with the Federalist Society to sponsor a rating of former presidents by a panel of 78 academics, carefully chosen for political balance. 43 raters, an outright majority of the panel, considered President John F. Kennedy overrated - a category about which the poll's sponsors state "Because this question refers to an unstated baseline reputation, the results are not terribly meaningful."[15] Professor Akhil Reed Amar of Yale Law School faults JFK for appeasing Southern Democrats by stocking the lower federal bench with "notorious segregationists"; the best civil rights judges, he says, were Eisenhower appointees.
Kennedy's personal life has also attracted the ire of critics, some of whom argue that lapses in judgment in his personal life impacted his professional life. Among the critics' charges are: that the Kennedy family concealed from the public his serious, potentially life-threatening health issues (e.g., he suffered from Addison's disease) and his heavy medication regimen; that he had a long history of extramarital affairs; and that he had alleged, circuitous links to organized crime figures. Seymour Hersh's The Dark Side of Camelot (1998) presents such a critical argument. Robert Dallek's An Unfinished Life (2003) is a more balanced biography, but contains much detail on Kennedy's health issues.
Trivia
Kennedy in the movies
- King (1978, TV): played by William Jordan
See also
References
Secondary sources
- Brauer, Carl. John F. Kennedy and the Second Reconstruction (1977)
- Burner, David. John F. Kennedy and a New Generation (1988)
- Dallek, Robert (2003). An Unfinished Life : John F. Kennedy, 1917 1963, Brown, Little. ISBN 0316172383.
- Freedman, Lawrence. Kennedy's Wars: Berlin, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam (2000)
- Fursenko, Aleksandr and Timothy Naftali. One Hell of a Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958-1964 (1997)
- Giglio, James. The Presidency of John F. Kennedy (1991), standard scholarly overview.
- Harper, Paul, and Joann P. Krieg eds. John F. Kennedy: The Promise Revisited (1988) scholarly articles on presidency.
- Harris, Seymour E. The Economics of the Political Parties, with Special Attention to Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy (1962)
- Heath, Jim F. Decade of Disillusionment: The Kennedy-Johnson Years (1976)
- Kunz; Diane B. The Diplomacy of the Crucial Decade: American Foreign Relations during the 1960s (1994)
- O'Brien, Michael. John F. Kennedy: A Biography (2005)
- Parmet, Herbert. JFK: The Presidency of John F. Kennedy (1983)
- Patterson, James T. Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945–1974 (1996).
- Piper, Michael Collins. " Final Judgment" 2004 (sixth edition). American Free Press.
- Reeves, Richard. President Kennedy: Profile of Power (1993)
- Reeves, Thomas. A Question of Character: A Life of John F. Kennedy (1991) negative assessment
- Schlesinger, Arthur, Jr. A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (1965) by a close advisor.
- Sorenson, Theodore. Kennedy (1966) by a close advisor.
Primary sources
- Goldzwig, Steven R. and George N. Dionisopoulos, eds. In a Perilous Hour: The Public Address of John F. Kennedy, text and analysis of key speeches (1995)
Media
External links
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