Jfk Essay, Research Paper

John F. Kennedy

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born on May 29th, 1917 and died

on November the 22nd, 1963. He was the thirty-fifth President of the

United States, and was assassinated in Dallas, Texas by Lee Harvey

Oswald as his limousine drove by the Texas School Book Depository

building and through Dealey Plaza. He was in office from 1961-1963,

he was the youngest man elected President, and the youngest to die in

the office. Of Irish descent, he was born in Brookline, Massachusetts. He

graduated from Harvard University in 1940 and he entered the navy.

In 1943, he became commander of a PT boat in the Pacific in World

War II. In action off the Solomon Islands, his boat was sheared in two

and sunk, and Kennedy was credited with saving the life of at least one

of his crew. After the war he was briefly a journalist. He became a

congressmen from Massachusetts in 1947 until 1953. He consistently

supported the domestic programs of the Truman Administration but

criticized its China policy.

In 1952, despite the Eisenhower Landslide, he defeated Henry

Cabot Lodge for a seat in the United States Senate, where he served on

the labor and Public Committee and on the Foreign Relations

Committee.

In 1953, Kennedy married Jacklyn Lee Bouvier. While

recuperating in 1955 from a serious operation to repair a spinal injury,

he wrote Profiles in Courage, which won the Pulitzer Prize in history.

In 1956 Kennedy almost gained the Democratic Nomination for

Vice-President, four years later was a first ballot nominee for President.

Millions watched his television debates with the Republican candidate,

Richard M. Nixon. Winning by 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 massive assault on persisting pockets of privation and poverty.

Responding to ever more urgent demands, he took vigorous action in the

cause of the equal rights, calling for 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

extiles, 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 of all offensive weapons bound for Cuba.

While the world trembled on the brink of nuclear war, the Russians

backed down and agreed to take missiles away. The American response

to the Cuban crisis evidently persuaded Moscow of the guilty 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 word 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.