John Fitzgerald Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, also known as JFK, was born on May 29, 1917. After graduating cum laude from Harvard University and serving as a decorated sailor in World War II, Kennedy served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1947 to 1953. He then served in the U.S. Senate from 1953 until his presidential election in 1960.
During his time in the Senate, Kennedy demonstrated his dedication to racial equality with his very public support of the Civil Rights legislation in 1957.
Kennedy won a slim victory in the 1960 presidential election against Republican challenger Richard Nixon. Sworn in on January 20, 1961, Kennedy’s inaugural speech contained the famous words, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
Shortly after taking office, in April of 1961, Bay of Pigs invasion took place. In a plan began by Eisenhower, CIA-trained anti-Castro Cuban exiles were sent to oust the Castro regime from Cuba. The mission was a failure, with most men captured within 2 days. After a 20-month negotiation, the U.S. agreed to pay Castro’s government $53 million in food and medicine to gain their release.
In October 1962, spy planes took pictures of Soviet nuclear missile installations under construction in Cuba. After considering whether to take military action, Kennedy eventually decided to call for a naval quarantine of Cuba unless the Soviet Union came to the bargaining table. The resulting meeting between Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev concluded in an agreement for the Soviets to remove the missile installations in exchange for a U.S. pledge not to invade Cuba and to remove nuclear missiles from Turkey. Kennedy also negotiated and signed an international treaty banning nuclear testing.
Kennedy was a firm proponent of the “domino theory” regarding the spread of communism, causing him to initiate activities, such as troop increases and the use of military advisors to train South Vietnam anti-communist forces, which began the Vietnam War.
Kennedy oversaw the first peacetime deficit to occur outside of a depression, yet deflation that occurred during the last year of the Eisenhower presidency improved to a robust growth in GDP during the Kennedy Administration. The domestic program called the “New Frontier,” which promoted tax reform, medical care for the elderly, funding for education and economic aid to rural regions was not completed during his term on office, but was voted in during the Johnson Administration in 1964 and 1965.
Kennedy sent troops in several times in support of the educational rights of minorities during his administration, most famously in Alabama in 1963. This resulted in a commitment to racial equality, leading to the development of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Kennedy also made a public vow of support to the space program, promising that “before this decade is out” the U.S. would succeed in “landing a man on the Moon and returning him back safely to the earth.” This initiated the push the culminated in the first moon landing in 1969.
Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas. Accused shooter Lee Harvey Oswald was shot and killed by Jack Ruby two days after the assassination. Despite much controversy, both the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations issued reports concluding that Oswald was the lone assassin.
