John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), also referred to as John F. Kennedy, JFK, John Kennedy or Jack Kennedy, was the 35th President of the United States. In 1960 he became the youngest man ever elected president of the United States. He served from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. The Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the building of the Berlin Wall, the Space Race, the American Civil Rights Movement and early events of the Vietnam War took place during his presidency.

Kennedy's leadership during the USS PT-109 incident in the Second World War in the South Pacific was a major turning point in his life. Kennedy represented the state of Massachusetts from 1947 to 1960, first as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and then, in the U.S. Senate. Kennedy, the Democratic candidate, was elected president of the United States in 1960, at age 43, against Republican candidate Richard Nixon in one of the closest elections in American history. Though the youngest person ever elected U.S. president, he was not the youngest ever to hold the office. In 1901, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt, age 42, was elevated to the post following the assassination of President William McKinley. Kennedy is the last Democrat from outside the South to be elected, and the last president to be elected while serving in the U.S. Senate. He is, to date, the only Roman Catholic to be elected U.S president.

John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas, United States. Lee Harvey Oswald was charged with the crime, but was himself murdered two days later by Jack Ruby before Oswald could be put on trial. The Warren Commission concluded that Oswald had acted alone in killing the president. However, the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in 1979 that there may have been a conspiracy. The entire subject remains controversial, with multiple theories about the assassination still being debated. The assassination itself proved to be a defining moment in U.S. history due to its traumatic impact on the psyche of the nation and the ensuing political fallout, which continues to influence the temperament of American society. Many regarded President Kennedy as an icon of American hopes and aspirations; he continues to rate highly in public opinion rankings of former US presidents.[1]

Kennedy was born at 83 Beals Street in Brookline, Massachusetts on Tuesday, May 29, 1917, at 3:00 p.m., the second son of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. and Rose Fitzgerald; Rose, in turn, was the eldest child of John "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, a prominent figure in Boston politics who was the city's mayor and a three-term member of Congress.

John F. Kennedy was baptized at St. Aidan's church in Brookline, Massachusetts, where his family worshiped, and where both he and his older brother Joseph Kennedy, Jr. were altar boys.

Kennedy lived in Brookline for his first ten years. John Kennedy attended Edward Devotion School, a public school, from kindergarten through the beginning of 3rd grade, then Noble and Greenough Lower School and its successor, Dexter School, a private school for boys, through 4th grade.

In September 1927, Kennedy moved with his family to a rented 20-room mansion in Riverdale, Bronx, New York City, then two years later moved five miles northeast to a 21-room mansion on a six-acre estate in Bronxville, New York, purchased in May 1929. He was a member of Scout Troop 2 at Bronxville from 1929 to 1931, and was later the first Scout to become President.[2] Kennedy spent summers with his family at their home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, purchased in 1929, and Christmas and Easter holidays with his family at their winter home in Palm Beach, Florida, purchased in 1933. He attended Riverdale Country School, a private school for boys in Riverdale, for 5th through 7th grade.

For 8th grade in September 1930, Kennedy was sent fifty miles away to Canterbury School, a lay Catholic boarding school for boys in New Milford, Connecticut. In late April 1931, he had appendicitis requiring an appendectomy, after which he withdrew from Canterbury and recuperated at home. In September 1931, Kennedy was sent over sixty miles away to The Choate School, an elite private university preparatory boarding school for boys in Wallingford, Connecticut for 9th through 12th grades, following his older brother Joe who was two years ahead of him. In January 1934, during his junior year at Choate, he became ill, lost a lot of weight and was hospitalized at Yale-New Haven Hospital until Easter and spent most of June 1934 hospitalized at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota for evaluation of colitis.

He graduated from Choate in June 1935. Kennedy's superlative in his yearbook was "Most likely to become President". In September 1935 sailed on the SS Normandie on his first trip abroad with his parents and his sister Kathleen to London with the intent of studying for a year with Professor Harold Laski at the London School of Economics (LSE) as his older brother Joe had done, but after a brief hospitalization with jaundice, then less than a week at LSE, he sailed back to America three weeks after he had arrived in London. In October 1935, Kennedy enrolled late and spent six weeks at Princeton University, but was then hospitalized for two months observation for possible leukemia at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston in January and February 1936, recuperated at the Kennedy winter home in Palm Beach in March and April, spent May and June working as a ranch hand on a 40,000-acre cattle ranch outside Benson, Arizona, then July and August racing sailboats at the Kennedy summer home in Hyannis Port.

In September 1936, he enrolled as a freshman at Harvard College, residing in Winthrop House during his sophomore through senior years, again following two years behind his older brother Joe. In early July 1937, Kennedy took his convertible, sailed on the SS Washington to France, and spent ten weeks driving with a friend through France, Italy, Germany, Holland and England. In late June 1938, Kennedy sailed with his father and his brother Joe on the SS Normandie to spend July working with his father at the American embassy in London and August with his family at a villa near Cannes. From February through September 1939, Kennedy went on a major seven-month tour of Europe, the Soviet Union, the Balkans and the Middle East to gather background information for his senior thesis. He spent the last ten days of August in Czechoslovakia and Germany before returning to London on September 1, 1939, the day Germany invaded Poland. On September 3, 1939, Kennedy, along with his brother Joe, his sister Kathleen, and his parents were in the Strangers Gallery of the House of Commons to hear speeches in support of the United Kingdom's declaration of war on Germany. Kennedy was sent as his father's representative to help with arrangements for American survivors of the SS Athenia, before flying back to the U.S. on Pan Am's Dixie Clipper from Foynes, Ireland to Port Washington, New York on his first transatlantic flight at the end of September.

In 1940, Kennedy wrote his honors thesis, entitled "Appeasement in Munich" about the British dealings concerning the Munich Agreement. He initially intended for his thesis to be only for college use, but his father encouraged him to publish it in a book. He graduated cum laude from Harvard with a degree in international affairs in June 1940. His thesis was published in July 1940 as a book, entitled Why England Slept,[3] and became a bestseller.[4]

From September to December 1940, Kennedy was enrolled and audited classes at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In early 1941, Kennedy helped his father work on a memoir about his father's three years as ambassador. In May and June 1941, Kennedy traveled throughout South America.

Military service

In the spring of 1941, Kennedy volunteered for the U.S. Army, but was rejected, mainly because of his troublesome back. Nevertheless, in September of that year, the U.S. Navy accepted him, due to the influence of the director of the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), a former naval attaché to the Ambassador, his father. As an ensign, he served in the office which supplied bulletins and briefing information for the Secretary of the Navy. It was during this assignment that the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred. 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 (PT) boat.[5]

On August 2, 1943, Kennedy's boat, the PT-109, was taking part in a nighttime patrol near New Georgia in the Solomon Islands. The commander of his PT boat squadron was future Attorney General John N. Mitchell. It was rammed by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri.[6][7] Kennedy was thrown across the deck, injuring his already-troubled back. Still, Kennedy towed a wounded man three miles (5 km) in the ocean, arriving at an island where his crew was subsequently rescued. Kennedy said that he blacked out for periods of time during the life-threatening ordeal. For these actions, Kennedy received the Navy and Marine Corps Medal under the following citation:

Kennedy's other decorations in World War II included 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. The incident was popularized when he became president, and would be the subject of several magazine articles, books, comic books, TV specials and a feature length movie, making the PT-109 one of the most famous U.S. Navy ships of the war. Scale models and even G.I. Joe figures based on the incident were still being produced in the 2000s. The coconut which was used to scrawl a rescue message given to Solomon Islander scouts who found him was kept on his presidential desk and is still at the John F. Kennedy Library.

During his presidency, Kennedy privately admitted to friends that he didn't feel that he deserved the medals he had received, because the PT-109 incident had been the result of a botched military operation that had cost the lives of two members of his crew. When asked by interviewers how he became a war hero, Kennedy's reply was: "It was involuntary. They sank my boat."

In May 2002, a National Geographic expedition found what is believed to be the wreckage of the PT-109 in the Solomon Islands. One of the Kennedy family also returned to the islands to give a gift to the scouts who are still alive today, but were turned away when they traveled to the inauguration because of communication problems. The Australian coastwatcher who dispatched the natives was also invited to the White House.[8]

Early political career

After World War II, Kennedy thought about being a journalist for a while before deciding to run for political office. Prior to the war, he hadn't really thought about being a politician primarily because his older brother, Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., had been tabbed by the family as the future politician and, hopefully, the future President. Joseph was killed in World War II, making John next in line to fulfill his father's political ambitions. In 1946, Representative James Michael Curley vacated his seat in an overwhelmingly Democratic district to become mayor of Boston, and Kennedy ran for the seat, beating his Republican opponent by a large margin. He was a congressman for six years but had a mixed voting record, often diverging from President Harry S. Truman and the rest of the Democratic Party. In 1952, he defeated incumbent Republican Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. for the U.S. Senate.

Kennedy married Jacqueline Lee Bouvier on September 12, 1953. He underwent several spinal operations in the following two years, nearly dying (in all he received the Catholic Church's "last rites" four times during his life), and was often absent from the Senate. During this period, he wrote 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.[9]

In 1956, after Adlai Stevenson left the choice of a Vice Presidential nominee to the Democratic convention, Kennedy finished 2nd in that balloting to Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee. Kennedy, however, got valuable public exposure from that episode. His father, Joseph Kennedy Sr., pointed out that it was just as well that John did not get that nomination, as some people sought to blame anything they could on Catholics, even though it was privately known that any Democrat would have trouble running against Eisenhower in 1956.

John F. Kennedy voted for final passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957 after having earlier voted for the "Jury Trial Amendment", which effectively rendered the Act toothless because convictions for violations could not be obtained. Staunch segregationists such as senators James Eastland and John McClellan and Mississippi Governor James Coleman were early supporters of Kennedy's presidential campaign.[10] In 1958, Kennedy was re-elected to a second term in the United States Senate defeating his Republican opponent, Boston lawyer Vincent J. Celeste, by a wide margin.

Years later it was revealed that in September 1947, during his first term as a congressman, when he was 30 years old, Kennedy had been diagnosed by Sir Daniel Davis at The London Clinic with Addison's disease, a rare endocrine disorder. This and other medical disorders were kept from the press and public throughout Kennedy's lifetime.[11]

Sen. Joseph McCarthy was a friend of the Kennedy family: Joe Kennedy was a leading McCarthy supporter; Robert F. Kennedy worked for McCarthy's subcommittee, and McCarthy dated Patricia Kennedy. In 1954, when the Senate was poised to condemn McCarthy, John Kennedy had a speech drafted calling for the censure of McCarthy, but never delivered it. When the Senate rendered its highly publicized decision to censure McCarthy on December 2, 1954, Senator Kennedy was hospitalized. Even though absent, Kennedy could have "paired" his vote against that of another senator, but chose not to; neither did he ever indicate then or later how he would have voted. The episode seriously damaged Kennedy's support in the liberal community, especially with Eleanor Roosevelt, as late as the 1960 election.[12]

1960 presidential election

On January 2, 1960, Kennedy declared his intent to run for President of the United States. In the Democratic primary election, he faced challenges from Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota and Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon. Kennedy defeated Humphrey in Wisconsin and West Virginia, and Morse in Maryland and Oregon, although Morse's candidacy is often forgotten by historians. Kennedy also defeated token opposition (often write in candidates) in New Hampshire, Indiana and Nebraska. In West Virginia, Kennedy visited a coal mine, and talked to the mine workers to win their support; most people in that conservative, mostly Protestant state were deeply suspicious about Kennedy being a Catholic. Kennedy's victory in West Virginia bolstered his credentials as a candidate with broad appeal.

With Humphrey and Morse out of the race, Kennedy's main opponent at the convention in Los Angeles was Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas. Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic nominee in 1952 and 1956, was not officially running, but had broad grassroots support inside and outside the convention hall. Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri was also a candidate, as were several favorite sons. On July 13, 1960, the Democratic convention nominated Kennedy as its candidate for President. Kennedy asked Johnson to be his Vice Presidential candidate, despite opposition from many liberal delegates and Kennedy's own staff, including Robert Kennedy. 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 both the Soviet space and missile programs had surpassed those of the U.S. To allay fears that his 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 also happens to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my Church on public matters — and the Church does not speak for me."[13] Kennedy also brought up the point of whether one-quarter of Americans were relegated to second-class citizenship just because they were Catholic.

In September and October, Kennedy debated Republican candidate Vice President Richard Nixon in the first televised U.S. presidential debates. During the debates, Nixon looked tense and uncomfortable, while Kennedy was composed, which led the television audience to deem Kennedy the winner, although radio listeners in general thought Nixon had won or the debate was a draw.[14] Nixon did not wear make-up during the debate unlike Kennedy. The debates are considered a political landmark: the point at which the medium of television began to play an important role in politics.[15]

Presidency (1961–1963)

John 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. He famously remarked, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." 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."[16] In closing, he expanded on his desire for greater internationalism: "Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you."

Cuba and the Bay of Pigs Invasion

Prior to Kennedy's election to the Presidency, the Eisenhower Administration created a plan for the overthrow of the Fidel Castro regime in Cuba. Central to such a plan (structured and detailed by the CIA with minimal input from the State Department) was the arming of a counter-revolutionary insurgency composed of anti-Castro Cubans.[17] U.S. trained Cuban insurgents were to invade Cuba and instigate an uprising among the Cuban people in hopes of achieving the goal of removing Castro from power. On April 17, 1961, Kennedy gave approval for the 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. However, the CIA proceeded to allow the troops to go even though Kennedy did not authorize air support. By April 19, 1961, the Cuban government had captured or killed the invading exiles, and Kennedy was forced to negotiate for the release of the 1,189 survivors. The failure of the plan originated in a lack of dialogue among the military leadership, a result of which was the complete lack of naval support in the face of organized artillery troops on the island who easily incapacitated the exile force at the landing beaches.[18] 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 personal responsibility for the debacle. Furthermore, the incident made Castro wary of the U.S. and untrusting, leading him to believe that another invasion such as that one would occur.[19][20]

Cuban Missile Crisis

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. They were shown to Kennedy on October 16, 1962. America would soon be posed with a serious nuclear threat. Here Kennedy faced a dilemma: if the U.S. attacked the sites, it might lead to nuclear war with the U.S.S.R.. However, if the U.S. did nothing, it would endure the perpetual threat of nuclear weapons within its region—in such close proximity that if the weapons were launched pre-emptively, the U.S. might have been unable to retaliate. 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 ordered the Soviets to remove all "defensive" material that was being built off the Cuban island. Without doing so, the Soviet and Cuban peoples would face naval quarantine. 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 — as long as U.N. inspections were allowed for verification; Kennedy also secretly promised to remove U.S. ballistic Jupiter missiles from Turkey within six months, although these missiles were already slated for removal[citation needed]. 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.

During the course of The Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy was often visited by Max Jacobson for injections of medication.[21] Dr. Jacobson was known as "Dr. Feelgood" to his clients: some of his most famous clients were Andy Warhol, Anthony Quinn and Tennessee Williams. Dr. Jacobson was introduced to President Kennedy during the 1960 campaign and was asked to help the President's medical ailments, which included colitis, urinary-tract infections and Addison's Disease. Max Jacobson had established a general practice on the Upper East Side catering to writers, musicians and entertainers who nicknamed him "Miracle Max" or "Dr. Feelgood" for the "vitamin injection" treatments that made them happy and gave them seemingly limitless energy. Jacobson's panacea was 30 to 50 milligrams of amphetamines - the mood-elevating neural energizers also known as speed - mixed with multivitamins, steroids, enzymes, hormones, and solubilized placenta, bone marrow, and animal organ cells. This "vitamin injection" which Kennedy craved for during stressful times was also known to give one an elevated sense of confidence and invincibility.

Latin America and Communism

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 foreign 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 in the autonomy of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

Peace Corps

As one of his first presidential acts, Kennedy created the Peace Corps. Through this program, Americans volunteered to help underdeveloped nations in areas such as education, farming, health care and construction.

Vietnam

In South East Asia, Kennedy followed Eisenhower's lead by using limited military action to fight the Communist forces ostensibly led by Ho Chi Minh. Proclaiming a fight against the spread of Communism, Kennedy enacted policies providing political, economic, and military support for the unstable French-installed South Vietnamese government, which included sending 16,000 military advisors and U.S. Special Forces to the area. Kennedy also agreed to the use of free-fire zones, napalm, defoliants and jet planes. U.S. involvement in the area continually escalated until regular U.S. forces were directly fighting the Vietnam War in the next administration. The Kennedy Administration increased military support, but the South Vietnamese military was unable to make headway against the pro-independence Viet-Minh and Viet Cong forces. By July 1963, Kennedy faced a crisis in Vietnam. The Administration's response was to assist in the coup d'état of the Catholic President of South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem.[22] In 1963, South Vietnamese generals overthrew the Diem government, arresting Diem and later killing him (though the exact circumstances of his death remain unclear).[23] Kennedy sanctioned Diem's overthrow. One reason for the support was a fear that Diem might negotiate a neutralist coalition government which included Communists, as had occurred in Laos in 1962. Dean Rusk, Secretary of State, remarked "This kind of neutralism...is tantamount to surrender."

It remains a point of controversy among historians whether or not Vietnam would have escalated to the point it did had Kennedy served out his full term and possibly been re-elected in 1964.[24] Fueling this speculation are statements made by Kennedy's and Johnson's Secretary of Defense Robert MacNamara that Kennedy was strongly considering pulling out of Vietnam after the 1964 election. In the film "The Fog of War", not only does McNamara say this, but a tape recording of Lyndon Johnson confirms that Kennedy was planning to withdraw from Vietnam, a position Johnson states he disapproved of. [25] Additional evidence is Kennedy's National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) #263 on October 11, 1963 that gave the order for withdrawal of 1,000 military personnel by the end of 1963. Nevertheless, given the stated reason for the overthrow of the Diem government, such action would have been a dramatic policy reversal, but Kennedy was generally moving in a less hawkish direction in the Cold War since his acclaimed speech about World Peace at American University the previous June 10, 1963.

After Kennedy's assassination, new President Lyndon B. Johnson immediately reversed Kennedy's order to withdraw 1,000 military personnel by the end of 1963 with his own NSAM #273 on November 26, 1963.

West Berlin Speech

Under simultaneous and opposing pressures from the Allies and the Soviets, Germany was divided. The Berlin Wall separated West and East Berlin, the latter being under the control of the Soviets. On June 26, 1963, Kennedy visited West Berlin and gave a public speech criticizing communism. 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". Nearly five-sixths of the population was on the street when Kennedy said the famous phrase. He remarked to aides afterwards: "We'll never have another day like this one."[26]

Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

Troubled by the long-term dangers of radioactive contamination and nuclear weapons proliferation, Kennedy 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 did 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.

Ireland

On the occasion of his visit to Ireland in 1963, President Kennedy joined with Irish President Éamon 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.

He also visited the original cottage where previous Kennedys had lived before emigrating to America, and said: "This is where it all began ...".

On December 22, 2006, the Irish Justice Department released declassified police documents that indicated that Kennedy was the subject of three death threats during this visit. It was interpreted as a hoax[1]

Domestic policy

Kennedy called his domestic program the "New Frontier". It ambitiously promised federal funding for education, medical care for the elderly, and government intervention to halt the recession. Kennedy also promised an end to racial discrimination. In 1963, he proposed a tax reform which included income tax cuts, but this was not passed by Congress until 1964, after his death. Few of Kennedy's major programs passed Congress during his lifetime, although, under his successor Johnson, Congress did vote them through in 1964–65.

As President, Kennedy oversaw the last pre-Furman federal execution, and last, to date, military execution. In both cases he refused to ask for commutation of the death sentences (Iowa governor Harold Hughes personally contacted Kennedy to request clemency for Victor Feguer, who was sentenced to death under federal law in Iowa, and executed on March 15, 1963).

Civil rights

The turbulent end of state-sanctioned racial discrimination was one of the most pressing domestic issues of Kennedy's era. The United States Supreme Court had ruled in 1954 that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. However, many schools, especially in southern states, did not obey the Supreme Court's judgment. Segregation on buses, in restaurants, movie theaters, bathrooms, and other public places remained. Kennedy supported racial integration and civil rights, and during the 1960 campaign he telephoned Coretta Scott King; wife of the jailed Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., which perhaps drew some additional black support to his candidacy. John and Robert Kennedy's intervention secured the early release of King from jail.[27]

In 1962, James Meredith tried to enroll at the University of Mississippi, but he was prevented from doing so by white students. Kennedy responded by sending some 400 federal marshals and 3,000 troops to ensure that Meredith could enroll in his first class. Kennedy also assigned federal marshals to protect Freedom Riders.

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.

On June 11, 1963, President Kennedy intervened when Alabama Governor George Wallace blocked the doorway to the University of Alabama to stop two African American 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.[28] Kennedy proposed what would become the Civil Rights Act of 1964.[29][30]

Immigration

John F. Kennedy initially proposed an overhaul of US immigration policy that was later managed on the floor of the US senate by his brother Teddy Kennedy after his death in 1965. This legislation dramatically shifted the source of US immigration from a few European countries that had traditionally supplied US immigrants towards immigration from Latin America and Asia and shifted the emphasis of selection of immigrants towards facilitating family reunification. [31]

There is debate about how closely the legislation that resulted actually reflected John F. Kennedy's wishes. It is clear that he wanted to dismantle the selection of immigrants based on country of origin-and saw this as an extension of his civil rights policies.[32]

The increase in immigration which resulted from these legislative changes has been quite large-and showed no immediate sign of being curtailed significantly even more than 40 years after JFK's death. By the early part of the 21st century, some of the original Kennedy supporters were critical of the 1965 immigration expansion, including Gene McCarthy who said the 1965 expansion was a huge mistake. However, prominent politicians in both parties were still seeking to further expand immigration including all major candidates in the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections.

Space program

Kennedy was eager for the United States to lead the way in the space race. Sergei Khrushchev says Kennedy approached his father, Nikita, twice about a "joint venture" in space exploration—in June 1961 and Autumn 1963. On the first occasion, Russia was far ahead of America in terms of space technology. Kennedy first made the goal for landing a man on the Moon in speaking to a Joint Session of Congress on May 25, 1961, saying

"First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish."[33]

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."[34]

On the second approach to Khrushchev, the Russian 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 $25 billion for the Apollo Project, 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 Kennedy died in November before the agreement could be formalized. On July 20, 1969, almost six years after Kennedy's death, the Project Apollo's goal was realized when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to land on the Moon.

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 Kennedys brought new life and vigor – a favorite word of Kennedy – to the atmosphere of the White House.[citation needed] They believed that the White House should be a place to celebrate American history, culture, and achievement, and they invited artists, writers, scientists, poets, musicians, actors, Nobel Prize winners and athletes to visit, notwithstanding Kennedy's own well-known middle-brow intellectual and aesthetic tastes.[citation needed] Jacqueline also bought 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", although years later Jacqueline Kennedy denied that the family called him by that name).[citation needed] Outside the White House lawn the Kennedys established a preschool, swimming pool and tree house. Jackie did not like the children to be photographed, and during her frequent absences Kennedy asked photographers to come and photograph the children in the Oval Office. He was quoted as saying, "Jackie's not here, so you'd come over here quick."[citation needed] The resulting photos are probably the most famous of the children, and especially John Jr., after he was photographed playing underneath the President’s desk.

The President was closely tied to popular culture. Things such as "Twisting at the White House" and "Camelot" (the popular Broadway play) were part of the JFK culture. Vaughn Meader's "First Family" comedy album – an album parodying the President, First Lady, their family and administration – sold about 4 million copies. On May 19, 1962, Marilyn Monroe sang for the president at a large birthday party in Madison Square Garden.

Behind the glamorous facade, the Kennedys also suffered many personal tragedies. Jacqueline suffered a miscarriage in 1955 and gave birth to a stillborn daughter, Arabella Kennedy, in 1956. The death of their newborn son, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, in August 1963, was a great loss. Since Kennedy's death, allegations have been made that Kennedy carried on numerous extramarital dalliances during his presidency with women such as Hollywood actress Marilyn Monroe and socialite Mary Pinchot Meyer.[35]

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. She gave an interview to Theodore White, where she mentioned the musical Camelot,[36] and White later said that he had "found the headline".

Amongst his interests, Kennedy was a collector of scrimshaw carvings made by sailors from bones of whales and other marine mammals. His interest in scrimshaw helped to popularize this particular folk art.[citation needed] He was a very fast reader and often read two to three books per day.[citation needed] He also holds a record acknowledged by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's fastest speaker in public life, with a speed of 327 words in one minute in a speech given in December 1961.[37]

In October 1951, during his third term as Massachusetts 11th district congressman, the then 34-year-old Kennedy embarked on a seven-week Asian trip to Israel, India, Vietnam and Japan with his then 25-year-old brother Robert (who had just graduated from law school four months earlier) and his then 27-year-old sister Patricia. Because of their eight-year separation in age, the two brothers had previously seen little of each other. This 25,000 mile trip was the first extended time they had spent together and resulted in their becoming best friends in addition to being brothers. Robert was campaign manager for Kennedy's successful 1952 Senate campaign and successful 1960 Presidential campaign. The two brothers worked closely together from 1957 to 1959 on the Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor and Management Field (Senate Rackets Committee) when Robert was its chief counsel. During Kennedy's presidency, Robert served in his Cabinet as Attorney General and was his closest advisor.

Assassination

President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time on November 22, 1963, while on a political trip through Texas, he was pronounced dead at 1:00pm. Kennedy was struck by two bullets, according to the single bullet theory developed by Arlen Specter. Texas Governor John Connally, seated ahead of Kennedy, was also struck by a single bullet, but survived.

Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested in a theatre about 80 minutes after the assassination and was then charged at 7:00 p.m. for killing a Dallas policeman, J.D Tippit, under "murder with malice". Oswald was then charged at 11:30 p.m. for the murder of Kennedy (there being no charge for "assassination" of a president at that time). Oswald denied shooting anyone; he claimed that he was being set up as a "patsy", and that photographs of him holding the alleged murder weapon were fabrications. Oswald was fatally shot less than two days later on Sunday, November 24 in a Dallas police station by Jack Ruby, in front of TV cameras in the first live murder ever seen by U.S. audiences. Consequently, Oswald's guilt or innocence was never determined in a court of law, and some critics (such as New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, and conspiracy researchers Mark Lane and David S. Lifton) contend that Oswald was either part of a conspiracy, or framed, or that he was not involved at all.

On November 29, 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 1976 by the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) also concluded that Oswald was the assassin, but that there was a "probable conspiracy" as well.[38]

The assassination was captured on film, most famously by Dallas dress manufacturer Abraham Zapruder, directly to the north of the limousine and east of the grassy knoll, as well as by Orville Nix to the south of the motorcade route. Several other films were taken in Dealey Plaza, including that of Marianne "Maria" Muchmore, which shows the limousine slowing at the grassy knoll and agent Clint Hill climbing atop the vehicle.

On February 19, Presidents Day, 2007 new film footage[39] relating to the JFK assassination was donated to the Sixth Floor Museum by George Jefferies, an amateur photographer. The film does not show the assassination, having been taken roughly 90 seconds beforehand and a couple of blocks away. One detail relevant to the investigation of the assassination is a clear view of Kennedy's bunched collar — which has led to different calculations about how low in the back Kennedy was first shot.

Burial

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 minor children, and his brother, the late Senator Robert Kennedy is also buried nearby. His grave is lit with an "Eternal Flame". In the film The Fog of War, then Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara claims that he picked the location in the cemetery — a location which Jackie agreed was suitable. Kennedy and William Howard Taft are the only two U.S. Presidents buried at Arlington.