HOME | DD
Y-LIME — John F. Kennedy
Published: 2004-12-26 14:14:10 +0000 UTC; Views: 2940; Favourites: 49; Downloads: 63
Redirect to original
Description
My inspiration, read alot about him..his my idol.Related content
Comments: 18
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Wow. Took me forever to scroll down here with the history lesson above but anyway....this is amzaing. You captured him, particularly his youth, perfectly.
Luis
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I love it. He was a great man like his brother Robert. They are my idols.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
oh wow. this is great, man. you nailed it. lovely job.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
We need to realize that he was both a great man and a horrible man. I was originally gonna comment on how wonderfully realistic and intense this drawing is, but someone mentioned how we need some one like him now...it's true, we do - we need the youth and charisma. We don't need the affairs or the lies that he put on America. He was fortunate they were not discovered until almost a decade after his death. But don't take this the wrong way, I actually really look up to him, he's inspired me too - he is my idol as well, just not at some things. He was a very fortunate man. Good lookin' too, haha. I've done a lot of portraits of him and yet to get any right. You've done a totally spectacular job, unbelieveably good.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
He was a GREAT man...he is mine and my dad's idol too
may he RIP
<3
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Robert F. Kennedy
Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy (November 20, 1925 – June 6, 1968), also called "RFK", was one of two younger brothers of President John F. Kennedy, and was appointed by his brother as Attorney General for his administration. He was one of President Kennedy's most trusted advisors, and worked closely with the President during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Some consider his contribution to the Civil Rights movement of
African Americans to be his greatest legacy.
After his brother's death, Kennedy continued as Attorney General under President Johnson for nine months.
He resigned in September, 1964, and was elected to the United States Senate from New York that November.
He was assassinated shortly after delivering a speech celebrating his victory in the 1968 Presidential primary of California at the Ambassador Hotel in
Los Angeles, California.
Career until 1960
Robert Kennedy was born on November 20, 1925, in Brookline, Massachusetts, the seventh child of Joseph P. Kennedy and Rose Kennedy. While growing up, he was raised amidst the competitive yet loyal Kennedy family culture.
Kennedy served briefly in the Navy and underwent the officer training
(V-12) at Bates College, then went on to attend Harvard.
He was a three-year letterman for the football team and graduated in 1948. He then enrolled at the University of Virginia School of Law, and earned his degree in 1951.
Following law school, Kennedy managed his brother John's successful
1952 Senate campaign.
Kennedy started his career working for Senator Joseph McCarthy, with whom he shared hardline anti-Communist views.
Kennedy served as Counsel with Roy Cohn to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations during the McCarthy Hearings of 1953-54.
Kennedy soon made a name for himself as the chief counsel of the
Senate Labor Rackets Committee hearings, which began in 1956.
In a dramatic scene, Kennedy squared off against Jimmy Hoffa during the antagonistic argument that marked Hoffa's testimony.
Kennedy left the Rackets Committee in 1959 in order to run his brother John's successful Presidential campaign.
Attorney general
After the 1960 election, he was appointed Attorney General by
President Kennedy.
As Attorney General, he continued his crusade against organized crime, often at the resistance of FBI head J. Edgar Hoover.
Convictions against notorious organized crime figures rose by 800% during his term.
Kennedy was relentless in his pursuit of Teamster's President James Hoffa, and was criticized for an insensitivity to civil liberties
-- such as the widespread use of wiretaps against organized crime figures,
as well as such people as Martin Luther King Jr..
Kennedy also began seriously to enforce civil rights and equal opportunity for African-Americans.
He expressed the Administration's commitment to civil rights during a 1961 speech at the University of Georgia Law School:
"We will not stand by or be aloof.
We will move.
I happen to believe that the 1954 Supreme Court school desegregation decision was right.
But my belief does not matter.
It is the law.
Some of you may believe the decision was wrong.
That does not matter.
It is the law."
In September 1962, he sent U.S. Marshals and troops to Oxford, Mississippi, to enforce a Federal court order admitting the first African American student, James Meredith, to the University of Mississippi.
Riots ensued during the period of Meredith's admittance, which resulted in hundreds of injuries and two deaths.
Yet Kennedy remained adamant concerning the rights of black students to enjoy the benefits of all levels of the educational system.
The Office of Civil Rights also hired its first African American lawyer,
Thelton Henderson, and began to work cautiously with leaders of the Civil Rights Movement.
Robert Kennedy saw voting as the key to racial justice, and collaborated with Presidents Kennedy and Johnson to create the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, which helped bring an end to Jim Crow laws.
As his brother's confidante, Kennedy oversaw the CIA's anti-Castro activities after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, and he also helped develop the strategy to blockade Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis instead of initiating a military air strike that might have led to nuclear war.
He later negotiated with the Soviet Union to remove the missiles.
The assassination of JFK
The assassination of President Kennedy happened two days after
Robert Kennedy's 38th birthday.
It was a brutal shock to the world, the nation, and of course to Robert and the rest of the Kennedy family.
For the rest of his life, RFK never overcame the shock and personal grief of that day in 1963.
Robert mourned his brother's death and the fact that so much of Kennedy's vision and promise was ultimately left unfulfilled.
During the days following the assassination, but just before the funeral, Kennedy wrote to his two eldest children, Kathleen, and Joseph II,
telling them about the tragedy and to follow what their uncle had started.
Kennedy was due to give a speech prior to the showing of a memorial film dedicated to the late President at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. As he was introduced, tens of thousands of Democratic delegates, Democratic party workers, young members of the Democratic party, and others broke into thunderous applause and an outroar of support for the nervous and emotionally fragile Robert, standing at the podium.
He broke down and began to cry.
The audience did not stop their display of support for their candidate, and the applause continued for about 22 minutes
--despite repeated appeals by him and the chairman of the convention.
Robert Kennedy mustered enough strength to deliver the speech, but broke down into tears backstage.
He would remain personally devastated for many months.
His elder brother's death meant that he was now the eldest living son of Joseph Kennedy, and the head of his own large family, as well as of his sisters, of the children of his brothers and sisters, and even of his younger brother, Ted Kennedy.
Robert was now the young leader of the Kennedy family.
It has been noted in the succeeding years that Robert Kennedy did not discuss with the Warren Commission the history of plans, considered by the CIA, to assassinate foreign leaders.
Yet such ideas date back as far as 1957 (prior to the Kennedy administration's existence) when US Ambassador to Cuba, Arthur Gardner, suggested such a plan (to murder Fidel Castro) to Batista,
who thoroughly rejected the suggestion.
In December 1959, J. C. King, chief of the CIA's Western Hemisphere Division, recommended that
"thorough consideration be given to the elimination of Fidel Castro".
Both Allen W. Dulles of the CIA and E. Howard Hunt approved of such plans but chose never to reveal their consideration at Cabinet meetings during the Kennedy administration.
No source relating to such operational considerations make more than passing mention to Attorney General Kennedy
(Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with respect to Intelligence Activities - 94 Cong., I Sess. 1975)
Senator from New York
Soon after President John F. Kennedy's assassination, Robert Kennedy left the Cabinet to run for a seat in the United States Senate, representing
New York.
President Johnson and Robert Kennedy were often at severe odds with each other, both politically and personally, yet Johnson gave considerable support to RFK's campaign, as he was later to recall in his memoir of the White House years.
His opponent in the 1964 race was Republican incumbent Kenneth Keating, who attempted to portray Kennedy as an arrogant carpetbagger.
Kennedy emerged victorious in the November election, helped in part by LBJ's huge victory margin in New York.
During his three and a half years as a US Senator, Kennedy visited
apartheid-ruled South Africa, helped to start a successful redevelopment project in poverty-stricken Bedford-Stuyvesant in New York City,
visited the Mississippi Delta as a member of the Senate committee reviewing the effectiveness of 'War on Poverty' programs and, reversing his prior stance, called for a halt in further escalation of the Vietnam War.
As Senator, Robert endeared himself to African Americans, and other minorities such as Native Americans and immigrant groups.
He spoke forcefully in favour of what he called the "disaffected," the impoverished, and "the excluded," thereby aligning himself with leaders of the civil rights struggle and social justice campaigners, leading the Democratic party in a pursuit of a more aggressive agenda to eliminate perceived discrimination on all levels.
Kennedy supported bussing, integration of all public facilities, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and anti-poverty social programs to increase education, offer opportunities for employment, and provide health care for African-Americans.
Kennedy's presidential campaign was powered by an aggressive vision for civil freedom and justice, the expansion of social development programs beyond Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society programs, active minority participation in American politics, and outright opposition to serious social problems such as poverty, corruption in the judiciary, and racism.
Here Kennedy was at a remarkable contrast to his brother.
JFK had been thwarted in his effort to persuade the politicians of the Southern states to accept civil rights legislation, and had been unwilling to appear arrogant to southern Americans.
JFK had introduced a major tax-cut legislation to propel the economy, and had trimmed and transformed the workings of the U.S. government.
RFK's dedication to a major expansion of government-funded welfare institutions and social development and justice initiatives exceeded, and expanded upon, the undertaking's of John F. Kennedy's New Frontier.
The administration of President Kennedy had backed U.S. involvement in South East Asia and other parts of the world, in response to
Soviet-sponsored Communist aggression.
Robert Kennedy vigorously supported President Kennedy's earlier efforts, yet ultimately committed himself against the war in Vietnam
--even though President Kennedy had increased military support for South Vietnam, and had envisioned a major U.S. commitment to defending South East Asia and the Indochina region from Communist aggression.
Many critics alleged that Kennedy's switch in position was to reap advantage during the hotly contested Democratic primaries.
His supporters responded that Kennedy had long opposed the escalation of military activities in South East Asia.
By these comparisons, it is easier to portray Robert Kennedy, instead of President John F. Kennedy, as a truer icon of American liberalism and the modern political ideals of the United States Democratic Party.
It is worth mentioning, however, that circumstances had changed in the time between the brothers' assassinations;
civil rights legislation had passed through Congress, the Vietnam War had escalated with dubious success, and Johnson had implemented the Great Society programs.
Presidential candidacy and assassination
Originally, Kennedy had denied speculation that he was going to run for the Democratic nomination in 1968 against President Lyndon Johnson
(The 22nd Amendment didn't disqualify LBJ from running for a second term because he served less than half of JFK's four-year term).
Kennedy suffered doubts of his ability to win the nomination, and he also feared that his candidacy would appear to be a product of a personal feud with Johnson.
Johnson won only a very narrow victory in the New Hampshire primary on March 12, 1968 against Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota, an anti-war candidate, so Kennedy declared his own candidacy for the Presidency on March 16 stating,
"I do not run for the Presidency merely to oppose any man but to propose new policies.
I run because I am convinced that this country is on a perilous course and because I have such strong feelings about what must be done, and I feel that I'm obliged to do all I can.".
McCarthy supporters angrily denounced Kennedy as an opportunist.
On March 31, Johnson appeared on television to state that he was no longer a candidate for re-election.
On April 4, during a campaign stop in Indianapolis, Kennedy learned of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
During a heartfelt, impromptu speech in Indianapolis' inner city, Kennedy called for a reconciliation between the races.
Kennedy's campaign relied largely on his ability to run an emotional and intensely personal campaign.
He challenged students on the "hypocrisy" of draft deferments, visited numerous small towns, and made himself available to the masses, by participating in long motorcades and street-corner stump speeches
(often in troubled inner-cities).
Kennedy made urban poverty a chief concern of his campaign, which in part led to enormous crowds that would attend his events in poor urban areas or rural parts of Appalachia.
Kennedy won the Indiana and Nebraska Democratic primaries, but lost the Oregon primary.
Assassination
On June 4, 1968, Kennedy scored a major victory in his drive toward the Democratic presidential nomination when he won primaries in South Dakota and in California.
He addressed his supporters in the early morning hours of June 5 in a ballroom at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.
He left the ballroom through a service area to greet supporters working in the hotel's kitchen.
In a crowded kitchen passageway, Sirhan B. Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian, fired a .22 caliber revolver directly into the crowd surrounding Kennedy.
Six people were wounded, including Kennedy, who was shot in the head at close range.
After being wounded, Kennedy remained conscious for about 20 minutes. During that time, he was heard to say,
"Is everybody all right?"
He was taken to Central Receiving Hospital and then Good Samaritan Hospital for emergency brain surgery.
He died there at the age of 42 in the early morning hours of June 6, 1968.
A funeral mass was held at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City on June 8.
His brother, U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), eulogized him with the words,
"My brother need not be idolized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it."
Senator Kennedy (D-MA) concluded his eulogy, paraphrasing his deceased brother Robert, by quoting George Bernard Shaw:
" Some men see things as they are and say 'Why?' -
I dream things that never were and say, 'Why not?' "
Immediately following the mass, Kennedy's body was transported by special train to Washington, D.C..
Thousands crowded the Penn Central tracks and stations, a situation which led to two deaths and several injuries at Elizabeth, New Jersey.
Kennedy was buried near his brother, John, in Arlington National Cemetery.
He had always maintained that he wished to be buried in Massachusetts, but his family believed that, since the brothers had been so close in life, they should be near each other in death.
His wish was met that his grave be marked with a simple, white wooden cross and his name, date of birth, and date of death.
In accordance with his wishes, Kennedy was buried with the bare minimum military escort and ceremony.
Robert Kennedy's burial at Arlington National Cemetery was the only one to ever take place at night.
After Kennedy's assassination, the mandate of the Secret Service was altered to include protection of presidential candidates.
Personal life
In 1950, he married Ethel Skakel, who would eventually give birth to
11 children:
Kathleen Hartington (b.1951)
Joseph Patrick II (b.1952)
Robert Francis, Jr. (b.1954)
David Anthony (1955-1984)
Mary Courtney (b.1956)
Michael LeMoyne (1958-1997)
Mary Kerry (b.1959)
Christopher George (b.1963)
Matthew Maxwell Taylor (b.1965)
Douglas Harriman (b.1967)
Rory Elizabeth Katherine (b.1968)
The last child, Rory, was born several months after her father's assassination.
Kennedy was a loyal son, brother, and family man.
Despite the fact that his father's most ambitious dreams centered around his elder brothers, Robert was fiercely loyal to Joseph, Joe Jr. and John.
His competitiveness was admired by his father and elder brothers, while his loyalty bound them more affectionately closer to each other than most brothers are.
Robert bore the brunt of his father's dominating temperament and was often the target of the patriarch's oppressive lectures.
Working on the campaigns of John Kennedy, Robert was more involved, passionate and tenacious than the candidate himself, obsessed with every detail, fighting out every battle and taking workers to task.
Central to Kennedy's politics and personal attitude to life, and its purpose, remained the heritage of Kennedy's Irish-Catholicism.
Throughout his life he made constant reference to his faith having informed every area of his life and having given him the strength to re-enter the political landscape following the assassination of his elder brother.
Yet his was by no means an unresponsive and staid faith but rather the faith of a Catholic Radical
- perhaps the first successful Catholic Radical in American political history.
Following the assassination of JFK in 1963, he took Jackie, Caroline,
and John Jr under his wing, treating them as if they were his own.
Kennedy was easily the most religious of his brothers.
Whereas John F. Kennedy maintained an aloof sense of his faith Robert Kennedy approached his duties to mankind through the looking glass of his Catholicism.
In the last years of his life he found great solace in the metaphysical poets of ancient Greece, most especially in the writings of Aeschylus.
At his announcement of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr
Kennedy quoted these lines from Aeschylus in a speech which was to become one of his most memorable moments:
"He who learns must suffer.
And even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart.
And in our own despair, and against our will, comes Wisdom by the awful Grace of God".
Kennedy owned a home at the well-known Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts on Cape Cod but spent most of his time at his estate in Virginia, known as Hickory Hill, located just outside Washington, DC.
His widow, Ethel, and his children continued to live at Hickory Hill after his death in 1968.
Ethel Kennedy now lives full time at the family's vacation home in Hyannis Port.
His pallbearers included Robert McNamara, John Glenn, Averell Harriman,
C. Douglas Dillon, Kirk Lemoyne Billings (schoolmate of John F. Kennedy), Stephen Smith (husband to Jean Ann Kennedy), David Hackett,
Jim Whittaker, John Seigenthaler Sr., and Lord Harlech.
Honors
D.C. Stadium in Washington, D.C. was renamed
Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in 1969.
In 1978, the United States Congress posthumously awarded Kennedy its Gold Medal of Honor.
In 1998, the United States Mint released a special dollar coin that featured Kennedy on the obverse and the emblems of the United States Department of Justice and the United States Senate on the reverse.
In Washington, DC on November 20, 2001, U.S President George W. Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft dedicated the
Department of Justice headquarters building as the
Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building, honoring RFK on what would have been his 76th birthday.
They both spoke during the ceremony, as did Kennedy's eldest son,
Joseph II, who made reference to his uncle John F. Kennedy's
Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Profiles in Courage, when he said to the president as he spoke:
"Mr. President, your strength since September 11 has been a profile in leadership."
Numerous roads, public schools and other facilities across the United States were named in memory of Robert F. Kennedy in the months and years after his death.
In an effort to not just remember the late Senator, but continue his work helping disadvantaged, a small group of private citizens launched the
Robert F. Kennedy Children's Action Corps in 1969, which today helps
more than 800 abused and neglected children each year.
Writing
Considered an eloquent speaker generally, RFK also wrote extensively on politics and issues confronting his generation:
The Enemy Within:
The McClellan Committee's Crusade Against Jimmy Hoffa
and Corrupt Labor Unions (1960)
To Seek a Newer World (1967)
Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis (1969)
Quotes
"Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly"
"The problem of power is how to achieve its responsible use,
rather than its irresponsible and indulgent use
- how to make people of power live for the public, rather than off the public."
"Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of society.
Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence.
Yet it is the one essential, vital, quality for those who seek to change a world which yields most painfully to change."
"The sharpest criticism often goes hand in hand with the deepest idealism and love of country."
"How do you tell if Lyndon is lying?
If he wiggles his ears, that doesn't mean he's lying.
If he raises his eyebrows, that doesn't mean he's lying.
But when he moves his lips, he's lying."
(On President Johnson)
"Men without hope, resigned to despair and oppression, do not make revolutions.
It is when expectation replaces submission, when despair is touched with the awareness of possibility, that the forces of human desire and the passion for justice are unloosed."
(Berkeley, Oct-22-1966)
"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why...
I dream of things that never were and ask why not."
(RFK quoting Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw)
"Few will have the greatness to bend history; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation ...
It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is thus shaped.
Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."
South Africa, 1966
"At the University of Natal in Durban, I was told the church to which most of the white population belongs teaches apartheid as a moral necessity.
A questioner declared that few churches allow black Africans to pray with the white because the Bible says that is the way it should be, because God created Negroes to serve.
"But suppose God is black", I replied.
"What if we go to Heaven and we, all our lives, have treated the Negro as an inferior, and God is there, and we look up and He is not white?
What then is our response?"
There was no answer.
Only silence."
(Article for LOOK Magazine following visit to South Africa, 1966)
"Fear not the path of truth for the lack of people walking on it."
June 6th, 1968 (From the last speech he gave)
"I Remember, I Believe", The Pursuit of Justice (1964)
Now I can go back to being ruthless again.
After winning his race for a seat in the US Senate.
Esquire (April 1965)
People say I am ruthless.
I am not ruthless.
And if I find the man who is calling me ruthless, I shall destroy him.
While on a campaign "whistle stop tour" which reporters had dubbed
"The Ruthless Cannonball."
Something about the fact that I made some contribution to either my country, or those who were less well off.
I think back to what Camus wrote about the fact that perhaps this world is a world in which children suffer, but we can lessen the number of suffering children, and if you do not do this, then who will do this?
I'd like to feel that I'd done something to lessen that suffering.
In an interview shortly before he was killed,
responding to a question by David Frost about how his obituary should read.
Are we like the God of the Old Testament, that we in Washington can decide which cities, towns, and hamlets in Vietnam will be destroyed?
Do we have to accept that?
I don't think we do.
I think we can do something about it.
About the Vietnam War, in his last speech at the Senate on the subject
[Gross national product] measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.
Speech at the University of Kansas at Lawrence (March 18, 1968)
Attributed
All of us, from the wealthiest to the young children that I have seen in this country, in this year, bloated by starvation
--- we all share one precious possession, and that is the name American.
It is not easy to know what that means.
But, in part, to be an American means to have been an outcast and a stranger, to have come from the exiles' country, and to know that he who denies the outcast and the stanger still amongst us, he also denies America.
All of us might wish at times that we lived in a more tranquil world, but we don't.
And if our times are difficult and perplexing, so are they challenging and filled with opportunity.
As long as men are hungry, and their children uneducated, and their crops destroyed by pestilence, the American Revolution will have a part to play.
As long as men are not free
-- in their lives and in their opinions, their speech and their knowledge --
that long will the American Revolution not be finished.
Each generation makes its own accounting to its children.
Fear not the path of truth, for the lack of people walking on it.
I am not one of those who think that coming in second or third is winning.
I believe that, as long as there is plenty, poverty is evil.
I thought they'd get one of us, but Jack, after all he's been through, never worried about it.
I thought it would be me.
I was the seventh of nine children.
When you come from that far down you have to struggle to survive.
I'm tired of chasing people.
If any man claims the Negro should be content...
let him say he would willingly change the color of his skin and go to live in the Negro section of a large city.
Then and only then has he a right to such a claim.
It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped.
Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
It is more important to be of service than successful.
It is not enough to understand, or to see clearly.
The future will be shaped in the arena of human activity, by those willing to commit their minds and their bodies to the task.
It is one thing to assure a man the legal right to eat in a restaurant;
it is another thing to assure that he can earn the money to eat there.
Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago:
to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.
One-fifth of the people are against everything all the time.
Our attitude toward immigration reflects our faith in the American ideal.
We have always believed it possible for men and women who start at the bottom to rise as far as their talent and energy allow.
Neither race nor place of birth should affect their chances.
Progress is a nice word.
But change is its motivator.
And change has its enemies.
Some believe there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world's ills
— against misery, against ignorance, or injustice and violence.
Yet many of the world's great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single man.
A young monk began the Protestant reformation, a young general extended an empire from Macedonia to the borders of the earth, and a young woman reclaimed the territory of France.
It was a young Italian explorer who discovered the New World, and 32 year old Thomas Jefferson who proclaimed that all men are created equal.
"Give me a place to stand," said Archimedes,"and I will move the world."
These men moved the world, and so can we all.
The free way of life proposes ends, but it does not prescribe means.
The advice "bomb them back to the Stone Age" may show that the speaker is already there himself, but it could, if followed, force all of us to join him.
The future does not belong to those who are content with today,
apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike,
timid and fearful in the face of bold projects and new ideas.
Rather, it will belong to those who can blend passion, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the great enterprises and ideals of American society.
Together, we can make ourselves a nation that spends more on books than on bombs, more on hospitals than the terrible tools of war, more on decent houses than military aircraft.
Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live.
We in Government have begun to recognize the critical work which must be done at all levels
—local, State and Federal—
in ending the pollution of our waters.
What is objectionable, what is dangerous about extremists, is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant.
The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents.
What we need in the United States is not division, what we need in the United States is not hatred, what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness, but it's love, peace, and compassion towards one another, and a feeling of justice towards those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white, or whether they be black.
Whenever men take the law into their own hands, the loser is the law.
And when the law loses, freedom languishes.
References
DiEugenio, James and Lisa Pease,
The Assassinations (2003).
Fusco, Paul (photogr.),
RFK Funeral Train (2000).
Hilty, James M. Robert Kennedy:
Brother Protector (1997), vol. 1 to 1963.
Schlesinger Jr. Arthur M.
Robert Kennedy and His Times (1978).
Shesol, Jeff.
Mutual Contempt: Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy,
and the Feud that Defined a Decade (1997).
Thomas, Evan. Robert Kennedy: His Life (2002)
Zimmermann, Karl R., The Remarkable GG1 (1977).
RFK Biography
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
JFK (CONT)
Thomas Reeves' A Question of Character: A Life of John F. Kennedy is a sharply critical research text for Kennedy's "revisionism."
Noam Chomsky, in his book Rethinking Camelot: JFK, the Vietnam War, and US Political Culture (1993), presents a thesis on the Kennedy administration in opposition to the one that lingers in the memory of many Americans.
Trivia
As of 2006, Kennedy was the last President to die while still in office.
As of the election of 2004, Kennedy was the last Democrat from outside the South to be elected, and the last president to be elected while serving in the U.S. Senate.
As of 2006, at age 43, Kennedy was the youngest person ever elected President of the United States, but he was not the youngest ever to serve as President.
(Theodore Roosevelt, while Vice-President and at age 42, was elevated to the Presidency following the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901. Roosevelt was subsequently elected to a full term as President in his own right when he was 46).
Of people born in the 20th century, Kennedy was the first to serve as President of the United States.
Four subsequent presidents were born before him (also in the 20th Century): Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Reagan.
A Catholic Democrat presidential Candidate, Al Smith, was defeated in the 1928 election by Herbert Hoover.
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.
Of all the Presidents in U.S. history, Kennedy has the most public schools named after him.
As of 2006, Kennedy had the shortest life span of any President, and was the only US President to have been survived by both of his parents.
The commander of his PT boat squadron was future Attorney General
John Mitchell.
Through 2006, Kennedy has been the only Roman Catholic president in the history of the United States.
Among Catholics, only Michael Dukakis and John Kerry, also Democrats from Massachusetts, have been major-party nominees for President.
Several popular songs have mentioned him.
These include:
"I Shall Be Free," by Bob Dylan,
in which Dylan imagines Kennedy calling him on the phone.
"Harvey and Sheila," by Allan Sherman,
a comedy recording to the tune of "Hava Nagila," filled with initials involving the protagonists... "
And on Election Day, worked for JFK!" but, after they "moved to West L.A.," "switched to the G.O.P."
"Love Me, I'm a Liberal," by Phil Ochs,
a satire in which he says he cried when Kennedy and Medgar Evers were shot, but not when Malcolm X was.
"Abraham, Martin and John," by Dion,
a memorial to Kennedy, his brother Robert, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King.
"Sympathy For the Devil,"
by the Rolling Stones, in which lead singer Mick Jagger, in character as Satan, says that "you and me" killed the Kennedys.
The lyrics were changed from "Kennedy" to "Kennedy's" when Robert Kennedy was assassinated during the recording session for the song.
"She Is Always Seventeen,"
by Harry Chapin, referencing Kennedy's Inauguration.
"The Day John Kennedy Died,"
by Lou Reed, in which Reed lists some things he dreamed he forgot.
"Life In a Northern Town,"
by Dream Academy.
"We Didn't Start the Fire,"
by Billy Joel, in which Kennedy and Richard Nixon are the only two people mentioned twice.
Glenn Danzig wrote a song about the assassination,
called 'Bullet' for his band at that time, The Misfits.
"Civil War" by Guns 'n Roses refers to
"the day they shot Kennedy"
Kennedy's ghost appeared in the comic book
Hellblazer, in an arc titled "Damnation's Flame", where he accompanied protagonist John Constantine across a Hellish version of America.
"Superman" N0170 and Action Comics N0's 285 and 309
published by DC Comics, where President Kennedy appears as himself within fictional comic story line's.
Kennedy in film
PT 109 (1963): played by Cliff Robertson
The Missiles of October (1974, TV): played by William Devane
The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover (1977): played by William Jordan
Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye (1977, TV): played by Paul Rudd
Young Joe, the Forgotten Kennedy (1977, TV): played by Sam Chew Jr.
King (1978, TV): played by William Jordan
Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy (1981, TV): played by James Franciscus
Blood Feud (1983, TV): played by Sam Groom
Kennedy (1983, TV): played by Martin Sheen
Prince Jack (1985): played by Robert Hogan
Robert Kennedy & His Times (1985, TV): played by Cliff De Young
J. Edgar Hoover (1987, TV): played by Art Hindle
LBJ: The Early Years (1987, TV): played by Charles Frank
Onassis: The Richest Man in the World (1988, TV): played by David Gillum
The Kennedys of Massachusetts (1990, TV): played by Steven Weber
A Woman Named Jackie (1991, TV): played by Stephen Collins
JFK (1991): Film about the assassination; Kennedy played by Steve Reed
Malcolm X (1992): played by Steve Reed
Ruby (1992): played by Gérard David and Kevin Wiggins
Sinatra (1992, TV): played by James F. Kelly
J.F.K.: Reckless Youth (1993, TV): played by Patrick Dempsey
Forrest Gump (1994): played by Jed Gillin
Norma Jean & Marilyn (1996, TV): played by Perry Stephens
Red Dwarf: Tikka To Ride (1997, TV): played by Michael Shannon
The Rat Pack (1998, TV): played by William L. Petersen
Bonanno: A Godfather's Story (1999, TV): played by Matt Norklun
Thirteen Days (2000): played by Bruce Greenwood
Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis (2000, TV): played by Tim Matheson,
who at the time was also playing a fictional vice-president on the series
The West Wing.
Jackie, Ethel, Joan: The Women of Camelot (2001, TV): played by
Daniel Hugh Kelly
Bubba Ho-Tep (2002): played by Ossie Davis
Power and Beauty (2002, TV): played by Kevin Anderson
RFK (2002, TV): played by Martin Donovan
America's Prince: The John F. Kennedy Jr. Story (2003, TV):
played by Randy Triggs
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)
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 0-316-17238-3.
Collier, Peter & Horowitz, David. "The Kennedys" (1984)
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 of policies
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)
Hersh, Seymour (1997)
The Dark Side of Camelot Highly negative assessment
Heath, Jim F.
Decade of Disillusionment:
The Kennedy–Johnson Years (1976) general survey of decade
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), the most detailed biography
Parmet, Herbert. "
Jack: The Struggles of John F. Kennedy" (1980)
Parmet, Herbert.
JFK: The Presidency of John F. Kennedy (1983)
Piper, Michael Collins.
" Final Judgment" 2004 (sixth edition). American Free Press.
Reeves, Richard.
President Kennedy:
Profile of Power (1993) balanced assessment of policies
Reeves, Thomas.
A Question of Character: A Life of John F. Kennedy
(1991) hostile assessment of his character flaws
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.
Walsh, Kenneth T.
Air Force One: A History of the Presidents and Their Planes. (2003)
Quotes by JFK
NAURO NATIVE KNOWS POSIT HE CAN PILOT 11 ALIVE NEED SMALL BOAT KENNEDY
Message carved into a coconut after the wreck of PT-109 (6 August 1943). This has often been misquoted as
"11 ALIVE NATIVE KNOWS POSIT & REEF NAURU ISLAND KENNEDY"
After visiting these places, you can easily understand how that within a few years Hitler will emerge from the hatred that surrounds him now as one of the most significant figures who ever lived.
He had boundless ambition for his country which rendered him a menace to the peace of the world, but he had a mystery about him in the way that he lived and in the manner of his death that will live and grow after him.
He had in him the stuff of which legends are made.
After visiting such Nazi strongholds as were found in Berchtesgaden and Kehlsteinhaus; Personal diary (1 August 1945);
published in Prelude to Leadership (1995)
A man does what he must
— in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers, and pressures —
and that is the basis of all human morality.
Profiles in Courage (1956)
The New Frontier of which I speak is not a set of promises
— it is a set of challenges.
It sums up not what I intend to offer the American people, but what I intend to ask of them.
Acceptance Speech as the Democratic presidential nominee (15 July 1960)
If by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people
— their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties —
someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."
Acceptance of the New York Liberal Party nomination (14 September 1960)
"Their platform, made up of left-over Democratic planks, has the courage of our old convictions.
Their pledge is a pledge to the status quo
--and today there can be no status quo."
If this nation is to be wise as well as strong, if we are to achieve our destiny, then we need more new ideas for more wise men reading more good books in more public libraries.
These libraries should be open to all
— except the censor.
We must know all the facts and hear all the alternatives and listen to all the criticisms.
Let us welcome controversial books and controversial authors.
For the Bill of Rights is the guardian of our security as well as our liberty.
Saturday Review (29 October 1960)
For of those to whom much is given, much is required.
And when at some future date the high court of history sits in judgement on each of us, recording whether in our brief span of service we fulfilled our responsibilities to the state, our success or failure, in whatever office we hold, will be measured by the answers to four questions:
First, were we truly men of courage…
Second, were we truly men of judgement…
Third, were we truly men of integrity…
Finally were we truly men of dedication?
Speech to Massacchussetts State Legislature (9 January 1961)
The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings.
We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it.
Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions.
Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it.
And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment.
That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it is in my control.
Address before the American Newspaper Publishers Association
(April 27, 1961)
Geography has made us neighbors.
History has made us friends.
Economics has made us partners.
And necessity has made us allies.
Those whom nature hath so joined together, let no man put asunder.
Address to the Canadian Parliament, (May 17, 1961)
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.
Speech to Special Joint Session of Congress (25 May 1961)
Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind.
A scientist has to prove every day that he belongs to the human part of mankind.
Address to the United Nations General Assembly (25 September 1961)
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.
Address to the UN General Assembly (25 September 1961)
I wonder how it is with you, Harold?
If I don't have a woman for three days, I get terrible headaches.
Conversation with Harold Macmillan, in Bermuda (1961)
as recounted by Richard Reeves in his book
President Kennedy: Profile of Power (1994)
The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie
— deliberate, contrived and dishonest —
but the myth
— persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.
Commencement address, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
(11 June 1962)
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
Address to Latin American diplomats at the White House (12 March 1962)
I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.
Address at a White House dinner honoring Nobel Prize winners (April 1962)
But why, some say, the moon?
Why choose this as our goal?
And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain?
Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic?
Why does Rice play Texas?
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, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
Speech at Rice University, Houston, Texas (12 September 1962)
We will not prematurely or unnecessarily risk the costs of a worldwide nuclear war in which even the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth
— but neither shall we shrink from that risk any time it must be faced.
Radio address about the Cuban missile crisis (22 October 1962)
The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are; but it is one of the most consistent with our character and our courage as a nation and our commitments around the world.
The cost of freedom is always high
— but Americans have always paid it.
And one path we shall never choose, and this is the path of surrender or submission.
Our goal is not victory of might but the vindication of right
— not peace at the expense of freedom, but both peace and freedom, here in this hemisphere and, we hope, around the world.
God willing, that goal will be achieved.
Thank you, and good night.
Cuban Missile Crisis speech (22 October 1962)
I have, therefore, chosen this time and this place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth is too rarely perceived
— yet it is the most important topic on earth:
world peace.
What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek?
Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave.
I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children
— not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women —
not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.
Address at The American University, Washington D.C. (10 June 1963)
If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can make the world safe for diversity.
Address at The American University, Washington D. C. (10 June 1963)
I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men.
I realize that the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war
— and frequently the words of the pursuer fall on deaf ears.
But we have no more urgent task.
Address at The American University, Washington D. C. (10 June 1963)
To secure these ends, America's weapons are nonprovocative, carefully controlled, designed to deter and capable of selective use.
Our military forces are committed to peace and disciplined in self-restraint. Our diplomats are instructed to avoid unnecessary irritants and purely rhetorical hostility.
Address at The American University, Washington D. C. (10 June 1963)
And is not peace, in the last analysis, basically a matter of human rights
— the right to live out our lives without fear of devastation —
the right to breathe air as nature provided it —
the right of future generations to a healthy existence?
Address at The American University, Washington D. C. (10 June 1963)
The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war.
We do not want a war.
We do not now expect a war.
This generation of Americans has already had enough
— more than enough —
of war and hate and oppression.
We shall be prepared if others wish it.
We shall be alert to try to stop it.
But we shall also do our part to build a world of peace where the weak are safe and the strong are just.
We are not helpless before that task or hopeless of its success.
Address at The American University, Washington D. C. (10 June 1963)
Dante once said that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality.
At the signing of a charter establishing the German Peace Corps,
Bonn, West Germany (24 June 1963),
Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free.
When all are free, then we can look forward to that day when this city will be joined as one and this country and this great Continent of Europe in a peaceful and hopeful globe.
When that day finally comes, as it will, the people of West Berlin can take sober satisfaction in the fact that they were in the front lines for almost two decades.
All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words
"Ich bin ein Berliner."
Speech in Berlin (26 June 1963);
The supreme reality of our time is our indivisibility as children of God and the common vulnerability of this planet.
Speech to a joint session of the Dail and the Seanad, Dublin,
Ireland (28 June 1963)
I must say that though other days may not be so bright, as we look toward the future, that the brightest days will continue to be those we spent with you here in Ireland.
Speech at Eyre Square, Galway, Ireland (29 June 1963)
This is not the land of my birth, but it is the land for which I hold the greatest affection, and I certainly will come back in the springtime
Speech at Limerick, Ireland (29 June 1963)
When power leads men towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations.
When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence.
When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.
For art establishes the basic human truth which must serve as the touchstone of our judgment.
The artist, however faithful to his personal vision of reality, becomes the last champion of the individual mind and sensibility against an intrusive society and an officious state.
The great artist is thus a solitary figure.
He has, as Frost said, a lover's quarrel with the world.
In pursuing his perceptions of reality, he must often sail against the currents of his time.
This is not a popular role.
If Robert Frost was much honored in his lifetime, it was because a good many preferred to ignore his darker truths.
Speech at Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts (26 October 1963)
The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis'.
One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity.
In a crisis, be aware of the danger-but recognize the opportunity.
Speech in Indianapolis, April 12, 1959
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required
— not because the communists may be doing it,
not because we seek their votes, but because it is right.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
So let us begin anew
— remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof.
Let us never negotiate out of fear.
But let us never fear to negotiate.
If a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion, let both sides join in creating a new endeavor, not a new balance of power, but a new world of law, where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved.
All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days.
Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet.
But let us begin.
In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger.
I do not shrink from this responsibility
— I welcome it.
I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation.
The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it
— and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.
And so, my fellow Americans:
ask not what your country can do for you —
ask what you can do for your country.
My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.
Inaugural Address (20 January 1961)
Attributed
I was never accepted into certain parts of New England society because my grandfather was an Irish barkeep.
Our labor unions are not narrow, self-seeking groups.
They have raised wages, shortened hours and provides supplemental benefits.
Through collective bargaining and grievance procedures, they have brought justice and democracy to the shop floor.
But their work goes beyond their own job, and even beyond our borders.
For the labor movement is people.
Our unions have brought millions of men and women together ...
and given them common tools for common goals.
I am not the Catholic candidate for President.
I am the Democratic Party's candidate for President, who happens also to be a Catholic.
Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.
I think 'Hail to the Chief' has a nice ring to it.
Man is still the most extraordinary computer of all.
Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
Freedom is not merely a word or an abstract theory, but the most effective instrument for advancing the welfare of man.
When I read that we will fight the Japs for years if necessary and will sacrifice hundreds of thousands if we must, I always like to check from where he's talking: it's seldom out here.
(While on Naval duty in the Pacific, 1943; quoted by Paul Fussell.)
Liberty without learning is always in peril; learning without liberty is always in vain.
About John F. Kennedy
"Kennedy was the only member of his administration who didn't want to send in a massive ground force [to Vietnam]. [...]
Kennedy was also making very friendly overtures to the Soviet Union and calling for a real Detente in the Cold War, and was even reconsidering developing normal relationships with Cuba."
~ Michael Parenti (book: Dirty Truths)
"Kennedy was at the hawkish end of the administration."
~ Noam Chomsky (book: Rethinking Camelot)
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Good Idol mate. he was mine as a kid too.
wish someone like him was here now.
we need someone like him.
BADLY.
John F. Kennedy
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.
He served from 1961 until his assassination in 1963.
A member of the politically prominent Irish-American Kennedy family, he is considered an icon of American liberalism.
His leadership during the saga of the ramming of the PT-109 during World War II led to being cited for bravery and heroism in the South Pacific.
Kennedy represented Massachusetts during 1947–1960, as both a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate.
He was elected President in 1960 in one of the closest elections in American history.
He is the only Roman Catholic so far to serve as President of the United States.
Major events during his presidency included the 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.
John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963.
Official investigations later determined Lee Harvey Oswald to be the assassin, though numerous conspiracy theories exist.
His assassination is considered to be a defining moment in U.S. history due to its traumatic impact on the nation as well as on the political history of the ensuing decades, his subsequent branding as an icon for a new generation of Americans and American aspirations, and for the mystery and conspiracy allegations that surround it.
35th President of the United States
In office
January 20, 1961 – November 22, 1963
Vice President(s) Lyndon B. Johnson
Preceded by Dwight D. Eisenhower
Succeeded by Lyndon B. Johnson
Born May 29, 1917 Brookline, Massachusetts
Died November 22, 1963 Dallas, Texas
Political party Democratic
Spouse Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy
Religion Roman Catholic
Early life and education
Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, the 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.
Kennedy attended Edward Devotion School for four years
(kindergarten in 1922 to third grade), followed by a stint at the
Dexter School in Boston, a year at Canterbury School, and then
Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, Connecticut, one of the country's
most elite private boarding schools for boys, from which he graduated
in 1935.
On September 25, 1935, he sailed to London with his parents and his sister Kathleen.
There he enrolled at the London School of Economics with the intention of studying political economy for a year under the tutelage of
Professor Harold Laski, but an illness hospitalized him shortly after his enrollment.
His father insisted he return to the US.
Later during that Autumn of 1935, he enrolled in Princeton University, but was forced to leave after contracting jaundice.
The next Autumn, he began attending Harvard College.
Kennedy traveled to Europe twice during his Harvard years,
visiting Britain, when 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 increased his medical problems causing him to develop osteoporosis of the lower lumbar spine.
After graduating from 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,"
about the British dealings concerning the Munich Agreement of 1938.
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 1940 and became a bestseller.
Years later, it was revealed that, as a young man, Kennedy had been diagnosed with Addison's Disease, a rare endocrine disorder.
This and other medical disorders were kept from the press and public throughout Kennedy's lifetime.
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 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.
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.
United States Ship PT-109 was a PT boat commanded by Lieutenant (j.g.) John F. Kennedy (later United States President) in the Pacific Theater during World War II.
Kennedy's actions after the sinking of the PT-109 both solidified his "war hero" status in his political career, and may have contributed to his long-term back problems.
The PT Boat
PT 109 belonged to the PT 103 class, of which hundreds were completed between 1942 and 1945 by Elco Naval Division of Electric Boat Company
at Bayonne, New Jersey.
The Elco boats were the largest U.S. PT boats during World War II.
They were built of wood hulls.
They were 80 feet long with a 20-foot, 8-inch beam.
Each boat had three 12-cylinder Packard gasoline engines generating a total of 4,500 horsepower for a designed speed of 41 knots.
The strength of a wooden boat filled with gasoline against a steel-hulled destroyer would be tested in combat with Kennedy at the helm.
The PT-109 could accommodate 3 officers and 14 seamen,at full-load, she displaced 56 tons.
Most boats had two 20mm guns, two turrets
(designed by the same firm that produced the Tucker automobiles)
with twin .50-caliber anti-aircraft machine guns.
The PT-109 was fitted with four 21-inch torpedo tubes, with torpedoes
that would prove troublesome in the early war period.
Kennedy's PT-109 was also fitted with a 37 mm single shot anti-tank cannon that the crew had commandeered and bolted to the foredeck.
The infamous mission
The PT-109 was sent out on a night mission to intercept the Tokyo Express, a convoy of destroyers on a night resupply mission.
In a poorly planned and uncoordinated attack, 15 boats with 60 torpedoes did not score a single hit.
The PT-109 patrolled the area in case the enemy ships returned.
Around 0200, on a moonless night, Kennedy's boat was suddenly rammed by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri traveling at 40 knots on August 2, 1943
in the Blackett Strait between Kolombangara and Arundel in the
Solomon Islands near 8.063626° S 157.1515° E.
In ten seconds, the boat was cut in two.
One crewman was killed in the collision, and another was missing.
Although the Japanese destroyer did not realize that their ship had struck an enemy vessel, the damage to PT 109 was severe.
Kennedy led the survivors, clinging to the wreckage of the boat, to safety on the deserted Plum Pudding Island.
Using a strap he clenched in his mouth, Kennedy would tow one of the men who was burned so badly, he could not swim.
Kennedy would swim out in the channel searching for passing PT boats, and he led them to another island which had trees with coconuts and water.
Buiki Gasa and Aaron Kumana, the men who found Kennedy
In WWII, Biuki Gasa with Aaron (Eroni) Kumana scouted for the Australian Coast Watcher Service in dugout canoes, which they still use today.
When they saw the horrific explosion of the PT-109, they were dispatched by Lt. Arthur Reginald Evans RANVR of the Australian coastwatcher Service to find Kennedy and his crew before the Japanese did.
Biuku was one of the first two people to make contact with a shipwrecked
Lt. John F. Kennedy who carried Kennedy and a message incribed on a coconut for lack of writing paper to Australian forces.
Kennedy and his crew had been stranded for days on deserted islands after a Japanese destroyer sank their boat PT-109.
Aaron would construct a shrine to Kennedy, while Gasa would have new dugout canoe created for a National Geographic crew to bring back to the U.S.
Gasa was invited by Kennedy to attend his inauguration, but he was stopped by authorities who did not understand his language.
An article about the experience was printed in Reader's Digest just before Kennedy's first Congressional run, and the campaign reproduced the article and distributed it to potential voters.
A campaign pin of the PT-109 was also distributed.
Though Kennedy emerged a hero
(awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal) a few in the military,
including Douglas MacArthur, thought he should have faced a court-martial for losing his boat in such a manner.
Their argument was that such a quick and maneuverable craft should have been able to escape getting struck by a slower enemy craft.
Popular Culture
In addition to the book mentioned below, the episode was also made into a 1963 movie PT 109, starring Cliff Robertson.
PT-109 was also Top 10 record in 1962 by Jimmy Dean,
one of his most successful songs.
The island was later renamed to Kennedy Island.
The 1958 movie South Pacific preceded PT-109 as a drama about
Navy sailors in the Pacific Theater.
In 1961, Premiere Theater presented "Seven Against The Sea".
It was drama about a resourceful group of stranded American PT boat crewmen hiding out on a South Pacific island controlled by the
Japanese Navy, a situation which would appear to be inspired by the adventures of Kennedy and his seamen.
This would become the pilot of McHale's Navy, one of the more successful television situation comedy series which ran from 1962 to 1966 on ABC,
and spawned spinoff movies and a 1997 movie remake.
The cultural icon Gilligan's Island, which ran on CBS from 1964 to 1967,
was also based on the shipwreck of a PT-sized boat.
The passengers would be led by a skipper, which was Kennedy's position
on the PT-109, and his first mate.
The PT-109 was also one of the most famous subjects of toy, plastic and
RC model ships in the 1960s, familiar to most boys who grew up as
Baby Boomers.
The tale is much less familiar to their sons today, as the VHS movie was
out of print in the US by 2006.
It is available outside of the US as a Video-CD, but not yet as a DVD.
In 2006, the PT-109: The Next Generation series of PT-109
"viral videos" was released on Google Video.
One is based on the James Dean hit song incorporating excerpts from the feature movie and National Geographic DVD, a G.I. JFK Numa Numa dance, and a Star Trek movie parody.
It was still a popular 1/72 Revell model kit widely available in the 2000s,
and notably much longer than the similar scale 1/72 Caribbean pirate
sailing ship by the same manufacturer.
It was also the subject of a special PT-109 John F. Kennedy G.I. Joe.
Spectrum Holobyte released a naval simulation game roughly based on the events named "PT-109" for MAC and DOS in 1987.
Although the USS Constitution is considered to be the most famous
US Navy ship in history, in Aug 2006 some 42 PT-109 items were
available on Ebay, compared to 35 for the Constitution and 14 for the
USS Missouri, though trailing the 2572 items under "Titanic".
If fame can be measured by the number of comic books, movies, television episodes, National Geographic DVDs, books, models, PT-109 G.I. Joe figures and hit records inspired by the story, the PT-109 is certainly one of the
most famous US Navy vessels of the 20th century if not the most merchandised.
The wreckage of PT-109 has been located;
a May 2002 a National Geographic expedition headed by Dr. Robert Ballard found wreckage matching the description and location of Kennedy's vessel in the Solomon Islands.
However, under current Navy policy, the wreckage is a gravesite and may not be disturbed.
Survivors
Gerard Zinser, the last survivor of the PT-109, died in 2001.
Both Solomon Islanders Biuki Gasa and Aaron (Eroni) Kumana were alive when visited by National Geographic in 2002 which presented both with a
gift from the Kennedy family. The Australian Coast Watcher is also decaesed.
His part in the rescue is largely unknown by his countrymen outside of the RAN.
For these actions, Kennedy received the Navy and Marine Corps Medal
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 1–2, 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 affected 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 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
US Navy ships of the century.
The coconut that 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.
In May 2002, a National Geographic expedition found what is 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 post war.
Early political career
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 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 for the U.S. Senate.
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.
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 James Eastland, John McClellan,
and Mississippi Governor James Coleman were early supporters in
Kennedy's presidential campaign.
Sen. Joseph McCarthy was a friend of the Kennedy family;
Robert Kennedy worked on the staff of McCarthy's committee,
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 he never delivered it.
When the Senate rendered its highly publicized decision to censure McCarthy on December 2, 1954, Senator Kennedy was in hospital and never indicated then or later how he would have voted.
The episode seriously hurt Kennedy in the liberal community, especially with Eleanor Roosevelt, as late as the 1960 election.
1960 presidential election
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; 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 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."
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.
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 played an important role in politics.
Presidency
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.
"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."
Foreign policies
Cuba and the Bay of Pigs Scandal
On April 17, 1961, Kennedy gave orders allowing a previously planned invasion of Cuba to proceed.
With support from the Central Intelligence Agency (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 Fidel Castro. However, the United States did not offer air support, and the CIA underestimated popular support for Castro and made several mistakes in devising and carrying out the plan.
By April 19, Castro's government had captured or killed 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 personal responsibility for the debacle.
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States regarding the Soviet deployment of nuclear missiles in Cuba.
The missiles were ostensibly placed to protect Cuba from further planned attacks from the United States after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, and were rationalized by the Soviets as retaliation for the U.S. placing deployable nuclear warheads in the United Kingdom, Italy and most significantly, Turkey. The crisis began on October 16, 1962, when U.S. reconnaissance data revealing Soviet nuclear missile installations on the island was shown to U.S. President John F. Kennedy, and ended twelve days later on October 28, 1962, when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev announced that the installations would be dismantled.
The Cuban Missile Crisis is regarded as the moment when the Cold War came closest to escalating into a nuclear war.
Russians refer to the event as the "Caribbean Crisis," while Cubans refer to it as the "October Crisis."
Background
Fidel Castro took power in Cuba after the Cuban revolution of 1959 and soon took actions inimical to American trade interests on the island.
In response, the U.S. stopped buying Cuban sugar and refused to supply its former trading partner with much-needed oil.
The U.S. government became increasingly concerned about the new Cuban government, and this became a major focus of the new Kennedy administration when it took office in January 1961.
In Havana, one of the consequences of this was the fear that the U.S. might intervene against the Cuban government.
This fear materialized in April 1961 when Cuban exiles, trained by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, staged an invasion of Cuban territory at the Bay of Pigs.
Although the invasion was quickly repulsed, it intensified a buildup of Cuban defense that was already under way.
U.S. armed forces then staged a mock invasion of a Caribbean island in 1962 called Operation Ortsac.
The purpose of the invasion was to overthrow a leader whose name was, in fact, Castro spelled backwards.
Although Ortsac was a fictitious name, Castro soon became convinced that the U.S. was serious about invading Cuba.
Shortly after the Bay of Pigs invasion, Castro declared Cuba to be a socialist republic and entered close ties with the Soviet Union leading to a major upgrade of Cuban military defense.
In February 1962, the U.S. began an economic embargo against Cuba.
U.S. nuclear advantage
The U.S. had a decided advantage over the Soviet Union in the period leading up to the Cuban Missile Crisis.
For the Soviet leaders, the deployment was a necessary response to desperate military situations into which the Soviets had been cornered by a series of remarkable American successes with military equipment and military intelligence.
For example, by the close of 1962 the United States had a dramatic advantage in nuclear weapons with more than 300 land-based intercontinental missiles (ICBMs) and a fleet of Polaris missile submarines.
The Soviet Union for its part had only four to six land-based ICBMs in 1963, and about 100 short-range, primitive V-1-type cruise missiles that could only be launched from surfaced submarines.
Few in Washington, D.C. seriously believed that a few dozen or so ballistic missiles in Cuba could change the essential fact of the strategic balance of power: the Soviet Union was hopelessly outgunned.
It is now known conclusively that the United States had around 10 times as many nuclear weapons as the Soviet Union in 1962:
27,297 warheads to the USSR's 3,332.
Before his arrest on the first day of the Cuban Missile Crisis,
Colonel Oleg Penkovsky had served as an intelligence agent for the
Americans and British; he was also a colonel in Soviet Intelligence.
Melman notes that
"the proceedings of his trial in April 1963 revealed that he had delivered
5,000 frames of film of Soviet military-technical information, apart from many hours of talk with western agents during several trips to western Europe".
Melman argues that top officers in the Soviet Union concluded
"that the US then possessed decisive advantage in arms and intelligence, and that the USSR no longer wielded a credible nuclear deterrent".
(Melman, 1988: 119)
In 1961, the U.S. started deploying 15 Jupiter IRBM
(intermediate-range ballistic missiles) nuclear missiles near İzmir, Turkey, which directly threatened cities in the western sections of the Soviet Union. These missiles were regarded by President Kennedy as being of questionable strategic value; an SSBN (ballistic submarine) was capable of providing the same cover with both stealth and superior firepower.
Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev had publicly expressed his anger at the Turkish deployment, and regarded the missiles as a personal affront.
The deployment of missiles in Cuba
— the first time Soviet missiles were moved outside the USSR —
is commonly seen as Khrushchev's direct response to the Turkish missiles. Khrushchev had previously expressed his doubts to the poet Robert Frost about the "liberal" United States readiness to fight over tough issues.
Soviet medium-range ballistic missiles on Cuban soil, with a range of 2,000 km (1,200 statute miles), could threaten Washington, D.C. and around half of the U.S.'s SAC bases (of nuclear-armed bombers), with a flight time of under twenty minutes.
In addition, the U.S.'s radar warning systems oriented toward the
USSR would have provided little warning of a launch from Cuba.
Missile deployment
Khrushchev devised the deployment plan in May of 1962, and by late
July over sixty Soviet ships were en route to Cuba, some of them already carrying military material.
John McCone, director of the CIA, had recently been on honeymoon to Paris where he had been told by French Intelligence that the Soviets were planning to place missiles in Cuba, and so he warned President Kennedy that some of the ships were probably carrying missiles; however, the President
– along with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy (his brother),
Secretary of State Dean Rusk, and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara –
concluded that the Soviets would not try such a thing.
Kennedy's administration had received repeated claims from Soviet diplomats that there were no missiles in Cuba, nor any plans to place any, and that
the Soviets were not interested in starting an international drama that might impact the U.S. elections in November.
The U-2 flights
A U-2 flight in late August photographed a new series of SAM
(surface-to-air missile) sites being constructed, but on September 4, 1962 Kennedy told Congress that there were no offensive missiles in Cuba.
On the night of September 8, the first consignment of SS-4 MRBMs was unloaded in Havana, and a second shipload arrived on September 16.
The Soviets were building nine sites
— six for SS-4s and three for SS-5s with a range of 4,000 km (2,400 statute miles).
The planned arsenal was forty launchers, an increase in Soviet first strike capacity of 70%.
This matter was readily noticed by the Cuban population, and perhaps as many as a thousand reports of such reached Miami, and were evaluated and then considered spurious by U.S. intelligence.
A number of unconnected problems meant that the missiles were not discovered by the U.S. until a U-2 flight of October 14 clearly showed the construction of an SS-4 site near San Cristobal.
The photographs were shown to Kennedy on October 16.
By October 19 the U-2 flights (then almost continuous) showed four sites were operational.
Initially, the U.S. government kept the information secret, telling only the fourteen key officials of the executive committee.
The United Kingdom was not informed until the evening of October 21. President Kennedy, in a televised address on October 22, announced the discovery of the installations and proclaimed that any nuclear missile attack from Cuba would be regarded as an attack by the Soviet Union and would be responded to accordingly.
He also placed a naval "quarantine" (blockade) on Cuba to prevent further Soviet shipments of military weapons from arriving there.
The word quarantine was used rather than blockade for reasons of international law (the blockade took place in international waters) and in keeping with the Quarantine Speech of 1937 by Franklin D. Roosevelt. Kennedy reasoned that a blockade would be an act of war
(which was correct) and war had not been declared between the U.S.
and Cuba.
A U-2 flight was shot down by an SA-2 Guideline SAM emplacement on October 27, causing negotiation stress between the USSR and the U.S.
U.S. response
With the news of the confirmed photographic evidence of Soviet missile bases in Cuba, President Kennedy convened a special group of senior advisers to meet secretly at the White House.
This group later became known as the ExComm, or Executive Committee of the National Security Council.
From the morning of October 16 this group met frequently to devise a response to the threat.
An immediate bombing strike was dismissed early on, as was a potentially time-consuming appeal to the United Nations.
They were eventually able to put out the possibility of diplomacy, narrowing the choice down to a naval blockade and an ultimatum, or full-scale invasion. A blockade was finally chosen, although there were a number of conservatives
(notably Paul Nitze, and Generals Curtis LeMay and Maxwell D Taylor)
who kept pushing for tougher action.
An invasion was planned, and troops were assembled in Florida.
However, U.S. intelligence was flawed:
they believed Soviet and Cuban troop numbers on Cuba to be around 10,000 and 100,000, when they were in fact around 43,000 and 270,000 respectively.
Also, they were unaware that 12 kiloton-range nuclear warheads had already been delivered to the island and mounted on FROG-3 "Luna" short-range artillery rockets, which could be launched on the authority of the Soviet commander on the island, General Pliyev, in the event of an invasion.
Though they posed no threat to the continental U.S., an invasion would probably have precipitated a nuclear strike against the invading force, with catastrophic results.
There were a number of issues with the naval blockade.
There was legality
— as Fidel Castro noted, there was nothing illegal about the missile installations; they were certainly a threat to the U.S., but similar missiles aimed at the USSR were in place in Europe
(sixty Thor IRBMs in four squadrons near Nottingham, in the United Kingdom; thirty Jupiter IRBMs in two squadrons near Gioia del Colle, Italy; and fifteen Jupiter IRBMs in one squadron near İzmir, Turkey).
There was concern of the Soviet's reaction to the blockade; it might turn into escalating retaliation.
Kennedy spoke to the American public, and to the Soviet government, in a televised address on October 22.
He confirmed the presence of the missiles in Cuba and announced the naval blockade as a quarantine zone of 500 nautical miles (926 km) around the Cuban coast.
He warned that the military was "prepared for any eventualities", and condemned the Soviet Union for "secrecy and deception".
The U.S. was surprised at the solid support from its European allies, particularly from President Charles de Gaulle of France.
Nevertheless, British prime minister Harold Macmillan, as well as much of the international community, did not understand why a diplomatic solution was not considered.
The case was conclusively proved on October 25 at an emergency session of the UN Security Council.
U.S. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson attempted to force an answer from Soviet Ambassador Valerian Zorin as to the existence of the weapons, famously demanding,
"Don't wait for the translation!"
Upon Zorin's refusal, Stevenson produced photographs taken by
U.S. surveillance aircraft showing the missile installations in Cuba.
Khrushchev sent letters to Kennedy on October 23 and 24 claiming the deterrent nature of the missiles in Cuba and the peaceful intentions of the Soviet Union; however, the Soviets had delivered two different deals to the United States government.
On October 26, they offered to withdraw the missiles in return for a
U.S. guarantee not to invade Cuba or support any invasion.
The second deal was broadcast on public radio on October 27, calling for the withdrawal of U.S. missiles from Turkey in addition to the demands of the 26th.
The crisis peaked on the 27th, when a U-2
(piloted by Major Rudolph Anderson of the USAF's
4080th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing) was shot down over Cuba
and another U-2 flight over Russia was almost intercepted when it
strayed over Siberia.
At the same time, Soviet merchant ships were nearing the quarantine zone. Kennedy responded by publicly accepting the first deal and sending
Robert F. Kennedy to the Soviet embassy to privately accept the second that the fifteen Jupiter missiles near İzmir, Turkey would be removed six months later.
Kennedy also requested that Khrushchev keep this second compromise out of the public domain so that he did not appear weak before the upcoming elections.
This had ramifications for Khrushchev later.
The Soviet ships turned back, and on October 28 Khrushchev announced that he had ordered the removal of the Soviet missiles in Cuba.
The decision prompted then Secretary of State Dean Rusk to comment,
"We were eyeball to eyeball, and the other fellow just blinked."
Satisfied that the Soviets had removed the missiles, President Kennedy ordered an end to the quarantine of Cuba on November 20.
Aftermath
The compromise satisfied no one, though it was a particularly sharp embarrassment for Khrushchev and the Soviet Union because the withdrawal of American missiles from Turkey was not made public.
They were seen as retreating from circumstances that they had started
— though if played well, it could have looked like just the opposite:
the USSR gallantly saving the world from nuclear holocaust by not insisting on restoring the nuclear equilibrium.
Khrushchev's fall from power two years later can be partially linked to Politburo embarrassment at both Khrushchev's eventual concessions to the U.S. and his ineptitude in precipitating the crisis in the first place.
U.S. military commanders were not happy with the result either.
General LeMay told the President that it was
"the greatest defeat in our history"
and that the U.S. should invade immediately.
For Cuba, it was a betrayal by the Soviets whom they had trusted, given that the decisions on putting an end to the crisis had been made exclusively by Kennedy and Khrushchev.
In early 1992 it was confirmed that key Soviet forces in Cuba had, by the time the crisis broke, received tactical nuclear warheads for their artillery rockets, and IL-28 bombers, though General Anatoly Gribkov, part of
the Soviet staff responsible for the operation, stated that the local Soviet commander, General Issa Pliyev, had predelegated authority to use them if the U.S. had mounted a full-scale invasion of Cuba.
Gribkov misspoke: the Kremlin's authorization remained unsigned and undelivered.
(Other accounts show that Pliyev was given permission to use tactical nuclear warheads but only in the most extreme case of an American invasion during which contact with Moscow is lost.
However when American forces seemed to be readying for an attack,
(after the U-2 photos, but before Kennedy's television address), Khrushchev rescinded his earlier permission for Pliyev to use the tactical nuclear weapons, even under the most extreme conditions.
Whether because of the clear American nuclear dominance, or simply out of benevolence, Khrushchev wanted to avoid nuclear war at all costs.)
The Cuban Missile Crisis spurred the creation of the Hot Line, a direct communications link between Moscow and Washington D.C.
The purpose of this undersea line was to have a way the leaders of the two Cold War countries could communicate directly to better solve a crisis like the one in October 1962.
The short time span of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the extensive documentation of the decision-making processes on both sides makes it an excellent case study for analysis of state decision-making.
In the Essence of Decision, Graham T. Allison and Philip D. Zelikow use the crisis to illustrate multiple approaches to analyzing the actions of the state. The intensity and magnitude of the crisis also provides excellent material for drama, as illustrated by the movies The Missiles of October (1974),
a television docudrama directed by Anthony Page and starring
William Devane, Ralph Bellamy, Howard Da Silva and Martin Sheen, and Thirteen Days (2000), directed by Roger Donaldson and starring
Kevin Costner, Bruce Greenwood and Steven Culp.
It was also a substantial part of the 2003 documentary
The Fog of War, which won an Oscar.
In October 2002, McNamara and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
– Kennedy's special assistant for Latin American affairs during the crisis –
joined a group of other dignitaries in a "reunion" with Castro in Cuba to continue to release classified documents and further study the crisis.
It was during the first meeting that Secretary McNamara first discovered that Cuba had many more missiles than initially expected, and that Castro and Khruschev were perfectly willing to start a nuclear war over the crisis. Furthermore, it was revealed at this conference that an officer aboard a Soviet submarine, named Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov, may have
single-handedly prevented the initiation of a nuclear catastrophe.
The reported details of this event are remarkably similar to the plot from the movie Crimson Tide (1995), except that the roles of the Americans and Soviets are reversed.
Various commentators (Melman, 1988; Hersh, 1997) also suggest that the Cuban Missile Crisis enhanced the hubris of American military planners,
leading to military adventurism, most decidedly in Vietnam.
Thirteen Days - book written by Robert F. Kennedy
The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara
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 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.
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
Kennedy used limited military action to contain the spread of communism.
Determined to stand firm against the spread of communism, Kennedy's policy included political, economic, and military support for the unstable South Vietnamese government, which included sending 18,000 military advisors and U.S. Special Forces to the area.
Kennedy also agreed to the use of napalm, defoliants, free-fire zones 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 it was not working.
By July 1963 Kennedy faced a crisis in Vietnam.
The Administration's response was to assist in the coup d'état of the President of South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem
(LeFeber, "America, Russia and the Cold War", p. 233).
In 1963, South Vietnamese generals overthrew the Diem government, by assassinating Diem.
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.
West Berlin Speech
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".
Nearly 5/6th of the population were on the street when Kennedy said that famous phrase.
He remarked to aides afterwards:
"We'll never have another day like this one."
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 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.
He also visited the original cottage where previous Kennedys had lived before emigrating to America, and said,
"This is where it all began...."
Domestic policies
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 that 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 Lyndon 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 ask for commutation 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 U.S. Supreme Court had ruled in 1954 that racial segregation in public schools would no longer be permitted.
However, many schools, especially in southern states, did not obey the Supreme Court's injunction.
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.
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, President Kennedy intervened when
Alabama Governor 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.
Kennedy proposed what would become the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Space program
Kennedy was eager for the United States to lead the way in the space race.
Sergei Khrushchev says JFK 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.
JFK 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."
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 geo-stationary satellite and Kennedy had asked Congress to approve more than $22 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 JFK
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.
Cabinet
President John F. Kennedy 1961–1963
Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson 1961–1963
State Dean Rusk 1961–1963
Treasury C. Douglas Dillon 1961–1963
Defense Robert S. McNamara 1961–1963
Justice Robert F. Kennedy 1961–1963
Postmaster General J. Edward Day 1963 /John A. Gronouski 1963
Interior Stewart L. Udall 1961–1963
Agriculture Orville L. Freeman 1961–1963
Commerce Luther H. Hodges 1961–1963
Labor Arthur J. Goldberg 1961–1962 /W. Willard Wirtz 1962–1963
HEW Abraham A. Ribicoff 1961–1962/Anthony J. Celebrezze 1962–1963
Supreme Court appointments
Kennedy appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
Byron Raymond White – 1962 Arthur Joseph Goldberg – 1962
Image, social life and family
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.
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.
Jacqueline Kennedy 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" though years later Jacqueline Kennedy denied that the family called him by that name).
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 better come over right away."
The resulting photos are probably the most famous of the children, and especially John Jr. in particular, 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 in 1956.
The death of their newborn son in August 1963, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, was a great loss.
In the years following the Kennedy presidency it came to be known that Kennedy carried on numerous extramarital dalliances throughout his presidency, all connived at by those members of the presidential staff.
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 H. White where she mentioned Camelot (the musical),and White later said that he had "found the headline".
Assassination
President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, at 12:30 p.m. CST on Friday, November 22, 1963, while on a political trip through Texas.
He was struck by at least two bullets.
Texas Governor John Connally, seated ahead of Kennedy, was also struck by a bullet, but survived.
Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested in a theatre about 80 minutes after the assassination and charged at 7:00 p.m. for killing a Dallas policeman by
"murder with malice",
and also 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 in a Dallas police station by Jack Ruby, in front of live TV cameras.
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 Lifton)
contend that Oswald was not involved at all and that he was framed.
Five days after Oswald was killed, 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 it was likely that he was part of a conspiracy to kill
the President, and that it was likely one additional shot (that missed)
was fired from another location.
The HSCA did not find sufficient evidence to identify any other members of a conspiracy.
The assassination was captured on Super 8 mm film by Dallas dress manufacturer Abraham Zapruder.
The film shows President Kennedy clutching his throat after the first bullet struck.
Later, his head recoils backwards from the force of another bullet that fatally struck his upper right skull.
There is visible blood spatter, and then the president slumps to his left onto the seat.
Legacy and memorials
Television became the primary source by which people were kept informed of events surrounding John F. Kennedy's assassination.
Newspapers were kept as souvenirs rather than sources of updated information.
U.S. networks switched to 24-hour news coverage for the first time ever. Kennedy’s state funeral procession and the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald were all broadcast live in America and in other places around the world.
The assassination had an effect on many people, not only in the U.S., but also among the world population.
Many vividly remember where they were when first learning of the news that Kennedy was assassinated.
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."
Ultimately, the death of President Kennedy and the ensuing confusion surrounding the facts of his assassination are of political and historical importance insofar as they marked a decline in the faith of the American people in the political establishment
— a point made by commentators from Gore Vidal to Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
Coupled with the murder of his own brother Senator Robert F. Kennedy and that of Martin Luther King, Jr., the five tumultuous years from 1963 to 1968 signaled a growing disillusionment within the well of hope for political/social change that so defined the lives of those who lived through the 1960's. Kennedy's introduction of the U.S. to the Vietnam War preceded
President Johnson's escalation of a conflict which contributed to a decade of national difficulties and disappointment on the political landscape.
The Watergate scandal of President Richard Nixon's administration is widely recognized as being the final stroke in this process of diminishing trust in government.
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;
his brother Robert is also buried nearby.
His grave is lit with an "Eternal Flame."
Kennedy and William Howard Taft are the only two U.S. Presidents buried at Arlington a Millitary Cemetery solely used for that reason.
Many of Kennedy's speeches (and especially his inaugural address) are considered iconic, and despite his relatively short term in office and 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.
Some excerpts of Kennedy's inaugural address are engraved on a plaque at his grave at Arlington.
Kennedy is also sometimes credited with giving American Catholics the full recognition they deserved as American citizens.
He is also seen as responsible for giving Catholics full opportunities in politics outside of the Northeast.
Memorials
Kennedy's legacy has been memorialized in various aspects of American culture. They include:
Kennedy came third (behind Martin Luther King, Jr and Mother Teresa)
in a Gallup list of the most admired people of the twentieth century
New York International Airport was renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport on December 24, 1963.
Short forms of this, particularly "JFK," have replaced its former commonly used nickname "Idlewild."
NASA's Launch Operations Center at Cape Canaveral was renamed the
John F. Kennedy Space Center.
Cape Canaveral itself was likewise renamed Cape Kennedy, but reverted to
its original name in 1973.
A stretch of Interstate 95 in Maryland, running from the Baltimore Beltway
to the State Line, where it becomes the Delaware Turnpike, had been dedicated by President Kennedy on November 14, 1963,
just eight days before his assassination.
It was soon renamed the John F. Kennedy Memorial Highway.
The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy was named on
April 30, 1964.
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.
The John F. Kennedy National Historic Site preserves his home in
Brookline, Massachusetts.
At Harvard University:
The Harvard Institute of Politics serves as a living memorial that promotes public service in his name.
The School of Government is known as the John F. Kennedy
School of Government.
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts opened in
1971 in Washington, D.C., as a living memorial to him.
A new, unnamed bridge spanning the Ohio River between Louisville,
Kentucky, and Jeffersonville, Indiana, completed four days ahead of Kennedy's assassination, was afterwards quickly named the
John F. Kennedy Memorial Bridge.
Hundreds of schools across the U.S were also renamed in his honor.
Posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963
Since 1964, Kennedy's portrait has appeared on the United States
half dollar coin, replacing Benjamin Franklin.
At the southwest outskirts of Jerusalem is Yad Kennedy, reached by
following the winding mountain roads past Aminadav Moshav.
On top of an 825 m. high mountain is a monument in the shape of a
cut tree trunk, symbolizing a life cut short.
51 columns, each bearing the emblem of a state of the Union, plus the District of Columbia, encircle the mountaintop memorial.
An eternal flame burns in the very centre.
The site was opened in 1966 with funds donated by Jewish communities in the USA.
The monument and adjoining picnic grounds are part of the John F. Kennedy Peace Forest.
Criticism
A number of critics argue that his reputation is undeserved.
Although he was young and charismatic, he had little chance to achieve much of his vision during his presidency.
Under this reasoning, his immense popularity was the result of the optimistic beginnings of many programs declared to be of great benefit to the United States, its people, and various global issues, and, the national trauma of his assassination.
The Civil Rights Act that he sent to Congress in June 1963 was, at least in part, conceived by his brother and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy,
and it was signed into law by his successor, Lyndon Johnson, in 1964.
Some critics point out that Kennedy started the process which led to the U.S. getting involved in a complete war in Vietnam.
They point to Kennedy sending over 18,000 military advisors and introducing napalm, defoliants, strategic hamlet, free-fire zones and jet planes to the Vietnam conflict, which the previous administration was not willing to do
--encouraging President Johnson to escalate U.S. involvement.
It is suggested by Kennedy's critics that his failure to disclose the severity of his health concerns represented something of a failure of professional integrity; he was treated privately for Addison's disease.
According to the US Senate Church Committee, Kennedy carried on an affair with Judith Campbell Exner, who was simultaneously having an affair with Sam Giancana, the boss of the Chicago Mafia, while Giancana was conspiring with the CIA to assassinate Fidel Castro.
Seymour Hersh's The Dark Side of Camelot (1998) presents one such critical analysis of the Kennedy administration, stating that Kennedy
"was probably one of the unhealthiest men ever to sit in the Oval Office,"
because of Addison's Disease, a bad back, as well as recurring childhood illnesses and venereal infections.
Robert Dallek's An Unfinished Life (2003) is a more traditional biography but contains a lot of detail about Kennedy's health issues.
Thomas Reeves' A Question of Character: A Life of John F. Kennedy is a sharply critical res
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I love it. It's beautiful ^_^ Great job. I wouldn't even think that it was a drawing ^_^ *claps*
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Dumb me--I forgot ask, what range of pencils did you use? What steps do you take when portrait drawing?
👍: 0 ⏩: 0