JOHN F. KENNEDY | 1961-1963
On November 22, 1963, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was killed by an assassin's bullets as his motorcade wound through Dallas, Texas. Kennedy was the youngest man elected president; he was the youngest to die.
He was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, on May 29, 1917. Graduating from Harvard in 1940, he entered the navy. In 1943, his PT boat was sunk by a Japanese destroyer, and an injured Kennedy led the survivors to safety. Back from the war, he became a Democratic congressman for the Boston area, advancing in 1953 to the Senate. Recovering from back surgery in 1955, he wrote Profiles in Courage, which won the Pulitzer Prize in history. By 1960 John F. Kennedy was a first-ballot nominee for president. Millions watched his television debates with the Republican candidate, Richard M. Nixon. Winning by a narrow margin in the popular vote, Kennedy became the first Roman Catholic president.
His inaugural address offered the memorable injunction: "Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country." As president, his economic programs launched the country on its longest sustained expansion since World War II. Responding to ever more urgent demands, he took vigorous action in the cause of equal rights, calling for new civil rights legislation. With the Alliance for Progress and the Peace Corps, he brought American idealism to the aid of developing nations. But the hard reality of the Communist challenge remained.
Kennedy permitted a band of Cuban exiles, already armed and trained, to invade their homeland. The attempt to overthrow the regime of Fidel Castro failed. Soon thereafter, the Soviet Union renewed its campaign against West Berlin. Kennedy reinforced the Berlin garrison and increased the nation's military strength, including new efforts in outer space. Confronted by this reaction, Moscow relaxed pressure in Europe, but sought to install nuclear missiles in Cuba. When this was discovered by air reconnaissance in October 1962, Kennedy imposed a quarantine on all offensive weapons bound for Cuba. The Russians backed down and agreed to take the missiles away. The American response to the Cuban crisis evidently persuaded Moscow of the futility of nuclear blackmail.
Kennedy now contended that both sides had a vital interest in stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and slowing the arms race - a contention which led to the test ban treaty of 1963. The months after the Cuban crisis showed significant progress toward his goal of "a world of law and free choice, banishing the world of war and coercion." His administration thus saw the beginning of new hope for both the equal rights of Americans and the peace of the world.
