Ferguson Passage. Burning gasoline spewed forth from the wrecked torpedo
boat, setting the waters of the passage aflame: but Lieutenant Kennedy
retained his composure, directed the rescue of his crew, and personally
saved the lives of three of the men. Kennedy and the other survivors found
refuge on a small unoccupied island, and during the days that followed he
swam long distances to obtain food and aid for his men. Finally, on the
sixth day of the ordeal the crew was rescued.
Kennedy's bravery did not go unnoticed. For his deeds in August 1943 he
subsequently received the Purple Heart and the Navy and Marine Corps Medal.
Injuries sustained during his courageous exploits and an attack of malaria
ended Kennedy's active military service, however. Later in 1943 he returned
to the United States, and in 1945 he was honorably discharged from the
navy.
After leaving the navy, Kennedy, like many other young men who had
served their country during World War II. had to make a decision about his
literature career. At Harvard he had become increasingly interested in
government. but he did hot originally plan to seek public office. Members
of the Kennedy family had expected that the eldest son. navy pilot Joseph
P. Kennedy Jr., would enter politics - a hope cut short when he was killed
in a plane crash during the war Deeply affected by his older brother's
death. Jonh Kennedy in 1945 compiled a memorial volume. As We Remember Joe.
which was privately printed. Shortly afterwards he determined to pursue the
career that had been the choice of his late brother
Appropriately. Kennedy sought his first elective office in Easl Boston,
the low-income area with a large immigrant population that several decades
before had been the scene of both his grandfathers political activities.
Announcing his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for the US House of
Representatives in the 11th Congressional District early in 1946, Kennedy,
with the assistance of his family and friends, campaigned hard and long
against several of the party's veterans and won the primary. Since the
district was overwhelmingly Democratic, Kennedy's victory in the primary
virtually guaranteed his election in the November contest. As expected, on
November 5, 1946, he easily defeated his Republican rival and at the age of
29 began his political career as a member of the House of Representatives.
East Boston voters returned Kennedy to Congress in 1948 and 1950, and
for the six years he represented the 11th District he continuously worked
to expand federal programs, such as public housing, social security, and
minimum wage laws. that benefited his constituents. However, in 1952 the
young politician decided against running for another term In the House.
Instead he sought the Senate seat held by the Republican Henry Cabot Lodge.
The incumbent Lodge was well known and popular throughout
Massachusetts; in contrast, Kennedy had almost no following outside of
Boston. But from the moment he announced his candidacy for the Senate,
Kennedy, assisted by his family, friends, and thousands of volunteers,
conducted a massive and intense grassroots campaign. This hard work brought
results: on November 4, 1952, when the landslide presidential victory of
Dwight D. Eisenhower carried hundreds of other Republican candidates into
local, state, and federal offices throughout the nation, the Democratic
Kennedy defeated Lodge by a narrow margin to become the junior senator from
Massachusetts.
On September 12,1953, Kennedy married the beautiful and socially
prominent Jacqueline Lee Bouvier, who was 12 years his junior. Shortly
after their marriage, Kennedy became increasingly disabled by an old spinal
injury, and in October 1954 and again in February 1955 he underwent serious
surgery. A product of the months of convalescence that followed was his
Profiles in Courage, a study of American statesmen who had risked their
political careers for what they believed to be the needs of their nation.
Published in 1956, Profiles in Courage immediately became a bestseller, and
in May 1957 it won for its author the Pulitzer Prize for biography.
During his years in the House and for the first half of his Senate
term, Kennedy concerned himself primarily with the issues that particularly
interested or affected his Massachusetts constituents. However, when he
resumed his congressional duties alter Ins prolonged convalescence,
national rather than local or state affairs primarily attracted his
attention.
His determination to run for higher office became evident at the
Democratic National Convention in 1956. Adam Stevenson, the party's
presidential nominee, declined to name a running male. and instead left the
choice of a vice presidential candidate to a vote of the delegates. Seizing
this opportunity. Kennedy mounted a strong, if last-minute, campaign lorshe
nomination in which he was narrowly defeated by Senator Lstes Kefauver of
Tennessee Kennedy's efforts were no entirely unrewarded however. He proved
himself to be a formidable contender and. perhaps more important, lie came
to the attention of the millions of television viewers across the nation
who watched; the eonvention proceeding. He was redeemed to the US Senate in
1958.
Shortly after defeat of Stevenson in 1956. Kennedy launched a
nationwide campaign to gain the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination.
During the tour intervening years, ihe Massachusetts senator developed the
organisation that would help him win his goal. Through his personal
appearances, ami writings, he also made himself known to the voters ol the
United Stales. Kennedy's tactics were successful He won all the state
primaries he entered in 1960 including a critical contest in West
Virginia, where an overwhelmingly Protestant electorate dispelled the
notion that a Catholic candidate could not be victorious - and he also
earned the endorsement of a number of state party conventions.
The Democratic National Convention of 1960 selected Kennedy as its
presidential candidate on the first ballot. Then, to the surprise of many,
Kennedy asked Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, who had himself aspired
to the first place on the ticket, to be his running mate. Johnson agreed,
and the Demoeralic slate was complete. For its ticket, the Republican
National Convention in I960 chose Vice President Richard Millions Nixon and
Kennedy's earlier political rival. Henry Cabot Lodge.
Throughout the fall of 1960, Kennedy and Nixon waged tireless campaigns
to win popular support. Kennedy drew strength from the organization he had
put together and from the fact that registered Democratic voters
outnumbered their Republican counterparts. Nixon's strength stemmed from
his close association with the popular President Eisenhower and from his
own experience as Vice President, which suggested an ability to hold his
own with. representatives of the Soviet Union in foreign affairs. The
turning point of the 1960 presidential race, however, may have been the
series of four televised debates between the candidates, which gave voters
an opportunity to assess their positions on important issues, and
unintentionally also tested each man's television "presence." Kennedy
excelled in the latter area and political experts have since claimed that
his ability to exploit the mass media may have been a significant factor in
the outcome of the election.
On November 8, I960, the voters of the United States cast a record 68.8
million ballots, and selected Kcnnedy over Nixon by the narrow margin of
fewer than 120,000 votes in the closest popular vote in the nation's
history. In the Electoral College the tally was 303 votes to 21 John
Fitzgerald Kennedy took the oath of office as the 35th President of the
United States on January 20, 1961. A number of notable Americans
participated in the ceremonies: Richard Cardinal Gushing of Boston offered
the invocation, Marian Anderson sang the national anthem, and Robert Frost
read one of his poems. Kennedy's inaugural address, urging Americans to
"ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your
country," was memorable. The new Chief Executive also asserted, "Now the
trumpet summons us again ... to bear the burden of a long twilight
struggle... against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease
and war itself."
Both challenges were in keeping with what observers would later mark as
Kennedy's greatest contribution: a quality of leadership that extracted
from others their best efforts toward specific goals. Many felt themselves
influenced by his later reminder to a group of young people visiting the
White House - that "the Greeks defined happiness as the full use of your
powers along the lines of excellence."
Whether because of his-leadership, the climate of the times, or the
conjunction of the two, Kennedy's term as President coincided with a marked
transformation in the mood of the nation. Before that, complacent in their
peace-time prosperity, most Americans were preoccupied with individual
concerns. Now came a widespread awareness of needs not previously
recognized. No longer could Americans ignore pressing problems that
confronted them both at home and abroad, and increasingly, they showed a
willingness to try to effect meaningful changes. The new mood was one of
challenge, but also one of hope.
As he had promised in his inaugural address, Kennedy successfully
sought the enactment of programs designed to assist the "people in the huts
and villages of half the world." The Alliance for Progress, a program-
ambitious but ultimately less than successful - for the economic growth and
social improvement of Latin America, was launched in August 1961 at an
Inter American Conference at Punta del Este, Uruguay. The Peace Corps,
which offered Americans a unique opportunity to spend approximately two
years living and working with peoples in underdeveloped countries, was a
more successful attempt to aid emerging nations throughout the world.
In the realm of foreign affairs, Kennedy's record was a mixture of
notable triumphs and dangerous setbacks. He allowed the Central
Intelligence Agency to carry out plans laid before his administration for
an invasion of Cuba by anti-Communist refugees from that island. Between
1,400 and 1,500 exiles landed on April 17, 1961, at the Bay of Pigs, but
suffered defeat when an anticipated mass insurrection by the Cuban people
failed to materialize. Severely embarrassed, the administration
nevertheless successfully encouraged the creation of a private committee,
which ransomed 1,178 invasion prisoners for $62 million.
Cuban Premier Fidel Castro, after repelling the Bay of Pigs invasion,
turned to the Soviet Union for military support and allowed the Russians to
install secret missile sites in Cuba. From these locations, 90 miles from
US soil, the USSR could launch missiles capable of striking deep into the
American heartland. Reconnaissance by US observation planes uncovered the
Soviet activities. Taking a decisive stand President Kennedy, on October
22, 1962, announced that the United States would prevent the delivery of
offensive weapons to Cuba. Kennedy demanded that the USSR abandon the bases
and threatened that the United States would "regard any nuclear missile
launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an
attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full
retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union." After a week of intense
negotiations. Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev agreed to dismantle all
the installations in return for a US pledge not to invade Cuba.
President Kennedy gave wholehearted support to American efforts in
space exploration. During his administration the nation increased its
expenditures in that area fivefold, and the President promised that an
American would land on the moon before the end of the 1960s. (On July
20,1969, two American astronauts fulfilled the President's pledge by
becoming the first human beings to set foot on the lunar surface.)
During his presidential campaign, Kennedy had stressed the necessity of
improving the American economy, which was then suffering from a recession.
His aim was to follow a fiscally moderate course, and the achievement of a
bal_anced budget was one of his major goals. As President he managed to
stimulate the sluggish economy by accelerating federal purchasing and
construction programs, by the early release of more than $ 1 billion in
state highway funds, and by putting $ 1 billion in credit into the home
construction industry.
During his administration, however, increasing hostility developed
between the White House and the business community. Anxious to prevent
inflation, the President gave special attention to the steel industry,
whose price-wage structure affected so many other aspects of the economy.
After steel manufacturers insisted on raising their prices in April 1962,
Kennedy, by applying strong economic pressure, forced the producers to
return to the earlier lower price levels. His victory earned him the enmity
of many business people, however.
Kennedy sympathized with the aspirations of black Americans, but he
included no comprehensive civil rights legislation in his New Frontier
program, fearing that the introduction into a conservative Congress of such
measures would imperil all his other proposals. The President relied,
instead, on his executive powers and on the enforcement of existing voting
rights laws. He forbade discrimination in new federally aided housing,
appointed a large number of blacks to high offices, and supported Justice
Department efforts to secure voting rights and to end segregation in
interstate commerce. In 1962 he used regular army troops and federalized
National Guard units to force the admission of a black, James Meredith, to
the University of Mississippi, and in 1963 he used federal National
Guardsmen to watch over the integration of the University of Alabama.
Despite his broad visions of the American future, Kennedy enjoyed
limited success in translating his ideas into legislative reality. A
coalition of Republicans and conservative southern Democrats in the 87th
Congress stopped many of his plans for the introduction of social measures.
And even after the Demo_ratic Party increased its majority on Capitol Hill
in the 1962 elections. Congress was slow to cooperate, although it probably
was ready to do so just before his presidency came to an end.
John F. Kennedy presided over the execlusive branch of the United
States government for only a little more than 1,000 days. During that time
American involvement in Vietnam and other areas of Southeast Asia increased
moderately, but the beginnings of a thaw in the cold war were also
noticeable, and in 1963 the. Soviet Union and the United States signed the
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Kennedy's years in the White House were also
marked by increased social consciousness by the US government. With the
Great Society program of his successor, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Congress
eventually enacted a number of Kennedy's proposals, including medical care
for the elderly and greater opportunities for black Americans.
In addition to his various governmental programs, Kennedy's presidency
was also no_table for a new, vital style. John and Jacqueline Kennedy and
their two children, Caroline and John Jr., quickly captured the imagination
of the nation, and their activities were widely reported by the media.
Cer_tainly the Kennedys exuded a youthful vi-brance, and their interests
seemed unending. Jacqueline Kennedy was responsible for redecorating the
public rooms of the White House and inviting a glittering array of
cul_tural and intellectual leaders to the executive mansion.
An assassin's bullet abruptly ended the life of John Fitzgerald Kennedy
on Novem_ber 22,1963, as he rode in a motorcade through the streets of
Dallas, Texas. The entire nation mourned the tragic death of the Chief
Executive. Many millions watched on television as the 35th President was
buried at Arlington National Cemetery on November 25, 1963.
Every state of the United States and almost every nation in the world
has erected memorials to Kennedy. One of the monu_ments dearest to his
family is the house at 83 Seals Street in Brookline, Massachusetts, where
the late President's parents lived from 1914 until 1921 and where four of
their chil_dren - including John - were bom. The house was repurchased by
the Kennedys in 1966 and was designated a National Historic Site by
Congress in 1967. On May 29, 1969, the 52nd anniversary of John F.
Kennedy's birth, the family turned over the deed of the house to the
National Park Service.
Both of President Kennedy's younger brothers, Robert F. and Edward M.
Kennedy, served in the Senate. Many of the former President's compatriots
hoped to see his goals and promise carried forward when Robert Kennedy, who
had served as his at_torney general and closest adviser, an_nounced early
in 1968 that he would seek the Democratic nomination for President. In
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