Biography
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John F. Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts,
the son of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr In 1935, he studied at
the London School of Economics, then moved to Princeton
University, but was forced to leave the latter during
Christmas break because of an attack of jaundice. He
then attended Harvard University, enrolling in the fall
of 1936, but he severely injured his back playing
football. He traveled to Europe twice during his study
at Harvard. The second was to Great Britain, while his
father was serving as ambassador to that country.
Kennedy returned, and wrote his honors thesis on
analyzing the British portion of the Munich Pact of
1938. He graduated cum laude from Harvard in June 1940.
In the spring of 1941, John F. Kennedy volunteered for the US
Army, but was rejected, mainly because of his injured
back. However, he worked to strengthen himself during
the summer, and was accepted by the US Navy in September
of that year. He participated in various commands during
World War II, but his most famous one was during March
1943. With the rank of lieutenant, he received command
of a patrol torpedo boat, or PT boat.
While his boat, PT-109, was cruising west of New Georgia
(near the Solomon Islands on August 2, it was rammed by
a Japanese destroyer. He was thrown across the deck onto
his already injured back, but somehow rallied the
survivors onto a nearby small island, himself towing a
wounded man three miles through the ocean. After a few
days of searching, he found two friendly islanders, whom
he sent for aid with a message carved on a coconut. For
these actions, Kennedy received the Purple Heart, Navy
Medal and Marine Corps Medal. However, his back injury
had been aggravated after being thrown on his boat, and
he also contracted malaria. He was honorably discharged
in early 1945, just a few months before the Japanese
surrender.
After World War II, he entered politics (partly to fill
the void of his popular brother, Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr,
who was killed in the war). When Representative James M.
Curley vacated his overwhelmingly Democratic district to
become mayor of Boston, Kennedy ran for that seat. After
a long and strenuous campaign, he beat the Republican
opponent by a large margin. He was reelected two times,
but had a mixed voting record, often diverging from
then-President Harry S. Truman and the rest of the
Democratic Party.
In 1952, John F. Kennedy decided to run for the Senate.
He defeated the Republican incumbent, Henry Cabot Lodge,
Jr, by a margin of about 70,000 votes. He made good his
slogan, "Kennedy will do more for Massachusetts", having
voted and passed many ordinances that helped its
citizens, especially its businessmen. However, he
diverged from his constituents by speaking for censure
of Senator Joseph McCarthy, who was most famous for his
advantageous manipulation of the Red Scare. Although
Kennedy was ill during the 67-22 vote (the other 99
senators all voted), he had spoken repeatedly with the
majority.
John F. Kennedy married Jacqueline Bouvier on September 12,
1953. He underwent many spinals operations in the two
following years, though, and had a prolonged absence
from the Senate. However, while recovering from an
operation, he wrote about acts of political courage by
eight U.S. Senators, and published the book, Profiles in
Courage. This book later received the Pulitzer Prize for
Biography. When he returned to the Senate in 1955,
though, many critics called him an "untrue liberal". He
had adopted many moderate positions; however, two years
later, he adopted an extremely liberal position on
labor, but was forced to accept a more moderate bill,
the Landrum-Griffin Bill. He then decided to run for the
office of President of the United States.
Eventually, he beat Richard Nixon, Vice President in the
previous administration, in a famous, closely-contested
presidential election in 1960. Theodore H. White's 1961
book about that election campaign, The Making of the
President 1960, was not only a national best-seller but
is also used as a supplementary text in high school and
college courses in U.S. government and history. When he
was elected, he became the youngest person to be elected
president (Theodore Roosevelt was the youngest to be
president, but he first came to office by succeeding
William McKinley when the latter was assassinated).
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For various reasons, John F. Kennedy was, during the
time he served, perhaps the most popular president in
U.S. history. He was a handsome, photogenic man who
seemed open and accessible, and his administration
marked a notable increase in direct media exposure of
the president to the public at large, through television
broadcasts from the Oval Office, televised press
conferences, and numerous photo spreads in popular
magazines. The "charisma" Kennedy and his family
projected led to the figurative designation of "Camelot"
for his administration. His glamorous wife "Jackie" was
as newsworthy as he was, and the way they handled
personal tragedies, especially the death of their
newborn son Patrick Bouvier Kennedy in August 1963,
enhanced their public image.
The house where John F. Kennedy was born in Brookline (in the
Boston, Massachusetts, metropolitan area) is now a
National Historic Site, open to the public.[1] Kennedy
served in the US Navy in World War II. While he was
captain of a PT Boat that was sunk in the Pacific Ocean,
he sustained a back injury that plagued him for the
remainder of his life, exacerbating a disease the public
did not learn of until long after his death. (In May
2002 a National Geographic expedition found what is
believed to be the wreckage of that PT-109 in the
Solomon Islands [1]) For his book Profiles in Courage,
published in 1956 while he was serving in the US Senate,
he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Information released
after his death leaves no doubt that he had at least
one, and probably several extramarital affairs while in
office, including liaisons in the White House. Such
things were not then considered fit for publication, and
in Kennedy's case, they were never publicly discussed.
Kennedy was president for only about 1,000 days. This
brief tenure was marked by such notable events as the
acceleration of the United States' role in the space
race, the beginning of the escalation of the American
role in the Vietnam War, the Cuban missile crisis, and
the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba; these events
aggravated the Cold War with the USSR. He appointed his
brother Robert F. Kennedy to his Cabinet as Attorney
General.
President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas,
Texas, on November 22, 1963. Lee Harvey Oswald,
apprehended for the crime, was himself fatally shot by
Jack Ruby before he could be formally charged or brought
to trial. Four days after Kennedy and Oswald were
killed, President Lyndon Johnson created the Warren
Commission to investigate the assassination. See John F.
Kennedy assassination for further details of the
circumstances surrounding Kennedy's death.
John F. Kennedy's grave with Eternal Flame at Arlington
National Cemetery. ()On March 14, 1967 Kennedy's body
was moved to a permanent burial place and memorial at
Arlington National Cemetery.
Kennedy's life and the subsequent conspiracy theories
surrounding his death have been the inspiration for many
films. Recent ones include Nigel Turner's 1988 mini
series The Men Who Killed Kennedy, Oliver Stone's 1991
blockbuster, JFK, and 1993's JFK: Reckless Youth, which
looked at Kennedy's early years.
John F. Kennedy was the most recent Democratic president
to push for income tax cuts to improve the economy. He
was also the most recent Northern Democrat to win the
Presidency.
In November of 2002 long-secret medical records were
made public, revealing John F. Kennedy's physical ailments were
more severe than previously thought. He was in constant
pain from fractured vertebrae despite multiple
medications, in addition to suffering from severe
digestive problems and Addison's disease. Kennedy would
get multiple injections of procaine before press
conferences in order to appear healthy.