John F. Kennedy (page 2)

American University speech

Wikisource has original text related to this article: A Strategy of Peace

	World Peace Speech   Speech from American University by John F. Kennedy, June 10, 1963 (duration 26:47)
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On June 10, 1963, Kennedy delivered the commencement address at American University in Washington, D.C., "to discuss a topic on which too often ignorance abounds and the truth is too rarely perceived – yet it is the most important topic on earth: world peace ... I speak of peace because of the new face of war...in an age when a singular nuclear weapon contains ten times the explosive force delivered by all the allied forces in the Second World War ... an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and air and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn ... I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men ... world peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor – it requires only that they live together in mutual tolerance ... our problems are man-made – therefore they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants."^[127] The president also made two announcements – that the Soviets had expressed a desire to negotiate a nuclear test ban treaty and that the U.S had postponed planned atmospheric tests.^[128]

West Berlin speech

Ich bin ein Berliner (I am a Berliner) speech Ich bin ein Berliner speech from the Rathaus Schöneberg by John F. Kennedy, June 26, 1963 (duration 9:01) Ich bin ein Berliner (I am a Berliner) speech (audio)   Audio-only version (duration 9:22)

Wikisource has original text related to this article: JFK's Ich bin ein Berliner speech

In 1963, Germany was enduring a time of particular vulnerability due to Soviet aggression to the east, de Gaulle's French nationalism to the west, and the impending retirement of German Chancellor Adenauer.^[129] On June 26 Kennedy gave a public speech in West Berlin reiterating the American commitment to Germany and criticizing communism; he was met with an ecstatic response from a massive audience. 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" ("I am a citizen of Berlin"). A million people were on the street for the speech.^[130] He remarked to Ted Sorensen afterwards: "We'll never have another day like this one, as long as we live."^[131]

Israel

Kennedy encountered problems with the Israeli government regarding the production of nuclear materials in Dimona. After the existence of a nuclear plant was initially denied by the Israeli government, David Ben-Gurion stated in a speech to the Israeli Knesset on December 21, 1960, that the purpose of the nuclear plant at Beersheba was for "research in problems of arid zones and desert flora and fauna".^[132] When Ben-Gurion met with Kennedy in New York, he claimed that Dimona was being developed to provide nuclear power for desalinization and other peaceful purposes "for the time being".^[132] Kennedy was skeptical, and stated in a May 1963 letter to Ben-Gurion that American support to Israel could be in jeopardy if reliable information on the Israeli nuclear program was not forthcoming. Ben-Gurion repeated previous reassurances that Dimona was being developed for peaceful purposes. The Israeli government resisted American pressure to open its nuclear facilities to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections. A science attache at the embassy in Tel Aviv concluded that parts of the Dimona facility had been shut down temporarily to mislead American scientists when they visited. According to Seymour Hersh, the Israelis set up false control rooms to show the Americans. Israeli lobbyist Abe Feinberg stated, "It was part of my job to tip them off that Kennedy was insisting on [an inspection]."^[133] Rodger Davies, the director of the State Department's Office of Near Eastern Affairs, concluded in March 1965 that Israel was developing nuclear weapons. He reported that Israel's target date for achieving nuclear capability was 1968–69.^[134] On May 1, 1968, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Katzenbach told President Johnson that Dimona was producing enough plutonium to produce two bombs a year. The State Department argued that if Israel wanted arms, it should accept international supervision of its nuclear program.^[133] Dimona was never placed under IAEA safeguards. Attempts to write Israeli adherence to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) into contracts for the supply of U.S. weapons continued throughout 1968.^[135]

Iraq

In 1963, the Kennedy administration backed the Ramadan Revolution coup against the government of Iraq headed by Abd al-Karim Qasim, who five years earlier had deposed the Western-allied Iraqi monarchy. On 8 February 1963, Kennedy received a memo stating: "We will make informal friendly noises as soon as we can find out whom to talk with, and ought to recognize as soon as we’re sure these guys are firmly in the saddle. CIA had excellent reports on the plotting, but I doubt either they or UK should claim much credit for it."^[136] The CIA had planned to remove Qasim in the past, but those efforts did not come to fruition.^[137] The new government, led by Abdul Salam Arif and dominated by the Ba'ath Party (along with a coalition of Nasserists and Iraqi nationalists), allegedly used lists—provided by the CIA—of suspected communists and other leftists to systematically murder unknown numbers of Iraq's educated elite.^[138][139] The US continued to back Arif after he purged the Ba'ath Party from the government in the November 1963 Iraqi coup d'état.^[140] Former CIA officer James Chritchfield disputes the notion that the CIA offered "active support" to the coup plotters and instead argues that the CIA, while "well-informed" on the first coup, was "surprised" by the power struggles that followed.^[141] Author Richard Dreyfuss also maintains that the US played no role in the coup.^[142]

Ireland

During his visit to Ireland in 1963, Kennedy accepted a grant of armorial bearings from the Chief Herald of Ireland and received honorary degrees from the National University of Ireland and Trinity College, Dublin.^[143] He visited the cottage at Dunganstown, near New Ross, where his ancestors had lived before emigrating to America.^[144] On December 22, 2006, the Irish Department of Justice released declassified police documents indicating that security was heightened as Kennedy was the subject of three death threats during this visit.^[145]

Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

Troubled by the long-term dangers of radioactive contamination and nuclear weapons proliferation, Kennedy and Khrushchev agreed to negotiate a nuclear test ban treaty, originally conceived in Adlai Stevenson's 1956 presidential campaign.^[146] In their Vienna summit meeting in June 1961, Khrushchev and Kennedy reached an informal understanding against nuclear testing, but the Soviet Union began testing nuclear weapons that September. The United States responded by conducting tests five days later.^[147] Shortly thereafter, new U.S. satellites began delivering images which made it clear that the Soviets were substantially behind the U.S. in the arms race.^[148] Nevertheless, the greater nuclear strength of the U.S. was of little value as long as the U.S.S.R. perceived themselves to be at parity.^[149]

In July 1963, Kennedy sent Averell Harriman to Moscow to negotiate a treaty with the Soviets.^[150] The introductory sessions included Khrushchev, who later delegated Soviet representation to Andrei Gromyko. It quickly became clear that a comprehensive test ban would not be implemented, due largely to the reluctance of the Soviets to allow inspections that would verify compliance.^[151] Ultimately, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union were the initial signatories to a limited treaty, which prohibited atomic testing on the ground, in the atmosphere, or underwater, but not underground; the U.S. Senate ratified this and Kennedy signed it into law in October 1963. France was quick to declare that it was free to continue developing and testing its nuclear defenses.^[152]

Domestic policy

Kennedy called his domestic program the "New Frontier". It ambitiously promised federal funding for education, medical care for the elderly, economic aid to rural regions, and government intervention to halt the recession. Kennedy also promised an end to racial discrimination. In his 1963 State of the Union address, he proposed substantial tax reform and a reduction in income tax rates from the current range of 20–90% to a range of 14–65%; he proposed a reduction in the corporate tax rates from 52 to 47%. Kennedy added that the top rate should be set at 70 percent if certain deductions were not eliminated for high income earners.^[153] Congress did not act until 1964, after his death, when the top rate was raised to 70%. To the Economic Club of New York, he spoke in 1963 of "... the paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high and revenues too low; and the soundest way to raise revenue in the long term is to lower rates now."^[154] Congress passed few of Kennedy's major programs during his lifetime, but did vote them through in 1964–65 under his successor Johnson.^[155]

Economy

Kennedy ended a period of tight fiscal policies, loosening monetary policy to keep interest rates down and encourage growth of the economy.^[156] He presided over the first government budget to top the $100 billion mark, in 1962, and his first budget in 1961 led to the country's first non-war, non-recession deficit.^[157] The economy, which had been through two recessions in three years and was in one when Kennedy took office, accelerated notably during his presidency. Despite low inflation and interest rates, GDP had grown by an average of only 2.2% during the Eisenhower presidency (scarcely more than population growth at the time), and had declined by 1% during Eisenhower's last twelve months in office.^[158]

The economy turned around and prospered during the Kennedy administration. GDP expanded by an average of 5.5% from early 1961 to late 1963,^[158] while inflation remained steady at around 1% and unemployment eased;^[159] industrial production rose by 15% and motor vehicle sales rose by 40%.^[160] This rate of growth in GDP and industry continued until around 1966, and has yet to be repeated for such a sustained period of time.^[158]

The major steel companies announced in April 1962 a 3.5% price increase (the first in 3 years) within a day of each other. This came just days after the companies had reached a settlement with the steelworkers' union, providing in chief a wage increase of 2.5%. The administration was furious, with Kennedy saying, "Why did they do this? Do they think they can get away with this? God, I hate the bastards."^{[citation needed]} Amid concern about the inflationary effects of the price increase, the president took personal charge of a campaign against the industry, assigning to each cabinet member a statement regarding the effects of the price increase on their area. Robert Kennedy, echoing his brother's sentiments, said "We're going for broke ... their expense accounts, where they've been and what they've been doing ... the FBI is to interview them all ... we can't lose this."^[161] Robert took the position that the steel executives had illegally colluded to fix prices. The administration's actions influenced US Steel to rescind the price increase.^[162] The Wall Street Journal wrote that the administration had acted "by naked power, by threats, by agents of the state security police."^[163] Yale law professor Charles Reich wrote in The New Republic his opinion that the administration had violated civil liberties by calling a grand jury to indict US Steel for collusion so quickly.^[163] A New York Times editorial praised Kennedy's actions and said that the steel industry's price increase "imperils the economic welfare of the country by inviting a tidal wave of inflation."^[164] Nevertheless, the administration's Bureau of Budget reported the price increase would have resulted in a net gain for GDP as well as a net budget surplus.^[165] The stock market, which had steadily declined since Kennedy's election, dropped 10% shortly after the administration's action on the steel industry.^[166]

Kennedy had little knowledge of the agricultural sector of the economy, and farmers were not on his list of priorities, at least in his 1960 campaign. After giving a speech to a farming community, he rhetorically asked an aide, "Did you understand any of what I just said in there? I sure didn't."^[167]

Federal and military death penalty

As President, Kennedy oversaw the last federal execution prior to Furman v. Georgia, a 1972 case that led to a moratorium on federal executions.^[168] Victor Feguer was sentenced to death by a federal court in Iowa and was executed on March 15, 1963.^[169] Kennedy commuted a death sentence imposed by a military court on seaman Jimmie Henderson on February 12, 1962, changing the penalty to life in prison.^[170]

On March 22, 1962, Kennedy signed into law HR5143 (PL87-423), abolishing the mandatory death penalty for first degree murder in the District of Columbia, the only remaining jurisdiction in the United States with such a penalty.^[171] The death penalty has not been applied in the District of Columbia since 1957, and has now been abolished.^[172]

Civil rights

The turbulent end of state-sanctioned racial discrimination was one of the most pressing domestic issues of the 1960s. The Supreme Court of the United States had ruled in 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. Many schools, especially in southern states, did not obey the Supreme Court's decision. The Court also prohibited segregation at other public facilities (such as buses, restaurants, theaters, courtrooms, bathrooms, and beaches) but it continued nonetheless. Kennedy verbally supported racial integration and civil rights; during the 1960 campaign he telephoned Coretta Scott King, wife of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., who had been jailed while trying to integrate a department store lunch counter. Robert Kennedy called Georgia governor Ernest Vandiver and obtained King's release from prison, which drew additional black support to his brother's candidacy.^[173]

Kennedy believed the grassroots movement for civil rights would anger many Southern whites and make it more difficult to pass civil rights laws in Congress, which was dominated by conservative Southern Democrats, and he distanced himself from it.^[174] He also was more concerned with other issues early in his presidency, such as the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the situation in Southeast Asia. As articulated by brother Robert, the administration's early priority was to "keep the president out of this civil rights mess". Many civil rights leaders viewed Kennedy as lukewarm, especially concerning the Freedom Riders, who organized an integrated public transportation effort in the south, and who were repeatedly met with violence by whites, including law enforcement officers, both federal and state. Kennedy assigned federal marshals to protect the Freedom Riders as an alternative to using federal troops or uncooperative FBI agents. Robert Kennedy, speaking for the president, urged the Freedom Riders to "get off the buses and leave the matter to peaceful settlement in the courts."^[175]

In September 1962, James Meredith enrolled at the University of Mississippi, but was prevented from entering. Attorney General Robert Kennedy responded by sending 400 federal marshals, while President Kennedy reluctantly sent 3,000 troops after the situation on campus turned violent.^[176] The Ole Miss riot of 1962 left two dead and dozens injured, but Meredith did finally enroll in his first class. On November 20, 1962, Kennedy signed Executive Order 11063, prohibiting racial discrimination in federally supported housing or "related facilities".^[177]

In early 1963, Kennedy related to Martin Luther King, Jr., about the prospects for civil rights legislation: "If we get into a long fight over this in Congress, it will bottleneck everything else, and we will still get no bill."^[178] However, civil rights clashes were on the rise that year.^[179] Brother Robert and Ted Sorenson pressed Kennedy to take more initiative on the legislative front.^[180] On June 11, 1963, President Kennedy intervened when Alabama Governor George Wallace blocked the doorway to the University of Alabama to stop two African American students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from attending. Wallace moved aside only after being confronted by Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach and the Alabama National Guard, which had just been federalized by order of the President, and which had hours earlier been under Wallace's command. That evening Kennedy gave his famous civil rights address on national television and radio, launching his initiative for civil rights legislation – to provide equal access to public schools and other facilities, and greater protection of voting rights.^[181][182] His proposals became part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The day ended with the murder of a NAACP leader, Medgar Evers, in front of his home in Mississippi.^[183] As the president had predicted, the day after his TV speech, and in reaction to it, House Majority leader Carl Albert called to advise him that his two year signature effort in Congress to combat poverty in Appalachia (Area Redevelopment Administration) had been defeated, primarily by the votes of Southern Democrats and Republicans.^[184]

Kennedy signed the executive order creating the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women on December 14, 1961.^[185] Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt led the commission. The Commission statistics revealed that women were also experiencing discrimination; their final report documenting legal and cultural barriers was issued in October 1963.^[186] Earlier, on June 10, 1963, Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act of 1963, a federal law amending the Fair Labor Standards Act, aimed at abolishing wage disparity based on sex.^[187]

Over a hundred thousand, predominantly African Americans, gathered in Washington for the civil rights March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963. Kennedy feared the March would have a negative effect on the prospects for the civil rights bills in Congress, and declined an invitation to speak. He turned over some of the details of the government's involvement to the Dept. of Justice, which channelled hundreds of thousands of dollars to the six sponsors of the March, including the N.A.A.C.P. and Martin Luther King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). To ensure a peaceful demonstration, the organizers and the president personally edited speeches which were inflammatory and agreed the March would be held on a Wednesday and would be over at 4:00 pm. Thousands of troops were placed on standby. Kennedy watched King's speech on TV and was very impressed. The March was considered a "triumph of managed protest", and not one arrest relating to the demonstration occurred. Afterwards, the March leaders accepted an invitation to the White House to meet with Kennedy and photos were taken. Kennedy felt the March was a victory for him as well and bolstered the chances for his civil rights bill.^[188]

Nevertheless, the struggle was far from over. Three weeks later, a bomb exploded on a Sunday at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham; at the end of the day six children had died in the explosion and aftermath.^[189] As a result of this resurgent violence, the civil rights legislation underwent some drastic amendments that critically endangered any prospects for passage of the bill, to the outrage of the president. Kennedy called the congressional leaders to the White House and by the following day the original bill, without the additions, had enough votes to get it out of the House committee.^[190]

Civil liberties

In 1963, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who hated civil-rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. and viewed him as an upstart troublemaker,^[191] presented the Kennedy Administration with allegations that some of King's close confidants and advisers were communists. Concerned that the allegations, if made public, would derail the Administration's civil rights initiatives, Robert Kennedy and the president both warned King to discontinue the suspect associations. After the associations continued, Robert Kennedy felt compelled to issue a written directive authorizing the FBI to wiretap King and other leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, King's civil rights organization.^[192] Although Kennedy only gave written approval for limited wiretapping of King's phones "on a trial basis, for a month or so",^[193] Hoover extended the clearance so his men were "unshackled" to look for evidence in any areas of King's life they deemed worthy.^[194] The wire tapping continued through June 1966 and was revealed in 1968.^[195]

Immigration

John F. Kennedy initially proposed an overhaul of American immigration policy that later was to become the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, sponsored by Kennedy's brother Senator Edward Kennedy. It dramatically shifted the source of immigration from Northern and Western European countries towards immigration from Latin America and Asia and shifted the emphasis of selection of immigrants towards facilitating family reunification.^[196] Kennedy wanted to dismantle the selection of immigrants based on country of origin and saw this as an extension of his civil rights policies.^[197]

Space program

The Apollo program was conceived early in 1960, during the Eisenhower administration, as a follow-up to Project Mercury. While NASA went ahead with planning for Apollo, funding for the program was far from certain given Eisenhower's opposition to manned spaceflight. Kennedy's advisors speculated that a moon flight would be prohibitively expensive,^[198] but he postponed the decision out of deference to his vice president. Johnson had been appointed chairman of the U.S. Space Council^[199] and strongly supported NASA because its new Manned Spacecraft Center was located in Texas.^[200] In his January 1961 State of the Union address, Kennedy had suggested international cooperation in space. Khrushchev declined, as the Soviets did not wish to reveal the status of their rocketry and space capabilities.^[201]

On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to fly in space, reinforcing American fears about being left behind in a technological competition with the Soviet Union.^[202] Kennedy was eager for the U.S. to take the lead in the Space Race for reasons of strategy and prestige. He first announced the goal of landing a man on the Moon in the speech to a Joint Session of Congress on May 25, 1961, stating:

"First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish."^[203] Full text 

Kennedy made a speech at Rice University on September 12, 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." ... "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."^[204] Full text 

On November 21, 1962, in a cabinet meeting with NASA administrator James E. Webb and other officials, Kennedy explained that the moon shot was important for reasons of international prestige, and that the expense was justified.^[205] Johnson assured him that lessons learned from the space program had military value as well. Costs for the Apollo program were expected to reach $40 billion.^[206]

In a September 1963 speech before the United Nations, Kennedy urged cooperation between the Soviets and Americans in space. Khrushchev again declined, and the Soviets did not commit to a manned moon mission until 1964.^[207] On July 20, 1969, almost six years after Kennedy's death, Apollo 11 landed the first manned spacecraft on the Moon.

Native American relations

Construction of the Kinzua Dam flooded 10,000 acres (4,047 ha) of Seneca nation land that they had occupied under the Treaty of 1794, and forced 600 Seneca to relocate to Salamanca, New York. Kennedy was asked by the American Civil Liberties Union to intervene and halt the project, but he declined, citing a critical need for flood control. He expressed concern about the plight of the Seneca, and directed government agencies to assist in obtaining more land, damages, and assistance to help mitigate their displacement.^[208][209]

Assassination

President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, at 12:30 pm Central Standard Time on November 22, 1963, while on a political trip to Texas to smooth over frictions in the Democratic Party between liberals Ralph Yarborough and Don Yarborough (no relation) and conservative John Connally.^[210] He was shot once in the upper back and killed with a final shot to the head. He was taken to Parkland Hospital for emergency medical treatment, but pronounced dead at 1:00 pm. Only 46, President Kennedy died younger than any U.S. president to date. Lee Harvey Oswald, an employee of the Texas School Book Depository from which the shots were suspected to have been fired, was arrested on charges for the murder of a local police officer and was subsequently charged with the assassination of Kennedy. He denied shooting anyone, claiming he was a patsy,^[211][212] but was killed by Jack Ruby on November 24, before he could be indicted or tried. Ruby was then arrested and convicted for the murder of Oswald. Ruby successfully appealed his conviction and death sentence but became ill and died of cancer on January 3, 1967, while the date for his new trial was being set.^[213]

President Johnson created the Warren Commission—chaired by Chief Justice Earl Warren—to investigate the assassination, which concluded that Oswald was the lone assassin. The results of this investigation are disputed by many.^[214] The assassination proved to be an important moment in U.S. history because of its impact on the nation and the ensuing political repercussions.

Funeral

A Requiem Mass was held for Kennedy at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle on November 25, 1963. Afterwards, John F. Kennedy's body was buried in a small plot, (20 by 30 ft.), in Arlington National Cemetery. Over a period of 3 years, (1964–1966), an estimated 16 million people had visited his grave. On March 14, 1967, Kennedy's body was moved to a permanent burial plot and memorial at the Cemetery. The funeral was officiated by Father John J. Cavanaugh.^[215] It was from this memorial that the graves of both Robert and Ted were modeled.

The honor guard at JFK's graveside was the 37th Cadet Class of the Irish Army. JFK was greatly impressed by the Irish Cadets on his last official visit to Ireland, so much so that Jackie Kennedy requested the Irish Army to be the honor guard at the funeral.^[216]

Kennedy's wife, Jacqueline and their two deceased minor children were buried with him later. His brother, Senator Robert Kennedy, was buried nearby in June 1968. In August 2009, his brother, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, was also buried near his two brothers. JFK's grave is lit with an "Eternal Flame." Kennedy and William Howard Taft are the only two U.S. Presidents buried at Arlington.^[217][218] According to the JFK Library, I Have a Rendezvous with Death, by Alan Seeger "was one of John F. Kennedy's favorite poems and he often asked his wife to recite it."^[219]

Administration, Cabinet, and judicial appointments 1961–1963

The Kennedy Cabinet

Office	Name	Term
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 McNamara	1961–1963
Justice	Robert F. Kennedy	1961–1963
Postmaster General	J. Edward Day	1961–1963
Postmaster General	John A. Gronouski	1963
Interior	Stewart Udall	1961–1963
Agriculture	Orville Freeman	1961–1963
Commerce	Luther H. Hodges	1961–1963
Labor	Arthur Goldberg	1961–1962
Labor	W. Willard Wirtz	1962–1963
Health, Education, and Welfare	Abraham A. Ribicoff	1961–1962
Health, Education, and Welfare	Anthony J. Celebrezze	1962–1963

Judicial appointments

Supreme Court

Kennedy appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:

• Byron White – 1962
• Arthur Goldberg – 1962

Other courts

In addition to his two Supreme Court appointments, Kennedy appointed 21 judges to the United States Courts of Appeals, and 102 judges to the United States district courts.

Image, social life and family

John Kennedy met his future wife, Jacqueline Bouvier, when he was a congressman. Charles L. Bartlett, a journalist, introduced the pair at a dinner party.^[220] They were married a year after he was elected senator, on September 12, 1953.^[221] Kennedy and his wife were younger in comparison to the presidents and first ladies that preceded them, and both were 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. Although Eisenhower had allowed presidential press conferences to be filmed for television, Kennedy was the first president to ask for them to be broadcast live and made good use of the medium.^[222] Jacqueline brought new art and furniture to the White House, and directed its restoration. They invited a range of artists, writers and intellectuals to rounds of White House dinners, raising the profile of the arts in America. The Kennedy family is one of the most established political families in the United States, having produced a President, three senators, and multiple other Representatives, both on the federal and state level. John Kennedy's father, Joseph P. Kennedy, was a prominent American businessman and political figure, serving in multiple roles, including Ambassador to the United Kingdom, from 1938 to 1940.

Outside on the White House lawn, the Kennedys established a swimming pool and tree house, while Caroline attended a preschool along with 10 other children inside the home.

The president was closely tied to popular culture, emphasized by songs such as "Twisting at the White House." Vaughn Meader's First Family comedy album—an album parodying the President, First Lady, their family and administration—sold about four million copies. On May 19, 1962, Marilyn Monroe sang "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" at a large party in Madison Square Garden, celebrating Kennedy's upcoming forty-fifth birthday. The charisma of Kennedy and his family led to the figurative designation of "Camelot" for his administration, credited by his wife to his affection for the then contemporary Broadway musical of the same name.^[223]

Behind the glamorous facade, the Kennedys also experienced many personal tragedies. Jacqueline had a miscarriage in 1955 and a stillbirth in 1956. Their newborn son, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, died in August 1963. Kennedy had two children who survived infancy. One of the fundamental aspects of the Kennedy family is a tragic strain which has run through the family, as a result of the violent and untimely deaths of many of its members. John's eldest brother, Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., died in World War II, at the age of 29. It was Joe Jr. who was originally to carry the family's hopes for the Presidency. Then both John himself, and his brother Robert died as a result of assassinations. Edward had brushes with death, the first in a plane crash and the second as a result of a car accident, known as the Chappaquiddick incident. Edward died at age 77, on August 25, 2009, from the effects of a malignant brain tumor.

Years after Kennedy's death, it was revealed that in September 1947, at age 30, and while in his first term in Congress, he was diagnosed by Sir Daniel Davis at The London Clinic with Addison's disease, a rare endocrine disorder. In 1966, his White House doctor, Janet Travell, revealed that Kennedy also had hypothyroidism. The presence of two endocrine diseases raises the possibility that Kennedy had autoimmune polyendocrine syndrome type 2 (APS 2).^[224] He also suffered from chronic and severe back pain, for which he had surgery and was written up in the AMA's Archives of Surgery. Kennedy's condition may even have had diplomatic repercussions, as he appears to have been taking a combination of drugs to treat severe pain during the 1961 Vienna Summit with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. The combination included hormones, animal organ cells, steroids, vitamins, enzymes, and amphetamines, and potential side effects included hyperactivity, hypertension, impaired judgment, nervousness, and significant mood swings.^[225] Kennedy at one time was regularly seen by no fewer than three doctors, one of whom, Max Jacobson was unknown to the other two, as his mode of treatment was controversial^[226] and used for the most severe bouts of pain.^[227] There was often disagreement among his doctors, as in late 1961, over the proper balance of medication and exercise, with the president preferring the former as he was short on time and desired immediate relief.^[149] Details of these and other medical problems were not publicly disclosed during Kennedy's lifetime.^[228]

Caroline Bouvier Kennedy was born in 1957 and is the only surviving member of JFK's immediate family. John F. Kennedy, Jr. was born in 1960, just a few weeks after his father was elected. John died in 1999, when the small plane he was piloting crashed en route to Martha's Vineyard, killing him, his wife, Carolyn Bessette, and his sister-in-law.^[229]

In October 1951, during his third term as Massachusetts's 11th district congressman, the then 34-year-old Kennedy embarked on a seven-week Asian trip to India, Japan, Vietnam, and Israel with his then 25-year-old brother Robert (who had just graduated from law school four months earlier) and his then 27-year-old sister Patricia. Because of their eight-year separation in age, the two brothers had previously seen little of each other. This 25,000-mile (40,000 km) trip was the first extended time they had spent together and resulted in their becoming best friends, in addition to being brothers. Robert was campaign manager for Kennedy's successful 1952 Senate campaign and later, his successful 1960 presidential campaign. The two brothers worked closely together from 1957 to 1959 on the Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor and Management Field, when Robert was its chief counsel. During Kennedy's presidency, Robert served in his cabinet as Attorney General and was his closest advisor.^[230]

Kennedy was a Life Member of the National Rifle Association.^[231][232] Kennedy came in third (behind Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mother Teresa) in Gallup's List of Widely Admired People of the 20th century.^[233][234]

Extra-marital relationships

Kennedy reportedly had affairs with a number of women, including Marilyn Monroe,^[235] Gunilla von Post,^[236] Judith Campbell,^[237] Mary Pinchot Meyer,^[238] Marlene Dietrich,^[239] and Mimi Alford.^[240] Doctors speculated that the drugs the president required for Addison's disease had the side effect of increasing his virility.^[149] The president remarked to UK Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, "I wonder how it is for you, Harold? If I don't have a woman for three days, I get terrible headaches."^[241] Kennedy inspired affection and loyalty from the members of his team and his supporters.^[242] According to Reeves, this included "the logistics of Kennedy's liaisons ... [which] required secrecy and devotion rare in the annals of the energetic service demanded by successful politicians."^[243] Kennedy believed that his friendly relationship with members of the press would help protect him from revelations about his sex life.^[244]

Ancestors

The Kennedy family originally came from Dunganstown, County Wexford.^[245] In 1848, Patrick Kennedy left his farm and boarded a ship in New Ross bound for Liverpool on his way to Boston.^[246] It was here he met the woman he was to marry, Bridget Murphy.^[247] Patrick Kennedy came to Boston, took a job as a migrant worker, and died within eight or nine years, of cholera.^[248] He left behind a widow and children to carry on.

Legacy

Television became the primary source by which people were kept informed of events surrounding John F. Kennedy's assassination. In fact, television started to come of age before the assassination. On September 2, 1963, Kennedy helped inaugurate network television's first half hour evening newscast in an interview CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite for the newscast.^[249]

Newspapers were kept as souvenirs rather than sources of updated information. In this sense it was the first major "TV news event" of its kind, the TV coverage uniting the nation, interpreting what went on and creating memories of this space in time. All three major U.S. television networks suspended their regular schedules and switched to all-news coverage from November 22 through November 25, 1963, being on the air for 70 hours, making it the longest uninterrupted news event on American TV until 9/11.^[250] 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 state funeral was the first of three in a span of 12 months. The other two were for General Douglas MacArthur and Herbert Hoover. All three have two things in common: the commanding general of the Military District of Washington during those funerals was Army Major General Philip C. Wehle and the riderless horse was Black Jack, who also served in that role during Lyndon B. Johnson's funeral.

The assassination had an effect on many people, not only in the U.S. but around the world. Many vividly remember where they were when first learning of the news that Kennedy was assassinated, as with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 before it and the September 11 attacks after it. UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson said of the assassination: "all of us... will bear the grief of his death until the day of ours." Many people have also spoken of the shocking news, compounded by the pall of uncertainty about the identity of the assassin(s), the possible instigators and the causes of the killing as an end to innocence, and in retrospect it has been coalesced with other changes of the tumultuous decade of the 1960s, especially the Vietnam War.

Special Forces have a special bond with Kennedy. "It was President Kennedy who was responsible for the rebuilding of the Special Forces and giving us back our Green Beret," said Forrest Lindley, a writer for the newspaper Stars and Stripes who served with Special Forces in Vietnam.^[c] This bond was shown at JFK's funeral. At the commemoration of the 25th anniversary of JFK's death, Gen. Michael D. Healy, the last commander of Special Forces in Vietnam, spoke at Arlington Cemetery. Later, a wreath in the form of the Green Beret would be placed on the grave, continuing a tradition that began the day of his funeral when a sergeant in charge of a detail of Special Forces men guarding the grave placed his beret on the coffin.

Kennedy was the first of six Presidents to have served in the U.S. Navy,^[251] and one of the enduring legacies of his administration was the creation in 1961 of another special forces command, the Navy SEALs,^[252] which Kennedy enthusiastically supported.^[253]

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 turning point and decline in the faith of the American people in the political establishment—a point made by commentators from Gore Vidal to Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. and implied by Oliver Stone in several of his films, such as his landmark 1991 JFK.

Kennedy moved further on civil rights than his predecessors. In a radio and TV address to the nation in June 1963 – a century after Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation— Kennedy became the first president to call on all Americans to embrace civil rights as a moral imperative. The year after JFK's assassination, President Johnson pushed the landmark Civil Rights Act through a bitterly divided Congress by invoking the slain president's memory.

Kennedy's continuation of Presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower's policies of giving economic and military aid to South Vietnam left the door open for President Johnson's escalation of the conflict.^[254] At the time of Kennedy's death, no final policy decision had been made as to Vietnam, leading historians, cabinet members and writers to continue to disagree on whether the Vietnam conflict would have escalated to the point it did had he survived.^[255][122] The Vietnam War contributed greatly to a decade of national difficulties and disappointment on the political landscape.

Many of Kennedy's speeches (especially his inaugural address) are considered iconic; and despite his relatively short term in office and lack of major legislative changes coming to fruition 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.

He was posthumously awarded the Pacem in Terris Award. It was named after a 1963 encyclical letter by Pope John XXIII that calls upon all people of goodwill to secure peace among all nations. Pacem in Terris is Latin for 'Peace on Earth.'

President Kennedy is the only president to have predeceased both his mother and father. He is also the only president to have predeceased a grandparent. His grandmother, Mary Josephine Hannon Fitzgerald, died in 1964, just over eight months after his assassination.

Throughout the English-speaking world, the given name Kennedy has sometimes been used in honour of President Kennedy, as well his brother Robert.^[256]

Eponyms

• John F. Kennedy International Airport, American facility (renamed from Idlewild in December 1963) in New York City's Queens County; nation's busiest international gateway
• John F. Kennedy Memorial Airport American facility in Ashland County, Wisconsin, near city of Ashland
• John F. Kennedy Memorial Bridge American seven-lane transportation hub across Ohio River; completed in late 1963, the bridge links Kentucky and Indiana
• John F. Kennedy School of Government, American institution (renamed from Harvard Graduate School of Public Administration in 1966)
• John F. Kennedy Space Center, U.S. government installation that manages and operates America's astronaut launch facilities in Titusville near Coco Beach, Fl.
• John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School – trains United States Army personnel for the United States Army Special Operations Command and Army Special Operation Forces at Fort Bragg outside Fayetteville, N.C.
• John F. Kennedy University, American private educational institution founded in California in 1964; locations in Pleasant Hill, Campbell, Berkeley, and Santa Cruz
• USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67), U.S. Navy aircraft carrier ordered in April 1964, launched May 1967, decommissioned August 2007; nicknamed "Big John"
• John F. Kennedy High School is the name of many secondary schools.
• USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79), U.S. Navy aircraft carrier to begin construction in 2012, and to be placed in commission in 2018.

Memorials

Coat of arms

In 1961, Kennedy was presented with a grant of arms for all the descendants of Patrick Kennedy from the Chief Herald of Ireland. The design of the arms strongly alludes to symbols in the coats of arms of the O'Kennedys of Ormonde and the Fitzgeralds of Desmond, from whom the family is believed to be descended. The crest is an armored hand holding four arrows between two olive branches, elements taken from the coat of arms of the United States of America and also symbolic of Kennedy and his brothers.

Kennedy received a signet ring engraved with his arms for his 44th birthday as a gift from his wife, and the arms were incorporated into the seal of the USS John F. Kennedy. Following his assassination, Kennedy was honored by the Canadian government by having a mountain, Mount Kennedy, named for him, which his brother, Robert Kennedy, climbed in 1965 to plant a banner of the arms at the summit.^[257]

Media

Kennedy comments on the possible prevention of the Cold War   President Kennedy comments on the possible prevention of the Cold War Kennedy's message to Turkey   Kennedy's message to Turkish President Cemal Gursel and The Turkish People on the Anniversary of the Death of Kemal Ataturk, November 10, 1963 (accompanying text) Announcement to go to the moon   Announcement by John F. Kennedy to go to the moon (duration 11:00)

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See also

Notes

 

Author:	Bling King
Published:	May 20th 2012
Modified:	May 20th 2012