John F. Kennedy
35th President of the United States
Early Life
Kennedy spent most of his childhood/early life, sick in bed with sicknesses and diseases such as Scarlet fever, Appendicities, Bronchitis, Measles, whooping cough, Parotitis, Hives, Jaundice, and a painful back injury from playing football at Harvard University.
Kennedy was a very smart child and loved reading throughout his life and education. He attended public school, Dexter School, Riverdale Country Day School, and entered Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut in 1930.
Kennedy grew up in a house where politics where often debated and decided, therefore influencing his political decisions and views.
Getting Involved
During his time in the Executive Branch, he announced the Peace Corps Alliance in progress, sent U.S. aid to bring Military victory in Vietnam, and also had the U.S. Marshals ordered to Alabama after violence against "Freedom Riders".
During the year 1962, JFK forced a rollback on steel pieces, used U.S. Troops to integrate University of Mississippi, had a Cuban Missile Crisis, and Executive Order signed barring racial discrimination in public housing.
In 1963, Kennedy submitted a civil right bill to Congress and had a Civil Rights March in Washington, agreed to the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
Choices&Results
"Investments in various enterprises, including banking, ship building, real estate, liquor importing, and motion pictures, made Joseph Kennedy one of the richest men in America. To be nearer the financial action and to escape the presumed Yankee prejudices against Irish Catholics, he moved his family to an upper-class New York City suburb in 1927.
Kennedy was reassigned to sea duty on PT boats, the small, fast crafts used to torpedo large ships. On August 2, 1943, a Japanese destroyer rammed Kennedy's PT-109 as it lay dead in Pacific waters. Decorated for his actions in rescuing surviving crew members, Kennedy was declared a "hero" by the New York Times. John Hersey's account, first published in the New Yorker, was reprinted in Reader's Digest, and widely circulated in each of John Kennedy's election campaigns.
Robert Kennedy wrote sympathetically of his brother, "At least one half of the days that he spent on this earth were days of intense physical pain." But Joe Kennedy viewed his son's medical problems as political liabilities, provoking a "crisis of explanation" to be covered over, along with daughter Rosemary's mental disabilities, daughter Kathleen's affair with a married English Protestant, son Teddy's driving record, and other family flaws, both real and imagined. He used his public relations apparatus and his friendships with people in the print media to suppress undesirable items and to cultivate positive images.
John Kennedy relied upon a high-powered public relations push and his father's wealth and contacts to sweep through the presidential primaries, line up the political bosses to deliver the necessary delegates, and win the Democratic presidential nomination on the convention's first ballot in 1960. Issuing a call to "national greatness," Kennedy spoke of sacrifice and a "New Frontier."
The Republicans nominated Eisenhower's vice president, Richard Nixon. Kennedy forced Nixon to defend the Eisenhower record. Claiming the Republicans were responsible for a national lethargy, Kennedy promised to "get America moving again." Although he knew otherwise, Kennedy charged that Soviet advances in rocketry had produced a "missile gap" threatening American security. He chided Eisenhower for permitting Communists to gain a foothold in the Western Hemisphere after Fidel Castro's revolution in Cuba."
"My fellow Americans, ask not what you country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." - JFK
"Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to Mankind." - JFK
AfterMath
Words for Him
Legacy
Annotated Bibliography
http://www.newportri.com/features/president-john-f-kennedy/image_706593ac-896e-11e1-b118-0019bb2963f4.html
"Visitors Tour The NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex In Florida." UPI Photo Collection. 2009. Biography in Context. Wed. 5 May 2016
"President John F. Kennedy attends a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, with his son, John F...." American Decades Primary Sources. Ed. Cynthia Rose. Vol. 7: 1960-1969. Detroit: Gale, 2004. Biography in Context. Web. 5 May 2016
"John F. Kennedy Material Released By The National Archives In Washington." UPI Photo Collection. 2011. Biography in Context. Web. 5 May 2016
"John Fitzgerald Kennedy." Dictionary of American Biography. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1981. Biography in Context. Web. 5 May 2016.
John F. Kennedy Speaks at Democratic National Convention, 1960." Gale Biography in Context. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Biography in Context. Web. 5 May 2016
"John Fitzgerald Kennedy." Historic World Leaders. Ed. Anne Commire. Detroit: Gale, 1994. Biography in Context. Web. 5 May 2016.
"President John F. Kennedy sitting in a tipped-back chair." Gale Biography in Context. Detroit: Gale, 2011. Biography in Context. Web. 5 May 2016
"John Fitzgerald Kennedy." Gale Biography in Context. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Biography in Context. Web. 5 May 2016.
Brauer, Carl M. "John F. Kennedy." The Presidents: A Reference History. Charles Scribner's Sons, 2002. Biography in Context. Web. 5 May 2016.