Kennedy, John Fitzgerald

Kennedy, John Fitzgerald (1917–63) 35th president of the United States (1961–63), born in Brookline, Massachusetts. During World War II he served with the navy in the Pacific and was hailed as a hero when he helped rescue crew members after a Japanese destroyer sunk their PT boat (1943). In Kennedy's three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives (first elected 1946), his record was undistinguished. But his political career took off with his election to the Senate in 1952, in which the young Irish-Catholic candidate defeated the Yankee incumbent Henry Cabot Lodge, scion of an old New England family. His 1956 book Profiles in Courage (reputedly ghostwritten) won a Pulitzer Prize. In 1958 he was reelected by a lopsided margin and, in preparation for a run for the presidency in 1960, began speaking out on issues related to national defense and an alleged missile gap with the Soviet Union. With Lyndon B. Johnson as his running mate, Kennedy won a razor-thin popular plurality of about 100,000, although he had a comfortable margin in the electoral college (303 to 219), over his opponent Richard M. Nixon, becoming the first Roman Catholic president of the United States. The staff and cabinet he brought to Washington were known for their youth and vigor, particularly in contrast with the departing administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower. His main concern was the Soviet Union and its increasing sphere of influence, which led to his involvement in South Vietnam and Cuba. He approved the ill-conceived Bay of Pigs invasion (1961). Tensions with the Soviets came to a head with the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), when Nikita Khrushchev backed down and removed Soviet missiles from the island, marking a key turning point in the Cold War. In 1963 the Limited Test Ban Treaty was signed by the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union. The situation in Vietnam was heightened when Kennedy sent combat troops, under the guise of “advisers;” their number was doubled by November 1963. One success in his attempts to keep Third World countries out of the Communist bloc was the creation of the Peace Corps, an organization of volunteers who worked at the grass-roots level in remote areas. His Alliance for Progress was less successful in its aim of establishing democratic policies in Latin America. Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963 while on a routine political trip to Texas to raise money for the upcoming campaign. His murder made him a martyr, and his image and that of his administration were romanticized by his friends and family. Despite later revelations that his personal life was less than impeccable, Kennedy remains a figure of reverence in the eyes of many Americans.