Insurveysand onlists , John Fitzgerald Kennedy ranks right up there with George Washington , Abraham Lincolnand Franklin Delano Roosevelt as one of America ’s greatest presidents . Had Mount Rushmore been sculpted a few decades after , there ’s little dubiousness Kennedy ’s face would beautify that South Dakota versant .
But in this persuasion , the world deeply disagrees withmany historianswho find JFK ’s record too short and too mediocre to really stack up against the greats . So why is JFK so democratic ? Mainly because his story possesses three determinants that engrave certain fame so deeply into the corporate consciousness that their celebrity can never fade : good feel , charisma and an early , tragic death .
These , along with the follow factor , have conspired to bump JFK up into the top tier of U.S. leaders .
JFK Vital Stats
Born : May 29 , 1917 , Brookline , Massachusetts
Education : Choate boarding school and Harvard University
Military Service : U.S. Navy , World War II , Pacific Theater
Political Offices : U.S. Representative for Massachusetts ; Massachusetts Senator ; U.S. President
Died : Nov. 22 , 1963 , Dallas , Texas , eld 46
Kennedy’s Childhood and Education
John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born into a prominent Massachusetts family of Irish - AmericanCatholics . He was the 2nd child and the second son . His middle name was his female parent ’s first name and it was given to him to honor his maternal grandfather , John Francis ( " Honey Fitz " ) Fitzgerald , who had served as mayor of Boston .
His founding father , Joseph Kennedy Sr . was an enormously successful businessman who had high ambition for his children . From the metre JFK ’s older brother , Joseph Jr. was born , Joe Sr . set him for U.S. chairperson .
In grade shoal and in high spirits schooltime , JFK was n’t quite what you ’d take an outstanding student . That ’s not to say he was n’t fresh — he just was n’t very motivated . But in his last two years at Harvard he decide to hold himself and the results were impressive .
His older class dissertation about England ’s failed scheme of appeasement in the lead - up to World War II ended up being published as a book title , " Why England Slept . "
JFK the War Hero
During World War II , Kennedy tried to enlist in the U.S. Army , but an honest-to-goodness football injury to his back made him ineligible . Thanks to his father ’s connections , he was able to sign up for the Navy . In some ways , this made more horse sense anyway — he was an excellent sailor and an elect natator , which would come in in ready to hand during the war .
In the Pacific Theater , JFK was assigned the command of a patrol torpedo ( PT ) boat with the missionary work of settle Nipponese military boats . But alternatively , it was JFK ’s PT boat that was lapse when a Nipponese ship ran over it . JFK and his surviving bunch swam miles to a nearby island . One of the crewmembers was so badly injured he could n’t drown , so JFK towed him , clinch the man’slifejacket strap between his tooth .
JFK’s Early Political Career
After the state of war , JFK work in short as a newsman before sprain his attention to politics . His chum Joe Jr. , who was a pilot program during the warfare , had died in an explosion while flying between England and France . Although squeeze by this blow , Joe Sr . had n’t give up his ambition of putting one of his Word in the White House .
He started by persuade JFK to run for U.S. Congress in Massachusetts . Kennedy was elect easily . In 1953 he hightail it forsenatorand won that situation as well . JFK ’s congressional career is not considered to be outstanding , but thanks to his right smell , charisma and rhetorical science ( not to name his founder ’s wealth ) he was able to position himself as a potential presidential nominee .
Jack’s Marriage to Jackie
Young John gather Jacqueline ( Jackie ) Bouvier at a dinner company in 1952 , where he"leaned across the asparagus and asked her on a engagement , " as he would later say . They conjoin in 1953 . Like John , Jackie was from a wealthy Catholic family . And like him she was both good - looking and bookish .
When , some years later , they call Paris together , Jackie ’s magic spell and fluent French endear her to their hosts . John splendidly said he would be remember as the valet de chambre who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris .
But unlike JFK , Jackie was an unworldly 24 - year - honest-to-goodness when she married her highly worldly 36 - class - one-time hubby . By that metre , he had been need in many relationships with many different women . Much to Jackie ’s hurt , after their marriage ceremony , he would remain to carry on numerousextramarital personal matters . The couple ’s first child , Caroline , was born in 1957 while JFK was still a senator . Jackie give birth to their 2d tike , John Jr. , during the first class of JFK ’s presidentship .
John F. Kennedy Becomes President
JFK narrowly overcome Richard Nixon in the presidential race of 1960 . During the campaign , the two hands squared off in the nation’sfirst televised presidential debates . Nixon , who was recover from a recent hospitalization insurance , appeared unshaved , unwell and nervous on TV , whereas JFK came across as relaxed and poise . Many people consider this television appearance was a turning peak that helped JFK secure triumph .
When JFK came into office , he learned that the CIA was planning an invasion of Cuba . Two years in the beginning , in 1958 , revolutionaries had overthrown the island ’s corrupted regime and established a new government under the leadership of Fidel Castro .
Fearing that Castro had communist sympathies , the CIA decided to back a group of exile Cubans in a tender to instigate a sideboard - revolution . JFK fit in to have the invasion go before . The invading force landed on a beach known as theBay of Pigsand was summarily defeated by the rotatory forces . For JFK , it was an sticky fiasco that made for a hapless start to his presidentship . It was also an auspex of things to add up . Cuba would be a problem that dogged his term in federal agency .
Fidel Castro was convinced that the Bay of Pigs did not brand the end of U.S. plans to overturn his politics . He was right . JFK ’s giving medication fully intended to get rid of Castro by any means possible .
Castro ’s legitimate fright push him into a closer alliance with the Soviet Union . The promontory of the Soviet Union , Nikita Krushchev was displeased that the U.S. had target nuclear weapons close-fitting to his borders . In a tit - for - sleaze move , he decide to take advantage of Cuba ’s alienation from the U.S. by installing a few nuclear weapons of his own on the Caribbean island in his enemy ’s backyard .
When JFK learned of this in 1962 , he face the gravid crisis of his government activity . Rather than shoot a line up the installation , or launch a nuclear state of war with the Soviet Union , as some of his military advisers wished , he opt to impose a naval blockade , preventing Soviet ship from ship any more weaponry to Cuba .
For 13 daysthe world teetered on the brink of thermonuclear obliteration as the two countries faced off . Finally , Krushchev agreed to remove the nuclear missile from Cuba in rally for the U.S. promising not to encroach upon Cuba . In a hidden peck , the U.S. also agreed to pull away their own nuclear weaponry from Turkey . The globose residential area breathed a sigh of relief and in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis , JFK spearheaded a Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty that became one of the highlights of his presidency .
JFK ’s record on civil rights is mixed . While he helped stop up Martin Luther King Jr. ’s release from prison during the drive of 1960 , once in the White House he revere losing the backing of southern democrats who virulently opposed adequate rights for African Americans . But after theMarch on Washingtonand Martin Luther King Jr. ’s famous " I Have a dreaming " speech communication galvanize public legal opinion , JFK began to reconsider his post .
In 1962 , he authorise the manipulation of the National Guard to ensure thatJames Meredith could become the first African American to attend the University of Mississippi , despite violent opposition by white supremacists . A inadequate time before he died , JFK finally sent civil rights lawmaking to Congress . But it would be his successor , Lyndon Johnson , who show the watershed Civil Rights Bill through Congress and signed it into natural law .
Kennedy Is Assassinated in Dallas
On Nov. 22 , 1963 , JFK and Jackie were waving to the crowds that line the street in Dallas , Texas , as they tantalise through town in the backseat of a 1961 Lincoln Continental four - door convertible limo with the top down .
At 12:30 p.m. , Kennedy and Jackie , Texas Governor John Connally , and Connally ’s wife Nellie entered Dealey Plaza . Two shots were fired from the Texas School Book Depository , hitting President Kennedy and Governor Connally . JFK was mortally wounded by multiple gunshot . A short time later died of his injuries . Governor Connally survive .
The law arrestedLee Harvey Oswald , an ex - nautical with communistic sympathies and consign him with the character assassination . As he was being transport to a car in the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters , Oswald was dart and killed by a man namedJack Ruby . The shot was circularise live on television .
The assassination of JFK was one of the most shameful upshot of the era . Most people who were alive then can recall precisely where they were and what they were doing when they learned that President John F. Kennedy had been fritter away . The enceinte - musical scale Warren Commission investigated JFK ’s assassination , conclude that Oswald acted alone . But conspiracy theories have always surrounded Kennedy ’s death , including one that there was a second shooter on the grassy knoll , and even that the government activity or organize crime was involve in his killing .
In 2017 , the U.S. government declassified 10,000 - plus documents relating to the probe in to JFK ’s blackwash . The documents confirmed some theories that the CIA was planning to hire the crime syndicate to assassinate Castro , and that the FBI received a death threat against Lee Harvey Oswald the sidereal day before he was killed . The FBI also recognize Oswald convey with a Russian KGB factor before Kennedy ’s assassination . But even the aggregative papers declassificationhasn’t stopped people from speculating that Oswald was part of a conspiracy , or that he was n’t even the gunman at all .
