35. JOHN F. KENNEDY (Yes, we're going to have a wingding)
Born: May 29, 1917, Brookline, Massachusetts
Died: November 22, 1963, Dallas, Texas
Term: January 20, 1961- November 22, 1963 (assassinated)
Political Party: Democrat
Vice President: Lyndon Johnson
First Lady: Jackie Bouvier Kennedy
Before the Presidency: John Kennedy was born to a privileged family in Brookline, Massachusetts. His maternal grandfather was Honey Fitz Fitzgerald, a former mayor of Boston. His father, Joseph Kennedy, Sr., also came from a political family and had dreams of his oldest son, Joseph Jr., one day becoming President of the United States.
Jack, as John was called, was the second oldest and he suffered from various ailments as a child. Still, he was a Kennedy and he found ways to toughen up. He grew up not really planning a career in politics and yet, always felt in competition with his brother, something the father always encouraged.
The senior Joseph was something of an entrepreneur and it is said that he gained much of his fortune in the prohibition 1920s as he was involved in the rumrunning business. He was also smart enough to pull his money out of the stock market just before the crash of 1929. He also had political connections and would become friendly with Franklin Roosevelt, who appointed him to several posts, culminating with the Ambassadorship to England.
As for Jack, he studied at Harvard, and it was only there where he learned the devastating effects of the Great Depression. He really did have a privileged life.
In 1938, Joseph Kennedy became Ambassador to England and brought the whole family with him, nine in all. While in London, Jack wrote his Senior thesis which became the book, Why England Slept.
The Kennedys stayed in England until 1940. That year, Joseph would be recalled after a series of anti-Semitic remarks and tensions with the State Department (Joseph was against American intervention). It’s safe to say the Brits weren’t crazy about him either.
Joseph had actually hoped for a Presidential run in 1940, but he proved too controversial to even be considered by the Democrats (or Republicans for that matter). Thus, he turned his attention to his son, Joseph, Jr.
After Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, both Joe and Jack signed up for the Navy with the elder Joseph’s approval, knowing the political value it would bring both of them. Joe had an easy time of it and he would be flying bombing missions over Europe.
It was a tougher time for Jack though as he still had his health issues, mainly with his back. Still, he had connections and soon he was commanding a PT boat in the Pacific. Again, his innate toughness hid his obvious pain, and he earned the respect of his men because of it.
In 1943, Kennedy’s PT boat was rammed by a Japanese destroyer. Lieutenant Kennedy proved to be a hero as he physically tugged a badly burned seaman with his teeth, leading ten men to a deserted island, where they languished for days before they were rescued. Despite some criticisms of poor seamanship (nobody was on watch when the destroyer hit), Kennedy was awarded the Purple Heart and Medal for Valor and was seen as a national hero.
Needless to say, brother Joe felt he had to top his brother’s feat even though he was no doubt proud (though competitive, the two were actually quite close). In 1944, he flew a top secret mission. It was an experimental mission that would tragically fail. Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. was killed.
So, with the oldest now dead, the elder Joseph’s aspirations now lie with Jack. Like it or not, his political career had begun.
As it turned out, Kennedy proved to be a natural and he enjoyed the political game. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1946. He developed a reputation as a somewhat conservative Democrat and didn’t really distinguish himself during the six years in the House. That would change in 1952, however.
For, in 1952, he was elected to the Senate, and it was there that he would make his mark, defeating the respected incumbent, Henry Cabot Lodge. Kennedy also met Jaqueline Bouvier that year; they would marry a year later, in 1953.
Not that the Senate was easy. Kennedy’s health continued to struggle, and he was diagnosed with Addison’s disease, then considered fatal. But like FDR, though, he was very good at hiding his ailments and he came off as a man with youthful vigor.
Kennedy spent one period of convalescence by writing another book, this one called Profiles in Courage (though accused of being ghostwritten by Theodore Sorenson, a loyal Kennedy aide). The book, profiling eight senators that took moral stands, won Kennedy the Pulitzer Prize.
Despite missing a lot of time in the Senate due to his health, Kennedy was nonetheless in the running for the Vice-Presidential nomination in 1956. In the end, the nod went to Estes Kefauver, but it put the young Kennedy in the national spotlight.
And some fortune came Kennedy’s way as 1960 neared. Doctors were able to get Kennedy’s Addison’s disease under control and, while he would continue to have severe back pain, his health greatly improved. More importantly, Kennedy became a major player in the Senate as an influential member of the Foreign Relations Committee where he was critical of President Eisenhower on what he called the missile gap.
So, in 1960, Kennedy was ready to make his run for the White House, but he would have a lot of competition.
Summary of offices held:
1941-1945: United States Navy, Lieutenant
1947-1953; US House of Representatives, Massachusetts
1953-1961: US Senate, Massachusetts
What was going on: The Cold War, Civil Rights movement, Peace Corps, Cuban Missile Crisis
Scandals within the administration: Sex scandals that would come to light later
Why he was a good President: He had a youthful idealism that fit in well with the optimistic early sixties. He started the Peace Corps and beefed up the space program. He challenged NASA to go to the Moon and they took that challenge. He started the ball rolling for the definitive bill that would guarantee racial equality.
And, most important of all, because of his restraint without giving in, he likely saved the world from nuclear annihilation. It’s hard to top that.
Why he was a bad President: Well, the other side of Kennedy was that he was probably a little narcissistic and even arrogant. He was a womanizer, and one doesn’t know what really happened in the case of Marilyn Monroe (it is assumed she did, in fact, have an affair with Kennedy). Politically, though he did advance the cause of civil rights considerably, it took a lot of prodding from civil rights leaders and even his brother to get him to do it. Speaking of his brother, Robert Kennedy is absolutely one of my favorite all-time people, but you don’t appoint family to an important administrative post, especially when he had next to no experience (luckily, Bobby turned out to be a damned good AG).
What could have saved his Presidency: Advocating Civil Rights from the onset. Telling Allen Dulles to stick it when he pushed the Bay of Pigs invasion. But mostly, cancelling the Dallas trip which not only would have saved his presidency (maybe) but also his life.
What could have destroyed his Presidency: Not taking responsibility for the Bay of Pigs fiasco may have ruined his presidency from the get-go. Otherwise, the obvious answer is botching the Cuban Missile Crisis as that could have not ruined Kennedy’s legacy, but just about anyone who was living in 1962.
Election of 1960: Kennedy did indeed have some competition starting with the Senate Majority Leader, Lyndon Johnson of Texas, who also had his hat in the ring. His biggest competitor, though, was Senator Hubert Humphrey, a classic New Deal liberal from the Midwest. Kennedy did well in the primaries, but it was thought that he would hit a roadblock in the working class state of West Virginia. Kennedy was a Catholic and there was a lot of anti-Catholic sentiment in that state in particular.
Kennedy campaigned hard in that state, assuring West Virginians that he wouldn’t be taking orders from the Pope. Thanks to the organizational skills of the Kennedy clan, JFK won the state and Humphrey was forced to abandon the race. That left Johnson as his main competitor. Kennedy won the nomination on the first ballot and tabbed Johnson as his running mate, not because he liked him (he didn’t and brother Bobby loathed him), but because it would make Kennedy attractive to Southern voters. This irked the more liberal Midwest Democrats who preferred Humphrey or Stuart Symington, but in the end, Kennedy got his way, as would all major party nominees from then on.
The Republicans had an easier time of it, going with Vice President Nixon, the first sitting Vice President under the modern two party system to win the nomination in his own right (Humphrey, Bush I, and Gore would follow in Nixon’s footsteps). Nixon also chose his candidate, Henry Cabot Lodge, the man Kennedy had defeated for Senate in 1952.
Kennedy and Nixon were friends, and they had a civil contest for the most part. Kennedy painted himself as a Cold War liberal and promised to lead America out of what he called the “conservative rut”. He also, after helping to get Martin Luther King out of jail, won the support of African Americans, who have been staunchly Democratic as a whole ever since.
By now television was the main medium and Kennedy and Nixon staged four debates. Nixon, as a seasoned debater, had all the confidence in the world and experts who listened on the radio think Nixon won. But Nixon was not the most handsome of candidates. He refused to wear makeup and it showed. He looked like he hadn’t shaved for two days, and he seemed stiff compared to Kennedy. And while Nixon may have had a better grasp on the issues, Kennedy had a much better delivery. When the debates were over, the polls were at a dead heat.
And it reflected the finally tally on Election Day as well. Kennedy won the popular vote by a razor thin margin, and he won the Electoral vote as well. But there were accusations of voter fraud in both Texas (Johnson territory) and Illinois (Richard Daley ran the Chicago machine like a dictator and he, of course, supported Kennedy). The Texas fraud is disputable at best but there is evidence that Daley may very well have pulled some mischief in Chicago. In any event, Nixon decided not to challenge the election and graciously conceded.
And one of the most storied Administrations was underway.
First term: After giving one of the most famous inaugural speeches in American history, President Kennedy went to work on his vision of a New Frontier. One of the first things he did was to establish the Peace Corps, an organization where Americans volunteer to help people in third world countries in areas such as education, agriculture, and other areas of importance. It is a goodwill organization that is admired to this day.
Of course, Kennedy was indeed a Cold War liberal, and he was made aware of a clandestine operation in Cuba. The idea was that a group of Cuban freedom fighters, backed by the CIA, would invade Cuba, and ultimately topple Fidel Castro. Kennedy went along with the plan. That plan was called the Bay of Pigs operation and it was a disaster. When the press made the fiasco public, Kennedy admitted his error. He also learned a major lesson not to automatically listen to the hawks, something that would probably save the world a year later.
One thing Kennedy had going for him in the early stage of his Presidency was the space program. In May 1961, Alan Shepard, Jr. became to first American to fly in space. If Kennedy was an avid Cold Warrior, he was also an idealist when it came to the space program. As the space program met with more success with each liftoff, Kennedy made a vow that the United States would go to the Moon by the end of the decade. And, indeed, despite a couple setbacks (notably the Apollo 1 disaster in 1967), man would indeed land on the Moon in 1969.
The Bay of Pigs, meanwhile, while on the back burner for most Americans, was not for Soviet Premier Khrushchev, who erroneously saw Kennedy as a weak President. He decided to take a shot at taking Berlin once again. Of course, the talks failed, and he would build the infamous Berlin Wall, preventing East Germans from trying to escape into West Berlin and maybe isolating the American led enclave. Kennedy was cautious, not wanting war to break out obviously, but in the end, he dispatched a symbolic number of troops into West Berlin to assure that the US would defend them at all costs. As a result, the wall stayed up, and Khrushchev backed off on his other demands.
An even more major crisis would rear its ugly head and, if not for some strategic restraint, you might not have been here to read this. In 1962, it was discovered that Cuba was housing nuclear missiles sent by the Soviets. Cuba is ninety miles away from the US mainland (Florida to be exact). Needless to say, this did not go well with anyone in the Kennedy Administration and certainly not with the military. Kennedy ordered a naval blockade of Cuba and for thirteen days, Soviet and American ships were engaged in a very tense standoff. The Americans were made aware of all of this by Kennedy himself and they were on pins and needles for the next two weeks.
Meanwhile, in the war room so to speak, military leaders were pressuring Kennedy to invade Cuba while aides were pushing for negotiations to get the missiles out of Cuba. Kennedy had learned a valuable lesson from the Bay of Pigs, and he wasn’t going to get drawn into a nuclear war that nobody could win. And, as it turned out, Khrushchev felt the same way.
So, now realizing Kennedy had a lot more resolve than he thought, Khrushchev made a secret deal to get the missiles out of Cuba if the US removed their missiles from Turkey. That worked for Kennedy since they were obsolete anyway and Khrushchev was able to save face. The missiles were removed from Cuba, the world breathed a sigh of relief, and Castro threw a temper tantrum. But at least he didn’t have to fear a US invasion anymore.
So, Kennedy had established himself as a very strong President when it came to foreign affairs, but what about the domestic front? Economically, things were going pretty well, and except for lowering taxes and standing up to US Steel when they wanted to raise prices, Kennedy didn’t have to do much. Civil rights, on the other hand, was another matter.
By the time Kennedy became President, Civil Rights became a hot issue and Martin Luther King had a direct line to the President. But, despite the support from Black America, Kennedy was reluctant to do much more than enforcing existent laws, such as ensuring James Meredith would be enrolled at the University of Mississippi.
That all changed in 1963, however, after the legendary bigot police chief of Birmingham ordered the police and firemen to unleash firehoses on peacefully protesting African Americans. With the television camera on for all the world to see, Bull Connor inadvertently did more for the advancement of civil rights than Martin Luther King ever could.
Because President Kennedy saw it too, and so did his Attorney General brother, Robert (yeah, there was a little nepotism in the administration but at least Bobby was a good soul) and it was he who pushed his brother to finally do something.
And thus, the far reaching Civil Rights Bill was introduced which prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, race, religion, or ethnic origin. Basically, it was designed to do away with Jim Crow altogether. Kennedy would push hard for this bill despite Southern opposition. Unfortunately, as most of you probably know, something tragic would get in the way.
In the meantime, 1963 was the year that Martin Luther King became about as well known as the President himself and Kennedy gave his blessing to the March on Washington in August 1963.
1963 was also the year that President Kennedy went to Berlin to a throng of cheering fans as he spoke bad German with the words, Ich Bin Ein Berliner. Not that they cared, mind you.
There was one more thing going on in the foreign theatre of course and that was Vietnam. Kennedy also inherited the issues of the Reds taking over the country and would increase US involvement by sending what were referred to as military advisors. It also turned out that South Vietnam wasn’t exactly what you would call a Democratic paradise. Ngo Dinh Diem was nothing short of a dictator. So, the US backed an assassination attempt, which succeeded. What happened next would be up to the Vietnamese, or maybe President Johnson.
Because President Kennedy was not going to live to see the results of the Diem assassination nor of his civil rights bill.