John F. Kennedy

Kennedy married Jacqueline Lee Bouvier on September 12, 1953, after journalist Charles L. Bartlett introduced them at a dinner party. They had four children, including Caroline and John F. Kennedy Jr.; their daughter Arabella was stillborn, and their son Patrick died two days after his birth in 1963. John Jr. was born 17 days after Kennedy won the 1960 presidential election.

Kennedy's personal life later became the subject of sustained public interest. He had extramarital affairs during his marriage, including relationships associated with Marilyn Monroe, Judith Campbell, Mary Pinchot Meyer, Mimi Alford, and others.

He also experienced serious health problems throughout his life. Childhood illnesses included scarlet fever, and he later suffered from Addison's disease, hypothyroidism, chronic back pain, gastrointestinal problems, and recurring infections. He underwent several spinal operations and was treated for his back injury after his wartime service.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, into the prominent Kennedy family. His father, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., was a businessman and politician, while his mother, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, was a philanthropist and socialite. His maternal grandfather, John F. Fitzgerald, had served as a Boston mayor and congressman, and his paternal grandfather, P. J. Kennedy, had been a Massachusetts political leader.

Kennedy attended Choate before enrolling at Harvard College. He graduated cum laude in 1940 with a Bachelor of Arts in government, concentrating on international affairs. His senior thesis about British policy during the Munich Agreement became the book Why England Slept, which was released in 1940 and became a bestseller.

He briefly worked as a journalist after World War II, covering the United Nations Conference on International Organization, the British elections, and the Potsdam Conference. He later wrote Profiles in Courage, which examined U.S. senators who had risked their careers for their beliefs and won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1957.

Kennedy joined the United States Naval Reserve in 1941 after being medically disqualified from the Army because of his chronic back problems. During World War II, he trained to command patrol torpedo boats and was assigned to Motor Torpedo Squadron Two in the Pacific theater.

On August 2, 1943, the Japanese destroyer Amagiri rammed and cut PT-109 in half in the Solomon Islands. Kennedy helped the surviving crew reach an island, then towed the badly burned Patrick McMahon through the water with a life-jacket strap clenched between his teeth. Kennedy and Ensign George Ross made repeated trips through nearby islands to find help, and the crew was rescued seven days after the collision.

The rescue became widely publicized after John Hersey wrote about it in The New Yorker. Kennedy received the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for his courage and leadership. He later commanded PT-59, which participated in the rescue of 40 to 50 Marines on Choiseul Island, before worsening health forced him to leave active duty.

Kennedy entered the U.S. House of Representatives in 1947, representing Massachusetts's 11th congressional district. He served on the Education and Labor Committee and the Veterans' Affairs Committee, with particular attention to international affairs, the Cold War, labor policy, veterans, and economic issues affecting New England.

He won election to the U.S. Senate in 1952 by defeating Republican incumbent Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. During his Senate career, he promoted an economic program for Massachusetts and New England, joined the Senate labor rackets investigation, and served on the Foreign Relations Committee. He was reelected in 1958 with the largest winning margin in Massachusetts political history.

Kennedy announced his presidential candidacy in January 1960 and defeated Hubert Humphrey in the Wisconsin and West Virginia Democratic primaries. The Democratic convention nominated him on the first ballot, and he selected Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson as his running mate. In the general election, Kennedy narrowly defeated Republican vice president Richard Nixon. Their televised debates became a landmark in American political history, and Kennedy became the youngest person elected president at 43.

Kennedy was sworn in as president on January 20, 1961. His administration operated under the framework of the New Frontier and confronted major Cold War crises involving the Soviet Union, Cuba, Berlin, and Southeast Asia. He adopted a defense policy known as flexible response and increased American military support for South Vietnam.

The failed Bay of Pigs Invasion in April 1961 involved a force of U.S.-trained Cuban exiles attempting to overthrow Fidel Castro. Kennedy accepted responsibility for the failure and later authorized Operation Mongoose, a covert campaign intended to undermine Castro's government.

The Cuban Missile Crisis became the defining confrontation of his presidency. After U.S. spy planes discovered Soviet missile sites in Cuba in October 1962, Kennedy chose a naval blockade, described publicly as a quarantine, rather than an immediate air strike. The crisis ended when Nikita Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles, while the United States privately agreed to remove its Jupiter missiles from Italy and Turkey. A Moscow-Washington hotline was established afterward.

Kennedy also responded to the Berlin Wall with a major speech in West Berlin in June 1963. His foreign-policy initiatives included the Alliance for Progress in Latin America, support for the United Nations operation during the Congo Crisis, and the establishment of the Peace Corps.

Kennedy's early domestic agenda included housing, economic development, education, health insurance for older Americans, and a higher federal minimum wage. Congress passed the Area Redevelopment Act, the Housing Act of 1961, the Manpower Development and Training Act, and the Community Mental Health Act during his presidency. His administration also created the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women, and Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act of 1963.

His approach to civil rights developed under pressure from the movement and events in the South. He authorized federal protection for the Freedom Riders, sent federal marshals and troops to support James Meredith's enrollment at the University of Mississippi, and federalized the Alabama National Guard when Governor George Wallace tried to block Vivian Malone and James Hood from entering the University of Alabama. Kennedy then delivered a nationally televised civil rights address in June 1963. The legislation he proposed became part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 after his death.

Kennedy made the Apollo program a national priority in the space race with the Soviet Union. In May 1961, he committed the United States to landing a person on the Moon and returning them safely before the end of the decade. He reinforced that goal in his 1962 speech at Rice University, declaring that the country chose to go to the Moon because the challenge was difficult. Apollo 11 achieved the first crewed lunar landing in 1969, nearly six years after Kennedy's death.

In 1963, Kennedy negotiated the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union. The treaty prohibited nuclear tests in the atmosphere, underwater, and on the ground, although it did not prohibit underground testing.

Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963, while traveling in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza. He was taken to Parkland Hospital and pronounced dead at 1:00 p.m. His vice president, Lyndon B. Johnson, was sworn in as president later that day.

Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested in connection with the assassination and was killed two days later by Jack Ruby before he could stand trial. The Warren Commission concluded that Oswald had acted alone. Later investigations and public opinion produced continuing disagreement about the assassination, although an acoustic analysis did not support the existence of a second gunman.

Kennedy was buried at Arlington National Cemetery after a state funeral at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington, D.C. His presidency later acquired the symbolic label "Camelot," reflecting the public memory of a brief and idealized period. Memorials named for him included the John F. Kennedy Space Center, John F. Kennedy International Airport, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Harvard Kennedy School, and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.