John F. Kennedy (nonfiction)

President John F. Kennedy in his historic message to a joint session of the Congress, on May 25, 1961 declared, "...I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth."

John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), commonly referred to by his initials JFK, was an American politician who served as the 35th President of the United States from January 1961 until his assassination in November 1963. Kennedy served at the height of the Cold War, and much of his presidency focused on managing relations with the Soviet Union. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented Massachusetts in the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate prior to becoming president.

Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts to Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and Rose Kennedy. A scion of the Kennedy family, he graduated from Harvard University before joining the United States Naval Reserve in 1941.

During World War II, Kennedy commanded a series of PT boats in the Pacific theater, earning the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for his service.

After the war, Kennedy represented Massachusetts's 11th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1947 to 1953. He was subsequently elected to the U.S. Senate and served as the junior Senator from Massachusetts from 1953 until 1960.

While serving in the Senate, he published Profiles in Courage, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography.

In the 1960 presidential election, Kennedy narrowly defeated incumbent Vice President and Republican opponent Richard Nixon.

Kennedy's time in office was marked by high tensions with Communist states in the Cold War. He increased the number of American military advisers in South Vietnam by a factor of 18 over President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In April 1961, the United States military failed in an attempt to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro in the Bay of Pigs Invasion.

He subsequently rejected plans by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to orchestrate false-flag attacks on American soil in order to gain public approval for a war against Cuba. In October 1962, U.S. spy planes discovered that Soviet missile bases had been deployed in Cuba; the resulting period of tensions, termed the Cuban Missile Crisis, nearly resulted in the breakout of a global thermonuclear conflict.

Domestically, Kennedy presided over the establishment of the Peace Corps and supported the Civil Rights Movement, but he was largely unsuccessful in passing his New Frontier domestic policies.

Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. Pursuant to the Presidential Succession Act, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as president later that day. The FBI and the Warren Commission officially concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin, but various groups believe that Kennedy was the victim of a conspiracy.

Nonfiction cross-reference

• Assassination of John F. Kennedy (nonfiction)

External links:

• John F. Kennedy @ Wikipedia