Who was John F. Kennedy ?

While recovering from the surgery, Jack wrote another best-selling book, Profiles in Courage, which won the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 1957.

(The book was later revealed to be mostly the work of Kennedy’s longtime aide, Theodore Sorenson.)

After nearly earning his party’s nomination for vice president (under Adlai Stevenson) in 1956,

Kennedy announced his candidacy for president on January 2, 1960.

He defeated a primary challenge from the more liberal Hubert Humphrey and chose the Senate majority leader, Lyndon Johnson of Texas, as his running mate. In the general election, Kennedy faced a difficult battle against his Republican opponent, Richard Nixon, a two-term vice president under the popular Dwight D. Eisenhower. 

He defeated a primary challenge from the more liberal Hubert Humphrey and chose the Senate majority leader, Lyndon Johnson of Texas, as his running mate. In the general election, Kennedy faced a difficult battle against his Republican opponent, Richard Nixon, a two-term vice president under the popular Dwight D. Eisenhower. 

In November’s election, Kennedy won by a narrow margin–less than 120,000 out of some 70 million votes cast–becoming the youngest man and the first Roman Catholic to be elected president of the United States.

With his beautiful young wife and their two small children (Caroline, born in 1957, and John Jr., born just weeks after the election), Kennedy lent an unmistakable aura of youth and glamour to the White House.

In his inaugural address, given on January 20, 1961, the new president called on his fellow Americans to work together in the pursuit of progress and the elimination of poverty,

also in the battle to win the ongoing Cold War against communism around the world.

Kennedy’s famous closing words expressed the need for cooperation and sacrifice on the part of the American people: “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”

An early crisis in the foreign affairs arena occurred in April 1961, when Kennedy approved the plan to send 1,400 CIA-trained Cuban exiles in an amphibious landing at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba

Intended to spur a rebellion that would overthrow the communist leader Fidel Castro, the mission ended in failure, with nearly all of the exiles captured or killed.

That June, Kennedy met with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna to discuss the city of Berlin, which had been divided after World War II between Allied and Soviet control.

Two months later, East German troops began erecting a wall to divide the city.

Kennedy sent an army convoy to reassure West Berliners of U.S. support, and would deliver one of his most famous speeches in West Berlin in June 1963.

Kennedy sent an army convoy to reassure West Berliners of U.S. support, and would deliver one of his most famous speeches in West Berlin in June 1963.

The tense standoff lasted nearly two weeks before Khrushchev agreed to dismantle Soviet missile sites in Cuba in return for America’s promise not to invade the island and the removal of U.S. missiles from Turkey and other sites close to Soviet borders.

In July 1963, Kennedy won his greatest foreign affairs victory when Khrushchev agreed to join him and Britain’s Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in signing a nuclear test ban treaty.

In Southeast Asia, however, Kennedy’s desire to curb the spread of communism led him to escalate U.S. involvement in the conflict in Vietnam, even as privately he expressed his dismay over the situation.

During his first year in office, Kennedy oversaw the launch of the Peace Corps, which would send young volunteers to underdeveloped countries all over the world.

volunteers to underdeveloped countries all over the world. Otherwise, he was unable to achieve much of his proposed legislation during his lifetime, including two of his biggest priorities: income tax cuts and a civil rights bill.

Kennedy was slow to commit himself to the civil rights cause, but was eventually forced into action,

sending federal troops to support the desegregation of the University of Mississippi after riots there left two dead and many others injured. The following summer,

Kennedy announced his intention to propose a comprehensive civil rights bill and endorsed the massive March on Washington that took place that August.