Life of JFK the Life

Life of JFK

The Life of John F. Kennedy: Promise Cut Short (794)

John F. Kennedy is the only president referred to in royal terms. His brief administration is often called "Camelot." He gave birth to a political dynasty, but many of the actual goals of his administration were frustrated or never enacted in his lifetime, due to the fact he was assassinated in his first term, and also, some allege, because of legislative intransigence and his own mixed legacy of leadership.

John F. Kennedy was America's first Catholic president. He was the second-eldest son of Joe Kennedy, a controversial Irish businessman and multimillionaire who became head of the Securities and Exchange Commission and ambassador to Great Britain. Joe Kennedy famously opposed America's entry into World War II, which damaged any aspirations he may have had to building his own political career. His ambitions were transferred to his eldest son, Joe Jr., but after Joe's death during the war, they then shifted to John. Joe was determined that one of his sons would be president ("J.F.K.," 1994, DC Tourist Map).

John F. Kennedy was born in Brookline, Mass., on May 29, 1917. He graduated from Choate School in Wallingford, CT and later from Harvard University. His honors thesis on appeasement in British foreign policy entitled Why England Slept was published in 1940. Like his later 1956 Pulitzer-Prize winning book, entitled Profiles in Courage, the authorship of this book was later contested by some Kennedy opponents. In 1941, before the United States entered World War II, Kennedy joined the U.S. Navy ("J.F.K.," 1994, DC Tourist Map). On a mission in the Pacific in 1943, while commanding the PT 109, Kennedy rescued his crew after it was sunk by the Japanese navy. He showed great heroism, but permanently damaging his back as well as contracting malaria ("J.F.K.," 1994, DC Tourist Map).

After being discharged in 1945, Kennedy ran and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a friend of the working man and a zealous anti-communist. Despite the popularity of the Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the ambitious Kennedy boldly challenged the esteemed incumbent Massachusetts Republican Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., in 1952 and defeated him. However, because of health problems, his career in the senate did not live up to this early promise. Critics were later to note that he not only did not instigate any noteworthy legislation but he did not oppose the anti-communist witch hunts of the 1950s ("J.F.K.," 1994. DC Tourist Map).

However, Kennedy was popular enough within the Democratic Party to nearly win the vice presidential nomination in 1956 (Brauer 2002, p. 576). He proved to be an astute campaigner for the nomination in 1960, particularly in his use of television, most notably in a decisive debate against Republican challenger Richard M. Nixon. Kennedy selected Lyndon B. Johnson from Texas as his running mate, an old-style politician and majority leader of the senate. Despite the tremendous differences of personality between the two men, Kennedy knew he needed to win the South, and also wished to diffuse the influence the Texas politician had amongst his senate colleagues. Kennedy won by fewer than 120,000 votes out of nearly 70 million votes cast in the entire country. Some Protestant Democrats were still leery of the papal influence upon a Catholic president (Brauer 1984, p. 578). The 43-year-old president and his glamorous wife and young children quickly won over the American public, along with his skillful use of press conferences and his stirring inaugural address: "(Brauer 2002, p. 580).