John Fitzgerald Kennedy (Brookline, Massachusetts , 29 of maypole of 1917 – Dallas , Texas , 22 of November of 1963 ) was the thirty – fifth President of the United States . He was known as John F. Kennedy , Jack Kennedy by his friends and in certain press as JFK , commonly “Kennedy”.
Elected in 1960 , Kennedy became the second youngest president in his country, after Theodore Roosevelt . He served as president from 1961 until his assassination in 1963.
During his tenure, he ordered the imposition and execution of the Blockade to Cuba , the 7 of February of 1962 , I kicking off a whole scaffolding of executive decisions for the consolidation of the policy of economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba and promoted its isolation political at regional and international level.
During Kennedy’s political administration, the mercenary invasion of Playa Girón took place , which attempted to take over Cuba militarily, but ended in great failure when it was defeated by the Cuban people in just 72 hours.
It sparked October crisis of 1962 (Missile Crisis).
Biography
Childhood and youth
His parents were Joseph P. Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald. His father was a successful businessman and leader of the Irish American community and ambassador to the United Kingdom . Rose was the youngest daughter of John ” Honey Fitz ” Fitzgerald, a prominent Boston political figure who was a former congressman and mayor of his city. The marriage had nine children and John was the second of them.
In September 1931 , John was sent with his older brother, Joe, two years older than him, to the private boys’ school ” The Choate School ” sixty miles from his home in Wallingford, Connecticut , a college preparatory institute. He graduated from Choate in June 1935 . Kennedy’s “superlative” in the college’s end-of-year magazine was “The one most likely to become President.”
In 1940 he completed his thesis, ” Appeasement in Munich ,” on the UK’s participation in the Munich Accords . He initially wanted his thesis to be private, but his father convinced him to publish it in a book. He graduated cum laude from Harvard with a degree in international relations in June 1940, and in July of the same year his thesis was published under the title Why did England fall asleep? ( Why England Slept ), which became a best seller.
In the spring of 1941 he volunteered for the United States Army but was rejected primarily because of his spinal problems. However, in September of that year the United States Navy accepted him, under the influence of the director of the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), a former naval aide of his father in his time as ambassador to Great Britain .
He was studying at the Naval Reserve Officers Training School and at the Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Training Center before being assigned to Panama and finally to operations. from Pacific. He participated in several missions and was promoted to lieutenant, commanding a “torpedo patrol” boat (PT boat, small fast boats destined to attack large ships by surprise, whose effect was compared to that of mosquitoes).
He received the Navy and Marine Corps Medal and recognition for an action on August 2 , 1943 in the Solomon Islands .
Political life
After World War II , Kennedy considered the idea of becoming a journalist. In the years before the war he had not thought about politics as his family had pinned their political hopes on his older brother, Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr .. However, Joseph died in World War II.
When in 1946 United States Representative James Michael Curley vacated his position in a predominantly Democratic district to run for Mayor of Boston , Kennedy ran for Representative, winning over his Republican opponent by a large majority. He was a member of Congress for six years. Their votes for the various initiatives did not follow a fixed trend, and frequently differed from the position of President Harry S. Truman and the rest of the Democratic Party. In 1952 he defeated the Republican candidate Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. in the election for the position of Senator of the United States.
In 1956 , presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson left the nomination of a US vice presidential candidate to the Democratic Party Convention.Kennedy finished second in the voting, surpassed by Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee . Thanks to this episode and despite his defeat, Kennedy acquired national notoriety, which would help him in the following years. His father, Joseph Kennedy, pointed out that deep down it was good for John not to have won the nomination, because later many would have blamed Catholics for the electoral defeat, although they privately acknowledged that any Democrat would have had serious difficulties competing against Eisenhower in 1956 .
John F. Kennedy voted, as senator, the final passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957 , the first law that protected some minority rights, particularly the effective right to vote of blacks in the southern states. However, Kennedy had previously voted in favor of an amendment that limited the ability of the courts to prosecute violations of such civil rights, an amendment that greatly narrowed the effectiveness of the law (it left the law “toothless,” as it was said then), by preventing the conviction of those who violated it. Some radical segregationists, such as Senators James Eastland and John McClellan, or Mississippi Governor James Coleman were among the first to support Kennedy’s presidential campaign.
Wisconsin Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy , chiefly responsible for the anti-communist witch hunt of the early 1950s , was a close friend of the Kennedy family. Joe Kennedy always supported McCarthy. Robert F. Kennedy served on the McCarthy subcommittee, and McCarthy was romantically involved with Patricia Kennedy. In 1954 , when the Senate was considering sentencing the Wisconsin senator, John Kennedy wrote a speech censuring McCarthy, but never delivered it.
On December 2, 1954, Senator Kennedy was in the hospital when the Senate announced its highly publicized decision to censor McCarthy. Although absent, Kennedy may have influenced the decision, but chose not to and never indicated how he would have voted. This episode severely damaged support for Kennedy in the more progressive community, especially Eleanor Roosevelt , even in the 1960 election .
Presidency of the United States
On January 2, 1960, Kennedy declared his intention to compete in the presidential elections that same year. In the Democratic party primaries, he defeated Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota and Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon .
Kennedy’s main opponent at the Los Angeles convention was Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas . Adlai Stevenson, the candidate nominated by the Democrats in 1952 and 1956 , was not officially running but had strong support from the rank and file, present or not at the convention. On July 13 , Kennedy was elected presidential candidate of the Democratic Party.
Topical issues in the debates for the presidency included Kennedy’s Catholicism, Cuba, concern over whether or not the Soviet Union was winning the space race, and missile programs.
Between September and October, three presidential debates were held between Kennedy and Richard Nixon , then Vice President of the United States and also the Republican presidential candidate.
After the debate, Kennedy’s campaign gained momentum, surpassing Nixon by a few points in most polls. On Tuesday , November 8 , Kennedy defeated Nixon in one of the closest presidential elections of the 20th century . In the national popular vote Kennedy defeated Nixon by 49.7% against 49.5%, while in the electoral college he won with 303 votes against the 219 obtained by Nixon (269 were needed to win). Fourteen Mississippi and Alabama voters refused to support Kennedy because of his support for the civil rights movement; these voters gave their votes to Senator Harry F. Byrd, Sr. of Virginia .
Kennedy, aged 43, became the youngest person ever elected as President of the United States. However, he was not the youngest to hold office, for in 1901 , Vice President Theodore Roosevelt, 42, served as President after the assassination of President William McKinley .
John F. Kennedy was sworn in as the 35th President of the United States on January 20 , 1961 . In his inaugural address he spoke of the need for American citizens to be more active, uttering one of his most famous phrases: ” Don’t ask what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country . “
Foreign policy
Before Kennedy was elected president, the Eisenhower administration created a plan to overthrow the nascent Cuban Revolution . His government inherited the aggressive plans of the previous administration against Cuba and completed the preparations for the failed invasion of Playa Girón. Under his mandate, CIA groups were armed, financed, trained and infiltrated in Cuba for subversive purposes and sponsored the counterrevolutionary gangs that perpetrated assassinations and sabotage that cost human lives.
Despite having sanctioned the methods and failures of the CIA after the Girón fiasco, Kennedy did not change Washington’s policy of hostility against Havana and organized a Broad Special Group, charged with conceiving and leading operations against Cuba, made up of by his brother, Robert Kennedy (Attorney General), by his military adviser (General Maxwell Taylor), by the national adviser for security (McGeorge Bundy), by the secretary of state (Dean Rusk), assisted by an adviser (Alexis Johnson) , the Secretary of Defense ( Robert McNamara ), assisted by an adviser (Roswell Gilpatric), the new director of the CIA (John McCone), and the Chief of Staff (General Lyman L. Lemnitzer).
A few months later, General Maxwell D. Taylor, at that time president of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, assured the President that he did not believe it possible to overthrow the Cuban government without the direct intervention of the United States, for which he recommended ” a more aggressive course of Operation Mongoose , whose execution, authorized by Kennedy, had to escalate its measures until creating the propitious scenario to deliver a surprise massive air strike and / or carry out the invasion.
The governments of Cuba and the Soviet Union, in an act of total legality and within the prerogatives of two sovereign governments, had signed the “Agreement between the two on military collaboration in the defense of the national territory of Cuba.”
October Crisis
The 20 of June of 1962 , the General Staff of the USSR approved the leadership and composition of the Group of Soviet troops would participate in Operation Anadyr . Commander Raúl Castro traveled to Moscow from July 3 to 16 and, among other things, reiterated Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro’s criteria to make the Cuban-Soviet military agreement public as a sovereign act between two states. However, the Soviet side insisted on keeping the operation secret, something impossible to achieve due to its size and the systematic overflight of US exploration aviation over Cuba.
Units from the Grouping of Soviet Troops began arriving in Cuba in early August. In those days, US intelligence had already determined the presence in Cuba of anti-aircraft rockets and Mig-21 aircraft, unidentified constructions, and the existence of Soviet military specialists.
On October 22 , when the naval blockade against Cuba was decreed and all the conditions were created to bomb and invade the island, the so-called October Crisis was unleashed. Kennedy demanded the withdrawal of Soviet strategic weapons based on Cuba, and declared the naval blockade, to which the FAR responded with the Combat Alarm for all its units.
Between 26 and 31 there was an exchange of messages between Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel. In those signed by the Soviet leader, the one-sidedness of his actions and the underestimation with which he treated the small country is evident; while those of the Cuban leader warned about the dangers and firmly adhered to the revolutionary principles.
On Sunday , October 28 , the Kremlin informed Washington that orders had been issued to interrupt the construction of the facilities, dismantle the existing ones and return the nuclear weapons deployed to the USSR. On the afternoon of that day, Cuba rejected the inspection of its territory that the two powers had agreed to and made its position known with “The Five Points”.
The United States and the USSR agreed on the basis of Khrushchev’s proposal of October 26 , which for both superpowers marked the end of the Crisis. On October 30 and 31, the naval blockade was suspended due to U. Thant’s visit to Cuba; resumed on November 1 . On November 20 at 6:45 p.m. Kennedy ordered the lifting of the naval blockade and on the 22nd the Revolutionary Government declared the return to normality on the Island, after remaining on the warpath since October 22.
Other actions
Facing the rest of Latin America , Kennedy wanted to counteract the influence of the Cuban Revolution and the revitalized social movements with the implantation of the Alliance for Progress. But what was called on paper “a peaceful and democratic revolution” ended in new bloodbaths.
To stop the deployment of the multiform Latin American and Caribbean popular struggles, a repressive scale and new military coups began, and a new chain of direct and indirect military interventions by the US in the region.
In Southeast Asia , Kennedy continued what Eisenhower had started, using limited military force to combat forces mainly commanded by Ho Chi Minh . He established programs to help the unstable French government of South Vietnam by providing political, economic and military aid, which included sending 16,000 US military advisers and Special Forces to the region. Kennedy also agreed to use ” free-fire zones” , napalm , Agent Orange, and jet aircraft.
In 1963 , he promoted a military coup by reactionary groups in southern Vietnam and the Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA ) was in charge of assassinating President Ngo Dinh Diem and replacing him with a Military Junta in order to prevent the self-determination of his Inhabitants of joining the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, led by Ho Chi Minh.
Internal politics
Kennedy called his domestic policy program “The New Frontier .” It ambitiously promised federal funds for education, health care for the elderly, and government intervention to stop the recession. He also promised to end racial discrimination. In 1963 , he proposed a tax reform that included its reduction, which was approved by Congress in 1964 , after his assassination.
One of the most pressing national issues of the Kennedy era was the turbulent end to practices of racial discrimination tolerated or even authorized by state authorities.
Segregation in buses, restaurants, theaters, cinemas, restrooms, and other public spaces continued. Kennedy supported racial integration and civil rights, and during his 1960 presidential campaign he telephoned Coretta Scott King, wife of the incarcerated Reverend Martin Luther King , Jr., perhaps attracting black electorate support for his candidacy. The intervention of John and Robert Kennedy secured King’s release from prison.
On September 9, 1963, Kennedy addressed the country because of the segregation that continued to occur in Alabama , and urged Governor Wallace that order would only be maintained in that state if he was willing to demand it.
On June 11 of the same year, President Kennedy intervened when Alabama Governor George Wallace blocked the door to the University of Alabama to prevent two African-American students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from enrolling. George Wallace only relented and backed away when required by federal marshals, Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, and the Alabama National Guard. That afternoon Kennedy gave his famous speech on civil rights on radio and television.
Kennedy anxiously wanted the United States to lead the space race. The first time Kennedy declared the goal of putting a man on the Moon was in a Joint Session of Congress and Senate, held on May 25 , 1961. On that occasion he said:First, I believe that this nation should make it its goal to get a man to go to the Moon and return safely to Earth before the end of this decade. No other individual project will be as impressive to humanity or more important than long-range space travel; and none will be that difficult and expensive to obtain.
The US launched a satellite into geostationary orbit and Kennedy asked Congress to approve a budget of more than $ 25 billion for the Apollo Program . The 20 of July of 1969 , almost six years after the death of JFK, the objective of the Apollo program was reached and a man landed on the moon.
Relations with Cuba
Kennedy and his team inherited from the administration prior to the mercenary invasion plan of Cuba that, at a cost of more than 13 million dollars, had been in preparation since the mid-1960s . Yet it was his administration that finally gave the green light to the Bay of Pigs invasion, financed, armed and trained by the United States. When that mercenary aggression was defeated in just 72 hours, the head of the White House refrained from ordering the entry into action of the Pentagon troops and media. Also under his mandate, Operation Mongoose was developed, set up by the CIA to articulate counterrevolutionary groups in order to carry out terrorist and destabilization actions within the island. At that time, the CIA, with authorization from the highest level, was hatching attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro and other revolutionary leaders.
In February 1962, the John F. Kennedy government imposed a total economic blockade on Cuba. In that year, the so-called October Crisis or Missile Crisis was unleashed , which was on the verge of leading to a nuclear war. The Soviet nuclear rockets, which they had installed in Cuba for their defense, were withdrawn from the island in exchange for the United States’ commitment not to attack it militarily.
In 1963, the hostility of the United States government against Cuba continued; but indications were revealed of an effort by the United States government to find a modus vivendi with Cuba in exchanging ideas and messages . Some exchanges are carried out through the diplomatic representations of both countries at the United Nations and at the suggestion of Bill Attwood , President Kennedy sends French journalist Jean Daniel to Cuba with a message for Prime Minister Fidel Castro. The Cuban government responds positively by opening the communication channel.
On November 5, 1963, 17 days before the assassination in Dallas, a recording was made of a conversation in the Oval Office between Kennedy and George McBundy, head of the National Security Council. The tape proves John F. Kennedy’s willingness to start a dialogue with Cuba.
According to the National Security Archive (NSA) study group, specialized in obtaining and analyzing documents declassified by the US government, at that meeting Kennedy approved the secret trip to Cuba of his alternate ambassador to the United Nations, William Attwood.
All this could be in tune with the double lane through which his government was traveling, which had inherited a series of destabilizing plans against the revolutionary process led by Fidel Castro.
Murder
On November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, President John Kennedy was assassinated. He is replaced by Vice President Lyndon Johnson.
The three expertly fired homicidal projectiles struck him as he was traveling in an open-top car in downtown Dallas, where he was to deliver a speech. The president was in the limousine accompanied by his wife Jacqueline, the governor of the state of Texas, John Connally, and his wife; Vice President Lyndon Johnson, and his wife. He was the only one fatally injured.
Two of the three projectiles hit the president with fatal consequences. The third projectile hit the Governor of Texas, John Connally. Forty minutes after the attack, the president ceased to exist in the clinic where he received first aid.
Lee Harvey Oswald , his alleged killer, was arrested in a theater approximately 80 minutes after the shooting. Oswald was initially charged with the murder of a Dallas police officer, JD Tippit, before being charged with the murder of the president. Oswald claimed not to have killed anyone, claiming that he was a decoy. Two days later Jack Ruby , owner of a Dallas club, murdered him in front of policemen. He is arrested immediately and in subsequent statements, he claimed that he had shot Oswald for an obfuscation of the moment and that he had not planned the murder.
The official report of the Warren Commission says that Lee Harvey Oswald was the only murderer, although over the years many elements have accumulated around that it was a sordid conspiracy that involved powerful political and economic interests, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ) and even known Cuban-American terrorists.
For some specialists, the theory of a lone shooter is false and even a museum in Dallas exposes the theory that the homicide was the result of nine shots fired by two people, which contradicts the official version that there were only three shots and a single sniper.
Although in 1988 the Department of Justice closed the investigation for lack of convincing evidence of conspiracy, years later witnesses who were close to the events said that they were ignored and never called to testify.
Some specialists such as Robert Dallek, professor of history at Boston University, consider that one of the causes that closed the investigation was that the FBI and the intelligence services wanted to hide their inability to ensure the protection of the president or perhaps their participation in the facts.
Other hypotheses argue that behind Kennedy’s death are the Cubans of Miami , hurt by the failure of the Playa Girón invasion and their reluctance to order an intervention on the island with the United States armed forces, some documents from the time point out. .
Even international media have recently cited that Cuban-born terrorist and CIA agent Luis Posada Carriles was in Dallas on the day of the crime.
The 14 of March of 1967 , Kennedy’s body was moved to its permanent grave located in Arlington National Cementario.
Fidel in one of his sentences expressed:The wounded pride was stronger, and again he was drawn into the idea of invading us. This brought the October Crisis and the most serious risks that the world has known until today of a thermonuclear war. He emerged as an authority on that test thanks to the mistakes of his main adversary. He wanted to talk seriously with Cuba and so he decided. He sent Jean Daniel to talk to me and return to Washington. He was fulfilling his mission at the time, when the news of the assassination of President Kennedy arrived. His death and the strange way it was programmed and carried out was truly sad.
Possible conspiracies
As Kennedy’s former bodyguard, Paul Kangas, and other investigators have revealed, Richard Nixon and George Bush were in Dallas on November 22 , 1963 , although both politicians claimed that they did not remember where they were that day. One of the pieces of evidence that the investigators rely on is a memorandum from Edgar Hoover , director of the FBI , where it is revealed that George Bush, a CIA officer , reported on November 23, 1963, how the Cuban exiles were reacting against Kennedy. .
Carl Freund of the Dallas Morning News interviewed Nixon on the day of the assassination . He assured that Kennedy would exclude Lyndon Johnson as Vice from the candidacy in 1964 and lashed out at the President for the racial demonstrations:He offered more than he can do.
The newspaper added that Nixon was attending a Pepsi Cola company meeting there and stayed at the Baker Hotel. The Dallas Times Herald published on the eve of the assassination a photo taken in Dallas of Nixon and Donald Kendall , president of Pepsi Cola. Before the documentary evidence, Nixon admitted that he was there invited by Kendall. According to investigator Kangas, Nixon did not leave the city before the murder, as “the airport documents show that he left after the murder.”
According to Madeleine Brown, a friend of Vice President Johnson, he attended a private reception with her on November 21 at the home of Clint Murchinson, a Dallas oil magnate, where she uttered an enigmatic phrase:Starting tomorrow those damn Kennedys won’t be a problem anymore.
This theory was debunked by Kennedy assassination investigator Dave Perry. The tests showed that neither President Johnson nor Hoover were in Dallas at the time of the alleged party and Murchison had not lived at his Dallas home for several years. Witnesses maintain that, at the time, Murchison was on his ranch in East Texas.