American Legends: The Life of John F. Kennedy
By Charles River Editors
About Charles River Editors
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If you like this title, check out other titles in our American Legends series, including short, informative biographies on Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and Martin Luther King Jr.
Introduction
A lot of ink has been spilled covering the lives of history’s most influential figures, but how much of the forest is lost for the trees? In Charles River Editors’ American Legends series, readers can get caught up to speed on the lives of America’s most important men and women in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known.
In many ways, John Fitzgerald Kennedy and his young family were the perfect embodiment of the ‘60s. The decade began with a sense of idealism, personified by the attractive Kennedy, his beautiful and fashionable wife Jackie, and his young children. Months into his presidency, Kennedy exhorted the country to reach for the stars, calling upon the nation to send a man to the Moon and back by the end of the decade. In 1961, Kennedy made it seem like anything was possible, and Americans were eager to believe him. The Kennedy years were fondly and famously labeled “Camelot,” by Jackie herself, suggesting an almost mythical quality about the young President and his family.
As it turned out, the ‘60s closely reflected the glossy, idealistic portrayal of John F. Kennedy, as well as the uglier truths. The country would achieve Kennedy’s goal of a manned moon mission, and the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 finally guaranteed minorities their civil rights and restored equality, ensuring that the country “would live out the true meaning of its creed.” But the idealism and optimism of the decade was quickly shattered, starting with Kennedy’s assassination in 1963. The ‘60s were permanently marred by the Vietnam War, and by the time Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. were assassinated in 1968, the country was irreversibly jaded. The events of the decade produced protests and countercultures unlike anything the country had seen before, as young people came of age more quickly than ever.
American Legends: The Life of John F. Kennedy humanizes the nation’s youngest elected president, explaining the roots of the Kennedy family, the basis for Kennedy’s presidential ambitions, his war service and journalism, his political career and assassination, and all of the accomplishments and shortcomings inbetween. Along the way, you will learn interesting facts about JFK you never knew, like which famous relative also died on November 22, and see pictures of the important people and events in Kennedy’s life.
Learn about President Kennedy like you never have before, in no time at all.
American Legends: The Life of John F. Kennedy
About Charles River Editors
Introduction
Chapter 1: Early Life and Education, 1917-1945
Birth and Education
The Kennedy Family
Military Service and PT-109
Chapter 2: Early Political Career, 1946-1959
Journalism
House of Representatives
U.S. Senator and Marriage
Health and Profiles in Courage
Election of 1956
Chapter 3: Running for President, 1960
Winning the Democratic Nomination
The General Election
Chapter 4: Presidency, 1960-1963
Cuba and the Bay of Pigs
The Space Race Begins
Vietnam
Cuban Missile Crisis
Nuclear Testing and West Berlin
The Civil Rights Movement
Chapter 5: Kennedy’s Assassination
Chapter 6: Kennedy’s Legacy
Camelot
The Kennedy Legacy
Selected Bibliography
Chapter 1: Early Life and Education, 1917-1945
Birth and Education
John F. Kennedy was always intended for greatness, or at least one male in his family was. On May 29th, 1917, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born into a prominent Boston political family in Brookline, Massachusetts. The second son of Joseph P. Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald, young John spent the first 10 years of his life in Brookline attending prominent private schools in the Boston area.
In 1927, the family left Massachusetts for the Bronx. While in the New York area, the Kennedy's moved around, but John remained a student at the Riverdale School in the Bronx.
Later, John's high school experience put him in one of the most elite schools in the country. Kennedy enrolled first at the Canterbury School and then later at the Choate School in Wallingford, Connecticut. This was hardly unusual for the Kennedy clan, which had enrolled many of its children at Choate, alongside some of the nation's most important political families. Choate was a member of a group of elite preparatory schools in New England, including Deerfield, Hotchkiss and St. Paul's.
After graduating from Choate in 1935, Kennedy had the opportunity to select from a list of prestigious universities. He travelled abroad to consider studying at the London School of Economics but ultimately chose to enrolled at Princeton, though only for a few weeks due to illness. He transferred to Harvard, where he remained until graduating.
In fact, illness would be one of the defining features of John’s life, disrupted Kennedy's education throughout his early life. Many of his problems during this time were gastrointestinal, and he was hospitalized repeatedly to recuperate. He often spent time at his family vacation home in Hyannisport, Massachusetts, to recover.
Despite illness, Kennedy was a star student at Harvard, and he graduated on time. Although he had ties to the America First Committee, the famous isolationist group that advocated steering clear of World War II, Kennedy’s undergraduate thesis focused on England's appeasement policy towards Nazi Germany, and how it had led to the outbreak of World War II. This was an important piece of scholarship, and it was later published into a book in 1940 under the title Why England Slept. Young Kennedy took a prominent interest in foreign affairs and was now contributing to the intellectual discussion of the topic.
The Kennedy Family
John Kennedy's family prominence was of enormous importance in spearheading his political career. Among American presidents, Kennedy stands out for being raised in a family that was intent on producing at least one President of the United States. The family reared its children with a political dynasty in mind, so understanding the Kennedy family’s origins is crucial to understanding President Kennedy himself.
John Kennedy was a descendant of a man named Patrick Kennedy, an Irish Catholic who immigrated to Boston from County Wexford, Ireland in 1849 amid the Irish Potato Famine. In Boston, Patrick married another Irish immigrant named Bridget Murphy. The couple had five children, among them PJ Kennedy, John F. Kennedy's grandfather. Tragedy, however, struck the family when Patrick died of cholera on November 22nd, 1858, exactly 105 years before his great grandson was assassinated.
Afterwards, Bridget tended the family by opening a small but modestly successful stationary and liquor store. Her son PJ Kennedy capitalized on this liquor-selling bus
iness and became enormously wealthy. He began importing whisky, often illegally, and reaped enormous profits selling to upper class Bostonians in bars he owned throughout the city.
PJ Kennedy was the first among John Kennedy's ancestors to engage in politics. He was elected five times to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and twice to the Massachusetts State Senate. Though these were relatively modest accomplishments in light of his descendents, PJ lit the flame of political ambition within the Kennedy family.
PJ's son, Joseph P. Kennedy, further expanded the family's political alignment by marrying the daughter of Boston Mayor John F. “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald, another member of Boston's growing Irish Catholic political elite. Together, Rose Fitzgerald and Joseph P. Kennedy had nine children, among them John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Edward M. Kennedy, all destined to be major figures in national American politics.
Joseph Kennedy Sr.
Joseph P. Kennedy did not simply pass politics onto his children, however. He first invested heavily in liquor, real estate and movies, and increased the family's wealth. He was then appointed by President Franklin Roosevelt to become the first chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), a department created by the New Deal to combat illicit investment. Kennedy, however, was something of a crook, having dealt in the illegal import of whisky during Prohibition. Regardless, Roosevelt thought Kennedy suited to Chair the SEC, which fought such criminality, because “it takes one to know one.”
Joseph Kennedy's political prominence reached a peak when Roosevelt selected him to be the war-time Ambassador to Great Britain, the United States' most important World War II ally. Kennedy's appointment came amid John Kennedy's time at Harvard and inevitably influenced his senior thesis on English foreign policy.
After serving as Ambassador to Great Britain, Joseph Kennedy began to harbor ambitions of sitting in the White House himself. These dreams, however, were capped by his own personal destruction. During the war, Joseph was something of a defeatist, having repeatedly argued that the war was futile, that Hitler would dominate Europe, and that democracy in England would cease to exist. He became increasingly isolationist, arguing that affairs in Europe were unrelated to American international prominence, and that the defense of Britain was not done in the name of democracy, but only in the interest of British national self-preservation. Roosevelt detested these views, and removed Kennedy from the position of Ambassador to Great Britain.
This removal and the aftermath destroyed Joseph Kennedy's Presidential hopes. Information was leaked that he had actually thought that Nazi genocide against the Jews was deserved; the Jews, he thought, had brought it upon themselves. He didn't morally oppose the extermination of the Jews – he was an anti-Semite – but he merely thought the Germans should have reduced the Jews in a way that generated less negative publicity.
With the US and its allies winning the war, Kennedy's opinions were horribly untenable. Shortly after victory, the American public learned of the gruesome details of the Holocaust and was outraged. A man who had essentially endorsed such extermination would never hold political office in the United States, and Joseph P. Kennedy never did.
His presidential hopes squashed, Joseph Kennedy passed his Presidential ambitions onto his children, creating enormous expectations for the family. His eldest son, namesake Joseph Kennedy Jr., was the primary target of these lofty goals, and he was primed for a future in politics. However, Joseph Jr. died in combat during World War II, forever altering the Kennedy family’s destiny. Joseph Sr. now turned his attention to his second-eldest son, John, to become the family's Presidential standard-bearer.
Joseph Kennedy Jr.
Military Service and PT-109
Military service was a necessary component in John F. Kennedy's political preparation, and John did have political ambitions of his own. When he enlisted in the military, however, his elder brother Joseph was still the family’s prize and the one made of presidential material. Kennedy thus tried to join the army, but was disqualified because of his health issues. He was, however, admitted to the Navy despite objections, due to family connections. His father's attaché in Great Britain was now a director in the Navy, and gave John the position of ensign.
Like much of Kennedy’s life, Kennedy’s service during the war is still a topic of controversy. Kennedy's service in the Navy was focused in the Pacific Theatre of World War II. By 1943, Kennedy was a commander of a patrol torpedo (PT) boat, number 109. In August of 1943, Kennedy's boat, PT-109, was cut in half by a Japanese destroyer. In addition, boats 162 and 169 were also destroyed in the Solomon Islands.
Kennedy survived the attack and famously saved nearly a dozen of his crew, one of whom he saved by swimming for several miles while clenching the crew member’s lifejacket with his teeth. A member of the swim team at Harvard, Kennedy also did the bulk of the swimming when looking for food after the survivors reached a deserted island. For this, Kennedy received the Navy and Marine Corps Metal.
Ultimately, Kennedy and the survivors were rescued, but he had suffered a severe injury to his spine that would plague him for the rest of his life. He was sent to Boston to undergo surgery and recover. While in the hospital, he and his family learned that his elder brother Joseph had been killed in a bombing mission.
After recovering, Kennedy re-enlisted in the Navy and served on PT-59. He was honorably discharged in 1945, just before Japan's surrender and the end of the War. Kennedy received numerous military awards, among them a Purple Heart and a World War II Victory Metal. Though he was not yet President and perhaps only held that ambition in the back of his mind, Kennedy had already seen more combat than most Presidents.
Kennedy (far right) and the PT-109 crew
Chapter 2: Early Political Career, 1946-1959
Journalism
Kennedy's first non-military professional experience was in journalism. John's father arranged for Kennedy to work with the Hearst Chicago-Herald American, an international news service, in April of 1945. His first assignment was in San Francisco, where he covered the United Nations Conference, an historic moment that witnessed the formation of the modern United Nations.
John was a prolific writer, and newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst was pleased with John's work. After his stint at the U.N., John was sent to London to cover the post-war British Parliamentary elections. John predicted that Winston Churchill and the Conservatives would lose the elections; the British people, Kennedy thought, were yearning for change. His prediction proved correct. The Labour Party swept the British elections that year, and the great Prime Minister Winston Churchill was removed from Downing Street.
William Randolph Hearst
Kennedy enjoyed his work with Hearst. He had numerous opportunities to learn about the effects of World War II on Europe, touring devastated German cities, and he had the opportunity to meet with Supreme Allied Commander Eisenhower. Throughout his time abroad, Kennedy honed his foreign policy bona fides.
House of Representatives
After less than a year with Hearst, Kennedy's father began to prod John about his prospects for a career in politics. John returned to America in the fall of 1945, and his father gave him ample opportunities to give speeches throughout Massachusetts. Though they were generally well-received, Joseph had concerns that his son's more reserved and quiet style was not fitting of a politician. John was generally shyer than the typical politician, often refusing to hob-nob with voters after giving a speech.
Nonetheless, Joseph thought his son was suited for a more administrative sort of government job. He suggested John begin his career by running for Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor. Family friends and other Massachusetts politicos, however, were less certain. At just 28 years old, John Kennedy would be strongly criticized for his lack of experience. The Lieutenant Governorship was a position that demanded expertise.
Besides, Kennedy had other ideas for himself. In 1946, the strongly Democratic 10th District House of Representatives seat in Massac
husetts was vacated when its holder decided to run for Mayor of Boston. John Kennedy thus seized the opportunity and ran for the seat. It was his first political campaign.
Kennedy's first political candidacy was ultimately successful, but not without enormous challenge. Opponents charged that Kennedy was a snob who could not relate to the working class constituents of the 10th District. Others said he had barely spent any time in the 10th since he was a child. Together with the Kennedy family, however, John countered these attacks effectively. His campaign lauded his position as a war hero. The Boston Catholic Church, perhaps prompted by Joseph's expensive contributions, loudly endorsed John for the seat. With the Kennedy fortune funding his campaign, John won the Democratic nomination and the election by rousing margins.
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