John F. Kennedy

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born on May 29, 1917, at 83 Beals Street in Brookline, Massachusetts, to Joseph Patrick Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. He was the second of nine children; his elder brother was Joseph P. Kennedy Jr.⁠[1][2]

His father, Joseph P. Kennedy, was a businessman who made a fortune in the stock market, entertainment and other ventures and sold his stock shortly before the 1929 crash; he later headed the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and served as U.S. ambassador to Great Britain. His mother, Rose Kennedy, was the daughter of John F. “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald, a former mayor of Boston. The Miller Center describes the family as a rich, politically connected Boston family of Irish Catholics.⁠[3][2][4]

He attended private schools, and the family’s wealth provided sailboats, servants and summer homes, but as a child and young man he suffered frequent serious illnesses.⁠[4]

Kennedy graduated from Choate, a boarding school in ConnecticutConnecticutConnecticut is a U.S. state in the New England region. Its capital is Hartford and its largest city is Bridgeport (2010 census). It entered the Union on January 9, 1788, as the 5th state, and had a population of 3,605,944 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry, entered Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private research university in Massachusetts, established by the Massachusetts Bay Colony legislature in 1636 and named in 1639 for early benefactor John Harvard. Its principal campuses are in Cambridge and the Allston and Longwood neighborhoods of Boston. It includes Harvard College, graduate and professional schools, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Two governing boards share oversight. Alan M. Garber was president as of October 2026, and the endowment stood at $56.9 billion at the end of fiscal 2025.Open the full entry in 1936 and graduated in June 1940. In 1938 he spent six months as secretary to his father, then ambassador to Great Britain.⁠[1][2]

His Harvard senior thesis, on Britain’s military unpreparedness before the war, was expanded into the book Why England Slept (1940), which became a bestseller.⁠[3][2]

Health problems initially kept Kennedy out of the Navy, but after his father intervened he was admitted, enlisting in the fall of 1941. He served in naval intelligence in Washington and later commanded the patrol torpedo boat PT-109 in the South Pacific.⁠[3][2][5]

On the night of August 2, 1943, PT-109 was rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer in the Solomon Islands, killing two crewmen. Kennedy led the ten survivors on a swim of about three miles to a small island and helped summon rescue; they were rescued about a week later. He received the Navy and Marine Corps Medal and the Purple Heart and left the Navy in 1945.⁠[1][3][5][2]

The Miller Center notes that a naval inquiry found evidence of poor seamanship, but the Navy presented Kennedy as a public hero and sent him on speaking tours. His elder brother Joseph Jr., a pilot, was killed on a bombing mission in Europe.⁠[3]

After leaving the Navy, Kennedy worked briefly as a reporter for the Hearst newspapers. In 1946, at age 29, he ran for the Massachusetts 11th congressional district seat vacated by James Michael Curley, nearly doubled the vote of his nearest primary rival and won the November election by a wide margin; he was reelected in 1948 and 1950, serving three House terms from 1947 to 1953.⁠[3][6][5]

In the House he backed better working conditions, public housing, higher wages and expanded Social Security for older Americans; in foreign policy he supported the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan but criticized the Asia policy of the Harry S. TrumanHarry S. TrumanHarry S. Truman (1884–1972) was an American politician who served as a U.S. senator from Missouri and as vice president in 1945, succeeding Franklin D. Roosevelt on his death that year and serving as the 33rd president of the United States from 1945 to 1953, a period spanning the end of World War II and the early Cold War.Open the full entry administration.⁠[6]

In 1952 Kennedy defeated the Republican incumbent, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., by about 70,000 votes, even though Dwight D. EisenhowerDwight D. EisenhowerDwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) was an American army general and politician who served as supreme commander of Allied forces in western Europe during World War II and as the 34th president of the United States, a Republican, from 1953 to 1961.Open the full entry carried Massachusetts by 208,000 in the presidential race. His brother Robert F. Kennedy managed the campaign, and his mother and sisters held campaign events.⁠[6][3]

Kennedy served in the Senate from 1953 to 1961. In 1954 he was the only New England senator to back extending Eisenhower’s reciprocal-trade powers, and he strongly supported the St. Lawrence Seaway; he also opposed abolishing the electoral college, backed labor reform and civil rights, and urged France to grant Algeria independence.⁠[4][6]

He was reelected to the Senate in 1958. As a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, he criticized the Eisenhower administration’s policies, arguing that the United States had fallen behind in a “missile gap,” which positioned him for the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination.⁠[3]

Kennedy met Jacqueline Lee Bouvier, twelve years his junior, at a dinner party in 1952, and they married on September 12, 1953.⁠[3][6]

Kennedy suffered from malaria contracted in the Pacific, Addison’s disease and chronic back pain, and relied on painkillers and steroids. After back surgery in 1954 he spent about six months immobilized at his father’s home in Palm Beach and was absent for the Senate vote censuring Joseph McCarthy.⁠[3][6]

While recovering, he wrote Profiles in Courage, about eight senators who took unpopular moral stands; published in 1956, it drew on extensive research and writing by his Senate aide Theodore Sorensen, and it won the 1957 Pulitzer Prize for Biography.⁠[3][2][1]

In 1956 Kennedy sought the Democratic vice-presidential nomination as Adlai Stevenson’s running mate and narrowly lost to Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee.⁠[3]

Kennedy formally announced his candidacy in January 1960 and defeated Hubert H. Humphrey in the West VirginiaWest VirginiaWest Virginia is a U.S. state formed from the western counties of Virginia during the Civil War; its capital and largest city is Charleston. It became the 35th state on June 20, 1863. Its population was 1,793,716 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry primary. On July 13, 1960, the Democrats nominated him on the first ballot; in his acceptance speech he declared, “We stand today on the edge of a New Frontier,” and “New Frontier” became the name associated with his program. He chose Senator Lyndon B. JohnsonLyndon B. JohnsonLyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) was an American politician who served Texas as a U.S. representative and senator and led the Senate Democrats, became vice president in 1961 and succeeded to the presidency on the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, serving as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. His administration enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other “Great Society” legislation while expanding the U.S. military commitment in the Vietnam War.Open the full entry of Texas as his running mate.⁠[7][1]

During the campaign Kennedy and the Republican candidate, Richard NixonRichard NixonRichard Nixon (1913–1994) was an American politician who represented California in the U.S. House and Senate, served as vice president from 1953 to 1961 and was the 37th president of the United States from 1969 to 1974. His administration opened relations with China, signed strategic arms limitation agreements with the Soviet Union and ended U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War; he resigned over the Watergate scandal on August 9, 1974, the only U.S. president to do so.Open the full entry, held four televised debates, watched by an estimated 85 to 120 million Americans at least once. In the general election on November 8, 1960, he won the popular vote by fewer than 120,000 of some 70 million votes cast; he was 43.⁠[7][1][8]

On January 20, 1961, Kennedy was sworn in as president. In his inaugural address he said, “Ask not what your country can do for you–ask what you can do for your country.”⁠[1][9]

His cabinet included Dean Rusk as secretary of state, Robert McNamara as secretary of defense and Robert F. Kennedy as attorney general.⁠[10]

In 1961 Kennedy created a temporary Peace Corps by executive order, asked Congress to make it permanent and appointed Sargent Shriver to lead it. After Congress made it permanent, the first volunteers went to Ghana in September 1961 to teach English. By the end of the 20th century the Peace Corps had sent more than 170,000 American volunteers to over 135 nations.⁠[11][12]

In March 1961 Kennedy announced the Alliance for Progress to improve social and economic conditions in Latin America, partly to counter the spread of Communist revolution there.⁠[12]

About two months into his presidency, Kennedy approved a covert Central Intelligence Agency plan, inherited from the Eisenhower administration and altered by Kennedy, to overthrow Fidel Castro. On April 15, 1961, B-26 bombers from Nicaragua began attacking Cuba; on April 17 about 1,500 Cuban exiles landed at the Bay of Pigs (Bahía de Cochinos) and were quickly overwhelmed by Castro’s forces, with 115 killed and almost 1,200 captured.⁠[12][11]

Kennedy denied U.S. involvement, but the cover story collapsed immediately. In November 1961 the administration launched Operation Mongoose, a CIA-backed effort to harass and destabilize Cuba.⁠[12]

In April 1961 the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space. In an address to Congress on May 25, 1961, Kennedy called on the nation to commit itself to landing “a man on the moon” before the decade was out. On February 20, 1962, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth, completing three orbits in Friendship 7.⁠[11]

Rockets would launch from Cape Canaveral, FloridaFloridaFlorida is a U.S. state occupying mainly the Florida peninsula, with its capital at Tallahassee; its most populous city is Jacksonville. It entered the Union on March 3, 1845, as the 27th state, and had a population of 21,538,187 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry, and the Manned Spacecraft Center was placed in TexasTexasTexas is a U.S. state in the south-central United States, with its capital at Austin and its largest city Houston. It was admitted to the Union on December 29, 1845, as the 28th state, and the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted 29,145,505 residents.Open the full entry, the home state of Vice President Johnson. Humans landed on the Moon in July 1969, after Kennedy’s death.⁠[12]

In June 1961 Kennedy met Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna, but the talks failed to resolve the status of Berlin; Khrushchev renewed his threat to “solve” the Berlin problem unilaterally, and Kennedy renewed his pledge to respond with every means available, including nuclear weapons. On July 25 Kennedy addressed the nation on the Soviet threat to West Berlin and announced increased military spending. On August 13 East Germany began building the Berlin Wall.⁠[11][12]

On September 30, 1962, James Meredith enrolled at the University of Mississippi under the escort of federal marshals; a deadly riot followed and forced Kennedy to intervene. The Miller Center judges that the episode changed his approach to civil rights.⁠[11]

In the fall of 1962 the Soviet Union secretly deployed long-range nuclear missiles to Cuba, along with 42,000 Soviet troops and other weapons. On October 14 a U-2 flight photographed missile sites under construction; on October 16 National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy informed Kennedy. The ExComm considered air strikes, a full-scale invasion and a naval blockade, and Kennedy chose a blockade, which he called a “quarantine.”⁠[12][11]

On October 22 Kennedy announced the Soviet missile sites in a nationally televised address and said the U.S. Navy would impose a quarantine around Cuba. On October 24, twenty-five Soviet ships approached the quarantine line, and at 10 a.m. the six nearest turned back. On October 28 the Soviets accepted the U.S. compromise: Khrushchev agreed to withdraw the offensive missiles, Kennedy pledged not to invade Cuba and secretly agreed to withdraw U.S. nuclear missiles based in Turkey. On November 20, after the weapons were removed, Kennedy lifted the naval blockade.⁠[11][12]

On June 10, 1963, Kennedy gave a commencement address at American University calling for peace with the Soviet Union and a nuclear test ban treaty. That year the United States reached an agreement with Britain and the Soviet Union to ban nuclear tests in the atmosphere, in outer space and underwater, aiming to reduce hazardous fallout and ease Cold War tensions. The Miller Center writes that Kennedy considered it his greatest accomplishment as president.⁠[11][12][13]

After the missile crisis, a direct telephone line to the Kremlin was also installed.⁠[5]

On June 11, 1963, after Governor George Wallace tried to block desegregation at the University of Alabama, Kennedy made his most forceful civil rights statement to that date. That year he asked Congress for a civil rights bill to desegregate hotels, restaurants and other public accommodations; the bill and his proposed income tax cuts were passed only after his death.⁠[11][13][7]

On August 28, 1963, about 250,000 people marched on Washington for civil rights legislation, and Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech.⁠[11]

The United States had sent military advisers to Saigon since the early 1950s. In 1961 Kennedy increased their number and ordered in Special Forces to train South Vietnamese troops in counterinsurgency; by the end of his presidency there were about 16,000 U.S. military advisers in South Vietnam. In 1963 he announced plans to reduce their number, which the Miller Center interprets as a way to pressure Saigon into reforms. In November 1963 South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem was killed in a military coup.⁠[12]

At 12:30 p.m. on November 22, 1963, Kennedy was shot while riding in a motorcade through downtown Dallas, Texas, and was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at Parkland Memorial Hospital; he was 46. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson took the oath of office at 2:38 p.m.⁠[10][2]

Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested and charged with the killing; on November 24 he was shot dead by Jack Ruby in the basement of the Dallas police station. A presidential commission headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren, the Warren Commission, concluded that Oswald acted alone and that neither he nor Ruby was part of a conspiracy.⁠[1][10]

Kennedy’s state funeral began at 3 p.m. on November 25, 1963, and hundreds of thousands of people gathered in Washington. He was buried that day in a temporary grave at Arlington National Cemetery, where Jacqueline Kennedy lit the Eternal Flame. The permanent gravesite, in Lot 45, Section 30, was completed on July 20, 1967; two Kennedy infants are buried in the same lot.⁠[14][15][1]

Jacqueline Kennedy was laid to rest beside him on May 23, 1994, and the graves of Robert F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy are nearby. Kennedy and William Howard TaftWilliam Howard TaftWilliam Howard Taft (1857–1930) was an American lawyer, judge and politician who served as the 27th president of the United States from 1909 to 1913 and as the 10th chief justice of the United States from 1921 to 1930, the only person to have held both offices.Open the full entry are the only two presidents buried at Arlington National Cemetery.⁠[14]

The John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library, Inc., a private nonprofit, was chartered in Massachusetts on December 5, 1963, and raised construction funds from political associates, corporations, foundations, foreign governments and millions of people around the world, including schoolchildren. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis selected I. M. Pei as architect. Ground was broken at Columbia Point in Dorchester, Boston, on June 12, 1977, and the library was dedicated in October 1979; ownership passed to the National Archives and Records Administration on October 20, 1979, at a ceremony attended by Jimmy CarterJimmy CarterJimmy Carter (1924–2024) was an American politician and Democrat who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. His administration brokered the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel, signed the Panama Canal treaties and established relations with the People’s Republic of China, but he lost his reelection bid amid the energy crisis, inflation and the Iran hostage crisis; after leaving office he founded The Carter Center to work on mediation, election observation and disease control, and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.Open the full entry.⁠[16]

Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy had three children: Caroline Kennedy, born in 1957; John F. Kennedy Jr., born before the inauguration; and Patrick, who died soon after his birth in August 1963. His brothers included Robert F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy, his sisters included Rosemary Kennedy and Eunice Kennedy Shriver, and his father was Joseph P. Kennedy.⁠[1][13][3][2]

As first lady, Jacqueline Kennedy worked to make the White House a world-class museum, helped save architectural landmarks and improve Pennsylvania Avenue. She married Aristotle Onassis on October 20, 1968, and died in 1994. Robert F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy ran for president in 1968 and 1980, respectively.⁠[13][10]

The Miller Center calls Kennedy an “energetic and telegenic leader” whose presidency was seen as representing the rise of youthful idealism after World War II but whose promise went unfulfilled; it notes that many Americans still recall exactly where they were when they heard he had been shot.⁠[4]

The journalist Theodore White described the Kennedy White House as “Camelot,” and the author David Halberstam called Kennedy’s Harvard advisers the “best and brightest.” The White House’s presidential biography credits his economic programs with launching the longest sustained expansion since World War II.⁠[7][9]

On November 11, 1961, Kennedy made his first formal visit to Arlington National Cemetery, laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and addressing more than 5,000 people in the Memorial Amphitheater; he returned for Veterans Day services on November 11, 1963, eleven days before his death.⁠[14]

John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum: Official website: https://www.jfklibrary.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[16]

Arlington National Cemetery: Official website: https://www.arlingtoncemetery.mil/ (opens in a new window).⁠[14]