His Life and Legacy On November 22, 1963, while being driven through the
streets of Dallas, Texas, in his open car, President John F. Kennedy was shot
dead, allegedly by the lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald. John Fitzgerald Kennedy
was the 35th President of the United States, the youngest person ever to be
elected President, the first Roman Catholic and the first to be born in the 20th
century. Kennedy was assassinated before he completed his third year as
President therefore his achievements were limited. Nevertheless, his influence
was worldwide, and his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis may have prevented
the United States from entering into another world war. The world had not only
lost a common man, but a great leader of men. From his heroic actions in World
War II to his presidency, making the decisions to avert possible nuclear
conflict with world superpowers, greatness can be seen. Kennedy also found the
time to author several best-selling novels from his experiences. His symbolic
figure represented all the charm, vigor and optimism of youth as he led a nation
into a new era of prosperity. From his birth into the powerful and influential
Kennedy clan, much was to be expected of him. Kennedy was born on May 29,1917 in
Brookline, Massachusetts. His father, Joe, Sr., was a successful businessman
with many political connections. Appointed by President Roosevelt, Joe, Sr., was
given the chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission and later the
prestigious position of United States ambassador to Great Britain (Anderson 98).
His mother, Rose, was a loving housewife and took young John on frequent trips
around historic Boston learning about American Revolutionary history. Both
parents impressed on their children that their country had been good to the
Kennedys. Performing some service for the country must return whatever benefits
the family received from the country they were told. (Anderson 12). The Kennedy
clan included Joe, Jr., Bobby, Ted and their sisters, Eunice, Jean, Patricia,
Rosemary, and Kathleen. Joe, Jr., was a significant figure in young John's life
as he was the figure for most of John's admiration. His older brother was much
bigger and stronger than John and took it upon himself to be John's coach and
protector. John's childhood was full of sports, fun and activity. This all ended
when John grew old enough to leave for school. At the age of thirteen, John left
home to attend an away school for the first time. Canterbury School, a boarding
school in New Milford, Connecticut and Choate Preparatory in Wallingford,
Connecticut completed his elementary education ("JFK" 98). John
graduated in 1934 and was promised a trip to London as a graduation gift. Soon
after, John became ill with jaundice and would have to go to the hospital. He
spent the rest of the summer trying to recover. He was not entirely well when he
started Princeton, several weeks later in the fall of 1935. Around Christmas the
jaundice returned and John had to drop out of school. Before the next school
year began, he told his father he wanted to go to Harvard ("JFK" 98).
On campus, young people took interest in politics, social changes, and events in
Europe. The United States was pulling out of the Great Depression. Hitler's Nazi
Germany followed aggressive territorial expansion in Europe. It was at this time
that John first became aware of the vast social and economic differences in the
United States. In June 1940, John graduated cum laude (with praise or
distinction) from Harvard. His thesis earned a magna cum laude (great praise) (
"JFK" 98). After graduation, John began to send his paper to
publishers, and it was accepted on his second try. Wilfrid Funk published it
under the title Why England Slept. It became a bestseller. John, at twenty-five,
became a literary sensation. In the spring of 1941, both John and Joe, Jr.,
decided to enroll in the armed services. Joe was accepted as a naval air cadet
but John was turned down by both the army and navy because of his back trouble
and history of illness ("JFK" 98). After months of training and
conditioning, John reapplied and on September 19, John was accepted into the
navy as a desk clerk in Washington. He was disgusted and applied for a transfer.
In June 1941, Kennedy was sent to Naval Officers Training School at Northwestern
University in Evanston, Illinois and then for additional training at the Motor
Torpedo Boat Center at Melville, Rhode Island. In late April 1943, Lieutenant
John F. Kennedy was put in command of a PT 109, a fast, light, attack craft in
the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific. Kennedy saw action in the form of
night patrols and participated in enemy bombings. On August 1, 1943, during a
routine night patrol, a Japanese destroyer collided in the darkness with
Kennedy's craft and the PT 109 was sunk. Through superhuman effort, the injured
Kennedy heroically swam back and forth rescuing his wounded crew. Two were
killed in the crash. The injury had once again aggravated his back. Still,
Kennedy pushed on swimming from island to island in the South Pacific hoping for
a patrol to come by. The lieutenant had no idea he had been in the water for
eight hours. Finally, an island was spotted that could have provided cover from
Japanese planes. With no edible plants or water, Kennedy realized that he and
the crew must move on. The next day, he once again attempted to search for
rescue. After treading water for hours, the lieutenant was forced to admit no
patrol boats were coming. He turned back for the island but was swept away by a
powerful current. Kennedy collapsed on an island and slept. He recovered enough
energy to return to the island and gathered the crew to move to another island
in search of food. JFK was now desperate enough to seek help from natives on a
Japanese controlled island. After making contact with the natives, Kennedy
persuaded the natives to deliver a message written on the back of a coconut
shell to allied forces. The coconut fell into the hands of allied scouts and a
patrol was sent. The coconut would appear again on the desk of an American
President (Anderson 35). The crew of the PT 109 was given a hero's welcome when
they returned to base, but Kennedy would have none of it. He refused home leave
and was given another boat. In constant pain from the back injury, JFK soon
contracted malaria, became very ill, and lost twenty-five pounds. He was forced
to give up command and was sent home to Chelsea Naval Hospital near Hyannis
Port. The lieutenant received the Purple Heart, the Navy and Marine Corps Medal,
and a citation from Admiral W. F. Halsey. John's back failed to recover was an
operation was performed on his spine in the summer of 1944. During recovery,
Kennedy received word that his brother Joe, Jr. had been killed in action. Joe
had been eligible for home leave, but had volunteered for a special bombing
mission. The bombs had detonated early and Joe and his copilot were caught in
the explosion. Kennedy put his feelings onto paper and a second book was
published for the family and close friends. He called it As We Remember Joe. The
family- particularly JFK's father- had assumed that Joe, Jr. would carry on the
family tradition and go into politics. Both of his grandfathers had been active
in politics (Anderson 41). Now, suddenly, JFK was the oldest Kennedy of his
generation. Kennedy's first chance in politics came when Congressman James
Curley from the 11th District of Massachusetts decided to retire in 1946 (Gadney
42). JFK won his first Congressional seat by a margin of more than two to one.
At the age if twenty-nine, JFK was placed on the front page of the New York
Times and in Time Magazine. He was often mistaken in Congress as a Senate page
or an elevator operator. It was during this time period in which Kennedy met and
fell in love with Jacqueline Bouvier. "Jackie", as she was known, came
from a wealthy Catholic background as prestigious as the Kennedys. She attended
Vassar College and the Sorbonne in Paris, France. She spoke French, Italian, and
Spanish fluently. They were wed on September 12,1953, at St. Mary's Catholic
Church in Newport, Rhode Island. All seemed well, yet after three two-year terms
as a Congressman, Kennedy became frustrated with House rules and customs and
decided to run for Senate. In 1952, Kennedy ran for Senate against Republican
Senator Henry Cabot Lodge. Fifteen years older than Kennedy, Lodge was the
incumbent of two terms in the Senate. JFK prevailed in the victory but was soon
stricken with Addison's disease during his first year in the Senate and had to
operate on a fifty-fifty chance for survival procedure (Gadney 52). While
recovering, Kennedy wrote Profiles in Courage, a bestseller on examples of moral
courage in the lives of eight senators who risked their careers for a great
cause or a belief. Kennedy returned to Senate and participated in the powerful
Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was also chairman of the Senate
Subcommittee on Labor. JFK believed strongly in education, equal job
opportunity, and the civil rights movement. His biggest success came in the form
of his Labor Reform Bill, which passed by a margin of 90 to 1 in Senate debate.
Kennedy's first child, Caroline, was born during this time. Due to his enormous
success in Congress, the Democratic Party nominated him for the presidential
ticket in 1960. Lyndon Johnson was chosen as the running mate with Kennedy to
secure and build upon the democratic bases in the southern states while the
Kennedys sought out the younger voters, the factory workers, and the liberals (Gadney
61). During the Kennedy Administration, a great deal of events was going on.
Jackie had given birth to JFK, Jr., while all over the south, the civil rights
movement was going in full force with incidents breaking out. Specific attention
gathered around a black air force veteran, James Meredith, applied for admission
to the University of Mississippi. In Cuba both the Bay of Pigs occurred, in
which U.S. supported rebels revolted in a poorly laid out plan of events that
fell out beneath them, and the Cuban Missile Crisis in which the Soviet Republic
were building missile silos in Cuba, 100 miles away from Florida. The blame for
the failure of the operation falls directly in the lap of the Central
Intelligence Agency and a young president and his advisors. The fall out from
the invasion caused a rise in tension between the two great superpowers and
ironically 34 years after the event, the person that the invasion meant to
topple, Fidel Castro, is still in power. The Space Race was in full force with
both Russia and the U.S. in competition to reach the moon. U.S. involvement in
Vietnam was in the latter stages with plans to withdraw after the 1964 election.
On a trip to Dallas to stir up support for the re-election, the President's
autos were coming down Elm Street when three shots rang out. The first
projectile entered at the base of Kennedy's neck and exited through the back of
his head. The second bullet hit Texas Governor John Connally. Seconds later
there was another shot and the back of the president's head was torn away. The
"assassin" Lee Harvey Oswald with a mail-order rifle, fired from the
Texas School Book Depository (Warren 5). He then promptly and calmly exited the
building approximately three minutes after the first shot was fired. He was
picked up later at a Texas movie theatre with little resistance. Oswald had
recently applied for a passport to Communist Russia, which led to a series of
private meetings between Oswald and the Russian Government (Warren 614). Oswald
protested his innocence. President Johnson set up what quickly became known as
the Warren Commission headed by Chief Justice Warren to find the motive behind
the assassination; The Commission finds the lone, depressed, mentally unstable,
anti-social nut kills an American president. On the Morning of November 22, 1963
at approximately 12:25 the presidential motorcade turned right from Houston St.
on to Elm St. Their speed was approximately 11 miles per hour. President Kennedy
had ordered the Secret Service to ride on the car boards on the car behind him.
He made this decision so that the public would be able to see him better and
show that he trusted the public. At exactly 12:30 while Kennedy waved to the
crowd a shot fired out. He was hit in his neck, a shot that was fired
approximately five seconds after the first struck him in his head and tore a
piece of his skull off. Governor Connally who rode in the same car in front of
the president sustained wounds on his back, right side of his chest, right wrist
and left thigh. Orders were then given for the limousine to speed up to the
hospital. President Kennedy was pronounced dead at approximately 1:00 pm. Now
the question remained. What were the reasons for the president's assassination?
The assassination plot could have been organized by one of many factions, such
as the Cubans or the Russians, the Mob, someone upset with his civil rights
policies, or maybe an inside job by a special agency. The plot was a deep and
complex issue that involved many factions. More theories were offered when
Oswald's ties to the CIA and his ties to Russian special agencies were exposed.
Around October 1959, Oswald applied for Russian citizenship. While in Russia he
went to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow where he denounced the United States, Praised
the Soviet Union, and stated that he wanted to renounce his U.S. citizenship. He
also made another very dramatic announcement: he stated that he had offered to
give the Soviets radar secrets that he had learned in the Marines. He told them
ominously that he "might know something of special interest," an
obvious reference to the U-2 spy plane which he had observed while in the
service (Melanson 13). It was later noted that Oswald was working under an
operative program for the CIA and was a double agent against the KGB. After his
assignment was completed he was given $435 by the state department to get home.
Whatever Oswald's reason for pulling one of the triggers against President
Kennedy, it certainly involved a political agenda behind it. Other theories have
evolved over time such as the Grassy Knoll theory. Witnesses say that a man in
black was present and fired simultaneously with Oswald and doubled considerable
connections and plotted revenge. On Nov. 24, 1963 as Oswald was being escorted
from the city jail, nightclub owner Jack Ruby shot Oswald with a single shot
from a Colt .38 revolver. Ruby was arrested and stood trial in Dallas. He was
found guilty and was sentenced to hang. He died in jail of cancer, on January
3,1968. Kennedy was the first President to be born in the twentieth century and
was very much a man of his time. He was restless, seeking, with a thirst of
knowledge, and he had a feeling of deep commitment, not only to the people of
the United States, but also to the peoples of the world. Many of the causes he
fought for exist today because of what he did for the rights of minorities, the
poor, the very old and the very young. He never took anything for granted and
worked for everything he owned. Perhaps Kennedy summed up his life best in his
own inaugural speech: "Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask
what you can do for your country."