In November 1960, At The Age Of 43, John F. Kennedy Became The Younges Essay Example For Students

In November 1960, At The Age Of 43, John F. Kennedy Became The Younges Essay t man ever elected president of the United States. Theodore Roosevelt had become president at 42 when President William McKinley was assassinated, but he was not elected at that age. On Nov. 22, 1963, Kennedy was shot to death in Dallas, Tex., the fourth United States president to die by an assassins bullet. Kennedy was the nations first Roman Catholic president. He was inaugurated in January 1961, succeeding Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower. He defeated the Republican candidate, Vice-President Richard M. Nixon, by little more than 100,000 votes. It was one of the closest elections in the nations history. Although Kennedy and his vice-presidential running mate, Lyndon B. Johnson, got less than half of the more than 68 million votes cast, they won the Electoral College vote. Kennedy thus became the 14th minority president. Because of the close vote, election results were challenged in many states. The official electoral vote was Kennedy 303, Nixon 219, and Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia 15. Kennedys FamilyPresident Kennedys great-grandparents immigrated to the United States from Ireland in 1858. They settled in Boston, Mass. His grandfathers, Patrick J. Kennedy and John F. (Honey Fitz) Fitzgerald, were born there. Both men became influential in state politics. Honey Fitz served several terms as Bostons mayor and as a member of the United States House of Representatives. Patrick Kennedy was a powerful ward boss and served in both houses of the Massachusetts legislature. Patricks son, Joseph, was a brilliant mathematician. At the age of 25 he became the youngest bank president in the United States. His fortune continued to grow, and he was one of the few financiers to sense the stock market crash of 1929. He made hundreds of millions of dollars. Joseph married Rose Fitzgerald, daughter of Honey Fitz, on Oct. 7, 1914. Their first child, Joseph, Jr., was born in 1915. John was born on May 29, 1917. Seven other children followed: Rosemary, Kathleen, Eunice, Patricia, Robert, Jean, and Edward (called Teddy). All were born in Brookline, Mass., a suburb of Boston. Training Pays OffJoseph Kennedy, Sr., set up a million-dollar trust fund for each of his children. This freed them from future financial worry and allowed them to devote their lives to public good, if they desired. As the children grew, their parents stressed the importance of competitive spirit. One of their fathers favorite mottoes was: Second place is a loser. The drive to win was deeply embedded in the children, and they never did anything halfheartedly. Their parents were careful to neglect neither the intellectual nor the physical development of the children. As they grew older, the children would eat their evening meals in two groups, divided by age. Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy ate at both meals. This allowed them to discuss subjects which were of interest to each group. All the children attended dancing school while very young, and all, with the exception of Rosemary, loved sports activities. Rosemary did not take part in rough-and-tumble play. The other children, however, thrived on it. Even when they were adults, one of their favorite pastimes was a rousing and often bruising game of touch football. On pleasant days, Mrs. Kennedy took her children for long walks. She made a point of taking them into church for a visit each day. I wanted them to form a habit of making God and religion a daily part of their lives, she said later in life. With this background, it was quite natural for John Kennedy and his brothers and sisters to excel in school and in sports. John attended public schools in Brookline. Later he entered private schools in Riverdale, N.Y., and Wallingford, Conn. In 1935 and 1936 he studied at the London School of Economics. Then he followed his older brother, Joe, into Harvard University. An excellent athlete, John was a star swimmer and a good golfer. His athletic activities, however, were cut down after he suffered a back injury in a Harvard football game. The injury was to plague him later in life. John and his older brother were very close. While a young boy, Joe said that someday he would be president of the United States. The family took him at his word. Of all the children Joe seemed the one most likely to enter the political field. Joseph, Sr., was named ambassador to Great Britain in 1937. John and his older brother then worked as international reporters for their father. John spent his summers in England and much of the rest of his time at Harvard. The brothers often traveled to distant parts of the world to observe events of international importance for their father. The clouds of World War II were hovering over Europe at that time. Return to the United States and CollegeThe senior Kennedy was a controversial ambassador. His candid remarks about the progress of the war in Europe earned him the disfavor of the English and of some of his countrymen in the United States. His family returned home in 1939, and he followed the next year. John finished his studies at Harvard and was graduated with honors in 1940. Later that same year he did graduate work in economics at Stanford University. He also expanded a college thesis into a full-length book entitled Why England Slept. It dealt with Englands unpreparedness for World War II and was based on Johns own experiences while working for his father. The book became a best seller. Serves with Navy in the PacificA few months before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, John attempted to enlist in the United States Army. His old back injury kept him from being accepted. After several months of exercise, he was granted a commission in the Navy. Eventually he became the commander of a torpedo boat and saw extensive action in the South Pacific. In August 1943, during a night action in the Solomon Islands, Johns torpedo boat was rammed and cut in half by a Japanese destroyer. The force of the collision threw him to the deck, reinjuring his back. Despite this, he gathered the ten members of his crew together. One of the crew members was so badly injured that he was unable to swim. He was put into a life jacket. Kennedy gripped one of the jackets straps between his teeth and towed the man as the crew swam to a nearby island. It took them five hours to reach it. For his heroism, Kennedy was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps medal, the Purple Heart, and a citation. The back injury, however, put him out of action for the remainder of the war. Nearly one year after Johns narrow escape, Joe, Jr., a Navy pilot, was killed when his plane exploded in the air over the English coast. To his brothers memory John wrote As We Remember Joe, a collection of tributes. In 1948 Johns sister Kathleen died in an airplane crash in the south of France. She was the widow of the marquess of Hartington of England. He too had been killed in action during World War II, while leading an infantry charge in Normandy, France. Begins Political CareerThe death of his brother deeply affected John Kennedy. Before the war Joe had decided to carry on with his ambition to enter politics. This caused a certain degree of disappointment for John, because he too had considered that field. He felt, however, that one Kennedy in politics was enough and determined to become a newspaperman. After his discharge from the Navy he worked for a short time as a correspondent for the Chicago Herald American and the International News Service. In 1946 he decided to enter politics. To the family this was the most natural thing for him to do. For his first target, Kennedy chose to try for a seat in the United States House of Representatives. He would represent the 11th Massachusetts Congressional District. His family rallied to his side as he began his campaign for the nomination. Because the 11th district was predominantly Democratic, the candidate for the office would have no trouble being elected once he had gained the nomination. Kennedy and his family worked tirelessly. Their efforts, Kennedys own impressive war record, and his familys political background greatly aided his campaign. He easily defeated eight other candidates running for the same nomination. In office, Kennedy quickly established himself as a moderately independent thinker. Occasionally he voted against proposed measures which had met with the approval of his own Democratic party. He was reelected in 1948 and 1950. An accomplished orator, the young congressman became a popular speaker. Genetically Engineered Food EssayIn November, looking forward to the 1964 presidential election, Kennedy made a political visit to Florida and Texas, the two most populous Southern states. His wife, Vice-President Johnson, and Mrs. Johnson accompanied him on the Texas trip. He had been warned that Texas might be hostile. In Dallas, only a month earlier, Adlai Stevenson, United States ambassador to the United Nations, had been spat upon and struck with a pickets placard. In San Antonio, Houston, and Fort Worth, however, the crowds were friendly, and obviously delighted with the charming young Jacqueline Kennedy. Kennedy Is AssassinatedA large and enthusiastic crowd greeted the presidential party when it arrived at the Dallas airport on the morning of November 22. Along the route of the motorcade into downtown Dallas the people stood 10 to 12 deep, applauding warmly. Next to the president in the big open limousine sat his wife. In front of them, on jump seats, were John B. Connally, the governor of Texas, and his wife, Nellie. The third car in the procession carried Vice-President and Mrs. Johnson. As the cars approached a triple underpass, Mrs. Connally turned around and said, You cant say Dallas doesnt love you, Mr. President. At that moment three shots rang out. The president, shot through the head and throat, slumped over into his wifes lap. The second bullet hit Governor Connally, piercing his back, chest, wrist, and thigh. A reporter, glancing up, saw a rifle slowly disappear into a sixth-floor corner window of the Texas School Book Depository, a textbook warehouse overlooking the highway. It was 12:30 PM in Dallas. President Kennedy died in Parkland Memorial Hospital without regaining consciousness. The time of death was set at 1:00 PM.Governor Connally recovered from his multiple wounds. Six minutes after the shooting, a description of a man seen leaving the textbook warehouse went out over the police radio. At 1:18 PM patrolman J.D. Tippit stopped and questioned a man who answered the description. The man shot him dead. At 1:35 PM Dallas police captured Lee Harvey Oswald in a motion-picture theater, where he had hidden after allegedly killing patrolman Tippit. Although a mass of circumstantial evidence, including ballistics tests, pointed to Oswald as the slayer of President Kennedy, the 24-year-old professed Marxist and Castro sympathizer never came to trial. On Sunday, November 24, as he was being led across the basement of the City Hall for transfer to another prison, Jack Ruby (born Rubenstein), a Dallas nightclub owner, broke through a cordon of police and shot Oswald. The murder was committed in full view of television cameras as millions watched. The Return to WashingtonThe casket bearing Kennedys body was removed to the presidential jet plane, Air Force One, where Lyndon B. Johnson took the oath of office as president of the United States. Only 98 minutes had elapsed since Kennedys death. All that long afternoon and into the early morning of the next day, Mrs. Kennedy refused to leave her husbands body. Close by her side at all times after her return to Washington, D.C., was her husbands brother and closest adviser, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. Mrs. Kennedy carefully directed the details of the funeral, consulting with historians as to the traditional burial procedures for other presidents who had died in office. Burial at ArlingtonThe body lay in repose for a day in the East Room of the White House. On November 24, in a solemn procession to the slow beat of muffled drums, the casket was removed to the rotunda of the Capitol and placed on the catafalque which had borne President Abraham Lincolns casket. The following day the funeral procession moved from the Capitol to the White House and then to St. Matthews Cathedral. Here Richard Cardinal Cushing, Roman Catholic archbishop of Boston, celebrated Low Mass. From the White House to the cathedral, Mrs. Kennedy walked in the procession between her husbands brothers, Robert and Edward. In a scene unduplicated in history, 220 foreign leaders followed them. Burial was at Arlington National Cemetery, on a hillside overlooking the Potomac and the city of Washington. At the conclusion of the service Mrs. Kennedy lighted an eternal flame at the grave. Two Kennedy infants were later reburied on either side of their father. They were Patrick Bouvier and an unnamed daughter who was stillborn in 1956. On June 8, 1968, the Kennedy family and a host of other mourners again gathered at the Kennedy grave sitethis time for the burial of Robert F. Kennedy. The presidents brother, who had become a United States senator, was shot on June 5 in Los Angeles, Calif., while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination. He died on June 6 of brain damage. Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, a Jordanian immigrant who was seized at the scene of the shooting, was eventually indicted for the murder. For the second time President Johnson declared a day of mourning for a Kennedy. Many of the same Americans who honored Robert Kennedys memory on June 9, 1968, were sadly reminded of an earlier day of mourning. In his proclamation declaring Nov. 25, 1963, a National Day of Mourning for John Kennedy, President Johnson paid this tribute to the slain president, quoting in conclusion from Kennedys inaugural address of January 1960: As he did not shrink from his responsibilities, but welcomed them, so he would not have us shrink from carrying on his work beyond this hour of national tragedy. He said it himself: The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve itand the glow from that fire can truly light the world. Warren CommissionOn Nov. 29, 1963, President Johnson created the Presidents Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy to investigate and report on the facts relating to the tragedy. It functioned neither as a court nor as a prosecutor. Chief Justice Earl Warren was appointed chairman. Other members of the bipartisan commission were Senators Richard B. Russell of Georgia and John Sherman Cooper of Kentucky, Representatives Hale Boggs of Louisiana and Gerald R. Ford of Michigan, Allen W. Dulles, and John J. McCloy. J. Lee Rankin was the general counsel. The report was published on Sept. 24, 1964. Since Oswald was unable to stand trial and defend himself, and in fairness to him and his family, the commission requested Walter E. Craig, president of the American Bar Association, to participate in the investigation and to advise the commission whether the proceedings conformed to the basic principles of American justice. The commission found that the shots that killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally were fired by Lee Harvey Oswald. There was no evidence at that time that either Oswald or Jack Ruby was part of any conspiracy, domestic or foreign, to assassinate President Kennedy. No direct or indirect relationship between Oswald and Jack Ruby had been uncovered. On the basis of the evidence before it, the commission concluded that Oswald acted alone. Despite the findings of the commission, conspiracy theories persisted for decades. The commission criticized both the Secret Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Some of the advance preparations and security measures in Dallas made by the Secret Service were found to have been deficient. In addition, though the FBI had obtained considerable information about Oswald, it had no official responsibility to refer this information to the Secret Service. A more carefully coordinated treatment of the Oswald case by the FBI might well have resulted in bringing Oswalds activities to the attention of the Secret Service, the report stated. The commission made suggestions for improved protective measures of the Secret Service and better liaison with the FBI, the Department of State, and other federal agencies. Other recommendations were:That a committee of Cabinet members, or the National Security Council, should review and oversee the protective activities of the Secret Service and other agencies that help safeguard the president. That Congress adopt legislation that would make the assassination of the president and vice-president a federal crime. That the representatives of the bar, law-enforcement associations, and the news media establish ethical standards concerning the collection and presentation of information to the public so that there will be no interference with pending criminal investigations, court proceedings, or the right of individuals to a fair trial. BibliographyMills, Judie. John F. Kennedy (Watts, 1988). Reeves, T.C. John F. Kennedy: The Man, the Politician, the President (Krieger, 1990). Schlesinger, A.M., Jr. A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (Greenwich, 1983). Selfridge, J.W. John F. Kennedy: Courage in Crisis (Ballantine, 1989). Summers, Anthony. Conspiracy, rev. ed. (Paragon, 1989). Waggoner, Jeffrey. The Assassination of President Kennedy: OpposingThe JFK StoryJFK