He also served in the U. Navy during World War II. Below is an abbreviated outline of Kennedy's professional and political career: [1]. Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts on May 29, He attended Harvard University and graduated in Kennedy enrolled in the U.
Navy in and served until In , his boat was rammed by a Japanese ship and split in half. Kennedy was injured and led the other survivors to an island, where they were later rescued. He was later awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for "extremely heroic conduct" and a Purple Heart following the incident. Kennedy was elected to the United States House of Representatives in and served for six years before being elected to the U. Senate in He served in the Senate until he was elected President in Kennedy defeated Vice President Richard Nixon , receiving 50 percent of the popular vote to Nixons' Democratic senator Harry F.
Byrd received the remaining 0. Kennedy won a larger majority in the electoral votes, defeating Nixon At age 43, Kennedy was the second youngest president in history, behind Theodore Roosevelt at age 42, and the first Catholic president.
Kennedy's presidency was dominated by foreign affairs issues in the Cold War era. Roosevelt , was appointed chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission in and in was named U. Jack joined the U. Navy in and two years later was sent to the South Pacific, where he was given command of a Patrol-Torpedo PT boat. Kennedy helped some of his marooned crew back to safety, and was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for heroism.
His older brother, Joe Jr. A grieving Joe Sr. Abandoning plans to be a journalist, Jack left the Navy by the end of Less than a year later, he was back in Boston preparing for a run for Congress in He entered the 80th Congress in January , at the age of 29, and immediately attracted attention as well as some criticism from older members of the Washington establishment for his youthful appearance and relaxed, informal style.
Kennedy won reelection to the House of Representatives in and , and in ran successfully for the Senate, defeating the popular Republican incumbent Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. Two years later, he was forced to undergo a painful operation on his back. While recovering from the surgery, Jack wrote another best-selling book, Profiles in Courage , which won the Pulitzer Prize for biography in He defeated a primary challenge from the more liberal Hubert Humphrey and chose the Senate majority leader, Lyndon Johnson of Texas , as his running mate.
In the general election, Kennedy faced a difficult battle against his Republican opponent, Richard Nixon, a two-term vice president under the popular Dwight D. Offering a young, energetic alternative to Nixon and the status quo, Kennedy benefited from his performance and telegenic appearance in the first-ever televised debates, watched by millions of viewers.
With his beautiful young wife and their two small children Caroline, born in , and John Jr. In his inaugural address, given on January 20, , the new president called on his fellow Americans to work together in the pursuit of progress and the elimination of poverty, but also in the battle to win the ongoing Cold War against communism around the world. An early crisis in the foreign affairs arena occurred in April , when Kennedy approved the plan to send 1, CIA-trained Cuban exiles in an amphibious landing at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba.
Intended to spur a rebellion that would overthrow the communist leader Fidel Castro , the mission ended in failure, with nearly all of the exiles captured or killed.
After six long days, their skipper came through and they were going home. After a few months of healing up in the rear but still wanting to stay in the fight, Lieutenant JG Kennedy requested another PT boat. In October he took command of PT He had two millimeter anti-aircraft guns installed along with an additional array heavy machine guns.
Fifty US Marine of the 1 st Marine Parachute Regiment were clinging to a beach head with an overwhelming Japanese force on the verge of over running them and pushing them into the sea. Kennedy and his crew roared in with guns blazing long enough to provide suppressing fire as the Marines made their way to the The Navy crew loaded all Marines aboard, including several wounded. Kennedy had a severely wounded Marine taken to his bunk. Small arms rounds were hitting the wooden boat and bouncing off the armor plates Kennedy had installed.
Kennedy gunned her engines and roared away from Choiseul. To his dismay the wounded man taken to his bunk had expired due to his wounds. He carried the rest of the grateful Marines to safety. Kennedy was promoted to Lieutenant and continued as the skipper of the PT but by the injuries sustained with the collision with the Japanese destroyer sent him stateside to receive treatment and physical therapy at Castle Hot Springs, a military hospital in Arizona.
Sadly older brother Joe was killed in action piloting a British Mosquito night fighter in a top secret operation. John was honorably discharged in He would later undergo back surgery as a young U.
Senator 8 years later. Kennedy received the Navy and Marine Corps Medal the highest non-combat decoration awarded for heroism and the Purple Heart. Perhaps he was thinking these thoughts as he was contemplating his heroic stance in Explore This Park. Kennedy, John F. Kennedy and Ensign Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Lieutenant John F. Kennedy carved this Coconut shell with a message and gave it to two natives to deliver to the PT base at Rendova so he and his crew would be rescued.
He later had the coconut shell encased in wood and plastic and used it as a paperweight on his desk in the Oval Office. Once again backed by his father's vast financial resources, Kennedy hired his younger brother Robert as his campaign manager. Robert Kennedy put together what one journalist called "the most methodical, the most scientific, the most thoroughly detailed, the most intricate, the most disciplined and smoothly working state-wide campaign in Massachusetts history — and possibly anywhere else.
According to one of his aides, the decisive factor in Kennedy's victory was his personality: "He was the new kind of political figure that people were looking for that year, dignified and gentlemanly and well-educated and intelligent, without the air of superior condescension. Shortly after his election, Kennedy met a beautiful young woman named Jacqueline Bouvier at a dinner party and, in his own words, "leaned across the asparagus and asked her for a date.
John and Jackie had three children: Caroline , John Jr. Kennedy continued to suffer frequent illnesses during his career in the Senate. While recovering from one surgery, he wrote another book, profiling eight senators who had taken courageous but unpopular stances. Profiles in Courage won the Pulitzer Prize for biography, and Kennedy remains the only American president to win a Pulitzer Prize.
Kennedy's eight-year Senate career was relatively undistinguished. Bored by the Massachusetts-specific issues on which he had to spend much of his time, Kennedy was more drawn to the international challenges posed by the Soviet Union's growing nuclear arsenal and the Cold War battle for the hearts and minds of Third World nations.
In , Kennedy was very nearly selected as Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson's running mate, but was ultimately passed over for Estes Kefauver from Tennessee. Four years later, Kennedy decided to run for president. In the Democratic primaries, Kennedy outmaneuvered his main opponent, Hubert Humphrey, with superior organization and financial resources. The election turned largely on a series of televised national debates in which Kennedy bested Nixon, an experienced and skilled debater, by appearing relaxed, healthy and vigorous in contrast to his pallid and tense opponent.
On November 8, , Kennedy defeated Nixon by a razor-thin margin to become the 35th president of the United States of America.
Kennedy's election was historic in several respects. At the age of 43, he was the second youngest American president in history, second only to Theodore Roosevelt , who assumed the office at He was also the first Catholic president and the first president born in the 20th century.
Delivering his legendary inaugural address on January 20, , Kennedy sought to inspire all Americans to more active citizenship. Kennedy's greatest accomplishments during his brief tenure as president came in the arena of foreign affairs. Capitalizing on the spirit of activism he had helped to ignite, Kennedy created the Peace Corps by executive order in By the end of the century, over , Peace Corps volunteers would serve in countries.
Also in , Kennedy created the Alliance for Progress to foster greater economic ties with Latin America, in hopes of alleviating poverty and thwarting the spread of communism in the region. Kennedy also presided over a series of international crises. Known as the Bay of Pigs Invasion , the mission proved an unmitigated failure, causing Kennedy great embarrassment.
In August , to stem massive waves of emigration from Soviet-dominated East Germany to American ally West Germany via the divided city of Berlin, Nikita Khrushchev ordered the construction of the Berlin Wall , which became the foremost symbol of the Cold War. However, the greatest crisis of the Kennedy administration was the Cuban Missile Crisis of October Discovering that the Soviet Union had sent ballistic nuclear missiles to Cuba, Kennedy blockaded the island and vowed to defend the United States at any cost.
After several of the tensest days in history, during which the world seemed on the brink of nuclear annihilation, the Soviet Union agreed to remove the missiles in return for Kennedy's promise not to invade Cuba and to remove American missiles from Turkey. It was one of his proudest accomplishments.
President Kennedy's record on domestic policy was rather mixed. Taking office in the midst of a recession, he proposed sweeping income tax cuts, raising the minimum wage and instituting new social programs to improve education, health care and mass transit.
However, hampered by lukewarm relations with Congress, Kennedy only achieved part of his agenda: a modest increase in the minimum wage and watered down tax cuts. The most contentious domestic issue of Kennedy's presidency was civil rights. Constrained by Southern Democrats in Congress who remained stridently opposed to civil rights for Black citizens, Kennedy offered only tepid support for civil rights reforms early in his term.
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