The Life of John Fitzgerald Kennedy

I did a project on John F. Kennedy at University a month ago. Thought I would share it on my blog. I hope you find it informative. :) 
Born on the 29th of May, 1917, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was the first president of the United States to have been born in the 20th century. Born to Rose Fitzgerald and Joseph Patrick Kennedy in Brookline, Massachusetts, he was a descendent of Irish Catholics who had immigrated to United States in the 19th century. His father, Joseph P. Kennedy, was a highly successful businessman who became a multimillionaire, remained the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission and later served as ambassador to Great Britain from 1937 to 1940. His great grandfather, Patrick Kennedy, had emigrated from Ireland in 1849 while his grandfathers, John Francis Fitzgerald and Patrick Joseph Kennedy, were chief political figures in Boston.

His parents were very ambitious about their nine children, of whom John was the second. Most of his education was obtained from private institutions, including Choate Prep School in Wallingford, Princeton University and lastly Harvard University in 1936. He majored in Political Science at Harvard where he wrote an honors thesis on British foreign policies in the 1930’s and graduated from there in 1940. Soon after, he published his thesis under the title ‘Why England Slept’ which was his first published book.

A year later in 1941, right when America entered World War II, Kennedy joined the United States Navy and became an intelligence officer. He was given command of PT-109. His heroic performance in rescuing his crew that was sunk by the Japanese in 1943 in the Pacific did strengthen his position but it worsened an old back injury he had, also causing him to have malaria.  He received the Purple Heart and Navy and Marine Corps Medal and was hailed for his heroism. After he recovered, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant where he became a PT instructor in Florida. However, his back injury caused him to return to civilian life and he was discharged in early 1945 where he started working for the next one year as a journalist covering the UN conference in San Francisco and the 1945 General Election in Britain.

John F. Kennedy was a member of the Democratic Party. In 1946, he ran successfully for a seat in the House of Representatives where for the next two years, Kennedy remained a loyal supporter of Harry S. Truman’s foreign policies. Though he condemned what he thought was the administration’s weak stand against the Communist Chinese. Kennedy maintained a strong anti-communist foreign policy throughout his career. He challenged Republican Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. in 1952. Although it was Dwight D. Eisenhower, also a republican, who won in Massachusetts and the entire country as a whole, Kennedy managed to defeat Lodge in their votes.

In 1951, Kennedy visited Middle East, Pakistan, India, Indochina, Malaya and Korea. As a democrat, he was against colonial empires and he even urged France to give up on Algeria. He also advocated increased financial aid to underdeveloped countries. Kennedy was elected to the Senate in 1952. Shortly in the following year, he married Jacqueline Bouvier, the daughter of a New York City financier.

He continued to have back problems and even underwent two operations in 1954 and 1955. It was mainly due to his back ailments that he was unable to play an important role in the government at that time. During his recovery time in the hospital in 1956, he wrote a book based on biographical studies of American political heroes titled ‘Profiles in Courage’ that won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957. Both of his books revealed his admiration for dynamic political figures. He had four children with Jacqueline out of whom, only two survived infancy; Caroline and John F. Kennedy, Jr.

Being a congressman, he supported social legislation that favored the working class and was a firm advocate of social welfare and civil rights legislation in the Senate. Additionally, he sponsored bills for providing Federal Financial aid to education and relaxing United States immigration laws as well as a way that needed complete disclosure of all employee pension and welfare funds.

By 1960, Kennedy was an aspirant for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. As a result of his highly organized and well-financed campaigns, he won democratic primaries in Wisconsin, Indiana, Oregon, Ohio, Maryland, Hampshire, Nebraska and West Virginia. Having been a northerner and a Roman Catholic, Kennedy knew his strength was little in the South and hence chose Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas as his running mate. At the national convention in July 1960, he was nominated on his first ballot; defeating Lyndon B. Johnson. Kennedy also participated in a series of debates on television with his Republican rival, Vice President Richard M. Nixon where he performed well; assuring better defense policies and progressive welfare and civil rights programs.

At the age of 43, Kennedy was the second youngest president of the United States, where Theodore Roosevelt beat him to it by being one year younger in 1901. Kennedy won the election by a very narrow margin as he was short of majorities in Congress. His candidacy, though, was controversial because United States had not had a Roman Catholic President before. It was reckoned that the defeat of Al Smith against a Republican candidate in 1928 had been for his religious orientation and now Kennedy was a Roman Catholic candidate, too. Although, Richard Nixon had served for eight years as Vice President under Dwight Eisenhower and he belonged to a Republican Party, Kennedy still won by 34,226,925 votes to 34,108,662 despite being lesser in experience as compared to Richard Nixon (Helms, 2003). He successfully tackled the issue of religious bigotry in the US government in his speech in Houston on September 11, 1960 where speaking against religious intolerance, he also emphasized the importance of distinction between the Church and State.

While campaigning for the elections, Kennedy often used Cuba, a clear threat of communism at the time, as an example of the Republicans’ weakness against communism stating how Cuba was only ninety miles away from USA (Mahoney). Kennedy seemed to be clearly competing with the Republicans by challenging them to take the strongest action against the new Cuban government when he called for the United States to strengthen the non-Batista democratic anti-Castro forces in exile as well as Cuba to totally overthrow Castro’s government. He emphasized how these anti-Castro forces were still not yet backed by the United States Government as they should be (Wofford).

It is interesting to note that the leadership of Central Intelligence Agency under Allen Dulles slightly preferred Kennedy over Richard Nixon in his 1960 presidential campaign where the possibility arises that the CIA director could have been leaking information to Kennedy through a man named Stuart Symington. As a result of which the Democrats had a reason to blame the Eisenhower Government for causing the ‘missile gap’ between the Soviets and the United States.

John F. Kennedy’s speeches during his presidential campaign proposed new vigor and expectations in the citizens of the United States. During his inaugural address on the 20th of January, 1961, Kennedy challenged the Americans through his famous statement, “Ask not what your country can do for you - - ask what you can do for your country”. Though this statement was inspiring, it held connotations of United States’ possible confrontations with the USSR. In the same speech, he exhorted the American youth to assist the underdeveloped countries of the world. He declared the establishment of a scheme called the Peace Corps that intended to help Africa, Asia and Latin America by the help of 10,000 young Americans. He believed such a person to person program would help build trust, good will and self-help in the undeveloped world.

In the same speech, Kennedy clearly showed his support for Eisenhower’s policy of holding up the South Vietnamese Government of Ngo Dinh Diem stating his famous Domino Theory. He stressed that if South Vietnam became a communist state, the rest of the non-communist world would be in danger of communism as Laos, Cambodia, Burma, Philippines, New Zealand and Australia would follow in its footsteps by also falling prey to communism. Thus, it is important that communism is brought to an end in Vietnam. He encouraged America to be willing to “pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty”. His inspiring rhetoric left a substantial impact on the American youth where many were inspired to join the US Marines as they claimed Kennedy had awakened the missionary idealism in them against communism.

After Kennedy replaced Dwight Eisenhower as the President of the United States, he was informed of the CIA plan to exercise an amphibious assault on Cuba. Kennedy acted on his anti-communism regime by agreeing to the Bay of Pigs invasion as he did not want to seem soft on communism if he refused permission to continue the invasion plan. Also, he was assured by his advisors that since Fidel Castro did not enjoy so much popularity in Cuba and once Cuba got invaded, the Cuban people would rather support the CIA’s trained forces. Though the Bay of Pigs attack, on April 14, 1961 was a total failure, where B-26 planes bombed some of Cuba’s airfields, but were ultimately shot down, the troops captured or killed; Kennedy readily took the entire blame for its failure. It is said that Kennedy secretly vowed to himself after the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion to overthrow Fidel Castro by all means. Soon, Kennedy recruited Edward Lansdale, a well-known cold war disciplinarian to devise a strategy to crush the government of Castro in Cuba.

After the failure of the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy became distrustful of the CIA. It was not that he thought the invasion was immoral but that it was an “amateur operation”. Kennedy really wanted to be seen as a “Cold War Warrior” who was not soft on communism at all. As a result, he and his brother, Robert Kennedy, got involved in covert action and increased military effort to remove Castro’s government in Cuba and make sure to win in Vietnam.

Kennedy is well known in the international history due to the famous Cuban Missile Crisis which started in September 1962, when USA’s U-2 spy planes discovered surface-to-air missile (SAM) launch sites built by the Soviet Union in Cuba. Added to the suspicions of the US government was the increased number of Soviet ships arriving in Cuba which posed a threat of possible existence of offensive weapons also kept in Cuba by the Soviets. At this point, President Kennedy expressed concern to the Soviet Union about these developments and emphasized that United States would not tolerate the keeping of any offensive weapons in Cuba by the Soviets.

The situation had become very difficult for Kennedy as the elections were nearing and the SAM installations in Cuba by the Soviets meant that they could easily shoot down USA’s U-2 spy planes which would weaken Kennedy’s position as a President. Also, since his election in the government two years ago, the Republicans and southern Democrats in congress were constantly bent on creating hurdles for Kennedy in his proposed legislation which demonstrated how little support he had in Congress. His ratings had fallen considerably low ever since he was appointed as the president as over 62% of the population was unhappy with his policies regarding Cuba. As a result, Kennedy feared that any occurrence of trouble in the Cuba’s situation now would cost his Democratic Party to lose more votes since the Bay of Pigs failure had just recently happened at his hands. Not surprisingly, the Republicans were highlighting the issue of Cuba more in their campaign to weaken Kennedy’s position.

When photographs taken by USA’s U-2 spy planes revealed in October, 1962, that the Soviet Union was indeed placing long range missiles in Cuba, President Kennedy’s first response was to call a meeting to discuss what can be done. The group that attended the meetings over the next few days came to be known as the Executive Committee of the National Security Council. The general advice by the CIA and other military advisors in the Ex-Comm seemed to be in favor of an air-attack on the missile sites in Cuba. However, Kennedy wanted to wait as CIA’s poor advice in the Bay of Pigs invasion had led to a failure.

The committee was not able to agree on a single solution for a few days until a naval blockade, which Kennedy would propose to the world as “quarantine”, posed as a suitable solution to avoid any nuclear war with the USSR. Kennedy was prudent enough to tell the air-force to prepare for attacks on Cuba and the Soviet Union, in case the need arose whereby the army positioned 125,000 men in Florida waiting for his orders to invade Cuba. The world knew a nuclear war was to be expected if the Soviets’ ships did not comply with Kennedy’s demand to turn back if they contained nuclear weapons or if they refuse to be searched. Kennedy also assured the military advisors that in case an American U-2 spy plane is attacked, he would order for an attack on the Cuban missile sites right away.

On October 24, 1962, President Kennedy was notified that the Soviet ships had just stopped and turned back before they reached the United States ships that were blockading Cuba. Shortly, Kennedy received an angry letter from Nikita Khrushchev accusing him of to have created this crisis to favor his Democratic Party in the upcoming elections. Soon, Khrushchev proposed that Soviet Union would remove the missiles in Cuba in exchange for a guarantee that USA would not invade Cuba and also remove their nuclear bases in Turkey. Shortly, an American U-2 plane was shot down whereby the military Advisors in Ex-Comm started reminding Kennedy of his promise to invade Cuba in case of such a scenario. To avoid a nuclear confrontation, Kennedy instead sent a letter to Khrushchev agreeing to refrain from invading Cuba if Soviets remove their missiles from Cuba. He also agreed to remove the US missiles from Turkey within six months but the deal was not to be publically announced. Khrushchev obliged and soon the elections were held where Kennedy’s supporters increased in Congress due to his success in avoiding a nuclear confrontation in the Cuban Missile crisis.

This was the only time in history that the United States and the Soviet Union had come so close to a nuclear war. After this, both the sides tried to improve their relations. However, Kennedy was still bent on supporting the South Vietnam’s government to prevent it from becoming a communist state. Although, President Charles De Gaulle of France admonished him that involvement in the Vietnam War would trap the United States in “bottomless military and political swamp”, Kennedy still delivered the leader of the South Vietnamese government, Ngo Dinh Diem, money needed to increase his army from 150,000 to 170,000. This was because Kennedy had to show himself as being firm on communism and his Domino theory, that the Hawks in the Congress were fully supporting, stated communism needed to be contained as soon as possible. His military advisors also assured him that United States was militarily equipped enough to prevent National Liberation Front’s victory in South Vietnam.

Another reason was that Kennedy had to prove he meant it when he claimed that: “No other challenge is more deserving of our effort and energy. Our security may be lost piece by piece, country by country.” A hundred military advisors, later increased to 12,000, were sent to Vietnam to help train the South Vietnamese Army; though this was kept secret from the American public as it violated the terms of the Geneva Agreement.

During his time in 1962, the Strategic Hamlet programme was introduced. This ended up increasing NLF’s supporters and increased the peasants’ hostility towards the Ngo Dinh Diem’s government as the South Vietnamese Army had to apply force to move the peasants into new villages that were under the control of the South Vietnamese Army. Many of the peasants did not want to move due to their ancestral and religious affiliations with where they lived and the way things were going, Kennedy was getting worried. Despite the Strategic Hamlet programme, the membership of National Liberation Front had grown to over 17,000 members, controlling 1/5th of the villages in South Vietnam. Using this, South Vietnamese government pressurized Kennedy to supply more military help.

Also at the time, Kennedy was receiving little support for his bill regarding provision of health coverage for individuals over 65 of age called Medicare. In his presidential election campaign in 1960, Kennedy had fought for a new Civil Rights act that earned him 70% of the African American votes. His civil rights bill was presented in Congress in 1963, following which he gave a speech on television in June of 1963. In his speech, Kennedy stated that, “the Negro baby born in America today, regardless of the section of the nation in which he is born, has about one-half as much chance of completing college; one third as much chance of becoming a professional man; twice as much chance of becoming unemployed; about one-seventh as much chance of earning &10,000 a year; a life expectancy which is seven years shorter’ and the prospects of earning only half as much.”

Several civil rights violations and similar events including some Buddhist monks’ suicides, Diem’s government’s indifference to them and mass arrest of the monks led Kennedy to the belief that Ngo Ding Diem hardly seemed to be capable of uniting the South Vietnamese against communism. Soon in the events that followed in Vietnam, Kennedy started to have serious doubts about his Vietnam policy and wished to withdraw.

Shortly thereafter, in June 1963, Kennedy gave a speech at the American University where he emphasized peace keeping as far as the Cold war was concerned, stating, “Today the expenditure of billions of dollars every year on weapons acquired for the purpose of making sure we never need them is essential to the keeping of peace. But surely the acquisition of such idle stockpiles - which can only destroy and never create - is not the only, much less the most efficient, means of assuring peace”. He went on to say, “Some say that it is useless to speak of peace or world law or world disarmament, and that it will be useless until the leaders of the Soviet Union adopt a more enlightened attitude. I hope they do. I believe we can help them do it. But I also believe that we must reexamine our own attitudes, as individuals and as a Nation, for our attitude is as essential as theirs.” This does not mean the Cold war was over. In fact, in many ways, Kennedy remained a Cold Warrior where his policy of sabotage against Cuba was concerned which clearly was against the vision he had been talking about in his American University address (Douglass).

Kennedy and his advisors were already preparing for the next presidential campaign by Fall of 1963. Although, he had not yet formally announced his candidacy, it was obvious he was going to run for elections and his chances for re-election seemed good. Five months later on 22nd November, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was to arrive in Dallas accompanied by his party, wife, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, Governor John Connally and Senator Ralph Yarborough in a procession of cars. There were several others including guards in the cars and motorcycles that surrounded the procession for security. Despite all this security, at about 12:30 P.M the President’s limousine was hit with bullets causing Kennedy injuries in the head and left shoulder. Though, the limousine accelerated right after the shots to Parkland Memorial Hospital where Connally who had also received a bullet in the back was admitted along with the President, the President’s injuries turned out to be more serious causing his death within half an hour.

John F. Kennedy was declared dead at 1 P.M due to a massive wound to the head. The suspect was arrested within two hours of the killing whose name was Lee Harvey Oswald. Although, throughout the time he was in custody, Oswald insisted he was not involved in the assassination, he was shot dead by Jack Ruby after two days. These conclusions were at first supported by the American public but soon public polls revealed that majority of Americans thought it could have been a conspiracy and it was definitely a plot to cover up the real culprits in the assassination.

Male Domination & Violence Against Women from the Eyes of a Female

Violence against women is a violation of their right to life, security, happiness and freedom. It is an exploitation of a woman’s weakness to defend herself as a consequence of her physical incompetence or her economic dependence on men. It is a bitter reminder for females to forego their delusions of an egalitarian world based on liberty, independence and equality. Men are superior and women will remain inferior. Their attempts at independence will be dissolved by physical or verbal violence if they dare. Violence against females is the men’s assertion that the former’s destiny lies in their subordination to men. 

In our patriarchal society, it is considered a man’s sole prerogative, even fallaciously perceived as a decree of the Divine Law, to exercise unchecked economic and political tyranny over his female subordinates. Such belief systems have perpetuated gender disparities in all spheres of our society where the central relationship between man and woman essentially bases on the male’s exploitation of the female’s physical vulnerabilities. With the growth of globalization in recent decades, even though Pakistan has significantly transformed in political, social, economic and technological spheres, the appalling practice of violence against women has not deterred. As women have ventured out of their homes to acquire education, employment, and other needs, they are exposed to greater forms of oppression and brutality than just domestic violence, stalking, cyber bullying or emotional abuse. They have become prime subjects to human trafficking, workplace violence, sexual assaults, and most importantly, acid attacks and defacing. And for what crime?

The only effective way violence can be precluded from our society is by devising an appropriate public policy that ensures women’s equal empowerment through education, self-defense training and employment as well as through men’s legal accountability. There needs to be a proper law enforcement infrastructure, such as a network of governmental agencies in collaboration with the local police and lawyers in all communities, which undertakes the implementation of such laws at the grassroots level. As part of their compulsory education, all females should be taught techniques of self-defense, not only as a preventive measure for prospective assailants but also to equip women with independent security.

Additionally, through sustained communication via mobile phones and regular meetings, women can report any incidence of blackmailing, domestic or workplace violence to these agencies which will then execute the suitable course of action and penalize the perpetrators. Not just prevention, agencies should also mobilize and educate men through community programs as well as public messages in the local media and the internet to restrain themselves and others from physical and verbal violence against women. These public messages should also inculcate upon both sexes the positive consequences of gender solidarity with mutual understanding, humanity, and peace. Only then can we stop the reiteration of violence and hope for a peaceful society.

Surely, widespread violence against women has been a centuries-old way of men’s unilateral hegemony over women, which requires extensive measures, such as mentioned above, to fully eliminate. Moreover, this gruesome practice must be curbed if Pakistan is to prosper as a peaceful and democratic state whose female citizens fully benefit from its socio-politico-economic privileges.

Is Academia Research A Scam?

Most of us that surf the internet a lot have definitely come across sites that offer freelance writers an opportunity to write and get paid. One thinks what could be better than sitting at home, typing away at the computer and getting a handsome amount of cash within a month? No boss to boss you around 24/7, no stringent routine to follow. Just sit back and take orders at your will. Especially for those who like to blog or write in their journals, this is the best opportunity. Such would be a dream job which would not only expand one's knowledge on various topics but also hone one's writing skills, not to mention the money and that added edge in your CV. What's the harm in giving it a shot? Sadly, most of us have rather bumped into scam sites and not the genuine ones that offer real writing jobs and pay, thus, losing hope in online writing jobs altogether.

I, too, never thought online writing jobs were real. I registered on various such sites as a kid just for the heck of it. Never really getting a positive response, I realized they were all scams. Most of them asked me to pay a small fee for registration on their site and I wondered what kind of a job would it be where you have to pay rather than the other way around. Academia-research was one of those sites that I had signed up for. I saw their ad on some random writing site. They, however, replied to my application giving me an essay topic to write on to pass the test for their membership. Now, I am not promoting this site, I am merely sharing my experience. Doubting the authenticity of this site, I, nevertheless, took the test. What's the harm in writing another nice essay? To my surprise, shortly thereafter, they sent me a confirmation of my membership as a writer on their site.  

Not trusting it still, I casually placed bids on a couple of orders and signed out without a backward glance. After a few days, I started to receive weird emails telling me to finish order #blabla within 5 hours, saying I was late. Haha, I have to say I was surprised. I still thought this was some trick to make me visit their scam site. I didn't pay any attention. I was caught off guard when I got a phone call that night from a really weird number. I googled the country code right after the call and it turned out that the caller was from Russia. I don't know how Academia Research claims to be based in USA when their customer service is in Russia. Oh well. Have to say that was slightly scary!

Anywho, I burnt the midnight oil and quite efficiently wrote a great research proposal on something related to "Education for Dyslexic Students". That is also when I learned about different writing styles such as APA, MLA, Harvard in addition to how to write bibliography according to these different formats. It's always a great feeling when you have successfully completed a task that once looked so hard and I felt ecstatic when my first assignment finished at 3 in the morning while everyone else was sleeping. The funny thing was this wasn't my assignment and I had sacrificed my sleep for someone who was probably snoring in their bed. I laughed to myself, "their loss"! I was happier about completing such a high level assignment on my own more than I was concerned about getting paid, which I doubted anyway. Within a week, I found $20 in my Paypal account though. Haha. 

So, I wrote for them for a year. I wrote many assignments, learned different writing formats, researched and put together dissertations on topics ranging from Disaster Management Research Proposals to weird Ecological Studies. I learned a great deal. It felt glad to be employed somewhere while I was still going to school. Funniest moments were always when I would finally upload the assignment with a note to my client, "Dear customer, I have uploaded the assignment. If there are any changes you want in it, let me know. I have done bla bla bla and also covered the bla bla bla. Kind Regards." Even funnier was that, I, who had hardly finished A'levels then and had no clue about these technical subjects, was being assigned high level Masters dissertations and research proposals for clients who were undergraduate, graduate and probably post graduate students! Height of hilarity. It made me sure I would never take help from Masterpapers.com.  

Okay, before this post gets too long, I will tell you a little about the company Academia-Research itself and  how I got kicked out of their membership. In short, they terminated my account one random day when I had just submitted around 5 projects simultaneously and kind of botched up the bibliography in one while wrote little less than requested for another. I got a list of consecutive warnings in my email the next morning and an email immediately after them stating the termination of my account. Quite honestly, two of the warnings were not even related to my orders! Those were someone else's. I was not to contact them back, they stated, as I was in their block list now. So that was the end of me and Academia-Research.

 I should also tell you why I was not SO let down when they did not pay me for those last 5 orders that I had successfully completed. As much as I liked writing such high level dissertations for my customers on so many different challenging topics, a part of me always pricked my conscience for being party to a cheating business. After all, the customers that ask you to write for them are students who pretend in front of their professors to have written the assignments on their own that in fact you have written for them in exchange for money. I don't regret the assignments I wrote, I regretted helping someone cheat. Most people disagree with me on this. But then again everyone has their own morals. At that time, I thought this was religiously wrong.   

Anyway, Academia-Research, as their terms and conditions state, should have requested me to revise my assignments and fined me rather than terminated my account altogether. That is the only bitter experience I have had with this site unlike many other people who complain about their dishonesty in payment of orders. Now, a little about this site. To my knowledge and experience, Academia-research is definitely not one of those scam sites that ask you for money to register so you can bid on orders and get paid. It is totally free. Although, it is not quite trustworthy where payment for completed orders is concerned as I have heard from some writers and lastly it can terminate your account anytime while it hasn't paid for your completed orders. Also, there are a lot of English grammatical mistakes on the website, which makes me wonder if it is based in the USA as they claim or some non-English speaking country. I have also come to find that they are affiliated with Masterpapers.com though they don't want to reveal that to their writers. Masterpapers is where customers place their orders. They take a lot more money from the customers than they pay the writers but that should not be a problem because they still pay a heavy amount to their writers as compared to many other writing sites I've come across. That makes me think they really loot a customer for an assignment. And for what quality!  

The other bitter experience I had with Academia Research was when I became a content writer for them. I will write another post for that. This was just a personal experience I wanted to share about my freelance writing experience online. If you have any similar experiences or any views whatsoever to share, comment below. Will be appreciated. :)

Adieu. 

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