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.
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. 
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?
