John F. Kennedy biography

John F. Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963) politician and US president. His birth occurred in Brooklyn, Massachusetts. The story of his family, the Kennedys, dates back to 1848 when an Irishman named Patrick Kennedy arrived in the promising land of the United States and established himself as a cooper. One of his grandchildren, Joseph Patrick Kennedy, possessed a visionary mind, taking over the patrimony of his grandfather and his father for more than 60 years and built with him one of the greatest fortunes in North America. His brother Joseph was married to Rose, an enterprising young daughter of John Fitzgerald, former mayor of Boston, engaged in housing management, stock market speculation, and the film industry. In addition, they enjoyed some political favors.

The ability of Joseph and his brothers had a lot to do with the teaching given by his father. He fostered in all of them a firm discipline and a healthy spirit of competence, inculcating in them the desire for perfection.

John F. Kennedy felt a disguised sense of inferiority towards Joseph, the second was a muscular young man, intelligent, a good speaker and with much charisma; John, by contrast, was rather weak, fearful and introverted. While studying at the Canterbury School in Connecticut and then at Harvard University, Joseph’s shadow was continually on John’s conscience. While his brother reaped academic victories in Great Britain, John could not continue his studies for the contagion of hepatitis, interrupted his studies for a long time. Despite his efforts, he never achieved a praiseworthy performance. Except for economics and political science subjects.

“Humanity must put an end to war, or war will put an end to humanity.” John F. Kennedy

In 1932, during the political campaign of Franklin D. Roosevelt, his father decided to try his luck in the political career. He managed to be president of the merchant marine federal commission, and later, he was appointed the ambassador to Great Britain. His two eldest sons accompanied him to Europe as assistants and John was able to travel to the USSR, Turkey, Poland, South America and other regions, with the task of giving him reports on the political situation of those countries and the possible alliances that he could generate.

It was there when John became seriously interested in politics. Back in the United States, motivated resumed his studies and achieved brilliant grades. He was interested in the different conflicts that would come together in the Second World War. From all these notes emerged the subject of his thesis, Why England slept, and that earned him a magna cum laude graduation. Then he turned his thesis into a book and sold almost eighty thousand copies.

His brother Joseph died on August 12, 1944, in a plane crash during a military operation against a German base. As a result, his father expressed to John the idea of ​​occupying the position of his late brother. So, John had to learn to master his shyness and his withdrawal to become a professional politician. Tighten the hands of strangers, smile before reporters and always have in mind a more or less subtle phrase. His passive figure soon gained adherents within the Democratic Party and among the voters, fascinated by his youth and by his image as a brilliant and humble university student. After an exhaustive campaign with the economic and doctrinal support of his family, John Kennedy managed to become in 1946 a deputy of the Democratic Party for Boston in the House of Representatives.

At one of those banquets, he invited the reporter of French origin who worked in a newspaper in Washington and had met a year earlier, his name: Jacqueline Lee Bouvier. She soon fell in love with the would-be senator and his family. Later the wedding was celebrated in Boston the 12 of September of 1953; 1,200 guests attended, waiting to see one of the most famous unions in the United States.

His political life had to be paused by an ailment in the spine, he was operated on a delicate procedure in order to unite his misplaced vertebrae. After the operation, he retired to Hyannis Port and devoted his time to writing a new book, Profiles of Courage. The work contained eight portraits of nineteenth-century American political figures and was published a year later with success. In 1957 he would obtain for this work the Pulitzer Prize. He returned to public life ready to present his candidacy for the vice presidency of the Democratic Party. However, he did not count on success in the results.

The Democrats continued to believe in John F. Kennedy, they saw him as the ideal candidate for the presidential elections of 1960. The focus of his election campaign revolved around the idea of ​​the birth of a new era for America, the so-called “New Frontier” which recalled the pioneering spirit of The conquest of the west. Only with his presence, John F. Kennedy began selling hopes of renewal to a country tired of a management paralyzed since the Roosevelt New Deal. With his motto “Kennedy is in the change” he won the primary elections, by a very little margin, on November 8 he won the victory over Richard Nixon.

“Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names” John F. Kennedy

One of his first measures was to exhort the freedom of the African-American leader Martin Luther King

, who was serving a sentence of forced labor in Georgia. Later, despite the rejection of his bill of civil rights in Congress, his initiatives left their mark among the African-American population, who came to compare it with the legendary President Abraham Lincoln. His liberal program was based on in the economic recovery, the improvement of the administration, the transformation of the means of defense and the incorporation of an alliance for the development of the American continent. This last objective was shaped by the formation of a common front with the countries of Central and South America, the so-called Alliance for Progress. Generated in the presidency federal aid to the education system, injected money to culture and the arts and, above all, the relaunching of the economy, which led to a marked growth in consumption and private investment.

Although the image of the president was delicate and soft, it showed its mettle in the manifesto that demanded from the Soviet leader the dismantling of those bases; Despite threats of war, Kennedy remained firm and Khrushchev finally gave in. In spite of everything, later a definitive understanding between the two superpowers would take place.

On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy and his wife carried out a campaign in Dallas with a view to their re-election. When he roamed his streets in an open car, he was shot and left seriously injured. Shortly after he died in the hospital. The author of the assassination was Lee Harvey Oswald, who fired a rifle with a telescopic sight. Since then they have been identified as guilty from the Mafia to the racist Ku Klux Klan society. The premature death of the president helped to give his figure a mythical character.