FREE ESSAY ON JFK HISTORY

JFK HISTORY

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, was the 35th president of the United States. He was the 
youngest man and the first Roman Catholic ever elected to the presidency. Rich, handsome,

elegant, and articulate, he aroused great admiration at home and abroad. His term of
office as 
president was too short, however, to say what his place in history might have been
Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, on May 29, 1917. His father, Joseph 
P. Kennedy was a businessman who became a multimillionaire, head of the Securities and 
Exchange Commission, and ambassador to Great Britain. Kennedy graduated from Choate 
School in Wallingford, Connecticut. He then briefly attended Princeton University, and
then 
entered Harvard University in 1936. At Harvard he wrote an honors thesis on British
foreign 
policies in the 1930s. It was published in 1940, the year he graduated, under the title
Why 
England Slept. 
In 1941, shortly before the United States entered World War II, Kennedy 
joined the U.S. Navy. He attended a school to learn about the Patrol Torpedo boat.
Kennedy 
was sent to the islands of the South Pacific Ocean where he was in charge of a Torpedo
boat, 
everybody called him Skipper John Kennedy, the boat was called PT 109. The boat had been

in battle and and it was dirty. The engines were in need of repair. J.F.K went to work,
and soon 
the PT 109 was ready for war. J.F.K said, the torpedos would sink any ship on the sea. 
Near an old pier the PT boats waited every day. When night came, they were ready for war.

They drifted out into the ocean and listened for the sound of engines of enemy ships, for
three or 
more nights they did that but they didn't find anything. 
One night in early autumm four enemy ships had been spotted near an island. The PT 
boats waited for dark so they wouldn't be seen. Slowly the PT 109 rode the black waves
and 
every man of the crew listened. The crew could here the sound of an engine off in the
distance 
as they came towards it. Then in an instant the PT 109 was hit by an enemy's torpedo.
With a 
loud crash it split the PT 109 in half. J.F.K was thrown in the water with the rest of
the crew. 
J.F.K called out for his crew some of them answered. J.F.K. climbed up on the half of the
boat 
that was floating and helped people up into the the boat. In the distance they could see
an 
island, but they knew that there were enemy ships on that island. To the south lay the
the Plum 
Pudding Island. They swam to the island looking for help. They finally found some people
that 
took them to meet with eleven men of the PT 109. J.F.K. was sent to a hospital for back 
injuries where he stayed for 3 weeks. During Kennedy's stay in the hospital he worked on
a 
book of biographical studies of American political heroes. The book was published in 1956

under the title Profiles in Courage, it won a Pulitzer Prize for biography in 1957. This
faith in 
activism was to become a hallmark of his presidency.
On September 12, 1953, Kennedy married Jacqueline Bouvier. The couple had three 
children: Caroline Bouvier, John Fitzgerald Junior, and a second son who died at birth in

August 1963.
In 1956, Kennedy tryed unsuccessfully for the Democratic vice-presidential nomination. 
After that, he set his sights on the presidency, especially after his re-election to the
Senate in 
1958. He continued during these years to support a firmly anti-Communist foreign policy.

By 1960, Kennedy was one of many Democratic nominy's for president. He put 
together, however, a well-financed, highly organized campaign and won on the first
ballot. As a 
Northerner and a Roman Catholic, he recognized his lack of strength in the South and
chose 
Sen. Lyndon Baines Johnson of Texas as his running mate. Kennedy also performed well in a

series of television debates with his Republican opponent, Vice-President Richard M.
Nixon. 
Kennedy promised tougher defense policies and better health, housing, and civil rights 
programs. His New Frontier, he pledged, would bring the nation out of its economic 
slump.
Kennedy won the election for presidency, but by a very narrow margin. 
By far the tensest overseas confrontation of the Kennedy years occurred with the 
Cuban Missile Crisis. In October 1962, U.S. intelligence discovered that the Russians
were 
constructing missile sites in Cuba. Resolving to show his mettle, he ordered a naval and
air 
quarantine on shipments of weapons to Cuba. At first armed conflict seemed likely. 
But the Soviets pulled back and promised not to set up the missiles; the United States
then said 
they would not attack Cuba. The Soviets and Americans signed a treaty barring testing of

nuclear weapons. Kennedy however remained as ready as ever to stop Communist advances.
As you can see Kennedy had quite a few accomplishments in his short life. Kennedy 
went to Princeton and Harvard, wrote two award winning books, fought bravely in World War

two, became president of the U.S., developed the Peace Corps and stopped the Cuban
Missile 
Crisis. Kennedy was not perfect, though.
Everyone from Frank Sinatra down has said that Judith Campbell Exner was a beautifal 
women. She was well known by the FBI to be the mistress of Kennedy. It was Sinatra who 
first introduced Exner to Kennedyin 1960. Although JFK is now thought of as having many 
mistresses,Exner was his main one. No biography of JFK since 1977 has not mentioned
Exner. 
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had Exner followed, not for any law enforcement 
purpose, but rather to be able to blackmail JFK, just as Hoover had blackmailed every 
previous President, going back to Warren G. Harding, the president who had first
appointed 
Hoover. Judith Campbell Exner was a friend of Mafia Don Sam Giancana. Exner has been 
treated unfairly by history. She never sought to capitalize off the fact that she was
JFK's 
mistress. She kept this hidden for years. Jackie knew about her, though. Once, when
Jackie 
found a woman's pink panties in her pillow case, she turned to JFK in bed and said, Would

you find out who these belong to, because they are not my size? .
Kennedy was shot and killed as his motorcade rolled through Dallas, Texas November 
22, 1963. He was only 47 years old. Many people still remember excatly what they were 
doing the moment they heard of his death. Many wonder the impact he may have had on this

country of ours if he had continued to serve as President.