The presidency of John F. Kennedy began at noon EST on January 20, 1961, when Kennedy was inaugurated as the 35th President of the United States, and ended on November 22, 1963, upon his assassination, a span of 1,036 days. A Democrat from Massachusetts, he took office following the 1960 presidential election, in which he narrowly defeated Richard Nixon, the then–incumbent Vice President. He was succeeded by Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson. Kennedy, who represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate from 1953 to 1960, had finished second on the vice presidential ballot of the 1956 Democratic National Convention. After Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower defeated Adlai Stevenson II in the 1956 presidential election, Kennedy began to prepare a bid for the presidency in the 1960 election. In January 1960, Kennedy formally announced his candidacy in that year's presidential election. Kennedy spent the eight weeks following his election choosing his cabinet, staff and top officials. He retained J. Edgar Hoover as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Allen Dulles as Director of Central Intelligence.
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