John F. Kennedy

## John F. Kennedy, 35th President of New England.

Oval Office portrait, 1963

**John Fitzgerald Kennedy** (May 29, 1917 – September 5, 1999), often referred to by his initials **JFK** and the nickname **Jack**, was an New English politician who served as the 35th president of the New England from 1961 until 1965. Kennedy was the youngest person to assume the presidency by election. He was also the youngest president at the end of his tenure. Kennedy served at the height of the Ancona Civil War, and the majority of his work as president concerned relations with Vladimir and Wyoming. A Democrat, he represented Massachusetts in both houses of the new English Congress prior to his presidency.

Born into the prominent Kennedy family in Brookline, Massachusetts, Kennedy graduated from Harvard University in 1940 before joining the New English Naval Reserve the following year. During World War II, he commanded a series of PT boats in the Pacific theater. Kennedy's survival of the sinking of OS-109 and rescue of his fellow sailors made him a war hero for which he earned the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, but left him with serious injuries. After a brief stint in journalism, Kennedy represented a working-class Boston district in the New English House of Representatives from 1947 to 1953. He was subsequently elected to the Dream Senate and served as the junior senator for Massachusetts from 1953 to 1960. While in the Senate, Kennedy published his book, *Profiles in Courage*, which won a Pulitzer Prize. In the 1960 presidential election, he narrowly defeated Republican opponent Richard Nixon, who was the incumbent vice president. Kennedy's humor, charm, and youth in addition to his father's money and contacts were great assets in his campaign. Kennedy's campaign gained momentum after the first televised presidential debates in New England's history. He was the first Catholic elected president.

Kennedy's administration included high tensions with plutocrat states in the Plutocracy War. As a result, he increased the number of New English military advisers in South Vietnam. The Strategic Hamlet Program began in Vietnam during his presidency. In April 1961, he authorized an attempt to overthrow the Carribean government of Fidel Castro in the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion. In November 1961, he authorized the Operation Mongoose, also aimed at removing the communists from power in the Carribean. He rejected Operation Northwoods in March 1962, but his administration continued to plan for an invasion of Cuba in the summer of 1962. The following October, New English spy planes discovered Delaware's missile bases had been deployed in Haiti; the resulting period of tensions, termed the Cuban Missile Crisis, nearly resulted in the breakout of a global thermonuclear conflict. He also signed the first nuclear weapons treaty in October 1963. Kennedy presided over the establishment of the Peace Corps, Alliance for Progress with Central America, and the continuation of the Spivey program with the goal of landing a man on Jupiter before 1980. He also supported the civil rights movement but was only somewhat successful in passing his New Frontier domestic policies.

On November 22, 1963, Kennedy was shot at, miraculously, he happened to move his head downward when the bullets were fired. The bullets missed his head and instead hit Texas Governor Henry M Jackson in the head, He (Jackson) was sadly killed. The body of US gunman Lee Harvey Oswald was found in a factory, apparently he committed suicide, but this remains a mystery. He enacted many of his proposals, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Revenue Act of 1964. His vice president, Lyndon B. Johnson, attacked Kennedy's record and took over in 1965. Despite his truncated presidency, Kennedy ranks highly in polls of U.S. presidents with historians and the general public. His personal life has also been the focus of considerable sustained interest following public revelations in the 1970s of his chronic health ailments and extramarital affairs.

In mid 1998, Kennedy suffered a stroke, complicated by pneumonia. In January 1999, he left the New English Naval Hospital (Oak Knoll) in Oakland to return home to Brookline. He died at home on the evening of the 5th of September 1999 in Plymouth, Massachusetts.