{"id":452,"date":"2010-09-02T10:33:08","date_gmt":"2010-09-02T15:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/?p=452"},"modified":"2010-09-02T10:33:08","modified_gmt":"2010-09-02T15:33:08","slug":"john-f-kennedy-a-summary-of-his-presidency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/452\/john-f-kennedy-a-summary-of-his-presidency\/","title":{"rendered":"John F Kennedy: A Summary of His Presidency"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"147322a129097e1fa44d6732c925fd6d\" data-index=\"1\" style=\"float: none; margin:10px 0 10px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\r\ngoogle_ad_client = \"ca-pub-8134560547846945\";\r\n\/* 468x60 tha *\/\r\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"1487607395\";\r\ngoogle_ad_width = 468;\r\ngoogle_ad_height = 60;\r\n\/\/-->\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\r\nsrc=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<p>JFK officially declared his intent to run for President on  January 2, 1960. He won his party&#8217;s nomination on July 30, 1960 and on  Tuesday November 8, Kennedy defeated Nixon and won the Presidency of the  United States. He was sworn in as President on January 20,1961. The  most remembered part of his inaugural address is his world famous quote  &#8220;Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your  country.&#8221; He was assassinated on November 22, 1963 &#8211; ending his short  lived but world changing Presidency. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Kennedy&#8217;s presidency was very active and addressed many major issues  of the day &#8211; the Cuban Missile Crisis, Latin America and the spread of  Communism, the Peace Corps, Vietnam, Civil Rights, the Space Program and  many other issues. Here are the highlights of some of his more  memorable activities while in office.<\/p>\n<p>Cuba: Cuba was a very troublesome part of the Kennedy Presidency. He  was embroiled in the Bay of Pigs episode and the Cuban Missile Crisis.<\/p>\n<p>The Bay of Pigs was a plan conceived during the Eisenhower  administration to invade Cuba and freed it from the Communist Fidel  Castro. It was orchestrated by the CIA and organized an insurgency built  up of anti-Castro Cubans. The United States help train them and on  April 17, 1961, Kennedy ordered the invasion to proceed. Fifteen Hundred  trained Cuban exiles &#8211; called Brigade 2506 &#8211; invaded Cuba but did so  without U.S. air support, something Kennedy did not allow to occur. The  plan failed and the invaders were captured or killed and Kennedy was  forced to negotiate the release of the captives.<\/p>\n<p>The Cuban Missile Crisis began on October 14, 1962 when American U-2  spy planes took pictures of an intermediate range missile site under  construction in Cuba. The photos were shown to Kennedy on October 16.  Against the wishes of his military &#8211; who wished to conduct an air  assault on the missile sites &#8211; Kennedy enacted a Naval embargo of Cuba  and entered into negotiations with the Soviets to remove the missiles  and dismantle the bases. After a very tense period for the world,  Kennedy and Krushchev reached an agreement to remove the missiles in  Cuba and in exchange the U.S. agreed to never invade Cuba and to remove  U.S. missiles stationed in Turkey.<\/p>\n<p>Vietnam: Kennedy continued Eisenhower&#8217;s lead to use limited military  action to fight Communism in the Asian theater. As part of this action  Kennedy took steps to help the unstable South Vietnamese government by  sending 16,000 military advisers and Special Forces troops to the area.  In spite of the efforts of these and an increasing number of U.S.  personnel, the situation further deteriorated and by July 1963, Vietnam  became a full blown crisis. The administration&#8217;s response to the crisis  was to assist in a change of the leadership of South Vietnam with the  overthrow of President Diem. Unfortunately, the assassination of Kennedy  shortly thereafter left Vietnam a long term crisis for the United  States &#8211; one that may have been resolved very differently had Kennedy  been afforded the time to fully address the challenges.<\/p>\n<p>Nuclear Test Ban Treaty: In August 1963, Kennedy signed a Nuclear  Test Ban treaty to ban the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere,  on top of the ground and in the water. The ban did not apply to  underground testing activities. The United States and the Soviet Union  were the initial signatories to the treaty.<\/p>\n<p>Immigration: Kennedy proposed a major overhaul of the American  immigration policy &#8211; later known as the Immigration and Nationality Act  of 1965. This act shifted emphasis on immigration from European  countries to Latin America and Asia. It also shifted the emphasis on  selection of immigrants towards family reunifications as opposed to  meeting quotas from specific countries.<\/p>\n<p>Space program: Kennedy passionately believed it was the United  State&#8217;s destiny to be the leader in the space race. To this end, Kennedy  approached Nikita Kruschchev in June 1961 and in the autumn of 1963  proposing joint ventures in space exploration. At the first meeting, the  Soviet Union was far ahead of the United States in space technology. On  the second occasion, when America&#8217;s space program was moving ahead of  the Soviet program, Kruschchev saw the advantages of cost-sharing but  Kennedy was assassinated before an agreement could be constructed.<\/p>\n<p>Kennedy first made the goal for landing a man on the Moon when speaking to a Joint Session of Congress on May 25, 1961, saying<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving  the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and  returning him back safely to the earth. No single space project in this  period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the  long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or  expensive to accomplish.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Civil Rights: Kennedy&#8217;s Presidency was plagued by civil rights  issues stemming from the 1954 Supreme Couort ruling that racial  segregation in schools was unconstitutional. He felt the conditions that  existed in the South were very explosive and often seemed disconnected  from the civil rights movement &#8211; fearing that a fully engaged President  would cause great strife with Southern whites and make it very difficult  to pass meaningful civil rights laws.<\/p>\n<p>However, he did intervene in many actions with use of federal  marshals and troops to ensure that people&#8217;s rights were protected &#8211; the  most notable being in 1962 when James Meredith tried to enroll in the  University of Mississippi and on June 11,1963 when Alabama Governor  George Wallace blocked two African American students from entering the  University of Alabama.<\/p>\n<p>It was on that very evening that Kennedy fully jumped into this  issue by delivering his famous civil rights address on national radio  and television. The proposal made in the speech became the Civil Rights  Act of 1964.<\/p>\n<p>Kennedy&#8217;s list of accomplishments are much longer this the summary  offered here. He lived in a truly turbulent and formative time for this  country and was the driving force behind many of the changes that has  shaped our country since his Presidency.<\/p>\n<p>To learn more about JFK, be sure to check out the <a href=\"..\/..\/categories\/Presidents\/jfk\/index.html\">JFK Film and Audio collection<\/a> at The Historical Archive including the powerful documentary <a href=\"..\/..\/products\/a669.html\">Years of Lightning, Day of Drums<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div><iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thehistoricalarchive.com%2Fhappenings%2F452%2Fjohn-f-kennedy-a-summary-of-his-presidency%2F&amp;layout=standard&amp;show_faces=true&amp;width=450&amp;action=like&amp;colorscheme=light\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowTransparency=\"true\" style=\"border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px;margin-top:5px;\"><\/iframe>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>JFK officially declared his intent to run for President on January 2, 1960. He won his party&#8217;s nomination on July 30, 1960 and on Tuesday November 8, Kennedy defeated Nixon and won the Presidency of the United States. He was sworn in as President on January 20,1961. The most remembered part of his inaugural address [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}