John F.

Kennedy, in full John Fitzgerald Kennedy, byname JFK, (born May 29, 1917,
Brookline, Massachusetts, U.S.—died November 22, 1963, Dallas, Texas), 35th president
of the United States (1961–63), who faced a number of foreign crises, especially in Cuba
and Berlin, but managed to secure such achievements as the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty
and the Alliance for Progress. He was assassinated while riding in a motorcade in Dallas.

Early life

Brookline, Massachusetts, birthplace of John F. Kennedy

Kennedy family
John F. Kennedy: boyhood football

John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy: college graduation
The second of nine children, Kennedy was reared in a family that demanded intense
physical and intellectual competition among the siblings—the family’s touch football
games at their Hyannis Port retreat later became legendary—and was schooled in the
religious teachings of the Roman Catholic church and the political precepts of the
Democratic Party. His father, Joseph Patrick Kennedy, had acquired a
multimillion-dollar fortune in banking, bootlegging, shipbuilding, and the film industry,
and as a skilled player of the stock market. His mother, Rose, was the daughter of John
F. (“Honey Fitz”) Fitzgerald, onetime mayor of Boston. They established trust funds for
their children that guaranteed lifelong financial independence. After serving as the head
of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Joseph Kennedy became the U.S.
ambassador to Great Britain, and for six months in 1938 John served as his secretary,
drawing on that experience to write his senior thesis at Harvard University (B.S., 1940)
on Great Britain’s military unpreparedness. He then expanded that thesis into a
best-selling book, Why England Slept (1940).
John F. Kennedy and PT-109
In the fall of 1941 Kennedy joined the U.S. Navy and two years later was sent to the
South Pacific. By the time he was discharged in 1945, his older brother, Joe, who their
father had expected would be the first Kennedy to run for office, had been killed in the
war, and the family’s political standard passed to John, who had planned to pursue an
academic or journalistic career.
John Kennedy himself had barely escaped death in battle. Commanding a patrol
torpedo (PT) boat, he was gravely injured when a Japanese destroyer sank it in the
Solomon Islands. Marooned far behind enemy lines, he led his men back to safety and
was awarded the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps Medal for heroism. He also returned to
active command at his own request. (These events were later depicted in a Hollywood
film, PT 109 [1963], that contributed to the Kennedy mystique.) However, the further
injury to his back, which had bothered him since his teens, never really healed. Despite
operations in 1944, 1954, and 1955, he was in pain for much of the rest of his life. He
also suffered from Addison disease, though this affliction was publicly concealed. “At
least one-half of the days he spent on this earth,” wrote his brother Robert, “were days of
intense physical pain.” (After he became president, Kennedy combated the pain with
injections of amphetamines—then thought to be harmless and used by more than a few
celebrities for their energizing effect. According to some reports, both Kennedy and the
first lady became heavily dependent on these injections through weekly use.) None of
this prevented Kennedy from undertaking a strenuous life in politics. His family
expected him to run for public office and to win