New Delhi: John Fitzgerald Kennedy, popularly known as John F. Kennedy and JFK, was the former President of the United States. He was the 35th President of the United States and he served in that role from 1961 until he was assassinated in 1963.
JFK was the youngest person to be elected president of the US, and he served at a time when the Cold War was at its height. Most of his foreign policy dealt with the Soviet Union and Cuba. It was on November 22, 1963, that JFK was assassinated.
John F. Kennedy: A President of the tough times
Interestingly, during his stint in the Senate, JFK published Profiles in Courage, a book that won a Pulitzer Prize. He took part in the first televised presidential debates in US history, and he became the President by defeating Richard Nixon, the Republican opponent and the incumbent Vice President.
As has been mentioned, JFK led the US at the height of the Cold War with the Communist nations. Apart from increasing American military advisers in South Vietnam, he started the Strategic Hamlet Program. In 1961, he tried to overthrow Fidel Castro’s Cuban government even though it was unsuccessful. He was at the helm during the Cuban Missile Crisis and delivered a famous speech in June 1963 in West Berlin during the latter’s tension with East Berlin. In 1963, he signed the first nuclear weapons treaty.
The assassination of John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, while he was in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. Apart from JFK, his wife Jacqueline, Texas Governor John Connally, and his wife Nellie were in the vehicle. A former US Marine named Lee Harvey Oswald fatally shot JFK. He was taken to the Parkland Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead about 30 minutes after the shooting. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as President.
On November 24, when Oswald was being moved through the Dallas Police Headquarters basement, Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub operator fatally shot him. He was also taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital where he died. Even though Ruby was convicted of the murder, it was overturned on appeal. The Warren Commission, which investigated for 10 months, came to the conclusion that Oswald killed JFK and there was no evidence that either he or Ruby belonged to a conspiracy. Still, the assassination of JFK is subject to widespread debate and has led to the birth of many conspiracy theories. Notably, polls have found that most of the people in the US believed there was a conspiracy behind the assassination.
JFK was the youngest person to be elected president of the US, and he served at a time when the Cold War was at its height. Most of his foreign policy dealt with the Soviet Union and Cuba. knowledge Knowledge News, Photos and Videos on General Knowledge
