The Sixties

JFK

JFK: WWII Hero

• Although plagued with lifelong serious health problems, he became a naval hero in World War II and won election to the House of Representatives in 1946 and to the Senate in 1952 and 1958, aided by his rugged good looks and youthful, energetic campaign style.

1960 Election: JFK v Nixon

JFK [1961-1963]

• John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963.

JFK: “Camelot Legend”

• With his attractive and glamorous wife Jacqueline Bouvier (whom he married in 1953) as First Lady, Kennedy infused the presidency with an aura of excitement and sophistication.

JFK and “Third World”

• While enlarging the nation's nuclear arsenal, he also backed the military's commitment to new forms of warfare suitable for fighting insurgences in what was becoming known as the “Third World.”

JFK and Castro

• JFK escalated the American drive to unseat Fidel Castro's communist regime in Cuba, first through the disastrous 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion (whose plans he had inherited from his predecessor) and then through a series of covert assassination schemes hatched by the Central Intelligence Agency.

JFK v Nikita Khrushchev

JFK and Berlin Wall

• A tense 1961 confrontation with the Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev over Berlin was defused only by the Soviets' construction of the Berlin Wall.

Cuban Missile Crisis

• In the defining international event of his presidency, the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy went to the brink of war to pressure the Soviets to remove nuclear missiles from Cuba.

1963 Test Ban Treaty

• In 1963, Kennedy negotiated a ban on atmospheric nuclear tests and called for a new and more cooperative relationship with Moscow.

Diem Assassinated

• In the Fall of 1963, JFK authorized a coup to topple South Vietnam's unpopular president, Ngo Dinh Diem, who was subsequently murdered by the coup leaders.

JFK and Civil Rights

• Kennedy's principal domestic achievement was one that Attorney General Robert Kennedy (his brother) at first sought to avoid: allying the federal government with the African American drive for civil rights.

JFK Assassination

• Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas, on 22 November 1963.

• In death, he came to symbolize a youthful idealism and optimism that many Americans ultimately concluded had died with him.