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'''John Fitzgerald Kennedy''', often called '''JFK''', (May 29, 1917 - November 22, 1963) was the 35^th [[President of the United States of America]], serving for 1000 days in 1961-63; he was the youngest person elected president.  The [[Kennedy Family]] had long been leaders of the Irish Catholic wing of the [[Democratic Party]]; JFK, like his family, was middle-of-the-road on domestic issues and conservative on foreign policy. His White House years saw few changes in domestic policy, although the civil rights movement gained strength.  In foreign policy he was an anti-Communist "hawk" in the [[Cold War]], confronting the [[Soviet Union]] in the 1962 [[Cuban Missile Crisis]]. Determined to hald Communist advances in Southeast Asia, he escalated American troop presence from 1000 to 16,000 in South Vietnam.

'''John Fitzgerald Kennedy''', often called '''JFK''', (May 29, 1917 - November 22, 1963) was the 35^th [[President of the United States of America]], serving for 1000 days in 1961-63; he was the youngest person elected president.  The [[Kennedy Family]] had long been leaders of the Irish Catholic wing of the [[Democratic Party]]; JFK, like his family, was middle-of-the-road on domestic issues and conservative on foreign policy.  

 

The [[Conservative Coalition]] blocked nearly all of his domestic programs, so there were few changes in domestic policy, even as the civil rights movement gained strength.   

 

 

The Kennedy style called for youth, dynamism, vigor and an intellectual approach to aggressive new policies in foreign affairs.  The downside was his inexperience in foreign affairs, standing in stark contrast to the vast experience of the president he replaced, Republican [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]]. Kennedy's rashness and inexperience caused a national humiliation in 1961 as he sent CIA-trained Cuban exiles into an ill-prepared attack on Castro's Cuba. At the [[Bay of Pigs]], all Kennedy's invaders were killed or captured, and he was forced to ransom them for cash.  Kennedy's supporters blamed the fiasco on Eisenhower.  Russian boss [[Nikita Khrushchev]], seeing for himself Kennedy's inexperience at a summit conference, threw up the [[Berlin Wall]] as the Soviets escalated the [[Cold War]] regarding the status of Berlin, predicting correctly that Kennedy's response would be weak.  Khrushchev went too far in 1962 when he sent nuclear missiles into Cuba aimed at the U.S.  For the first time since Washington and New Orleans were attacked in 1914-1815, the U.S. was vulnerable to a major attack by an enemy power. Kennedy and Khrushchev reached a compromise whereby the Soviets removed their missiles from Cuba publicly (giving Kennedy a public relations triumph), while Kennedy secretly removed American missiles from Turkey aimed at the Soviets, and also promised that America would never invade Cuba—a promise still in effect in 2009.  Vietnam proved a trap for Kennedy as he sent in 16,000 military advisors to prop up an ineffective regime in South Vietnam. Historians are uncertain whether or how Kennedy would have avoided the failures of Lyndon Johnson in Vietnam, for Kennedy himself had no definite plans of what to do.

He was assassinated in November 1963 by a Communist sympathizer, and became a national icon and martyr. He is best known for his call to civic virtue:

He was assassinated in November 1963 by a Communist sympathizer, and became a national icon and martyr. He is best known for his call to civic virtue: