Chapter 2

Enter JFK: A New Era

In This Chapter

Following JFK from the cradle to the White House

Beginning the presidency by bringing hope to the nation

Continuing the cold war

Ending the Kennedy era

In his 1961 inaugural address, President John F. Kennedy called upon a new generation of Americans to step forward and play their part in creating America’s future, stating, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” Many young Americans who were attracted to Kennedy’s youth and vigor answered his call.

Following eight years of the steady though unexciting Dwight Eisenhower administration, Kennedy’s election set a new tone. He promised to get America moving again through vigorous governmental activism both at home and abroad. In his inaugural address, Kennedy discussed his vision for American activism worldwide, declaring, “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” Thus the 1960s began with high expectations, or as one British journalist put it, “the politics of expectation.”

Though Kennedy cultivated new expectations, many of the social problems that arose in the sixties had been developing under the surface for decades. Indeed, though many historians talk of the new era of the 1960s, it must be seen, to some extent, as a reaction to the 1950s cold war fight against the Soviet Union and the spread of Communism. Some of the most controversial and tense moments of the sixties arose in part because of ongoing inequities at home and because of entrenched assumptions of cold war ideology that defined the thinking of the age. Kennedy’s call for activism helped bring social problems to the surface and initiated a decade of social turbulence.

Kennedy’s youth and vigor, the brutality of his assassination, and a prevailing sense by Americans that they were robbed of a great leader who was remolding America into a revitalized nation have all contributed to the incredible Kennedy mystique. The eternal question “What if?” lingers on regarding his life, and it’s difficult to get a true assessment of America’s martyred president’s accomplishments. Though Kennedy’s record is incomplete, he did handle some tremendous challenges. Yet his true legacy is the spirit of hope that he brought forth in America, which is nearly impossible to measure. John Kennedy will be forever young in the memories and imaginations of the American people.

Inspiring America: Kennedy and the Power of Rhetoric

In his acceptance speech at the 1960 Democratic National Convention, John F. Kennedy (see Figure 2-1) demonstrated his rhetorical power when he stated, “We stand today on the edge of a new frontier — the frontier of unknown opportunities and perils — a frontier of unfulfilled hopes and threats.” As an avid fan of American history, Kennedy understood the special appeal that the idea of the frontier had always held for Americans. It suggested excitement, adventure, opportunity, and change, all of which held the promise of new hope and growth. One of Kennedy’s greatest strengths was his ability to move people to action through rhetoric. The nation, having settled into the patterns of the postwar era following the end of World War II in 1945, was ready for a change.

Figure 2-1: President John F. Kennedy.

Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Fulfilling the Kennedy family heritage: Young, rich, and Catholic

Born on May 29, 1917, and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy had a privileged childhood as the second son of one of the richest men in America, Joseph P. Kennedy. He attended the finest private schools and studied briefly at Princeton before moving on to Harvard University. Kennedy’s grandfather had been the mayor of Boston, and his father had served in President Franklin Roosevelt’s cabinet and later became the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain. Though Joseph Kennedy had hopes that his oldest son, Joseph Kennedy Jr., would fulfill the family heritage in politics, his son was killed during a World War II bombing mission in 1944. Thus John F. Kennedy, urged by his powerful father, became destined for a career in politics.

During World War II, Kennedy tried to join the army but was rejected because of a chronic back problem. Undaunted, Kennedy then joined the navy and served as the commander of a torpedo gunboat. During the war, Kennedy distinguished himself in combat and became a hero by rescuing a wounded sailor after a Japanese destroyer rammed his PT boat. His record as a war hero would serve him well in his future political life.

Kennedy entered politics shortly after World War II ended, following a family history of political service in the Democratic Party. Running on his record as a war hero, Kennedy easily beat his Republican rival in 1946 and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives at the age of 29. As a Congressman, Kennedy was reelected in 1948 and again in 1950. In 1952 Kennedy ran for the U.S. Senate against a powerful Republican incumbent named Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. Under his father’s guidance, Kennedy built up his reputation with a well-financed and engineered public relations campaign and ultimately beat Lodge by a very narrow margin.

As a senator, Kennedy continued to hone his political savvy and rhetorical skills. But he suffered a major setback when he became hospitalized with further back troubles in 1954. Suffering from Addison’s disease, Kennedy spent the next two years in and out of the hospital. While spending so much time in bed, Kennedy had his aide, Theodore Sorenson, ghostwrite his famous book, Profiles in Courage, which expressed his admiration for politicians who risked their careers to pursue ethical goals. The book earned Kennedy the Pulitzer Prize and national acclaim.

As Kennedy struggled with his health problems, he also found time to think deeply on his political beliefs, coming up with the central ideas that would become his political platform in the 1960 presidential race. Returning to the Senate after his back improved, Kennedy began to shape his political destiny by calling for civil rights legislation, improved funding for education, healthcare for the elderly, urban renewal, a stronger military, a space program, and a plan to contain the spread of Communism worldwide. In 1957 Kennedy became a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where he supported the further development of U.S. nuclear missile technology and economic aid to third-world countries as a means of stopping the spread of Communism. This early experience with foreign policy shaped his views on the subject that he later dealt with as president.

Joining the 1960 presidential race

When Kennedy entered the presidential race in 1958, he faced several problems. His opponent, Eisenhower’s vice president, Richard M. Nixon, was much more well known and had enjoyed a rapid rise to power in the Republican Party. Though Kennedy had entered politics in 1946, the same year as Nixon, Nixon was much more successful in gaining his party’s attention because of his aggressive tactics. Solidly probusiness and anti-Communist, Nixon had built a powerful reputation as a fierce and sometimes savage opponent (see Chapter 4 for more on his take-no-prisoner approach to politics). His aggressive style served him well, and by 1950 Nixon was one of the most requested Republican speakers in the country. His reward was to be selected as Dwight D. Eisenhower’s vice presidential candidate in 1952.

Thus, by 1960, Nixon was older, more experienced, and more well known than Kennedy. Further, serving as Eisenhower’s vice president for eight years, he campaigned as Eisenhower’s heir who would continue the policies of the popular president. Yet Eisenhower himself wasn’t very supportive of Nixon’s presidential aspirations.

When asked by the press which major policy decisions Nixon had helped create during his tenure as vice president, Eisenhower sarcastically retorted, “If you give me a week, I might think of one.”

Kennedy’s other challenges were that he was young and Catholic. But he successfully turned his age into a powerful asset by practicing “new politics,” emphasizing his style, personality, and youthful charisma over issues of policy. And recognizing that some Americans feared that a Catholic president could result in the pope ruling the country, Kennedy handled concerns about his faith with forceful candor. Speaking before the Houston Ministerial Association in 1960, Kennedy directly addressed the role of his faith as president, telling the Protestant crowd that he believed that the separation of church and state in America was absolute and that “no Catholic prelate would tell the president — should he be a Catholic — how to act and no Protestant minister should tell his parishioners for whom to vote.”

The Kennedy-Nixon debates: Politics in the television age

Kennedy benefited from Richard Nixon’s decision to debate with him on television. Though many have criticized Nixon for agreeing to appear with his less prominent opponent, the technology was new, and an opportunity to reach many more people was very enticing. Some 70 million Americans watched the first-ever televised debate, and many were moved by what they saw.

Nixon, who had just been released from the hospital, still suffered from a bad knee infection and thus looked sickly. He perspired heavily under the hot studio lights; his skin looked pale and his face unshaven, showing his perpetual five o’clock shadow. By contrast, Kennedy looked vigorous, calm, cool, and collected as he gave crisp answers to the questions. Kennedy won the debate, and as polls showed, his popularity rose immediately afterward. The power of image was demonstrated as most people who watched TV concluded that Kennedy had won, but most of those who had listened to the debate on the radio concluded it was a victory for Nixon.

The narrowest of victories

During the campaign, Kennedy recognized that his support for civil rights would cost him votes in the South, where racial discrimination was the norm, and he sought to offset the loss by wooing black voters. Thus, when Martin Luther King Jr. and 50 other protestors were arrested in Atlanta for trespassing at an all-white restaurant, Kennedy intervened on King’s behalf by calling the judge in the case and persuading him to release King. Kennedy also chose his vice president well, selecting Lyndon B. Johnson from Texas, who had a reputation for his ability to get legislation passed in Congress.

When the election was complete, Kennedy had edged out Nixon by only 118,574 votes out of the 68 million votes cast. Though the electoral vote was a clear win for Kennedy, 303 to 219, this margin didn’t show just how close the vote had been in many states. The popular vote was 49.7 percent for Kennedy to 49.6 percent for Nixon. Kennedy narrowly won by pulling together a coalition of diverse segments of the Democratic Party.

Exploring Camelot

At the age of 43, Kennedy was the youngest person ever elected president. The inaugural ceremonies set the tone for his presidency, with a theme of youthful enthusiasm and vigorous promise. Kennedy was handsome and charismatic, and his wife, Jackie, was glamorous and beautiful. Together they would define the Kennedy style. Kennedy’s Harvard education and his robust ambition and enthusiasm made many people feel that the era was exciting and new. Though he was plagued with health problems, he concealed them from the public. Kennedy seemed strong and powerful, creating a feeling of optimism that had been sorely missed due to the fears of the cold war world.

Kennedy’s youth, vigor, and style created a feeling that almost anything was possible. As president he was eager to begin addressing the problems of the country. The young fresh faces that Kennedy chose for his cabinet and advisors suggested a real change from Eisenhower’s more conservative group of wise old men. Kennedy created a “politics of optimism” by calling on young Americans to step up to the challenge of leadership in America. He found a focus for his domestic policies in his theme of the New Frontier, which suggested opportunity and potential. His New Frontier program promised to “get America moving again” by stimulating economic growth through the manipulation of fiscal policy.

Filling the White House with glamour

The Kennedys brought a new vitality to the White House. (Figure 2-2 shows the glamour couple.) Youthful, idealistic, attractive, and with a young family (siblings John Jr. and Caroline), they were easy for many Americans to relate to. Eisenhower, Truman, and Roosevelt seemed old by comparison, often coming across as fatherly or grandfatherly in demeanor. Yet Kennedy and his wife seemed to many people like members of their own generation, creating the impression that when he spoke of the nation and said “we,” all Americans were part of that “we.”

The origins of the Camelot connection

The Kennedy years have often been referred to as “the years of Camelot.” Though this yearning for a return to some golden era has been deeply idealized because of Kennedy’s assassination, the idea has a connection to his life. The popular Broadway musical Camelot opened on December 3, 1960, and became an immediate success. Its popularity was in part due to the stars, such as Julie Andrews, Richard Burton, and Robert Goulet. Frederick Loewe composed the music, and Alan Jay Lerner, a Harvard classmate and friend of Kennedy, wrote the lyrics and book. According to Jackie, the title tune, Camelot, was a favorite of the president, and they had regarded it as an unofficial theme of his administration. In an interview with Life magazine a few days after Kennedy’s assassination, Jackie stated, “I’m so ashamed of myself — all I keep thinking of is this line from a musical comedy.” According to Jackie, President Kennedy had loved the tale of the Knights of the Round Table from early childhood and favored an idealistic view of history replete with heroes. Linking JFK with Camelot, Jackie Kennedy remarked, “There’ll be great presidents again . . . but there’ll never be another Camelot.”

Figure 2-2: Kennedy style at Buckingham Palace: Prince Philip, Jackie Kennedy, Queen Elizabeth, and President Kennedy.

©Bettmann/CORBIS

The fact that the Kennedy clan had been poor immigrants only three generations before gave hope to many blue-collar workers and immigrants. The Kennedys embodied the American dream and made many feel that much was possible. When Jackie gave an interview, her answers to questions seemed like responses that many young Americans might give, instead of coming across as motherly or condescending. Yet Kennedy’s professional manner and his self-confidence also appealed to many in the older generation. The sense of glamour grew as the first couple threw glittering social parties attended by Nobel Prize winners, artists, musicians, intellectuals, and movie stars. The Kennedys filled the White House with a sense of energy, exuberance, and excitement.

Recruiting Kennedy’s “whiz kids”

Another aspect that set the Kennedy administration apart was his selection of cabinet members and advisors. Kennedy surrounded himself with people of talent. He wanted the best and brightest in his administration, people who would create a tough, pragmatic, thoughtful, and vigorous government that could take on any problems. Accordingly, his staff comprised 15 Rhodes Scholars and several famous authors. When picking his national security people, Kennedy chose a team of the best minds around: a proud, tough-minded bunch of self-proclaimed “hard-nosed realists” and World War II veterans. He recruited both people he knew personally and those he learned about through their successes:

Secretary of State Dean Rusk: Rusk had distinguished himself in the State Department.

Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara: McNamara was the first president of the Ford Motor Company who wasn’t a member of the Ford family. He was one of the new, young whiz kids who embraced the latest in technology.

Attorney General Robert Kennedy: The only controversial appointment that Kennedy made was appointing his own brother, Robert, to be the attorney general, because it was the first time a president had appointed a brother to his cabinet.

Secretary of the Treasury C. Douglas Dillon: A Republican banker, Dillon was appointed secretary of the Treasury in a move designed to reassure conservative business owners.

Press Secretary Pierre Salinger: Salinger had established his career in journalism, coming to the attention of Robert Kennedy after his series of articles on Jimmy Hoffa.

National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy: Bundy was a Harvard political-science professor. His brother, William Bundy, also served as a Kennedy advisor and was one of the architects of the Vietnam War.

White House Historian and Advisor Arthur Schlesinger Jr.: This famed Pulitzer Prize–winning historian became one of Kennedy’s speechwriters and advisors.

Undersecretary of State George Ball: Ball was one of the more experienced men on the Kennedy team. His past work at the Farm Credit Administration, the Treasury Department, the Land Lease Administration, and the World War II Strategic Bombing Survey all prepped him for his role as U.S. Undersecretary of State.

Pushing New Frontier domestic policies

The expansive vision of leadership and service that Kennedy brought to the White House ran into difficulty at home. The lack of a clear mandate from his election hampered Kennedy from the start. He couldn’t rally enough public support for the domestic agenda of his New Frontier program. A conservative alliance of southern Democrats and Republicans killed much of his legislation regarding societal reform. This conservative coalition blocked Kennedy’s efforts to increase federal aid for education, to create Medicare to provide health insurance for the elderly, and to create a department of urban affairs. The Senate crushed his initiatives on unemployed youth, migrant workers, and mass transit systems.

Meeting with mixed results

In the spring of 1962, U.S. steel firms implemented major price increases after the steel unions accepted modest pay raises. Angered over the predicted effects of such a move in a society already suffering from economic recession, Kennedy lashed out publicly against the steel firms, stating that their decisions promoted private power and profit over the needs of the public. The president pressed for congressional intervention, ultimately forcing the steel mills to make some concessions on prices. This soured relations between Kennedy and big business, because of business resentments over government interference. In May after the crisis ended, the stock market plunged in the greatest drop since the Depression. Kennedy received the blame for the decline.

Kennedy did, however, score a few victories in Congress. He succeeded in passing a modest increase in the minimum wage. His Housing Act also passed, providing about $5 billion over four years for public housing, urban renewal projects, and community development. Congress passed an increase in Social Security benefits, funds for sewage treatment plants, and loans to redevelop distressed areas. Kennedy’s greatest legislative victory was the passing of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which led to tariff reductions averaging 35 percent between the U.S. and the European Common Market.

Funding space travel

One program that won congressional support was a vast increase in spending for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Following the Soviet Union’s success with Sputnik I, the world’s first satellite, in 1957, the U.S. had created the Mercury space program. With the space race on, American popular interest rose as well. Though the Russians launched the first man into space, Yuri Gagarin in April 1961, the U.S. matched the feat one month later when Alan Shepard became the first American in space. Then, beating the Soviets to the next milestone, U.S. astronaut John Glenn manned the first space mission to orbit Earth in February 1962. (Check out Glenn and Kennedy in Figure 2-3.) American interest in space reached new heights when Kennedy proposed that the nation challenge itself to land a man on the moon within the decade. Though Kennedy never lived to see it, NASA accomplished just that in 1969 (see Chapter 4).

Figure 2-3: President Kennedy with astronaut John Glenn in Cocoa Beach, Florida.

Courtesy of NASA

Expanding the boundaries of the frontier

Kennedy’s New Frontier extended beyond his domestic policies to include a variety of international outreach efforts. International aid and nation-building programs also fulfilled the need to continue improving the United States’ international stature as the leading capitalist nation. The focus was to promote capitalism and keep struggling nations from falling under the influence of the Soviet Union, which also supplied aid for the same reasons.

Spearheading the Peace Corps

One of the first opportunities for Americans to participate in creating this extended New Frontier was the Peace Corps. Created in 1961 and headed by Kennedy’s brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver, the Peace Corps embodied the call to public service that Kennedy had announced in his inaugural address. Thousands of men and women, most with college educations, eagerly went to third-world nations to help build water systems, roads and bridges, hospitals, and schools, all designed to spread democracy and ensure that troubled nations remained within the American camp and away from Communist influence. As such, this group was an important tool in the cold war struggle.

Cutting taxes with Keynesian economics

As Kennedy sought a solution to the economic recession started under Eisenhower, he began to shift his stance on a balanced budget. Though formerly committed to a balanced budget, Kennedy began to listen to his more liberal advisors, who suggested a Keynesian approach to economic growth.

John Maynard Keynes was one of the most important figures in the history of economics. His basic idea was simple and straightforward. In order to keep up the employment rate to protect and promote consumer demand, a government should undertake deficit spending. Though it appeared counterintuitive to spend money that it didn’t have, the reality was that by spending, the government could stimulate growth and avoid the dangerous cycle of less investment, leading to more layoffs, which led to even less demand and further layoffs. The growth created by the spending would generate greater tax revenues that could be used to pay off the debt created by the deficit spending. Thus the idea is that a government could spend its way out of a depression.

Over the summer of 1962 Kennedy’s advisors finally convinced him to give this theory a try. Kennedy proposed a $13.5 billion cut in corporate taxes over a three-year period. Ironically, conservatives refused to accept the basic theory that budget cuts would stimulate growth. Foes of the plan kept it within the committee, where it died before coming to a vote by the full Congress.

Providing aid to developing countries

As a part of the same thrust by which he created the Peace Corps, Kennedy pushed for economic aid to developing countries. The State Department’s Agency for International Development distributed foreign aid to third-world nations, including surplus agricultural products distributed through the Food for Peace program. In Latin America, the Alliance for Progress provided money for food, medicine, education, and housing. America was reaching out to help shape the world in the ways Americans thought it should develop.

Supporting the civil rights movement

Some of the most important developments of the 1960s occurred in civil rights. Pressure for change regarding segregation laws had mounted in the 15 years following the end of World War II. When Kennedy became president, his margin of victory was so slim that he was reluctant to alienate any segment of the Democratic Party. Fearing a loss of support among southern Democrats, Kennedy took a cautious approach to the growing civil rights movement. Yet over time, as it became clear that the civil rights movement held widespread support in the black community, Kennedy began to shift his views and undertook active support of the movement.

Acknowledging statewide protests

The civil rights movement began to shift into high gear in 1960 when four black college students in Greensboro, North Carolina, staged the first sit-in at a Woolworth’s lunch counter (see Chapter 6). Because many restaurants refused to serve blacks, young men and women undertook sit-ins as peaceful protest against the discrimination. Young people simply sat down at lunch counters and waited for service that never came. It was a move to attain the moral high ground while generating sympathy for the cause. When the story hit the press, it motivated others to join similar protests. Within a week, six more towns in North Carolina had sit-ins, and within two months, sit-in demonstrations had spread to 54 cities in 9 states.

In 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. organized a series of nonviolent protests in Birmingham, Alabama. Television, which had made such an impact in the Nixon-Kennedy debates (see that section earlier in this chapter), again made a difference as televised coverage of the protests showed reasonable, compliant young blacks being attacked by police dogs, shocked with cattle prods, sprayed with fire hoses, and hit with tear gas. The American public was uncomfortable with images that affected them in ways that print media couldn’t match. Kennedy himself, prodded by his brother Robert, concluded that simply enforcing the existing statutes wasn’t enough; new legislation was needed to address the situation.

In 1963 Kennedy told the nation that racial discrimination “has no place in American life or law.” Kennedy threw his support behind a civil rights bill aimed at ending segregation in schools and discrimination at public facilities. Southern Democrats quickly blocked the bill from coming to a vote.

Watching the movement sweep the nation

Kennedy took the issue to the American public on June 11, 1963, when he stated: “If an American, because his skin is black, cannot enjoy the full and free life which all of us want, then who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place? Who among us would be content with the counsels of patience and delay?” Kennedy empowered the Justice Department, which his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy led, to implement desegregation with federal authority. Many blacks hailed Kennedy’s speech as a “second Emancipation Proclamation.”

The same night of Kennedy’s historic speech, the president of the Mississippi chapter of the NAACP, Medgar Evers, was gunned down. Evers’s assassination accelerated the already powerful civil rights movement onto the national stage. On August 28, 1963, 250,000 black and white demonstrators met for a rally at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Here, Martin Luther King Jr. gave his most famous and memorable “I have a dream” speech to the gathered crowd. Television coverage of the event displayed the power and eloquence of King’s speech. Yet of even greater impact was the image of blacks and whites together at the protest, showing the nation that the issue was a moral crusade and not a split between white and black Americans. (We cover all the key events of 1963 in detail in Chapter 6.)

In September 1963, a Baptist church in Birmingham was bombed on a Sunday morning, instantly killing four little girls and injuring numerous others. The stalled investigation and the continued racial violence served to push the civil rights movement forward, yet Kennedy wouldn’t live to see it to fruition, as he was assassinated only two months after the Birmingham bombing.

Fighting in the Cold War

Though his New Frontier platform contained a long list of domestic social reforms, Kennedy was also deeply interested in foreign affairs. Throughout the 1960s the cold war loomed ominously in the background; its presence shaped the options and decisions of America’s leaders. The fear of a cataclysmic nuclear war was ever present and dominated thinking in regard to foreign policy. Though the United States and the Soviet Union were locked in a dangerous competition over which government system should be allowed to shape the world, direct confrontation was too frightening to consider. Thus the cold war was fought through a long series of proxy wars, in which the U.S. backed one side and the Soviets backed the other, yet the two superpowers never fought each other directly.

The Green Beret

The distinctive hat worn by the U.S. Army Special Forces units was originally designed by Special Forces Major Herbert Brucker in 1953. Though the army refused to authorize its use, Special Forces soldiers began to use the distinctive “green beanie” for field exercises. When President Kennedy visited Fort Bragg in October 1961, he approved of the special headgear, noting that the Special Forces had a unique mission within the military and thus it was appropriate for them to have a special symbol to distinguish them from the rest of the military. The army acquiesced, and the Green Beret has become the recognized symbol for and common name of the U.S. Special Forces Units.

Proxy wars of the cold war era included wars in Korea, Vietnam, Angola, Nicaragua, and Afghanistan. Often the U.S. or the U.S.S.R. would fight directly in the conflict, yet never against the other superpower. For example, the U.S. fought in Vietnam, but the North Vietnamese received arms, supplies, and logistical assistance from the U.S.S.R. The opposite was true in the war in Afghanistan in the 1980s, when the Soviets sent troops into Afghanistan and the U.S. provided arms, supplies, and logistical support to the Afghani mujahedin.

The need to stand up to the Soviets without directly fighting them with troops created a fierce arms race. During the 1960 campaign, Kennedy campaigned on the needs to strengthen the U.S. military and to address the missile gap — the idea that the U.S. was falling behind the Soviet Union in the race to create a nuclear arsenal. Yet after Kennedy was elected, he found the missile gap to be a myth.

Kennedy believed in the cold war policy of containment as a means to stop the spread of Communism. In contrast to Eisenhower’s “New Look” policy, which emphasized using nuclear weapons at the expense of conventional weapons, Kennedy’s defense strategy was based on his concept of flexible response, which focused on deterring all wars, conventional and nuclear. As part of this new strategy, Kennedy immediately began making large budget requests for expanding the conventional military forces. The flexible response strategy was designed to deter any direct attacks by the Soviet Union. To prepare for the complications inherent in the wars of national liberation that were arising in some third-world countries, Kennedy chose the military doctrine of counterinsurgency, which focused on training foreign governments to win local guerrilla wars. The U.S. Special Forces, often called the Green Berets, were formed based upon this strategy and began creating and testing counterinsurgency techniques.

Attempting to overthrow Castro: The Bay of Pigs fiasco

When Kennedy took office, he also discovered that the CIA was training Cuban émigrés to invade Cuba as part of ongoing operations designed to dislodge Fidel Castro as leader of Cuba (check out Castro in Figure 2-4). In 1960, during the last year of the Eisenhower administration, the CIA actively worked to find a way to undermine Castro, who had taken control of Cuba in 1959 and launched a campaign against U.S. control in Cuba and influence in Latin America. The charismatic leader promised Cubans he would break their economic dependency on the U.S. and reduce American influence in Cuba overall by restructuring Cuba both economically and politically as a Communist nation, which would better meet the needs of the Cuban people. As economic relations soured in 1960, Castro increasingly accepted help from the Soviet Union.

Figure 2-4: Fidel Castro.

©Roger-Viollet/Topham/The Image Works

Plotting Castro’s demise: Let me count the ways

In 1960, the CIA under Eisenhower began to make plans to discredit or assassinate Castro. In 1960 alone, records show that the CIA concocted a variety of plans, ranging from the absurd to the deadly. A few examples include

Spraying Castro’s broadcast studio with a chemical that would produce similar effects to having taken LSD

Coating his shoes with thallium salt, a powerful depilatory that would cause his hair and beard to fall out

Treating a box of Castro’s favorite cigars with the deadly botulinum toxin

Attempting to hire Cuban underworld assassins

Developing poison pills designed to dissolve in Castro’s drink

Though some of the plans were discarded for their absurdity, others were attempted, but none of them worked. By January 1961, President Eisenhower, in the very last days of his administration, broke U.S. diplomatic relations with Cuba over the growing alliance between Castro and the Soviet Union. As Kennedy entered the White House, he inherited a situation of growing importance and shrinking options.

Invading Cuba: The Bay of Pigs

Operation Mongoose was the name of the Eisenhower administration’s plan to train and equip 1,500 Cuban nationals to invade Cuba and initiate the revolution that would sweep Castro from power. The idea was that Cubans would rally to the cause and spontaneously rise up against Castro after the invasion began. The invasion was scheduled for April 1961, three months after Kennedy became president. He was briefed on the operation and approved it, not wanting to appear weak against the spread of Communism.

Part of the plan was to have “Cuban” bombers, supported by fighter planes in on the action. The bombers had been U.S. military equipment before they’d been given to the anti-Castro revolutionary movement. The fighter planes were from the U.S.S. Essex aircraft carrier. U.S. “civilian pilots” were to fly the fighters, which had all U.S. insignia painted over.

The April 17, 1961 invasion was an operational disaster. The unmarked U.S. support fighters from the Essex arrived an hour earlier than the bombers, due to a misunderstanding over which time zone was used to coordinate the attack. With no bombers to support, the U.S. planes withdrew. When the bombers arrived an hour later, two were immediately shot down by Castro’s air force. The 1,500 Cuban commandos hit the beach at the Bay of Pigs with no air cover and suffered tremendous losses from the Cuban planes. At this point, U.S. military commanders urged Kennedy to send in U.S. air support, yet Kennedy refused because it had become clear by that point that mission was a failure.

What a failure it was. The Cuban people hadn’t spontaneously risen against Castro. Some 1,100 men were captured, and the United States was exposed to the world attempting to overthrow a sovereign government. Some people faulted Kennedy for going along with such a reckless plan in the first place, while others faulted him for not having enough courage to send in the U.S. planes to support the ground invasion. Either way, America’s young president didn’t get off to an auspicious start. His first attempt to stand up to the Soviet menace was a clear failure.

Watching the Berlin Wall go up

Two months after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, Kennedy met Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna, Austria. The meeting was set to discuss the future of Berlin, which had been divided and jointly occupied by Soviet and U.S. Allied forces since the end of World War II. The issue was a sore spot for the Soviets, because some 2.6 million Germans had fled into the U.S.-controlled sector of the city to escape life under the Communist system. In this tense meeting, Khrushchev attempted to intimidate Kennedy into withdrawing from Berlin by issuing him an ultimatum, but Kennedy held his ground, and the two men didn’t achieve a permanent solution.

When he returned to the U.S., Kennedy desired to show his resolve to the Soviets. He therefore asked Congress for an additional $3 billion in defense appropriations and called up National Guard and Reserve units. His reaction worked, as the Soviets chose not to escalate the situation and instead solved their problem by erecting the Berlin Wall around West Berlin, sealing off the East German escape hatch. The wall was 96 miles long and 12 feet high, topped with barbed wire. The Soviets also set up machine gun emplacements to discourage any further attempts at escape. The wall became a powerful symbol of the tensions of the cold war.

Managing the Cuban Missile Crisis

In the year following the Bay of Pigs disaster, Fidel Castro worked to strengthen his country’s ties to the Soviet Union. Castro’s support for Communist revolution in Latin America continued to make him a thorn in the side of U.S. policymakers. Because of this tension, both Castro and Khrushchev believed that a U.S. invasion of Cuba was only a matter of time. In May 1962, Soviet military personnel completed their plans for a nuclear missile defense of Cuba. The plan also called for Russian technicians and 42,000 Russian troops. Khrushchev’s decision to place nuclear missiles in Cuba was based on several objectives:

Deter an American invasion of Cuba.

Keep Cuba, which had been building relations with China, within the Soviet sphere of influence.

Give the Soviets greater leverage to bargain with the U.S. over the still uncertain future of the divided city of Berlin.

Balance the U.S. nuclear missiles that had been deployed to Turkey in early 1962.

Castro, of course, wanted the missiles to serve as a deterrent against further U.S. military action against Cuba. Though Castro wanted to make the missile agreement public immediately, Khrushchev opted to keep it a secret until the missiles were fully operational. He knew that the reaction from America would be shock and outrage. But he figured that operational missiles would deter any U.S military response out of fear of starting a nuclear exchange. Because his missiles were only 90 miles from the U.S. coast, they’d be able to hit targets across the East Coast and throughout most of the Midwest.

Soviet plans called for the deployment of 24 medium-range R-12 ballistic missiles and 16 intermediate-range R-14 ballistic missiles, all equipped with nuclear warheads.

Spying on the Soviets

Following the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the CIA continued to closely monitor Cuba, looking for any opportunity to oust Castro. On September 21, 1962, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) reported that one of its assets had sighted a truck convoy carrying 20 missile-shaped objects, each 65 to 70 feet long. The U.S. government knew that the Soviets were setting up defensive surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), but this sighting raised the possibility of a more ominous situation. On October 9, Kennedy approved an overflight of a U-2 spy plane to investigate the report. Heavy cloud cover delayed the flight until October 14, and by then a leak about the possible missiles had occurred, allowing Republican senator Kenneth Keating to announce that he had evidence of six nuclear missile sites in Cuba.

The October 14 U-2 flight lasted six minutes and produced 928 photographs that revealed clear evidence of Soviet missile sites. Upon seeing the photos the following morning, Kennedy called a meeting of his Executive Committee (ExComm) on national security. Thirteen men were present at this meeting with the president, including Vice President Lyndon Johnson, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, CIA Director Marshall Carter, several undersecretaries, General Maxwell Taylor, and several aerial photography experts. After reviewing the evidence and weighing the implications, ExComm outlined options for a U.S. response. By the end of the meeting, Kennedy decided that the U.S. had to get rid of the missiles. The group had created four options, each with different advantages and risks:

An air strike against the missile sites in Cuba

A wider air strike against a variety of targets in Cuba

A naval blockade of Cuba to stop the arrival of any more Russian missiles and supplies

An invasion of Cuba

Kennedy adjourned the meeting to allow his advisors to develop a plan for each option. On October 18, the committee met again to discuss new photographic evidence showing five separate missile sites, including the launch pads for nuclear missiles. This evidence convinced the military leaders to call for a full-scale invasion of Cuba, yet other voices such as McNamara and former U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union Llewelyn Thompson urged Kennedy to seek a diplomatic solution before turning to military options. Kennedy agreed with McNamara and Thompson, fearing that failure to attempt a diplomatic solution would make any unannounced air strikes similar to Japan’s 1941 attack at Pearl Harbor.

The meeting on October 18 didn’t rule out military action, yet it did establish that some sort of blockade and diplomatic attempt would be necessary before resorting to military options. One of the grave concerns was that an invasion of Cuba could set off a Soviet seizure of Berlin, which could escalate into a nuclear exchange in which there would be no clear winner.

Taking a diplomatic approach

Kennedy continued to consult quietly with a variety of U.S. leaders, including former presidents Hoover, Truman, and Eisenhower. On Monday, October 22, Kennedy addressed congressional leaders first and then went on television to announce the crisis to the American people. Watched by over 100 million Americans, Kennedy explained that the Soviet Union had created a nuclear strike capability in Cuba that could hit U.S. East Coast cities. Kennedy went on to condemn the Soviets for lying about supplying Cuba with only defensive weapons.

The president explained that the U.S. couldn’t tolerate such a threat and that he had ordered Navy ships in the waters around Cuba to begin a quarantine blocking further Soviet ships from reaching the island. Kennedy demanded that the Soviets remove the missiles immediately, stating that failure to do so would result in U.S. military action against Cuba. Finally, Kennedy stated that “it shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.” Americans who remember the Cuban Missile Crisis recall that they expected that they could die within a week.

Khrushchev’s response stated that Kennedy’s actions represented a “serious threat to peace” and that the U.S. quarantine was a “gross violation of . . . international norms.” Khrushchev warned Kennedy that his reckless actions could lead to “the catastrophe of thermonuclear war.” By October 24, Kennedy and his advisors felt that they were on the brink of a tremendous catastrophe. The U.S. military had been moved to Defense Condition 2, the last stage of readiness before all-out war. The lack of clear response from Khrushchev left them still divided between immediately using military force and continuing to delay in order to keep diplomatic negotiations open.

The problem was that each passing day brought the missiles one day closer to being fully operational. Further, they were on the verge of the first test of the quarantine just as Soviet freighters with submarine escorts were approaching the U.S. Navy quarantine line.

Concluding the crisis

The first major break in the crisis came amidst a tense ExComm meeting on October 24 when news arrived from naval intelligence that the Soviet ships had turned back and weren’t attempting to cross the quarantine line. Though the Soviets had backed down, the crisis wasn’t over until the missiles were removed.

The next day, Kennedy and Khrushchev exchanged harsh letters, each accusing the other of escalating the situation. As a dozen Soviet ships turned around and started back to the Soviet Union, the issue of the existing missiles remained unresolved. On October 26, in a long and rambling letter to Kennedy, Khrushchev proposed that both sides step back from the brink of destruction. He offered to remove the Soviet missiles from Cuba if the U.S. would pledge to not invade or support any invasion of Cuba. The next day, a more polished letter from Khrushchev arrived with the same proposal, yet with an added demand that the U.S. withdraw its 17 Jupiter missiles deployed in Turkey. That same afternoon a Russian surface-to-air missile hit an American U-2 spy plane over Cuba, downing the plane and killing the U.S. pilot. The Joint Chiefs again pressed for a military response, yet Kennedy still held on to hope in terms of Khrushchev’s olive branch.

Kennedy sent word to Khrushchev that he would promise not to invade Cuba in exchange for Soviet withdrawal of their missiles in Cuba. He didn’t mention the U.S. missiles in Turkey in his response, yet he sent a private message to Khrushchev stating that he would be willing to remove the Jupiter missiles after four or five months had passed, to avoid the criticism that the U.S. had abandoned Turkey because of Soviet pressure. (The U.S. decision to remove the missiles was made easier because submarine-launched Polaris nuclear missiles could perform the same function.) The Soviets would have to agree to keep the Jupiter missile deal a secret, or the U.S. would withdraw the offer. In this secret communication, Kennedy warned Khrushchev that he needed a response within 24 hours, because he feared that with the Cubans shooting at U.S. planes, the situation could spin out of control.

Khrushchev discussed the situation with the Soviet Presidium (the governmental body of the U.S.S.R.) and concluded that accepting Kennedy’s agreement was in the best interests of the Soviet Union and world peace. Khrushchev broadcast his acceptance over Soviet radio on October 28. He made no mention of the Jupiter missile deal, and the U.S. quietly withdrew the missiles a few months later as promised. The Cuban Missile Crisis was over. Kennedy had steered a difficult path between standing firm and knowing when to negotiate. Most historians today agree that these 13 days in October mark the most dangerous moment of the whole cold war.

In the wake of the crisis, the U.S. and the Soviet Union worked to ease the tension and avert future possible confrontations. The U.S. agreed to sell excess wheat to the Soviet Union, and a hot line was established between Washington, D.C., and Moscow. Further, the U.S. also removed its Jupiter missiles from Italy and Britain.

Easing tension: The 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty

In the summer of 1963, Kennedy announced that the U.S. was participating in direct talks with the Soviet Union aimed at reducing cold war tensions. Concluded in July and formalized in September, the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty was an agreement to end above-ground testing of nuclear weapons. Though it didn’t end underground nuclear tests, it was nonetheless a step in the right direction.

Entering the quagmire: The growing U.S. commitment to South Vietnam

When Kennedy took office in 1961, U.S. commitment to South Vietnam had already been well established (for details, see Chapter 8). Cold war fears had driven the U.S. to support the French after World War II until their defeat in 1954. After the collapse of the French, the U.S. actively supported the independent government of South Vietnam. By the time Kennedy entered the White House, the U.S. had already spent about $1.5 billion supporting South Vietnam and had over 700 advisors in the country assisting in building their army.

Under Kennedy, the U.S. commitment to the region grew exponentially. By 1963, the U.S. had 16,000 men in South Vietnam. Kennedy, ever fearing Republican taunts of being weak on Communism, oversaw this U.S. expansion, trying new counterinsurgency techniques designed by U.S. Special Forces troops. (For details, see Chapter 8.) No one knows just how far Kennedy would’ve taken the U.S. into the Vietnam conflict, because his life was cut short by assassins’ bullets that November. The major ground and air war would fall to Lyndon Johnson.

In September 1963, Kennedy publicly declared that the South Vietnamese would win or lose the war themselves and the U.S. role would be advisory. In October, he announced his intention to withdraw American forces from Vietnam by the end of 1965. This proclamation has prompted a dispute among historians today. Some argue that Kennedy had seen the coming quagmire and was attempting to pull back from it, but others maintain that it was a political maneuver and had no bearing on Kennedy’s long-term plans for Vietnam. Without the emergence of any new evidence, this difference of opinion will continue without resolution, much like the dispute over who killed John F. Kennedy.

Detailing a Fateful Day in Dallas

Though his first two and a half years in office were tumultuous, Kennedy still looked forward to reelection in 1964. He went to Dallas on November 22, 1963, in an attempt to help heal some of the rifts in the Texas Democratic Party; he knew he needed to win Texas as part of his reelection strategy. As Kennedy and his wife rode through the parade route in Dallas in an open convertible, Kennedy was shot in the head and neck by a sniper. He died 30 minutes later at Parkland Hospital.

Capturing a suspect

Within hours of Kennedy’s death, the story broke that Kennedy’s assassin, a 24-year-old loner named Lee Harvey Oswald, had been captured. The press reported that Oswald, a lone gunman, had shot the president from the sixth floor window of the Texas Book Repository and then successfully fled the building. He was later confronted by a Dallas police officer, whom Oswald shot and killed. After he was caught, Oswald was held incommunicado for almost two days.

While in custody, Oswald persistently proclaimed his innocence, asserting that he was the patsy of the assassination. Oswald’s history itself is somewhat bizarre — he served as a U.S. Marine and then lived in the Soviet Union for three years before returning to the United States with a Russian wife. The mystery of who shot JFK grew deeper when, two days after the assassination, Oswald was gunned down at point-blank range while in custody of the Dallas police (see Figure 2-5). The man who gunned him down was Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner with ties to the Mafia.

Figure 2-5: Jack Ruby shoots Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald on November 24, 1963.

©Topham/The Image Works

Deliberating on the assassin: The Warren Commission

Lyndon B. Johnson became president immediately after Kennedy’s death. On November 29, 1963, one week after the assassination, Johnson established a presidential commission to investigate the murder. Unfortunately, the commission, which came to be known as the Warren Commission (led by Chief Justice Earl Warren), decided to operate in secrecy. Their report identified Oswald as the lone gunman who killed Kennedy.

Almost immediately, opposition developed regarding the commission’s conclusions. Questions arose about the testimony of the hospital physicians who had tended the dying Kennedy, who described wounds that had come from the front and back. Eyewitnesses claimed to have heard a second set of shots coming from behind the grassy knoll in Dealy Plaza. Along with problems in assessing Oswald’s abilities and motives in carrying out the crime, these questions persisted.

Though the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald operated alone, in 1968, a congressional committee on the assassination concluded that Kennedy was likely killed by a group of conspirators. The truth about who killed Kennedy will probably never be known to everyone’s satisfaction. The sheer volume of literature on the subject attests to the fact that Americans are still deeply divided over this issue.

Who killed JFK?

Though no one knows whether the full truth about JFK’s killer or killers will ever emerge, it’s interesting to speculate who may have had a motive to assassinate the president. The following list demonstrates the difficulties in conclusively identifying the assassins because each of the groups had reasons to want to get rid of Kennedy, and each represents substantial power and the capability of doing so:

Members of the CIA, who were severely criticized after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, blamed Kennedy for not sending the air support (see the “Invading Cuba: The Bay of Pigs” section earlier in the chapter). After the disaster, Kennedy severely curtailed their powers and expressed his belief that the agency was out of control and needed to be restructured.

Members of the Cuban American community, who felt betrayed by Kennedy and deprived of an opportunity to retake Cuba due to the botched Bay of Pigs invasion.

The Soviets, who had been forced to back down in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The Mafia, which had been under investigation by Attorney General Robert Kennedy.

Southern extremists, who deeply resented Kennedy’s attempts to push for civil rights.

Cold warriors, who may have feared that Kennedy was pulling the U.S. out of Vietnam.

This is not to say that any of these groups participated in a conspiracy, yet even the congressional investigation of 1968 concluded that Oswald didn’t act alone. The co-conspirators, if they do exist, have apparently gotten away with their terrible crime.