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Politician · Writer · Naval officer
Thirty-fifth president of the United States. During the Cold War he faced the Cuban Missile Crisis and was also involved in space exploration and civil rights. He symbolizes both hope and crisis in postwar American politics.
View in catalogWashington, D.C.
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Cuban Missile Crisis
1962
Political event · Leader
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Born into a prominent Massachusetts political family, he served as a naval officer in the Second World War. After the war he moved from the House of Representatives to the Senate and then to a presidential campaign.
Elected in 1960 as a young president, he advanced the New Frontier program. In the Cuban Missile Crisis he managed the danger of nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
His campaign's use of televised debates became a symbol of a new media politics. His assassination in 1963 produced powerful memories and myths around a short presidency.
Kennedy's age was a mid-twentieth-century turning point when the Cold War, nuclear weapons, media, and the civil rights movement overlapped. His reputation contains idealization, but he remains an important case for considering crisis management and mass politics.
