John F. Kennedy Hero Essay

John F Kennedy's first leadership trait was articulating a vision. Kennedy had a vision to not just finish the cold war but win it. America ended up winning the cold in 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down. This is a quote from John F Kennedy, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” ( John F Kennedy). John F Kennedy said this at a speech he was giving. He said this to the people of the country when they were in the cold war and he was hoping that they would end up winning and finish the war. Another quote from John F Kennedy. “Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength for our nation.” (John F Kennedy). John F Kennedy had a vision to build schools for

President Kennedy came to office with warnings of a missile gap. The Soviets had achieved or were achieving a significant advantage in strategic nuclear weapons. Though tensions ran even higher, "Eisenhower’s strategy of massive retaliation made little sense and did not account for the rapidly growing Soviet nuclear arsenal4. Kennedy's nuclear strategy became known as flexible response. The idea was to acquire the military forces that could deal flexibility with varying levels of Soviet Aggression3. The most serious confrontation between Russia and the US was the Cuban Missile Crisis. (Link to Stephanie's page) Soviet leader Khrushchev attempted to place intermediate range missiles in Cuba. Kennedy responded by imposing a quarantine on Cuba. This resulted in the removal of the Soviet missiles and led to Kennedy making the decision to dismantle U.S. missiles based in Turkey. Some analysts argue that the successful outcome was due to the United States’ nuclear superiority, which proved that strategic superiority offered important political advantages5.

"The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been” (Henry). This quote from Henry Kissinger is a representation of the Kennedy term in office. President Kennedy took the world to a whole new level; he succeeded in many tasks in his short time as president. John F. Kennedy was great president because of his involvements in the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Space Race, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Peace Corps.

Kennedy for the democratic United States. Negotiations were very tough, because the two countries often opposed each other on most views. Nikita Khrushchev, being an older political leader, thought he was going to be able to push around the young president Kennedy with no problem, which didn’t really happen. You can see it came to a point where President Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev where at each others throats once the missiles were in Cuba. As the United States and other countries around the world are starting to get frantic, Max Frankel talks about how both leaders were perfectly giving and taking, knowing when to be aggressive and when to hold back because both knew they didn’t want to bring the rest of the world to its first nuclear war. They also wanted to avoid a ground war at all possible means, but if there disagreement were to be handled in any way both nations would prefer the war to be fought by men and not nuclear weapons. Tensions got to their highest, after Kennedy went on air and told the world that they were establishing a blockade for the sole purpose to keep the soviets from supplying Cuba. After this charade, Nikita Khrushchev avoided the Q line and kept away from the U.S. When this incident was finally disputed the United States then dropped there nuclear weapons in turkey as did the Russians in Cuba leaving it as both sides were victorious and avoided a whole entire war with each other. Moreover the nations realized that no good would come from any type of war that was

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th President of United States, was born in Brookline, Massachusetts on May 29, 1917. His father, Joseph Kennedy Sr., was a wealthy investor who wanted his sons to be important figures in American politics. Joseph Kennedy Sr. always favored his oldest son, Joseph Jr., to achieve his family's long time ambition to become a President of the United States. However, his eyes turned to John, after Joseph was killed in battle during World War II. John knew he was going to be the replacement for his brother; only way to make his father happy was to become an important figure in American politics. In November of 1946, JFK was elected to the House of Representatives from the State of Massachusetts. He served in the

On a clear sunny day in Dallas Texas, November 22, 1963 to be exact, at about 12:30pm, the President's car rounded the curve in front of the Texas School Book Depository building and proceeded on to Main Street throughout Dally plaza. Shots rang out and the President was rushed to the nearby hospital and was declared dead at 1pm. The Vice President took the oath of office and flew back to Washington with the slain leader. The accused assassin was arrested, charged and then executed on national television in front of millions. Three days latter, the Texas officials in charge of the investigation declared the case closed and the new President set up a hand picked committee to investigate. The

From Eisenhower, Kennedy inherited the "Cold War" with the Soviet Union. In 1962, when American spy planes discovered Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, just 90 miles from the U.S., many thought the nation was at the brink of war. Kennedy imposed a blockade of Cuba but promised not to invade, and the Soviet Union dismantled the missile bases, resolving the confrontation. (Upon seeing photos of the dismantling, Adlai Stevenson, now Kennedy's Ambassador to the U.N, famously said, "We are eyeball to eyeball with the enemy, and I think the other fellow just blinked.") Kennedy also promised to send Americans to the moon and bring them back safely before the end of the decade, and although he did not live to see it, his promise came true. He called his program to make things better for Americans "the New Frontier" and he started the Peace Corps.

This was a problem for Kennedy because Cuba was within a 90 mile radius from the United States, easy sticking distance. The United States had missiles in Turkey, which were in striking distance from the Soviet Union, which Khrushchev used as a weighing option when deciding to place missiles in Cuba. Kennedy saw the missiles that were being held in Cuba as almost an act of war from the Soviet Union. Khrushchev assured President Kennedy that the missiles were not an act of war, but yet only a defense for Cuba, who was feeling Having Soviet Union missiles this close to the mainland was a problem for the United States. Kennedy decided that the only way to stop the Soviet Union from fully equipping Cuba with enough missiles to destroy the United States, was to stop the missiles from getting to Cuba. To stop them Kennedy dispatched U.S. warships into the Atlantic, which was able to prevent the Soviet missile fleet from reaching Cuba. Unfortunately there were already missiles in Cuba from earlier fleets and they were

The Kennedy Doctrine, which was to “Respond flexibly to communist expansion, especially guerrilla warfare” (Roskin & Berry, 2010, p. 58), was executed in this history-making event to the letter. Kennedy could have, and had the power to cease the unfolding events with an all out air strike on the Soviet Union. Some say it is due to bureaucratic politics and the accessibility of information that was provided to the National Security Council by the CIA and air force that this did not occur. In responding flexibly to what The Soviet Union and Cuba were planning, America assessed the volatile situation, forethought possible outcomes and negated all their options albeit under a tight time constraint. America’s forces were mobilized and ready to strike, had word been given nuclear war was on the cards. Kennedy wanted to give The Soviet Union an out and put a halt to a possible war, rethink the situation and allow an alternative to occur. Due to this diplomacy, The Soviet Union entered into negotiations “the Kremlin offered a deal: no Soviet missiles in Cuba if Washington promised not to invade” (Roskin & Berry, 2010, p. 87). By using the flexible response tactic, Kennedy was

John F. Kennedy made many important decisions during the Cold War. One of his big decisions was to start the American space program. With the birth of NASA, America could begin its journey to space and eventually the moon. The Cold War was one of the government 's biggest defence priorities, this led Kennedy to think of all his actions for better or for worse, and explore all possibilities of all his options. The Soviets during this time were just as scared of America as we were of them, even more so in the case because we had a much stronger government during this time. Kennedys presidency was affected in many ways because of all these factors.

President John F. Kennedy was travelling along a predetermined motorcade route in Dallas, Texas when he was fatally shot, receiving wounds to the chest, back, and head. Shortly after the assassination, Dallas police arrested former U.S. Marine Corps Private Lee Harvey Oswald. On November 24 of the same year, Jack Ruby, owner of a Dallas nightclub, shot Oswald. Less than a year after the two murders, on September 24, 1964, the Warren Commission, headed by Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, released a report stating their verdict that Lee Harvey Oswald killed President John F. Kennedy "alone and without advice or assistance" (Encarta). Now, thirty-five years after the

The Missile Crisis developed in 1962 because Fidel Castro believed that America would soon try again to invade his country. He asked the Soviet Union for help in defending his island nation. The Soviet Union replied by sending small arms, tanks, and infantry units to Cuba, as well as secretly transferring nuclear missiles to missile silos that were under construction in Cuba. The Americans were shocked when one of their U-2 spy planes discovered the nuclear silos under construction in Cuba because it meant that for the first time the Soviet missiles were within range of most major U.S. cities, including Washington, D.C. This created a very difficult problem for American President John F. Kennedy for which he needed to find a solution. He could not allow the missile silos to finish being constructed because that would place the United States in danger. That meant that either he would have to try diplomatic means to attempt to negotiate the removal of the weapons, or he would have to use the might of the American military to remove the weapons by force. Neither option looked particularly favourable. The Joint Chiefs of Staff (the President's military advisors) urged a swift and strong military invasion to destroy the silos before the Soviets could react. Kennedy was concerned, however, of the possibility of Soviet nuclear retaliation for the invasion because invasion was clearly an act of war. Up until that point, neither side had been willing to risk direct

On November 22, 1963, the world was stunned as they watched the president’s brain be spilt in the back seat of a limousine. President John F. Kennedy was riding in a motorcade parade along Elm Street of downtown Dallas, Texas, when gunshots were heard. Instantly, bystanders were running for their lives as a gunman, or gunmen, was on the prowl. Lee Harvey Oswald, ex-marine, the perceived assassin, was accused just seconds later and captured merely an hour and a half after the search began. Oswald was to stay in Dallas for the days prior to his transfer to the county jail. Whilst in the basement of the Dallas Police Station before his transfer, just two days later, Jack Ruby was able to waltz past countless guards, through locked doors, and place a gun on the stomach of Oswald in an attempt to end his life. Soon after, the prime suspect of the biggest assassination in history was pronounced dead. So, this leads to the 50+ years long question; “Did Lee Harvey Oswald actually assassinate the president? Or was he a simple fall man?”. In Richard Belzer’s New York Times Best Selling Book Hit List, he utilizes a source from Richard Charnin, a control engineer/programmer for Grumman Aerospace Corporation, to edge that….

Decades later, the Kennedy assassinations and surrounding mysteries continue holding public interest. Although their notoriety as charismatic leaders is a significant contribution, other factors regarding societal psychology deserve consideration whilst exploring this phenomenon. With these events occurring during a time that allows living witnesses, modern accessible evidence, various media coverage, and visible modern impact, the mysterious Kennedy assassinations have the capacity to encourage inquiries. This intrinsic investigative nature entices connection creating, discovering paranoid control, expressing official story skepticism, and various biases.

Robert Francis Kennedy was born on November 20, 1925 in Brookline Massachusetts. He was the seventh child, and third son of Rose Fitzgerald and Joe Kennedy . "I was the seventh of nine children," he later recalled, "and when you come from that far down you have to struggle to survive."( Alden Whitman, 2001).Compared to his brothers, Robert or Bobby as they all called him, was smaller and he struggled to match his brothers athleticism.