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John Fitzgerald Kennedy 's Politics And World Affairs

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John Fitzgerald Kennedy, nicknamed Jack, was born on May 29, 1917. He was the second of 9 to be born to Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy and Joseph Kennedy Jr. While Jack was at Harvard in 1937, his father became the United States Ambassador to England. That sparked Jack’s interest in politics and world affairs. From then on, he strived to learn more about government and current events. When Jack was a senior at Harvard, WWII began. He wrote a thesis about why Great Britain was not ready for the war with Germany, which went on to be published as a book called Why England Slept. Jack’s career in politics, though, began after college in 1946 when he was elected to the eleventh congressional district in Massachusetts. As a Democrat, he then served six …show more content…

One of Kennedy’s accomplishments was the creation of the Peace Corps on March 1, 1961. During his presidential campaign, Kennedy gave a speech at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor to a crowd of 10,000. In his speech, he asked how many of the aspiring doctors, technicians, and/or engineers would be willing to work in the Foreign Service and travel the world. After the speech, 1,000 students wanting to live and work abroad signed a petition saying such. This event was the inspiration for the Peace Corps. Kennedy spoke of "a peace corps of talented men and women who would dedicate themselves to the progress and peace of developing countries” two weeks later in a speech at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. A response of more than 25,000 letters encouraged Kennedy to make the Peace Corps a reality. When Kennedy became president, he decided he wanted to put his brother-in-law, R. Sargent Shriver, as the director of a Peace Corps Task Force to organize it and get everything together. Shriver did so by creating seven steps to follow in forming the Peace Corps in February of 1961. During the first trip after the Peace Corps was established, leaders from India, Ghana, and Burma were asking for Peace Corps volunteers to be placed

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