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Authors Politician John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy

President of the United States · 1917–1963

American politician who served as the 35th US president during a pivotal period of the Cold War.

Lifetime
May 29, 1917 – Nov 22, 1963 (age 46)
Primary field
Politician
Secondary fields
Writer
Tags
35th US presidentUS senatorSecond World War veteranPulitzer Prize for BiographyCuban Missile CrisisHarvard University

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born in Massachusetts in 1917. After graduating from Harvard University, he served in the US Navy during the Second World War and commanded a patrol torpedo boat in the Pacific. He entered the US House of Representatives in 1947 and was elected to the Senate in 1952. His 1956 book Profiles in Courage, written with assistance from his staff, won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography.

Kennedy narrowly defeated Richard Nixon in the 1960 presidential election. At 43, he became the youngest person elected US president. His presidency was shaped by Cold War crises, including the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis. His administration also supported the early space programme, established the Peace Corps and proposed major civil rights legislation.

Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on 22 November 1963. Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson succeeded him. Kennedy’s presidency remains closely associated with the Cold War, the US space effort and the expansion of federal civil rights policy.

Quotations

“We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

John F. Kennedy · Address at Rice University on the Nation’s Space Effort, 1962 · Primary source

“Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”

John F. Kennedy · Inaugural Address of President John F. Kennedy, 1961 · Primary source

“For, in a democracy, every citizen, regardless of his interest in politics, ‘holds office’ every one of us is in a position of responsibility; and, in the final analysis, the kind of government we get depends upon how we fulfill those responsibilities. We, the people, are the boss, and we will get the kind of political leadership, be it good or bad, that we demand and deserve.”

John F. Kennedy · Profiles in Courage, 1956 · Primary source

“A man does what he must—in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures—and that is the basis of all human morality.”

John F. Kennedy · Profiles in Courage, 1956 · Primary source

“I am the responsible officer of the government [regarding the failed invasion of Cuba].”

John F. Kennedy · Kennedy’s Bay of Pigs News Conference, 1961 · Primary source

“If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity.”

John F. Kennedy · Commencement address at American University, 1963 · Primary source

“To be sure, we are behind, and will be behind for some time in manned flight. But we do not intend to stay behind, and in this decade, we shall make up and move ahead.”

John F. Kennedy · Address at Rice University on the Nation’s Space Effort, 1962 · Primary source

“The greatest danger of all would be to do nothing.”

John F. Kennedy · Address During The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962 · Primary source

“Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in.”

John F. Kennedy · Ich bin ein Berliner speech, 1963 · Primary source

“For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.”

John F. Kennedy · Commencement address at American University, 1963 · Primary source

“The idea that Britain loses every battle except the last has proved correct so many times in the past that the average Englishman is unwilling to make great personal sacrifices until the danger is overwhelmingly apparent.”

John F. Kennedy · Why England Slept, 1940 · Primary source

“There’s an old saying that victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan.”

John F. Kennedy · Kennedy’s Bay of Pigs News Conference, 1961 · Primary source

“Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.”

John F. Kennedy · Inaugural Address of President John F. Kennedy, 1961 · Primary source

“Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, ‘Because it is there.’ Well, space is there, and we’re going to climb it, and the Moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God’s blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.”

John F. Kennedy · Address at Rice University on the Nation’s Space Effort, 1962 · Primary source

“We have had our failures, but so have others, even if they do not admit them. And they may be less public.”

John F. Kennedy · Address at Rice University on the Nation’s Space Effort, 1962 · Primary source

“Not all Senators would agree—but few would deny that the desire to be re-elected exercises a strong brake on independent courage.”

John F. Kennedy · Profiles in Courage, 1956 · Primary source

“Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans.”

John F. Kennedy · Inaugural Address of President John F. Kennedy, 1961 · Primary source

“It is compromise that prevents each set of reformers from crushing the group on the extreme opposite end of the political spectrum.”

John F. Kennedy · Profiles in Courage, 1956 · Primary source

“The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war. We do not want a war. We do not now expect a war. This generation of Americans has already had enough—more than enough—of war and hate and oppression. We shall be prepared if others wish it. We shall be alert to try to stop it. But we shall also do our part to build a world of peace where the weak are safe and the strong are just. We are not helpless before that task or hopeless of its success.”

John F. Kennedy · Commencement address at American University, 1963 · Primary source

“And this Nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free.”

John F. Kennedy · Civil Rights Address, 1963 · Primary source

“Today the eyes of all people are truly upon us—and our governments, in every branch, at every level, national, state and local, must be as a city upon a hill—constructed and inhabited by men aware of their great trust and their great responsibilities.”

John F. Kennedy · The City Upon a Hill Speech, 1961 · Primary source

“What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children—not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women—not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.”

John F. Kennedy · Commencement address at American University, 1963 · Primary source

“For of those to whom much is given, much is required.”

John F. Kennedy · The City Upon a Hill Speech, 1961 · Primary source

“The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.”

John F. Kennedy · Inaugural Address of President John F. Kennedy, 1961 · Primary source

“All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.”

John F. Kennedy · Inaugural Address of President John F. Kennedy, 1961 · Primary source

“Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free.”

John F. Kennedy · Ich bin ein Berliner speech, 1963 · Primary source

“We are confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is as old as the scriptures and is as clear as the American Constitution.”

John F. Kennedy · Civil Rights Address, 1963 · Primary source

“We are both caught up in a vicious and dangerous cycle in which suspicion on one side breeds suspicion on the other, and new weapons beget counterweapons.”

John F. Kennedy · Commencement address at American University, 1963 · Primary source

“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.”

John F. Kennedy · Address During The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962 · Primary source

“While the wall is the most obvious and vivid demonstration of the failures of the Communist system, for all the world to see, we take no satisfaction in it, for it is, as your Mayor has said, an offense not only against history but an offense against humanity, separating families, dividing husbands and wives and brothers and sisters, and dividing a people who wish to be joined together.”

John F. Kennedy · Ich bin ein Berliner speech, 1963 · Primary source

“For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.”

John F. Kennedy · Inaugural Address of President John F. Kennedy, 1961 · Primary source

“Any system of government will work when everything is going well. It’s the system that functions in the pinches that survives.”

John F. Kennedy · Why England Slept, 1940 · Primary source

“Our problems are manmade—therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.”

John F. Kennedy · Commencement address at American University, 1963 · Primary source

“Total war makes no sense in an age when great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age when a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by all the allied air forces in the Second World War.”

John F. Kennedy · Commencement address at American University, 1963 · Primary source

“The 1930’s taught us a clear lesson: aggressive conduct, if allowed to go unchecked and unchallenged ultimately leads to war.”

John F. Kennedy · Address During The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962 · Primary source

“We stated before that men’s ideas change slowly and that a nation’s ideas change even more slowly. It takes shocks—hard shocks—to change a nation’s psychology.”

John F. Kennedy · Why England Slept, 1940 · Primary source

“Confident and unafraid, we labor on—not toward a strategy of annihilation but toward a strategy of peace.”

John F. Kennedy · Commencement address at American University, 1963 · Primary source

“Two thousand years ago the proudest boast was civis Romanus sum. Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is Ich bin ein Berliner.”

John F. Kennedy · Ich bin ein Berliner speech, 1963 · Primary source

“This is one country. It has become one country because all of us and all the people who came here had an equal chance to develop their talents.”

John F. Kennedy · Civil Rights Address, 1963 · Primary source

“For what Pericles said to the Athenians has long been true of this commonwealth: ’We do not imitate—for we are a model to others.’”

John F. Kennedy · The City Upon a Hill Speech, 1961 · Primary source

“We observe today not a victory of party but a celebration of freedom—symbolizing an end as well as a beginning—signifying renewal as well as change.”

John F. Kennedy · Inaugural Address of President John F. Kennedy, 1961 · Primary source

“This Nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.”

John F. Kennedy · Civil Rights Address, 1963 · Primary source

“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.”

John F. Kennedy · Inaugural Address of President John F. Kennedy, 1961 · Primary source

“Now the trumpet summons us again—not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need—not as a call to battle, though embattled we are—but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, ‘rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation’—a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself.”

John F. Kennedy · Inaugural Address of President John F. Kennedy, 1961 · Primary source

“In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility—I welcome it.”

John F. Kennedy · Inaugural Address of President John F. Kennedy, 1961 · Primary source

“We will not prematurely or unnecessarily risk the costs of worldwide nuclear war in which even the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth—but neither will we shrink from that risk at any time it must be faced.”

John F. Kennedy · Address During The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962 · Primary source

“Perhaps if the American people more fully comprehended the terrible pressures which discourage acts of political courage, which drive a Senator to abandon or subdue his conscience, then they might be less critical of those who take the easier road—and more appreciative of those still able to follow the path of courage.”

John F. Kennedy · Profiles in Courage, 1956 · Primary source

“United there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided there is little we can do—for we dare not meet a powerful challenge at odds and split asunder.”

John F. Kennedy · Inaugural Address of President John F. Kennedy, 1961 · Primary source

“Our goal is not the victory of might, but the vindication of right—not peace at the expense of freedom, but both peace and freedom, here in this hemisphere, and, we hope, around the world. God willing, that goal will be achieved.”

John F. Kennedy · Address During The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962 · Primary source

Selected works

Thesis · 1940 FEATURED WORK
Why England Slept

An analysis of why Britain rearmed slowly before the Second World War, examining appeasement, democratic politics, public opinion, economics and military preparedness.

Biographical essay collection · 1956 FEATURED WORK
Profiles in Courage

Eight studies of US senators who risked popularity, party support or political careers by taking positions they believed were right.

Speech · 1961
The City Upon a Hill Speech

A farewell address to Massachusetts setting out Kennedy’s standards for public leadership as he prepared to assume the US presidency.

Inaugural address · 1961 FEATURED WORK
Inaugural Address of President John F. Kennedy

Kennedy’s first presidential address, calling for civic responsibility, international cooperation and resolve in confronting Cold War tensions and global poverty.

Press conference · 1961
Kennedy’s Bay of Pigs News Conference

A presidential news conference addressing the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs invasion, government responsibility and wider Cold War policy.

Speech · 1962
Address at Rice University on the Nation’s Space Effort

A defence of the US space programme and the goal of reaching the Moon, linking exploration with national ambition, technological progress and Cold War competition.

Presidential address · 1962
Address During The Cuban Missile Crisis

A televised address announcing Soviet missile installations in Cuba, a US naval quarantine and demands for their removal.

Commencement address · 1963
Commencement address at American University

A Cold War address calling for a more practical peace, reduced nuclear tensions and greater mutual understanding between the United States and Soviet Union.

Presidential address · 1963
Civil Rights Address

A national address framing racial equality as a moral and constitutional issue and calling for federal civil rights legislation.

Speech · 1963
Ich bin ein Berliner speech

A declaration of solidarity with West Berlin, contrasting democratic freedom with communist rule and affirming Western commitment to the divided city.

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