John F Kennedy Summary

Summary:

John F. Kennedy is a novel written by Alan Brinkley. In this book, the author describes John F. Kennedy’s or JFK’s road to greatness. Along the way, JFK encounters many obstacles, such as suffering from innumerable diseases and hardships in his family life. However, because of JFK’s pristine ideology and courageous personality, he greatly changed the United States of America, the world, and the generations to come.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born on May 29, 1917 in Brookline Massachusetts (Brinkley 5). John was often referred to as “Jack” (Brinkley 6). He was the second child of Joseph Sr. and Rose Kennedy’s nine children (Joe Jr., Jack, Rosemary, Kathleen, Eunice, Patricia, Bobby, Jean, and Ted Kennedy) (Brinkley 7). JFK’s father,

John faced Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota and Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon (Brinkley 42). John got the chance to be apart of the first televised presidential debate. He defeated Humphrey and was nominated for president at the Democratic convention on July 14th (Brinkley 46). Later, he was elected president on November 8th with a 49.75% popular vote (Brinkley 50) . The whole country started to recognize John as “JFK” (Brinkley 50). JFK had another child, John F. Kennedy Jr. on November 25th of 1960. Again, JFK underwent many spinal surgeries but he overcame to the point where it was tolerable. He was then inaugurated president on January 20th. JFK’s time as president was quite eventful. His first order of action was to begin to neutralize Laos. In his first year as president, he made made executive decisions and watched the world change. He made the Peace Corps (March 1st), ordered the invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs (April 17th), the Berlin Wall was out up-divided East and West germany, and Alan Shepard was the first american to fly in space (May

He hated it so much he referred to the civil rights for African Americans “a moral crisis”. He worked very hard to change this, he proposed the civil rights legislation to congress. Most of the world loved what he was doing, but there was many that hated it. They believed that African Americans were like animals. This later ended to JFK’s death. In 1963, JFK began to campaign his trip to Texas. On November 22, he began a long, slow motorcade around the city of Dallas (Brinkley 148). There were many reporters comforting JFK about the anti communist advertisements (Brinkley 148). As JFK and his wife are sitting in the back of the convertible, he tells her, “But Jackie, if somebody wants to shoot me from a window with a rifle, nobody can stop him so why worry about it?” (Brinkley 149). A few hours later, two shots were fired from Dealey Plaza and hit the president. He was announced dead at 1 p.m (Brinkley 149). The world was in shock to know that the President was dead. American mourned for their president. The President was put to rest in Arlington National Cemetery. Over 16 million people visited his grave. To this day, JFK is remembered for his charm, youthfulness, productiveness, and leadership. He changed the world so much in his short three years as president. He will always be remembered as an American