John Kennedy: Young

01VOA Learning English presents America's Presidents.

02Today we are talking about John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

03He was also known as Jack Kennedy, or by the letters JFK.

04When he took office in 1961, Kennedy was 43 years old.

05He was the youngest elected president in United States history.

06Kennedy was also the first Catholic to be elected U.S.

07president.

08Kennedy's youth and religion raised questions in the minds of some Americans that Kennedy could lead the country.

09They wondered if he would always follow the policies of the Roman Catholic Church.

10But Kennedy became well known as a statesman and popular with people around the world.

11He was intelligent, funny, and good-looking.

12For many, Kennedy was a sign of new energy and hope.

13The public was shocked then when the president's term was violently cut short.

14John F.

15Kennedy was born in 1917 near Boston, Massachusetts.

16He was the second of nine children.

17Both his parents were Catholic, with ancestors from Ireland.

18Many years ago, Irish Catholics faced discrimination in the United States.

19But the Kennedy family was also politically powerful and wealthy.

20As a result, young Jack Kennedy grew up in big, beautiful houses and received a top-quality education.

21His family did not suffer during the Great Depression, as many Americans had.

22Instead, the Kennedy children swam, sailed boats, and played sports.

23Jack also enjoyed reading books and following the news.

24His older brother, Joe, wanted to enter politics.

25But Jack said he might become a teacher or writer.

26When he was a college student at Harvard, Jack wrote a long paper about Britain in the years leading up to World War II.

27A version of it was published in 1940 as a book.

28The war changed Jack's thinking about his future plans.

29During World War II, both Jack and his older brother joined the U.S.

30Navy.

31In the Pacific, Jack became a hero.

32He won medals for leading some of his troops to safety after a Japanese warship struck a boat they were on.

33But Joe was killed.

34In 1944, his airplane exploded over Europe.

35When the war ended, Jack's father urged him to follow his brother's dream of succeeding in politics.

36Jack agreed, and he set his sights on becoming the country's first Catholic president.

37Kennedy was nominated as the Democratic Party's candidate, and he was elected in 1960.

38He easily defeated Vice President Richard Nixon, the Republican candidate, in the Electoral College.

39But Kennedy won only narrowly in the popular vote.

40Though he was young, Kennedy brought experience to the job.

41In addition to being a naval officer, Kennedy had been a member of the U.S.

42House of Representatives, as well as a senator from Massachusetts.

43He also published a Pulitzer Prize-winning book called Profiles in Courage.

44And he had become a husband and father.

45He married a wealthy, well-educated woman who had been working as a newspaper photographer.

46Her name was Jacqueline Bouvier, but she was sometimes called Jackie.

47She became pregnant five times, but only two of her children would survive, a daughter named Carolyn and a son, John F.

48Kennedy, Jr.

49The family of four moved into the White House in January 1961.

50On the day he was sworn in, Kennedy gave a speech that many people still remember today.

51It celebrated the new generation of Americans and promised to pay any price for liberty.

52Supporters of the new president loved his energy and sense of hope.

53In his most famous line, Kennedy said, Ask not what your country can do for you.

54Ask what you can do for your country.

55Many young people remembered that line when they volunteered for a program Kennedy created in 1961, the Peace Corps.

56Other Americans remembered the line when they watched two Apollo 11 astronauts walk on the moon in 1969.

57Kennedy strongly supported the country's space program.

58Kennedy also supported efforts to improve civil rights across the U.S., although his administration moved slowly.

59Calls to end legalized racism were growing stronger during Kennedy's time in office, particularly because of the leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr.

60In June of 1963, King spoke to hundreds of thousands of people at a civil rights protest called the March on Washington.

61He told the crowd that he dreamed, My four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

62The March on Washington, among other events, showed the power of the civil rights movement.

63In late 1963, President Kennedy sent a civil rights bill to Congress and spoke to Americans about the injustice that remained in the country.

64The Peace Corps, the space race, and civil rights are all part of Kennedy's legacy.

65Kennedy is also remembered for several troubling international events.

66In one, known as the Bay of Pigs, Americans supported Cuban refugees in an effort to oust the government of Fidel Castro.

67Not only did the refugees fail, but Kennedy's government was found to be lying about their support of the effort.

68And Kennedy faced off with the leader of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev.

69In 1962, American leaders learned that the Soviets had hidden nuclear weapons in Cuba.

70The missiles would be able to reach the U.S.

71mainland easily.

72Kennedy ordered a blockade of Cuba.

73People around the world held their breath as they waited to see if the U.S.

74and the Soviet Union would launch a nuclear war.

75They did not.

76After several very tense weeks, Kennedy and Khrushchev reached an agreement that ended the crisis.

77Kennedy went on to reach an agreement with the Soviet Union and Britain to limit nuclear weapons testing.

78He said the agreement was one of the presidential acts of which he was most satisfied.

79Historians still debate Kennedy's actions and what else might have happened during his presidency.

80They wonder especially what he would have done about the increasing conflict in Vietnam.

81But Kennedy did not live to finish his first term.

82By November 22, 1963, Kennedy had been president for just under three years.

83The next election was still a year away, but it was time to start campaigning again.

84So the president and his wife went to Dallas, Texas, to connect with voters.

85They were riding in a car with other official vehicles that drove slowly through the center of the city.

86Jack, Jackie, and the Texas governor and his wife sat in a convertible, an automobile without protection over the seats.

87The president was waving at the crowd.

88Suddenly, several gunshots were fired.

89The president was struck twice.

90The governor was also hit and injured.

91Kennedy was hurried to a hospital, but doctors were unable to help him.

92News reporters announced his death to a stunned public.

93Hours later, Jackie Kennedy appeared next to the former vice president, now president, Lyndon Johnson.

94She still wore the clothes with her husband's blood on them.

95The events remain intense in the minds of many Americans who were alive at the time.

96The images remain easily recognizable parts of American history.

97The pictures of Kennedy's family at his funeral are especially memorable.

98In one, three-year-old John holds up his arm and salutes his father's casket.

99Attention quickly turned to the gunman.

100It was reportedly a 24-year-old man named Lee Harvey Oswald.

101Shortly after the president and the governor were shot, Oswald shot a policeman who questioned him.

102Oswald was eventually detained.

103Officials planned to bring him to court for the death of the president and the policeman.

104But on the way from the police station to the jail, a local nightclub owner shot and killed Oswald.

105As a result, the case never came to trial.

106Many Americans believe the reason for the attack has yet to be clarified.

107Historians have a mixed reaction to Kennedy's years as a president, although their opinions are generally positive.

108His image with the public suffered some years after his death because of reports that he had romantic relationships with women other than Jackie throughout his marriage.

109In time, the public also learned about Kennedy's health problems.

110He suffered from severe back pain and Addison's disease.

111He often used strong medicine to help control the conditions.

112The health problems are at odds with Kennedy's image of health and love of sports.

113Yet even with these new details, Kennedy is still one of the country's best remembered leaders.

114He was a charismatic man whose career influenced many other Americans to enter public service.

115Americans also remember his stylish, cultured wife.

116Jackie Kennedy compared the Kennedy years at the White House to Camelot, the legendary court of King Arthur.

117Their remains, along with those of two of their children, are buried at Arlington National Cemetery across the Potomac River from Washington.

118They are honored there with an eternal flame, one designed so the fire will never go out.

119I'm Kelly Jean Kelly.

120I'm Kelly Jean Kelly.