He was a father with very high expectations and wanted the boys to win at sports and everything they tried.
As he often said, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going. One time when Joe suggested that he and Jack race on their bicycles, they collided head-on. Joe emerged unscathed while Jack had to have twenty-eight stitches. Because Joe was two years older and stronger than Jack, whenever they fought, Jack would usually get the worst of it.
Jack was very popular and had many friends at Choate, a boarding school for adolescent boys in Connecticut. He played tennis, basketball, football, and golf and also enjoyed reading.
Jack had a "clever, individualist mind," his Head Master once noted, though he was not the best student. He did not always work as hard as he could, except in history and English, which were his favorite subjects. After long experience in sizing up people I definitely know you have the goods and you can go a long way…It is very difficult to make up fundamentals that you have neglected when you were very young, and that is why I am urging you to do the best you can.
Jack graduated from Choate and entered Harvard in , where Joe was already a student. Like his brother Joe, Jack played football. He was not as good an athlete as Joe but he had a lot of determination and perseverance. Unfortunately, one day while playing he ruptured a disk in his spine. Jack never really recovered from this accident and his back continued to bother him for the rest of his life.
The two eldest boys were attractive, agreeable, and intelligent young men and Mr. Kennedy had high hopes for them both. However, it was Joe who had announced to everyone when he was a young boy that he would be the first Catholic to become President. No one doubted him for a moment. Jack, on the other hand, seemed somewhat less ambitious.
He was active in student groups and sports and he worked hard in his history and government classes, though his grades remained only average. Late in , Mr. Kennedy was appointed United States Ambassador to England and moved there with his whole family, with the exception of Joe and Jack who were at Harvard.
After a summer visit to England and other countries in Europe, Jack returned to Harvard more eager to learn about history and government and to keep up with current events. Joe and Jack frequently received letters from their father in England, who informed them of the latest news regarding the conflicts and tensions that everyone feared would soon blow up into a full-scale war.
They both had strong armies and wanted to take land from other countries. By this time, Jack was a senior at Harvard and decided to write his thesis on why Great Britain was unprepared for war with Germany. It was later published as a book called Why England Slept. In June , Jack graduated from Harvard. Soon after graduating, both Joe and Jack joined the Navy.
Joe was a flyer and sent to Europe, while Jack was made Lieutenant Lt. Kennedy had a crew of twelve men whose mission was to stop Japanese ships from delivering supplies to their soldiers. On the night of August 2, , Lt. A Japanese destroyer suddenly became visible. But it was traveling at full speed and headed straight at them. Holding the wheel, Lt. Kennedy tried to swerve out of the way, but to no avail.
The much larger Japanese warship rammed the PT, splitting it in half and killing two of Lt. The others managed to jump off as their boat went up in flames.
Kennedy was slammed hard against the cockpit, once again injuring his weak back. Patrick McMahon, one of his crew members, had horrible burns on his face and hands and was ready to give up. In the darkness, Lt. Kennedy managed to find McMahon and haul him back to where the other survivors were clinging to a piece of the boat that was still afloat.
At sunrise, Lt. Kennedy led his men toward a small island several miles away. Despite his own injuries, Lt. Six days later two native islanders found them and went for help, delivering a message Jack had carved into a piece of coconut shell. The next day, the PT crew was rescued. He died a year later when his plane blew up during a dangerous mission in Europe. When he returned home, Jack was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for his leadership and courage. With the war finally coming to an end, it was time to choose the kind of work he wanted to do.
After serious discussions with Jack about his future, Joseph Kennedy convinced him that he should run for Congress in Massachusetts' eleventh congressional district, where he won in As the years went on, John F. Kennedy, a Democrat, served three terms six years in the House of Representatives, and in he was elected to the US Senate.
Soon after being elected senator, John F. Kennedy, at 36 years of age, married 24 year-old Jacqueline Bouvier, a writer with the Washington Times-Herald. While recovering from surgery, he wrote a book about several US Senators who had risked their careers to fight for the things in which they believed.
The book, called Profiles in Courage , was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for biography in John F. Kennedy was becoming a popular politician. In he was almost picked to run for vice president. Kennedy nonetheless decided that he would run for president in the next election.
Another contributor to the Kennedy legend, something deeper than his personal attractiveness, is the image of what many came to call grace. He not only had grace, in the sense of performing and acting gracefully; he was also a man who seemed to receive grace. He was handsome and looked athletic. He was wealthy. He had a captivating wife and children, a photogenic family. He sprinkled his public remarks with quotations from poets and philosophers.
The Kennedy family helped create his career and, later, his legacy. Joseph Kennedy, one of the wealthiest and most ruthless men in America, had counted on his first son, Joe Jr. Years later, when Kennedy wrote Profiles in Courage with the help of his aide Theodore Sorensen, Krock lobbied successfully for the book to win a Pulitzer Prize.
The Kennedy legacy has a darker side as well. Many critics saw recklessness, impatience, impetuosity. He spent much of his life in hospitals, battling a variety of ills. His ability to serve as president was itself a profile in courage. Like his father, he was obsessed with the ritual of sexual conquest—before and during his marriage, before and during his presidency.
While he was alive, the many women, the Secret Service agents, and the others who knew of his philandering kept it a secret. Still, now that the stories of his sexual activities are widely known, they have done little to tarnish his reputation. It also reflects the historical moment in which he emerged. Schlesinger Jr. Kennedy helped give urgency to the idea of pursuing a national purpose—a great American mission.
In the 15 years since World War II, ideological momentum had been slowly building in the United States, fueled by anxieties about the rivalry with the Soviet Union and by optimism about the dynamic performance of the American economy. When Kennedy won the presidency, the desire for change was still tentative, as his agonizingly thin margin over Richard Nixon suggests. But it was growing, and Kennedy seized the moment to provide a mission—or at least he grasped the need for one—even though it was not entirely clear what the mission was.
Early in his tenure, a Defense Department official wrote a policy paper that expressed a curious mix of urgent purpose and vague goals:. Those who knew him realized, however, that he was more cautious than his speeches suggested. John F. Kennedy was a good president but not a great one, most scholars concur. There were a significant number of Kennedy memories that were strictly negative. Allegations of adultery were numerous. I was young and uninspired by his morals.
Most remember him fondly. He would have been great, had it not been for his untimely death. People remembered different facets of Kennedy; for many he is fondly remembered for the way he inspired people. His speaking abilities were mentioned frequently as were general comments about him inspiring them. Even more specifically, they credit him with inspiring the nation to achieve great feats in space exploration, especially landing on the moon. Camelot was mentioned by many, but so were accusations of nepotism.
He had few if any accomplishments. The poll revealed that Americans have a more complete picture of President Kennedy than we might cynically think otherwise. Kennedy is more than just Camelot and a tragic motorcade in Dallas.
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