John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)
President Kennedy grew up in a large, politically engaged, Irish Catholic family with Boston roots. His father, Joe, grew up amidst discrimination levied on those of Irish descent, and resented the social slights. He became wealthy and powerful, fueling ambitions to become US president. That ambition was precluded by his missteps while ambassador to England. As a result, those ambitions were redirected onto his sons. John’s mother, Rose, was a well-educated devout Catholic who most importantly imbued a social conscience in her children, taking them regularly to Mass and instructing them “to whom much is given, much is expected.” Notable was the children’s experience with their mentally retarded sister, Rosemary, whom they were taught to treat equally. Rose spoke of Rosemary as “a gift from God,” to teach us compassion.
Although in rather poor health throughout much of his life, Jack was vigorous and athletic. He was inaugurated President in 1961. A Democrat, he had previously served two terms as a Representative from Massachusetts, (1947-1952) and was elected to the Senate in 1952. Prior to that, he had graduated from Harvard College, writing his senior thesis on the British failure to prepare for World War II. He traveled Europe at the war’s beginning with the assistance of his father, who was President Roosevelt’s ambassador to England, and with hospitality extended by his father’s fellow diplomats.
John Kennedy, known as Jack, was rejected when after college he attempted to enlist in the military. He was finally inducted as an ensign into Naval Intelligence with the assistance of his father’s contacts. He was assigned to desk jobs but wanted to be in the action – as his older brother, Joe was. (Joe died when his plane exploded while on a mission in Europe.) Another intervention, by a family friend, got Jack a transfer to the Pacific war zone where he commanded a PT boat. Colleagues found him serious, interested in discussions and in their opinions. Jack became disillusioned by war, disappointed in the military leadership. He thought MacArthur’s strategy of fighting island to island wasteful as was the easily observed and poorly executed unloading of men and supplies from ships. He found that PT boats were not as effective as reported and were unsafe: they were poorly armed with inadequate guns and unreliable World War I torpedoes, had defective engines and poor radios. While on a night patrol, Jack’s PT boat was hit and split in two by a Japanese destroyer. Jack was hailed for leading his men to swim to safety on an island while he towed a disabled crew member.1
Due to the injuries sustained in that accident and his other longstanding health concerns, Jack left the Navy, sought medical treatment and spent several months recuperating. His health issues remained with him for life, and he relied on a variety of medications to relieve pain.
In 1945, Jack Kennedy worked as a reporter covering the organizational meetings in San Francisco for the United Nations followed by an assignment to cover international events in England and Germany. After the British elections, Jack accepted an invitation from US naval secretary James Forrestal to join him to see Potsdam and the destruction of other German cities. This provided him with opportunities to meet President Harry Truman, General Eisenhower, the new British leaders, the Soviet foreign minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, and its Ambassador Andrey Gromyko. 2
In 1946, with the savvy political positioning of his father, Jack ran for and won the Massachusetts Eleventh District congressional seat.
Notable political accomplishments before JFK became president:
- Supported Secretary Marshall’s plan for aid to Italy.
- Supported Algeria’s quest for independence from France despite criticism from the Eisenhower administration. He argued that the United States’ policy of neutrality was short-sighted.
- Supported the St. Lawrence Seaway, having studied Boston port activity and concluding that the Seaway would not take business away from the Boston port. He thought the Seaway would be good for the country.
- Published two books: Why England Slept, originally his Harvard senior thesis and
- Profiles in Courage for which he won a Pulitzer Prize.
Barely thirteen months after the peaceful conclusion of the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy was assassinated. His positive leadership had appealed especially to the youth of the country who were ready to work hard to achieve the goals he set. His presidency was notable for the development of the Peace Corp, the quest to land an American on the moon, support of the arts, and late in his term, a recognition that civil rights was a moral, as well as constitutional and legal crisis.
Larry Sabato, the political scholar, summed up Kennedy’s appeal as:
A young president [whose] torch of possibilities and public service will be passed again and again to new generations… What endures will be what matters – not just the stark reminder that even the most charmed life can be defined by brutal tragedy, but genuine inspiration from John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s public words and deeds, the things that moved history and people’s minds and hearts.3
Notes:
1 Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life John F. Kennedy 1917- 1963. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 2003. p. 96.
2Dallek, 114-117.
3Larry Sabato, the Kennedy Half Century. Bloombury, New York.2013. p 427.
Resources:
Mark Mooney and Russell Goldman, “Ted Kennedy Was Surrounded by Crying, Praying Family,” ABC News. Aug. 26, 2009. (Reporting on the death of Senator Ted Kennedy and recalling his mother, Rose Kennedy’s motto.)
Papers of John F. Kennedy. Pre-Presidential Papers. House of Representatives Files. Speeches, 1947-1952. Boston Office Speech Files, 1946-1952. Aid to Italy, 20 November 1947. JFKREP-0095-003. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum
Papers of John F. Kennedy. Pre-Presidential Papers. Senate Files. Speeches and the Press. Speech Files, 1953-1960. Indo-China speech of 1954, 6 April 1954. JFKSEN-0894-004. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum
Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971)
Nikita was born into a peasant family in Kursk, near the Ukrainian border. He attended school for four years then began working in mines and factories. In 1917 at the age of 23, he was elected to the workers’ council and soon was mobilized into the Soviet army as a political commissar. In mid-1922 he was offered the directorship of a mine but chose instead to be assigned to a technical college in Yuzovka where he obtained a high school education. He rose quickly in the party and was appointed second in command of Stalin’s party apparatus in late 1926. In 1929, as he progressed in the Party, he moved to Moscow. By 1932, Khrushchev had become second in command of the Party for the city of Moscow. Later, as its head, he oversaw construction of the Moscow Metro.1
Between 1934 –1939 he worked with Joseph Stalin and approved the effort to purge – execute or send to the Gulag –many military and party leaders. In June 1937, the Politburo set a quota of 35,000 enemies to be arrested in Moscow province; 5,000 of those were to be executed. Within two weeks Khrushchev reported to Stalin that 41,305 “had been arrested and of those 8,500 deserved execution.” 2
In late 1943, Khrushchev returned to Ukraine. Most of the country had been occupied and devastated by the Germans. Food production and housing were inadequate. Sixteen percent of the Ukrainian population were killed in World War II.3 Khrushchev sought to rebuild Ukraine but was hampered by both a drought and Stalin’s insistence that Ukraine provide food for Soviet allies. In an effort to increase agricultural production, collective farms expelled non-productive residents including invalids and the elderly, and conveniently, the leaders’ personal enemies, sending them to the eastern parts of the Soviet Union. Khrushchev viewed this policy as very effective and recommended its adoption elsewhere to Stalin.4
Stalin recalled Khrushchev to Moscow in December 1949 to resume his former role and to be one of the four Central Committee Secretaries alongside himself. He remained on the Politburo. In 1950, he began a large-scale housing program of five- to six-story apartment buildings, constructed without elevators or balconies. These prefabricated reinforced concrete buildings were plagued with shoddy workmanship.
Stalin died in March 1953. After a period of jockeying for power, by September Khrushchev had control of the Communist party. His major opponent, Lavrentiy Beria, and five of Beria’s closest associates were executed in December. Newly freed under Khrushchev, former political prisoners reported on their experiences in the labor camps. In February 1956, during the 20th Party Congress, Khrushchev gave what is known as his “Secret Speech.” It was to be heard only by members of the Soviet delegation as it exposed Stalin’s crimes. Khrushchev hoped this opening up of the government would inspire the Soviet population.
As leader of the Soviet Union, Khrushchev enjoyed considerable popularity throughout the 1950’s due to the successful launching of Sputnik and interactions with other governments that the USSR saw as favorable to themselves. However, Khrushchev’s popularity faded within the Politburo because of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.5
As summarized by his biographer, William Taubman:
Khrushchev rose from the humblest of backgrounds to unimaginable heights. Not only did he reach Stalin’s inner circle and survive nearly two decades there, but he also bested Kremlin rivals who seemed far more likely than he to succeed Stalin. Khrushchev tried bravely to humanize and modernize the Soviet system. Having served Stalin loyally for nearly three decades, he unmasked him and helped release and rehabilitate millions of his victims. Whereas Stalin was largely responsible for triggering the cold war, Khrushchev tried awkwardly to improve relations with the West. He also attempted to revitalize areas of Soviet life—agriculture, industry, and culture among others—that had languished under Stalinism. All this deserves to be recognized. But Khrushchev’s miraculous rise was itself deeply tainted by his complicity in Stalin’s crimes.6
Notes:
1William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, New York: W.W. Norton & Co. 2003. Kindle Edition. p.120.
2Taubman, p. 227.
3Taubman, p. 217.
4Taubman, p. 248.
5 Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life John F. Kennedy 1917- 1963. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 2003. p 536
6Taubman,p. 14.
Resources:
Nikita Khrushchev: Encyclopedia Britannica. (Last update February 10, 2025.) https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nikita-Sergeyevich-Khrushchev
Fidel Castro (1926-2016)
Fidel Castro was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who led Cuba from 1959 to 2008. Born the son of a prosperous Spanish farmer, Castro became interested in Marxist philosophy while studying law at the University of Havana, where he graduated in 1950. He planned to run for legislative office in 1952, but elections were canceled when Fulgencio Batista seized power. Castro joined rebellions against right-wing governments in the Dominican Republic and Colombia. In 1953, he tried to overthrow Batista but failed and he was jailed for a year. Later, his revolution succeeded and when Batista fled the country in 1959, Castro assumed military and political control of the country.
Castro instituted reforms that distributed large land holdings among peasants. Plantations owned by American investors and wealthy Cubans who had fled were confiscated. Sugar production and oil refineries owned by US corporations were nationalized. Within a year, the Castro government had redistributed 15 per cent of the nation’s wealth. Infrastructure was improved, housing constructed, and investments were made in water and sanitation projects. In May 1960, Castro cancelled all future elections.
Castro’s regime was initially popular with workers, peasants, and students, who constituted the majority of the country’s population, while opposition came primarily from the middle class. Thousands of doctors, engineers and other professionals emigrated to Florida. Productivity fell.
In March 1960, President Eisenhower authorized the CIA to support the overthrow of Castro’s government. The United States instituted an economic embargo and encouraged counter-revolution, including the Bay of Pigs Invasion of 1961. In February 1962, President Kennedy expanded the United States embargo to cover almost all U.S. imports. Countering these threats, Castro aligned with the Soviet Union and in 1962, allowed the Soviets to place nuclear weapons in Cuba.
In assessing Castro’s life, Anthony Depalma wrote in the New York Times:
His legacy in Cuba and elsewhere has been a mixed record of social progress and abject poverty, of racial equality and political persecution, of medical advances and a degree of misery comparable to the conditions that existed in Cuba when he entered Havana as a victorious guerrilla commander in 1959.
Resources:
Anthony DePalma, Fidel Castro, Cuban Revolutionary Who Defied U.S., Dies at 90. New York Times Nov. 26, 2016
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Fidel Castro.” Encyclopedia Britannica, January 13, 2025. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Fidel-Castro.
General Dwight Eisenhower (1890 – 1969) President (1953-1960)
Eisenhower was raised in Abilene, Kansas in a Mennonite community. Although his mother opposed war, her collection of history books sparked Eisenhower’s interest in military history. Wanting to attend college and learning that tuition would be free at a military academy, he obtained an appointment to West Point in 1911, graduating in 1915.
During World War I, Eisenhower commanded a unit training tank crews. Between the wars he served in the US and the Philippines. In World War II Eisenhower oversaw the Allied invasions of North Africa, Sicily, France and Germany. He became Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe and achieved the five-star rank as General of the Army.
After the war ended in Europe, he became military governor of the American-occupied zone of Germany (1945), Army Chief of Staff (1945–1948), president of Columbia University (1948–1953), and supreme commander of NATO (1951–1952). While president of Columbia, Eisenhower advised on the unification of the armed services and was the unofficial Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff .
At Columbia University he promoted the formation of the American Assembly, to focus on “the American form of democracy” through education. He was also instrumental in the creation at Columbia of the Institute of War and Peace Studies. It was a research facility to “study war as a tragic social phenomenon”.
Eisenhower won the 1952 presidential race as a Republican. Major events during his administration include:
Support for use of nuclear fission for electrical energy and nuclear medicine and building a stockpile of nuclear weapons and nuclear delivery systems to deter military threats and cut back on expensive Army combat units.
Development of the system of interstate highways and creation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) in early 1958.
CIA support of military coups in Iran in 1953 and in Guatemala in 1954. Approved a CIA operation to carry out a terrorist attacks and sabotage against Cuba.
Continuing efforts from the Truman administration, ended segregation in the District of Columbia, the Federal Government, and in the Armed Forces. Proposed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and of 1960 and signed those acts into law. In 1957, he sent federal troops to integrate Arkansas’ public school system.
During the Kennedy administration, Eisenhower provided valuable assistance in analyzing the failure of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion and supported Kennedy’s decision to institute a military blockade Cuba in 1962.
Resources:
Reeves, T.C. “Dwight D. Eisenhower.” Encyclopedia Britannica, February 18, 2025. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Dwight-D-Eisenhower
Miller Center https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/educational-resources/john-f-kennedy-and-dwight-eisenhower
Llewellyn (Tommy) Thompson (1904-1972)
Llewellyn Thompson was US ambassador to Moscow from July 1957 to July 1962 and January 1967 to January 1969, and an ambassador-at-large of the U.S. Department of State from July 1962 to December 1966. He had been in Moscow during the WWII.
Thompson had developed a special relationship with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev during his ambassadorship. Khrushchev realized that Thompson was truthful and trying to achieve better relations. During his first five-year appointment, Thompson saw the countries’ relationship beginning to thaw. He strongly advocated for cultural and scientific exchanges.
Thompson’s long experience in negotiating with Communists allowed him to correctly anticipate Khrushchev’s reactions during the Cuban Missile Crisis. As Secretary of State Dean Rusk described, it made him “our Russian in the Room.” His sensitivity to Khrushchev’s position was invaluable.
During the Crisis, Khrushchev had sent Kennedy two conflicting letters, the last one had been made public and proposed to trade removal of Soviet weapons from Cuba in exchange for the US removing its weapons from Turkey. President Kennedy recognized that much of the world would find that reasonable, but such a move would cause allies to feel abandoned by the US. With a potential U.S. strike on Cuba just days away, the window for solving the crisis through diplomacy was closing.
Kennedy looked at his advisers, the men sitting around the table and said, “We’re not going to get these weapons out of Cuba, probably… by negotiation. We’re going to have to take our weapons out of Turkey.” To everyone´s surprise, Thompson, a normally reticent participant in discussions, said, “I don´t agree, Mr. President.” Thompson still believed the Soviets would remove their missiles from Cuba without the trade.1 With that advice, the decision was made to reply to Khrushchev’s first letter and ignore the second.
Notes:
1“Tommy Thompson — The Kremlinologist,” National Security Archive.
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2018-11-19/tommy-thompson-kremlinologist
Excerpts from the recorded conversation at:
href=”https://millercenter.org/sites/default/files/2023-12/FINAL_JFK%20Meeting%20Tape%2041_Let%27s%20Not%20Kid%20Ourselves.pdf”
Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965)
Adlai Stevenson was governor of Illinois 1949-1953, then the Democratic nominee for the presidency in 1952 and 1956. He was Ambassador to the United Nations under President Kennedy from 1961-1965.
He graduated from Princeton University in 1922 and later obtain his law degree at Northwestern. After joining a Chicago law firm, he became active in the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, was chosen its president in 1933, and, through it, developed close friendships with local persons and international visitors knowledgeable of world affairs.1
Stevenson had several high positions in government beginning in 1941 when he became
special assistant to the U.S. Secretary of the Navy, and in 1943 he headed a Foreign Economic Administration mission to Italy to develop a US relief program. Later, he advised the US delegation to the 1945 San Francisco Conference that founded the UN; was senior adviser to the US delegation at the first meeting of the UN General Assembly in London (1946) and was a US delegate at the Assembly meetings in New York (1946–47).2
In 1948 Stevenson was elected governor of Illinois. His administration was characterized by far-reaching reforms: establishment of a merit system for state police, improved care and treatment of patients in state mental hospitals, greater state aid for schools, and a revitalized civil service.
Eleanor Roosevelt regarded him as the leading Democratic figure of the 1950s. Her Papers Project noted his “wit, intellectual speeches, and liberal political convictions. For many Americans in the mid-twentieth century, he symbolized conscience in politics.”3
Stevenson’s relationship to John Kennedy was damaged during the 1956 Democratic convention. Kennedy was interested in the vice presidency, but despite a strong effort by his supporters to convince Stevenson to choose him as a running mate, he was turned down because Stevenson thought Kennedy’s Catholicism an insurmountable obstacle to election. To avoid insulting any of the candidates, Stevenson allowed the convention to pick his vice-presidential running mate, and Estes Kefauver was their choice. In the fall, Kennedy campaigned for the Stevenson ticket while seeking to introduce himself to a wider public in preparation for his own future campaigns.4
During his 1956 campaign, Stevenson challenged Americans and all the world’s peoples to step back from the nuclear precipice and unite around their common humanity. This would preoccupy him, above all other issues and controversies, until his death in 1965. As President Kennedy’s United Nations ambassador Stevenson soon became the world’s most insistent voice for disarmament, while urging the richest nations to tackle the questions of world poverty.5
Notes:
1”Adlai E. Stevenson II,” “https://stevensoncenter.org/about/stevenson/”
2The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Adlai E. Stevenson.” Encyclopedia Britannica, February 1, 2025. “https://www.britannica.com/biography/Adlai-E-Stevenson”.
3Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project, “Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965),”https://erpapers.columbian.gwu.edu/adlai-stevenson-1900-1965″
4Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life John F. Kennedy 1917- 1963. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 2003 , pp. 201-210.
5Adlai E. Stevenson II,” https://stevensoncenter.org/about/stevenson/”
Robert Frost (1874-1963)
Robert Frost was born in San Francisco. After his father’s death in 1885, the family moved to Massachusetts, to live with Robert’s paternal grandparents. Frost graduated from Lawrence High School in 1892, where he worked on the high school magazine and published his first poem.
Frost is known primarily for his poetry but was also a farmer and a schoolteacher. He excelled at teaching, but not at farming. His poetry was not recognized until he gave up farming and moved to England. There, his first book of poetry, A Boy’s Will, was published in 1913.
Frost is the only poet to receive four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry. He was the Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1958-1959, and recited his poem, The Gift Outright at the inauguration of President Kennedy in 1961. Frost was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 1960 and in 1961 was named Vermont’s Poet Laureate.
In August of 1962, upon the suggestion of Secretary of the Interior, Stewart Udall, and with the approval of President Kennedy, Frost was invited to accompany Udall to visit the Soviet Union on a goodwill mission. He visited several cities and spoke with many Soviet poets, but the highlight of his tour was a one-on-one conversation with Premier Nikita Khrushchev. He had yearned to speak with Khrushchev and felt he could make a contribution to peace.
In their meeting, “Frost defined a code of conduct for a noble rivalry that would avoid mistakes and misjudgments. He argued that the leaders had a duty to resolve conflicts before they became inflamed and to create a climate of understanding in which wide-ranging contact and competition could thrive… Great nations admire each other and don’t take pleasure in belittling each other.”1
Frost ‘s contribution to world peace was in his innate understanding of humanity, of its fears and its potential for good. He did not know of the approaching missile crisis in Cuba, yet the words he spoke to Khrushchev about a “noble rivalry” were echoed in the words “peaceful competition” in a letter from Khrushchev to Kennedy seeking to remove the threat of nuclear war at the height of that crisis.
Frost died the following January. In his tribute, President Kennedy said Frost was
“A man whose contribution was not to our size but to our spirit, not to our political beliefs but to our insight, not to our self-esteem, but to our self-comprehension. In honoring Robert Frost, we therefore can pay honor to the deepest sources of our national strength… Our national strength matters, but the spirit which informs and controls our strength matters just as much. This was the special significance of Robert Frost. He brought an unsparing instinct for reality to bear on the platitudes and pieties of society. His sense of the human tragedy fortified him against self-deception.”
Notes:
1Stewart Udall, ”Poetry, Stalinism and the Cuban Missile Crisis,“ Los Angeles Times, October 30, 1988. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-10-30-bk-696-story.html