JFK/Presidency

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Event.png JFK/Presidency (US/Presidency) Rdf-entity.pngRdf-icon.png
DateJanuary 20, 1961 - November 22, 1963
DescriptionThe JFK administration

John F. Kennedy's tenure as the 35th president of the United States, began with his inauguration on January 20, 1961, and ended with his assassination on November 22, 1963. A Democrat from Massachusetts, he took office following the 1960 presidential election, in which he narrowly defeated Richard Nixon, the then-incumbent vice president. He was succeeded by Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Towards the end of his presidency, Kennedy bravely challenged a number of entrenched interests in the US establishment.

Congo crisis

The Congo crisis was perhaps the most serious of the many problems JFK inherited from his predecessor President Eisenhower. On 7 August 2016, James DiEugenio of Citizens for Truth about the Kennedy Assassination (CTKA) wrote:

Richard Mahoney's landmark volume JFK: Ordeal in Africa was a trailblazing effort in the field of excavating what Kennedy's foreign policy really was, and where its intellectual provenance came from. It was published in 1983. Even though it bore the Oxford University Press imprimatur, it had little influence. And although Mahoney's book dealt with three African trouble spots, the majority of the book was focused on the colossal Congo crisis. Which, like other problems, Kennedy inherited from President Eisenhower:

As we learn more about the Congo conflagration, we begin to see how large and complex that struggle was. Large in the sense that, in addition to the UN, several nations were directly involved. Complex in the sense that there were subterranean agendas at work. For instance, although the UK and France ostensibly and officially supported the United Nations effort there, they were actually subverting it on the ground through third party agents. In fact, when one studies the seething cauldron that was the Congo crisis, there are quite a few villains involved.

There are only three heroes I can name: Patrice Lumumba, Dag Hammarskjöld and John F. Kennedy. All three were murdered while the struggle was in process. Their deaths allowed the democratic experiment in Congo to fail spectacularly. Ultimately, it allowed one form of blatant exploitation, colonialism, to be replaced by another, imperialism.[1]

Ich bin ein Berliner!

Ich bin ein Berliner!

On 26 June 1963, JFK addressed a huge crowd in West Berlin in a speech that is considered one of Kennedy’s best, both a notable moment of the Cold War and a high point of the New Frontier. It was a great morale boost for West Berliners, who lived in an enclave deep inside East Germany and feared a possible East German occupation. Speaking from a platform erected on the steps of Rathaus Schöneberg, Kennedy said:

“There are many people in the world who really don’t understand, or say they don’t, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin. There are some who say that communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin… “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!’ … All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words ‘Ich bin ein Berliner!'”

LTBT

On 26 July 1963, Kennedy addressed the nation from the White House. Negotiations on a Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT) had been successfully concluded in Moscow the day before.

The LTBT prohibited all nuclear testing in the atmosphere, space, and underwater (but not underground). Yesterday, Kennedy declared, a shaft of light cut into the darkness.

The pact was signed by American, British, and Soviet representatives on 5 August 1963. The Senate ratified it on 23 September 1963, and Kennedy signed it on 7 October 1963. Less than two months later he would be assassinated.[2]




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