Jody – Ask Not

John Fitzgerald “Jack” Kennedy was born at 83 Beals Street in Brookline, Massachusetts on May 29, 1917. He was the first President born in the 20^th century. He was the second son of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. Both parents were from wealthy Boston families. His maternal grandfather had been mayor of Boston and a three-term member of Congress. His paternal grandfather had made a fortune in the stock market, entertainment and other businesses and managed to take his money out of the market just before the crash of 1929. Even though the Great Depression gripped the nation during their childhood, Jack and his eight siblings enjoyed a privileged lifestyle far from the troubles of most Americans.

Jack Kennedy lived in Brookline for ten years and attended Edward Devotion School, Noble and Greenough Lower School, and the Dexter School through fourth grade. The family moved to Riverdale, Bronx, New York City in 1927. Later they moved to Bronxville, New York, where Jack was a Boy Scout in Troop 2 (he was the first Boy Scout to become President). Kennedy spent his summers at their home in Hyannisport, Massachusetts and Easter and Christmas holidays at their winter home in Palm Beach, Florida. He attended Riverdale Country School, a private school for boys, for fifth through seventh grade. For eighth grade he attended Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut. In the spring of that year he had appendicitis and required surgery. He left Canterbury and recuperated at home. His high school years were spent at The Choate School in Wallingford, Connecticut. Joe, Jr., his older brother, was already at Choate and was the leading student in school and a football star. Jack compensated for being in his brother’s shadow with rebellious behavior that attracted a coterie. After one notorious stunt the headmaster referred to the boys as “muckers”. In defiance, Jack named his group the Muckers Club. His years at Choate were also years in which he had more health problems. He graduated in 1935. For the year schoolbook, of which he had been the business manager, he was voted the “Most Likely to Succeed”.

In September 1935, Jack Kennedy made his first trip abroad with his family with the intent of studying at the London School of Economics (LSE), once again following in his brother Joe’s footsteps. He attended LSE for a short time and returned to the U.S. in October to enroll late at Princeton University. Health problems beset him again and he was hospitalized in Boston for two months for possible leukemia. He convalesced at their winter home in Palm Beach. In the spring of 1936, he worked as a ranch hand on a 40,000 acre cattle ranch in Arizona. That summer he raced sailboats in Hyannisport. In the fall of 1936, Kennedy enrolled at Harvard College. He tried out for the football, golf and swim teams, earning a spot on the varsity swim team. While at Harvard he became a more serious student and developed an interest in political philosophy. In his junior year he made the Dean’s List. He graduated from Harvard with a B.S., cum laude, in international affairs in 1940. Kennedy then enrolled and audited classes at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

In July 1937, he sailed to France with his convertible on board and spent ten weeks driving through Europe. One year later, he again sailed overseas, this time with his father and brother Joe, Jr. to work with his father who had been appointed by President Roosevelt as Ambassador to the Court of St. James, at the American Embassy in London. In 1939, he toured Europe, the Soviet Union, the Balkans and the Middle East in preparation for his Harvard senior honors thesis. While working for his father he wrote his senior essay on England’s lack of readiness for the Second World War. It was published under the title Why England Slept and became a bestseller. Then he went to Czechoslovakia and Germany, returning to London the day Germany invaded Poland (September 1, 1939). Kennedy was sent as his father’s representative to help with arrangements for American survivors of the S.S. Athenia before flying back to the U.S. on his first transatlantic flight.

After Kennedy graduated from Harvard, the U.S. entered World War II. He tried to join the Navy but was denied due to his chronic lower-back problems. His father intervened and he was eventually admitted. Kennedy was an ensign serving in the office of the Secretary of the Navy when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. He then attended the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps and Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Training Center and was assigned to duty in Panama. Later he was assigned to the South Pacific, where he earned the rank of Lieutenant. Lt. Kennedy commanded a small motor-torpedo boat known as a “PT boat”. Kennedy and his crew served in the campaign to wrest thousands of islands from Japanese control. In August 1943, his boat, PT- 109, was rammed by a Japanese destroyer in the Solomon Islands. Despite re-injury to his back during the collision, Kennedy towed a badly burned crewmate by a life-jacket strap clenched in his teeth. He led the crew’s 10 survivors on a three-mile swim to a tiny island. The crew hid from the enemy on the island for days. Eventually Kennedy towed the injured crewman a second time to a larger island where he managed to summon help. Kennedy received the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps Medal for Valor and a Purple Heart for his injuries. When he returned home he was recruited to go on speaking tours to build public morale. In October 1943, Kennedy took command of a PT boat converted into a gun boat, PT-59, and took part in a Marine rescue on Choiseul Island. He was honorably discharged in early 1945, just before Japan surrendered. Other decorations he earned included: American Defense Service Medal, American Campaign Medal, Asian-Pacific Campaign Medal with three bronze service stars and the World War II Victory Medal. When asked later by a reporter how he became a war hero, Kennedy joked: “It was involuntary. They sank my boat.”

Following his discharge from the Navy, John Kennedy worked for a short while as a reporter for the Hearst newspapers. In 1946, 29 year-old John F. Kennedy won election to the U.S. Congress representing a working-class district of Boston. He served three terms in the House of Representatives. In October 1951, during his third term as Congressman, Kennedy embarked on a seven-week Asian trip to India, Japan, Vietnam and Israel with his younger brother Robert (nine years his junior) and younger sister Patricia. The 25,000-mile trip was the first extended amount of time the brothers had spent together and they became best friends. In 1952, he ran for the U.S. Senate with his brother Robert as his campaign manager and together they defeated the incumbent Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. They worked closely together from 1957 to 1959 on the Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor and Management Field (Robert was its chief counsel). Kennedy continued to be beset by poor health. He was left thin and pale from malaria he contracted in the Pacific. He suffered from Addison’s disease, which many doctors considered terminal. He was in constant back pain and relied on a steady regiment of pain killers and steroids to treat his many symptoms. Ironically, however, his public image was one of youth, health and vigor.

John F. Kennedy met his future wife, Jacqueline Bouvier, when he was in the U.S. House of Representatives. Journalist Charles Bartlett introduced the pair at a dinner party and, as Kennedy later put it, “I leaned across the asparagus and asked her for a date.” They were married a year after he was elected U.S. Senator. Together they had two children who survived infancy, Caroline Bouvier Kennedy and John F. Kennedy, Jr.

John F. Kennedy was sworn in as the 35^th President of the United States on January 20, 1961. In his inaugural address he spoke of the need of all Americans to be active citizens saying, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” President Kennedy and his First Lady were much younger in comparison to the presidents and first ladies that preceded them. Their popularity was more akin to the popularity of movie stars and music singers than that of politicians. President Kennedy was the first president to ask for presidential press conferences to be broadcast live on television. Jacqueline brought new art and furniture to the White House and directed its restoration. The Kennedy Presidency came to represent the ascendance of youthful idealism in the aftermath of the war. The charisma of the Kennedy Presidency led to the designation of “Camelot” to his administration. First Lady Jacqueline coined the name due to President Kennedy’s affection for the contemporary Broadway musical of the same name.

As President, Kennedy set out to redeem his campaign pledge to get America moving again. His economic programs launched the country on its longest sustained expansion since World War II. He laid plans for a massive assault on persistent poverty. He took vigorous action in the cause of equal rights and called for new civil rights legislation. He wished for America to resume its old mission as the leading nation dedicated to the revolution of human rights. He brought American idealism to developing nations through his Alliance for Progress and the Peace Corps.

The Communist challenge demanded his attention and at times took him away from his idealistic goals. President Kennedy permitted a group of Cuban exiles, already armed and trained, to invade their homeland. Their attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro and his regime failed. Soon after, the Soviet Union renewed its campaign against West Berlin. President Kennedy responded by reinforcing the Berlin garrison and increasing America’s military strength and its new efforts in outer space. Next the Russians sought to install nuclear missiles in Cuba. President Kennedy imposed a naval quarantine on all offensive weapons bound for Cuba. While the world trembled, Russia backed down and agreed to take the missiles away. President Kennedy believed that both parties had a vital interest in stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and slowing the arms race- a belief that led to the Test Ban Treaty of 1963.

The promise of “Camelot” was cut short for America and the world on November 22, 1963, when President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. He was shot once in the upper back and was killed with a final shot to the head. For many Americans, President Kennedy’s public murder is still one of the most traumatic events in memory. His shocking death stood at the forefront of a period of political and social instability in the country and the world.

Jody – The Great Society

Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) was born on August 27, 1908 in a small farm house on the Pedernales River in Stonewall, Texas. His family included some of the earliest settlers of Texas. They had been cattlemen, cotton farmers and soldiers for the Confederacy. Lyndon was the first of five children (two sons-three daughters) born to Sam and Rebekah Baines Johnson. His father was a talker and a dreamer who was suited for more than farming. Sam Johnson won election to the Texas legislature when he was twenty-seven years old. He served 5 terms before he switched careers and lived solely again as a farmer on the family land 70 miles west of Austin. In 1913, the Johnson family abandoned the farm and moved to nearby Johnson City (named after Sam’s cousin James Polk Johnson). The family house in Johnson City, while comfortable by rural South standards at the time, had no indoor plumbing or electricity. Lyndon, like his father before him, wanted more for his own future. Later Lyndon would remember: “When I was fourteen years old I decided I was not going to be the victim of a system which would allow the price of a commodity like cotton to drop from forty cents to six cents and destroy the homes of people like my own family.”

Lyndon’s early education was just as challenging. School for the Johnson children at first was a one-room, one-teacher enterprise. Johnson City High School was a three-mile mule ride away from their home. Lyndon Johnson graduated from high school in 1924. He was president of his six-member senior class. The Johnson family scrimped and saved to send Lyndon to summer courses at Southwest Texas State Teachers College but he did not do well and was not accepted into college. With five friends, he bought a car and drove to California, where he did odd jobs and briefly worked at a cousin’s law office. He hitchhiked back to Texas and worked for a while on a road crew. In 1927, he refocused his energies on a teaching career and was accepted finally to Southwest Texas Teachers College. Lyndon continued to be an average student. However, he eagerly pursued extracurricular activities such as journalism, student government and debating. He excelled in his student teaching and was assigned to the Welhausen School, a tiny Hispanic school in deeply poor Cotulla. He pushed his long-neglected students and gave them a bit of hope and pride in their accomplishments. LBJ earned glowing references but when he graduated in 1930, the US was entering the Great Depression. His first teaching job paid only $1,530 for the year but once again he did an outstanding job with his students. He taught at Pearsall High School in Pearsall, Texas and, later, taught public speaking at Sam Houston High School in Houston, Texas.

Lyndon Johnson’s teaching career was short-lived. While teaching, LBJ also performed unpaid political work in his free time, which fueled other ambitions. He tirelessly helped a friend of his father’s in some local campaigns. Then he won a job as an aide to U.S. Congressman Kleberg of Corpus Christi in late 1931. In Washington, LBJ’s work ethic was astounding. He poured over every detail of congressional protocol. No mail went unanswered. He attended Georgetown University Law Center. His drive and ambition made him stand out among the young people in Washington.

Lyndon returned to Texas in 1934 to visit his family. While home he met twenty-one-year-old Claudia Alta (Lady Bird) Taylor who had recently graduated from the University of Texas and was a member of a wealthy East Texas family. They were married on November 17, 1934, just three months later. Lady Bird became a refining balance to her boisterous, hyperactive husband. Together they had two daughters, Lynda Bird (1944) and Luci Baines (1947). Lyndon enjoyed giving people and animals his own initials. The family dog was named Little Beagle Johnson.

In 1935, LBJ was appointed head of the Texas National Youth Administration, which enabled him to use the government to create education and job opportunities for young people. Once again his drive and work ethic was superb. In 1937, the U.S. Congressman from his own district died and LBJ quickly moved to grab the job. He tapped into his new wife’s inheritance and purchased a local radio station. He aligned himself with President Roosevelt’s sweeping social policies and won the election. He was just 28 years old. By the late 1930s LBJ was securing legislation for federal housing projects and dams for his district. He brought electricity to the Texas Hill Country of his youth, something he always claimed was his proudest achievement. When one of Texas’ two Senators died in 1941, LBJ was expected to inherit the job. But a former radio star-turned-governor, W. Lee “Pass the Biscuits, Pappy” O’Daniel, entered the race late and won the seat.

While still a U.S. Congressman, LBJ used his contacts with President Roosevelt to obtain an officer’s commission in the Naval Reserve. When the U.S. entered World War II, he asked Undersecretary of the Navy for a combat assignment. Instead he was sent to inspect the shipyards in Texas and on the West Coast. In the spring of 1942, President Roosevelt wanted his own reports on what conditions were like in the Southwest Pacific. He felt that information that came up the military chain of command needed to be supplemented by a highly trusted political aide. From a suggestion by Forrestal, President Roosevelt assigned LBJ to a three-man congressional survey team, allowing him to keep his seat in the House of Representatives. His team reported to General Douglas MacArthur in Australia. He went on a single bombing mission against the Japanese airbase in New Guinea., receiving the “combat record” and a Silver Star, the military’s third highest medal, for serving under hostile fire. LBJ reported back to President Roosevelt, to the Navy leaders, and to Congress that conditions were deplorable and unacceptable. He believed that the Southwest Pacific urgently needed a higher priority and a larger share of war supplies. He prepared a twelve-point program to upgrade the effort. Congress responded by making him chairman of a high-powered subcommittee of the Naval Affairs committee. Observing wartime industrial and technological trends, LBJ invested and became well-to-do on his own for the first time in his life. LBJ easily won his sixth term to the House.

In 1948, he was finally elected to the U.S. Senate and found his true calling. Once there, he advanced rapidly. Within two years he was the Democratic Whip then became minority leader when Eisenhower became President. In 1955, he was elected majority leader and transformed the position into one of the most powerful posts in Washington. Senator Johnson is considered by historians to be the most effective majority leader. One historian stated he was “the greatest intelligence gatherer Washington has ever known”. He worked ceaselessly for passage of the watered-down Civil Rights Act of 1957, the first such measure in almost a century. When the Soviets launched Sputnik, the world’s first satellite that year, he pushed for the U.S. to enter the Space Race. He publicly supported President Kennedy’s decision to send American military advisors to the Southeast Asian country of Vietnam.

In 1960, John F. Kennedy was nominated on the first ballot at the Democratic Convention. Kennedy tapped LBJ for his Vice President. Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson campaigned tirelessly for Kennedy and helped deliver many southern states. As Vice President LBJ headed the space program, oversaw a nuclear test ban treaty and worked toward equal opportunity for racial minorities.

On November 22, 1963, Vice President Johnson was only two cars behind President Kennedy on the day the President was shot to death in Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. Two hours and eight minutes after the President died Lyndon Baines Johnson was sworn in aboard Air Force One. Federal Judge Sarah T. Hughes, a family friend, swore him in, making him the first President to be sworn in by a woman. There were no Bibles on the Air Force One, so he was sworn in on President Kennedy’s Roman Catholic missal.

In the days following President Kennedy’s assassination, LBJ made an address to Congress: “No memorial, oration or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy’s memory than the earliest possible passage of the Civil Rights Bill for which he fought so long.” Seizing on Kennedy’s inaugural plea to “let us begin anew”, he asked Congress to “let us continue.” President Johnson declared a “War on Poverty.”  In 1964 he ran for his own presidency and won by the biggest popular margin in history. President Johnson engineered the passage of the Medicare Program, invested in education through the Higher Education Act, supported Public Broadcasting, and funded the reconstruction of U.S. cities. He pushed through three civil rights bills that outlawed discrimination against minorities in interstate commerce, voting and housing. He attacked disease and crime. He championed conservation and beautification programs. The U.S. made spectacular explorations of space in the program he had championed since the start.

While President Johnson was designing and pushing for what he called the “Great Society” America’s involvement in Vietnam continued. His popularity as President declined simultaneously with the war’s escalation. His party was in turmoil over the Vietnam War and his re-election bid in the 1968 Presidential election was collapsing. He withdrew from the race and planned to devote his full efforts, unimpeded by politics, to the quest for peace. When he left office, peace talks were underway but he did not live to see them successful. On January 22, 1973, Lyndon Baines Johnson died suddenly of a heart attack at his Texas ranch.

“I will never forget the faces of the boys and girls in that little Welhausen Mexican School, and I remember even yet the pain of realizing and knowing then that college was closed to practically every one of those children because they were poor. And I think it was then that I made up my mind that this nation could never rest while the door to knowledge remained closed to any American.”