Post	President
Body	theUnited States of America
Insignia	Seal Of The President Of The United States Of America.svg
Insigniasize	100px
Insigniacaption	Official seal
Incumbent	Barack Obama
Incumbentsince	January 20, 2009
Style	Mr. President(Informal)The Honorable(Formal)
Residence	White House
Termlength	Four years, renewable once
Formation	United States ConstitutionMarch 4, 1789
Salary	$400,000
Inaugural	George WashingtonApril 30, 1789
Website	whitehouse.gov/president

The President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces.

Article II of the U.S. Constitution vests the executive power of the United States in the president and charges him with the execution of federal law, alongside the responsibility of appointing federal executive, diplomatic, regulatory, and judicial officers, and concluding treaties with foreign powers, with the advice and consent of the Senate. The president is further empowered to grant federal pardons and reprieves, and to convene and adjourn either or both houses of Congress under extraordinary circumstances. Since the founding of the United States, the power of the president and the federal government have grown substantially and each modern president, despite possessing no formal legislative powers beyond signing or vetoing congressionally passed bills, is largely responsible for dictating the legislative agenda of his party and the foreign and domestic policy of the United States. The president is frequently described as the most powerful person in the world.

The president is indirectly elected by the people through the Electoral College to a four-year term, and is one of only two nationally elected federal officers, the other being the Vice President of the United States. The Twenty-second Amendment, adopted in 1951, prohibits anyone from being elected to the presidency for a third full term. In all, 43 individuals have served 55 four-year terms. On January 20, 2009, Barack Obama became the forty-fourth and current president.

Origin

In 1783, the Treaty of Paris left the United States independent and at peace, but with an unsettled governmental structure. The Second Continental Congress had drawn up the Articles of Confederation in 1777, describing a permanent confederation, but granting to the Congress of the Confederation—the only federal institution created—little power to finance itself or to ensure that its resolutions were enforced. In part, this reflected the anti-monarchy view of the Revolutionary period; the new American system was explicitly designed to prevent the rise of an American tyrant.

By the end of the Revolutionary War, the Continental dollar had depreciated to the point of worthlessness. The viability of the federal government was threatened by political unrest in several states, efforts by debtors to use popular government to erase their debts, and the inability of Congress to raise revenue to pay off the public debts incurred during the war. The Congress also appeared unable to become a forum for productive cooperation among the States encouraging commerce and economic development. In response, the Philadelphia Convention was convened, ostensibly to devise amendments to the Articles of Confederation, but which instead began to draft a new system of government that would include greater executive power while retaining the checks and balances thought to be essential restraints on any imperial tendency in the office of the president.

Individuals who presided over the Continental Congress during the Revolutionary period and under the Articles of Confederation had the title "President of the United States in Congress Assembled", often shortened to "President of the United States". However, the office had little distinct executive power. With the 1788 ratification of the Constitution, a separate executive branch was created, headed by the "President of the United States". This new Chief Executive role no longer bore the duties of presiding over Congress in a supervisory role, but the title "President" was carried over nevertheless. This title was a major understatement of the actual role empowered to the office by the Constitution, and this choice of words can be seen as a deliberate effort by the Founding Fathers to prevent the head of state position from evolving toward becoming a monarchical position, with the accompanying potential for abuse of such power.

A president's executive authority under the Constitution, tempered by the checks and balances of the judicial and legislative branches of the federal government, was designed to solve several political problems faced by the young nation and to anticipate future challenges, while still preventing the rise of an autocrat.

Powers and duties

Article I legislative role

The first power conferred upon the president by the U.S. Constitution is the legislative power of the presidential veto. The Presentment Clause requires any bill passed by Congress to be presented to the president before it can become law. Once the legislation has been presented, the president has three options: # Sign the legislation; the bill then becomes law. # Veto the legislation and return it to Congress, expressing any objections; the bill does not become law, unless each house of Congress votes to override the veto by a two-thirds vote. # Take no action. In this instance, the president neither signs nor vetoes the legislation. After 10 days, not counting Sundays, two possible outcomes emerge: #* If Congress is still convened, the bill becomes law. #* If Congress has adjourned, thus preventing the return of the legislation, the bill does not become law. This latter outcome is known as the pocket veto.

In 1996, Congress attempted to enhance the president's veto power with the Line Item Veto Act. The legislation empowered the president to sign any spending bill into law while simultaneously striking certain spending items within the bill, particularly any new spending, any amount of discretionary spending, or any new limited tax benefit. Once a president had stricken the item, Congress could pass that particular item again. If the president then vetoed the new legislation, Congress could override the veto by its ordinary means, a two-thirds vote in both houses. In Clinton v. City of New York, , the U.S. Supreme Court ruled such a legislative alteration of the veto power to be unconstitutional.

Article II executive powers

War and foreign affairs powers

, the 16th President of the United States, successfully preserved the Union during the American Civil War.]] Perhaps the most important of all presidential powers is command of the United States armed forces as commander-in-chief. While the power to declare war is constitutionally vested in Congress, the president commands and directs the military and is responsible for planning military strategy. The framers of the Constitution took care to limit the president's powers regarding the military; Alexander Hamilton explains this in Federalist No. 69: Congress, pursuant to the War Powers Resolution, must authorize any troop deployments longer than 60 days, although that process relies on triggering mechanisms that have never been employed, rendering it ineffectual. Additionally, Congress provides a check to presidential military power through its control over military spending and regulation.

Along with the armed forces, the president also directs U.S. foreign policy. Through the Department of State and the Department of Defense, the president is responsible for the protection of Americans abroad and of foreign nationals in the United States. The president decides whether to recognize new nations and new governments, and negotiates treaties with other nations, which become binding on the United States when approved by two-thirds vote of the Senate.

Although not constitutionally provided, presidents also sometimes employ "executive agreements" in foreign relations. Frequently, these agreements regard the orientation of executive discretion in the administration of matters germane to executive power; for example, the extent to which either country presents an armed presence in a given area, how each country will enforce copyright treaties, or how each country will process foreign mail. However, the 20th century witnessed a vast expansion of the use of executive agreements, and critics have challenged the extent of that use as supplanting the treaty process and removing constitutionally prescribed checks and balances over the executive in foreign relations. Supporters counter that the agreements offer a pragmatic solution when the need for swift, secret, and/or concerted action arises.

Administrative powers

The president is the chief executive of the United States, putting him at the head of the executive branch of the government, whose responsibility is to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." The executive branch has over four million employees, including members of the military.

Presidents make numerous executive branch appointments: an incoming president may make up to 6,000 before he takes office and 8,000 more during his term. Ambassadors, members of the Cabinet, and other federal officers, are all appointed by a president with the "advice and consent" of a majority of the Senate. Appointments made while the Senate is in recess are temporary and expire at the end of the next session of the Senate.

The power of a president to fire executive officials has long been a contentious political issue. Generally, a president may remove purely executive officials at his discretion. However, Congress can curtail and constrain a president's authority to fire commissioners of independent regulatory agencies and certain inferior executive officers by statute.

The president possesses the ability to direct much of the executive branch through executive orders. To the extent the orders are grounded in federal statute or executive power granted in the U.S. Constitution, these orders have the force of law. Thus, executive orders are reviewable by federal courts or can be rendered null through legislative changes to statute.

Juridical powers

The president also has the power to nominate federal judges, including members of the United States courts of appeals and the Supreme Court of the United States. However, these nominations do require Senate confirmation. Securing Senate approval can provide a major obstacle for presidents who wish to orient the federal judiciary toward a particular ideological stance. When nominating judges to U.S. district courts, presidents often respect the long-standing tradition of Senatorial courtesy. Presidents may also grant pardons and reprieves, as is often done just before the end of a presidential term.

Historically, two doctrines concerning executive power have develop that enable the president to exercise executive power with a degree of autonomy. The first is executive privilege, which allows the president to withhold from disclosure any communications made directly to the president in the performance of executive duties. George Washington first claimed privilege when Congress requested to see Chief Justice John Jay's notes from an unpopular treaty negotiation with Great Britain. While not enshrined in the Constitution, or any other law, Washington's action created the precedent for the privilege. When Richard Nixon tried to use executive privilege as a reason for not turning over subpoenaed evidence to Congress during the Watergate scandal, the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Nixon, , that executive privilege did not apply in cases where a president was attempting to avoid criminal prosecution. When President Bill Clinton attempted to use executive privilege regarding the Lewinsky scandal, the Supreme Court ruled in Clinton v. Jones, , that the privilege also could not be used in civil suits. These cases established the legal precedent that executive privilege is valid, although the exact extent of the privilege has yet to be clearly defined. Additionally, federal courts have allowed this privilege to radiate outward and protect other executive branch employees, but have weakened that protection for those executive branch communications that do not involve the president.

delivering the 2007 State of the Union Address, with Vice President Cheney and Speaker of the House Pelosi behind him.]] The state secrets privilege allows the president and the executive branch to withhold information or documents from discovery in legal proceedings if such release would harm national security. Precedent for the privilege arose early in the 19th century when Thomas Jefferson refused to release military documents in the treason trial of Aaron Burr and again in 1876 in Totten v. United States, when the Supreme Court dismissed a case brought by a former Union spy. However, the privilege was not formally recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court until United States v. Reynolds (1953) where it was held to be a common law evidentiary privilege. Before the September 11 attacks, use of the privilege had been rare, but increasing in frequency. Since 2001, the government has asserted the privilege in more cases and at earlier stages of the litigation, thus in some instances causing dismissal of the suits before reaching the merits of the claims, as in the Ninth Circuit's ruling in Mohamed v. Jeppesen Dataplan. Critics of the privilege claim its use has become a tool for the government to cover up illegal or embarrassing government actions.

Legislative facilitator

Representing the executive branch of government, the president cannot simultaneously hold a seat in Congress. Therefore, the president cannot directly introduce legislative proposals for consideration in Congress. The president can, however, take an indirect role in shaping legislation, especially if the president's political party has a majority in one or both houses of Congress. For example, the president or other officials of the executive branch may draft legislation and then ask senators or representatives to introduce these drafts into Congress. The president can further influence the legislative branch through constitutionally mandated, periodic reports to Congress. These reports may be either written or oral, but today are given as the State of the Union address, which often outlines the president's legislative proposals for the coming year.

According to of the Constitution, the president may convene either or both houses of Congress. If both houses cannot agree on a date of adjournment, the president may appoint a date for Congress to adjourn.

Selection process

, the first president of the United States]]

Eligibility

of the Constitution sets the principal qualifications one must meet to be eligible to the office of president. A president must: be a natural born citizen of the United States;

be at least thirty-five years old;

have been a permanent resident in the United States for at least fourteen years.

A person who meets the above qualifications is still disqualified from holding the office of president under any of the following conditions:

Under the Twenty-second Amendment, no eligible person can be elected president more than twice. The Twenty-second Amendment also specifies that if any eligible person who serves as president or acting president for more than two years of a term for which some other eligible person was elected president, the former can only be elected president once. Scholars disagree whether anyone no longer eligible to be elected president could be elected vice president, pursuant to the qualifications set out under the Twelfth Amendment.

Under , upon conviction in impeachment cases the Senate has the option of disqualifying convicted individuals from holding other federal offices, including the Presidency.

Under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Constitution prohibits an otherwise eligible person from becoming president if that person swore an oath to support the Constitution, and later rebelled against the United States. However, the Congress, by a two-thirds vote of each house, can remove the disqualification.

Campaigns and nomination

The modern presidential campaign begins before the primary elections, which the two major political parties use to clear the field of candidates in advance of their national nominating conventions, where the most successful candidate is made the party's nominee for president. Typically, the party's presidential candidate chooses a vice presidential nominee, and this choice is rubber-stamped by the convention.

Nominees participate in nationally televised debates, and while the debates are usually restricted to the Democratic and Republican nominees, third party candidates may be invited, such as Ross Perot in the 1992 debates. Nominees campaign across the country to explain their views, convince voters and solicit contributions. Much of the modern electoral process is concerned with winning swing states through frequent visits and mass media advertising drives.

Election and oath

showing the number of electoral votes allocated to each state; 270 electoral votes are required for a majority out of 538 overall.]]

Presidents are elected indirectly in the United States. A number of electors, collectively known as the Electoral College, officially select the president. On Election Day, voters in each of the states and the District of Columbia cast ballots for these electors. Each state is allocated a number of electors, equal to the size of its delegation in both Houses of Congress combined. Generally, the ticket that wins the most votes in a state wins all of that state's electoral votes and thus has its slate of electors chosen to vote in the Electoral College.

The winning slate of electors meet at its state's capital on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December, about six weeks after the election, to vote. They then send a record of that vote to Congress. The vote of the electors is opened by the sitting vice president, acting in his capacity as President of the Senate and read aloud to a joint session of the incoming congress, which was elected at the same time as the president.

Pursuant to the Twentieth Amendment, the president's term of office begins at noon on January 20 of the year following the election. This date, known as Inauguration Day, marks the beginning of the four-year terms of both the president and the vice president. Before executing the powers of the office, a president is constitutionally required to take the presidential oath:

Although not required, presidents have traditionally used a Bible to take oath of office and suffixed "So help me God!" to the end of the oath. Further, though no law requires that the oath of office be administered by any specific person, presidents are traditionally sworn in by the Chief Justice of the United States.

Tenure and term limits

was elected to four terms before the adoption of the Twenty-second Amendment.]] The term of office for president and vice president is four years. George Washington, the first president, set an unofficial precedent of serving only two terms, which subsequent presidents followed until 1940. Before Franklin D. Roosevelt, attempts at a third term were encouraged by supporters of Ulysses S. Grant and Theodore Roosevelt; neither of these attempts succeeded. In 1940, Franklin Roosevelt declined to seek a third term, but allowed his political party to "draft" him as their presidential candidate and was subsequently elected to a third term. In 1941, the U.S. became involved in World War II, which later led voters to elect Roosevelt to a fourth term in 1944.

After the war, and in response to Roosevelt's shattering of precedent, the Twenty-second Amendment was adopted. The amendment bars anyone from being elected president more than twice, or once if that person served more than half of another president's term. Harry S. Truman, who was president when the amendment was adopted, and so by the amendment's provisions exempt from its limitation, also briefly sought a third (a second full) term before withdrawing from the 1952 election.

Since the amendment's adoption, four presidents have served two full terms: Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush sought a second term, but were defeated. Richard Nixon was elected to a second term, but resigned before completing it. Lyndon B. Johnson was the only president under the amendment to be eligible to serve more than two terms in total, having served for only fourteen months following John F. Kennedy's assassination. However, Johnson withdrew from the 1968 Democratic Primary, surprising many Americans by stating, "I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president." Gerald Ford sought a full term, after serving out the last two years and five months of Nixon's second term, but was not elected.

Vacancy or disability

Vacancies in the office of president may arise under several possible circumstances: death, resignation and removal from office.

of the Constitution allows the House of Representatives to impeach high federal officials, including the president, for "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." gives the Senate the power to remove impeached officials from office, given a two-thirds vote to convict. The House has thus far impeached two presidents: Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998. Neither was subsequently convicted by the Senate; however, Johnson was acquitted by just one vote.

Under Section 3 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment, the president may transfer the presidential powers and duties to the vice president, who then becomes acting president, by transmitting a statement to the Speaker of the House and the president pro tempore of the Senate stating the reasons for the transfer. The president resumes the discharge of the presidential powers and duties when he transmits, to those two officials, a written declaration stating that resumption. This transfer of power may occur for any reason the president considers appropriate; in 2002 and again in 2007, President George W. Bush briefly transferred presidential authority to Vice President Dick Cheney. In both cases, this was done to accommodate a medical procedure which required Bush to be sedated; both times, Bush returned to duty later the same day.

Under Section 4 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment, the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet may transfer the presidential powers and duties from the president to the vice president once they transmit a written declaration to the Speaker of the House and the president pro tempore of the Senate that the president is unable to discharge the presidential powers and duties. If this occurs, then the vice president will assume the presidential powers and duties as acting president; however, the president can declare that no such inability exists and resume the discharge of the presidential powers and duties. If the vice president and cabinet contest this claim, it is up to Congress, which must meet within two days if not already in session, to decide the merit of the claim.

The United States Constitution mentions the resignation of the president but does not regulate the form of such a resignation or the conditions for its validity. Pursuant to federal law, the only valid evidence of the president's resignation is a written instrument to that effect, signed by the president and delivered to the office of the Secretary of State. On August 9, 1974, facing likely impeachment in the midst of the Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon became the only president ever to resign from office.

The Constitution states that the vice president becomes president upon the removal from office, death or resignation of the preceding president. If the offices of president and vice president both are either vacant or have a disabled holder of that office, the next officer in the presidential line of succession, the Speaker of the House, becomes acting president. The line then extends to the president pro tempore of the Senate, followed by every member of the cabinet in a set order.

Compensation

The president earns a $400,000 annual salary, along with a $50,000 annual expense account, a $100,000 non-taxable travel account and $19,000 for entertainment. The most recent raise in salary was approved by Congress and President Bill Clinton in 1999 and went into effect in 2001.

The White House in Washington, D.C. serves as the official place of residence for the president; he is entitled to use its staff and facilities, including medical care, recreation, housekeeping, and security services. Naval Support Facility Thurmont, popularly known as Camp David, is a mountain-based military camp in Frederick County, Maryland used as a country retreat and for high alert protection of the president and his guests. Blair House, located adjacent to the Old Executive Office Building at the White House Complex and Lafayette Park, is a complex of four connected townhouses exceeding of floor space which serves as the president's official guest house and as a secondary residence for the president if needed.

For ground travel, the president uses the presidential state car, which is an armored limousine built on a heavily modified Cadillac-based chassis. One of two identical Boeing VC-25 aircraft, which are extensively modified versions of Boeing 747-200B airliners, serve as long distance travel for the president, and are referred to as Air Force One while the president is on board. The president also uses a United States Marine Corps helicopter, designated Marine One when the president is aboard.

The United States Secret Service is charged with protecting the sitting president and his family. As part of their protection, presidents, first ladies, their children and other immediate family members, and other prominent persons and locations are assigned Secret Service codenames. The use of such names was originally for security purposes and dates to a time when sensitive electronic communications were not routinely encrypted; today, the names simply serve for purposes of brevity, clarity and tradition.

Post-presidency

, Richard Nixon, George H. W. Bush, Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter dedicate the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in 1991.]] , Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Jimmy Carter in the Oval Office on January 7, 2009.]] Beginning in 1959, all living former presidents were granted a pension, an office and a staff. The pension has increased numerous times with Congressional approval. Retired presidents now receive a pension based on the salary of the current administration's cabinet secretaries, which is $191,300 as of 2008. Some former presidents have also collected congressional pensions. The Former Presidents Act, as amended, also provides former presidents with travel funds and franking privileges.

Until 1997, all former presidents, and their families, were protected by the Secret Service until the president's death. The last president to have lifetime Secret Service protection is Bill Clinton; George W. Bush and all subsequent presidents will be protected by the Secret Service for a maximum of ten years after leaving office.

Some presidents have had significant careers after leaving office. Prominent examples include William Howard Taft's tenure as Chief Justice of the United States and Herbert Hoover's work on government reorganization after World War II. Grover Cleveland, whose bid for reelection failed in 1888, was elected president again four years later in 1892. Two former presidents served in Congress after leaving the White House; John Quincy Adams was elected to the House of Representatives, serving there for seventeen years, and Andrew Johnson returned to the Senate in 1875. John Tyler served in the provisional Congress of the Confederate States during the Civil War and was elected to the Confederate House of Representatives, but died before it convened. More recently, Richard Nixon made multiple foreign trips to countries including China and Russia, and was lauded as an elder statesman. Jimmy Carter has become a global human rights campaigner, international arbiter and election monitor, and a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Bill Clinton has taken on some work as an 'elder statesman', most notable for his involvement in the negotiations that led to the release of two American journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee from North Korea. Bill Clinton has also been active politically since his presidential term ended, working with his wife, Hillary Clinton on her presidential bid.

Currently there are four living former presidents:

Presidential libraries

Each president since Herbert Hoover has created a repository known as a presidential library for preserving and making available his papers, records and other documents and materials. Completed libraries are deeded to and maintained by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); the initial funding for building and equipping each library must come from private, non-federal sources. There are currently thirteen presidential libraries in the NARA system. There are also a number of presidential libraries maintained by state governments and private foundations, such as the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, which is run by the State of Illinois.

Criticism

Criticism of the presidency generally falls into one of the following categories:

; Presidency is too powerful : Most of the nation's Framers expected Congress, which was described first in the Constitution, to be the dominant branch of government; they did not want or expect a strong executive. However, numerous critics describe the presidency today as too powerful, unchecked and unbalanced and "monarchist" in nature. Critic Dana D. Nelson believes presidents over the past thirty years have worked towards "undivided presidential control of the executive branch and its agencies." She criticizes proponents of the unitary executive for expanding "the many existing uncheckable executive powers – such as executive orders, decrees, memorandums, proclamations, national security directives and legislative signing statements – that already allow presidents to enact a good deal of foreign and domestic policy without aid, interference or consent from Congress." and described presidents as "constitutional dictators" with "an incentive to declare emergencies" to assume "quasi-dictatorial powers." David Sirota sees a pattern that "aims to provide a jurisprudential rationale for total White House supremacy over all government." Another critic wrote that the expanded presidency was "the greatest threat ever to individual freedom and democratic rule."

; Images and public relations : Some argue that images of the presidency have a tendency to be manipulated by administration public relations officials as well as by presidents themselves. One critic described the presidency as "propagandized leadership" which has a "mesmerizing power surrounding the office"; another described the aura surrounding the presidency with the word "cult." One critic wrote the image of John F. Kennedy was described as carefully framed "in rich detail" which "drew on the power of myth" regarding the incident of PT 109 and claimed that Kennedy understood how to use images to further his presidential ambitions. Even presidential funerals are staged affairs with high production values to give an impression of "regal grandeur". As a result, political commentators believe that American voters have unrealistic expectations of presidents: voters expect a president to "drive the economy, vanquish enemies, lead the free world, comfort tornado victims, heal the national soul and protect borrowers from hidden credit-card fees."

; Deficit spending : Few presidents over the past hundred years have been adept at keeping spending within limits. Presidents who promised to rein in spending had difficulty controlling budgets. The long-term historical pattern has been for the nation to have had moderate surpluses except during recessions or wars, and this pattern lasted until the 1980s. Reagan increased substantial deficits without a recession or war, and budget deficits as a percent of GDP climbed from 1.6% in 1979 to 4.0% to 6.0% for most of the 1980s, although there was a four-year period of surpluses beginning 1998 during the tenures of Clinton and Bush. After 9/11, spending returned under Bush and remained high. In the first decade of 2000, $632 billion was added to the budget. In 2009, the United States may be forced to borrow nearly $9.3 trillion over the next ten years, according to one estimate. A critic and senator warned this "clearly creates a scenario where the country's going to go bankrupt." Nevertheless, total federal personnel in 2007 numbered 4,127,000 who work in a long list of federal agencies. In addition, employees for state and local governments have doubled since the 1960s. Presidents have been criticized for making signing statements when signing congressional legislation about how they understand a bill or plan to execute it, and commentators have described this practice as against the spirit of the Constitution. Signing statements "tip the balance of power between Congress and the White House a little more in favor of the executive branch" and have been used by the past four presidents. This practice has been criticized by the American Bar Association as unconstitutional. One critic, George F. Will, sees an "increasingly swollen executive branch" and "the eclipse of Congress". He argued that this process has been continuing "for decades" and criticized the "marginalization" of Congress. and Roosevelt interned over a hundred thousand Japanese-Americans during World War II. In an effort to prevent terrorism, George W. Bush authorized warrantless wiretaps which were later ruled unconstitutional as well as torture and denying detainees due process. Nixon broke numerous laws by asking operatives to burglarize the offices of a political opponent's psychiatrist as well as the Democratic National Committee then tried to cover up White House involvement with hush money in what became the Watergate scandal. Nixon's actions were, in a way, predicted by Tocqueville in Democracy in America (1835). Tocqueville argued that the re-electability of presidents was a grave cause for concern, since presidents running for re-election were tempted to not only lose their impartiality but use the vast machinery of the State to further their re-election. Tocqueville warned:

; Starting wars without a declaration from Congress : Some critics charge that the executive branch has usurped Congress's Constitutionally defined task of declaring war. While historically presidents initiated the process for going to war, they asked for and got formal war declarations from Congress for the War of 1812, the Mexican–American War, the Spanish–American War, World War I, and World War II. However, presidents did not get official declarations for other military actions, including Theodore Roosevelt's military move into Panama in 1903, and Panama (1990). However, while not getting an official declaration of war, presidents got Congressional approval in the first Iraq war (1991) and second Iraq War (2003) In 1993, one critic wrote "Congress's war power has become the most flagrantly disregarded provision in the Constitution."

; Election advantages of incumbent presidents : Presidents, in office, and seeking a second term have an advantage over challengers, and critics have charged that this is unfair. Since 1936, in the thirteen presidential elections where there was an incumbent, incumbents won ten times, challengers only three times (see table). Incumbent presidents seeking re-election enjoy advantages that challengers lack, including the power to command greater media coverage and influence events as well as dispense government grants. One reporter noted "nearly all incumbents raise far more (money) than do their challengers" which brings an advantage to incumbents. PACs give most of their money to incumbents because they are more likely to win. One political forecaster suggested incumbency added 5 percentage points to a candidate's likely re-election results, although circumstances such as economic growth and inflation could influence the outcome.

{| class="wikitable sortable" style="margin-left:2em" |- |+ Presidential elections since 1936 with an incumbent |- !Year !Candidate !Votes !Candidate !Votes !Winner !class="unsortable"| Notes |- |align="left"|1936 |align="left"|Roosevelt |align="right"|523 |align="left"|Landon |align="right"|8 |align="left"|Incumbent |align="right"| |- |align="left"|1940 |align="left"|Roosevelt |align="right"|449 |align="left"|Willkie |align="right"|82 |align="left"|Incumbent |align="right"| |- |align="left"|1944 |align="left"|Roosevelt |align="right"|432 |align="left"|Dewey |align="right"|99 |align="left"|Incumbent |align="right"| |} : Note: elections with no incumbent and third party candidates were excluded. Numbers are Electoral College votes. :

; Misusing the power to pardon : Presidents have been criticized for abusing this power. For example, Ford pardoned the person who had earlier chosen him to be vice president, Nixon; Ford's decision was criticized as a misuse of the pardon power. Presidents have been criticized for other pardon decisions as well. George H W Bush included an official suspected of hiding notes relating to the Iran-Contra scandal. Clinton issued 140 pardons on the last day of the term of office, George W Bush commuted the sentence of a staffer who had covered up administration complicity in the Valerie Plame Wilson matter.

; Foreign policy management : Since there is no requirement that presidential candidates have foreign policy or military or diplomatic expertise, and presidents manage foreign policy, the quality of decision-making has varied from president to president. Assessments by foreign policy experts list both successes and failures in the past half-century. Important successes within the last half century included the breakup of the Soviet Union and avoiding World War III as well as the handling of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. But numerous presidential decisions have been criticized, including the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, specific military choices, trading arms for hostages with Iran, and decisions about initiating wars. The occupation following the Iraq War was criticized as being "catastrophically unplanned" and overall strategy with Iraq was called a "self-defeating alienation of allies." One critic noted a trend of the "militarization of U.S. foreign policy." Presidents have been accused of supporting dictators such as the Shah of Iran, Musharraf of Pakistan, and Marcos of the Philippines. Overall strategy regarding the Middle East has been criticized as well as the handling of North Korea Critics have charged that partisan politics have interfered with foreign policy.

See also

Categories

:Category:Lists relating to the United States presidency

:Category:United States presidential history

Articles

Curse of Tippecanoe

Fiction regarding United States presidential succession

Historical rankings of United States Presidents

Imperial Presidency

The Imperial Presidency

Imperiled presidency

List of Presidents of the United States who knew a foreign language

List of United States Presidents by age

List of United States Presidents by military rank

Presidential $1 Coin Program

Religious affiliations of United States Presidents

U.S. Presidents on U.S. postage stamps

United States presidents with facial hair

Vice President of the United States

References

Further reading

External links

{| style="float:right;" | |}

;Official

;Presidential histories A New Nation Votes: American Election Returns, 1787–1825 Presidential Election Returns including town and county breakdowns. A companion website for the C-SPAN television series: American Presidents: Life Portraits A collection of letters, portraits, photos, and other documents from the National Archives A collection of over 67,000 Presidential documents

The History Channel: US Presidents

;Miscellaneous An article analyzing the president's many hats. An educational site on the American presidency. Listing of every President's occupation(s) before and after becoming the Commander in Chief Opinion poll of how great each President is believed to be.

The Great Republic: Presidents and States of the United States of America, and Comments on American History Classical liberal perspective of Presidential history.

Brief histories of the Masonic careers of Presidents who were members of the Freemasons. A PBS site on the American presidency.

Presidents of the United States: Resource Guides from the Library of Congress

Name	Walter Cronkite
Caption	Cronkite in 2004
Birthname	Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr.
Birth date	November 04, 1916 was an American broadcast journalist, best known as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years (1962–81). During the heyday of CBS News in the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the most trusted man in America" after being so named in an opinion poll. Although he reported many events from 1937 to 1981, including bombing in World War II, the Nuremberg trials, combat in the Vietnam War, He had remote Dutch ancestry on his father's side, the family surname originally being Krankheyt.

A second bulletin arrived as Cronkite was reading the first one, which detailed the severity of President Kennedy's wounds:

Just before the bulletin cut out, a CBS News staffer was heard saying "Connally too," apparently having just heard the news that Texas Governor John Connally had also been shot while riding in the Presidential limousine with his wife Nellie and Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy.

CBS then rejoined the telecast of ATWT during a commercial break. A commercial for Instant Nescafe coffee and a sponsor bumper (for Best Foods) for the first half of the show that had just completed were then aired, followed by a bumper for the scheduled episode of Route 66 to air that night and a twenty-second station identification break for the CBS affiliates. Just as ATWT was set to return from break, with show announcer Dan McCullough set to announce the sponsor of the second half of the program (Carnation), CBS News broke in with the bumper slide a second time. This bulletin saw Cronkite report in greater detail about the assassination attempt on the President, while also breaking the news of Governor Connally's shooting.

Cronkite then recapped the events as they had happened: that the President and Governor Connally had been shot and were in the emergency room at Parkland Hospital, and no one knew their condition as yet. He then reminded the viewers that CBS News would continue to provide updates as more information came in.

CBS then decided to return to ATWT, which was now midway through its second segment. The cast had continued to perform live while Cronkite's bulletins broke into the broadcast, unaware of events in Dallas (because the episode was also taped for delayed broadcast purposes, they were not informed of what had happened until after it ended). ATWT then took another scheduled commercial break. The segment before the break would be the last anyone would see of a CBS program - or any network's programming, for that matter- until Tuesday, November 26.

In the middle of a Friskies pet food commercial, the "CBS News Bulletin" bumper slide broke in for the third time. Once again, Cronkite filed an audio-only report:

This particular bulletin went into even more detail than the other two, as for the first time Cronkite detailed where the shooting victims were wounded (Kennedy had been shot in the head, Connally in the chest). At the conclusion of the bulletin, Cronkite told viewers to stay tuned for further details, perhaps implying that the network would be returning to regular programming. However, Cronkite remained on the air for the next ten minutes, continuing to read bulletins as they were handed to him, followed by recapping the events as they were known and interspersing the new information he had received where appropriate. He also brought up recent instances of assassination attempts against sitting Presidents (including the murder of Mayor of Chicago Anton Cermak in a botched assassination attempt on then-President-elect Franklin Roosevelt), as well as a recent attack on United Nations ambassador Adlai Stevenson in Dallas, which had resulted in extra security measures being taken for Kennedy's visit to the city. He also received word that Congressman Albert Thomas of Texas had been told that for the moment the President and Governor were still alive, which was the first report that gave any indication of their condition.

By 2:00 EST, Cronkite was informed that the camera was ready, and he told the viewers over the air that CBS would be taking a station identification break so that affiliates could join the network. Within twenty seconds, all the CBS affiliates (with the exception of KRLD in Dallas, which was covering the tragedy locally) joined the network's coverage. Cronkite appeared on-air in shirt and tie but without his suit coat, given the urgent nature of the story, and opened with this:

However, the connection was not available at the time and the camera stayed trained on Cronkite in the newsroom. After a few seconds, Cronkite started speaking again, but shortly after he had begun, the broadcast abruptly cut into the meeting, where Barker, KRLD's news director, was reporting (a director could be heard on-air saying "Okay, go ahead. Switch it" while Cronkite was talking). Just before the feed switched to the Dallas Trade Mart meeting, Cronkite informed the viewers that the members of the Trade Mart had just been informed of the President's shooting and that Congressman Jim Wright was telling reporters that both the President and Governor were alive, but both were in serious condition.

The feed then switched to Dallas, with Barker reporting about the incident and the meeting that was to take place. A few minutes after they switched, Barker was told by a fellow reporter, Dick Wheeler, at the meeting that Kennedy was in very critical condition. The scene returned to Cronkite shortly after that, who relayed some more information, but returned to Dallas as a prayer was being said for Kennedy. After the prayer was said, Barker said that there was an unofficial report circulating that President Kennedy had in fact died from his wounds.

After several minutes, Cronkite reported that the President had been given blood transfusions and two priests had been called into the room. He also played an audio report by KRLD's Jim Underwood, recounting that someone had been arrested in the assassination attempt at the Texas School Book Depository. After Underwood's report, Cronkite was told that KRLD was reporting that that the President was dead, which had been heard in Barker's previous report. The coverage went back to Dallas, where Barker reiterated his previous report- that there was an unconfirmed statement that Kennedy was dead, but the source, a doctor at Parkland Hospital who said this to Barker directly, "would normally be a good one." Approximately three minutes later, Barker declared the assassination to be confirmed, although neither the Associated nor the United Presses had done so. Barker retracted the statement moments later, saying that there was no absolute confirmation. Shortly thereafter CBS stopped showing KRLD's coverage and returned to its own coverage of the incident, and as he had been doing Cronkite reported the events as they were known. At 2:27 EST, Cronkite reported that Father Oscar Huber, one of the priests called into the room, had administered the Last Rites to the President, but as far as anyone knew the President was still alive and no official source had confirmed the reports from Barker.

Within ten seconds of that report, word reached Cronkite of another report that had been given by Dallas-based correspondent Dan Rather to CBS Radio. At 2:22 EST, while CBS' news coverage was still focused at the Dallas Trade Mart, Rather called executive Mort Dank and said, in regards to Kennedy's condition, "I think he's dead." While this was not an official confirmation of the death of the President, which had yet to be relayed, CBS radio newscaster [[Alan Jackson (broadcaster)| Allan Jackson]] was handed a sheet of paper saying that Kennedy was in fact dead and reported as if the incident was officially confirmed. Five minutes later, after some debate over whether or not to mention it, Cronkite relayed the following information to the viewing audience:

Since Rather's report, as he had delivered it, only theorized that the President was dead, and no word to that effect had come from any wire service, Cronkite stressed that the report was not an official confirmation of the President's death and continued to report on the incident as if the President was still alive, relaying that Father Huber, who had told reporters on the scene that he had to pull back a sheet covering Kennedy's body to perform the Last Rites on him, didn't believe that the President was dead at the time he entered the room.

Less than two minutes later, Cronkite received a report that the two priests who were with Kennedy were now saying that he was dead, and declared that that was as close to official as they could get. However, he continued to stress that there was no official confirmation from the hospital of Kennedy's death, although through the tone of his voice Cronkite seemed to resign himself to that being the most likely outcome. Cronkite continued to await official word from Parkland Hospital while recapping the events, including receiving word that government sources were now saying that the President was dead. (It should be noted that the same report reached all three major networks, but only ABC took it as official word of the assassination.) After briefly speaking about what Kennedy had done earlier that day, Cronkite noted that it was now apparent that the President was dead(even though the official bulletin had, of course, not arrived yet), saying that his plane from Fort Worth "flew him to his rendezvous with death, apparently, in Dallas, Texas."

Immediately after that, at approximately 2:38 p.m. EST, Cronkite was remarking on the increased security presence in Dallas for the President's visit for fear of protests, again bringing up the assault on Adlai Stevenson. While he was speaking, one of two news editors who had been standing by the newsroom's two wire machines pulled a bulletin from the Associated Press machine and began walking toward Cronkite's desk with it.

Just as he had said that, the editor handed Cronkite the bulletin. Cronkite stopped speaking, put on his eyeglasses, looked over the bulletin sheet for a moment, took off his glasses, and made the official announcement:

After making that announcement, Cronkite paused briefly, put his glasses back on, and swallowed hard to maintain his composure. With noticeable emotion in his voice he intoned the next sentence of the news report:"

In a 2003 CBS special commemorating the 40th anniversary of the assassination, Cronkite said that he was standing at the United Press wire machine when the bulletin broke and was clamoring to get on the air as fast as was possible. Recalling his reaction upon having the death confirmed to him, he said:

Vietnam War

In mid-February 1968, on the urging of his executive producer Ernest Leiser, Cronkite and Leiser journeyed to Vietnam to cover the aftermath of the Tet Offensive. They were invited to dine with General Creighton Abrams, the current commander of all forces in Vietnam who Cronkite knew from World War II. According to Leiser, Abrams told Cronkite, "we cannot win this Goddamned war, and we ought to find a dignified way out."

Upon return, Cronkite and Leiser wrote separate editorial reports based on that trip. Cronkite, an excellent writer, preferred Leiser's text over his own. Following Cronkite's editorial report, President Lyndon Johnson is reported to have said, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America." This account has been questioned in a recent publication on journalistic accuracy. Several weeks later, Johnson announced he would not seek reelection.

During the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Cronkite was anchoring the CBS network coverage as violence and protests occurred outside the convention, as well as scuffles inside the convention hall. When Dan Rather was punched to the floor (on camera) by security personnel, Cronkite commented, "I think we've got a bunch of thugs here, Dan."

Other historic events

.]] The first publicly transmitted, live trans-Atlantic program, was broadcast via the Telstar satellite on July 23, 1962 at 3:00 p.m. EDT, and Cronkite was one of the main presenters in this multinational broadcast. The broadcast was made possible in Europe by Eurovision and in North America by NBC, CBS, ABC, and the CBC. While a videotaped report by Peter Kalischer about the apparently successful Vietnam war peace talks was being shown to the nation, Johnson's press secretary Tom Johnson (no relative of Lyndon Johnson) telephoned Cronkite to inform him of Johnson's death. CBS cut abruptly from the report at 6:38 p.m. Eastern Standard Time to Cronkite, who was still speaking to Johnson on the phone. After holding up a finger to pause and let Johnson finish, he broke the news to the nation that the former President had died, then continued to speak with Johnson (who was not patched through to the air) for a few more seconds to gather whatever remaining details he could, then hung up the phone and relayed those details to the audience. During the final ten minutes of that broadcast, Cronkite reported on the death, giving a retrospective on the life of nation's 36th president, and announced that CBS would air a special on Lyndon Johnson later that evening. This story was re-told on a 2007 CBS-TV special honoring Cronkite's 90th birthday. Tom Johnson later became president of CNN.

NBC-TV's Garrick Utley, anchoring NBC Nightly News that evening, also interrupted his newscast in order to break the story, doing so about three minutes after Cronkite on CBS. ABC, however, did not cover the story at all, since, at the time, that network fed its evening newscast to local stations at 6 p.m. Eastern Time, even though many affiliates tape-delayed the broadcast to air at 6:30 or 7:00 p.m.

In December 1963, Cronkite introduced The Beatles to the United States by airing a four-minute story on band on the CBS Evening News.

Retirement

On February 14, 1980, Cronkite announced that he intended to retire from the CBS Evening News; at the time, CBS had a policy of mandatory retirement by age 65. Although sometimes compared to a father figure or an uncle figure, in an interview about his retirement he described himself as being more like a "comfortable old shoe" to his audience. His last day in the anchor chair at the CBS Evening News was on March 6, 1981; he was succeeded the following Monday by Dan Rather.

Cronkite's farewell statement:

Other activities

at the White House, 1981]]

Reporting

As he had promised on his last show as anchor in 1981, Cronkite continued to broadcast occasionally as a special correspondent for CBS, CNN, and NPR into the 21st century; one such occasion was Cronkite anchoring the second space flight by John Glenn in 1998 as he had Glenn's first in 1962. In 1983, he reported on the British General Election for the ITV current affairs series World In Action, interviewing, among many others, the victorious Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. Cronkite hosted the annual Vienna New Year's Concert on PBS from 1985 to 2008, succeeded by Julie Andrews in 2009. For many years, until 2002, he was also the host of the annual Kennedy Center Honors.

In 1998, Cronkite hosted the 90-minute documentary, Silicon Valley: A 100 Year Renaissance, produced by the Santa Clara Valley Historical Association. The film documented Silicon Valley's rise from the origin of Stanford University to the current high-technology powerhouse. The documentary was broadcast on PBS throughout the United States and in 26 countries. Prior to 2004, he could also be seen in the opening movie 'Back to Neverland' shown in the Walt Disney World attraction, The Magic of Disney Animation, interviewing Robin Williams as if he is still on the CBS News channel, ending his on-camera time with his famous catchphrase. In the featurette, Cronkite describes the steps taken in the creation of an animated film, while Robin Williams becomes an animated character (and even becomes Walter Cronkite, impersonating his voice). He also was shown inviting Disney guests and tourists to the Disney Classics Theater.

On May 21, 1999, Walter Cronkite participated in a panel discussion on Integrity in the Media with Ben Bradlee and Mike McCurry at the Connecticut Forum in Hartford, Connecticut. Cronkite provided a particularly funny anecdote about taking a picture from a house in Houston, Texas where a newsworthy event occurred and being praised for getting a unique photograph, only to find out later that the city desk had provided him with the wrong address.

Voice-overs

Cronkite narrated the IMAX film about the Space Shuttle, The Dream is Alive, released in 1985. From May 26, 1986 to August 15, 1994, he was the narrator's voice in the EPCOT Center attraction, Spaceship Earth, at Walt Disney World. He provided the pivotal voice of Captain Neweyes in the 1993 animated film , delivering his trademark line at the end. In 1995, he made an appearance on Broadway, providing the voice of the titular book in the 1995 revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

Cronkite was a finalist for NASA's Journalist in Space program, which mirrored the Teacher in Space Project, an opportunity that was suspended after the Challenger disaster in 1986. He recorded voice-overs for the 1995 film Apollo 13, modifying the script he was given to make it more "Cronkitian." In 2002, Cronkite was the voice of Benjamin Franklin in all 40 episodes of the educational television cartoon Liberty's Kids, which included a news segment ending with "And that's the way it is on...[a historic date]." His distinctive voice provided the narration for the television ads of the University of Texas at Austin, his alma mater, with its 'We're Texas' ad campaign.

He held amateur radio operator license KB2GSD and narrated a 2003 American Radio Relay League documentary explaining amateur radio's role in disaster relief. Unusually, Cronkite was a Novice-class licensee—the entry level license—for his entire, and long, tenure in the hobby.

On February 15, 2005, he went into the studio at CBS to record narration for WCC Chatham Radio, a documentary about Guglielmo Marconi and his Chatham station, which became the busiest ship-to-shore wireless station in North America from 1914 to 1994. The documentary was directed by Christopher Seufert of Mooncusser Films and premiered at the Chatham Marconi Maritime Center in April 2005. In 2006, Cronkite hosted the World War One Living History Project, a program honoring America's final handful of veterans from the First World War. The program was created by Treehouse Productions and aired on NPR on November 11, 2006. In May 2009, Legacy of War, produced by PBS, was released. Cronkite chronicles, over archive footage, the events following World War II that resulted in America's rise as the dominant world power.

Prior to his death, "Uncle Walter" hosted a number of TV specials and was featured in interviews about the times and events that occurred during his career as America's "most trusted" man. Cronkite was the chairman of The Interfaith Alliance. In 2006, he presented the Walter Cronkite Faith and Freedom Award to actor and activist George Clooney on behalf of his organization at its annual dinner in New York.

Cronkite was a vocal advocate for free airtime for political candidates. and Common Cause, for instance, on an unsuccessful lobbying effort to have an amendment added to the McCain-Feingold-Shays-Meehan Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2001 that would have required TV broadcast companies to provide free airtime to candidates. Cronkite criticized the present system of campaign finance which allows elections to "be purchased" by special interests, and he noted that all the European democracies "provide their candidates with extensive free airtime." During the elections held in 2000, the amount spent by candidates in the major TV markets approached $1 billion. "What our campaign asks is that the television industry yield just a tiny percentage of that windfall, less than 1 percent, to fund free airtime."

He was a member of the Constitution Project's bipartisan Liberty and Security Committee. He also supported the nonprofit world hunger organization Heifer International.

In 1998, he supported President Bill Clinton during Clinton's impeachment trial. He was also a proponent of limited world government on the American federalist model, writing fund-raising letters for the World Federalist Association (now Citizens for Global Solutions). In accepting the 1999 Norman Cousins Global Governance Award at the ceremony at the United Nations, Cronkite said: :"It seems to many of us that if we are to avoid the eventual catastrophic world conflict we must strengthen the United Nations as a first step toward a world government patterned after our own government with a legislature, executive and judiciary, and police to enforce its international laws and keep the peace. To do that, of course, we Americans will have to yield up some of our sovereignty. That would be a bitter pill. It would take a lot of courage, a lot of faith in the new order. But the American colonies did it once and brought forth one of the most nearly perfect unions the world has ever seen."

Cronkite contrasted his support for accountable global government with the opposition to it by politically active Christian fundamentalists in the United States: :"Even as with the American rejection of the League of Nations, our failure to live up to our obligations to the United Nations is led by a handful of willful senators who choose to pursue their narrow, selfish political objectives at the cost of our nation’s conscience.They pander to and are supported by the Christian Coalition and the rest of the religious right wing. Their leader, Pat Robertson, has written that we should have a world government but only when the messiah arrives. Any attempt to achieve world order before that time must be the work of the Devil! Well join me… I'm glad to sit here at the right hand of Satan."

In 2003, Cronkite, who owned property on Martha's Vineyard,

Cronkite spoke out against the War on Drugs in support of the Drug Policy Alliance, writing a fundraising letter and appearing in advertisements on behalf of the DPA. In the letter, Cronkite wrote: "Today, our nation is fighting two wars: one abroad and one at home. While the war in Iraq is in the headlines, the other war is still being fought on our own streets. Its casualties are the wasted lives of our own citizens. I am speaking of the war on drugs. And I cannot help but wonder how many more lives, and how much more money, will be wasted before another Robert McNamara admits what is plain for all to see: the war on drugs is a failure." from March 30, 1940 until her death from cancer. They had three children: Nancy Cronkite, Mary Kathleen (Kathy) Cronkite, and Walter Leland (Chip) Cronkite III (who is married to actress Deborah Rush); Peter Cronkite is currently attending Horace Mann School. Walter attends Hamilton College, having graduated from the same school.

In late 2005 Cronkite began dating opera singer Joanna Simon, Carly Simon's older sister. Of their relationship Cronkite stated in an interview for the New York Post in January 2006: "We are keeping company, as the old phrase used to be."

Cronkite was an avid sailor and a member of the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary, with the honorary rank of commodore.

Death

In late June 2009, Cronkite was reported to be terminally ill. He died on July 17, 2009, at his home in New York City, at the age of 92. He is believed to have died from cerebrovascular disease. Cronkite's funeral took place on July 23, 2009 at St. Bartholomew's Church in midtown Manhattan, New York City. At his funeral, his friends noted his love of music, including, recently, drumming. He was cremated and his remains buried next to his wife, Betsy, in the family plot at a cemetery in Kansas City.

Legacy

Public credibility and trustfulness

For many years, until a decade after he left his post as anchor, Cronkite was considered one of the most trusted figures in the United States. In contrast, Americans average about 165 words per minute, and fast, difficult-to-understand talkers speak close to 200 words per minute.

Awards and honors

In 1968, the faculty of the E. W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University voted to award Cronkite the Carr Van Anda Award "for enduring contributions to journalism." In 1970, Cronkite received a "Freedom of the Press" George Polk Award. Among Cronkite's numerous awards were four Peabody awards for excellence in broadcasting. Cronkite made the trip to Arizona annually to present the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism to a leader in the field of media.

"The values that Mr. Cronkite embodies – excellence, integrity, accuracy, fairness, objectivity – we try to instill in our students each and every day. There is no better role model for our faculty or our students." said Dean Christopher Callahan.

The school, with approximately 1,200 majors, is widely regarded as one of the top journalism schools in the country. It is housed in a new facility in downtown Phoenix that is equipped with 14 digital newsrooms and computer labs, two TV studios, 280 digital student work stations, the Cronkite Theater, the First Amendment Forum, and new technology. The school's students regularly finish at the top of national collegiate journalism competitions, such as the Hearst Journalism Awards program and the Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence Awards. In 2009, students won the Robert F. Kennedy Award for college print reporting.

In 2008, The state-of-the-art journalism education complex in the heart of ASU's Downtown Phoenix campus was also built in his honor. The Walter Cronkite Regents Chair in Communication seats the Texas College of Communications dean. Occupying 293 linear feet (almost 90 metres) of shelf space, the papers document Cronkite's journalism career. Amongst the collected material are Cronkite's early beginnings while he still lived in Houston. They encompass his coverage of World War II as a United Press International correspondent, where he cemented his reputation by taking on hazardous overseas assignments. as he compiled an oral history to write his autobiography, A Reporter's Life, which was published in 1996.

As a newsman, Cronkite devoted his attention to the early days of the space program, and the "space race" between the United States and the Soviet Union. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration honoured Cronkite on February 28, 2006. Michael Coats, director of NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, presented Cronkite with the Ambassador of Exploration Award. Cronkite was the first non-astronaut thus honoured.

NASA presented Cronkite with a moon rock sample from the early Apollo expeditions spanning 1969 to 1972. Cronkite passed on the Moon rock to Bill Powers, president of the University of Texas at Austin, and it became part of the collection at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History. Carleton said at this occasion, "We are deeply honored by Walter Cronkite’s decision to entrust this prestigious award to the Center for American History. The Center already serves as the proud steward of his professional and personal papers, which include his coverage of the space program for CBS News. It is especially fitting that the archive documenting Walter's distinguished career should also include one of the Moon rocks that the heroic astronauts of the Apollo program brought to Earth."

References

Further reading

External links

Cronkite: Eyewitness to a Century - Exhibit at The Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum''

Remembering Walter Cronkite - slideshow by Life Magazine

AP Obituary in the New York Times

Walter Cronkite, Iconic Anchor, Is Dead, The New York Times, July 17, 2009

RIP Walter Cronkite

Walter Cronkite - Daily Telegraph obituary

Celebrating Cronkite while Ignoring what he did by Glenn Greenwald, Salon Magazine

Cronkite's 1968 Dissent on Vietnam Helped Save Thousands of Lives by Greg Mitchell

Anchorman Was Critical of Media Consolidation, Wars in Vietnam and Iraq by Democracy Now!

Web ZIne from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University

Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University

The Walter Cronkite Papers, the University of Texas at Austin

Cronkite's personal blog

Walter Cronkite Archive of American Television Interview

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Category:1916 births Category:2009 deaths Category:60 Minutes correspondents Category:Amateur radio people Category:American anti-Vietnam War activists Category:American bloggers Category:American broadcast news analysts Category:American Episcopalians Category:American game show hosts Category:American people of Dutch descent Category:American television news anchors Category:American television personalities Category:American television reporters and correspondents Category:Cardiovascular disease deaths in New York Category:Deaths from stroke Category:Drug policy reform activists Category:Peabody Award winners Category:People from St. Joseph, Missouri Category:Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Category:Space advocacy Category:University of Texas at Austin alumni Category:War correspondents Category:World federalists

Name	Ronald Reagan
Order	40th
Office	President of the United States
Vicepresident	George H. W. Bush
Term start	January 20, 1981
Term end	January 20, 1989
Predecessor	Jimmy Carter
Successor	George H. W. Bush
Order2	33rd
Office2	Governor of California
Lieutenant2	Robert Finch(1967–1969) Ed Reinecke(1969–1974) John Harmer(1974–1975)
Term start2	January 3, 1967
Term end2	January 6, 1975
Predecessor2	Edmund G. "Pat" Brown, Sr.
Successor2	Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown, Jr.
Birth date	February 06, 1911
Birth place	Tampico, Illinois
Death date	June 05, 2004
Death place	Bel Air, Los Angeles, California
Resting place	Reagan Presidential Library
Spouse	Jane Wyman (1940 - 1948)(2) Nancy Davis (1952 - 2004)
Children	Maureen ReaganChristine ReaganMichael Reagan Patti DavisRon Reagan
Alma mater	Eureka College
Occupation	Actor
Religion	Baptized Disciples of Christ, later attended Presbyterian churches.
Signature	Ronald Reagan Signature2.svg
Signature alt	Cursive signature in ink
Party	Republican (1962–2004) Democratic (1932–1962)
Branch	United States Army United States Army Air Forces
Rank	Captain
Serviceyears	1937–1945

Ronald Wilson Reagan (; February 6, 1911 June 5, 2004) was the 40th President of the United States (1981–1989) and the 33rd Governor of California (1967–1975).

Born in Tampico, Illinois, raised in Dixon, Illinois, and educated at Eureka College with a bachelor of arts degree in economics-sociology, Reagan first moved to Iowa as a radio broadcaster and then to Los Angeles, California in 1937. He began a career as an actor, first in films and later television, appearing in over 50 movie productions and gaining enough success to become a famous, publicly recognized figure. Some of his most notable roles are in Knute Rockne, All American and Kings Row. Reagan served as president of the Screen Actors Guild, and later spokesman for General Electric (GE); his start in politics occurred during his work for GE. Originally a member of the Democratic Party, he switched to the Republican Party in 1962. After delivering a rousing speech in support of Barry Goldwater's presidential candidacy in 1964, he was persuaded to seek the California governorship, winning two years later and again in 1970. He was defeated in his run for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968 as well as 1976, but won both the nomination and election in 1980.

As president, Reagan implemented sweeping new political and economic initiatives. His supply-side economic policies, dubbed "Reaganomics," advocated controlling the money supply to reduce inflation, and spurring economic growth by reducing tax rates, government regulation of the economy, and certain types of government spending. In his first term he survived an assassination attempt, took a hard line against labor unions, and ordered military actions in Grenada. He was reelected in a landslide in 1984, proclaiming it was "Morning in America". His second term was primarily marked by foreign matters, such as the ending of the Cold War, the bombing of Libya, and the revelation of the Iran-Contra affair. Publicly describing the Soviet Union as an "evil empire," he supported anti-Communist movements worldwide and spent his first term forgoing the strategy of détente by ordering a massive military buildup in an arms race with the USSR. Reagan negotiated with Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, culminating in the INF Treaty and the decrease of both countries' nuclear arsenals.

Reagan left office in 1989. In 1994, the former president disclosed that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease earlier in the year; he died ten years later at the age of 93. He ranks highly in public opinion polls of U.S. Presidents, and is a conservative icon.

Early life

Ronald Wilson Reagan was born in an apartment on the second floor of a commercial building in Tampico, Illinois, on February 6, 1911, to John Edward "Jack" Reagan and Nelle Wilson Reagan. while his mother had Scots-English ancestors. Reagan had one older brother, Neil "Moon" Reagan (1908–1996), who became an advertising executive. As a boy, Reagan's father nicknamed his son "Dutch," due to his "fat little Dutchman"-like appearance, and his "Dutchboy" haircut; the nickname stuck with him throughout his youth. After his election as president, residing in the upstairs White House private quarters, Reagan would quip that he was "living above the store again".

According to Paul Kengor, author of God and Ronald Reagan, Reagan had a particularly strong faith in the goodness of people, which stemmed from the optimistic faith of his mother, Nelle, and the Disciples of Christ faith, For the time, Reagan was unusual in his opposition to racial discrimination, and recalled a time in Dixon when the local inn would not allow black people to stay there. Reagan brought them back to his house, where his mother invited them to stay the night and have breakfast the next morning.

Following the closure of the Pitney Store in late 1920, the Reagans moved to Dixon; the midwestern "small universe" had a lasting impression on Reagan. He attended Dixon High School, where he developed interests in acting, sports, and storytelling. Reagan attended Eureka College, where he became a member of the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity, and majored in economics and sociology. He developed a reputation as a jack of all trades, excelling in campus politics, sports and theater. He was a member of the football team, captain of the swim team and was elected student body president. As student president, Reagan notably led a student revolt against the college president after he tried to cut back the faculty.

Military service

After completing fourteen home-study Army Extension Courses, Reagan enlisted in the Army Enlisted Reserve on April 29, 1937, as a private assigned to Troop B, 322nd Cavalry at Des Moines, Iowa.

Reagan was ordered to active duty for the first time on April 18, 1942. Due to his nearsightedness, he was classified for limited service only, which excluded him from serving overseas. His first assignment was at the San Francisco Port of Embarkation at Fort Mason, California, as a liaison officer of the Port and Transportation Office. On January 14, 1943 he was promoted to First Lieutenant and was sent to the Provisional Task Force Show Unit of This Is The Army at Burbank, California. He returned to Fort MacArthur, California, where he was separated from active duty on December 9, 1945.

Entertainment career

Radio and film

in 1938.]] After graduating from Eureka in 1932, Reagan drove himself to Iowa, where he auditioned for a job at many small-town radio stations. His specialty was creating play-by-play accounts of games that the station received by wire. He spent the first few years of his Hollywood career in the "B film" unit, where, Reagan joked, the producers "didn't want them good, they wanted them Thursday". including Dark Victory. Before the film Santa Fe Trail in 1940, he played the role of George "The Gipper" Gipp in the film Knute Rockne, All American; from it, he acquired the lifelong nickname "the Gipper". Reagan's favorite acting role was as a double amputee in 1942's Kings Row, in which he recites the line, "Where's the rest of me?", later used as the title of his 1965 autobiography. Many film critics considered Kings Row to be his best movie, though the film was condemned by New York Times critic Bosley Crowther.

Reagan called Kings Row the film that "made me a star". However, he was unable to capitalize on his success because he was ordered to active duty with the U.S. Army at San Francisco two months after its release, and never regained "star" status in motion pictures.

Fan mail

While he worked at Warner Bros., Reagan enlisted his mother Nelle Wilson Reagan to answer his fan mail. She would handwrite letters and sign his name as if he had written the letters himself. Mrs. Reagan would sign her actor-son's name on photographs and even on membership cards in the Ronald Reagan Fan Club. The article "Devoted Mother, Devoted Son" in the January/February 1985 issue of The Pen & Quill, journal of the Universal Autograph Collectors Club, compares the handwriting of mother and son, pointing out the differences, and also reveals that Reagan was paying his mother $75.00 a week. According to the UACC, a lawsuit is forthcoming against autograph collector Steve Koschal because his 2008 self-published book Ronald Reagan and Nelle Reagan- Autograph Mystery Uncovered is "completely plagiarized" from the 1985 issue of the club's journal.

SAG president and television

.]] Reagan was first elected to the Board of Directors of the Screen Actors Guild in 1941, serving as an alternate. Following World War II, he resumed service and became 3rd Vice president in 1946. The adoption of conflict-of-interest bylaws in 1947 led the SAG president and six board members to resign; Reagan was nominated in a special election for the position of president and subsequently elected. Reagan testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee on the subject as well. A fervent anti-communist, he reaffirmed his commitment to democratic principles, stating, "I never as a citizen want to see our country become urged, by either fear or resentment of this group, that we ever compromise with any of our democratic principles through that fear or resentment."

Marriages and children

In 1938, Reagan co-starred in the film Brother Rat with actress Jane Wyman (1917–2007). They were engaged at the Chicago Theatre, and married on January 26, 1940, at the Wee Kirk o' the Heather church in Glendale, California. Together they had two children, Maureen (1941–2001) and Christine (June 26, 1947-June 27, 1947), and adopted a third, Michael (born 1945). Following arguments about Reagan's political ambitions, Wyman filed for divorce in 1948, citing a distraction due to her husband's Screen Actors Guild union duties; the divorce was finalized in 1949.

aboard a boat in California in 1964]] Reagan met actress Nancy Davis (born 1921) in 1949 after she contacted him in his capacity as president of the Screen Actors Guild to help her with issues regarding her name appearing on a communist blacklist in Hollywood (she had been mistaken for another Nancy Davis). She described their meeting by saying, "I don't know if it was exactly love at first sight, but it was pretty close." Actor William Holden served as best man at the ceremony. They had two children: Patti (born 1952) and Ron (born 1958).

Observers described the Reagans' relationship as close, real, and intimate. During his presidency they were reported as frequently displaying their affection for one another; one press secretary said, "They never took each other for granted. They never stopped courting." He once wrote to her, "whatever I treasure and enjoy ... all would be without meaning if I didn’t have you." When he was in the hospital in 1981, she slept with one of his shirts to be comforted by his scent. In a letter to U.S. citizens written in 1994, Reagan wrote "I have recently been told that I am one of the millions of Americans who will be afflicted with Alzheimer's disease.... I only wish there was some way I could spare Nancy from this painful experience,"

Early political career

Reagan began his political career as a liberal Democrat, admirer of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and active supporter of New Deal policies, but in the early 1950s he shifted to the right and, while remaining a Democrat, endorsed the presidential candidacies of Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956 as well as Richard Nixon in 1960. His many GE speeches—which he wrote himself—were non-partisan but carried a conservative, pro-business message; he was influenced by Lemuel Boulware, a senior GE executive. Boulware, known for his tough stance against unions and his innovative strategies to win over workers, championed the core tenets of modern American conservatism: free markets, anticommunism, lower taxes, and limited government. Eventually, the ratings for Reagan's show fell off and GE dropped Reagan in 1962. That year Reagan formally switched to the Republican Party, stating, "I didn't leave the Democratic Party. The party left me."

Reagan opposed certain civil rights legislation, saying "If an individual wants to discriminate against Negroes or others in selling or renting his house, it is his right to do so". He later reversed his opposition to voting rights and fair housing laws. He strongly denied having racist motives. When legislation that would become Medicare was introduced in 1961, Reagan created a recording for the American Medical Association warning that such legislation would mean the end of freedom in America. Reagan said that if his listeners did not write letters to prevent it, "we will awake to find that we have so­cialism. And if you don't do this, and if I don't do it, one of these days, you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children, and our children's children, what it once was like in America when men were free."

Reagan endorsed the campaign of conservative presidential contender Barry Goldwater in 1964. Speaking for Goldwater, Reagan stressed his belief in the importance of smaller government. He revealed his ideological motivation in a famed speech delivered on October 27, 1964: "The Founding Fathers knew a government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing." This "Time for Choosing" speech raised $1 million for Goldwater's campaign

Governor of California, 1967–1975

California Republicans were impressed with Reagan's political views and charisma after his "Time for Choosing" speech, and nominated him for Governor of California in 1966. In Reagan's campaign, he emphasized two main themes: "to send the welfare bums back to work," and in reference to burgeoning anti-war and anti-establishment student protests at the University of California at Berkeley, "to clean up the mess at Berkeley." He was elected, defeating two-term governor Edmund G. "Pat" Brown, and was sworn in on January 3, 1967. In his first term, he froze government hiring and approved tax hikes to balance the budget.

Shortly after the beginning of his term, Reagan tested the presidential waters in 1968 as part of a "Stop Nixon" movement, hoping to cut into Nixon's Southern support and be a compromise candidate if neither Nixon nor second-place Nelson Rockefeller received enough delegates to win on the first ballot at the Republican convention. However, by the time of the convention Nixon had 692 delegate votes, 25 more than he needed to secure the nomination, followed by Rockefeller with Reagan in third place. Reagan then called out 2,200 state National Guard troops to occupy the city of Berkeley for two weeks in order to crack down on the protesters. When the Symbionese Liberation Army kidnapped Patty Hearst in Berkeley and demanded the distribution of food to the poor, Reagan joked, "It's just too bad we can't have an epidemic of botulism."

Early in 1967, the national debate on abortion was beginning. Democratic California state senator Anthony Beilenson introduced the "Therapeutic Abortion Act," in an effort to reduce the number of "back-room abortions" performed in California. About two million abortions would be performed as a result, most because of a provision in the bill allowing abortions for the well-being of the mother.

Despite an unsuccessful attempt to recall him in 1968, Reagan was re-elected in 1970, defeating "Big Daddy" Jesse Unruh. He chose not to seek a third term in the following election cycle. One of Reagan's greatest frustrations in office concerned capital punishment, which he strongly supported.

Reagan's terms as governor helped to shape the policies he would pursue in his later political career as president. By campaigning on a platform of sending "the welfare bums back to work," he spoke out against the idea of the welfare state. He also strongly advocated the Republican ideal of less government regulation of the economy, including that of undue federal taxation.

Reagan didn't seek re-election to a third term as governor in 1974 and was succeeded by Democratic California Secretary of State Jerry Brown on January 6, 1975.

1976 presidential campaign

In 1976, Reagan challenged incumbent President Gerald Ford in a bid to become the Republican Party's candidate for president. Reagan soon established himself as the conservative candidate with the support of like-minded organizations such as the American Conservative Union which became key components of his political base, while President Ford was considered a more moderate Republican.

Reagan's campaign relied on a strategy crafted by campaign manager John Sears of winning a few primaries early to seriously damage the lift-off of Ford's campaign. Reagan won North Carolina, Texas, and California, but the strategy disintegrated and he ended up losing New Hampshire and Florida. As the party's convention neared, Ford appeared close to victory. Acknowledging his party's moderate wing, Reagan chose moderate Republican Senator Richard Schweiker of Pennsylvania as his running mate. Nonetheless, Ford narrowly won with 1,187 delegates to Reagan's 1,070. which Ford had won over Democratic challenger Jimmy Carter. During this time he was granted an honorary membership into Alpha Kappa Psi, Alpha Zeta Chapter.

1980 presidential campaign

Strom Thurmond (right) in South Carolina, 1980]] The 1980 presidential campaign between Reagan and incumbent President Jimmy Carter was conducted during domestic concerns and the ongoing Iran hostage crisis. His campaign stressed some of his fundamental principles: lower taxes to stimulate the economy, less government interference in people's lives, states' rights, and a strong national defense. Republicans captured the Senate for the first time since 1952, and gained 34 House seats, but the Democrats retained a majority.

Presidency, 1981–1989

During his Presidency, Reagan pursued policies that reflected his personal belief in individual freedom, brought changes domestically, both to the U.S. economy and expanded military, and contributed to the end of the Cold War. Termed the Reagan Revolution, his presidency would reinvigorate American morale and reduce the people's reliance upon government.

First term, 1981–1985

to the White House, right after the president's inauguration]] To date, Reagan is the oldest man elected to the office of the presidency (at 69). In his first inaugural address on January 20, 1981, which Reagan himself wrote, he addressed the country's economic malaise arguing: "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem."

The Reagan Presidency began in a dramatic manner; as Reagan was giving his inaugural address, 52 U.S. hostages, held by Iran for 444 days were set free.

Assassination attempt

On March 30, 1981, Reagan, along with his press secretary James Brady and two others, were shot by a would-be assassin, John Hinckley, Jr., outside of the Hilton Washington hotel. Missing Reagan's heart by less than one inch, the bullet instead pierced his left lung. Though they were not, Joseph Giordano (a Democrat) replied, "Today, Mr. President, we're all Republicans."

The bullet was removed and the surgery was deemed a success. It was later determined, however, that the president's life had been in serious danger due to rapid blood loss and severe breathing difficulties. He was able to turn the grave situation into a more light-hearted one, though, for when Nancy Reagan came to see him he told her, "Honey, I forgot to duck" (using Jack Dempsey's quip). becoming the first serving U.S. President to survive being shot in an assassination attempt. The attempt had great influence on Reagan's popularity; polls indicated his approval rating to be around 73%. Reagan believed that God had spared his life so that he might go on to fulfill a greater purpose.

Air traffic controllers' strike

greet King Juan Carlos I of Spain and his wife Queen Sofía, in October, 1981]]

Only a short time into his administration, federal air traffic controllers went on strike, violating a regulation prohibiting government unions from striking. Declaring the situation an emergency as described in the 1947 Taft Hartley Act, Reagan held a press conference in the White House Rose Garden, where he stated that if the air traffic controllers "do not report for work within 48 hours, they have forfeited their jobs and will be terminated." Despite fear from some members of his cabinet over a potential political backlash, on August 5, Reagan fired 11,345 striking air traffic controllers who had ignored his order to return to work, busting the union. According to Charles Craver, a labor law professor at George Washington University Law School, the move gave Americans a new view of Reagan, who "sent a message to the private employer community that it would be all right to go up against the unions". Over those eight years, the unemployment rate declined from 7.1% to 5.5%, hitting annual rate highs of 9.7% (1982) and 9.6% (1983) and averaging 7.5% during Reagan's administration.

Reagan implemented policies based on supply-side economics and advocated a classical liberal and laissez-faire philosophy, seeking to stimulate the economy with large, across-the-board tax cuts. Citing the economic theories of Arthur Laffer, Reagan promoted the proposed tax cuts as potentially stimulating the economy enough to expand the tax base, offsetting the revenue loss due to reduced rates of taxation, a theory that entered political discussion as the Laffer curve. Reaganomics was the subject of debate with supporters pointing to improvements in certain key economic indicators as evidence of success, and critics pointing to large increases in federal budget deficits and the national debt. His policy of "peace through strength" (also described as "firm but fair") resulted in a record peacetime defense buildup including a 40% real increase in defense spending between 1981 and 1985.

During Reagan's presidency, federal income tax rates were lowered significantly with the signing of the bipartisan Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 which lowered the top marginal tax bracket from 70% to 50% and the lowest bracket from 14% to 11%. Then, in 1982 the Job Training Partnership Act of 1982 was signed into law, initiating one of the nation's first public/private partnerships and a major part of the president's job creation program. Reagan's Assistant Secretary of Labor and Chief of Staff, Al Angrisani, was a primary architect of the bill. The Tax Reform Act of 1986, another bipartisan effort championed by Reagan, reduced the top rate further to 28% while raising the bottom bracket from 11% to 15% and reducing the quantity of brackets to 4. Conversely, Congress passed and Reagan signed into law tax increases of some nature in every year from 1981 to 1987 to continue funding such government programs as TEFRA, Social Security, and the Deficit Reduction Act of 1984. Despite the fact that TEFRA was the "largest peacetime tax increase in American history," Reagan is better known for his tax cuts and lower-taxes philosophy. Real gross domestic product (GDP) growth recovered strongly after the early 1980s recession ended in 1982, and grew during his eight years in office at an annual rate of 3.85% per year. Unemployment peaked at 10.8% monthly rate in December 1982—higher than any time since the Great Depression—then dropped during the rest of Reagan's presidency. Sixteen million new jobs were created, while inflation significantly decreased. However, federal Income Tax receipts increased from 1980 to 1989, rising from $308.7Bn to $549.0Bn.

During the Reagan Administration, federal receipts grew at an average rate of 8.2% (2.5% attributed to higher Social Security receipts), and federal outlays grew at an annual rate of 7.1%. Reagan also revised the tax code with the bipartisan Tax Reform Act of 1986.

Reagan's policies proposed that economic growth would occur when marginal tax rates were low enough to spur investment, which would then lead to increased economic growth, higher employment and wages. Critics labeled this "trickle-down economics"—the belief that tax policies that benefit the wealthy will create a "trickle-down" effect to the poor. Questions arose whether Reagan's policies benefited the wealthy more than those living in poverty, programs including Medicaid, food stamps, federal education programs While he protected entitlement programs, such as Social Security and Medicare, his administration attempted to purge many people with disabilities from the Social Security disability rolls.

The administration's stance toward the Savings and Loan industry contributed to the Savings and Loan crisis. It is also suggested, by a minority of Reaganomics critics, that the policies partially influenced the stock market crash of 1987, but there is no consensus regarding a single source for the crash. In order to cover newly spawned federal budget deficits, the United States borrowed heavily both domestically and abroad, raising the national debt from $997 billion to $2.85 trillion. Reagan described the new debt as the "greatest disappointment" of his presidency.

He reappointed Paul Volcker as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and in 1987 he appointed monetarist Alan Greenspan to succeed him. Reagan ended the price controls on domestic oil which had contributed to energy crises in the early 1970s. The price of oil subsequently dropped, and the 1980s did not see the fuel shortages that the 1970s had. Reagan also fulfilled a 1980 campaign promise to repeal the Windfall profit tax in 1988, which had previously increased dependence on foreign oil. Some economists, such as Nobel Prize winners Milton Friedman and Robert A. Mundell, argue that Reagan's tax policies invigorated America's economy and contributed to the economic boom of the 1990s.

Lebanon and Operation Urgent Fury (Grenada), 1983

of Dominica in the Oval Office about ongoing events in Grenada]] American peacekeeping forces in Beirut, a part of a multinational force during the Lebanese Civil War who had been earlier deployed by Reagan, were attacked on October 23, 1983. The Beirut barracks bombing resulted in the deaths of 241 American servicemen and the wounding of more than 60 others by a suicide truck bomber. Reagan sent a White House team to the site four days later, led by his Vice President, George H.W. Bush. Reagan called the attack "despicable," pledged to keep a military force in Lebanon, and planned to target the Sheik Abdullah barracks in Baalbek, Lebanon, training ground for Hezbollah fighters, but the mission was later aborted. On February 7, 1984, President Reagan ordered the Marines to begin withdrawal from Lebanon. In April 1984, as his keynote address to the 20,000 attendees of the Rev. Jerry Falwell's "Baptist Fundamentalism '84" convention in Washington, D.C., he read a first hand account of the bombing, written by Navy Chaplain (Rabbi) Arnold Resnicoff, who had been asked to write the report by Bush and his team.

On October 25, 1983, only two days later, Reagan ordered U.S. forces to invade Grenada, code named Operation Urgent Fury, where a 1979 coup d'état had established an independent non-aligned Marxist-Leninist government. A formal appeal from the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) led to the intervention of U.S. forces; President Reagan also cited an allegedly regional threat posed by a Soviet-Cuban military build-up in the Caribbean and concern for the safety of several hundred American medical students at St. George's University as adequate reasons to invade. Operation Urgent Fury was the first major military operation conducted by U.S. forces since the Vietnam War, several days of fighting commenced, resulting in a U.S. victory, with 19 American fatalities and 116 wounded American soldiers. In mid-December, after a new government was appointed by the Governor-General, U.S. forces withdrew. Reagan ordered a massive buildup of the United States Armed Forces In response to Soviet deployment of the SS-20, Reagan oversaw NATO's deployment of the Pershing II missile in West Germany.

, predicts Marxism-Leninism will be left on the "ash-heap of history".]]

Together with the United Kingdom's prime minister Margaret Thatcher, Reagan denounced the Soviet Union in ideological terms. In a famous address on June 8, 1982 to the British Parliament in the Royal Gallery of the Palace of Westminster, Reagan said, "the forward march of freedom and democracy will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash-heap of history." On March 3, 1983, he predicted that communism would collapse, stating, "Communism is another sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages even now are being written." In a speech to the National Association of Evangelicals on March 8, 1983, Reagan called the Soviet Union "an evil empire".

After Soviet fighters downed Korean Air Lines Flight 007 near Moneron Island on September 1, 1983, carrying 269 people including U.S. congressman from Georgia Larry McDonald, Reagan labeled the act a "massacre" and declared that the Soviets had turned "against the world and the moral precepts which guide human relations among people everywhere". The Reagan administration responded to the incident by suspending all Soviet passenger air service to the United States, and dropped several agreements being negotiated with the Soviets, wounding them financially.

Under a policy that came to be known as the Reagan Doctrine, Reagan and his administration also provided overt and covert aid to anti-communist resistance movements in an effort to "rollback" Soviet-backed communist governments in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Reagan deployed the CIA's Special Activities Division to Afghanistan and Pakistan. They were instrumental in training, equipping and leading Mujaheddin forces against the Soviet Red Army. President Reagan's Covert Action program has been given credit for assisting in ending the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, though the US funded armaments introduced then would later pose a threat to US troops in the 2000s war in Afghanistan.

In March 1983, Reagan introduced the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a defense project Reagan believed that this defense shield could make nuclear war impossible, but disbelief that the technology could ever work led opponents to dub SDI "Star Wars" and argue that the technological objective was unattainable. For those reasons, David Gergen, former aide to President Reagan, believes that in retrospect, SDI hastened the end of the Cold War.

Critics labeled Reagan's foreign policies as aggressive, imperialistic, and chided them as "warmongering," though they were supported by leading American conservatives who argued that they were necessary to protect U.S. security interests. A reformer, Mikhail Gorbachev, would later rise to power in the Soviet Union in 1985, implementing new policies for openness and reform that were called glasnost and perestroika.

1984 presidential campaign

(and Washington, D.C.)]]

Reagan accepted the Republican nomination in Dallas, Texas, on a wave of positive feeling. He proclaimed that it was "morning again in America,"

Reagan's opponent in the 1984 presidential election was former Vice President Walter Mondale. With questions about Reagan's age, and a weak performance in the first presidential debate, it was questioned whether he was capable to be president for another term. This confused and forgetful behavior horrified his supporters at that moment, as they always knew him as clever and witty, and it is said that around this time were the early symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. Reagan rebounded in the second debate, and confronted questions about his age, quipping, "I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience," which generated applause and laughter.

That November, Reagan was re-elected, winning 49 of 50 states. and received 58.8% of the popular vote to Mondale's 40.6%.

Second term, 1985–1989

Reagan was sworn in as president for the second time on January 20, 1985, in a private ceremony at the White House. Because January 20 fell on a Sunday, a public celebration was not held but took place in the Capitol Rotunda the following day. January 21 was one of the coldest days on record in Washington, D.C.; due to poor weather, inaugural celebrations were held inside the Capitol.

In 1985, Reagan visited a German military cemetery in Bitburg to lay a wreath with West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. It was determined that the cemetery held the graves of 49 members of the Waffen-SS. Reagan issued a statement that called the Nazi soldiers buried in that cemetery "victims," which ignited a stir over whether he had equated the SS men to Holocaust victims; Pat Buchanan, Director of Communications under Reagan, argued that the notion was false. Now strongly urged to cancel the visit, the president responded that it would be wrong to back down on a promise he had made to Chancellor Kohl. He attended the ceremony where two military generals laid a wreath.

The disintegration of the Space Shuttle Challenger on January 28, 1986 proved a pivotal moment in Reagan's presidency. All seven astronauts aboard were killed. On the night of the disaster, Reagan delivered a speech written by Peggy Noonan in which he said:

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War on Drugs

Midway into his second term, Reagan declared more militant policies in the War on Drugs. He said that "drugs were menacing our society" and promised to fight for drug-free schools and workplaces, expanded drug treatment, stronger law enforcement and drug interdiction efforts, and greater public awareness.

In 1986, Reagan signed a drug enforcement bill that budgeted $1.7 billion to fund the War on Drugs and specified a mandatory minimum penalty for drug offenses. The bill was criticized for promoting significant racial disparities in the prison population Defenders of the effort point to success in reducing rates of adolescent drug use. First Lady Nancy Reagan made the War on Drugs her main priority by founding the "Just Say No" drug awareness campaign, which aimed to discourage children and teenagers from engaging in recreational drug use by offering various ways of saying "no". Mrs. Reagan traveled to 65 cities in 33 states, raising awareness about the dangers of drugs including alcohol.

Libya bombing

Relations between Libya and the U.S. under President Reagan were continually contentious, beginning with the Gulf of Sidra incident in 1981. These tensions were later revived in early April 1986, when a bomb exploded in a Berlin discothèque, resulting in the injuries of 63 American military personnel and death of one serviceman. Reagan authorized the use of force against the country. The attack was designed to halt Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's ability to export terrorism, offering him "incentives and reasons to alter his criminal behavior". Upon signing the act at a ceremony held beside the newly refurbished Statue of Liberty, Reagan said, "The legalization provisions in this act will go far to improve the lives of a class of individuals who now must hide in the shadows, without access to many of the benefits of a free and open society. Very soon many of these men and women will be able to step into the sunlight and, ultimately, if they choose, they may become Americans."

Iran-Contra affair

of the White House, 1987]] In 1986, a scandal shook the administration stemming from the use of proceeds from covert arms sales to Iran to fund the Contras in Nicaragua, which had been specifically outlawed by an act of Congress. The Iran-Contra affair became the largest political scandal in the United States during the 1980s. The International Court of Justice, whose jurisdiction to decide the case was disputed, ruled that the U.S. had violated international law in Nicaragua due to its obligations not to intervene in the affairs of other states.

President Reagan professed ignorance of the plot's existence. He appointed two Republicans and one Democrat (John Tower, Brent Scowcroft and Edmund Muskie, known as the "Tower Commission") to investigate the scandal. The commission could not find direct evidence that Reagan had prior knowledge of the program, but criticized him heavily for his disengagement from managing his staff, making the diversion of funds possible. A separate report by Congress concluded that "If the president did not know what his national security advisers were doing, he should have." The scandal resulted in fourteen indictments within Reagan's staff, and eleven convictions.

Many Central Americans criticize Reagan for his support of the Contras, calling him an anti-communist zealot, blinded to human rights abuses, while others say he "saved Central America". Daniel Ortega, Sandinistan and current president of Nicaragua, said that he hoped God would forgive Reagan for his "dirty war against Nicaragua".

End of the Cold War

's Brandenburg Gate, challenging Gorbachev to "tear down this wall!"]] By the early 1980s, the USSR had built up a military arsenal and army surpassing that of the United States. Previously, the U.S. had relied on the qualitative superiority of its weapons to essentially frighten the Soviets, but the gap had been narrowed. After President Reagan's military buildup, the Soviet Union did not further dramatically build up its military; the enormous military expenses, in combination with collectivized agriculture and inefficient planned manufacturing, were a heavy burden for the Soviet economy. which resulted in a drop of oil prices in 1985 to one-third of the previous level; oil was the main source of Soviet export revenues.

Reagan recognized the change in the direction of the Soviet leadership with Mikhail Gorbachev, and shifted to diplomacy, with a view to encourage the Soviet leader to pursue substantial arms agreements. Gorbachev and Reagan held four summit conferences between 1985 and 1988: the first in Geneva, Switzerland, the second in Reykjavík, Iceland, the third in Washington, D.C., and the fourth in Moscow. Reagan believed that if he could persuade the Soviets to allow for more democracy and free speech, this would lead to reform and the end of Communism.

Speaking at the Berlin Wall on June 12, 1987, Reagan challenged Gorbachev to go further, saying:

at the White House in 1987]] Prior to Gorbachev visiting Washington, D.C., for the third summit in 1987, the Soviet leader announced his intention to pursue significant arms agreements. The timing of the announcement led Western diplomats to contend that Gorbachev was offering major concessions to the U.S. on the levels of conventional forces, nuclear weapons, and policy in Eastern Europe. The two leaders laid the framework for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START I; Reagan insisted that the name of the treaty be changed from Strategic Arms Limitation Talks to Strategic Arms Reduction Talks. At Gorbachev's request, Reagan gave a speech on free markets at the Moscow State University. In his autobiography, An American Life, Reagan expressed his optimism about the new direction that they charted and his warm feelings for Gorbachev. The Berlin Wall was torn down beginning in 1989 and two years later the Soviet Union collapsed.

Health

Early in his presidency, Reagan started wearing a custom, technologically advanced hearing aid, first in his right ear and later in his left as well. His decision to go public in 1983 regarding his wearing the small, audio-amplifying device boosted their sales.

On July 13, 1985, Reagan underwent surgery at Bethesda Naval Hospital to remove cancerous polyps from his colon. This caused the first-ever invocation of the acting president clause of the 25th Amendment. The surgery lasted just under three hours and was successful. Reagan resumed the powers of the presidency later that day. In August of that year, he underwent an operation to remove skin cancer cells from his nose. In October, additional skin cancer cells were detected on his nose and removed.

In January 1987, Reagan underwent surgery for an enlarged prostate which caused further worries about his health. No cancerous growths were found, however, and he was not sedated during the operation. In July of that year, aged 76, he underwent a third skin cancer operation on his nose.

Judiciary

During his 1980 campaign, Reagan pledged that, if given the opportunity, he would appoint the first female Supreme Court Justice. That opportunity came in his first year in office when he nominated Sandra Day O'Connor to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Justice Potter Stewart. In his second term, Reagan elevated William Rehnquist to succeed Warren Burger as Chief Justice, and named Antonin Scalia to fill the vacant seat. Reagan nominated conservative jurist Robert Bork to the high court in 1987. Senator Ted Kennedy, a Democrat of Massachusetts, strongly condemned Bork, and great controversy ensued. Bork's nomination was rejected 58–42. Reagan then nominated Douglas Ginsburg, but Ginsburg withdrew his name from consideration after coming under fire for his cannabis use. Anthony Kennedy was eventually confirmed in his place. Along with his three Supreme Court appointments, Reagan appointed 83 judges to the United States Courts of Appeals, and 290 judges to the United States district courts. His total of 376 appointments is the most by any president.

Post-presidential years, 1989–2004

After leaving office in 1989, the Reagans purchased a home in Bel Air, Los Angeles in addition to the Reagan Ranch in Santa Barbara. They regularly attended Bel Air Presbyterian Church and occasionally made appearances on behalf of the Republican Party; Reagan delivered a well-received speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention. Previously on November 4, 1991, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library was dedicated and opened to the public. At the dedication ceremonies, five presidents were in attendance, as well as six first ladies, marking the first time five presidents were gathered in the same location. Reagan continued publicly to speak in favor of a line-item veto; the Brady Bill; a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget; and the repeal of the 22nd Amendment, which prohibits anyone from serving more than two terms as president. In 1992 Reagan established the Ronald Reagan Freedom Award with the newly formed Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. His final public speech was on February 3, 1994 during a tribute to him in Washington, D.C., and his last major public appearance was at the funeral of Richard Nixon on April 27, 1994.

Alzheimer's disease

Announcement and reaction

In August 1994, at the age of 83, Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, writing in part: }}

After his diagnosis, letters of support from well-wishers poured into his California home, but there was also speculation over how long Reagan had demonstrated symptoms of mental degeneration. Former CBS White House correspondent Lesley Stahl recalls an interview when he was president where "a vacant Reagan barely seemed to realize anyone else was in the room," and that before he "reemerged into alertness" she recalls that "I had come that close to reporting that Reagan was senile." However, Dr. Lawrence K. Altman, a physician employed as a reporter for the New York Times, noted that "the line between mere forgetfulness and the beginning of Alzheimer's can be fuzzy" Reagan's doctors, however, note that he only began exhibiting overt symptoms of the illness in late 1992 or 1993, Other staff members, former aides, and friends said they saw no indication of Alzheimer's while he was President.

, May 1996]] Complicating the picture, Reagan suffered an episode of head trauma in July 1989, five years prior to his diagnosis. After being thrown from a horse in Mexico, a subdural hematoma was found and surgically treated later in the year. Nancy Reagan asserts that her husband's 1989 fall hastened the onset of Alzheimer's disease, Reagan's one-time physician Dr. Daniel Ruge has said it is possible, but not certain, that the horse accident affected the course of Reagan's memory.

Progression

As the years went on, the disease slowly destroyed Reagan's mental capacity.

Reagan suffered a fall at his Bel Air home on January 13, 2001, resulting in a broken hip. The fracture was repaired the following day and the 89 year old Reagan returned home later that week, although he faced difficult physical therapy at home. On February 6, 2001, Reagan reached the age of 90, becoming the third former president to do so (the other two being John Adams and Herbert Hoover, with Gerald Ford later reaching 90). Reagan's public appearances became much less frequent with the progression of the disease, and as a result, his family decided that he would live in quiet isolation. Nancy Reagan told CNN's Larry King in 2001 that very few visitors were allowed to see her husband because she felt that "Ronnie would want people to remember him as he was." Since his diagnosis and death, Mrs. Reagan has become a stem-cell research advocate, urging Congress and President George W. Bush to support federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research, something President Bush opposed. Mrs. Reagan has said that she believes that it could lead to a cure for Alzheimer's. President Barack Obama reversed federal opposition to funding embryonic stem cell research in 2009.

Death

to the Capitol]] Reagan died at his home in Bel Air, California on the afternoon of June 5, 2004. President George W. Bush declared June 11 a National Day of Mourning, and came in from around the world. Reagan's body was taken to the Kingsley and Gates Funeral Home in Santa Monica, California later in the day, where well-wishers paid tribute by laying flowers and American flags in the grass. On June 7, his body was removed and taken to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, where a brief family funeral was held. His body lay in repose in the Library lobby until June 9; over 100,000 people viewed the coffin.

On June 9, Reagan's body was flown to Washington, D.C. where he became the tenth United States president to lie in state; in thirty-four hours, 104,684 people filed past the coffin.

On June 11, a state funeral was conducted in the Washington National Cathedral, and presided over by President George W. Bush. Eulogies were given by former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, and both Presidents Bush. Also in attendance were Mikhail Gorbachev, and many world leaders, including British Prime Minister Tony Blair, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, and interim presidents Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, and Ghazi al-Yawer of Iraq.

After the funeral, the Reagan entourage was flown back to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California, where another service was held, and President Reagan was interred. At the time of his death, Reagan was the longest-lived president in U.S. history, having lived 93 years and 120 days (2 years, 8 months, and 23 days longer than John Adams, whose record he surpassed). He is now the second longest-lived president, just 45 days fewer than Gerald Ford. He was the first United States president to die in the 21st century, and his was the first state funeral in the United States since that of President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1973.

His burial site is inscribed with the words he delivered at the opening of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library: "I know in my heart that man is good, that what is right will always eventually triumph and that there is purpose and worth to each and every life."

Legacy

in Bloomington, Minnesota 1982]] The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library was dedicated on November 4. 1991. Supporters have pointed to a more efficient and prosperous economy and a peaceful end to the Cold War. Critics argue that his economic policies caused huge budget deficits, quadrupling the United States national debt, As time has passed, he has generally come to be viewed in a more positive light, and ranks highly among presidents in many public opinion polls. However, Mark Weisbrot, co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said that Reagan's "economic policies were mostly a failure," and Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post stated that Reagan was "a far more controversial figure in his time than the largely gushing obits on television would suggest".

Many conservative and liberal scholars agree that Reagan has been the most influential president since Franklin D. Roosevelt, leaving his imprint on American politics, diplomacy, culture, and economics. "As of this writing, among academic historians, the Reagan revisionists—who view the 1980s as an era of mixed blessings at worst, and of great forward strides in some renditions—hold the field," reports Rossinow (2007).

The first generation of writing about Reagan comprised studies on the right that approached hagiography, and on the left a devil theory, all relying on popular journalism for their facts. A second generation has emerged, based on newly available documents from the archives, that provides a much more sophisticated and complex view. The scholars of the second generation have reached a consensus, as summarized by British historian M. J. Heale, who finds that scholars now concur that Reagan rehabilitated conservatism, turned the nation to the right, practiced a pragmatic conservatism that balanced ideology and the constraints of politics, revived faith in the presidency and in American self respect, and contributed to victory in the Cold War.

Cold War

The Cold War was a major political and economic endeavor for over four decades, but the confrontation between the two superpowers had decreased dramatically by the end of Reagan's presidency. The significance of Reagan's role in ending the Cold War has spurred contentious and opinionated debate. That Reagan had some role in contributing to the downfall of the Soviet Union is collectively agreed, but the extent of this role is continuously debated,

President Ronald Reagan (left) and President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev meet in 1985.]] He was notable amongst post-World War II presidents as being convinced that the Soviet Union could be defeated rather than simply negotiated with, Reagan's strong rhetoric toward the nation had mixed effects; Jeffery W. Knopf, Ph.D. observes that being labeled "evil" probably made no difference to the Soviets but gave encouragement to the East-European citizens opposed to communism. and deemed him "a great President." Margaret Thatcher, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, said of Reagan, "he warned that the Soviet Union had an insatiable drive for military power... but he also sensed it was being eaten away by systemic failures impossible to reform." She later said, "Ronald Reagan had a higher claim than any other leader to have won the Cold War for liberty and he did it without a shot being fired." Said Brian Mulroney, former Prime Minister of Canada: "He enters history as a strong and dramatic player [in the Cold War]." Former President Lech Wałęsa of Poland acknowledged, "Reagan was one of the world leaders who made a major contribution to communism's collapse."

Domestic and political legacy

Ronald Reagan reshaped the Republican party, led the modern conservative movement, and altered the political dynamic of the United States. More men voted Republican under Reagan, and Reagan tapped into religious voters. His policies and beliefs have been frequently invoked by Republican presidential candidates since 1989. The 2008 Republican presidential candidates were no exception, for they aimed to liken themselves to him during the primary debates, even imitating his campaign stategies. Republican nominee John McCain frequently stated that he came to office as "a foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution".

Cultural and political image

According to columnist Chuck Raasch, "Reagan transformed the American presidency in ways that only a few have been able to." He redefined the political agenda of the times, advocating lower taxes, a conservative economic philosophy, and a stronger military. His role in the Cold War further enhanced his image as a different kind of leader.

As a sitting president, Reagan did not have the highest approval ratings, but his popularity has increased since 1989. Gallup polls in 2001 and 2007 ranked him number one or number two when correspondents were asked for the greatest president in history, and third of post-World War II presidents in a 2007 Rasmussen Reports poll, fifth in an ABC 2000 poll, ninth in another 2007 Rasmussen poll, and eighth in a late 2008 poll by United Kingdom newspaper The Times. In a Siena College survey of over 200 historians, however, Reagan ranked sixteenth out of 42. While the debate about Reagan's legacy is ongoing, the 2009 Annual C-SPAN Survey of Presidential Leaders ranked Reagan the 10th greatest president. The survey of leading historians rated Reagan number 11 in 2000. s (Gallup 1981–89)]]

Reagan's ability to connect with the American people earned him the laudatory moniker "The Great Communicator". Of it, Reagan said, "I won the nickname the great communicator. But I never thought it was my style that made a difference—it was the content. I wasn't a great communicator, but I communicated great things." His age and soft-spoken speech gave him a warm grandfatherly image.

Reagan also earned the nickname "the Teflon President," in that public perceptions of him were not tarnished by the controversies that arose during his administration. According to Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder, who coined the phrase, and reporter Howard Kurtz, the epithet referred to Reagan's ability to "do almost anything wrong

Public reaction to Reagan was always mixed; the oldest president was supported by young voters, and began an alliance that shifted many of them to the Republican party. Reagan did not fare well with minority groups, especially African-Americans. However, his support of Israel throughout his presidency earned him support from many Jews. He emphasized family values in his campaigns and during his presidency, although he was the first president to have been divorced. The combination of Reagan's speaking style, unabashed patriotism, negotiation skills, as well as his savvy use of the media, played an important role in defining the 1980s and his future legacy.

Reagan was known to gibe frequently during his lifetime, displayed humor throughout his presidency, and was famous for his storytelling. His numerous jokes and one-liners have been labeled "classic quips" and "legendary". Among the most notable of his jokes was one regarding the Cold War. As a sound check prior to his weekly radio address in August 1984, Reagan made the following joke as a way to test the microphone: "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes." Former aide David Gergen commented, "It was that humor... that I think endeared people to Reagan."

In 1989, Reagan was created an Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, a British first class knighthood. This entitled him to the use of the post-nominal letters GCB, but did not entitle him to be known as "Sir Ronald Reagan". Only two American presidents have received the honor—Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Reagan was also named an honorary Fellow of Keble College, Oxford. Japan awarded him the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Chrysanthemum in 1989; he was the second American president to receive the award, but the first to have it given to him for personal reasons (Dwight D. Eisenhower received it as a commemoration of U.S.-Japanese relations).

from President George H.W. Bush in 1993]] On January 18, 1993, Reagan's former Vice-President and sitting President George H. W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor that the United States can bestow. Reagan was also awarded the Republican Senatorial Medal of Freedom, the highest honor bestowed by Republican members of the Senate.

On Reagan's 87th birthday, in 1998, Washington National Airport was renamed Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport by a bill signed into law by President Clinton. That year, the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center was dedicated in Washington, D.C. He was among 18 included in Gallup's List of Widely Admired People of the 20th Century, from a poll conducted of the American people in 1999; two years later, USS Ronald Reagan was christened by Nancy Reagan and the United States Navy. It is one of few Navy ships christened in honor of a living person, and the first aircraft carrier to be named in honor of a living former president.

as part of the National Statuary Hall Collection.]]

Congress authorized the creation of the Ronald Reagan Boyhood Home National Historic Site in Dixon, Illinois in 2002, pending federal purchase of the property. On May 16 of that year, Nancy Reagan accepted the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor bestowed by Congress, on behalf of the president and herself.

Following Reagan's death, the United States Postal Service issued a President Ronald Reagan commemorative postage stamp in 2005. Later in the year, CNN, along with the editors of Time magazine, named him the "most fascinating person" of the network's first 25 years; Time listed Reagan one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th century as well. The Discovery Channel asked its viewers to vote for The Greatest American in an unscientific poll on June 26, 2005; Reagan received the honorary title.

In 2006, Reagan was inducted into the California Hall of Fame, located at The California Museum for History, Women, and the Arts. Every year since 2002, California Governors Gray Davis and Arnold Schwarzenegger have proclaimed February 6 "Ronald Reagan Day" in the state of California in honor of their most famous predecessor. In 2010, Schwarzenegger signed Senate Bill 944, authored by Senator George Runner, to make every February 6 Ronald Reagan Day in California.

In 2007, Polish President Lech Kaczyński posthumously awarded Reagan the highest Polish distinction, the Order of the White Eagle, saying that Reagan inspired the Polish people to work for change and helped to unseat the repressive communist regime; Kaczyński said it "would not have been possible if it was not for the tough-mindedness, determination, and feeling of mission of President Ronald Reagan". Reagan backed the nation of Poland throughout his presidency, supporting the anti-communist Solidarity movement, along with Pope John Paul II.

On June 3, 2009, Nancy Reagan unveiled a statue of her late husband in the United States Capitol rotunda. The statue represents the state of California in the National Statuary Hall Collection. Following Reagan's death, there was a bipartisan agreement to build a statue of Reagan and replace Thomas Starr King. The prior day, President Obama signed the Ronald Reagan Centennial Commission Act into law, establishing a commission to plan activities to mark the upcoming 100th anniversary of Reagan's birth.

See also

Ronald Reagan Presidential Library

List of Presidents of the United States

Political positions of Ronald Reagan

US Presidents on US postage stamps

Citations

References

Hayward, Steven F. The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counterrevolution: 1980–1989 (2009) ISBN 0-307-45369-3 excerpt and text search

Pemberton, William E. Exit With Honor: The Life and Presidency of Ronald Reagan (1998) ISBN 0-7656-0096-X

Troy, Gil. The Reagan Revolution: A Very Short Introduction (2009)

Further reading

External links

Official sites

Ronald Reagan's White House biography

Ronald Reagan Presidential Library

Ronald Reagan's major speeches

Ronald Reagan from Eureka College

News coverage

Ronald Reagan from The Washington Post

Ronald Reagan from Time magazine

Ronald Reagan CNN coverage

Ronald Reagan BBC biography

An hour remembrance of Ronald Reagan with Charlie Rose, June 8, 2004

Essays and historiographies

Extensive essay on Ronald Reagan and essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs

Introduction of Morning in America: How Ronald Reagan Invented the 1980s, a detailed account of Reagan's impact on the United States

Media

Ronald Reagan audio archives at NPR

Oral History Transcripts on the Reagan administration from the Miller Center of Public Affairs

Speech on role of chaplains in the military, based on 1983 Beirut barracks bombing, Text version;

Korean Air Lines Flight 007">Speech on the 1983 Soviet downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007

Site directories

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Honorific-prefix	General of the Army
Nationality	American
Order	34th President of the United States
Term start	January 20, 1953
Term end	January 20, 1961
Predecessor	Harry S. Truman
Successor	John F. Kennedy
Office2	1st Supreme Allied Commander Europe
Term start2	April 2, 1951
Term end2	May 30, 1952
Predecessor2	Post Created
Succeeded2	Gen. Matthew Ridgway
Order3	1st Military Governor of the American Occupation Zone in Germany
Term start3	May 8
Term end3	November 10, 1945
Predecessor3	Post Created
Succeeded3	Gen. George Patton (acting)
Office4	13th President of Columbia University
Term start4	1948
Term end4	1953
Preceded4	Frank D. Fackenthal
Succeeded4	Grayson L. Kirk
Birth date	October 14, 1890
Birth place	Denison, Texas, United States of America
Birthname	David Dwight Eisenhower
Death date	March 28, 1969
Death place	Washington, D.C., United States
Spouse	Mamie Doud Eisenhower
Children	Doud Dwight Eisenhower,John Sheldon Doud Eisenhower
Alma mater	U.S. Military AcademyWest Point, New York, United States
Occupation	Soldier
Party	Republican
Vicepresident	Richard Nixon
Religion	Presbyterian (originally Jehovah's Witness)
Signature	Dwight Eisenhower Signature.svg
Signature alt	Cursive signature in ink
Rank	General of the Army
Branch	United States Army
Serviceyears	1915–1953, 1961–1969
Commands	Europe
Battles	World War II
Awards	Army Distinguished Service Medal with four oak leaf clusters,Legion of Merit,Order of the Southern Cross,Order of the Bath,Order of Merit,Legion of Honor(partial list)

Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower ( ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was a five-star general in the United States Army and the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961, and the last to be born in the 19th century. During World War II, he served as Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe, with responsibility for planning and supervising the successful invasion of France and Germany in 1944–45, from the Western Front. In 1951, he became the first supreme commander of NATO.

A Republican, Eisenhower entered the 1952 presidential race to counter the non-interventionism of Sen. Robert A. Taft, and to crusade against "Communism, Korea and corruption". He won by a landslide, defeating Democrat Adlai Stevenson and ending two decades of the New Deal Coalition holding the White House. As President, Eisenhower concluded negotiations with China to end the Korean War. He maintained pressure on the Soviet Union during the Cold War, gave priority to inexpensive nuclear weapons and reduced the other forces to save money. He had to play catch-up in the Space Race after the Soviets launched the Sputnik satellite in 1957. On the domestic front, he helped remove Joseph McCarthy from power but otherwise left most political actions to his Vice President, Richard Nixon. Eisenhower did not end New Deal policies, and in fact enlarged the scope of Social Security, and signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. He was the first term-limited president in accordance with the 22nd Amendment. His two terms were peaceful, and generally prosperous except for a sharp economic recession in 1958–59. Historians typically rank Eisenhower among the ten greatest U.S. presidents.

Early life and family

Eisenhower's father, David Jacob Eisenhower (1863–1942), was a college-educated engineer but had trouble making a living and the family was poor. The family lived in Texas from 1889 until 1892, then returned to Kansas. Eisenhower's mother, Ida Elizabeth Stover, was born on May 1, 1862 in Augusta County, Virginia near Staunton, where she was christened Elizabeth Ida in the Salem Lutheran Church, Mount Sidney, Virginia (currently the Salem Evangelical Lutheran Church). She was orphaned on the deaths of her mother, Elizabeth Link Stover (1822–1867), originally Elizabeth Juda according to Salem Church baptismal records but later changed to Elizabeth Ida, and father, Simon Stover (1822–1873). She lived with her maternal grandparents, William Link and Esther Schindler Link, on their farm until William's death in 1879, and then with her maternal uncle and aunt, William J. Link and Susan Cook Link, on their farm until age twenty-one whereupon she joined two of her brothers Stover who had moved to Kansas. She married David Jacob Eisenhower on September 23, 1885 in Lecompton, Kansas on the campus of their alma mater, Lane University.

Eisenhower was born on October 14, 1890, in Denison, Texas, the third of seven boys born to David Jacob Eisenhower and Ida Elizabeth Stover, of German and Swiss ancestry. In 1892 the family moved to Abilene, Kansas, where he graduated from Abilene High School in 1909. Though born David, he was called Dwight, so he reversed the order of his given names when he enrolled at West Point Military Academy in 1911, graduating as second lieutenant in 1915.

of San Antonio, Texas, in 1916, where Eisenhower was at the time a football coach.]] Eisenhower met Mamie Geneva Doud of Boone, Iowa while he was stationed in Texas. They married on July 1, 1916, in Denver, and had two sons. Doud Dwight Eisenhower was born September 24, 1917, and died of scarlet fever on January 2, 1921, at the age of three. Their second son, John Sheldon Doud Eisenhower, was born on August 3, 1922; John served in the United States Army, retiring as a brigadier general, became an author, and served as U.S. Ambassador to Belgium from 1969 to 1971. John, coincidentally, graduated from West Point on D-Day, June 6, 1944. He married Barbara Jean Thompson on June 10, 1947. John and Barbara had four children: Dwight David II "David", Barbara Ann, Susan Elaine and Mary Jean. David, after whom Camp David is named, married Richard Nixon's daughter Julie in 1968.

Religion

When Eisenhower was a child, his mother Ida Elizabeth Stover Eisenhower, previously a member of the River Brethren sect of the Mennonites, joined the International Bible Students, which would evolve into what is now known as Jehovah's Witnesses. The Eisenhower home served as the local meeting hall from 1896 to 1915. The decision for West Point saddened his mother, who felt that warfare was "rather wicked," but she did not veto Eisenhower's entry to West Point. None of the brothers were Witnesses in adulthood.

Eisenhower was baptized in the Presbyterian Church in 1953. In 1948, he had called himself "one of the most deeply religious men I know" though unattached to any "sect or organization". Eisenhower was instrumental in the addition of the words "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954, and the 1956 adoption of "In God We Trust" as the motto of the United States, and its 1957 introduction on paper currency. In his retirement years, he was a member of the Gettysburg Presbyterian Church in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Education

Dwight D. Eisenhower attended Abilene High School in Abilene, Kansas and graduated with the class of 1909.

After Eisenhower worked for two years to support his brother Edgar's college education, a friend urged him to apply to the Naval Academy. Though Eisenhower passed the entrance exam, he was beyond the age of eligibility for admission to the Naval Academy.

Kansas Senator Joseph L. Bristow recommended Eisenhower for an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York in 1911, which he received. The 1915 class was known as "the class the stars fell on", because 59 members eventually became general officers.

Athletic career

Eisenhower later said that "not making the baseball team at West Point was one of the greatest disappointments of my life, maybe my greatest." However he did make the high visibility football team, and was a varsity starter as running back and linebacker in 1912. In a bit of a fabled match-up, he even tackled the legendary Jim Thorpe in a 1912 game. But Ike injured his knee; it became permanently damaged on horseback and in the boxing ring. He would later serve as junior varsity football coach and yell leader.

In 1916, while stationed at Fort Sam Houston, Eisenhower was football coach for St. Louis College, now St. Mary's University.

Eisenhower played golf very enthusiastically later in life, and joined the Augusta National Golf Club in 1948. He played golf frequently during his two terms as president, and after his retirement as well, never shying away from the media interest about his passion for golf. He had a small, basic golf facility installed at Camp David, and became close friends with Augusta National Chairman Clifford Roberts, inviting Roberts to stay at the White House on several occasions; Roberts, an investment broker, also handled the Eisenhower family's investments. Roberts also advised Eisenhower on tax aspects of publishing his memoirs, which proved to be financially lucrative.

Eisenhower became executive officer to General Fox Conner in the Panama Canal Zone, where he served until 1924. Under Conner's tutelage, he studied military history and theory (including Karl von Clausewitz's On War), and later cited Conner's enormous influence on his military thinking. In 1925–26, he attended the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. There he graduated first in a class of 245 officers. He then served as a battalion commander at Fort Benning, Georgia until 1927.

During the late 1920s and early 1930s Eisenhower's career in the peacetime Army stagnated; many of his friends resigned for high-paying business jobs. He was assigned to the American Battle Monuments Commission, directed by General John J. Pershing, then to the Army War College, and then served as executive officer to General George V. Mosely, Assistant Secretary of War, from 1929 to 1933. He then served as chief military aide to General Douglas MacArthur, Army Chief of Staff, until 1935, when he accompanied MacArthur to the Philippines, where he served as assistant military adviser to the Philippine government. Eisenhower had strong philosophical disagreements with his patron regarding the role of the Philippine army and the leadership qualities that an American army officer should exhibit and develop in his subordinates. The dispute and resulting antipathy lasted the rest of their lives. It is sometimes said that this assignment provided valuable preparation for handling the challenging personalities of Winston Churchill, George S. Patton and Bernard Law Montgomery during World War II. Eisenhower was promoted to the rank of permanent lieutenant colonel in 1936 after sixteen years as a major. He also learned to fly, although he was never rated as a military pilot. He made a solo flight over the Philippines in 1937.

Eisenhower returned to the U.S. in 1939 and held a series of staff positions in Washington, D.C., California and Texas. In June 1941, he was appointed Chief of Staff to General Walter Krueger, Commander of the 3rd Army, at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. He was promoted to brigadier general on October 3, 1941. Although his administrative abilities had been noticed, on the eve of the U.S. entry into World War II he had never held an active command above a battalion and was far from being considered as a potential commander of major operations.

World War II

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Eisenhower was assigned to the General Staff in Washington, where he served until June 1942 with responsibility for creating the major war plans to defeat Japan and Germany. He was appointed Deputy Chief in charge of Pacific Defenses under the Chief of War Plans Division, General Leonard T. Gerow, and then succeeded Gerow as Chief of the War Plans Division. Then he was appointed Assistant Chief of Staff in charge of Operations Division under Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall, who spotted talent and promoted accordingly.

In 1942, Eisenhower was appointed Commanding General, European Theater of Operations (ETOUSA) and was based in London. In November, he was also appointed Supreme Commander Allied (Expeditionary) Force of the North African Theater of Operations (NATOUSA) through the new operational Headquarters A(E)FHQ. The word "expeditionary" was dropped soon after his appointment for security reasons. In February 1943, his authority was extended as commander of AFHQ across the Mediterranean basin to include the British 8th Army, commanded by General Bernard Law Montgomery. The 8th Army had advanced across the Western Desert from the east and was ready for the start of the Tunisia Campaign. Eisenhower gained his fourth star and gave up command of ETOUSA to be commander of NATOUSA. After the capitulation of Axis forces in North Africa, Eisenhower oversaw the invasion of Sicily and the invasion of the Italian mainland.

, 101st Airborne Division on the evening of June 5, 1944.]]

In December 1943, Roosevelt decided that Eisenhower—not Marshall—would be Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. In January 1944, he resumed command of ETOUSA and the following month was officially designated as the Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), serving in a dual role until the end of hostilities in Europe in May 1945. In these positions he was charged with planning and carrying out the Allied assault on the coast of Normandy in June 1944 under the code name Operation Overlord, the liberation of western Europe and the invasion of Germany. A month after the Normandy D-Day landings on June 6, 1944, the invasion of southern France took place, and control of the forces which took part in the southern invasion passed from the AFHQ to the SHAEF. From then until the end of the War in Europe on May 8, 1945, Eisenhower through SHAEF had supreme command of all operational Allied forces², and through his command of ETOUSA, administrative command of all U.S. forces, on the Western Front north of the Alps. at West Point]] As recognition of his senior position in the Allied command, on December 20, 1944, he was promoted to General of the Army, equivalent to the rank of Field Marshal in most European armies. In this and the previous high commands he held, Eisenhower showed his great talents for leadership and diplomacy. Although he had never seen action himself, he won the respect of front-line commanders. He dealt skillfully with difficult subordinates such as Patton, and allies such as Winston Churchill, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and General Charles de Gaulle. He had fundamental disagreements with Churchill and Montgomery over questions of strategy, but these rarely upset his relationships with them. He negotiated with Soviet Marshal Zhukov, and such was the confidence that President Franklin D. Roosevelt had in him, he sometimes worked directly with Stalin, much to the chagrin of the British High Command who disliked being bypassed.

It was never certain that Operation Overlord would succeed. The seriousness surrounding the entire decision, including the timing and the location of the Normandy invasion, might be summarized by a second shorter speech that Eisenhower wrote in advance, in case he needed it. Long after the successful landings on D-Day and the BBC broadcast of Eisenhower's brief speech concerning them, the never-used second speech was found in a shirt pocket by an aide. It read:

:Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt, it is mine alone.

Aftermath of World War II

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-14059-0018, Berlin, Oberbefehlshaber der vier Verbündeten.jpg|thumb|The Supreme Commanders on June 5, 1945 in Berlin: Bernard Montgomery, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Georgy Zhukov and Jean de Lattre de Tassigny.]]

Occupation of Germany

Following the German unconditional surrender on May 8, 1945, Eisenhower was appointed Military Governor of the U.S. Occupation Zone, based in Frankfurt am Main. He had no responsibility for the other three zones, controlled by Britain, France, and the Soviet Union. Upon discovery of the Nazi concentration camps, he ordered camera crews to comprehensively document evidence of the atrocities in them for use in the Nuremberg Trials. He made the decision to reclassify German prisoners of war (POWs) in U.S. custody as Disarmed Enemy Forces (DEFs). For the treatment of German economy and German civilians Eisenhower followed the orders laid down by the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) in directive JCS 1067, but softened them by bringing in 400,000 tons of food for civilians and allowing more fraternization. In dealing with the devastation of postwar Germany he dealt with severe food shortages and a huge influx of refugees by distributing American food and medical supplies. His actions reflected the shifting American attitudes from seeing the German people as villains to seeing them as victims of the Nazis, while aggressively purging ex-Nazis.

Chief of Staff

In November, 1945, Eisenhower returned to Washington to replace Marshall as Chief of Staff of the Army. His main role was rapid demobilization of millions of soldiers, a slow job that was delayed by lack of shipping. As East-West tensions over Germany and Greece escalated, Eisenhower was strongly convinced in 1946 that Russia did not want war and that friendly relations could be maintained; he strongly supported the new United Nations. However, in formulating policies regarding the atomic bomb as well as toward the Soviets Truman listened to the State Department and ignored Eisenhower and the entire Pentagon. By mid-1947 Eisenhower was moving toward a containment policy to stop Soviet expansion.

Columbia University and NATO

In 1948, Eisenhower became President of Columbia University, a premier private university in New York; it was not a good fit in either direction. In December 1950, he took leave from the university when he became the Supreme Commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and was given operational command of NATO forces in Europe. Eisenhower retired from active service on May 31, 1952, and resumed the university presidency, which he held until January 1953.

1948 also was the year that Eisenhower's memoir, Crusade in Europe, was published. Critics regarded it as one of the finest U.S. military memoirs, and it was a major financial success as well.

Entry into politics

Not long after his return in 1952, a "Draft Eisenhower" movement in the Republican party persuaded him to declare his candidacy in the 1952 presidential election to counter the candidacy of non-interventionist Senator Robert Taft. (Eisenhower had been courted by both parties in 1948 and had declined to run then.) Eisenhower defeated Taft for the nomination, having won critical delegate votes from Texas, but came to an agreement that Taft would stay out of foreign affairs as Eisenhower followed a conservative domestic policy. Eisenhower's campaign was noted for the simple but effective slogan, "I Like Ike", and was a crusade against the Truman administration's policies regarding "Korea, Communism and Corruption."

Eisenhower promised during his campaign to go to Korea himself and end the war there. He also promised to maintain both a strong NATO commitment against Communism and a corruption-free frugal administration at home. He and his running mate Richard Nixon, whose daughter later married Eisenhower's grandson David, defeated Democrats Adlai Stevenson and John Sparkman in a landslide, marking the first Republican return to the White House in 20 years, Eisenhower was the only general to serve as President in the 20th century, and the most recent President to have never held elected office prior to the Presidency. The other Presidents not to have sought prior elected office were Zachary Taylor, Ulysses S. Grant, William Howard Taft, and Herbert Hoover.

Presidency 1953–1961

, Mamie Eisenhower, Nikita Khrushchev and Dwight Eisenhower at a state dinner in 1959]] and President Dwight D. Eisenhower in Madrid in 1959]] briefs President Eisenhower in front of a Saturn 1 vehicle at the Marshall Space Flight Center dedication on September 8, 1960.]]

Throughout his presidency, Eisenhower preached a doctrine of dynamic conservatism. He continued all the major New Deal programs still in operation, especially Social Security. He expanded its programs and rolled them into a new cabinet-level agency, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, while extending benefits to an additional ten million workers. His cabinet, consisting of several corporate executives and one labor leader, was dubbed by one journalist, "Eight millionaires and a plumber."

In 1956, Eisenhower faced Adlai Stevenson and Estes Kefauver on the Democratic ticket. Eisenhower won his second term with 457 of 531 votes in the Electoral College, and 57.6% of the popular vote.

Interstate Highway System

{{ listen |filename=Cadillacsquareexcerpt.ogg |title= Remarks in Cadillac Square, Detroit |description=President Eisenhower delivered remarks about the need for a new highway program at Cadillac Square in Detroit on October 29, 1954 Text of speech excerpt }} One of Eisenhower's enduring achievements was championing and signing the bill that authorized the Interstate Highway System in 1956. He justified the project through the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 as essential to American security during the Cold War. It was believed that large cities would be targets in a possible future war, and the highways were designed to evacuate them and allow the military to move in.

Eisenhower's goal to create improved highways was influenced by his involvement in the U.S. Army's 1919 Transcontinental Motor Convoy. He was assigned as an observer for the mission, which involved sending a convoy of U.S. Army vehicles coast to coast. His subsequent experience with German autobahns during World War II convinced him of the benefits of an Interstate Highway System. Noticing the improved ability to move logistics throughout the country, he thought an Interstate Highway System in the U.S. would not only be beneficial for military operations, but be the building block for continued economic growth.

Foreign policy

Mideast

Soon after taking office, the Eisenhower administration authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to help the Iranian army overthrow Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, and restore the Shah to power.

Eisenhower Doctrine

Eisenhower strongly opposed the combined British, French and Israeli response to the Suez Crisis in November 1956, although he later privately acknowledged this was his biggest foreign policy regret. After the Suez Crisis the United States became the protector of unstable friendly governments in the Middle East via the "Eisenhower Doctrine". Drafted by, and the brainchild of, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, it held the U.S. would be "prepared to use armed force...[to counter] aggression from any country controlled by international communism." Further, the United States would provide economic and military aid and, if necessary, use military force to stop the spread of communism in the Middle East.

Eisenhower applied the doctrine in 1957–58 by dispensing economic aid to shore up the Kingdom of Jordan, and by encouraging Syria's neighbors not to consider military operations against it. More dramatically, in July, 1958, he sent 15,000 Marines and soldiers to Lebanon as part of Operation Blue Bat, a non-combat peace keeping mission to stabilize the pro-Western government and to prevent a radical revolution from sweeping over that country. The mission proved a success and the Marines departed three months later. The deployment came in response to the urgent request of Lebanese president Camille Chamoun after sectarian violence had erupted in the country. Washington considered the military intervention successful since it brought about regional stability, weakened Soviet influence, and intimidated the Egyptian and Syrian governments, whose anti-West political position had hardened after the Suez Crisis.

Most Arab countries were skeptical about the "Eisenhower doctrine" because they considered "Zionist imperialism" the real danger. They did, however, take the opportunity to take free money and weapons. Egypt and Syria openly opposed the initiative and were supported by the Soviet Union. However, Egypt received American aid until 1967.

As the Cold War deepened, Eisenhower's Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, sought to isolate the Soviet Union by building regional alliances of nations against it. His efforts were sometimes called "pacto-mania".

Vietnam

The French asked Eisenhower for help in French Indochina against the Communists, supplied from China, who were fighting the First Indochina War. In 1953, Eisenhower sent Lt. General John W. "Iron Mike" O'Daniel to Vietnam to study and "assess" the French forces therein. Chief of Staff Matthew Ridgway dissuaded the President from intervening by presenting a comprehensive estimate of the massive military deployment that would be necessary. However, later in 1954, Eisenhower did offer military and economic aid to the new nation of South Vietnam. In the years that followed, Eisenhower increased the number of US military advisors in South Vietnam to 900 men. This due to North Vietnam's support of "uprisings" in the south and concern the nation would fall.

Racial issues

The Eisenhower administration declared racial discrimination a national security issue, meaning that the Communists around the world were using racial discrimination in the U.S. as a point of propaganda attack. The day after the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in Brown v. Board of Education in which segregated ("separate but equal") schools were ruled to be unconstitutional, Eisenhower told District of Columbia officials to make Washington a model for the rest of the country in integrating black and white public school children. He proposed to Congress the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960 and signed those acts into law. The 1957 Act for the first time established a permanent civil rights office inside the Justice Department. Although both Acts were weaker than subsequent civil rights legislation, they constituted the first significant civil rights acts since the Civil Rights Act of 1875, signed by President Ulysses S. Grant.

The "Little Rock Nine" incident of 1957 involved the refusal by Arkansas to honor a Federal court order to integrate the schools. Under , Eisenhower placed the Arkansas National Guard under Federal control and sent Army troops to escort nine black students into Little Rock Central High School, an all-white public school. The integration did not occur without violence. Eisenhower and Arkansas governor Orval Faubus engaged in tense arguments.

Judicial appointments

Supreme Court

Eisenhower appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:

Earl Warren, 1953 (Chief Justice)

John Marshall Harlan II, 1954

William J. Brennan, 1956

Charles Evans Whittaker, 1957

Potter Stewart, 1958

Other courts

In addition to his five Supreme Court appointments, Eisenhower appointed 45 judges to the United States Courts of Appeals, and 129 judges to the United States district courts.

States admitted to the Union

Alaska – January 3, 1959 49th state

Hawaii – August 21, 1959 50th state

Health issues

Eisenhower was probably the first president to allow his personal health problems to become public while in office. In September 1955, while vacationing in Colorado, he had a serious myocardial infarction (heart attack) that required several weeks' hospitalization. He was treated by Dr. Paul Dudley White, a cardiologist with a national reputation, who regularly informed the press of the president's progress. As a consequence of his heart attack, Eisenhower developed a left ventricular aneurysm, which was in turn the source of a thromboembolic cerebrovascular accident (stroke) in November 1957. The president also suffered from regional enteritis (Crohn's disease), a chronic inflammatory condition of the intestine, which necessitated surgery for a bowel obstruction in June 1956. Fortunately, the last 3 years of Eisenhower's term in office were ones of relatively good health. Eventually, however, after leaving the White House, he suffered several additional myocardial infarctions and was ultimately impaired physically because of them.

End of presidency 1960-1961

In 1961, Eisenhower became the first U.S. president to be constitutionally prevented from standing for re-election to the office, having served the maximum two terms allowed by the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The amendment was ratified in 1951, during Harry S. Truman's term, but it stipulated that Truman would not be affected by the amendment.

Eisenhower was also the first outgoing President to come under the protection of the Former Presidents Act; two then-living former Presidents, Herbert Hoover and Harry S. Truman, left office before the Act was passed. Under the act, Eisenhower was entitled to receive a lifetime pension, state-provided staff and a Secret Service detail.

In the 1960 election to choose his successor, Eisenhower endorsed his own Vice-President, Republican Richard Nixon against Democrat John F. Kennedy. He thoroughly supported Nixon over Kennedy, telling friends: "I will do almost anything to avoid turning my chair and country over to Kennedy." In his farewell speech to the nation, Eisenhower raised the issue of the Cold War and role of the U.S. armed forces. He described the Cold War saying: "We face a hostile ideology global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose and insidious in method..." and warned about what he saw as unjustified government spending proposals and continued with a warning that "we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex." Though he said that "we recognize the imperative need for this development," he cautioned that "the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist... Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

Because of legal issues related to holding a military rank while in a civilian office, Eisenhower had resigned his permanent commission as General of the Army before entering the office of President of the United States. Upon completion of his Presidential term, his commission on the retired list was reactivated and Eisenhower again was commissioned a five-star general in the United States Army.

Post-presidency

in 1967.]] Eisenhower retired to the place where he and Mamie had spent much of their post-war time, a working farm adjacent to the battlefield at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. In 1967, the Eisenhowers donated the farm to the National Park Service and since 1980 it has been open to the public as the Eisenhower National Historic Site. In retirement, he did not completely retreat from political life; he spoke at the 1964 Republican National Convention and appeared with Barry Goldwater in a Republican campaign commercial from Gettysburg.

Death and funeral

Eisenhower died of congestive heart failure on March 28, 1969, at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington D.C. The following day his body was moved to the Washington National Cathedral's Bethlehem Chapel where he lay in repose for twenty-eight hours. On March 30, his body was brought by caisson to the United States Capitol where he lay in state in the Capitol Rotunda. On March 31, Eisenhower's body was returned to the National Cathedral where he was given an Episcopal Church funeral service. That evening, Eisenhower's body was placed onto a train en route to Abilene, Kansas. His body arrived on April 2, and was interred later that day in a small chapel on the grounds of the Eisenhower Presidential Library. Eisenhower is buried alongside his son Doud who died at age 3 in 1921, and his wife, Mamie, who died in 1979.

Richard Nixon, by this time himself President, spoke of Eisenhower's death, "Some men are considered great because they lead great armies or they lead powerful nations. For eight years now, Dwight Eisenhower has neither commanded an army nor led a nation; and yet he remained through his final days the world's most admired and respected man, truly the first citizen of the world."

Legacy

After Eisenhower left office, his reputation declined and he was seen as having been a "do-nothing" President. This was partly because of the contrast between Eisenhower and his young activist successor, John F. Kennedy. Despite his unprecedented use of Army troops to enforce a federal desegregation order at Central High School in Little Rock, Eisenhower was criticized for his reluctance to support the civil rights movement to the degree which other activists wanted. Eisenhower was also criticized for his handling of the 1960 U-2 incident and the international embarrassment, the Soviet Union's perceived leadership in the Arms race and the Space race, and his failure to publicly oppose McCarthyism. In particular, Eisenhower was criticized for failing to defend George Marshall from attacks by Joseph McCarthy, though he privately deplored McCarthy's tactics and claims. Such omissions were held against him during the liberal climate of the 1960s and 1970s. Since that time, however, Eisenhower's reputation has risen. In recent surveys of historians, Eisenhower often is ranked in the top 10 among all US Presidents.

Although conservatism was riding on the crest of the wave in the 1950s, and Eisenhower shared the sentiment, his administration played a very modest role in shaping the political landscape. Instead of adhering to the party's right-wing orthodoxy, Eisenhower instead looked to moderation and cooperation as a means of governance. This was evidenced in his goal of slowing the growth of New Deal/Fair Deal-era government programs, but not weakening them or rolling them back entirely.

Eisenhower was the first President to hire a White House Chief of Staff or "gatekeeper" – an idea that he borrowed from the United States Army, and that has been copied by every president after Lyndon Johnson. (Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter initially tried to operate without a Chief of Staff but both eventually gave up the effort and hired one.)

Eisenhower founded People to People International in 1956, based on his belief that citizen interaction would promote cultural interaction and world peace. The program includes a student ambassador component which sends American youth on educational trips to other countries.

Eisenhower described his position on space and the need for peace during his General Assembly of the United Nations, New York City, 22 September 1960.

"The emergence of this new world poses a vital issue: will outer space be preserved for peaceful use and developed for the benefit of all mankind? Or will it become another focus for the arms race – and thus an area of dangerous and sterile competition? The choice is urgent. And it is ours to make. The nations of the world have recently united in declaring the continent of Antarctica 'off limits' to military preparations. We could extend this principle to an even more important sphere. National vested interests have not yet been developed in space or in celestial bodies. Barriers to agreement are now lower than they will ever be again."

Eisenhower also warned about the emerging military-industrial complex in his Chance for Peace Speech:

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

Eisenhower was the first president to appear on color television. He was videotaped when he spoke at the dedication of WRC-TV's new studios in Washington, D.C., on May 21, 1958. The tape has been preserved and is believed to be the oldest surviving color videotape.

Tributes and memorials

from 1971 to 1978 commemorating Eisenhower]] Eisenhower's picture was on the dollar coin from 1971 to 1978. Nearly 700 million of the copper-nickel clad coins were minted for general circulation, and nearly 50 million uncirculated and proof issues (in both copper-nickel and 40% silver varieties) were produced for collectors. He reappeared on a commemorative silver dollar issued in 1990, celebrating the 100th anniversary of his birth, which with a double image of him showed his two roles, as both a soldier and a statesman.

He is remembered for his role in World War II, the creation of the Interstate Highway System and ending the Korean War. USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, the second Nimitz-class supercarrier, was named in his honor.

, Texas]] as part of the National Statuary Hall Collection. He is depicted wearing an "Ike Jacket".]] The Interstate Highway System is officially known as the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways in his honor. Several highways are also named for him, including the Eisenhower Expressway (Interstate 290) near Chicago and the Eisenhower Tunnel on Interstate 70 west of Denver.

The British A4 class steam locomotive No. 4496 (renumbered 60008) Golden Shuttle was renamed Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1946. It is preserved at the National Railroad Museum in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Eisenhower College was a small, liberal arts college chartered in Seneca Falls, New York in 1965, with classes beginning in 1968. Financial problems forced the school to fall under the management of the Rochester Institute of Technology in 1979. Its last class graduated in 1983.

Eisenhower Hall, the cadet activities building at West Point, was completed in 1974. In 1983, the Eisenhower Monument was unveiled at West Point.

The Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, California was named after the President in 1971.

The Dwight D. Eisenhower Army Medical Center, located at Fort Gordon near Augusta, Georgia, was named in his honor.

In February 1971, Dwight D. Eisenhower School of Freehold Township, New Jersey was officially opened.

In 1983, The Eisenhower Institute was founded in Washington, D.C., as a policy institute to advance Eisenhower's intellectual and leadership legacies.

In 1989, U.S. Ambassador Charles Price and UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher dedicated a bronze statue of Eisenhower in Grosvenor Square, London. The statue is located in front of the current US Embassy, London and across from the former command center for the Allied Expeditionary Force during World War II, offices Eisenhower occupied during the war.

In 1999, the United States Congress created the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission, to create an enduring national memorial in Washington, D.C. In 2009, the commission chose the architect Frank Gehry to design the memorial. The memorial will stand near the National Mall on Maryland Avenue, SW across the street from the National Air and Space Museum.

On May 7, 2002, the Old Executive Office Building was officially renamed the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. This building is part of the White House Complex, west of the West Wing. It currently houses a number of executive offices, including ones for the Vice President and his or her spouse.

A county park in East Meadow, New York (Long Island) is named in his honor. In addition, Eisenhower State Park on Lake Texoma near his birthplace of Denison is named in his honor; his actual birthplace is currently operated by the State of Texas as Eisenhower Birthplace State Historic Site.

Many public high schools and middle schools in the U.S. are named after Eisenhower.

There is a Mount Eisenhower in the Presidential Range of the White Mountains in New Hampshire.

A tree overhanging the 17th hole that always gave him trouble at Augusta National Golf Club, where he was a member, is named the Eisenhower Tree in his honor.

The Eisenhower Golf Club at the United States Air Force Academy, a 36-hole facility featuring the Blue and Silver courses and which is ranked #1 among DoD courses, is named in Eisenhower's honor.

The 18th hole at Cherry Hills Country Club, near Denver, is named in his honor. Eisenhower was a longtime member of the club, one of his favorite courses.

In front of City Hall in Chula Vista, California a tree was dedicated to Eisenhower for the anniversary of his visit to Chula Vista.

Awards and decorations

. However, Eisenhower's award was not made of precious stones as usual but out of rhinestones ]]

{| width="100%" |valign="top" | World Citizenship Award in 1966]]

Other honors

in 1969 commemorating Dwight D. Eisenhower]] In 1966, Eisenhower was the second person to be awarded Civitan International's World Citizenship Award. The aircraft carrier, commissioned in 1977, was named after the former president.

Eisenhower's name was given to a variety of streets, avenues, etc., in cities around the world, including Paris, France.

In December 1999, Eisenhower was listed on Gallup's List of Most Widely Admired People of the 20th Century.

In 2009, Eisenhower was named to the World Golf Hall of Fame in the Lifetime Achievement category for his contributions to the sport.

The United States Postal Service has honored Eisenhower with 6¢ and 8¢ postage stamps. These stamps are often considered as part of the Prominent Americans series (1965–1978).

See also

Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower

Atoms for Peace, a speech to the U.N. General Assembly in December 1953

Eisenhower National Historic Site

Eisenhower Presidential Center

Historical rankings of United States Presidents

History of the United States (1945–1964)

Military-industrial complex, a term made popular by Eisenhower

Mount Eisenhower

People to People Student Ambassador Program

A 2004 American television film about Eisenhower's difficult decisions he had to make as Supreme Commander that led to the successful D-Day invasion of World War II.

List of Presidents of the United States

Eisenhower on U.S. Postage stamps

References

Specific references: General references:

Further reading

Military career

Ambrose, Stephen E. Eisenhower: Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect, 1890–1952 (1983);'

Ambrose, Stephen E. The Victors: Eisenhower and his Boys: The Men of World War II, New York : Simon & Schuster, 1998. ISBN 0-684-85628-X

Eisenhower, David. Eisenhower at War 1943–1945 (1986), New York : Random House. ISBN 978-0394412375. A detailed study by his grandson.

Irish, Kerry E. "Apt Pupil: Dwight Eisenhower and the 1930 Industrial Mobilization Plan", The Journal of Military History 70.1 (2006) 31–61 online in Project Muse.

Jordan, Jonathan W., "Brothers Rivals Victors: Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley, and the Partnership that Drove the Allied Conquest in Europe" NAL: 2011, ISBN 0451232127

Nadich, Judah. Eisenhower and the Jews. Twayne Publishers, Inc., New York, 1953. Deals mainly with the story of the Jewish displaced persons in Germany and Austria early in their liberation and the part played by then General Eisenhower and his Advisor for Jewish Affairs, Lt. Col Judah Nadich.

Pogue, Forrest C. The Supreme Command, Washington, D.C. : Office of the Chief of Military History, Dept. of the Army, 1954. The official Army history of SHAEF.

Weigley, Russell. Eisenhower's Lieutenants. Indiana University Press, 1981. Ike's dealings with his key generals in WW2

Civilian career

Albertson, Dean, ed. Eisenhower as President (1963).

Alexander, Charles C. Holding the Line: The Eisenhower Era, 1952–1961 (1975).

Ambrose, Stephen E. Eisenhower: Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect, 1890–1952 (1983); Eisenhower. The President (1984); one volume edition titled Eisenhower: Soldier and President (2003). Standard biography.

Bowie, Robert R. and Richard H. Immerman; Waging Peace: How Eisenhower Shaped an Enduring Cold War Strategy, Oxford University Press, 1998.

Burk, Robert. "Eisenhower Revisionism Revisited: Reflections on Eisenhower Scholarship," Historian, Spring 1988, Vol. 50 Issue 2, pp 196–209

Chernus, Ira. Apocalypse Management: Eisenhower and the Discourse of National Insecurity, Stanford University Press, 2008.

Damms, Richard V. The Eisenhower Presidency, 1953–1961 (2002).

David Paul T. (ed.), Presidential Nominating Politics in 1952. 5 vols., Johns Hopkins Press, 1954.

Divine, Robert A. Eisenhower and the Cold War (1981).

Greenstein, Fred I. The Hidden-Hand Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader (1991).

Harris, Douglas B. "Dwight Eisenhower and the New Deal: The Politics of Preemption" Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 27, 1997.

Harris, Seymour E. The Economics of the Political Parties, with Special Attention to Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy (1962).

Krieg, Joann P. ed. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Soldier, President, Statesman (1987). 24 essays by scholars.

McAuliffe, Mary S. "Eisenhower, the President", Journal of American History 68 (1981), pp. 625–632.

Medhurst, Martin J. Dwight D. Eisenhower: Strategic Communicator Greenwood Press, 1993.

Pach, Chester J. and Elmo Richardson. Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower (1991). Standard scholarly survey.

Primary sources

Boyle, Peter G., ed. The Churchill-Eisenhower Correspondence, 1953–1955 University of North Carolina Press, 1990.

Eisenhower, Dwight D. Crusade in Europe (1948), his war memoirs.

Eisenhower, Dwight D. The White House Years: Waging Peace 1956–1961, Doubleday and Co., 1965.

Eisenhower Papers 21 volume scholarly edition; complete for 1940–1961.

Summersby, Kay. Eisenhower was my boss (1948) New York: Prentice Hall; (1949) Dell paperback.

External links

Audio and video

1952 Ike for President TV Ad

Full audio of Eisenhower speeches via the Miller Center of Public Affairs (University of Virginia)

Eisenhower's Secret White House Recordings via the Miller Center of Public Affairs (University of Virginia)

Audio clips of Eisenhower's speeches

For additional research

Annotated Bibliography for Dwight D. Eisenhower from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues

Dwight D. Eisenhower: A Resource Guide from the Library of Congress

First Inaugural Address

Second Inaugural Address

(Wikisource)

The Presidential Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower (searchable online)

TIME Magazine Cover: Dwight D. Eisenhower, April 4, 1969

Thaw in the Cold War: Eisenhower and Khrushchev at Gettysburg, a National Park Service Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) lesson plan

Essay on Dwight D. Eisenhower with shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs

Organizations

Eisenhower Presidential Library & Museum, including Home and Tomb

The Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University of New Orleans

The Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum, Abilene, Kansas

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Order	35th
Office	President of the United States
Term start	January 20, 1961
Term end	November 22, 1963
Vicepresident	Lyndon B. Johnson
Predecessor	Dwight D. Eisenhower
Successor	Lyndon B. Johnson
Jr/sr2	United States Senator
State2	Massachusetts
Term start2	January 3, 1953
Term end2	December 22, 1960
Preceded2	Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.
Succeeded2	Benjamin A. Smith
State3	Massachusetts
District3	11th
Term start3	January 3, 1947
Term end3	January 3, 1953
Preceded3	James Michael Curley
Succeeded3	Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr.
Birth date	May 29, 1917
Birth place	Brookline, Massachusetts
Birthname	John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Death date	November 22, 1963
Death place	Dallas, Texas
Father	Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr.
Mother	Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy
Spouse	Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy
Children	Arabella KennedyCaroline Bouvier KennedyJohn Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr.Patrick Bouvier Kennedy
Alma mater	Harvard College (S.B.)
Occupation	PoliticianAuthor
Party	Democratic
Religion	Roman Catholic
Signature	John F Kennedy Signature 2.svg
Signature alt	Cursive signature in ink
Allegiance	United States of America
Branch	United States Navy
Serviceyears	1941–1945
Rank	Lieutenant
Unit	Motor Torpedo Boat PT-109
Battles	World War IISolomon Islands campaign

John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy (May 29, 1917 November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963.

After military service as commander of the Motor Torpedo Boat PT-109 and Motor Torpedo Boat PT-59 during World War II in the South Pacific, Kennedy represented Massachusetts's 11th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1947 to 1953 as a Democrat. Thereafter, he served in the U.S. Senate from 1953 until 1960. Kennedy defeated then Vice President and Republican candidate Richard Nixon in the 1960 U.S. presidential election. He was the second-youngest President (after Theodore Roosevelt), the first President to have been born in the 20th century, and the youngest elected to the office, at the age of 43. Kennedy is the only Catholic, and the first Irish American, president, and is the only president to have won a Pulitzer Prize. Events during his presidency included the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the building of the Berlin Wall, the Space Race, the African American Civil Rights Movement and early stages of the Vietnam War.

Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas. Lee Harvey Oswald was charged with the crime but was shot and killed two days later by Jack Ruby before any trial. The FBI, the Warren Commission, and the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) concluded that Oswald was the assassin, with the HSCA allowing for the probability of conspiracy based on disputed acoustic evidence. Today, Kennedy continues to rank highly in public opinion ratings of former U.S. presidents.

Early life and education

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born at 83 Beals Street in Brookline, Massachusetts on Tuesday, May 29, 1917, at 3:00 p.m., the second son of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., and Rose Fitzgerald; Rose, in turn, was the eldest child of John "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, a prominent Boston political figure who was the city's mayor and a three-term member of Congress. Kennedy lived in Brookline for ten years and attended Edward Devotion School, Noble and Greenough Lower School, and the Dexter School, through 4th grade. In 1927, the family moved to 5040 Independence Avenue in Riverdale, Bronx, New York City; two years later, they moved to 294 Pondfield Road in Bronxville, New York, where Kennedy was a member of Scout Troop 2 (and was the first Boy Scout to become President). Kennedy spent summers with his family at their home in Hyannisport, Massachusetts, and Christmas and Easter holidays with his family at their winter home in Palm Beach, Florida. For the 5th through 7th grade, Kennedy attended Riverdale Country School, a private school for boys. For 8th grade in September 1930, the 13-year old Kennedy attended Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut. In late April 1931, he had appendicitis requiring an appendectomy, after which he withdrew from Canterbury and recuperated at home.

In September 1931, Kennedy was sent to The Choate School in Wallingford, Connecticut, for his 9th through 12th grade years. His older brother Joe Jr., was already at Choate, two years ahead of him, a football star and leading student in the school. Jack spent his first years at Choate in his brother's shadow, and compensated for this with rebellious behavior that attracted a coterie. Their most notorious stunt was to explode a toilet seat with a powerful firecracker. In the ensuing chapel assembly, the strict headmaster, George St. John, brandished the toilet seat and spoke of certain "muckers" who would "spit in our sea". The defiant Jack Kennedy took the cue and named his group "The Muckers Club", which included long time friend Kirk LeMoyne "Lem" Billings. While at Choate, Kennedy was beset by health problems, culminating in 1934 with his emergency hospitalization at Yale-New Haven Hospital. In June 1934 he was admitted to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and diagnosed with colitis. Kennedy graduated from Choate in June 1935. For the school yearbook, of which he had been business manager, Kennedy was voted the "Most likely to Succeed".

In September 1935, he made his first trip abroad, with his parents and sister Kathleen, to London, with the intent of studying at the London School of Economics (LSE) as his older brother Joe had done. There is uncertainty about what he did at LSE before returning to America in October 1935, when he enrolled late and spent six weeks at Princeton University. He was then hospitalized for two months of observation for possible leukemia at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston. He convalesced further at the Kennedy winter home in Palm Beach, then spent the spring of 1936 working as a ranch hand on a 40,000-acre (160 km²) cattle ranch outside Benson, Arizona. That summer he raced sailboats at the Kennedy home in Hyannisport.

In September 1936, Kennedy enrolled at Harvard College, where he produced that year's annual "Freshman Smoker", called by a reviewer "an elaborate entertainment, which included in its cast outstanding personalities of the radio, screen and sports world." He tried out for the football, golf, and swim teams and earned a spot on the varsity swim team. In July 1937, Kennedy sailed to France, with his convertible on board, and spent ten weeks driving through Europe with a friend. In June 1938, Kennedy sailed overseas with his father and brother Joe to work with his father, Roosevelt's U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James's, at the American embassy in London; in August the family went to a villa near Cannes. In 1939, Kennedy toured Europe, the Soviet Union, the Balkans, and the Middle East in preparation for his Harvard senior honors thesis. He then went to Czechoslovakia and Germany before returning to London on September 1, 1939, the day Germany invaded Poland. On September 3, 1939, the family was in the House of Commons for speeches endorsing the United Kingdom's declaration of war on Germany. Kennedy was sent as his father's representative to help with arrangements for American survivors of the SS Athenia, before flying back to the U.S. from Foynes, Ireland to Port Washington, New York on his first transatlantic flight.

In 1940, Kennedy completed his thesis, "Appeasement in Munich," about British participation in the Munich Agreement. He initially intended his thesis to be private, but his father encouraged him to publish it. He graduated cum laude from Harvard with a degree in international affairs in 1940, and his thesis was published that year as a book entitled Why England Slept, and became a bestseller. Kennedy enrolled and audited classes at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In early 1941, he helped his father complete the writing of a memoir of his three years as an American ambassador and then traveled throughout South America.

Military service

In September 1941, after medical disqualification by the Army for his chronic lower back problems, Kennedy joined the U.S. Navy, with the influence of the director of the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), former naval attaché to Joseph Kennedy. Kennedy was an ensign serving in the office of the Secretary of the Navy when the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred. He then attended the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps and Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Training Center, was assigned duty in Panama and later in the Pacific theater where he earned the rank of lieutenant, commanding a patrol torpedo (PT) boat.

On August 2, 1943, Kennedy's boat, PT-109, along with PT-162 and PT-169, were ordered to continue nighttime patrol near New Georgia in the Solomon Islands, when it was rammed by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri. Kennedy gathered his surviving crew members together in the water around the wreckage, to vote on whether to "fight or surrender". Kennedy stated, "There's nothing in the book about a situation like this. A lot of you men have families and some of you have children. What do you want to do? I have nothing to lose." Shunning surrender, the men swam towards a small island. Kennedy, despite re-injury to his back in the collision, towed a badly burned crewman through the water with a life jacket strap clenched between his teeth. He towed the wounded man to the island and later to a second island from where his crew was subsequently rescued. For these actions, Kennedy received the Navy and Marine Corps Medal with the following citation:

For extremely heroic conduct as Commanding Officer of Motor Torpedo Boat 109 following the collision and sinking of that vessel in the Pacific War Theater on August 1–2, 1943. Unmindful of personal danger, Lieutenant (then Lieutenant, Junior Grade) Kennedy unhesitatingly braved the difficulties and hazards of darkness to direct rescue operations, swimming many hours to secure aid and food after he had succeeded in getting his crew ashore. His outstanding courage, endurance and leadership contributed to the saving of several lives and were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.

General Douglas MacArthur, however, had quite a different opinion about Kennedy's actions: "Those PT boats carried only one torpedo. They were under orders to fire it and then get out. They were defenseless. Kennedy hung around, however, and let a Japanese destroyer mow him down. When I heard about it, I talked to his superior officer. He should have been court-martialed."

In October 1943, Kennedy took command of a PT boat converted into a gun boat, Motor Torpedo Boat PT-59, which in November took part in a Marine rescue on Choiseul Island. Kennedy was honorably discharged in early 1945, just prior to Japan's surrender. Kennedy's other decorations in World War II included the Purple Heart, American Defense Service Medal, American Campaign Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with three bronze service stars, and the World War II Victory Medal.

Congressional career

House of Representatives

In 1946, U.S. Representative James Michael Curley vacated his seat in the strong Democratic 10th Congressional district in Massachusetts to become mayor of Boston. Kennedy ran for the seat, beating his Republican opponent by a large margin; this, despite not having previously included politics in his career planning. He was a congressman for six years but had a mixed voting record, often diverging from President Harry S. Truman and the rest of the Democratic Party.

Senate

In 1952, he defeated incumbent Republican Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. for the U.S. Senate. The following year he was married to wife Jacqueline.

Kennedy underwent several spinal operations over the following two years, was at times critically ill and received Catholic last rites, and was often absent from the Senate. During his convalescence in 1956, he published Profiles in Courage, a book about U.S. Senators who risked their careers for their personal beliefs, and which received the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1957.

At the 1956 Democratic National Convention, Kennedy was nominated for Vice President, for the presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson, but finished second in that balloting to Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee. Kennedy received national exposure from that episode; his father thought it just as well that his son lost, due to the political debility of his Catholicism, and the strength of the Eisenhower ticket.

One of the matters demanding Kennedy's attention in the Senate was President Eisenhower's bill for the Civil Rights Act of 1957 Kennedy cast a procedural vote on this which was considered by some as an appeasement of Southern Democratic opponents of the bill. Kennedy also voted for Title IV, termed the "Jury Trial Amendment". Many civil rights advocates at the time criticized that vote as one which would weaken the act. A final compromise bill, which Kennedy supported, was passed in September 1957. In 1958, Kennedy was re-elected to a second term in the Senate, defeating his Republican opponent, Boston lawyer Vincent J. Celeste, by a wide margin.

Senator Joseph McCarthy was a friend of the Kennedy family; Joseph Kennedy, Sr. was a leading McCarthy supporter, Robert F. Kennedy worked for McCarthy's subcommittee, and McCarthy dated Patricia Kennedy. In 1954, when the Senate voted to censure McCarthy, Kennedy had drafted, but not delivered, a speech supporting the censure, but was in the hospital. Though absent, he could have participated procedurally by "pairing" his vote against that of another senator, but did not do so. He never indicated how he would have voted, but the episode damaged Kennedy's support in the liberal community, including Eleanor Roosevelt, in the 1956 and 1960 elections.

1960 presidential election

On January 2, 1960, Kennedy initiated his campaign for President in the Democratic primary election, where he faced challenges from Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota and Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon. Kennedy defeated Humphrey in Wisconsin and West Virginia, Morse in Maryland and Oregon, as well as token opposition (often write-in candidates) in New Hampshire, Indiana, and Nebraska. Kennedy made a point of visiting a coal mine in West Virginia; most miners and others in that predominantly conservative, Protestant state were quite wary of Kennedy's Roman Catholicism. His victory in West Virginia confirmed his broad popular appeal. At the Democratic Convention, he gave his well-known "New Frontier" speech, saying: "For the problems are not all solved and the battles are not all won—and we stand today on the edge of a New Frontier ... But the New Frontier of which I speak is not a set of promises—it is a set of challenges. It sums up not what I intend to offer the American people, but what I intend to ask of them."

, March 1960]] With Humphrey and Morse eliminated, Kennedy's main opponent at the Los Angeles convention was Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas. Kennedy overcame this formal challenge as well as informal ones from Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic nominee in 1952 and 1956, Stuart Symington, as well as several favorite sons, and on July 13 the Democratic convention nominated Kennedy as its candidate. Kennedy asked Johnson to be his Vice Presidential candidate, despite opposition from many liberal delegates and Kennedy's own staff, including brother Robert. He needed Johnson's strength in the South to win what was considered likely to be the closest election since 1916. Major issues included how to get the economy moving again, Kennedy's Roman Catholicism, Cuba, and whether the Soviet space and missile programs had surpassed those of the U.S. To address fears that his being Catholic would impact his decision-making, he famously told the Greater Houston Ministerial Association on September 12, 1960, "I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic Party candidate for President who also happens to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my Church on public matters — and the Church does not speak for me." Kennedy questioned rhetorically whether one-quarter of Americans were relegated to second-class citizenship just because they were Catholic, and once stated that, "No one asked me my religion [serving the Navy] in the South Pacific."

In September and October, Kennedy appeared with Republican candidate Richard Nixon, then Vice President, in the first televised U.S. presidential debates in U.S. history. During these programs, Nixon, with a sore injured leg and his "five o'clock shadow", looked tense, uncomfortable, and perspiring, while Kennedy, choosing to avail himself of makeup services, appeared relaxed, leading the huge television audience to favor Kennedy as the winner. Radio listeners, however, either thought Nixon had won or that the debates were a draw. The debates are now considered a milestone in American political history—the point at which the medium of television began to play a dominant role in politics. After the first debate Kennedy's campaign gained momentum and he pulled slightly ahead of Nixon in most polls. On Tuesday, November 8, Kennedy defeated Nixon in one of the closest presidential elections of the twentieth century. In the national popular vote Kennedy led Nixon by just two-tenths of one percent (49.7% to 49.5%), while in the Electoral College he won 303 votes to Nixon's 219 (269 were needed to win). Another 14 electors from Mississippi and Alabama refused to support Kennedy because of his support for the civil rights movement; they voted for Senator Harry F. Byrd, Sr. of Virginia. He was the youngest man elected president, succeeding Eisenhower who was the oldest.

Presidency

John F. Kennedy was sworn in as the 35th President at noon on January 20, 1961. In his inaugural address he spoke of the need for all Americans to be active citizens, famously saying, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." He also asked the nations of the world to join together to fight what he called the "common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself." He added: "All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin." In closing, he expanded on his desire for greater internationalism: "Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you."

Kennedy brought to the White House a stark contrast in organization compared to the decision making structure of the former general, Eisenhower; and he wasted no time in dismantling it. Kennedy preferred the organizational structure of a wheel, with all the spokes leading to the president. He was ready and willing to make the increased number of quick decisions required in such an environment, and did a monumental job of selecting his cabinet and other appointments, some experienced and some not. In those cases of inexperience, he stated, "we can learn our jobs together". There were a couple instances where the president got ahead of himself, as when he announced in a cabinet meeting, without prior notice, that Edward Lansdale would be Ambassador to South Vietnam, a decision which Secretary of State Rusk later had Kennedy alter. There was also the rapid appointment of Harris Wofford who was summoned and arrived at the White House for swearing in, without knowing the position he was to assume.

Kennedy further demonstrated his decision making agility with Congress and his staff. Much to the chagrin of his economic advisors who wanted him to reduce taxes, he quickly agreed to a balanced budget pledge when this was needed in exchange for votes to expand the membership of the House Rules Committee in order to give the Democrats a majority in setting the legislative agenda. The president insisted on a focus upon immediate and specific issues facing the administration, and quickly voiced his impatience with ponderings of deeper meanings. Deputy national security advisor, Walt Whitman Rostow, once began a diatribe about the growth of communism and Kennedy abruptly cut him off, asking, "What do you want me to do about that today?"

Foreign policy

President Kennedy's foreign policy was dominated by American-Soviet confrontations, manifested by proxy contests in the early stage of the Cold War. In 1961 Kennedy anxiously anticipated a summit with Nikita Khruschev. On the way to the summit was a stop in Paris in June to meet Charles de Gaulle, whose advice to Kennedy was to expect and ignore the abrasive style of Khruschev. The French Prime Minister was nationalistic, and disdainful of the United States' presumed influence in Europe, in his talks with Kennedy. Nevertheless de Gaulle was quite impressed with the young president and family. Kennedy picked up on this in his speech in Paris, saying he would be remembered as "the man who accompanied Jackie Kennedy to Paris."

On June 4, 1961 the president met with Khruschev in Vienna and left the meetings angry and disappointed that he had allowed the Premier to bully him, despite warnings received. Khruschev for his part was impressed with the president's intelligence but thought him weak. Kennedy did succeed in conveying the bottom line to Khruschev on the most sensitive issue before them, a proposed treaty between Moscow and East Berlin. He made it clear that any such treaty which interfered with U.S access rights in West Berlin would be regarded as an act of war. Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, Kennedy and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in the White House Cabinet Room on April 13, 1962.]] Shortly after the president returned home, the U.S.S.R. announced an intent to treat with East Berlin, regardless of any third party occupation rights in either sector of the city. A depressed and angry president then assumed his obligation was to prepare the country for nuclear war as the only option, and which he then personally thought had a one in five chance of occurring.

In the weeks immediately after the Vienna summit, more than 20 thousand people fled from East Berlin to the western sector in reaction to statements from the U.S.S.R. Kennedy began intensive meetings on the Berlin issue, where Dean Acheson took the lead in recommending a military buildup with NATO allies as the appropriate response. In a July 1961 speech, Kennedy announced his decision to add $3.25 billion to the defense budget, along with over 200 thousand additional troops for the military, saying an attack on West Berlin would be taken as an attack on the U.S. The speech received an 85% approval rating. The following month, the U.S.S.R. and East Berlin officials began blocking any further passage of East Berliners into West Berlin, erecting barbed wire fences across the city, which were quickly upgraded to the Berlin Wall. Kennedy's initial reaction was to ignore this, as long as free access from West to East Berlin continued. This course was altered when it was learned that the West Berliners had lost confidence in the defense of their position by the United States. Kennedy sent V.P. Johnson, along with a host of other military personnel, in convoy through West Germany, including Soviet armed checkpoints, to demonstrate the continued commitment of the U.S. to West Berlin.

John F. Kennedy gave a speech at Saint Anselm College on May 5, 1960, regarding America's conduct in the emerging Cold War. Kennedy's speech detailed how American foreign policy should be conducted towards African nations, noting a hint of support for modern African nationalism by saying that "For we, too, founded a new nation on revolt from colonial rule".

Cuba and the Bay of Pigs Invasion

Prior to Kennedy's election to the presidency, the Eisenhower Administration created a plan to overthrow the Fidel Castro regime in Cuba. Central to the plan, led by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) with help from the US Military, but with no covert help from the United States, was the arming of a counter-revolutionary insurgency composed of anti-Castro Cuban exiles U.S.-trained Cuban insurgents, led by CIA paramilitary officers were to invade Cuba and instigate an uprising among the Cuban people in hopes of removing Castro from power. On April 17, 1961, Kennedy ordered the previously planned invasion of Cuba to proceed. In what is known as the "Bay of Pigs Invasion", 1,500 U.S.-trained Cubans, called "Brigade 2506," returned to the island in the hope of deposing Castro. However, in keeping with prior plans, no U.S. air support was provided. As CIA director Allen Dulles latter stated, they thought that once the troops were on the ground any action required for success would be authorized by the president to prevent failure. By April 19, 1961, the Cuban government had captured or killed the invading exiles, and Kennedy was forced to negotiate for the release of the 1,189 survivors. After twenty months, Cuba released the captured exiles in exchange for $53 million worth of food and medicine. Furthermore, the incident made Castro wary of the U.S. and led him to believe that another invasion would occur. According to biographer Richard Reeves, Kennedy primarily focused on the political repercussions of the plan rather than the military considerations; when it failed, he was convinced the plan was a set up to make him look bad. Nevertheless, in the end, Kennedy took the blame himself. Afterwards, he opined, "...We got a big kick in the leg and we deserved it. But maybe we'll learn something from it."

Late in 1961 the White House formed the "Special Group (Augmented)", headed by Robert Kennedy and including Edward Lansdale, Sec. McNamara and others. The group's objective, to overthrow Castro via espionage, sabotage and other covert tactics, was never pursued.

Cuban Missile Crisis

in 1961]]

On October 14, 1962, CIA U-2 spy planes took photographs in Cuba of intermediate-range ballistic missile sites under construction by the Soviets in previous months. The deployment of these missiles had come to the attention of the intelligence community when Soviet shipments to Cuba began and a debate had ensued in the National Security Council (NSC) as to whether the intended use of the weapons was offensive or defensive. The photos were shown to Kennedy on October 16, 1962, and a consensus was reached that the missiles were offensive in nature and thus posed an immediate nuclear threat. Kennedy faced a dilemma: if the U.S. attacked the sites, it might lead to nuclear war with the U.S.S.R., but if the U.S. did nothing, it would be faced with the increased threat from close range nuclear weapons. The U.S. would as well appear to the world as less committed to the defense of the hemisphere. On a personal level, Kennedy needed to show resolve in reaction to Khrushchev, especially after the Vienna summit.

More than a third of the members of the NSC favored an unannounced air assault on the missile sites, but for some of them this conjured up an image of "Pearl Harbor in reverse". There was as well some reaction from the international community (asked in confidence) that the assault plan was an overreaction in light of U.S. missiles placed in Turkey by Eisenhower. There also could be no assurance from the Council that the assault would be 100% effective. In concurrence with a majority vote of the NSC, Kennedy decided on a naval quarantine, and on October 22 dispatched a message of this to Khrushchev and announced the decision on T.V.

The U.S. Navy would stop and inspect all Soviet ships arriving off Cuba, beginning October 24. The Organization of American States surprisingly gave unanimous support to the removal of the missiles. The president exchanged two sets of letters with Khrushchev to no avail. U.N. Secretary General U Thant requested both parties reverse their decisions and allow a cooling off period. Khrushchev said yes but Kennedy replied no. After one Soviet-flagged ship was stopped and boarded, on October 28 Khrushchev agreed to dismantle the missile sites subject to U.N. inspections. The U.S. publicly promised never to invade Cuba and privately agreed to remove its Jupiter missiles in Turkey, which were at that time obsolete and had been supplanted by missile-equipped US Navy Polaris subs. This crisis had brought the world closer to nuclear war than at any point known before or since. In the end, "the humanity" of the two men prevailed. The crisis improved the image of American willpower and the president's credibility. His approval rating increased from 66% to 77% immediately thereafter.

Latin America and communism

Arguing that "those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable," Kennedy sought to contain communism in Latin America by establishing the Alliance for Progress, which sent foreign aid to troubled countries and sought greater human rights standards in the region. He worked closely with Governor of Puerto Rico Luis Muñoz Marín for the development of the Alliance of Progress, as well as developments in the autonomy of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

When the president took office the Eisenhower administration, through the CIA, has begun putting into place assassination plots in Cuba against Castro and in the Dominican Republic against Rafael Trujillo. Kennedy instructed the CIA privately that any such planning must include plausible deniability by the U.S. His public position was in opposition. In June 1961 the Dominican Republic's leader was assassinated; in the days following the event, Undersecretary of State Chester Bowles led a cautious reaction by the nation, and Robert Kennedy, substituting for his brother who was in France, and who saw an opportunity for the U.S., called him "a gutless bastard" to his face.

Peace Corps

As one of his first presidential acts, Kennedy asked Congress to create the Peace Corps. Since 1961, over 200,000 Americans have joined the Peace Corps, serving in 139 countries.

Southeast Asia

When briefing Kennedy, Eisenhower emphasized the communist threat in Southeast Asia as requiring priority; Eisenhower considered Laos to be "the cork in the bottle" in regards to the regional threat. In March 1961, Kennedy voiced a change in policy from supporting a "free" Laos to a "neutral" Laos, indicating privately that Vietnam, and not Laos, should be deemed America's tripwire for communism's spread in the area. In May 1961 he dispatched Lyndon Johnson to meet with South Vietnam's President Ngo Dinh Diem. Johnson assured Diem of more aid in molding a fighting force that could resist the Communists. Kennedy announced a change of policy from support to partnership with Diem in defeat of communism in South Vietnam.

Kennedy initially followed Eisenhower's lead, by using limited military action to fight the Communist forces led by Ho Chi Minh. Kennedy continued policies providing political, economic, and military support for the South Vietnamese government. Kennedy increased the number of helicopters, military advisors and undeclared U.S. Special Forces in the area, but he was still reluctant to order a full scale deployment of troops. Kennedy formally authorized escalated involvement when he signed the "National Security Action Memorandum - Subversive Insurgency (War of Liberation)" in early 1962. Secretary of State, Dean Rusk voiced strong support for U.S. involvement as illustrated in his emphatic in the Fall of 1962 that, "...neutralism [in South Vietnam] is not neutralism at all; it's tantamount to surrender." "Operation Ranch Hand", a broad scale aerial defoliation effort began on the roadsides in South Vietnam. in the Oval office in 1963.]]

In April 1963, Kennedy expressed his assessment of the situation in Vietnam at the time: "We don't have a prayer of staying in Vietnam. Those people hate us. They are going to throw our asses out of there at any point. But I can't give up that territory to the Communists and get the American people to re-elect me". By July 1963, Kennedy faced a crisis in Vietnam; despite increased U.S. support, the South Vietnamese military was only marginally effective against pro-Communist Viet Cong forces.

On August 21, just as the new U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge arrived, Ngo Dinh Diem, and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu ordered South Vietnam forces, funded and trained by the CIA, into the temples to quell buddhist demonstrations. The crackdowns heightened expectations of a coup d'état to remove Diem with (or perhaps by) his brother, Nhu. Lodge was instructed to try to get Diem and Nhu to step-down and out of the country. Diem would not listen to Lodge. Cable 243 (DEPTEL 23) dated August 24 followed, declaring: Washington would no longer tolerate Nhu's actions and Lodge was ordered to pressure Diem to remove his brother. If Diem refused, the Americans would explore alternative leadership. Lodge replied to this contradictory cable, saying that the only workable option was to get the South Vietnam generals to overthrow Diem and Nhu, as originally planned. At week's end, Kennedy learned from Lodge that the Diem government might, due to France's assistance to Nhu, be dealing secretly with the Communists - and might ask the Americans to leave; orders were sent to Saigon and throughout Washington to "destroy all coup cables". This, as the first formal anti Vietnam war sentiment was expressed by U.S. clergy from the Ministers Vietnam Committee.

In September, at a White House meeting, symbolic of very different ongoing appraisals of Vietnam, the president was given updated assessments after personal inspections on the ground by the Dept. of Defense (Gen. Victor Krulak) and the State Dept. (Joseph Mendenhall). Krulak said the military fight against the communists was progressing and being won, while Mendenhall related that the country was civilly being lost to any U.S. influence. Kennedy reacted, saying, "Did you two gentlemen visit the same country?" The president was unaware the two men were at such odds they did not speak on the return flight.

In October 1963, the president appointed Defense Secretary McNamara and Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor to a Vietnam mission in another effort to synchronize the information and formulation of policy. The stated objective of the McNamara Taylor mission "emphasized the importance of getting to the bottom of the differences in reporting from U.S. representatives in Vietnam." In meetings with McNamara, Taylor and Lodge, Diem again refused to agree to governing measures insisted upon by the U.S., helping to dispel McNamara's previous optimism as to Diem. Taylor and McNamara were also enlightened by Vietnam's V.P. Nguyen Ngoc Tho (choice of many to succeed Diem should a coup occur), who in detailed terms obliterated Taylor's information that the military was succeeding in the countryside. The Mission report, after it had been through the NSC, nevertheless retained, at Kennedy's insistence, a recommended schedule for troop withdrawals: 1000 by year's end and complete withdrawal in 1965, something the NSC considered strategical fantasy. The final report also portrayed military progress, an increasingly unpopular Diem-led government, not vulnerable to a coup, albeit possible internal assassination.

In late October, intelligence wires again reported a coup of the Diem government was afoot. The source, Duong Van Minh a/k/a "Big Minh" wanted to know the position of the U.S. Kennedy's instructions to Lodge were to offer covert assistance to the coup, excluding assassination, but to ensure deniability by the U.S. Later that month as the coup became imminent, Kennedy ordered all cables routed through him, and a policy of "control and cut out" was initiated - to insure presidential control of U.S. responses, while cutting him out of the paper trail. On November 1, 1963, South Vietnamese generals, led by "Big Minh", overthrew the Diem government, arresting and then killing Diem and his brother Nhu. Kennedy was shocked by the deaths and to find out afterwards that Minh had asked the CIA field office to secure safe passage out of the country for Diem and Nhu, but was told 24 hours was needed to get a plane. Minh responded that he could not hold them that long and thus handed them a death sentence. Initially after news of the coup, there was renewed confidence in America and in South Vietnam, that now the war might truly be won. McGeorge Bundy drafted a National Security Action Memo to present to Kennedy upon his return from Dallas. It reiterated U.S. resolve to fight communism in Vietnam, with both military and economic aid at a higher level, including operations in Laos and Cambodia. Before leaving for Dallas, Kennedy told Mike Forrestal that "after the first of the year...[he wanted] an in depth study of every possible option, including how to get out of there...to review this whole thing from the bottom to the top". When asked what he thought the president meant, Forrestal said, "it was devil's advocate stuff."

Historians disagree on whether Vietnam would have escalated to the point it did, had Kennedy survived and been re-elected in 1964. Fueling the debate are statements made by Kennedy and Johnson's Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in the film, "The Fog of War", that Kennedy was strongly considering pulling out of Vietnam after the 1964 election. The film also contains a tape recording of Lyndon Johnson stating that Kennedy was planning to withdraw, a position Johnson states he strongly disapproved. Further, Kennedy had signed National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) 263, dated October 11, 1963, which ordered the withdrawal of 1,000 military personnel by the end of 1963. Nevertheless, given the reasons stated for the overthrow of the Diem government, such action would have been a policy reversal, but Kennedy was moving in a less hawkish direction since his acclaimed speech about World Peace at American University on June 10, 1963. According to historian Lawrence Freedman, Kennedy's statements about withdrawing from Vietnam, were "...less of a definite decision than a working assumption, based on a hope for stability rather than an expectation of chaos". Some of the details of Kennedy's involvement in Vietnam were classified until the release of the Pentagon Papers in 1971.

U.S. involvement in the region escalated until Lyndon Johnson, his successor, directly deployed regular U.S. military forces for fighting the Vietnam War. After Kennedy's assassination, the new President Lyndon B. Johnson immediately reversed his predecessor's order to withdraw 1,000 military personnel by the end of 1963 with his own NSAM 273 on November 26, 1963.

American University speech

, June 10, 1963.]]

On June 10, 1963, Kennedy delivered the commencement address at American University in Washington, D.C., "to discuss a topic on which too often ignorance abounds and the truth is too rarely perceived - yet it is the most important topic on earth: world peace...I speak of peace because of the new face of war...in an age when a singular nuclear weapon contains ten times the explosive force delivered by all the allied forces in the Second World War...an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and air and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn...I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men...world peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor - it requires only that they live together in mutual tolerance...our problems are man-made - therefore they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants." The president also made two announcements - that the Soviets had expressed a desire to negotiate a nuclear test ban treaty and that the U.S had postponed planned atmospheric tests.

West Berlin speech

governing mayor Willy Brandt, March 1961]]

In 1963, Germany was enduring a time of particular vulnerability, due to Soviet aggression to the east, de Gaulle's French nationalism to the west, and the impending retirement of German Chancellor Adenauer. On June 26, 1963, Kennedy visited West Berlin and gave a public speech reiterating American commitment to Germany and criticizing communism; he was met with an ecstatic response from a massive audience. Kennedy used the construction of the Berlin Wall as an example of the failures of communism: "Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in." The speech is known for its famous phrase "Ich bin ein Berliner" ("I am a citizen of Berlin"). Nearly five-sixths of the population was on the street for the speech. He remarked to Ted Sorensen afterwards: "We'll never have another day like this one, as long as we live."

Israel

Kennedy encountered problems with the Israeli government regarding the production of nuclear weapons in Dimona. After the existence of a nuclear plant was initially denied by the Israeli government, David Ben-Gurion, in a speech to the Israeli Knesset on December 21, 1960, stated that the purpose of the nuclear plant at Beersheba was for "research in problems of arid zones and desert flora and fauna". When Ben-Gurion met with Kennedy in New York, he claimed that Dimona was being developed to provide nuclear power for desalinization and "for the time being the only purposes [of the nuclear plant] are for peace". The State Department argued that if Israel wanted arms, it should in return accept international supervision of its nuclear program. Dimona was never placed under IAEA safeguards. On May 1, 1968, Undersecretary of State Katzenbach told President Johnson that Dimona was producing enough plutonium to produce two bombs a year. Attempts to write Israeli adherence to the NPT into contracts for the supply of U.S. weapons continued throughout 1968.

Iraq

In 1963, the Kennedy administration backed a coup against the government of Iraq headed by General Abdel Karim Kassem, who five years earlier had deposed the Western-allied Iraqi monarchy. The CIA helped the new Ba'ath Party government led by Abdul Salam Arif in ridding the country of suspected leftists and Communists. In a Ba'athist coup, the government used lists of suspected Communists and other leftists provided by the CIA, to systematically murder untold numbers of Iraq's educated elite—killings in which Saddam Hussein himself is said to have participated. The victims included hundreds of doctors, teachers, technicians, lawyers, other professionals, military and political figures. According to an op-ed in The New York Times, the U.S. sent arms to the new regime, weapons later used against the same Kurdish insurgents the U.S. supported against Kassem and then abandoned him. American and UK oil and other interests, including Mobil, Bechtel, and British Petroleum, were conducting business in Iraq. He also visited the original cottage at Dunganstown, near New Ross, where previous Kennedys had lived before emigrating to America, and said: "This is where it all began ..." On December 22, 2006, the Irish Department of Justice released declassified police documents that indicated that Kennedy was the subject of three death threats during this visit. Though these threats were determined to be hoaxes, security was heightened.

Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

Troubled by the long-term dangers of radioactive contamination and nuclear weapons proliferation, Kennedy and Khrushchev agreed on the desirability of negotiating a nuclear test ban treaty, originally conceived in Adlai Stevenson's 1956 presidential campaign. In their Vienna summit meeting in June 1961, Khrushchev and Kennedy reached an informal understanding against nuclear testing. However, Khrushchev began testing nuclear weapons that September. Kennedy responded by conducting tests 5 days later. Shortly thereafter, new U.S satellites began delivering images which made it clear that the Soviets were substantially behind the U.S. in the "missile gap". Nevertheless, the greater nuclear strength of the U.S. was of little value as long as the U.S.S.R. perceived themselves to be at parity.

In July 1963 the stage was set for negotiations, and Kennedy sent Averell Harriman to Moscow to negotiate a treaty with the Soviets. The introductory sessions began with Khrushchev, who then delegated Soviet representation to Andrei Gromyko. It quickly became clear that the stated objective of a comprehensive test ban would not reach fruition, due largely to the reluctance of the Soviets for inspections to verify compliance. Ultimately, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union were the initial signatories to a limited treaty, which prohibited atomic testing on the ground, in the atmosphere, or underwater, but not underground; the U.S. Senate ratified this and Kennedy signed it into law in October 1963. France was quick to declare that it was free to further develop and test its nuclear defenses.

Domestic policy

Kennedy called his domestic program the "New Frontier". It ambitiously promised federal funding for education, medical care for the elderly, economic aid to rural regions, and government intervention to halt the recession. Kennedy also promised an end to racial discrimination. In his 1963 State of the Union, he proposed substantial tax reform and reduction, in income tax rates, from the current range of 20-90% to a range of 14-65%; he proposed a reduction in the corporate tax rates from 52 to 47%. Congress did not act until 1964, after his death. To the Economics Club of N.Y., he spoke in 1963 of "...the paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high and revenues too low; and the soundest way to raise revenue in the long term is to lower rates now." Few of Kennedy's major programs passed Congress during his lifetime, although, under his successor Johnson, Congress did vote them through in 1964–65.

Economy

Kennedy ended a period of tight fiscal policies, loosening monetary policy to keep interest rates down and encourage growth of the economy. Kennedy presided over the first government budget to top the $100 billion mark, in 1962, and his first budget in 1961 led to the country's first non-war, non-recession deficit. The economy, which had been through two recessions in three years and was in one when Kennedy took office, accelerated notably during his brief presidency. Despite low inflation and interest rates, GDP had grown by an average of only 2.2% during the Eisenhower presidency (scarcely more than population growth at the time), and had declined by 1% during Eisenhower's last twelve months in office. Stagnation had taken a toll on the nation's labor market, as well: unemployment had risen steadily from under 3% in 1953 to 7%, by early 1961.

The economy turned around and prospered during the Kennedy administration. GDP expanded by an average of 5.5% from early 1961 to late 1963, industrial production rose by 15% and motor vehicle sales leapt by 40%. This rate of growth in GDP and industry continued until around 1966, and has yet to be repeated for such a sustained period of time.

The major steel companies announced in April 1962 a 3.5% price increase (the first in 3 years) within a day of each other. This came just days after the companies had reached a settlement with the steelworkers' union, providing in chief a wage increase of 2.5%. The administration was furious, with Kennedy saying, "Why did they do this? Do they think they can get away with this? God, I hate the bastards." The president took personal charge of a campaign against the industry, assigning to each cabinet member a statement regarding the effects of the price increase on their area. Robert Kennedy, echoing his brother's own sentiments, "We're going for broke...their expense accounts, where they've been and what they've been doing...the FBI is to interview them all...we can't lose this." Robert took the position that the steel executives had illegally colluded in doing this. There was genuine concern about the inflationary effects of the price increase. The administration's actions influenced US Steel not to institute the price increase. The Wall Street Journal wrote that the administration had acted "by naked power, by threats, by agents of the state security police." Yale law professor Charles Reich wrote in The New Republic his opinion that the administration had violated civil liberties by calling a grand jury to indict US Steel for collusion so quickly. Nevertheless, the administration's Bureau of Budget reported the price increase would have resulted in a net gain for GDP as well as a net budget surplus.

Kennedy had little knowledge of the agricultural sector of the economy, and farmers were definitely not on his list of priorities, at least in his 1960 campaign. After giving a speech to a farming community, he rhetorically asked an aide, "Did you understand any of what I just said in there? I sure didn't."

Federal and military death penalty

As President, Kennedy oversaw the last pre-Furman federal execution, and, as of 2008, the last military execution. Governor of Iowa Harold Hughes, a death penalty opponent, personally contacted Kennedy to request clemency for Victor Feguer, who was sentenced to death by a federal court in Iowa, but Kennedy turned down the request and Feguer was executed on March 15, 1963. Kennedy commuted a death sentence imposed by military court on seaman Jimmie Henderson on February 12, 1962, changing the penalty to life in prison.

On March 22, 1962, Kennedy signed into law HR5143 (PL87-423), abolishing the mandatory death penalty for first degree murder in the District of Columbia, the only remaining jurisdiction in the United States with a mandatory death sentence for first degree murder, replacing it with life imprisonment with parole if the jury could not decide between life imprisonment and the death penalty, or if the jury chose life imprisonment by a unanimous vote. The death penalty in the District of Columbia has not been applied since 1957, and has now been abolished.

Civil rights

The turbulent end of state-sanctioned racial discrimination was one of the most pressing domestic issues of the 1960s. The United States Supreme Court had ruled in 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. However, many schools, especially in southern states, did not obey the Supreme Court's decision. Segregation had also been prohibited by the Court at other public facilities (e.g. buses, restaurants, theaters, courtrooms, bathrooms, and beaches) but continued nonetheless. Kennedy verbally supported racial integration and civil rights; during the 1960 campaign he telephoned Coretta Scott King, wife of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., who had been jailed while demonstrating for equal access of African Americans; Kennedy secured the early release of King, which drew additional black support to his candidacy.

Nevertheless President Kennedy believed the grass roots movement for civil rights would anger many Southern whites and make it more difficult to pass civil rights laws in Congress, which was dominated by conservative Southern Democrats, and he distanced himself from it. He also was more concerned with other issues early in his presidency, e.g. the "Bay of Pigs" fiasco and Southeast Asia. As articulated by brother Robert, the administration's early priority was to "keep the president out of this civil rights mess". As a result, many civil rights leaders viewed Kennedy as lukewarm, especially concerning the Freedom Riders who organized an integrated public transportation effort in the south, and who were repeatedly met with violence by whites, including law enforcement both federal and state. Kennedy assigned federal marshals to protect the Freedom Riders as an alternative to using federal troops or uncooperative FBI agents. Robert Kennedy, speaking for the president, urged the Freedom Riders to "get off the buses and leave the matter to peaceful settlement in the courts."

In September 1962, James Meredith enrolled at the University of Mississippi, but was prevented from entering. Attorney General Robert Kennedy responded by sending some 400 U.S. Marshals, while President Kennedy reluctantly federalized and sent 3,000 troops after the situation on campus turned violent. Campus Riots left two dead and dozens injured, but Meredith did finally enroll in his first class.

In early 1963, Kennedy related to Martin Luther King, Jr., about the prospects for civil rights legislation: "If we get into a long fight over this in Congress, it will bottleneck everything else, and we will still get no bill." However, civil rights clashes were very much on the rise that year. Brother Robert and Ted Sorenson pressed Kennedy to take more initiative on the legislative front. On June 11, 1963, President Kennedy intervened when Alabama Governor George Wallace blocked the doorway to the University of Alabama to stop two African American students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from attending. Wallace moved aside only after being confronted by Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach and the Alabama National Guard, which had just been federalized by order of the President, and which had hours earlier been under Wallace's command. That evening Kennedy gave his famous civil rights address on national television and radio, launching his initiative for civil rights legislation - to provide equal access to public schools and other facilities, and greater protection of voting rights. His proposals became part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The day ended with the murder of a N.A.A.C.P. leader, Medgar Evers, at his home in Mississippi. As the president had predicted, the day after his T.V. speech, and in reaction to it, House Majority leader Carl Albert called to advise him that his two year signature effort in Congress to combat poverty in Appalachia (Area Redevelopment Administration) had been defeated, primarily by the votes of Southern Democrats and Republicans.

Kennedy signed the executive order creating the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women in 1961. Commission statistics revealed that women were also experiencing discrimination; their final report documenting legal and cultural barriers was issued in October 1963. Earlier, on June 10, 1963, Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act of 1963, a federal law amending the Fair Labor Standards Act, aimed at abolishing wage disparity based on sex.

Over a hundred thousand, predominantly African Americans, gathered in Washington for the civil rights March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963. Kennedy feared the March would have a negative effect on the prospects for the civil rights bills in Congress, and declined an invitation to speak. He turned over some of the details of the government's involvement to the Dept. of Justice, which channelled hundreds of thousands of dollars to the six sponsors of the March, including the N.A.A.C.P. and Martin Luther King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). To ensure a peaceful demonstration, the organizers and the president personally edited speeches which were inflammatory and agreed the March would be held on a Wednesday and would be over at 4:00 P.M. Thousands of troops were placed on standby. Kennedy watched King's speech on T.V. and was very impressed. The March was considered a "triumph of managed protest", and not one arrest relating to the demonstration occurred. Afterwards, the March leaders accepted an invitation to the White House to meet with Kennedy and photos were taken. Kennedy felt the March was a victory for him as well and bolstered the chances for his civil rights bill.

Nevertheless, the struggle was far from over. Three weeks later, a bomb exploded on a Sunday at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham; at the end of the day six children had died in the explosion and aftermath. As a result of this resurgent violence, the civil rights legislation underwent some drastic amendments that critically endangered any prospects for passage of the bill, to the outrage of the president. Kennedy called the congressional leaders to the White House and by the following day the original bill, without the additions, had enough votes to get it out of the House committee.

Civil liberties

In 1963, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who hated civil-rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. and viewed him as an upstart troublemaker, presented the Kennedy Administration with allegations that some of King's close confidants and advisers were communists. Concerned that the allegations, if made public, would derail the Administration's civil rights initiatives, Robert Kennedy and the president both warned King to discontinue the suspect associations. After the associations continued, Robert Kennedy felt compelled to issue a written directive authorizing the FBI to wiretap King and other leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, King's civil rights organization. Although Kennedy only gave written approval for limited wiretapping of King's phones "on a trial basis, for a month or so", Hoover extended the clearance so his men were "unshackled" to look for evidence in any areas of King's life they deemed worthy. The wire tapping continued through June 1966 and was revealed in 1968.

Immigration

John F. Kennedy initially proposed an overhaul of American immigration policy that later was to become the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, sponsored by Kennedy's brother Senator Edward Kennedy. It dramatically shifted the source of immigration from Northern and Western European countries towards immigration from Latin America and Asia and shifted the emphasis of selection of immigrants towards facilitating family reunification. Kennedy wanted to dismantle the selection of immigrants based on country of origin and saw this as an extension of his civil rights policies.

Space program

on September 12, 1962]] As a senator, Kennedy had been opposed to the space program. Early in his presidency he was poised to dismantle plans for the Apollo program but postponed any decision out of deference to his vice president whom he had appointed chairman of the U.S. Space Council and who strongly supported NASA due to its Texas location. This changed with his January 1961 State of the Union address, when he suggested international cooperation in space. Sergei Khrushchev said Kennedy approached his father, Nikita, twice about a "joint venture" in space exploration—in June 1961 and autumn 1963. On the first occasion, the Soviet Union was ahead of America in many aspects of space technology.

Kennedy was, however, eager for the U.S. to take the lead in the Space Race for strategic reasons. Kennedy first announced the goal for landing a man on the Moon in the speech to a Joint Session of Congress on May 25, 1961, saying

"First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish."

Kennedy later made a speech at Rice University on September 12, 1962, in which he said

"No nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in this race for space."

and

"We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

On November 21, 1962, however, in a Cabinet Room meeting with NASA Administrator James Webb and other officials, Kennedy said

"This is important for political reasons, international political reasons... Because otherwise we shouldn't be spending this kind of money, because I'm not that interested in space. I think it's good, I think we ought to know about it, we're ready to spend reasonable amounts of money. But...we’ve spent fantastic expenditures, we’ve wrecked our budget on all these other domestic programs, and the only justification for it, in my opinion, to do it in the pell-mell fashion is because we hope to beat them [the Soviets] and demonstrate that starting behind, as we did by a couple of years, by God, we passed them. I think it would be a helluva thing for us."

On the second approach to Khrushchev, the Ukrainian was persuaded that cost-sharing was beneficial and that American space technology was forging ahead. The U.S. had launched a geosynchronous satellite in July 1962 and Kennedy had asked Congress to approve more than $25 billion for the Apollo program.

In September 1963, during a speech before the United Nations, Kennedy again proposed a joint lunar program to the Soviet Union. The proposal was not enthusiastically received by Khrushchev. Kennedy's death only a little more than a month later essentially made the proposal irrelevant. On July 20, 1969, almost six years after his death, Apollo's goal was realized when Americans landed on the Moon.

Native American relations

Construction of the Kinzua Dam flooded of Seneca nation land that they occupied under the Treaty of 1794, and forced approximately 600 Seneca to relocate to the northern shores upstream of the dam at Salamanca, New York. Kennedy was asked by the American Civil Liberties Union to intervene and halt the project but he declined citing a critical need for flood control. He did express concern for the plight of the Seneca, and directed government agencies to assist in obtaining more land, damages, and assistance to help mitigate their displacement.

Assassination

President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time on November 22, 1963, while on a political trip to Texas to smooth over factions in the Democratic Party between liberals Ralph Yarborough and Don Yarborough (no relation) and conservative John Connally. He was shot once in the upper back and was killed with a final shot to the head. He was pronounced dead at 1:00 p.m. Only 46, President Kennedy died younger than any U.S. president to date. Lee Harvey Oswald, an employee of the Texas School Book Depository from which the shots were suspected to have been fired, was arrested on charges for the murder of a local police officer and was subsequently charged with the assassination of Kennedy. He denied shooting anyone, claiming he was a , but was killed by Jack Ruby on November 24, before he could be indicted or tried. Ruby was then arrested and convicted for the murder of Oswald. Ruby successfully appealed his conviction and death sentence but became ill and died of cancer on 3 January 1967 while the date for his new trial was being set.

President Johnson created the Warren Commission—chaired by Chief Justice Earl Warren—to investigate the assassination, which concluded that Oswald was the lone assassin. The results of this investigation are disputed by many. The assassination proved to be an important moment in U.S. history because of its impact on the nation and the ensuing political repercussions.

Funeral

On November 25, 1963, John F. Kennedy's body was buried in a small plot, (20 by 30 ft.), in Arlington National Cemetery. Over a period of 3 years, (1964–1966), an estimated 16 million people had visited his grave. On March 14, 1967, Kennedy's body was moved to a permanent burial plot and memorial at the Cemetery. The funeral was officiated by Father John J Cavanaugh.

The honor guard at JFK`s graveside was the 37th Cadet Class of the Irish Army. JFK was greatly impressed by the Irish Cadets on his last official visit to the Republic of Ireland, so much so that Jackie Kennedy requested the Irish Army to be the honor guard at the funeral.

Kennedy's wife, Jacqueline and their two deceased minor children were buried with him later. His brother, Senator Robert Kennedy, was buried nearby in June 1968. In August 2009, his brother, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, was also buried near his two brothers. JFK's grave is lit with an "Eternal Flame." Kennedy and William Howard Taft are the only two U.S. Presidents buried at Arlington.

Administration, Cabinet and judicial appointments 1961–1963

{| cellpadding="1" cellspacing="4" style="margin:1px; border:1px solid Black; float:left" |- ! style="background:#dcdcdc;" colspan="3"|The Kennedy Cabinet |- |align="left"|OFFICE||align="left"|NAME||align="left"|TERM |- ! style="background:black;" colspan="3"| |- |align="left"|President||align="left"|John F. Kennedy||align="left"|1961–1963 |- |align="left"|Vice President||align="left"|Lyndon B. Johnson||align="left"|1961–1963 |- ! style="background:black;" colspan="3"| |- |align="left"|State||align="left"|Dean Rusk||align="left"|1961–1963 |- |align="left"|Treasury||align="left"|C. Douglas Dillon||align="left"|1961–1963 |- |align="left"|Defense||align="left"|Robert S. McNamara||align="left"|1961–1963 |- |align="left"|Justice||align="left"|Robert F. Kennedy||align="left"|1961–1963 |- |align="left"|Postmaster General||align="left"|J. Edward Day||align="left"|1961–1963 |- |align="left"| ||align="left"|John A. Gronouski||align="left"|1963 |- |align="left"|Interior||align="left"|Stewart L. Udall||align="left"|1961–1963 |- |align="left"|Agriculture||align="left"|Orville L. Freeman||align="left"|1961–1963 |- |align="left"|Commerce||align="left"|Luther H. Hodges||align="left"|1961–1963 |- |align="left"|Labor||align="left"|Arthur J. Goldberg||align="left"|1961–1962 |- |align="left"| ||align="left"|W. Willard Wirtz||align="left"|1962–1963 |- |align="left"|HEW||align="left"|Abraham A. Ribicoff||align="left"|1961–1962 |- |align="left"| ||align="left"|Anthony J. Celebrezze||align="left"|1962–1963 |}

Judicial appointments

Supreme Court

Kennedy appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States: Byron Raymond White 1962 Arthur Joseph Goldberg 1962

Other courts

In addition to his two Supreme Court appointments, Kennedy appointed 21 judges to the United States Courts of Appeals, and 102 judges to the United States district courts.

Image, social life and family

in Hyannis Port in 1963.]] , November 22, 1963]] John Kennedy met his future wife, Jacqueline Bouvier, when he was a congressman. Charles L. Bartlett, a journalist, introduced the pair at a dinner party. They were married a year after he was elected senator, on September 12, 1953. Kennedy and his wife were younger in comparison to the presidents and first ladies that preceded them, and both were popular in ways more common to pop singers and movie stars than politicians, influencing fashion trends and becoming the subjects of numerous photo spreads in popular magazines. Although Eisenhower had allowed presidential press conferences to be filmed for television, Kennedy was the first president to ask for them to be broadcast live and made good use of the medium. Jacqueline brought new art and furniture to the White House, and directed its restoration. They invited a range of artists, writers and intellectuals to rounds of White House dinners, raising the profile of the arts in America. The Kennedy family is one of the most established political families in the United States, having produced a President, three senators, and multiple other Representatives, both on the federal and state level. John Kennedy's father, Joseph P. Kennedy, was a prominent American businessman and political figure, serving in multiple roles, including Ambassador to the United Kingdom, from 1938 to 1940.

Outside on the White House lawn, the Kennedys established a swimming pool and tree house, while Caroline attended a preschool along with 10 other children inside the home.

The president was closely tied to popular culture, emphasized by songs such as "Twisting at the White House." Vaughn Meader's First Family comedy album—an album parodying the President, First Lady, their family and administration—sold about four million copies. On May 19, 1962, Marilyn Monroe sang "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" at a large party in Madison Square Garden, celebrating Kennedy's upcoming forty-fifth birthday. The charisma of Kennedy and his family led to the figurative designation of "Camelot" for his administration, credited by his wife to his affection for the contemporary Broadway musical of the same name.

Behind the glamorous facade, the Kennedys also experienced many personal tragedies. Jacqueline had a miscarriage in 1955 and a stillbirth in 1956. Their newborn son, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, died in August 1963. Kennedy had two children who survived infancy. One of the fundamental aspects of the Kennedy family is a tragic strain which has run through the family, as a result of the violent and untimely deaths of many of its members. John's eldest brother, Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., died in World War II, at the age of 29. It was Joe Jr. who was originally to carry the family's hopes for the Presidency. Then, of course, both John himself, and his brother Robert died as a result of assassinations. Edward had brushes with death, the first in a plane crash and the second as a result of a car accident, known as the Chappaquiddick incident. Edward died at age 77, on August 25, 2009, from the effects of a malignant brain tumor.

Years after Kennedy's death, it was revealed that in September 1947, at age 30, and while in his first term in Congress, he was diagnosed by Sir Daniel Davis at The London Clinic with Addison's disease, a rare endocrine disorder. In 1966, his White House doctor, Janet Travell, revealed that Kennedy also had hypothyroidism. The presence of two endocrine diseases raises the possibility that Kennedy had autoimmune polyendocrine syndrome type 2 (APS 2). He also suffered from chronic and severe back pain, for which he had surgery and was written up in the AMA's Archives of Surgery. Kennedy at one time was regularly seen by no less than three doctors, one of whom was unknown to the other two, as his mode of treatment was for the most severe bouts of pain. There was often disagreement among his doctors, as in late 1961, over the proper balance of medication and exercise, with the president preferring the former as he was short on time and desired immediate relief.

Caroline Bouvier Kennedy was born in 1957 and is the only surviving member of JFK's immediate family. John F. Kennedy, Jr. was born in 1960, just a few weeks after his father was elected. John died in 1999, when the small plane he was piloting crashed en route to Martha's Vineyard, killing him, his wife, Carolyn Bessette, and his sister-in-law.

In October 1951, during his third term as Massachusetts's 11th district congressman, the then 34-year-old Kennedy embarked on a seven-week Asian trip to India, Japan, Vietnam, and Israel with his then 25-year-old brother Robert (who had just graduated from law school four months earlier) and his then 27-year-old sister Patricia. Because of their eight-year separation in age, the two brothers had previously seen little of each other. This trip was the first extended time they had spent together and resulted in their becoming best friends, in addition to being brothers. Robert was campaign manager for Kennedy's successful 1952 Senate campaign and later, his successful 1960 presidential campaign. The two brothers worked closely together from 1957 to 1959 on the Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor and Management Field, when Robert was its chief counsel. During Kennedy's presidency, Robert served in his cabinet as Attorney General and was his closest advisor.

Some corroborated reports allege, but others deny, that Kennedy had affairs with a number of women, including: Marilyn Monroe, Gunilla von Post, Judith Campbell, Mary Pinchot Meyer and Mimi Beardsley Alford. There was some medical opinion that the drugs the president required for Addison's had the side effect of increasing virility. Kennedy inspired affection and loyalty from the members of his team and his supporters. According to author Reeves, this included "the logistics of Kennedy's liaisons...[which] required secrecy and devotion rare in the annals of the energetic service demanded by successful politicians."

Kennedy came in third (behind Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mother Teresa) in Gallup's List of Widely Admired People of the twentieth century.

Ancestors

The Kennedy family originally came from Dunganstown, County Wexford. In 1848, Patrick Kennedy left his farm and boarded a ship in New Ross bound for Liverpool on his way to Boston. It was here he met the woman he was to marry, Bridget Murphy. Patrick Kennedy came to Boston, took a job as a migrant worker, and died within eight or nine years, of cholera. He left behind a widow and children to carry on.

Legacy

of 1964]] Television became the primary source by which people were kept informed of events surrounding John F. Kennedy's assassination. Newspapers were kept as souvenirs rather than sources of updated information. In this sense it was the first major "TV news event" of its kind, the TV coverage uniting the nation, interpreting what went on and creating memories of this space in time. All three major U.S. television networks suspended their regular schedules and switched to all-news coverage from November 22 through November 25, 1963, being on the air for no less than 70 hours, making it the longest uninterrupted news event on American TV until 9/11. The record was broken only just before 13:00 UTC, September 14, 2001, by which time the networks had been on for 72 hours straight, covering the terror attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Kennedy's state funeral procession and the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald were all broadcast live in America and in other places around the world. The state funeral was the first of three in a span of 12 months. The other two were for General Douglas MacArthur and Herbert Hoover. All three have two things in common: the commanding general of the Military District of Washington during those funerals was Army Major General Philip C. Wehle and the riderless horse was Black Jack, who also served in that role during Lyndon B. Johnson's funeral.

The assassination had an effect on many people, not only in the U.S. but around the world. Many vividly remember where they were when first learning of the news that Kennedy was assassinated, as with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 before it and the September 11 attacks after it. U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson said of the assassination: "all of us... will bear the grief of his death until the day of ours." Many people have also spoken of the shocking news, compounded by the pall of uncertainty about the identity of the assassin(s), the possible instigators and the causes of the killing as an end to innocence, and in retrospect it has been coalesced with other changes of the tumultuous decade of the 1960s, especially the Vietnam War.

Special Forces have a special bond with Kennedy. "It was President Kennedy who was responsible for the rebuilding of the Special Forces and giving us back our Green Beret," said Forrest Lindley, a writer for the newspaper Stars and Stripes who served with Special Forces in Vietnam. This bond was shown at JFK's funeral. At the commemoration of the 25th anniversary of JFK's death, Gen. Michael D. Healy, the last commander of Special Forces in Vietnam, spoke at Arlington Cemetery. Later, a wreath in the form of the Green Beret would be placed on the grave, continuing a tradition that began the day of his funeral when a sergeant in charge of a detail of Special Forces men guarding the grave placed his beret on the coffin.

Ultimately, the death of President Kennedy and the ensuing confusion surrounding the facts of his assassination are of political and historical importance insofar as they marked a turning point and decline in the faith of the American people in the political establishment—a point made by commentators from Gore Vidal to Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. and implied by Oliver Stone in several of his films, such as his landmark 1991 JFK.

Kennedy's continuation of Presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower's policies of giving economic and military aid to the Vietnam War preceded President Johnson's escalation of the conflict. This contributed to a decade of national difficulties and disappointment on the political landscape.

Many of Kennedy's speeches (especially his inaugural address) are considered iconic; and despite his relatively short term in office and lack of major legislative changes coming to fruition during his term, Americans regularly vote him as one of the best presidents, in the same league as Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Some excerpts of Kennedy's inaugural address are engraved on a plaque at his grave at Arlington.

He was posthumously awarded the Pacem in Terris Award. It was named after a 1963 encyclical letter by Pope John XXIII that calls upon all people of goodwill to secure peace among all nations. Pacem in Terris is Latin for 'Peace on Earth.'

President Kennedy is the only president to have predeceased both his mother and father. He is also the only president to have predeceased a grandparent. His grandmother, Mary Josephine Hannon Fitzgerald, died in 1964, just over eight months after his assassination.

Throughout the English-speaking world, the given name Kennedy has sometimes been used in honour of President Kennedy, as well his brother Robert.

Eponyms

John F. Kennedy International Airport, American facility (renamed from Idlewild in December 1963) in New York City's Queens County; nation's busiest international gateway

John F. Kennedy Memorial Airport American facility in Ashland County, Wisconsin, near city of Ashland

John F. Kennedy Memorial Bridge American seven-lane transportation hub across Ohio River; completed in late 1963, the bridge links Kentucky and Indiana

John F. Kennedy School of Government, American institution (renamed from Harvard Graduate School of Public Administration in 1966)

John F. Kennedy Space Center, U.S. government installation that manages and operates America's astronaut launch facilities

John F. Kennedy University, American private educational institution founded in California in 1964; locations in Pleasant Hill, Campbell, Berkeley, and Santa Cruz

, U.S. Navy aircraft carrier ordered in April 1964, launched May 1967, decommissioned August 2007; nicknamed "Big John"

John F. Kennedy High Schools in multiple localities

Memorials

Coat of arms

In 1961, Kennedy was presented with a grant of arms for all the descendants of Patrick Kennedy from the Chief Herald of Ireland. The design of the arms strongly alludes to symbols in the coats of arms of the O'Kennedys of Ormonde and the Fitzgeralds of Desmond, from whom the family is believed to be descended. The crest is an armored hand holding four arrows between two olive branches, elements taken from the coat of arms of the United States of America and also symbolic of Kennedy and his brothers.

Kennedy received a signet ring engraved with his arms for his 44th birthday as a gift from his wife, and the arms were incorporated into the seal of the USS John F. Kennedy. Following his assassination, Kennedy was honored by the Canadian government by having a mountain, Mount Kennedy, named for him, which his brother, Robert Kennedy, climbed in 1965 to plant a banner of the arms at the summit.

Media

The White House Situation Room reports on the assassination to an airplane with several Cabinet members as it flies to Hawaii, Nov 22,1963 (MP3 format 7.5 MB 33-Min.)

In other media/popular culture

Kennedy features prominently in popular culture. His assassination was the subject of the Oliver Stone film JFK, and footage of him appears in the Robert Zemeckis film Forrest Gump. Kennedy also features in the video games JFK Reloaded and . During his lifetime Kennedy was the focal point of a Superman comicbook, Superman's Mission for President Kennedy.

See also

Abraham Zapruder, photographer of the primary film of assassination, the Zapruder film.

History of the United States (1945–1964)

John F. Kennedy International Airport

Jesuit Ivy

JFK Reloaded, a video game

The John F. Kennedy Memorial Park (in Ireland)

Kennedy Curse

Kennedy Doctrine

Lincoln Kennedy coincidences urban legend

List of assassinated American politicians

List of Presidents of the United States

List of United States Presidents who died in office

Operation Northwoods

Orville Nix, photographer of the second film of assassination

Peace Corps

Robert F. Kennedy assassination

"Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy" retort by Senator Lloyd Bentsen, 1988 VP debate

U.S. Presidents on U.S. postage stamps

Footnotes

References

Alford, Mimi Beardsley & Newman, Judith. Once Upon A Secret (2010)

Ballard, Robert. Collision with History: The Search for John F. Kennedy's PT 109 (2002)

Barnes, John. John F. Kennedy on Leadership (2007)

Bilharz, Joy Ann. The Allegany Senecas and Kinzua Dam: forced relocation through two generations (1998)

Blight, James G. "The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara" (2005)

Brauer, Carl. John F. Kennedy and the Second Reconstruction (1977)

Bugliosi, Vincent. "Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy" (2007)

Burner, David. John F. Kennedy and a New Generation (1988)

Casey, Shaun. The Making of a Catholic President: Kennedy vs. Nixon 1960 (2009)

Collier, Peter & Horowitz, David. The Kennedys (1984)

Cottrell, John. Assassination! The World Stood Still (1964)

Davis, F. Moving the Mountain: The Women's Movement in America since 1960 (1999). See also: Martin, J. M. The Presidency and Women: Promise, Performance, and Illusion (2003).

Donovan, Robert J. PT-109: John F. Kennedy in WW II, 40th Anniversary Edition (2001)

Douglass, James W., JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why it Matters (2008), positive assessment

Dunnigan, James & Nofi, Albert. Dirty Little Secrets of the Vietnam War (2000)

Fay, Paul B., Jr. The Pleasure of His Company (1966)

Freedman, Lawrence. Kennedy's Wars: Berlin, Cuba, Laos and Vietnam (2000)

Frum, David. How We Got Here: The '70s (2000)

Fursenko, Aleksandr and Timothy Naftali. One Hell of a Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro and Kennedy, 1958–1964 (1997)

Garrow, David J. The FBI and Martin Luther King (2002)

Giglio, James. The Presidency of John F. Kennedy (1991), standard scholarly overview of policies

Goldzwig, Steven R. and Dionisopoulos, George N., eds. In a Perilous Hour: The Public Address of John F. Kennedy, text and analysis of key speeches (1995)

Hamilton, Nigel. JFK: Reckless Youth (1992)

Harper, Paul, and Joann P. Krieg eds. John F. Kennedy: The Promise Revisited (1988), scholarly articles on presidency

Harris, Seymour E. The Economics of the Political Parties, with Special Attention to Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy (1962)

Heath, Jim F. Decade of Disillusionment: The Kennedy–Johnson Years (1976), general survey of decade

Hellmann, John. The Kennedy Obsession: The American Myth of JFK (1997), negative assessment

Hersh, Seymour. The Dark Side of Camelot (1997), highly negative assessment

Herst, Burton. Bobby and J. Edger (2007)

House Select Committee on Assassinations. Final Assassinations Report (1979)

Hove, Duane. American Warriors: Five Presidents in the Pacific Theater of World War II (2003)

Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam, A History (1991)

Kenney, Charles. John F. Kennedy: The Presidential Portfolio (2000)

Kunz, Diane B. The Diplomacy of the Crucial Decade: American Foreign Relations during the 1960s (1994)

Lynch, Grayston L. Decision for Disaster Betrayal at the Bay of Pigs (2000)

Maier, Thomas. The Kennedys: America's Emerald Kings (2004)

McNamara, Robert S. "Argument Without End: In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy" (2000)

Manchester, William. Portrait of a President: John F. Kennedy in Profile (1967)

Manchester, William. The Death of a President: November 20-November 25 (1967)

Newman, John M., JFK and Vietnam: Deception, Intrigue, and the Struggle for Power (1992)

O'Brien, Michael. John F. Kennedy: A Biography (2005), the most detailed biography

Parmet, Herbert. Jack: The Struggles of John F. Kennedy (1980)

Parmet, Herbert. JFK: The Presidency of John F. Kennedy (1983)

Parmet, Herbert. "The Kennedy Myth". In Myth America: A Historical Anthology, Volume II. Gerster, Patrick, and Cords, Nicholas. (editors.) (1997)

Piper, Michael Collins. Final Judgment (2004: sixth edition). American Free Press

Reeves, Richard. President Kennedy: Profile of Power (1993), balanced assessment of policies

Reeves, Thomas. A Question of Character: A Life of John F. Kennedy (1991) hostile assessment of his character

Sabato, Larry J. The Kennedy Half-Century: The Lasting Legacy of John F. Kennedy (forthcoming, 2013)

Salt, Jermey. "The Unmaking of The Middle East" (2008)

Schlesinger, Arthur, Jr. A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (1965, 2002), Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, by a close advisor

Schlesinger, Arthur, Jr. Robert Kennedy And His Times (1978, 2002), National Book Award

Smith, Jean Edward. Kennedy and Defense: The Formative Years. Air University Review (March–April 1967)

Smith, Jean E. "The Defense of Berlin" (1963)

Smith, Jean E. "The Wall as Watershed" (1966)

Sorensen, Theodore. Kennedy (1966), by a close advisor

Walsh, Kenneth T. "Air Force One: A History of the Presidents and Their Planes" (2003)

Wyden, Peter, "Bay of Pigs: The Untold Story" (1979)

External links

John F. Kennedy: A Resource Guide from the Library of Congress

New video footage released of JFK's last moments

Unpublished Photos From JFK's 1960 Campaign from LIFE

Video of Vincent Bugliosi discussing JFK assassination

Kennedy's Secret White House Recordings via the Miller Center of Public Affairs (UVa)

Video, Audio, Text of John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address

Kennedy discusses Cuban Missile Crisis with former President Eisenhower

John F. Kennedy Library

The White House Biography

JFK at the Avalon Project

JFK: Unpublished, Never-Seen Photos - slideshow by Life magazine

The Kennedys museum in Berlin, Germany with special exhibit on Kennedy's visit

Birthplace of John F. Kennedy: Home of the Boy Who Would Be President, a National Park Service Teaching with Historic Places lesson plan

Essay on JFK with shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs

Kennedy Administration from Office of the Historian, United States Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.

}}

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Name	George Washington
Nationality	American
Order	1st President of the United States
Term start	April 30, 1789
Term end	March 4, 1797
Vicepresident	John Adams
Predecessor	Office created
Successor	John Adams
Order2	1st Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army
Term start2	June 15, 1775
Term end2	December 23, 1783
Appointer2	Continental Congress
Successor2	Henry Knox
Term start3	July 13, 1798
Term end3	December 14, 1799
President3	John Adams
Predecessor3	James Wilkinson
Successor3	Alexander Hamilton
Birth date	February 22, 1732
Birth place	Westmoreland County, Colony of Virginia
Death date	December 14, 1799
Death place	Mount Vernon, Virginia
Restingplace	Washington family vault,Mount Vernon
Nationality	AmericanBritish subject (prior to 1776)
Party	None
Spouse	Martha Dandridge Custis Washington
Children	none
Religion	Church of EnglandEpiscopal
Occupation	Farmer (planter) soldier (officer)
Signature	George Washington signature.svg
Signature alt	Cursive signature in ink
Allegiance
Branch	Virginia provincial militiaContinental ArmyUnited States Army
Serviceyears	militia: 1752–1758Continental Army: 1775–1783U. S. Army: 1798–1799
Rank	Lieutenant General General of the Armies of the United States (posthumously in 1976)
Commands	Colony of Virginia's provincial regimentContinental ArmyUnited States Army
Battles	French and Indian War
Awards	Congressional Gold Medal, Thanks of Congress

George Washington (February 22, 1732 – December 14, 1799) was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1797, leading the American victory over Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander in chief of the Continental Army, 1775–1783, and presiding over the writing of the Constitution in 1787. As the unanimous choice to serve as the first President of the United States (1789–1797), he developed the forms and rituals of government that have been used ever since, such as using a cabinet system and delivering an inaugural address. The president built a strong, well-financed national government that avoided war, suppressed rebellion and won acceptance among Americans of all types. Acclaimed ever since as the "Father of his country", Washington, along with Abraham Lincoln, has become a central icon of republican values, self sacrifice in the name of the nation, American nationalism and the ideal union of civic and military leadership.

In Colonial Virginia Washington was born into the provincial gentry in a wealthy, well connected family that owned tobacco plantations using slave labor. Washington was home schooled by his father and older brother but both died young and Washington became attached to the powerful Fairfax clan. They promoted his career as surveyor and soldier. Strong, brave, eager for combat and a natural leader, young Washington quickly became a senior officer of the colonial forces, 1754–58, during the first stages of the French and Indian War. Indeed his rash actions helped precipitate the war. Washington's experience, his military bearing, his leadership of the Patriot cause in Virginia, and his political base in the largest colony made him the obvious choice of the Second Continental Congress in 1775 as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army to fight the British in the American Revolution. He forced the British out of Boston in 1776, but was defeated and nearly captured later that year when he lost New York City. After crossing the Delaware River in the dead of winter he defeated the enemy in two battles, retook New Jersey, and restored momentum to the Patriot cause. Because of his strategy, Revolutionary forces captured two major British armies at Saratoga in 1777 and Yorktown in 1781. Negotiating with Congress, governors, and French allies, he held together a tenuous army and a fragile nation amid the threats of disintegration and invasion. Historians give the commander in chief high marks for his selection and supervision of his generals, his encouragement of morale, his coordination with the state governors and state militia units, his relations with Congress, and his attention to supplies, logistics, and training. In battle, however, Washington was repeatedly outmaneuvered by British generals with larger armies. Washington is given full credit for the strategies that forced the British evacuation of Boston in 1776 and the surrender at Yorktown in 1781. After victory was finalized in 1783, Washington resigned rather than seize power, and returned to his plantation at Mount Vernon, provong his opposition to dictatorship and his commitment to republican government.

Washington presided over the Constitutional Convention that drafted the United States Constitution in 1787 because of his dissatisfaction with the weaknesses of Articles of Confederation that had time and again impeded the war effort. Washington became the first President of the United States in 1789. He attempted to bring rival factions together in order to create a more unified nation. He supported Alexander Hamilton's programs to pay off all the state and national debts, implement an effective tax system, and create a national bank, despite opposition from Thomas Jefferson. Washington proclaimed the U.S. neutral in the wars raging in Europe after 1793. He avoided war with Britain and guaranteed a decade of peace and profitable trade by securing the Jay Treaty in 1795, despite intense opposition from the Jeffersonians. Although never officially joining the Federalist Party, he supported its programs. Washington's "Farewell Address" was an influential primer on republican virtue and a stern warning against partisanship, sectionalism, and involvement in foreign wars.

Washington had a vision of a great and powerful nation that would be built on republican lines using federal power. He sought to use the national government to improve the infrastructure, open the western lands, create a national university, promote commerce, found a capital city (later named Washington, D.C.), reduce regional tensions and promote a spirit of nationalism. "The name of AMERICAN," he said, must override any local attachments." At his death Washington was hailed as "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen". The Federalists made him the symbol of their party, but for many years the Jeffersonians continued to distrust his influence and delayed building the Washington Monument. As the leader of the first successful revolution against a colonial empire in world history, Washington became an international icon for liberation and nationalism. His symbolism especially resonated in France and Latin America. Historical scholars consistently rank him as one of the two or three greatest presidents.

Early life (1732–1753)

George Washington, the first child of Augustine Washington (1694–1743) and his second wife, Mary Ball Washington (1708–1789), was born on their Pope's Creek Estate near present-day Colonial Beach in Westmoreland County, Virginia. According to the Julian calendar (which was in effect at the time), Washington was born on February 11, 1731 (O.S.); according to the Gregorian calendar, which was adopted in Britain and its colonies in 1752, he was born on February 22, 1732. Washington's ancestors were from Sulgrave, England; his great-grandfather, John Washington, immigrated to Virginia in 1657. George's father Augustine was a slave-owning tobacco planter who later tried his hand in iron-mining ventures. In George's youth, the Washingtons were moderately prosperous members of the Virginia gentry, of "middling rank" rather than one of the leading families.

Washington was the first-born child from his father's marriage to Mary Ball Washington. Six of his siblings reached maturity including two older half-brothers, Lawrence and Augustine, from his father's first marriage to Jane Butler Washington and four full-siblings, Samuel, Elizabeth(Betty), John Augustine and Charles. Three siblings died before becoming adults: his full-sister Mildred died when she was about one, and two half-siblings Butler and Jane died in their teens. George's father died when George was 11 years old, after which George's half-brother Lawrence became a surrogate father and role model. William Fairfax, Lawrence's father-in-law and cousin of Virginia's largest landowner, Thomas, Lord Fairfax, was also a formative influence. Washington spent much of his boyhood at Ferry Farm in Stafford County near Fredericksburg. Lawrence Washington inherited another family property from his father, a plantation on the Potomac River which he later named Mount Vernon. George inherited Ferry Farm upon his father's death, and eventually acquired Mount Vernon after Lawrence's death.

The death of his father prevented Washington from crossing the Atlantic to receive an education at England's Appleby School, as his older brothers had done. He attended school in Fredericksburg until age 15. Talk of securing an appointment in the Royal Navy was dropped when his mother learned how hard that would be on him. Late in life, Washington was somewhat self-conscious that he was less educated than those of his contemporaries who had attended college. Thanks to Lawrence's connection to the powerful Fairfax family, at age 17 George was appointed official surveyor for Culpeper County in 1749, a well-paid position which enabled him to purchase land in the Shenandoah Valley, the first of his many land acquisitions in western Virginia. Thanks also to Lawrence's involvement in the Ohio Company, a land investment company funded by Virginia investors, and Lawrence's position as commander of the Virginia militia, George came to the notice of the new lieutenant governor of Virginia, Robert Dinwiddie. Washington was hard to miss: at about six feet two inches (188 cm; estimates of his height vary), he towered over most of his contemporaries.

In 1751, Washington traveled to Barbados with Lawrence, who was suffering from tuberculosis, with the hope that the climate would be beneficial to Lawrence's health. Washington contracted smallpox during the trip, which left his face slightly scarred, but immunized him against future exposures to the dreaded disease. Lawrence's health did not improve: he returned to Mount Vernon, where he died in 1752. Lawrence's position as Adjutant General (militia leader) of Virginia was divided into four offices after his death. Washington was appointed by Governor Dinwiddie as one of the four district adjutants in February 1753, with the rank of major in the Virginia militia. Washington also joined the Freemasons in Fredericksburg at this time.

French and Indian War (Seven Years War) (1754–1758)

In 1753 the French began expanding their military control into the "Ohio Country", a territory also claimed by the British colonies of Virginia and Pennsylvania. These competing claims led to a world war 1756–63 (called the French and Indian War in the colonies and the Seven Years' War in Europe) and Washington was at the center of its beginning. The Ohio Company was one vehicle through which British investors planned to expand into the territory, opening new settlements and building trading posts for the Indian trade. Governor Dinwiddie received orders from the British government to warn the French of British claims, and sent Major Washington in late 1753 to deliver a letter informing the French of those claims and asking them to leave. Washington also met with Tanacharison (also called "Half-King") and other Iroquois leaders allied to Virginia at Logstown to secure their support in case of conflict with the French; Washington and Half-King became friends and allies. Washington delivered the letter to the local French commander, who politely refused to leave.

Governor Dinwiddie sent Washington back to the Ohio Country to protect an Ohio Company group building a fort at present-day Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Before he reached the area, a French force drove out the company's crew and began construction of Fort Duquesne. With Mingo allies led by Tanacharison, Washington and some of his militia unit ambushed a French scouting party of some 30 men, led by Joseph Coulon de Jumonville; Jumonville was killed. The French responded by attacking and capturing Washington at Fort Necessity in July 1754. He was allowed to return with his troops to Virginia. The episode demonstrated Washington's bravery, initiative, inexperience and impetuosity. These events had international consequences; the French accused Washington of assassinating Jumonville, who they claimed was on a diplomatic mission similar to Washington's 1753 mission. Both France and Britain responded by sending troops to North America in 1755, although war was not formally declared until 1756.

Braddock disaster 1755

In 1755, Washington was the senior American aide to British General Edward Braddock on the ill-fated Monongahela expedition. This was the largest British expedition to the colonies, and was intended to expel the French from the Ohio Country. The French and their Indian allies ambushed Braddock, who was mortally wounded in the Battle of the Monongahela. After suffering devastating casualties the British retreated in disarray but Washington rode back and forth across the battlefield, rallying the remnants of the British and Virginian forces to an organized retreat.

Commander of Virginia Regiment

of Washington as colonel of the Virginia Regiment, is the earliest known portrait]] Governor Dinwiddie rewarded Washington in 1755 with a commission as "Colonel of the Virginia Regiment and Commander in Chief of all forces now raised in the defense of His Majesty's Colony" and gave him the task of defending Virginia's frontier. The Virginia Regiment was the first full-time American military unit in the colonies (as opposed to part-time militias and the British regular units). Washington was ordered to "act defensively or offensively" as he thought best. In command of a thousand soldiers, Washington was a disciplinarian who emphasized training. He led his men in brutal campaigns against the Indians in the west; in 10 months units of his regiment fought 20 battles, and lost a third of its men. Washington's strenuous efforts meant that Virginia's frontier population suffered less than that of other colonies; Ellis concludes "it was his only unqualified success" in the war.

In 1758, Washington participated in the Forbes expedition to capture Fort Duquesne. He was embarrassed by a friendly fire episode in which his unit and another British unit thought the other was the French enemy and opened fire, with 14 dead and 26 wounded in the mishap. In the end there was no real fighting for the French abandoned the fort and the British scored a major strategic victory, gaining control of the Ohio Valley. Mission accomplished, Washington retired from his Virginia Regiment commission in December, 1758, and did not return to military life until the outbreak of the revolution in 1775.

Lessons learned

Although Washington never gained the commission in the British army he yearned for, in these years the young man gained valuable military, political, and leadership skills. He closely observed British military tactics, gaining a keen insight into their strengths and weaknesses that proved invaluable during the Revolution. He demonstrated his toughness and courage in the most difficult situations, including disasters and retreats. He developed a command presence—given his size, strength, stamina, and bravery in battle, he appeared to soldiers to be a natural leader and they followed him without question. Washington learned to organize, train, drill, and discipline his companies and regiments. From his observations, readings and conversations with professional officers, he learned the basics of battlefield tactics, as well as a good understanding of problems of organization and logistics. He gained an understanding of overall strategy, especially in locating strategic geographical points. His frustrations in dealing with government officials led him to stress the advantage of a strong national government, and a vigorous executive agency that could get results; his dealings gave him the diplomatic skills necessary to negotiate with officials at the local and colonial levels. He developed a very negative idea of the value of militia, who seemed too unreliable, too undisciplined, and too short-term compared to regulars. On the other hand, his experience was limited to command of at most 1000 men, and came only in remote frontier conditions that were far removed from the urban situations he faced during the Revolution at Boston, New York, Trenton and Philadelphia.

Between the wars: Mount Vernon (1759–1774)

of Martha Washington, based on a 1757 portrait by Wollaston]]

On January 6, 1759, Washington married the wealthy widow Martha Dandridge Custis. Surviving letters suggest that he may have been in love at the time with Sally Fairfax, the wife of a friend. Nevertheless, George and Martha made a compatible marriage, because Martha was intelligent, gracious, and experienced in managing a slave plantation. Together the two raised her two children from her previous marriage, John Parke Custis and Martha Parke Custis, affectionately called "Jackie" and "Patsy" by the family. Later the Washingtons raised two of Mrs. Washington's grandchildren, Eleanor Parke Custis and George Washington Parke Custis. George and Martha never had any children together — his earlier bout with smallpox in 1751 may have made him sterile. Washington, himself, an extraordinary athlete, proudly may not have been able to admit to his own sterility while privately he grieved over not having his own children. The newly wed couple moved to Mount Vernon, near Alexandria, where he took up the life of a planter and political figure.

Washington's marriage to Martha greatly increased his property holdings and social standing, and made him one of Virginia's wealthiest men. He acquired one-third of the 18,000 acre (73 km²) Custis estate upon his marriage, worth approximately $100,000, and managed the remainder on behalf of Martha's children, for whom he sincerely cared. He frequently bought additional land in his own name and was granted land in what is now West Virginia as a bounty for his service in the French and Indian War. By 1775, Washington had doubled the size of Mount Vernon to , and had increased the slave population there to more than 100 persons. As a respected military hero and large landowner, he held local office and was elected to the Virginia provincial legislature, the House of Burgesses, beginning in 1758.

after his marriage]]

Washington lived an aristocratic lifestyle—fox hunting was a favorite leisure activity. He also enjoyed going to dances and parties, in addition to the theater, races, and cock fights. Washington also was known to play cards, backgammon, and billiards. Like most Virginia planters, he imported luxuries and other goods from England and paid for them by exporting his tobacco crop. Extravagant spending and the unpredictability of the tobacco market meant that many Virginia planters of Washington's day were losing money. (Thomas Jefferson, for example, would die deeply in debt.)

Washington began to pull himself out of debt by diversifying his business interests and paying more attention to his affairs. By 1766, he had switched Mount Vernon's primary cash crop from tobacco to wheat, a crop that could be sold in America, and diversified operations to include flour milling, fishing, horse breeding, spinning, and weaving. Patsy Custis's death in 1773 from epilepsy enabled Washington to pay off his British creditors, since half of her inheritance passed to him.

A successful planter, he was a leader in the social elite in Virginia. From 1768 to 1775, he invited some 2000 guests to his Mount Vernon estate, mostly those he considered "people of rank." As for people not of high social status, his advice was to "treat them civilly" but "keep them at a proper distance, for they will grow upon familiarity, in proportion as you sink in authority.". In 1769 he became more politically active, presenting the Virginia Assembly with legislation to ban the importation of goods from Great Britain.

American Revolution (1775–1787)

Although he expressed opposition to the 1765 Stamp Act, the first direct tax on the colonies, he did not take a leading role in the growing colonial resistance until protests of the Townshend Acts (enacted in 1767) became widespread. In May 1769, Washington introduced a proposal, drafted by his friend George Mason, calling for Virginia to boycott English goods until the Acts were repealed. Parliament repealed the Townshend Acts in 1770, and, for Washington at least, the crisis had passed. However, Washington regarded the passage of the Intolerable Acts in 1774 as "an Invasion of our Rights and Privileges". In July 1774, he chaired the meeting at which the "Fairfax Resolves" were adopted, which called for, among other things, the convening of a Continental Congress. In August, Washington attended the First Virginia Convention, where he was selected as a delegate to the First Continental Congress.

Commander in chief

After the Battles of Lexington and Concord near Boston in April 1775, the colonies went to war. Washington appeared at the Second Continental Congress in a military uniform, signaling that he was prepared for war. Washington had the prestige, military experience, charisma and military bearing of a military leader and was known as a strong patriot. Virginia, the largest colony, deserved recognition, and New England—where the fighting began—realized it needed Southern support. Washington did not explicitly seek the office of commander and said that he was not equal to it, but there was no serious competition. Congress created the Continental Army on June 14, 1775. Nominated by John Adams of Massachusetts, Washington was then appointed Major General and Commander-in-chief.

Washington had three roles during the war. In 1775-77, and again in 1781 he led his men against the main British forces. He lost many of his battles—save the last one—but always survived to fight another day. He plotted the overall strategy of the war, in cooperation with Congress.

Second, he was charged with organizing and training the army. He recruited regulars and assigned General von Steuben, a German professional, to train them. He was not in charge of supplies, which were always short, but kept pressuring Congress and the states to provide essentials. Washington had the major voice in selecting generals for command, and in planning their basic strategy. His achievements were mixed, as some of his favorites (like John Sullivan) never mastered the art of command. Eventually he found men who got the job done, like General Nathaniel Greene, and his chief-of-staff Alexander Hamilton. The American officers never equaled their opponents in tactics and maneuver, and consequently they lost most of the pitched battles. The great successes, at Saratoga and Yorktown, came from trapping the British far from base with much larger numbers of troops.

Third, and most important, Washington was the embodiment of armed resistance to the Crown—the representative man of the Revolution. His enormous stature and political skills kept Congress, the army, the French, the militias, and the states all pointed toward a common goal. By voluntarily stepping down and disbanding his army when the war was won, he permanently established the principle of civilian supremacy in military affairs. And yet his constant reiteration of the point that well-disciplined professional soldiers counted for twice as much as erratic amateurs helped overcome the ideological distrust of a standing army.

Victory at Boston

Washington assumed command of the Continental Army in the field at Cambridge, Massachusetts in July 1775, during the ongoing siege of Boston. Realizing his army's desperate shortage of gunpowder, Washington asked for new sources. American troops raided British arsenals, including some in the Caribbean, and some manufacturing was attempted. They obtained a barely adequate supply (about 2.5 million pounds) by the end of 1776, mostly from France. Washington reorganized the army during the long standoff, and forced the British to withdraw by putting artillery on Dorchester Heights overlooking the city. The British evacuated Boston in March 1776 and Washington moved his army to New York City.

Although highly disparaging toward most of the Patriots, British newspapers routinely praised Washington's personal character and qualities as a military commander. These articles were bold, as Washington was enemy general who commanded an army in a cause that many Britons believed would ruin the empire.

Defeat at New York City and Fabian tactics

In August 1776, British General William Howe launched a massive naval and land campaign designed to seize New York. The Continental Army under Washington engaged the enemy for the first time as an army of the newly independent United States at the Battle of Long Island, the largest battle of the entire war. The Americans were badly outnumbered, many men deserted, and Washington was badly beaten. Historian David McCullough has portrayed the army's subsequent night time retreat across the East River, without the loss of a single life or material, as one of Washington's greatest military feats. Washington retreated north from the city to avoid encirclement, enabling Howe to take the offensive and capture Fort Washington on November 16 with high Continental casualties. Washington then retreated across New Jersey; the future of the Continental Army was in doubt due to expiring enlistments and the string of losses. On the night of December 25, 1776, Washington staged a comeback with a surprise attack on a Hessian outpost in western New Jersey. He led his army across the Delaware River to capture nearly 1,000 Hessians in Trenton, New Jersey. Washington followed up his victory at Trenton with another over British regulars at Princeton in early January. The British retreated back to New York City and its environs, which they held until the peace treaty of 1783. Washington's victories wrecked the British carrot-and-stick strategy of showing overwhelming force then offering generous terms. The Americans would not negotiate for anything short of independence. These victories alone were not enough to ensure ultimate Patriot victory, however, since many soldiers did not reenlist or deserted during the harsh winter. Washington and Congress reorganized the army with increased rewards for staying and punishment for desertion, which raised troop numbers effectively for subsequent battles.

Historians debate whether or not Washington preferred a Fabian strategy to harass the British, with quick shark attacks followed by a retreat so the larger British army could not catch him, or whether he preferred to fight major battles. While his southern commander Greene in 1780-81 did use Fabian tactics, Washington, only did so in fall 1776 to spring 1777, after losing New York City and seeing much of his army melt away. Trenton and Princeton were Fabian examples. By summer 1777, however, Washington had rebuilt his strength and his confidence and stopped using raids and went for large-scale confrontations, as at Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth and Yorktown.

1777 campaigns

In the late summer of 1777 the British under John Burgoyne sent a major invasion army south from Quebec, with the intention of splitting off rebellious New England. General Howe in New York took his army south to Philadelphia instead of going up the Hudson River to join with Burgoyne near Albany. It was a major strategic mistake for the British, and Washington rushed to Philadelphia to engage Howe, while closely following the action in upstate New York. In pitched battles that were too complex for his relatively inexperienced men, Washington was defeated. At the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, 1777, Howe outmaneuvered Washington, and marched into the American capital at Philadelphia unopposed on September 26. Washington's army unsuccessfully attacked the British garrison at Germantown in early October. Meanwhile, Burgoyne, out of reach from help from Howe, was trapped and forced to surrender his entire army at Saratoga, New York. It was a major turning point militarily and diplomatically. France responded to Burgoyne's defeat by entering the war, openly allying with America and turning the Revolutionary War into a major worldwide war. Washington's loss of Philadelphia prompted some members of Congress to discuss removing Washington from command. This attempt failed after Washington's supporters rallied behind him.

Valley Forge

Washington's army went into winter quarters at Valley Forge north of Philadelphia in December 1777. Over the next six months, 2,500 men of the 10,000-strong force died from disease and exposure. The next spring, however, the army emerged from Valley Forge in good order, thanks in part to a full-scale training program supervised by Baron von Steuben, a veteran of the Prussian general staff. The British evacuated Philadelphia to New York in 1778, shadowed by Washington. Washington attacked them at Monmouth, fighting to an effective draw in one of the war's largest battles. Afterwards, the British continued to head towards New York, and Washington moved his army outside of New York.

Victory over Indians and British

In the summer of 1779 at Washington's direction, General John Sullivan carried out a scorched earth campaign that destroyed at least 40 Iroquois villages throughout present-day central and upstate New York; the Indians were British allies who had been raiding American settlements on the frontier. In July 1780, Washington received 5,000 veteran French troops given by French General Comte Donatien de Rochambeau to aid in the war effort. The Continental Army having been funded $20,000 in French gold, Washington delivered the final blow to the British in 1781, after a French naval victory allowed American and French forces to trap a British army in Virginia. The surrender at Yorktown on October 17, 1781, marked the end of major fighting in continental North America.

of Washington resigning his commission as commander-in-chief]]

Demobilization

Washington could not know that after Yorktown the British would not reopen hostilities. They still had 26,000 troops occupying New York City, Charleston and Savannah, together with a powerful fleet. The French army and navy departed, so the Americans were on their own in 1782-83. The treasury was empty, and the unpaid soldiers were growing restive, almost to the point of mutiny or possible coup d'état. Washington dispelled unrest among officers by squelching the Newburgh Conspiracy in March 1783, and Congress came up with the promise of a five years bonus.

By the Treaty of Paris (signed that September), Great Britain recognized the independence of the United States. Washington disbanded his army and, on November 2, gave an eloquent farewell address to his soldiers.

On November 25, the British evacuated New York City, and Washington and the governor took possession. At Fraunces Tavern on December 4, Washington formally bade his officers farewell and on December 23, 1783, he resigned his commission as commander-in-chief. Historian Gordon Wood concludes that the greatest act in his life was his resignation as commander of the armies—an act that stunned aristocratic Europe. King George III called Washington the "the greatest character of the age" because of this.

1787: Constitutional Convention

Washington's retirement to Mount Vernon was short-lived. He made an exploratory trip to the western frontier in 1784, After the Convention, his support convinced many to vote for ratification; the new Constitution was ratified by all thirteen states.

Presidency (1789–1797)

The Electoral College elected Washington unanimously as the first president in 1789, and again in the 1792 election; he remains the only president to have received 100 percent of the electoral votes. John Adams, who received the next highest vote total, was elected Vice President. At his inauguration, Washington took the oath of office as the first President of the United States of America on April 30, 1789, at Federal Hall in New York City.

The 1st United States Congress voted to pay Washington a salary of $25,000 a year—a large sum in 1789. Washington, already wealthy, declined the salary, since he valued his image as a selfless public servant. At the urging of Congress, however, he ultimately accepted the payment, to avoid setting a precedent whereby the presidency would be perceived as limited only to independently wealthy individuals who could serve without any salary. The president, aware that everything he did set a precedent, attended carefully to the pomp and ceremony of office, making sure that the titles and trappings were suitably republican and never emulated European royal courts. To that end, he preferred the title "Mr. President" to the more majestic names suggested.

Washington proved an able administrator. An excellent delegator and judge of talent and character, he talked regularly with department heads and listened to their advice before making a final decision. In handling routine tasks, he was "systematic, orderly, energetic, solicitous of the opinion of others but decisive, intent upon general goals and the consistency of particular actions with them."

Washington reluctantly served a second term as president. He refused to run for a third, establishing the customary policy of a maximum of two terms for a president.

Domestic issues

Washington was not a member of any political party and hoped that they would not be formed, fearing conflict that would undermine republicanism. His closest advisors formed two factions, setting the framework for the future First Party System. Secretary of Treasury Alexander Hamilton had bold plans to establish the national credit and build a financially powerful nation, and formed the basis of the Federalist Party. Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, founder of the Jeffersonian Republicans, strenuously opposed Hamilton's agenda, but Washington typically favored Hamilton over Jefferson, and it was Hamilton's agenda that went into effect.

The Residence Act of 1790, which Washington signed, authorized the President to select the specific location of the permanent seat of the government, which would be located along the Potomac River. The Act authorized the President to appoint three commissioners to survey and acquire property for this seat. Washington personally oversaw this effort throughout his term in office. In 1791, the commissioners named the permanent seat of government "The City of Washington in the Territory of Columbia" to honor Washington. In 1800, the Territory of Columbia became the District of Columbia when the federal government moved to the site according to the provisions of the Residence Act.

In 1791, Congress imposed an excise on distilled spirits, which led to protests in frontier districts, especially Pennsylvania. By 1794, after Washington ordered the protesters to appear in U.S. district court, the protests turned into full-scale defiance of federal authority known as the Whiskey Rebellion. The federal army was too small to be used, so Washington invoked the Militia Act of 1792 to summon the militias of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and several other states. The governors sent the troops and Washington took command, marching into the rebellious districts. The rebels dispersed and there was no fighting, as Washington's forceful action proved the new government could protect itself. These events marked the first time under the new constitution that the federal government used strong military force to exert authority over the states and citizens.

Foreign affairs

In 1791, shortly after the Haitian Revolution broke out, Washington's administration, at French request, agreed to send money, arms, and provisions to the French colony of Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti) to assist distressed colonists. This aid formed part of the US repayment of Revolutionary War loans, and eventually amounted to about $400,000.

In spring 1793 a major war broke out between conservative Britain and its allies and revolutionary France, launching an era of large-scale warfare that engulfed Europe until 1815. Washington, with cabinet approval, proclaimed American neutrality. The revolutionary government of France sent diplomat Edmond-Charles Genêt, called "Citizen Genêt," to America. Genêt was welcomed with great enthusiasm and propagandized the case for France in the French war against Britain, and for this purpose promoted a network of new Democratic Societies in major cities. He issued French letters of marque and reprisal to French ships manned by American sailors so they could capture British merchant ships. Washington demanded the French government recall Genêt, and denounced the societies.

Hamilton and Washington designed the Jay Treaty to normalize trade relations with Britain, remove them from western forts, and resolve financial debts left over from the Revolution. John Jay negotiated and signed the treaty on November 19, 1794. The Jeffersonians supported France and strongly attacked the treaty. Washington's strong support mobilized public opinion and proved decisive in securing ratification in the Senate by the necessary two-thirds majority. The British agreed to depart from their forts around the Great Lakes, subsequently the U.S.-Canadian boundary had to be re-adjusted, numerous pre-Revolutionary debts were liquidated, and the British opened their West Indies colonies to American trade. Most importantly, the treaty delayed war with Britain and instead brought a decade of prosperous trade with Britain. The treaty angered the French and became a central issue in many political debates.

Farewell Address

Washington's Farewell Address (issued as a public letter in 1796) was one of the most influential statements of republicanism. Drafted primarily by Washington himself, with help from Hamilton, it gives advice on the necessity and importance of national union, the value of the Constitution and the rule of law, the evils of political parties, and the proper virtues of a republican people. He called morality "a necessary spring of popular government". He said, "Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."

Washington's public political address warned against foreign influence in domestic affairs and American meddling in European affairs. He warned against bitter partisanship in domestic politics and called for men to move beyond partisanship and serve the common good. He warned against "permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world", saying the United States must concentrate primarily on American interests. He counseled friendship and commerce with all nations, but warned against involvement in European wars and entering into long-term "entangling" alliances. The address quickly set American values regarding foreign affairs.

Retirement (1797–1799)

After retiring from the presidency in March 1797, Washington returned to Mount Vernon with a profound sense of relief. He devoted much time to farming and other business interests, including his distillery which produced its first batch of spirits in February 1797. As Chernow (2010) explains, his farm operations were at best marginally profitable. The lands out west yielded little income because they were under attack by Indians and the squatters living there refused to pay him rents. However most Americans assumed he was truly rich because of the well-known "glorified façade of wealth and grandeur" at Mount Vernon. Historians estimate his estate was worth about $1 million in 1799 dollars, equivalent to about $18 million in 2009 purchasing power.

On July 4, 1798, Washington was commissioned by President John Adams to be lieutenant general and Commander-in-chief of the armies raised or to be raised for service in a prospective war with France. He served as the senior officer of the United States Army between July 13, 1798, and December 14, 1799. He participated in the planning for a Provisional Army to meet any emergency that might arise, but did not take the field. His second in command, Hamilton, led the army.

Death

On Thursday December 12, 1799, Washington spent several hours inspecting his farms on horseback, in snow, hail and freezing rain - later that evening eating his supper without changing from his wet clothes. Friday morning, he awoke with a severe sore throat (either quinsy or acute epiglottitis) and became increasingly hoarse as the day progressed. Sometime around 3 am that Saturday morning, he awoke his wife and said he felt ill. The illness progressed until Washington's death at home around 10pm on Saturday December 14, 1799, aged 67. His last words were "'Tis well."

Throughout the world, men and women were saddened by Washington's death. Napoleon ordered ten days of mourning throughout France; in the United States, thousands wore mourning clothes for months. To protect their privacy, Martha Washington burned the correspondence between her husband and herself following his death. Only three letters between the couple have survived.

, Virginia]]

On December 18, 1799, a funeral was held at Mount Vernon, where his body was interred.

Congress passed a joint resolution to construct a marble monument in the United States Capitol for his body, supported by Martha. In December 1800, the United States House passed an appropriations bill for $200,000 to build the mausoleum, which was to be a pyramid that had a base square. Southern opposition to the plan defeated the measure because they felt it was best to have his body remain at Mount Vernon.

In 1831, for the centennial of his birth, a new tomb was constructed to receive his remains. That year, an attempt was made to steal the body of Washington, but proved to be unsuccessful. Despite this, a joint Congressional committee in early 1832 debated the removal of Washington's body from Mount Vernon to a crypt in the Capitol, built by Charles Bullfinch in the 1820s. Yet again, Southern opposition proved very intense, antagonized by an ever-growing rift between North and South. Congressman Wiley Thompson of Georgia expressed the fear of Southerners when he said: This ended any talk of the movement of his remains, and he was moved to the new tomb that was constructed there on October 7, 1837, presented by John Struthers of Philadelphia. After the ceremony, the inner vault's door was closed and the key was thrown into the Potomac.

Legacy

Representative Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee, a Revolutionary War comrade and father of the Civil War general Robert E. Lee, famously eulogized Washington:

1751 profile of Washington is used on this 1908 postage stamp,]] Lee's words set the standard by which Washington's overwhelming reputation was impressed upon the American memory. Washington set many precedents for the national government and the presidency in particular, and was called the "Father of His Country" as early as 1778. Washington's Birthday (celebrated on Presidents' Day), is a federal holiday in the United States.

During the United States Bicentennial year, George Washington was posthumously appointed to the grade of General of the Armies of the United States by the congressional joint resolution passed on January 19, 1976, with an effective appointment date of July 4, 1976.

U.S. postage issues

George Washington appears on contemporary US currency, including the one-dollar bill and the US quarter. On US postage stamps however, Washington appears numerous times and in many different denominations. He appears on one of the first postage stamps issued by the U.S. Post Office in 1847, along with Benjamin Franklin. Further political squabbling, along with the North-South division on the Civil War, blocked the completion of the Washington Monument until the late 19th century. By that time, Washington had the image of a national hero who could be celebrated by both North and South, and memorials to him were no longer controversial. Predating the obelisk on the National Mall by several decades, the first public memorial to Washington was built by the citizens of Boonsboro, Maryland, in 1827.

Today, Washington's face and image are often used as national symbols of the United States. He appears on contemporary currency, including the one-dollar bill and the quarter coin, and on U.S. postage stamps. Along with appearing on the first postage stamps issued by the U.S. Post Office in 1847,

) in Washington Circle, Washington, D.C.]]

Many things have been named in honor of Washington. Washington's name became that of the nation's capital, Washington, D.C., one of two national capitals across the globe to be named after an American president (the other is Monrovia, Liberia). The state of Washington is the only state to be named after a United States President. George Washington University and Washington University in St. Louis were named for him, as was Washington and Lee University (once Washington Academy), which was renamed due to Washington's large endowment in 1796. Countless American cities and towns feature a Washington Street among their thoroughfares.

The Confederate Seal prominently featured George Washington on horseback, in the same position as a statue of him in Richmond, Virginia.

London hosts a standing statue of Washington, one of 22 bronze identical replicas. Based on Jean Antoine Houdon's original marble statue in the Rotunda of the State Capitol in Richmond, Virginia, the duplicate was given to the British in 1921 by the Commonwealth of Virginia. It stands in front of the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square.

Papers of George Washington

The serious collection and publication began with the pioneer work of Jared Sparks in the 1830s, Life and Writings of George Washington (12 vols., 1834–1837). The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799 (1931–44) is a thirty-seven volume set edited by John C. Fitzpatrick. It contains over 17,000 letters and documents and is online.

The definitive letterpress edition was begun by the University of Virginia in 1968, and today comprises 52 published volumes, with more to come. It contains everything written by Washington, or signed by him, together with most of his incoming letters. The collection is online.

Personal life

Along with Martha's biological family noted above, George Washington had a close relationship with his nephew and heir Bushrod Washington, son of George's younger brother John Augustine Washington. After his uncle's death, Bushrod became an Associate Justice on the US Supreme Court. George's relationship with his mother, Mary Ball Washington, however, was apparently somewhat difficult and strained.

As a young man, Washington had red hair. A popular myth is that he wore a wig, as was the fashion among some at the time. Washington did not wear a wig; instead, he powdered his hair, as represented in several portraits, including the well known unfinished Gilbert Stuart depiction.

Washington suffered from problems with his teeth throughout his life. He lost his first adult tooth when he was twenty-two and had only one left by the time he became President. John Adams claims he lost them because he used them to crack Brazil nuts but modern historians suggest the mercury oxide, which he was given to treat illnesses such as smallpox and malaria, probably contributed to the loss. He had several sets of false teeth made, four of them by a dentist named John Greenwood. The hippo ivory was used for the plate, into which real human teeth and bits of horses' and donkeys' teeth were inserted. Dental problems left Washington in constant pain, for which he took laudanum. This distress may be apparent in many of the portraits painted while he was still in office, including the one still used on the $1 bill.

Slavery

On the death of his father in 1743, the 11-year-old inherited 10 slaves. At the time of his marriage to Martha Custis in 1759, he personally owned at least 36 (and the widow's third of her first husband's estate brought at least 85 "dower slaves" to Mount Vernon). Using his wife's great wealth he bought land, tripling the size of the plantation, and additional slaves to farm it. By 1774, he paid taxes on 135 slaves (this does not include the "dowers"). The last record of a slave purchase by him was in 1772, although he later received some slaves in repayment of debts. Washington also used white indentured servants.

One historian claims that Washington desired the material benefits from owning slaves and wanted to give his wife's family a wealthy inheritance. Before the American Revolution, Washington expressed no moral reservations about slavery, but in 1786, Washington wrote to Robert Morris, saying, "There is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery." In 1778, he wrote to his manager at Mount Vernon that he wished "to get quit of negroes". Maintaining a large, and increasingly elderly, slave population at Mount Vernon was not economically profitable. Washington could not legally sell the "dower slaves," however, and because these slaves had long intermarried with his own slaves, he could not sell his slaves without breaking up families.

As president, Washington brought seven slaves to New York City in 1789 to work in the first presidential household. Following the transfer of the national capital to Philadelphia in 1790, he brought nine slaves to work in the President's House. At the time of his death, there were 317 slaves at Mount Vernon– 123 owned by Washington, 154 "dower slaves," and 40 rented from a neighbor. Dorothy Twohig argues that Washington did not speak out publicly against slavery, because he did not wish to create a split in the new republic, with an issue that was sensitive and divisive.

Religion

Washington was a member of the Anglican Church, which had 'established status' in Virginia (meaning tax money was used to pay its minister). He was a member of and served on the vestry (governing board) for Christ Church in Alexandria, Virginia and for Pohick Church near his Mount Vernon home until the war began; however the parish was the unit of local government and the vestry dealt mostly with civic affairs such as roads and poor relief.

According to historian Paul F. Boller Jr., Washington practically speaking was a Deist who had a profound belief and faith in "Divine Providence" or a higher "Divine Will" derived from a "Supreme Being" who controlled human events and as in Calvinism the course of history followed an orderly pattern rather than mere chance. In 1789, Washington claimed that the "Author of the Universe" actively interposed in favor of the American Revolution. However, according to Boller, Washington never made attempts to personalize his own religious views or express any appeal to the aesthetic side of biblical passages. Boller states that Washington's "allusions to religion are almost totally lacking in depths of feeling." In philosophical terms, he admired and adopted the Stoic philosophy of the ancient Romans, which emphasized virtue and humanitarianism and was highly compatible with Deism.

In a letter to George Mason in 1785, Washington wrote that he was not among those alarmed by a bill "making people pay towards the support of that [religion] which they profess," but felt that it was "impolitic" to pass such a measure, and wished it had never been proposed, believing that it would disturb public tranquility.

Washington frequently accompanied his wife to church services; however, there is no record of his ever taking communion, and he would regularly leave services before communion—with the other non-communicants (as was the custom of the day), until, after being admonished by a rector, he ceased attending at all on communion Sundays. As president he made a point of being seen attending services at numerous churches, including Presbyterian, Quaker and Catholic, to show his general support for religion. Washington was known for his generosity. Highly gregarious, he attended many charity events and donated money to colleges, schools and to the poor. As Philadelphia's leading citizen, President Washington took the lead in providing charity to widows and orphans hit by the yellow fever epidemic that devastated the capital city in 1793.

Freemasonry

In 1752 Washington was initiated into Freemasonry. At his inauguration in 1789, the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of New York administered his oath of office. On September 18, 1793, he laid the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol wearing full Masonic Grand Master regalia. Washington had a high regard for the Masonic Order and often praised it, but he seldom attended lodge meetings. He was attracted by the movement's dedication to Enlightenment principles of rationality, reason and fraternalism; the American lodges did not share the anti-clerical perspective that made the European lodges so controversial

See also

1932 Washington Bicentennial

George Washington bibliography

List of federal judges appointed by George Washington

Military career of George Washington

Town Destroyer, a nickname given to Washington by the Iroquois

Old Style and New Style dates

Washington Monument State Park

Notes

References

;Sources used For a bibliography see George Washington bibliography

Buchanan, John. The Road to Valley Forge: How Washington Built the Army That Won the Revolution (2004). 368 pp.

Burns, James MacGregor and Dunn, Susan. George Washington. Times, 2004. 185 pp. explore leadership style

Chernow, Ron. Washington: A Life (2010), 904pp; full-scale biography

Cunliffe, Marcus. George Washington: Man and Monument (1958), explores both the biography and the myth

Elkins, Stanley M. and Eric McKitrick. The Age of Federalism. (1994) the leading scholarly history of the 1790s.

Ellis, Joseph J. . (2004) ISBN 1-4000-4031-0. Acclaimed interpretation of Washington's career.

Ferling, John E. The First of Men: A Life of George Washington (1989). Biography from a leading scholar.

Fischer, David Hackett. Washington's Crossing. (2004), prize-winning military history focused on 1776–1777.

Flexner, James Thomas. Washington: The Indispensable Man. (1974). ISBN 0-316-28616-8 (1994 reissue). Single-volume condensation of Flexner's popular four-volume biography.

Freeman, Douglas S. George Washington: A Biography. 7 volumes (1948–1957). New York: Scribner. . The standard scholarly biography, winner of the Pulitzer Prize. Freeman, Douglas S. and Harwell, Richard. Washington (1968). New York: Scribner. . Abridgement of Freeman's multivolume biography.

Grizzard, Frank E., Jr. George Washington: A Biographical Companion. ABC-CLIO, 2002. 436 pp.  Comprehensive encyclopedia; Grizzard was Senior Associate Editor of The Papers of George Washington

Grizzard, Frank E., Jr. The Ways of Providence: Religion and George Washington. Buena Vista and Charlottesville, VA: Mariner Publishing. 2005. ISBN 0-9768238-1-0.

Grizzard, Frank E., Jr. George! A Guide to All Things Washington. Buena Vista and Charlottesville, VA: Mariner Publishing. 2005. ISBN 0-9768238-0-2.

Higginbotham, Don, ed. George Washington Reconsidered. University Press of Virginia, (2001). 336 pp of essays by scholars

Higginbotham, Don. George Washington: Uniting a Nation. Rowman & Littlefield, (2002). 175 pp.

Hirschfeld, Fritz. George Washington and Slavery: A Documentary Portrayal. University of Missouri Press, 1997.

Hofstra, Warren R., ed. George Washington and the Virginia Backcountry. Madison House, 1998. Essays on Washington's formative years.

LaBan, Craig. Hercules: Master of cuisine, slave of Washington. Philly.Com(Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News). February 21, 2010.Hercules: Master of cuisine, slave of Washington

Laban, Craig. A birthday shock from Hercules. Philly.Com(The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News). February 22, 2010. A birthday shock from Washington's chef

Lengel, Edward G. General George Washington: A Military Life. New York: Random House, 2005. ISBN 1-4000-6081-8.

Lodge, Henry Cabot. George Washington, 2 vols. (1889), old fashioned biography vol 1 at Gutenberg; vol 2 at Gutenberg

McDonald, Forrest. The Presidency of George Washington. 1988. Intellectual history showing Washington as exemplar of republicanism.

Smith, Richard Norton Patriarch: George Washington and the New American Nation (1997) Focuses on last 10 years of Washington's life. excerpt and text search

Spalding, Matthew. "George Washington's Farewell Address", The Wilson Quarterly v20#4 (Autumn 1996) pp: 65+.

Vadakan, Vibul V., M.D. "A Physician Looks At The Death of Washington", The Early America Review Vol VI, #1(Winter/Spring 2005) A Physician Looks At The Death of Washington

Wallenborn, White McKenzie, M.D. George Washington's Terminal Illness:A Modern Medical Analysis of the Last illness and Death of George Washington.Washington's Terminal Illness

Wiencek, Henry. An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America. (2003).

External links

George Washington Resources from the University of Virginia

George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate & Gardens

* Discover the Real George Washington a traveling exhibit

George Washington from the Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia

Washington's Commission as Commander in Chief from the Library of Congress

George Washington Birthplace National Monument from the National Park Service

Painting of John Gano Baptizing George Washington

A biography at the Mount Vernon museum website

A biography at the Biography Channel website

George Washington, A Biography by John Richard Alden

George Washington, a biography by President Woodrow Wilson

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