confers with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Oval Office, January 27, 2009.]] . President Reagan used the Resolute Desk, that President Jimmy Carter had returned to the White House. The rug from the Gerald R. Ford administration was replaced when the Reagans redecorated in 1984.]] The Oval Office, located in the West Wing of the White House, is the official office of the President of the United States.

The room features three large south-facing windows behind the president's desk, and a fireplace at the north end. It has four doors: the east door opens to the Rose Garden; the west door leads to a private smaller study and dining room; the northwest door opens onto the main corridor of the West Wing; and the northeast door opens to the office of the president's secretary.

Presidents generally change the office to suit their personal taste, choosing new furniture, new drapery, and designing their own oval-shaped carpet to take up most of the floor. Paintings are selected from the White House’s own collection, or borrowed from other museums for the president’s term in office.

Cultural history

The Oval Office has become associated in Americans' minds with the presidency itself through memorable images, such as a young John F. Kennedy, Jr. peering through the front panel of his father's desk, President Richard Nixon speaking by telephone with the Apollo 11 astronauts after their successful voyage to the moon, and daughter Amy Carter bringing her Siamese cat Misty Malarky Ying Yang to brighten President Jimmy Carter's day.

Oval Office Addresses

An Oval Office Address, the television broadcast of a formal presidential speech from the office, is rare and reserved for occasions with a sense of gravity, as when President Kennedy presented news of the Cuban Missile Crisis, or President Ronald Reagan addressed the nation following the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster, or President George W. Bush addressed the nation on the evening of September 11, 2001.

Antecedents

, Philadelphia, PA. George Washington's Bow Window is echoed in the shape of the Oval Office.]] on the second floor of the White House. A number of presidents used this as their private office or library.]] as President Grover Cleveland's library and study, 1886. Note his use of the Resolute Desk.]]

Washington's Bow Window

George Washington never occupied the White House. He spent most of his presidency in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which served as the temporary national capital for 10 years, 1790–1800, while Washington, DC was under construction.

In 1790, Washington built a large, two-story, semi-circular addition to the rear of the President's House in Philadelphia, creating a ceremonial space in which the public would meet the President. Standing before the three windows of this Bow Window, he formally received guests for his Tuesday afternoon levees, delegations from Congress and foreign dignitaties, and the general public at open houses on New Year's Day, the Fourth of July, and his birthday.

"Washington received his guests, standing between the windows in his back drawing-room. The company, entering a front room and passing through an unfolding door, made their salutations to the President, and turning off, stood on one side."

The apsidal end of a room was a traditional site of honor, for a host, a potentate, or the magistrate in a basilica.

President John Adams occupied the Philadelphia mansion beginning in 1797, and used the Bow Window in the same manner as his predecessor for the first three years of his presidency.

Curved foundations of Washington's Bow Window were uncovered during a 2007 archaeological excavation of the President's House site.

White House

Architect James Hoban visited President Washington in Philadelphia in June 1792, and would have seen the Bow Window. The following month, he was named winner of the design competition for The White House.

The "elliptic salon" at the center of the White House was the outstanding feature of Hoban's original plan. An oval interior space was a Baroque concept that was adapted by Neoclassicism. Oval rooms became popular in eighteenth century neoclassical architecture.

In November 1800, John Adams became the first President to occupy the White House. He and his successor, President Thomas Jefferson, used Hoban's oval rooms in the same ceremonial manner that Washington had used the Bow Window, standing before the three windows at the south end to receive guests.

Yellow Oval Room

During the 19th century, a number of presidents used the White House's second-floor Yellow Oval Room as a private office or library.

West Wing

The West Wing was the conception of President Theodore Roosevelt, brought about by his wife's idea that the second floor of the White House, then shared between bedrooms and offices, should be just a domestic space. Further, Roosevelt's proposed addition of offices and meetingrooms would enable him to demolish a dilapidated set of pre-Civil War greenhouses that had been constructed by President James Buchanan. Roosevelt moved the offices of the executive branch to the newly-constructed wing in 1902. His own working office was rectangular in shape, located just west of the present Cabinet Room.

Taft Oval Office: 1909-29

President William Howard Taft built the West Wing's first Oval Office. Designed by Nathan C. Wyeth and completed in 1909, it was centered on the south side of the building, much as the oval rooms in the White House are. Taft intended it to be the center of his administration, and by locating it in the center of the West Wing, he could be more involved with the day-to-day operation of his presidency. The Taft Oval Office had simple Georgian Revival trim, and was likely the most colorful in history; the walls were covered in a vibrant seagrass green.

Hoover Oval Office: 1930-33

On December 24, 1929, during President Herbert Hoover's administration, a fire damaged the West Wing, requiring substantial rebuilding. Hoover rebuilt the Oval Office in the same location, upgrading the quality of trim and having the first air conditioning installed.

FDR Oval Office: 1934-present

.]] . An early color photograph.]] .]]

, August 19, 2009.]] . Based on a 1933 design by Eric Gugler, the 2005 installation is arranged in a contrasting cross pattern of quarter sawn oak and walnut. Most of the floor is usually covered with an oval rug.]] Dissatisfied with the size and layout of the West Wing, President Franklin D. Roosevelt engaged a staff architect, Eric Gugler, to redesign it in 1933. The modern Oval Office was built at the West Wing's southeast corner, offering FDR, who was physically-disabled and used a wheelchair, more privacy and easier access to the residence. He and Gugler devised a room architecturally grander than the previous two rooms, with more robust Georgian details: doors topped with substantial pediment hoods, bookcases set into niches, a deep bracketed crown molding, and a ceiling medallion of the Presidential Seal. In small ways, hints of Art Moderne can be seen, especially in the representation of the eagle in the ceiling medallion. FDR and Gugler worked closely together, often over breakfast, with Gugler sketching the president's ideas. One notion resulting from these sketches that has become fixed in the layout of the room's furniture, is that of two high back chairs in front of the fireplace. The public sees this most often with the president seated on the left, and a visiting head of state on the right. This allowed FDR to be seated, with his guests at the same level, de-emphasizing his inability to stand on his own accord. Construction of the modern Oval Office was completed in 1934.

Decoration

Most recent presidents have hung a portrait of George Washington over the mantel on the north end of the room. A tradition of displaying potted Swedish ivy (Plectranthus verticillatus) atop the mantel goes back to the administration of John F. Kennedy, and the current plants were rooted from the original plant. A series of bronze sculptures of horses and Western themes by Frederic Remington are often displayed in the room. A large tall-case clock, commonly called a grandfather clock, built in Boston by John and Thomas Seymour, c. 1795-1805, stands in the northeast portion of the room.

Oval Office carpet

The carpet of the Oval Office bears the Seal of the President. President Harry S. Truman's oval carpet was the first to incorporate the presidential seal. In Truman's carpet, the seal was represented monochromatically through varying depths of the cut pile. His carpet was used in the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations. In recent years most administrations have created their own rug, working with an interior designer and the Curator of the White House.

Resolute Desk

Many presidents have used a large partners' desk called the Resolute Desk, so named because it was made from the timbers of the British frigate HMS Resolute. The ship was frozen in Arctic ice and abandoned, but later found and freed by American seamen. It was refurbished and presented as a gift from the United States to Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom in 1856. When the British ship was decommissioned in 1879, Queen Victoria ordered twin desks made from its timbers, keeping one and presenting the other as a gift to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880.

A number of presidents used it as their private office desk in the Yellow Oval Room and elsewhere. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the kneehole panel with the Presidential Seal added, but work was not completed until after his 1945 death in office.

First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy had the desk restored, and was the first to place it in the Oval Office. Following the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, it toured the country as part of a traveling exhibit for the Kennedy Presidential Library, and then was lent to the Smithsonian Institution. President Jimmy Carter returned the desk to the Oval Office in the 1970s. Since then, Presidents Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama have also used it as their Oval Office desk.

The Resolute Desk is one of five desks ever used in the Oval Office.

Redecoration

A tradition evolved in the latter part of the twentieth century of each new administration redecorating the office to the President's liking. A new administration usually selects an oval carpet, new drapery, the paintings on the walls, and some furniture. Most incoming presidents continue using the rug of their predecessor until their new one is installed. The retired carpet very often is then moved to the presidential library of the president for whom it was made.

The redecoration of the Oval Office is usually coordinated by the First Lady's office in the East Wing, working with an interior designer and the White House Curator. Art may be selected from the White House collection, or may be borrowed for the length of an administration. President Bill Clinton borrowed a bronze sculpture of The Thinker by Auguste Rodin from a museum. President George W. Bush borrowed two oil paintings, A Charge to Keep by W.H.D. Koerner (owned by Bush), and Rio Grande by Tom Lea (on loan from the El Paso Museum of Art).

President Obama

When President Barack Obama initially took office in 2009, there was no major redecoration of the Oval Office, aside from the removal of the Bush-era paintings, which were replaced by the American impressionist Childe Hassam's painting The Avenue in the Rain and Norman Rockwell's Statue of Liberty.

In August 2010, 20 months into Obama's presidency, a new look for the Oval Office was unveiled. Designed by California decorator Michael Smith, it features taupe patterned drapes, pale striped wallpaper, and a mixture of traditional and contemporary furniture. The centerpiece of the redecoration is a taupe rug, accented with yellow, cream and blue, that has five inscriptions woven into its border — four quoting Obama's predecessors and a fifth from the abolitionist Theodore Parker as paraphrased by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Obama chose a line from Franklin Roosevelt, who held the office during the Great Depression and World War II: "The Only Thing We Have to Fear is Fear Itself." He also chose Parker/King's: "The Arc of the Moral Universe is Long, But it Bends Towards Justice."

Other subtle changes include the addition of a hand-carved wooden sculpture obtained by Obama on a 2006 trip to his ancestral home of Kenya. The figurine shows an egg placed gently into a human hand, symbolizing the fragility of power . He has also replaced the former-First Lady Laura Bush-inspired floral decorations with a bowl of apples, and has replaced the decorative plates on the Oval Office bookshelves with books.

Alterations

Since the present Oval Office's construction in 1934 during the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt the room has remained mostly unchanged architecturally. More than any president, FDR left an impression on the room and its use. Doors and window frames have been modified slightly. A screen door on the east wall was removed after the installation of air conditioning. During the Cold War, window panes were outfitted with small vibrators when it was learned that the Soviets had developed a means of reading the effect of voice sound waves on glass panes. President Lyndon B. Johnson's row of wire service teletype machines on the southeast wall required cutting plaster and flooring to accommodate wiring. The Georgian style plaster ornament has been cleaned to remove accumulated paint, and a series of electrified wall sconces have come and gone.

Though some presidents have chosen to do day-to-day work in a smaller study just west of the Oval Office, most use the actual Oval Office for work and meetings. Traffic from the large numbers of staff, visitors, and pets over time takes its toll. There have been four sets of flooring in the Oval Office. The original floor was made of cork installed over soft wood; however, President Dwight D. Eisenhower was an avid golfer and damaged the floor with his golf spikes. Johnson had the floor replaced in the mid-1960s with wood-grain linoleum. In 1982, President Ronald Reagan had the floor replaced with white pine and oak in a cross parquet pattern similar in design to Eric Gugler's 1933 sketch, which had never been installed. In August 2005, the floor was replaced again under President George W. Bush, in nearly the same pattern as the Reagan floor, but replacing the soft white pine with walnut.

Conservation

In the late 1980s a comprehensive assessment of the entire house, including the Oval Office, was made as part of the National Park Service's Historic American Building Survey (HABS). Detailed photographs and measured drawings were made documenting the interior and exterior and showing even slight imperfections. A checklist of materials and methods was generated for future conservation and restoration.

Dimensions

The ratio of the major axis to the minor axis is 10.9/8.8 (i.e. about 1.24).

Gallery

See also

10 Downing Street - Official Residence and Office of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Langevin Block - Canadian Prime Minister's Office and Privy Council

Perdana Putra - Malaysian Prime Minister's Complex Office

The Lodge (Australia) - Official Residence of the Prime Minister of Australia

Los Pinos - Official Residence and Office of the President of Mexico

References

Further reading

Portions of this article are based on public domain text from the White House.

The White House: An Historic Guide. White House Historical Association and the National Geographic Society: 2001. ISBN 0-912308-79-6.

Abbott James A., and Elaine M. Rice. Designing Camelot: The Kennedy White House Restoration. Van Nostrand Reinhold: 1998. ISBN 0-442-02532-7.

Clinton, Hillary Rodham. An Invitation to the White House: At Home with History. Simon & Schuster: 2000. ISBN 0-684-85799-5.

Monkman, Betty C. The White House: The Historic Furnishing & First Families. Abbeville Press: 2000. ISBN 0-7892-0624-2.

Ryan, William and Desmond Guinness. The White House: An Architectural History. McGraw Hill Book Company: 1980. ISBN 0-07-054352-6.

Seale, William. The President's House. White House Historical Association and the National Geographic Society: 1986. ISBN 0-912308-28-1.

Seale, William, The White House: The History of an American Idea. White House Historical Association: 1992, 2001. ISBN 0-912308-85-0.

West, J.B. with Mary Lynn Kotz. Upstairs at the White House: My Life with the First Ladies. Coward, McCann & Geoghegan: 1973. SBN 698-10546-X.

External links

Oval Office historical photo essay

Pictures of the Oval Office during different presidencies (1909-2005)

Washington Post: "Inside the Real West Wing"

Oval Office and Presidential desks

White House Museum online tour: the Oval Office

The Oval Office on Whitehouse.gov

Google Sketchup 3D Model

2010 Oval Office Makeover

An Office Fitted for a President - slideshow by The New York Times

Category:Rooms in the White House Category:Georgian Revival architecture

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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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	David Letterman
Caption	Speaking at the opening of the Ronald O. Perelman Heart Institute (September 2009)
Pseudonym	Earl Hofert
Birth name	David Michael Letterman
Birth date	April 12, 1947
Birth place	Indianapolis, Indiana
Notable work	Host of Late Night with David Letterman (NBC)Host of Late Show with David Letterman (CBS)
Signature	David Letterman Autograph.svg

}} David Michael Letterman (born April 12, 1947) is an American television host and comedian. He hosts the late night television talk show, Late Show with David Letterman broadcast on CBS. Letterman has been a fixture on late night television since the 1982 debut of Late Night with David Letterman on NBC. Only Letterman's friend and mentor Johnny Carson has had a longer late-night hosting career. was a florist; his mother Dorothy Letterman (née Hofert, now Dorothy Mengering), a Presbyterian church secretary of German descent, is an occasional figure on the show, usually at holidays and birthdays. He has an older sister Janice and a younger sister Gretchen.

Letterman lived on the north side of Indianapolis (Broad Ripple area), not far from Speedway, IN, and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and he enjoyed collecting model cars, including racers. In 2000, he told an interviewer for Esquire that, while growing up, he admired his father's ability to tell jokes and be the life of the party. Harry Joseph Letterman survived a heart attack at age 36, when David was a young boy. The fear of losing his father was constantly with Letterman as he grew up. The elder Letterman died of a second heart attack at age 57.

Letterman attended his hometown's Broad Ripple High School at the same time as Marilyn Tucker Quayle (wife of the former Vice President) who lived nearby, and worked as a stock boy at the local Atlas supermarket. According to the Ball State Daily News, he originally had wanted to attend Indiana University, but his grades weren't good enough, so he decided to attend Ball State University, in Muncie, Indiana. He is a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity, and he graduated from what was then the Department of Radio and Television, in 1969. A self-described average student, Letterman endowed a scholarship for what he called "C students" at Ball State.

Though he registered for the draft and passed his physical after graduating from College, he avoided military service in Vietnam due to receiving a draft lottery number of 352 (out of 365).

Letterman began his broadcasting career as an announcer and newscaster at the college's student-run radio station—WBST—a 10-watt campus station which now is part of Indiana public radio. He was fired for treating classical music with irreverence.

Letterman credits Paul Dixon—host of the Paul Dixon Show, a Cincinnati-based talk show also shown in Indianapolis while Letterman was growing up—for inspiring his choice of career: :"I was just out of college [in 1969], and I really didn't know what I wanted to do. And then all the sudden I saw him doing it [on TV]. And I thought: That's really what I want to do!"

Weatherman

Letterman began his career as a radio talk show host on WNTS (AM), and on Indianapolis television station WLWI (now called WTHR) as a local anchor and weatherman. He received some recognition for his unpredictable on-air behavior, which included congratulating a tropical storm for being upgraded to a hurricane and predicting hail stones "the size of canned hams." (To this day he occasionally gives out canned hams on his show). He would also occasionally report the weather and the day's very high and low temps for fictitious cities ("Eight inches of snow in Bingree and surrounding areas."). He also starred in a local kiddie show, made wisecracks as host of a late night TV show called "Freeze-Dried Movies" (he once acted out a scene from "Godzilla" using plastic dinosaurs), and hosted a talk show that aired early on Saturday mornings called "Clover Power," in which he interviewed 4-H members about their projects.

In 1971, Letterman appeared as a pit road reporter for ABC Sports' tape-delayed coverage of the Indianapolis 500.

Move to Los Angeles

In 1975, encouraged by his then-wife Michelle and several of his Sigma Chi fraternity brothers, Letterman moved to Los Angeles, California, with hope of becoming a comedy writer. He started off by writing material for comedian Jimmie Walker. He also began performing stand-up comedy at The Comedy Store, a famed comedy club and proving ground for young comics.

Letterman appeared in the summer of 1977 on the short-lived Starland Vocal Band Show. He has since joked about how fortunate he was that nobody would ever see his performance on the program (due to its low ratings).

Letterman had a stint as a cast member on Mary Tyler Moore's variety show, Mary; a guest appearance on Mork & Mindy (as a parody of EST leader Werner Erhard); and appearances on game shows such as The $20,000 Pyramid, The Gong Show, Password Plus and Liar's Club. He also hosted a 1977 pilot for a game show entitled The Riddlers that was never picked up. His dry, sarcastic humor caught the attention of scouts for The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and Letterman was soon a regular guest on the show. Letterman became a favorite of Carson's and was a regular guest host for the show beginning in 1978. Letterman personally credits Carson as the person who influenced his career the most.

NBC

Morning show

On June 23, 1980, Letterman was given his own morning comedy show on NBC, The David Letterman Show. It was originally 90 minutes long, but was shortened to 60 minutes in August. The show was a critical success, winning two Emmy Awards, but was a ratings disappointment and was canceled in October 1980.

Late Night with David Letterman

NBC kept Letterman under contract to try him in a different time slot. Late Night with David Letterman debuted February 1, 1982; the first guest on the first show was Bill Murray. The show ran weeknights at 12:30 a.m. Eastern Time, immediately following The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. It was seen as being edgy and unpredictable, and soon developed a cult following (particularly among college students). Letterman's reputation as an interviewer was borne out in verbal sparring matches with Cher (who even called him an asshole on the show), Shirley MacLaine, Charles Grodin, and Madonna. The show also featured inventive comedy segments and running characters, in a style heavily influenced by the 1950s and '60s programs of Steve Allen. Although Ernie Kovacs is often cited as an influence on the show, Letterman has denied this. In the final months of his first stint as host of The Tonight Show, Leno beat Letterman in the ratings by a 1.3 million viewer margin (5.2 million to 3.9 million), and Nightline and The Late Show were virtually tied. Once O'Brien took over Tonight, however, Letterman closed the gap in the ratings. O'Brien initially drove the median age of Tonight Show viewers from 55 to 45, with most older viewers opting to watch The Late Show instead.

Letterman's shows have garnered both critical and industry praise, receiving 67 Emmy Award nominations, winning twelve times in his first 20 years in late night television. From 1993–2009, Letterman ranked higher than Leno in the annual Harris Poll of Nation's Favorite TV Personality twelve times. Leno was higher than Letterman on that poll three times during the same period, in 1998, 2007, and 2008.

Hosting the Academy Awards

On March 27, 1995, Letterman acted as the host for the 67th Academy Awards ceremony. Critics blasted Letterman for what they deemed a poor hosting of the Oscars, noting that his irreverent style undermined the traditional importance and glamor of the event. In a joke about their unusual names (inspired by a similar joke by Woody Allen), he started off by introducing Uma Thurman to Oprah Winfrey, and then the both of them to Keanu Reeves: "Uma...Oprah! Oprah...Uma! Oprah, Uma...Keanu!" This and many of his other jokes fell flat. Although Letterman attracted the highest ratings to the annual telecast since 1983, many felt that the bad publicity garnered by Letterman's hosting caused a decline in the Late Show's ratings.

Letterman recycled the apparent debacle into a long-running gag. On his first show after the Oscars, he joked, "Looking back, I had no idea that thing was being televised." He lampooned his stint in the following year, during Billy Crystal's opening Oscar skit, which also parodied the plane-crashing scenes from that year's chief nominated film, The English Patient.

For years afterward, Letterman recounted his horrible hosting at the Oscars, although the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences still holds Letterman in high regard and it has been rumored they have asked him to host the Oscars again. On September 7, 2010, he made an appearance on the premier of the 14th season of The View, and confirmed the rumors.

Heart surgery hiatus

On January 14, 2000, a routine check-up revealed that an artery in Letterman's heart was severely constricted. He was rushed to emergency surgery for a quintuple bypass.

During the initial weeks of his recovery, reruns of the Late Show were shown and introduced by friends of Letterman including Drew Barrymore, including Dr. O. Wayne Isom and physician Louis Aronne, who frequently appears on the show. In a show of emotion, Letterman was nearly in tears as he thanked the health care team with the words "These are the people who saved my life!" The episode earned an Emmy nomination. For a number of episodes, Letterman continued to crack jokes about his bypass, including saying, "Bypass surgery: it's when doctors surgically create new blood flow to your heart. A bypass is what happened to me when I didn't get The Tonight Show! It's a whole different thing." In a later running gag he lobbied his home state of Indiana to rename the freeway circling Indianapolis (I-465) "The David Letterman Bypass." He also featured a montage of faux news coverage of his bypass surgery, which included a clip of Dave's heart for sale on the Home Shopping Network. Letterman became friends with his doctors and nurses. In 2008, a Rolling Stone interview stated "he hosted a doctor and nurse who'd helped perform the emergency quintuple-bypass heart surgery that saved his life in 2000. 'These are people who were complete strangers when they opened my chest,' he says. 'And now, eight years later, they're among my best friends.' "

Additionally, Letterman invited the band Foo Fighters to play "Everlong", introducing them as "my favorite band, playing my favorite song." During a later Foo Fighters appearance, Letterman said that Foo Fighters had been in the middle of a South American tour which they canceled to come play on his comeback episode.

Letterman again handed over the reins of the show to several guest hosts (including Bill Cosby, Brad Garrett, Elvis Costello, John McEnroe, Vince Vaughn, Will Ferrell, Bonnie Hunt, Luke Wilson and bandleader Paul Shaffer) in February 2003, when he was diagnosed with a severe case of shingles. Later that year, Letterman made regular use of guest hosts—including Tom Arnold and Kelsey Grammer—for new shows broadcast on Fridays. In March 2007, Adam Sandler—who had been scheduled to be the lead guest—served as a guest host while Letterman was ill with a stomach virus.

Re-signing with CBS

In March 2002, as Letterman's contract with CBS neared expiration, ABC offered him the time slot for long-running news program Nightline with Ted Koppel. Letterman was interested as he believed he could never match Leno's ratings at CBS due to weaker lead-ins from the network's late local news programs, but was reluctant to replace Koppel. Letterman addressed his decision to re-sign on the air, stating that he was content at CBS and that he had great respect for Koppel.

On December 4, 2006, CBS revealed that David Letterman signed a new contract to host The Late Show with David Letterman through the fall of 2010. "I'm thrilled to be continuing on at CBS," said Letterman. "At my age you really don't want to have to learn a new commute." Letterman further joked about the subject by pulling up his right pants leg, revealing a tattoo, presumably temporary, of the ABC logo.

"Thirteen years ago, David Letterman put CBS late night on the map and in the process became one of the defining icons of our network," said Leslie Moonves, president and CEO of CBS Corporation. "His presence on our air is an ongoing source of pride, and the creativity and imagination that the Late Show puts forth every night is an ongoing display of the highest quality entertainment. We are truly honored that one of the most revered and talented entertainers of our time will continue to call CBS 'home.'"

According to a 2007 article in Forbes magazine, Letterman earned $40 million a year. A 2009 article in The New York Times, however, said his salary was estimated at $32 million per year.

In June 2009, Letterman and CBS reached agreement to extend his contract to host The Late Show until August 2012. His previous contract had been set to expire in 2010. thus allowing his show to come back on air on January 2, 2008. On his first episode since being off air, he surprised the viewing audience with his newly grown beard, which signified solidarity with the strike. His beard was shaved off during the show on January 7, 2008.

Letterman and Carson

NBC's decision to select Jay Leno and not Letterman to succeed Johnny Carson as host of The Tonight Show was an embarrassment to Carson, who had all but promised the succession to Letterman. Letterman maintained a close relationship with Carson through his break with NBC. Three years after he left for CBS, HBO produced a made-for-television movie called The Late Shift, based on a book by New York Times reporter Bill Carter, chronicling the battle between Letterman and Leno for the coveted Tonight Show hosting spot. Letterman would mock the film for months afterward, specifically on how the actor playing him, John Michael Higgins, did not resemble him in the least. ("They took a guy who looked nothing like me and with make-up and special camera angles, turned him into a guy who looked nothing like me, with red hair.")

Carson later made a few cameo appearances as a guest on Letterman's show. Carson's final television appearance came May 13, 1994 on a Late Show episode taped in Los Angeles, when he made a surprise appearance during a 'Top 10 list' segment. The audience went wild as Letterman stood up and proudly invited Carson to sit at his desk. The applause was so protracted that Carson was unable to say anything, and he finally returned backstage as the applause continued (it was later explained that Carson had laryngitis, though Carson can be heard talking to Letterman during his appearance).

In early 2005, it was revealed that Carson still kept up with current events and late-night TV right up to his death that year, and that he occasionally sent jokes to Letterman, who used these jokes in his monologue; according to CBS senior vice president Peter Lassally (a onetime producer for both men), Carson got "a big kick out of it." Letterman would do a characteristic Johnny Carson golf swing after delivering one of Carson's jokes. In a tribute to Carson, all of the opening monologue jokes during the first show following Carson's death were written by Carson.

Lassally also claimed that Carson had always believed Letterman, not Leno, to be his "rightful successor." Letterman also frequently employs some of Carson's trademark bits on his show, including "Carnac the Magnificent" (with Paul Shaffer as Carnac), "Stump the Band" and the "Week in Review."

Letterman and Oprah Winfrey

On September 10, 2007, Letterman made his first appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show at Madison Square Garden in New York City. He shared pictures of his son and live-in girlfriend. The so-called feud between Letterman and Winfrey apparently ended in 2005 when Winfrey appeared on CBS's Late Show with David Letterman on December 2, in an event Letterman jokingly referred to as "the Super Bowl of Love". Oprah had previously appeared on Letterman's show when he was hosting NBC's Late Night on May 2, 1989.

Winfrey and Letterman also appeared together in a Late Show promo that aired during CBS's coverage of Super Bowl XLI in February 2007, with the two sitting next to each other on the couch watching the game. Since the game was played between the Indianapolis Colts and Chicago Bears, the Indianapolis-born Letterman wears a Peyton Manning jersey, while Winfrey—who tapes her show in Chicago—is in a Brian Urlacher jersey. Three years later, during CBS's coverage of Super Bowl XLIV, the two appeared again, this time with Winfrey sitting on a couch between Letterman and Jay Leno. The appearance was Letterman's idea: Leno flew to New York City in an NBC corporate jet, sneaking into the Ed Sullivan Theater during the Late Show's February 4 taping wearing a disguise, meeting Winfrey and Letterman at a living room set created in the theater's balcony where they taped their promo.

Other projects

Worldwide Pants

Letterman started his own production company—Worldwide Pants Incorporated—which produced his show and several others, including Everybody Loves Raymond , The Late Late Show, and several critically-acclaimed, but short-lived television series for Bonnie Hunt. Worldwide Pants also produced the dramedy program Ed, which aired on NBC from 2000–2004. It was Letterman's first association with NBC since he left the network in 1993. During Ed's run, the star, Tom Cavanagh, appeared as a guest on The Late Show several times.

In 2005, Worldwide Pants produced its first feature film, Strangers with Candy, which was a prequel to the Comedy Central TV series of the same title. In 2007, Worldwide Pants produced the ABC comedy series, Knights of Prosperity.

Worldwide Pants made significant news in December 2007 when it was announced that Letterman's company had independently negotiated its own contract with the Writers Guild of America, East, thus allowing Letterman, Craig Ferguson, and their writers to return to work, while the union continued its strike against production companies, networks and studios who had not reached an agreement.

Rahal Letterman Racing

Rahal Letterman Racing (RLR) is an auto racing team that currently races in the American Le Mans Series, and part-time in the Indy Racing League. It is co-owned by 1986 Indianapolis 500 winner Bobby Rahal and Letterman himself, and is based in Hilliard, Ohio. The team won the 2004 Indianapolis 500 with driver Buddy Rice. Letterman was a pit reporter for ABC in the 1971 Indianapolis 500. The $21 million, David Letterman Communication and Media Building opened for the 2007 Fall semester. It features state-of-the-art recording equipment and facilities. Thousands of Ball State students, faculty, and local residents welcomed Letterman back to Indiana. Letterman's emotional speech touched on his struggles as a college student and his late father, and also included the "top ten good things about having your name on a building."

Letterman received the honor for his dedication to the university throughout his career as a comedian. Letterman finished with, "If reasonable people can put my name on a $21 million building, anything is possible."

Letterman also received a Sagamore of the Wabash from Governor Mitch Daniels.

Record company

In late April 2010, several music industry websites reported that David Letterman started a record label named Clear Entertainment/C.E. Music and signed his first artist, Runner Runner. Lucy Walsh announced on her myspace page that she has been signed by David Letterman and Clear Entertainment/C.E. Music and is working on her album.

Appearances in other media

Letterman appeared in issue 239 of the Marvel comic book The Avengers, in which the title characters are guests on Late Night. A parody of Letterman, called "David Endocrine", is gassed to death along with his bandleader named "Paul" and their audience in Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns.

Letterman provided vocals for the Warren Zevon song "Hit Somebody" from My Ride's Here, and provided the voice for Butt-head's father in the 1996 animated film, Beavis and Butt-head Do America. He also had a cameo in the feature film Cabin Boy, with Chris Elliott, who worked as a writer on Letterman's show. In this and other appearances, Letterman is listed in the credits as "Earl Hofert", the name of Letterman's maternal grandfather. He also appeared as himself in the Howard Stern biopic Private Parts as well as the 1999 Andy Kaufman biopic Man on the Moon, in a few episodes of Garry Shandling's 1990s TV series The Larry Sanders Show and in "The Abstinence", a 1996 episode of the sitcom Seinfeld. Letterman also appeared in the pilot episode of the short-lived 1986 series "Coach Toast".

Personal life

Marriages and long-term relationships

In 1969, Letterman married Michelle Cook; the marriage ended by divorce in 1977. He also had a long-term relationship with former head writer and producer on Late Night, Merrill Markoe. In fact, Markoe was the mind behind several Late Night staples, such as "Stupid Pet/Human Tricks".

Letterman has a son, Harry Joseph Letterman (born in 2003), with Regina Lasko. Harry is named after Letterman's father. In 2005, police discovered a plot to kidnap Harry Letterman and ransom him for $5 million. Kelly Frank, a house painter who had worked for Letterman, was charged in the conspiracy.

Letterman and Lasko, who had been together since 1986, wed during a quiet courthouse civil ceremony in Choteau, Montana, on March 19, 2009. Letterman announced the marriage during the taping of his March 23 show, shortly after congratulating Bruce Willis for getting married the previous week. Letterman told the audience he nearly missed the ceremony because his truck became stuck in mud two miles from their house. The family resides in North Salem, New York, on a estate.

Stalking incidents

Beginning in May 1988, Letterman was stalked by Margaret Mary Ray, a woman suffering from schizophrenia. Letterman occasionally referenced her in his show, although not by name. She committed suicide in 1998. Letterman publicly expressed sympathy upon her death.

Extortion attempt and revelation of affairs

On his October 1, 2009 show, Letterman announced that he had been the victim of an extortion attempt by someone threatening to reveal that he had had sex with several of his female employees. He confirmed the relationships.

Letterman stated that three weeks earlier (on September 9, 2009) someone had left a package in his car with material he said he would write into a screenplay and a book if Letterman did not pay him $2 million. Letterman said that he contacted the Manhattan District Attorney's office, ultimately cooperating with them to conduct a sting operation involving giving the man a phony check. The extortionist, Robert J. "Joe" Halderman, a producer of the CBS true crime journalism series 48 Hours, was subsequently arrested after trying to deposit the check. He was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury and pleaded not guilty to a charge of attempted grand larceny on October 2, 2009. Birkitt had until recently lived with Halderman, who is alleged to have copied Birkitt's personal diary and to have used it, along with private emails, in the blackmail package.

On October 3, 2009, a former CBS employee, Holly Hester, announced that she and Letterman had engaged in a year-long "secret" affair in the early 1990s while she was his intern and a student at New York University.

In the days following the initial announcement of the affairs and the arrest, several prominent women, including Kathie Lee Gifford, co-host of NBC's Today Show, and NBC news anchor Ann Curry questioned whether Letterman's affairs with subordinates created an unfair working environment. A spokesman for Worldwide Pants said that the company's sexual harassment policy did not prohibit sexual relationships between managers and employees. According to business news reporter Eve Tahmincioglu, "CBS suppliers are supposed to follow the company's business conduct policies" and the CBS 2008 Business Conduct Statement states that "If a consenting romantic or sexual relationship between a supervisor and a direct or indirect subordinate should develop, CBS requires the supervisor to disclose this information to his or her Company's Human Resources Department..."

On October 5, 2009, Letterman devoted a segment of his show to a public apology to his wife and staff. Three days later, Worldwide Pants announced that Birkitt had been placed on a "paid leave of absence" from the Late Show. On October 15, CBS News announced that the company's Chief Investigative Correspondent, Armen Keteyian, had been assigned to conduct an "in-depth investigation" into Halderman's blackmail of Letterman.

On March 9, 2010, Halderman pleaded guilty to attempted grand larceny and served a 6-month jail sentence, followed by probation and community service.

Awards

In his capacities as either a writer, producer, performer, or as part of a writing team, David Letterman is among the most nominated people in Emmy Award history with 52 nominations, winning two Daytime Emmys and five Primetime Emmys since 1981. His nomination record is second only to producer Jac Venza, who holds the record for the most Emmy nominations for an individual (57). Letterman has been nominated every year since 1984, when he first appeared on late night television as the host of Late Night with David Letterman. Additionally, he has won four American Comedy Awards.

References

External links

David Letterman's Feb. 24, 1978 appearance on 90 Minutes Live

Official Late Show biography

1999 article on Letterman from Salon.com

Tape of Letterman announcing affairs/extortion attempt on Late Show

Category:1947 births Category:Living people Category:American people of German descent Category:American television talk show hosts Category:Ball State University alumni Category:Daytime Emmy Award winners Category:Emmy Award winners Category:Indianapolis, Indiana television anchors Category:Indy Racing League owners Category:People from Indianapolis, Indiana Category:Weather presenters