Early Life
Kennedy was born in Brookline, Mass., on May 29, 1917, a descendant of Irish Catholics who had
immigrated to America
in the 19th century. His father, Joseph P. Kennedy, was a combative businessman
who became a multimillionaire, head of the Securities and Exchange Commission,
and ambassador to Great
Britain. He and his wife, Rose Fitzgerald
Kennedy, had the highest ambitions for their nine children, of whom John was
the second son Kennedy graduated from Choate
School in Wallingford,
Conn., briefly attended Princeton
University, and then entered Harvard University in 1936. At Harvard he wrote
an honors thesis on British foreign policies in the 1930s; it was published in
1940, the year he graduated, under the title Why England Slept. In 1941,
shortly before the United
States entered World War II, Kennedy joined
the U.S. Navy. While on active duty in the Pacific in 1943, the boat he
commanded--PT 109--was sunk by the Japanese. Kennedy performed heroically in
rescuing his crew, but he aggravated an old back injury and contracted malaria.
He was discharged in early 1945.
Congressman and Senator
In 1946, Kennedy ran successfully for a Boston-based seat in the U.S.
House of Representatives; he was reelected in 1948 and 1950. As a congressman
he backed social legislation that benefited his working-class constituents.
Although generally supporting President Harry S. Truman's foreign policies, he
criticized what he considered the administration's weak stand against the
Communist Chinese. Kennedy continued to advocate a strong, anti-Communist
foreign policy throughout his career. Restless in the House, Kennedy challenged
incumbent Republican senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., in 1952. Although the
Republican presidential candidate, Dwight D. Eisenhower, won in Massachusetts as well as
the country as a whole, Kennedy showed his remarkable vote-getting appeal by
defeating Lodge.
A year later, on
Sept. 12, 1953, Kennedy married Jacqueline Bouvier. The couple had three
children: Caroline Bouvier (b. Nov. 27, 1957), John Fitzgerald, Jr. (b. Nov.
25, 1960), and a second son who died in infancy in August 1963.
Kennedy was a
relatively ineffectual senator. During parts of 1954 and 1955 he was seriously
ill with back ailments and was therefore unable to play an important role in
government. Critics observed that he made no effort to oppose the anti-civil
libertarian excesses of Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin. His friends later argued, not entirely
persuasively, that he would have voted to censure McCarthy if he had not been
hospitalized at the time. During his illness Kennedy worked on a book of
biographical studies of American political heroes. Published in 1956 under the
title Profiles in Courage, it won a Pulitzer Prize for biography in 1957. Like
his earlier book on English foreign policy, it revealed his admiration for
forceful political figures. This faith in activism was to become a hallmark of
his presidency.
In 1956, Kennedy
bid unsuccessfully for the Democratic vice-presidential nomination. Thereafter,
he set his sights on the presidency, especially after his reelection to the
Senate in 1958. He continued during these years to support a firmly
anti-Communist foreign policy. A cautious liberal on domestic issues, he backed
a compromise civil rights bill in 1957 and devoted special efforts to labor
legislation.
By 1960, Kennedy
was but one of many Democratic aspirants for the party's presidential
nomination. He put together, however, a well-financed, highly organized
campaign and won on the first ballot. As a northerner and a Roman Catholic, he
recognized his lack of strength in the South and shrewdly chose Sen. Lyndon
Baines Johnson of Texas
as his running mate. Kennedy also performed well in a series of unprecedented
television debates with his Republican opponent, Vice-President Richard M.
Nixon. Kennedy promised tougher defense policies and progressive health,
housing, and civil rights programs. His New Frontier, he pledged, would bring
the nation out of its economic slump.
Presidency
Kennedy won the election, but by a narrow margin. He lacked reliable
majorities in Congress. Primarily for these reasons, most of his domestic
policies stalled on Capitol Hill. When advocates of racial justice picked up
strength in 1962-63, he moved belatedly to promote civil rights legislation. He
also sought a tax cut to stimulate the economy. At the time of his
assassination, however, these and other programs such as federal aid to
education and Medicare remained tied up in Congress. It was left to his
successor, President Johnson, to push this legislation through the more
compliant congresses of 1964 and 1965.
Kennedy's
eloquent inaugural address--in which he exhorted the nation: "Ask not what
your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your
country"--sounded cold war themes. Soon thereafter, the president acted on
his anti-Communism by lending American military assistance to the Bay of Pigs
Invasion of Cuba in April 1961. The amphibious assault had been planned by the
Central Intelligence Agency under the Eisenhower administration. The actual
invasion was Kennedy's decision, however, and he properly took the blame for
its total failure. Later in his administration he tried to diminish anti-Americanism
in the Western Hemisphere by backing development projects under the Alliance for Progress,
but the small sums involved had little impact. The Peace Corps program was
developed with similar goals in mind. Kennedy's chief adversary abroad was the
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. As early as June 1961 the two men talked in Vienna, but the meeting
served only to harden Soviet-American hostility. Khrushchev then threatened to
sign a treaty with East Germany
that would have given the East Germans control over western access routes to Berlin. Kennedy held
firm, and no such treaty was signed. The Soviets responded, however, by
erecting a wall between East and West Berlin.
Kennedy used the crisis to request from Congress, and to receive, greatly
increased appropriations for defense.
By far the
tensest overseas confrontation of the Kennedy years occurred with the Cuban
missile crisis. In October 1962, U.S.
intelligence discovered that the Russians were constructing offensive missile
sites in Cuba.
Kennedy recognized that such missiles would add little to Russian military
potential, but he regarded the Soviet move as deliberately provocative.
Resolving to show his mettle, he ordered a naval and air quarantine on
shipments of offensive weapons to Cuba. At first armed conflict
seemed likely. But the Soviets pulled back and promised not to set up the
missiles; the United States
then said it would not attack Cuba.
As if chastened
by this crisis, the most frightening of the cold war, the Soviets and Americans
in 1963 signed a treaty barring atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. Kennedy
nevertheless remained as ready as before to stop Communist advances. He
continued to bolster American defenses and stepped up military aid to South Vietnam,
where revolutionary forces were increasingly active. By November 1963, the United States had sent some 16,000 military
personnel to Vietnam.
His administration also intervened in South Vietnamese politics by at least
conniving at the overthrow of Ngo Dinh Diem in November 1963.
Assassination
By this time Kennedy was thinking ahead to the presidential campaign of 1964. In order to promote
harmony between warring factions of the Democratic party in Texas, he traveled there in November 1963.
While driving in a motorcade through Dallas
on November 22, he was shot in the head and died within an hour.
President
Johnson appointed the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination. It
concluded that the killer, acting alone, was 24-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald. No
motive was established. Speculation persisted over the years, however, that
Kennedy was the victim of a conspiracy.
In English
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In Russian
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For in the final analysis, our most basic common link, is that we all
inhabit this small planet, we all breathe the same air, we all cherish our
children's futures, and we are all mortal.
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Ибо, в конечном счете, нас
всех объединяет то, что мы все живем на этой маленькой планете, мы все дышим
одним воздухом, мы все дорожим будущим наших детей, и все мы смертны.
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Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.
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Прощайте ваших врагов, но
никогда не забывайте их имена.
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If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save
the few who are rich.
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Если свободное общество не
может помочь многим, кто беден, оно не может спасти тех немногих, кто богат.
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If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the
world safe for diversity.
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Если мы не можем закончить
наши разногласия, то, по крайней мере, мы можем для разнообразия постараться
сделать мир безопасным.
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Liberty without learning
is always in peril; learning without liberty is always in vain.
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Свобода без обучения всегда
находится в опасности; обучение без свободы всегда напрасно.
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Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind.
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Человечество должно положить
конец войне или война положит конец человечеству.
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The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.
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Невежество одного
избирателя в демократическом государстве ухудшает безопасность всех.
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The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.
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Время ремонтировать крышу,
когда светит солнце.
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Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent
revolution inevitable.
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Те, кто делают мирную
революцию невозможной, сделают насильственную революцию неизбежной.
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Washington is a city of
Southern efficiency and Northern charm.
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Вашингтон - это город с
южной эффективностью и северным шармом.
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We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a
form of truth.
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Мы никогда не должны
забывать, что искусство не является формой пропаганды, это форма истины.
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We must use time as a tool, not as a crutch.
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Мы должны использовать
время, как инструмент, а не как костыль.
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We need men who can dream of things that never were.
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Нам нужны люди, которые
могут мечтать о вещах, которых никогда не было.
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