American author, politician and the 35th U.S. President from 1961-63, the first Catholic and the youngest man to win the nation’s highest office. The son of Joseph Kennedy, a powerful entrepreneur, the youth had a precocious intellect and boundless ambition, and was raised with privilege and a good education. On his 21st birthday, he received a trust fund of $1 million. After graduating from Harvard, Kennedy joined the U.S. Navy in 1941. He served in the Pacific in 1943, commanding a PT-109 boat and was awarded a Purple Heart in 1945.
Plagued by constant illness and forever scarred in his boyhood by an absentee father and a cold, remote mother, Kennedy emerged as a rogue who was by turns funny, raunchy and charming. His biographers paint a picture of a dysfunctional first family, the fabled Kennedys. He was raised to win, not to develop good moral character which most of his biographers find sadly lacking. His womanizing was so rampant and careless that the Secret Service had no control of the conquests who came in and out of the White House after-hours – or even during times when the risk of exposure was the greatest. Had he not ended his presidency prematurely, it was speculated that it would have been impossible to cover up Jack’s peccadilloes any longer. Nonetheless, his charisma was such that the man was irresistible, in public and in private, and he remained as the prince of Camelot, a magical time.
Even before entering the Navy, Jack suffered from chronic back and stomach problems. For years, Addison’s disease suppressed his adrenal glands, weakening his immune system. In pain for most of his life, he was too unhealthy to get life insurance, but with his dad pulling strings, he landed a desk job in the navy before transferring into torpedo boats. He also suffered for decades from “postgonoccal urethritis, a less severe but still painful disease usually contracted along with gonorrhea.” From the pain of his bad back, Kennedy had a spinal operation on 21 October 1954, with a second surgery in February 1955. Nonetheless, he had brains, courage, good looks, idealism and money. So many things came so easily that the chase was the challenge, with voters or with women.
Entering politics, Kennedy was elected to the 80th Congress on 5 November 1946 and re-elected on 2 November 1948, 7 November 1950, and 4 November 1958. On 8 November 1960 he was elected President and inaugurated on 20 January 1961 at the age of 44. Although the ceremony began at 12:00 pm, he was not sworn in until 12:51 p.m. EST, Washington, DC. He was the author of “Why England Slept” and “Profiles in Courage,” for which he won the 1957 Pulitzer Prize.
Kennedy married Jacqueline Bouvier on 12 September 1953, 11:00 AM EDT, Newport, RI. Their daughter, Caroline, was born on 27 November 1957, and son John on 25 November 1960. Son Patrick was born on 8 August 1963 and lived for only 39 hours. He and Jackie maintained a devoted marriage despite his continual infidelities.
He first had an affair with Marilyn Monroe sometime in the 1950s. By the ’60s, the relationships was so obvious that aides warned him to be more discreet. During the Thousand Days of his administration they continued to meet, though not at the White House, and she told her friends about the trysts.
On 22 November 1963, shortly after 12:30 PM CST, he was shot by assassin Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, TX; although in reality he was immediately killed by the second bullet, his death was announced at 2:00 PM sending waves of shock and grief around the world and ending a time known as Camelot.
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