Up for auction a RARE! “John F. Kennedy” Commemorative First Day
Cover W/ Rare Stamp Dated 1964. This item is certified authentic by JG Autographs and comes with their Letter of Authenticity.
ES-1931B
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to
by his initials JFK, was an American politician who served as the
35th president of the United States from
January 1961 until his assassination in November 1963.
Kennedy served at the height of the Cold War,
and the majority of his work as president concerned relations with the Soviet Union and Cuba. A Democrat, Kennedy represented Massachusetts in
both houses of the U.S. Congress prior to becoming president. Kennedy was
born into a wealthy, political family in Brookline, Massachusetts. He graduated
from Harvard University in 1940, before joining
the U.S. Naval Reserve the following year.
During World War II, he commanded a series of PT boats in
the Pacific theater and
earned the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for his
service. After a brief stint in journalism, Kennedy represented a working-class Boston district in
the U.S. House of Representatives from 1947 to 1953. He was subsequently
elected to the U.S. Senate and served as the junior senator for
Massachusetts from 1953 to 1960. While in the Senate, Kennedy
published his book, Profiles in Courage, which won a Pulitzer Prize. In
the 1960 presidential election,
he narrowly defeated Republican opponent Richard Nixon,
who was the incumbent vice president. Kennedy’s humor, charm, and youth in
addition to his father’s money and contacts were great assets in the campaign.
Kennedy expertly presented his platform and himself using a new medium, television. Kennedy was
the first Catholic elected
president. Kennedy’s administration included high tensions with communist states in
the Cold War. As a result, he increased the number of American military advisers in South Vietnam.
The Strategic Hamlet Program began in Vietnam
during his presidency. In April 1961, he authorized an attempt to overthrow the
Cuban government of Fidel Castro in the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion. Kennedy authorized the Cuban Project in November 1961. He rejected Operation Northwoods (plans for false
flag attacks to gain
approval for a war against Cuba) in March 1962. However, his administration
continued to plan for an invasion of Cuba in the summer of 1962. The
following October, U.S. spy planes discovered Soviet missile bases had been
deployed in Cuba; the resulting period of tensions, termed the Cuban Missile Crisis, nearly resulted in the breakout of a global
thermonuclear conflict. He also signed the first nuclear weapons treaty in October 1963. Kennedy presided over the
establishment of the Peace
Corps, Alliance for Progress with Latin America, and the continuation
of the Apollo
space program with the goal
of landing a man on the moon. He also supported the African-American civil rights movement, but was only somewhat successful in passing
his New
Frontier domestic policies.
On November 22, 1963, he was assassinated in Dallas. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson assumed the presidency upon Kennedy’s death. Marxist and former U.S. Marine Lee
Harvey Oswald was arrested for
the state
crime, but he was shot and
killed by Jack
Ruby two days later.
The FBI and the Warren
Commission both concluded
Oswald had acted alone in the assassination, but various groups contested the
Warren Report and believed that Kennedy was the victim of a conspiracy. After Kennedy’s death, Congress enacted many
of his proposals, including the Civil Rights Act and the Revenue Act of 1964. Despite his truncated presidency,
Kennedy ranks highly in polls
of U.S. presidents with
historians and the general public. His personal life has also been the focus of
considerable sustained interest following public revelations in the 1970s of
his chronic health ailments and extramarital affairs.
