JFK INV history

John F. Kennedy in uniform in 1942.

He entered the 80th Congress in January 1947, at the age of 29, and immediately attracted attention (as well as some criticism from older members of the Washington establishment) for his youthful appearance and relaxed, informal style.

On September 12, 1953, Kennedy married the beautiful socialite and journalist Jacqueline (Jackie) Lee Bouvier.

Did you know? John F. Kennedy's Senate career got off to a rocky start when he refused to condemn Senator Joseph McCarthy, a personal friend of the Kennedy family whom the Senate voted to censure in 1954 for his relentless pursuit of suspected communists.

In 1955, while recuperating from a back operation, he wrote Profiles in Courage, which won the Pulitzer Prize for history.

In 1956 Kennedy almost gained the Democratic nomination for vice president, and four years later was a first-ballot nominee for president.

With his beautiful young wife and their two small children (Caroline, born in 1957, and John Jr., born just weeks after the election), Kennedy lent an unmistakable aura of youth and glamour to the White House.

Kennedy had campaigned on the slogan of “getting America moving again” (which the Nixon campaign staff had privately derided as the peristalsis plan). But, recovery from the 1958 recession had been very sluggish and unemployment remained perilously high—6.8% just after he took office.

In his inaugural address, given on January 20, 1961, the new president called on his fellow Americans to work together in the pursuit of progress and the elimination of poverty, but also in the battle to win the ongoing Cold War against communism around the world.

Kennedy clashed again with Khrushchev in October 1962 during the Cuban missile crisis.