English Composition (com 121)
19 February 2004
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born in Boston, Massachusetts May 29, 1917. He was the second of nine children of Joseph P. and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. He had dreams of becoming a journalist, but instead John Kennedy became the thirty-fifth president of the United States of America. JFK was elected in 1960, was the first Roman Catholic to occupy the white house, the first president born in the twentieth century, and at forty-three the youngest person ever elected to the presidency; in many ways, he left a memorable legacy.
John Kennedy's father Joseph, known for his shrewd intelligence and political savvy, played a large role in JFK's political career. In 1937, Joseph became President Franklin D. Roosevelt's ambassador to the Court of St. James, but he had greater achievements in mind. He wanted his first born son to become president, Joseph P.
Lyndon B. Johnson taking the oath of office on Air...
English: John F. Kennedy, photograph in the Oval O...
Jacqueline Kennedy throwing the bouquet at her fir...Kennedy, Jr. When Joseph, Jr. died in combat during World War II, Joseph senior wanted his second son John to run for the presidency. "I was drafted. My father wanted his son in politics. 'Wanted' isn't the right word. He demanded it", John said quoted in (Martin 274). Unlike Joseph Jr., John was rather sickly, shy, and quiet. John was struck by scarlet fever when he was three and remained a frail boy (Martin 274).
John Kennedy went to elite Protestant boarding schools to prepare him for college. He attended prep schools such as Dexter, Riverdale Country Day, Canterbury, and Choate where he was constantly ill and a mediocre student at best. He then attended Harvard were he spent alot of time reading and writing. He wrote a book titled Why England Slept (1940) that did very well selling eighty thousand copies. Because John's father was an ambassador,