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JFK Assassination: History of the President Leading to His Death

JFK Assassination

American History II

By many accounts, John Fitzgerald Kennedy is considered one of the best presidents in the history of the United States. His assassination is still remembered by many as a major event in their life time. At first glance, a report about the assassination of JFK seems it would generate the most sources and make an easy story to tell. While the event does indeed generate an abundance of sources to research, it is not an easy story to tell because of the numerous amounts of conspiracy theories surrounding the JFK assassination. The official investigations conclude to a rather simple explanation, maybe too easy.

JFK History and Assassination
John Fitzgerald Kennedy was the youngest president of the United State at age 43 and sadly was also the youngest president to die, at age 46. He was born in Brookline Massachusetts, May 29, 1917. It seems John Kennedy was destined for a career in politics; there was already a long family history in the profession. John F. Kennedy went to Harvard, was an officer in the Navy, and became a war hero in World War II. As president, John’s first year in office was tough. Forced with many dilemmas between Cuba and Russia, John narrowly avoided war several times. Many believe John would have been the best President of the United States if he were not assassinated. If John was able to serve his full term he most likely would have been reelected, it is clear history would have been very different. The assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald seemed to strongly believe in communism as a motive to his murder of President Kennedy. Although there are many different conspiracies surrounding JFK’s assassination, many refuse that a “lone nut” could kill the president of the United States (Four Days In November, 1964). The immense amount of evidence against Lee Harvey Oswald does seem too simple but there is no ground breaking proof of any conspiracy to take the blame away from Oswald. If there was a cover up, someone did it very effectively. There are a lot of conspiracy theories out there but the only theory with any evidence is the easy one of Lee Harvey Oswald and his hatred of Democracy, but it should not have been that easy to plan and execute the assassination of a United States President. John F. Kennedy

President Kennedy was the second son to Joseph and Rose Kennedy. In many films it depict John Kennedy’s father Joe often grooming his sons for a future in politics (JFK Reckless Youth, 1992). Jack and Joe Kennedy had a typical sibling rivalry, often depicted in movies that Joe was favored being the oldest child. Jack was known as more charismatic and enjoyed himself more and was very well liked (The History Place, 2012.) He was considered the less athletic but Jack was also considered a great writer who won a Pulitzer and went to Harvard and graduated from Stanford. The two brothers both joined the US military; Jack became an officer of a PT boat while Joe became a pilot. Jack was responsible for a boat whose duties were to ward off any supplies to Japanese soldiers. Under his command, the boat was unable to avoid a major collision with a large Japanese ship. Two of Jack’s men were killed but Jack became a hero as he was able to guide the rest of his men to safety by swimming to a nearby island. Jack injured his back in the crash but was still able to pull one of is men, who was badly burned, to safety by griping the seamen’s life jacket with his teeth (Louise Goldstein). Joe Kennedy was killed in action during the war, now Jack was now being looked at to carry on the family tradition in politics (Robert Dallek, 2003). Politics

When Jack arrived home from war, his father set up a job for him as correspondent for Hearst newspaper, this helped keep him in the public eye as well as appease his desire to be a journalist (Dallek, 2003). He eventually successfully ran for congress...
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