John F. Kennedy was sworn in as the 35th President at noon on January 20, 1961. In his inaugural address he spoke of the need for all Americans to be active citizens, famously saying, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." He also asked the nations of the world to join together to fight what he called the "common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself." He added: "All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin." In closing, he expanded on his desire for greater internationalism: "Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you."
Kennedy brought to the White House a stark contrast in organization compared to the military style decision making structure of the former general, Eisenhower; and he wasted no time in dismantling it. Kennedy preferred the organizational structure of a wheel, with all the spokes leading to the president. He was ready and willing to make the increased number of quick decisions required in such an environment. He did a monumental job of quickly selecting his cabinet and other appointments, some experienced and some not. In those cases of inexperience, he stated, "we can learn our jobs together". There were a couple instances where the president got ahead of himself, as when he announced in a cabinet meeting, without prior notice, that Edward Lansdale would be Ambassador to South Vietnam, after being impressed with the CIA man's report on the country. Secretary of State Rusk later succeeded in suggesting a more appropriate alternative. And there was also the rapid appointment of Harris Wofford as a liason to the Civil Rights Commission in response to the urgings of a Commission member, Fr. Edward Hesburgh. When Wofford was summoned and arrived at the White House, he was met by William Hopkins with bible in hand. Hopkins asked him to raise his right hand to be sworn in as Special Assisitant, but was unable to tell Wofford for what purpose he was being made Special Assistant.
Kennedy also demonstrated his decision making agility with Congress. Much to the chagrin of his economic advisors who wanted him to reduce taxes, he quickly agreed to a balanced budget pledge when it became apparent that this was needed in exchange for votes to expand the membership of the House Rules Committee which gave the Democrats a clear majority in setting the legislative agenda.
The president insisted on a focus upon immediate and specific issues facing the administration, and quickly voiced his impatience with hypothetical statements or ponderings of deeper meanings. A deputy national security advisor, Walt Whitman Rostow, once began a diatribe about the growth of communism and Kennedy abruptly cut him off, asking, "What do you want me to do about that today?"
Foreign policy
President Kennedy's foreign policy was dominated by American-Soviet relations. Foreign policy in large part revolved around proxy interventions in the context of the early stage Cold War. In 1961 Kennedy anxiously anticipated a summit with Nikita Khruschev. On the way to the summit was a stop in Paris in June to meet Charles de Gaulle, whose advice to Kennedy was to expect and ignore the abrasive style of Khruschev. Otherwise, the French Prime Minister was, as always, disdainful of the United States with its presumed influence in Europe. de Gaulle saw no reason why France should play a secondary role in foreign policy, including nuclear armament, and expressed this to Kennedy. Nevertheless de Gaulle was quite impressed with the young president and his wife and children. Kennedy picked up on this in his speech in Paris, saying he would be remembered as "the man who accompanied Jackie Kennedy to Paris."
Later that June, the president met with Khruschev in Vienna. He left the meetings angry and disappointed that he had allowed the Premier to bully him through much of the conversations, despite all the warnings about the bluster of the communist. Khruschev for his part was impressed with the president's intelligence but thought him weak. Kennedy did succeed in conveying the bottom line to Khruschev on the most sensitive issue before them, a proposed treaty between Moscow and East Berlin. He made it clear that any such treaty which interfered with U.S access rights in West Berlin would be regarded as an act of war.Shortly after returning home Kennedy learned of the U.S.S.R.'s formal announcement of intent to treat with East Berlin, regardless of any third party occupation rights in either sector of the city. A depressed and angry president then assumed his obligation was to prepare the country for nuclear war, considered to be the only U.S. option if the Soviets' intent was acted upon, and which he then personally thought had a one in five chance of occurring.
In the weeks immediately after the Vienna summit, more than 20 thousand people fled from East Berlin to the western sector in reaction to statements from the U.S.S.R. Kennedy began intensive meetings on the Berlin issue, where Dean Acheson took the lead in recommending a military buildup with NATO allies as the appropriate response. In a July 1961 speech, Kennedy announced his decision to add $3.25 billion to the defense budget, along with over 200 thousand additional troops for the military, saying an attack on West Berlin would be taken as an attack on the U.S. The speech received an 85% approval rating. The following month, the U.S.S.R. and East Berlin officials began blocking any further passage of East Berliners into West Berlin, erecting barbed wire fences across the city. Kennedy's initial reaction was to ignore this, as long as free access from West to East Berlin continued. This course was altered when it was learned that the West Berliners had lost confidence in the defense of their position by the United States. Kennedy then sent V.P. Johnson, along with a host of other military personnel, in convoy through West Berlin to demonstrate the continued commitment of the U.S. to West Berlin.
Africa
John F. Kennedy gave a speech at Saint Anselm College on May 5, 1960, regarding America's conduct in the new realities of the emerging Cold War. Kennedy's speech detailed how American foreign policy should be conducted towards African nations, noting a hint of support for modern African nationalism by saying that "For we, too, founded a new nation on revolt from colonial rule".
Cuba and the Bay of Pigs Invasion
Prior to Kennedy's election to the presidency, the Eisenhower Administration created a plan to overthrow the Fidel Castro regime in Cuba. Central to the plan, led by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) with help from the US Military but with no covert help from the United States, was the arming of a counter-revolutionary insurgency composed of anti-Castro Cuban exiles U.S.-trained Cuban insurgents, led by CIA paramilitary officers from the Special Activities Division, were to invade Cuba and instigate an uprising among the Cuban people in hopes of removing Castro from power. On April 17, 1961, Kennedy ordered the previously planned invasion of Cuba to proceed. In what is known as the Bay of Pigs Invasion, 1,500 U.S.-trained Cubans, called "Brigade 2506," returned to the island in the hope of deposing Castro. However, in keeping with prior plans, no U.S. air support was provided. By April 19, 1961, the Cuban government had captured or killed the invading exiles, and Kennedy was forced to negotiate for the release of the 1,189 survivors. The failure of the plan originated in a lack of covert U.S. naval or air support in the face of organized artillery troops on the island who easily incapacitated the exile force as it landed on the beach. After twenty months, Cuba released the captured exiles in exchange for $53 million worth of food and medicine. Furthermore, the incident made Castro wary of the U.S. and led him to believe that another invasion would occur. According to biographer Richard Reeves, Kennedy primarily focused on the political repercussions of the plan rather than the military considerations; when it failed, he was convinced the plan was a set up by the Joint Chiefs to make him look bad.
Late in 1961 the White House formed the "Special Group (Augmented)", headed by brother Robert and including Edward Lansdale, Sec. McNamara and others; the group's objective was the overthrow of Castro via espionage, sabotage and other covert tactics.
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis began on October 14, 1962, when CIA U-2 spy planes took photographs of a Soviet intermediate-range ballistic missile site under construction in Cuba. The photos were shown to Kennedy on October 16, 1962. The United States would soon be posed with a serious nuclear threat. Kennedy faced a dilemma: if the U.S. attacked the sites, it might lead to nuclear war with the U.S.S.R., but if the U.S. did nothing, it would endure the threat of nuclear weapons being launched from close range. Because the weapons were in such proximity, the U.S. might have been unable to retaliate if they were launched pre-emptively. Another consideration was that the U.S. would appear to the world as weak in its own hemisphere.
Many military officials and cabinet members pressed for an air assault on the missile sites, but Kennedy ordered a naval quarantine in which the U.S. Navy inspected all ships arriving in Cuba. He began negotiations with the Soviets and ordered the Soviets to remove all defensive material that was being built on Cuba. Without doing so, the Soviet and Cuban peoples would face naval quarantine. A week later, he and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev reached a basically cordial, lasting agreement. Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles subject to U.N. inspections if the U.S. publicly promised never to invade Cuba and quietly remove its Jupiter missiles stationed in Turkey. The removal of the Jupiter missiles was not a great concession as they were viewed as obsolete and Kennedy believed the US Navy Polarlis subs could fill their role. This crisis had brought the world closer to nuclear war than at any point before or since. In the end, "the humanity" of the two men prevailed.
Latin America and communism
Arguing that "those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable," Kennedy sought to contain communism in Latin America by establishing the Alliance for Progress, which sent foreign aid to troubled countries in the region and sought greater human rights standards in the region. He worked closely with Governor of Puerto Rico Luis Muñoz Marín for the development of the Alliance of Progress, as well as developments in the autonomy of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
When the president took office the Eisenhower administration, through the CIA, has begun putting into place assassination plots in Cuba against Castro and in the Dominican Republic against Rafael Trujillo. Kennedy instructed the CIA privately that any such planning must include plausible deniability by the U.S.. His public position was in opposition. In June 1961 the Dominican Republic's leader was assassinated; in the days following the event, Undersecretary of State Chester Bowles led a cautious reaction by the nation, and Robert Kennedy, substituting for his brother who was in France, and who saw an opportunity for the U.S., called him "a gutless bastard" to his face.
Peace Corps
As one of his first presidential acts, Kennedy asked Congress to create the Peace Corps. Through this program, Americans volunteer to help underdeveloped nations in areas such as education, farming, health care, and construction.
Southeast Asia
In his briefings of Kennedy, Eisenhower was quick to point out the communist threat in Southeast Asia as requiring prioritization in the next administration. Eisenhower told Kennedy he considered Laos to be "the cork in the bottle" as regarded the regional threat. In March 1960 Kennedy voiced a change in policy from supporting a "free" Laos to a "neutral" Laos, indicating privately that Vietnam was the breaking point for communism's spread in the area in terms of a U.S. reaction. In May 1961 he dispatched Lyndon Johnson to meet with Diem. Johnson assured Diem of more aid in molding a fighting force that could resist the Communists. Kennedy announced a change of policy from support to partnership with Diem in defeat of communism in South Vietnam.
Otherwise, Kennedy generally followed Eisenhower's lead, by using limited military action to fight the Communist forces led by Ho Chi Minh. Proclaiming a fight against the spread of Communism, Kennedy continued policies providing political, economic, and military support for the unstable French-installed South Vietnamese government. Late in 1961, the Viet Cong began assuming a predominant presence, initially seizing the provincial capital of Phouc Vinh. Kennedy increased the number of helicopters, military advisors and U.S. Special Forces in the area, but he was still reluctant to make a full scale deployment of troops. Kennedy formally authorized the country's war footing in Southeast Asia when he signed the "National Security Action Memorandum - Subversive Insurgency (War of Liberation)" in early 1962. At that time, "Operation Ranch Hand", a broad scale defoliation effort began along the roadsides in South Vietnam. Two hundred thousand gallons of defoliant were shipped in violation of the Geneva Accords.
By July 1963, Kennedy faced a crisis in Vietnam: despite increased U.S. support, the South Vietnamese military was only marginally effective against pro-Communist Viet Minh and Viet Cong forces. Regarding Ngo Dinh Diem, the Catholic President of South Vietnam, as insufficiently anti-Communist, the U.S. gave secret assurances of non-interference for an impending coup d'état. On November 1, 1963, South Vietnamese generals overthrew the Diem government, arresting and then killing Diem (though the circumstances of his death were obfuscated). Kennedy sanctioned Diem's overthrow, but not his murder. One reason to support the coup was a fear that Diem might negotiate a neutralist coalition government which included Communists, as had occurred in Laos in 1962. Dean Rusk, Secretary of State, remarked "This kind of neutralism...is tantamount to surrender."
It remains a point of some controversy among historians whether or not Vietnam would have escalated to the point it did had Kennedy served out his full term and been re-elected in 1964. Fueling the debate are statements made by Kennedy and Johnson's Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara that Kennedy was strongly considering pulling out of Vietnam after the 1964 election. In the film "The Fog of War", not only does McNamara say this, but a tape recording of Lyndon Johnson confirms that Kennedy was planning to withdraw from Vietnam, a position Johnson states he strongly disapproved of. Additional evidence is Kennedy's National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) 263, dated October 11, 1963, which ordered withdrawal of 1,000 military personnel by the end of 1963. Nevertheless, given the stated reason for the overthrow of the Diem government, such action would have been a policy reversal, but Kennedy was generally moving in a less hawkish direction in the Cold War since his acclaimed speech about World Peace at American University the previous June 10, 1963. According to historian Lawrence Freedman, regarding Kennedy's statements about withdrawing from Vietnam, it was, "less of a definite decision than a working assumption, based on a hope for stability rather than an expectation of chaos".
The details of Kennedy's involvement in Vietnam remained classified until the release of the
Pentagon Papers in 1971.
U.S. involvement in the area escalated until Lyndon Johnson, his successor, directly deployed regular U.S. military forces for fighting the Vietnam War.After Kennedy's assassination, the new President Lyndon B. Johnson immediately reversed his predecessor's order to withdraw 1,000 military personnel by the end of 1963 with his own NSAM 273 on November 26, 1963.
American University speech
On June 10, 1963, Kennedy delivered the commencement address at American University in Washington, D.C., proclaiming that "The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war. We do not want a war. We do not now expect a war," but cautioning that, "We shall be prepared if others wish it. We shall be alert to try to stop it. But we shall also do our part to build a world of peace where the weak are safe and the strong are just."
West Berlin speech
Under simultaneous and opposing pressures from the Allies and the Soviets, Germany was divided. The Berlin Wall separated West and East Berlin, the latter being under the control of the Soviets. On June 26, 1963, Kennedy visited West Berlin and gave a public speech criticizing communism. Kennedy used the construction of the Berlin Wall as an example of the failures of communism: "Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in." The speech is known for its famous phrase
"Ich bin ein Berliner". Nearly five-sixths of the population was on the street when Kennedy said the famous phrase. He remarked to aides afterwards: "We'll never have another day like this one."
Israel
During Kennedy's time in office he encountered problems with the Israeli government regarding the production of nuclear weapons in Dimona. Although the existence of a nuclear plant was initially denied by the Israeli government, David Ben-Gurion, in a speech to the Israeli Knesset on December 21, 1960, stated that the purpose of the nuclear plant established at Beersheba was for "research in problems of arid zones and desert flora and fauna". When Ben-Gurion met with Kennedy in New York, he claimed that Dimona was being developed to provide nuclear power for desalinization and that "for the time being the only purposes [of the nuclear plant] are for peace". Kennedy did not believe this, and in May 1963 sent a letter to Ben-Gurion stating, "this commitment and this support would seriously be jeopardized in the public opinion in this country and the West as a whole if it should be thought that this Government was unable to obtain reliable information on a subject as vital to peace as Israel's efforts in the nuclear field." Ben-Gurion repeated previous reassurances that Dimona was being developed for peaceful purposes, and Israel firmly resisted American pressure to open its nuclear facilities to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections. According to Seymour Hersh, the Israelis set up false control rooms to show American inspectors. Abe Feinberg stated, "It was part of my job to tip them off that Kennedy was insisting on [an inspection]." The State Department argued that if Israel wanted U.S. tanks, it should be prepared in return to accept international supervision of its nuclear program. Kennedy had tried to control the arms being sold and given to Israel because the Israelis would not sign the IAEA compacts for the Dimona nuclear site, would not fully admit its purpose and continued to insist it was for peaceful energy purposes. In early March 1965, the director of the State Department's Office of Near Eastern Affairs, Rodger P. Davies, had come to the conclusion that Israel was developing nuclear weapons. He reported that the target date for acquisition of a nuclear capability by Israel was 1968-69. A science attache at the embassy in Tel Aviv concluded that parts of the Dimona facility had been "purposely mothballed" to mislead American scientists during their visit. Dimona was never placed under IAEA safeguards despite efforts made by various U.S. administrators and presidents. On May 1, 1968, Undersecretary of State Katzenbach told President Johnson that Dimona was producing enough plutonium to produce two bombs a year. Attempts to write Israeli adherence to the NPT into contracts for the supply of U.S. weapons continued throughout 1968.
Iraq
In 1963, the Kennedy administration backed a coup against the government of Iraq headed by General Abdel Karim Kassem, who five years earlier had deposed the Western-allied Iraqi monarchy. The CIA helped the new Ba'ath Party government led by Abdul Salam Arif in ridding the country of suspected leftists and Communists. In a Ba'athist coup, the government used lists of suspected Communists and other leftists provided by the CIA, to systematically murder untold numbers of Iraq's educated elite...killings in which Saddam Hussein himself is said to have participated. The victims included hundreds of doctors, teachers, technicians, lawyers, and other professionals as well as military and political figures. According to an op-ed in
The New York Times, the U.S. sent arms to the new regime, weapons later used against the same Kurdish insurgents the U.S. supported against Kassem and then abandoned him. American and UK oil and other interests, including Mobil, Bechtel, and British Petroleum, were conducting business in Iraq.
Ireland
On the occasion of his visit to the Republic of Ireland in 1963, President Kennedy joined with Irish President Éamon de Valera to form The American Irish Foundation. The mission of this organization was to foster connections between Americans of Irish descent and the country of their ancestry. Kennedy furthered these connections of cultural solidarity by accepting a grant of armorial bearings from the Chief Herald of Ireland. Kennedy had near-legendary status in Ireland, due to his ancestral ties to the country. Irish citizens who were alive in 1963 often have very strong memories of Kennedy's momentous visit. He also visited the original cottage at Dunganstown, near New Ross, where previous Kennedys had lived before emigrating to America, and said: "This is where it all began ..." On December 22, 2006, the Irish Department of Justice released declassified police documents that indicated that Kennedy was the subject of three death threats during this visit. Though these threats were determined to be hoaxes, security was heightened.
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
Troubled by the long-term dangers of radioactive contamination and nuclear weapons proliferation, Kennedy pushed for the adoption of a Limited or Partial Test Ban Treaty, which prohibited atomic testing on the ground, in the atmosphere, or underwater, but did not underground. In the Vienna summit meeting in June 1961, Khrushchev and Kennedy reached an informal understanding against nuclear testing. However, Khrushchev began testing nuclear weapons that September. Kennedy responded by conducting tests 5 days later.Shortly thereafter new U.S satellites began delivering images which made it clear that the Soviets were substantially behind the U.S. in the "missile gap". Nevertheless, the greater nuclear strength of the U.S. was of little value as long as the U.S.S.R. perceived themselves to be at parity.
Ultimately, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union were the initial signatories to a treaty, which Kennedy signed into law in August 1963.
Domestic policy
Kennedy called his domestic program the "New Frontier". It ambitiously promised federal funding for education, medical care for the elderly, economic aid to rural regions, and government intervention to halt the recession. Kennedy also promised an end to racial discrimination. In 1963, he proposed a tax reform which included income tax cuts, but this was not passed by Congress until 1964, after his death. Few of Kennedy's major programs passed Congress during his lifetime, although, under his successor Johnson, Congress did vote them through in 1964—65.
Economy
Kennedy ended a period of tight fiscal policies, loosening monetary policy to keep interest rates down and encourage growth of the economy. Kennedy presided over the first government budget to top the $100 billion mark, in 1962, and his first budget in 1961 led to the country's first non-war, non-recession deficit. The economy, which had been through two recessions in three years and was in one when Kennedy took office, accelerated notably during his brief presidency. Despite low inflation and interest rates, GDP had grown by an average of only 2.2% during the Eisenhower presidency (scarcely more than population growth at the time), and had declined by 1% during Eisenhower's last twelve months in office. Stagnation had taken a toll on the nation's labor market, as well: unemployment had risen steadily from under 3% in 1953 to 7%, by early 1961.
The economy turned around and prospered during the Kennedy administration. GDP expanded by an average of 5.5% from early 1961 to late 1963, while inflation remained steady at around 1% and unemployment began to ease; industrial production rose by 15% and motor vehicle sales leapt by 40%. This rate of growth in GDP and industry continued until around 1966, and has yet to be repeated for such a sustained period of time.
In 1962, all of the major steel companies announced a future price increase within hours of each other, to a price target almost to within a penny of one another. Due to that circumstance, there was concern within the administration that steel executives had illegally colluded in doing this, as well as the greater concern about the inflationary effects of the price increase. The administration's actions influenced US Steel not to institute the price increase.
The Wall Street Journal wrote that the administration had acted "by naked power, by threats, by agents of the state security police." Yale law professor Charles Reich wrote in
The New Republic his opinion that the administration had violated civil liberties by calling a grand jury to indict US Steel for collusion so quickly. A New York Times editorial praised Kennedy's actions and said that the steel industry's price increase "imperils the economic welfare of the country by inviting a tidal wave of inflation."
Kennedy had little knowledge of the agricultural sector of the economy, and farmers were definitely not on his list of priorities, at least in his 1960 campaign. After giving a speech to a farming community, he rhetorically asked an aide, "Did you understand any of what I just said in there? I sure didn't." And after his last such speech on the campaign trail he remarked, "F*** the farmers after November."
Federal and military death penalty
As President, Kennedy oversaw the last pre-
Furman federal execution, and, as of 2008, the last military execution. Governor of Iowa Harold Hughes, a death penalty opponent, personally contacted Kennedy to request clemency for Victor Feguer, who was sentenced to death by a federal court in Iowa, but Kennedy turned down the request and Feguer was executed on March 15, 1963. Kennedy commuted a death sentence imposed by military court on seaman Jimmie Henderson on February 12, 1962, changing the penalty to life in prison.
On March 22, 1962, Kennedy signed into law HR5143 (PL87-423), abolishing the mandatory death penalty for first degree murder in the District of Columbia, the only remaining jurisdiction in the United States with a mandatory death sentence for first degree murder, replacing it with life imprisonment with parole if the jury could not decide between life imprisonment and the death penalty, or if the jury chose life imprisonment by a unanimous vote. The death penalty in the District of Columbia has not been applied since 1957, and has now been abolished.
Civil rights
The turbulent end of state-sanctioned racial discrimination was one of the most pressing domestic issues of Kennedy's era. The United States Supreme Court had ruled in 1954 in
Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. However, many schools, especially in southern states, did not obey the Supreme Court's judgment. Segregation on buses, in restaurants, movie theaters, bathrooms, and other public places continued despite prohibition by the Court. Kennedy verbally supported racial integration and civil rights, and during the 1960 campaign he telephoned Coretta Scott King, wife of the jailed Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., which perhaps drew some additional black support to his candidacy. John and Robert Kennedy's intervention secured the early release of King from jail.
Nevertheless President Kennedy initially believed the grass roots movement for civil rights would only anger many Southern whites and make it even more difficult to pass civil rights laws through Congress, which was dominated by conservative Southern Democrats, and he distanced himself from it. He also was more concerned with other issues early in his presidency, e.g. the Bay of Pigs Fiasco and Southeast Asias issues. As articulated by brother Robert, the political priority then was to keep the president out of "this civil rights mess". As a result, many civil rights leaders viewed Kennedy as unsupportive of their efforts, especially as concerned the Freedom Riders who organized an integrated public transportation effort in the south, and who were repeatedly met with violence by whites, including some law enforcement both federal and state. Kennedy assigned federal marshals to protect the Freedom Riders as an alternative to using federal troops or uncooperative FBI agents. Robert Kennedy, speaking for the president, urged the Freedom Riders to get off the buses and leave the matter to peaceful settlement in the courts.
In September 1962, James Meredith tried to enroll at the University of Mississippi, but he was prevented from doing so by white students and other Mississippians. Robert Kennedy, then Attorney General, responded by sending some 400 U.S. Marshals, while President Kennedy reluctantly sent about 3,000 federal troops after the situation on campus turned violent. Riots at the campus left two dead and dozens injured. Meredith finally enrolled in his first class.
On June 11, 1963, President Kennedy intervened when Alabama Governor George Wallace blocked the doorway to the University of Alabama to stop two African American students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from enrolling. Wallace moved aside after being confronted by federal marshals, Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach and the Alabama National Guard. That evening Kennedy gave his famous civil rights address on national television and radio. Kennedy proposed what would become the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Kennedy signed the executive order creating the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women in 1961. Commission statistics revealed that women were also experiencing discrimination. Their final report documenting legal and cultural barriers was issued in October 1963, a month before Kennedy's assassination.
Civil liberties
In 1963, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who hated civil-rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. and viewed him as an upstart troublemaker, presented the Kennedy Administration with allegations that some of King's close confidants and advisers were communists. Concerned that the allegations, if made public, would derail the Administration's civil rights initiatives, Robert Kennedy warned King to discontinue the suspect associations, and later felt compelled to issue a written directive authorizing the FBI to wiretap King and other leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, King's civil rights organization. Although Kennedy only gave written approval for limited wiretapping of King's phones "on a trial basis, for a month or so", Hoover extended the clearance so his men were "unshackled" to look for evidence in any areas of King's life they deemed worthy. The wire tapping continued through June 1966 and was revealed in 1968.
Immigration
John F. Kennedy initially proposed an overhaul of American immigration policy that later was to become the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, sponsored by Kennedy's brother Senator Edward Kennedy. It dramatically shifted the source of immigration from Northern and Western European countries towards immigration from Latin America and Asia and shifted the emphasis of selection of immigrants towards facilitating family reunification. Kennedy wanted to dismantle the selection of immigrants based on country of origin and saw this as an extension of his civil rights policies.
Space program
As a senator, Kennedy had been generally opposed to the space program. Early in his presidency he was poised to dismantle the Apollo program but postponed any decision out of deference to his Vice President whom he had appointed chairman of the U.S. Space Council and strongly supported NASA due to its Texas location.
This changed with his 1961 State of the Union. Kennedy was then eager for the United States to take the lead in the Space Race. Sergei Khrushchev says Kennedy approached his father, Nikita, twice about a "joint venture" in space exploration...in June 1961 and autumn 1963. On the first occasion, the Soviet Union was far ahead of America in terms of space technology. Kennedy first announced the goal for landing a man on the Moon in the speech to a Joint Session of Congress on May 25, 1961, saying
"First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him back safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish."
Kennedy later made a speech at Rice University on September 12, 1962, in which he said
"No nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in this race for space."
and
"We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."
On November 21, 1962, however, in a Cabinet Room meeting with NASA Administrator James Webb and other officials, Kennedy said
"This is important for political reasons, international political reasons... Because otherwise we shouldn't be spending this kind of money, because I'm not that interested in space. I think it's good, I think we ought to know about it, we're ready to spend reasonable amounts of money. But...we’ve spent fantastic expenditures, we’ve wrecked our budget on all these other domestic programs, and the only justification for it, in my opinion, to do it in the pell-mell fashion is because we hope to beat them [the Soviets] and demonstrate that starting behind, as we did by a couple of years, by God, we passed them. I think it would be a helluva thing for us."
On the second approach to Khrushchev, the Ukrainian was persuaded that cost-sharing was beneficial and that American space technology was forging ahead. The U.S. had launched a geosynchronous satellite and Kennedy had asked Congress to approve more than $25 billion for the Apollo program.
In September 1963, during a speech before the United Nations, Kennedy again proposed a joint lunar program to the Soviet Union. The proposal was not enthusiastically received by Khrushchev. Kennedy's death only a little more than a month later essentially made the proposal irrelevant. On July 20, 1969, almost six years after his death, Apollo's goal was realized when Americans landed on the Moon.
Native American relations
Construction of the Kinzua Dam flooded of Seneca nation land that they occupied under the Treaty of 1794, and forced approximately 600 Seneca to relocate to the northern shores upstream of the dam at Salamanca, New York. Kennedy was asked by the American Civil Liberties Union to intervene and halt the project but he declined citing a critical need for flood control. He did express concern for the plight of the Seneca, and directed government agencies to assist in obtaining more land, damages, and assistance to help mitigate their displacement.