Editor's Introduction: Many thousands of books—more than 40,000 by most estimates—and countless articles have appeared over the past 60 years about the short life and interrupted presidency of John F. Kennedy, the youngest man ever elected as U.S. president. During his presidency he had to contend with two of the most severe Cold War crises—the Berlin crisis of 1961 and the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, both of which came perilously close to provoking war between the Soviet Union and the United States—and he also significantly escalated U.S. military involvement in Vietnam and tried unsuccessfully to overthrow Fidel Castro's Communist regime in Cuba. Kennedy had an ambitious domestic agenda, but, except for an important tax cut, he accomplished almost none of his domestic priorities, unlike his successor, Lyndon Johnson, who accomplished a great deal, especially on civil rights. Nonetheless, when polling organizations ask the public about their assessments of U.S....

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