John F. Kennedy "JFK"

John Fitzgerald Kennedy  (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by the initials  JFK  and  Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th  President of the United States  from January 1961 until  his assassination  in November 1963. 

Kennedy served at the height of the  Cold War, and the majority of his work as president concerned relations with the  Soviet Union  and  Cuba. A  Democrat, Kennedy represented  Massachusetts  in the  U.S. House of Representatives  and  Senate  prior to becoming president.

Kennedy's civil rights proposals led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  President Lyndon B. Johnson, Kennedy's successor, took up the mantle and pushed the landmark Civil Rights Act through a bitterly divided Congress by invoking the slain president's memory.

President Johnson then signed the Act into law on July 2, 1964. This civil rights law ended what was known as the "Solid South" and certain provisions were modeled after the  Civil Rights Act of 1875, signed into law by President  Ulysses S. Grant.

Kennedy's continuation of Presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower's policies of giving economic and military aid to South Vietnam left the door open for President Johnson's escalation of the conflict.   At the time of Kennedy's death, no final policy decision had been made as to Vietnam, leading historians, cabinet members, and writers to continue to disagree on whether the Vietnam conflict would have escalated to the point it did had he survived.   His agreement to the NSAM 263 action of withdrawing 1,000 troops by the end of 1963, and his earlier 1963 speech at American University, suggest that he was ready to end the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War contributed greatly to a decade of national difficulties, amid violent disappointment on the political landscape.