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John F. Kennedy
Bronze Medal 33mm (17.02 grams) Issued circa 1960’s-1970’s
JOHN F KENNEDY around bust of President JFK left.
INAUGURATED •PRESIDENT• JANUARY 20, 1961 above and below seal of US President flanked by Torches on either side; inscription at center reads: WE SHALL PAY ANY PRICE, BEAR ANY BURDEN, MEET ANY HARDSHIP, SUPPORT ANY FRIEND, OPPOSE ANY FOE TO ASSURE THE SURVIVAL OF LIBERTY. JOHN F. KENNEDY.
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 Historical evaluations and legacy
The US Special Forces had a special bond with Kennedy. “It was President Kennedy who was responsible for the rebuilding of the Special Forces and giving us back our Green Beret,” said Forrest Lindley, a writer for the US military newspaper Stars and Stripes who served with Special Forces in Vietnam. This bond was shown at Kennedy’s funeral. At the commemoration of the 25th anniversary of Kennedy’s death, General Michael D. Healy, the last commander of Special Forces in Vietnam, spoke at Arlington Cemetery. Later, a wreath in the form of the Green Beret would be placed on the grave, continuing a tradition that began the day of his funeral when a sergeant in charge of a detail of Special Forces men guarding the grave placed his beret on the coffin. Kennedy was the first of six presidents to have served in the U.S. Navy, and one of the enduring legacies of his administration was the creation in 1961 of another special forces command, the Navy SEALs, which Kennedy enthusiastically supported.
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.
Many of Kennedy’s speeches (especially his inaugural address) are considered iconic; and despite his relatively short term in office, and the lack of major legislative changes coming to fruition during his term, Americans regularly vote him as one of the best presidents, in the same league as Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Some excerpts of Kennedy’s inaugural address are engraved on a plaque at his grave at Arlington. In 2018, The Times published an audio recreation of the “watchmen on the walls of world freedom” speech he was scheduled to deliver at the Dallas Trade Mart on November 22, 1963.
He was posthumously awarded the Pacem in Terris Award (Latin: Peace on Earth). It was named after a 1963 encyclical letter by Pope John XXIII that calls upon all people of goodwill to secure peace among all nations.
Kennedy is the only president to have predeceased both his mother and father. He is also the only president to have predeceased a grandparent. His maternal grandmother, Mary Josephine “Josie” Hannon, died in August 1964, nine months after his assassination.
Throughout the English-speaking world, the given name Kennedy has sometimes been used in honor of President Kennedy, as well his brother Robert.
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