the Foreign Policy of John F. Kennedy

In 1917, John Kennedy Fredrick was born in Brookline, Massachusetts. He was a member of the illustrious Kennedy dynasty, which made a fortune in the illicit alcohol trade before America outlawed it. He is a democrat and his family is Irish-immigrant. He was the United States of America's first and only Catholic president. His faith was a weakness during the elections because the majority of Christians in America are Protestants. He frequently emphasized the importance of separating the church and the state. John F. Kennedy began his political career as a United States Representative and then as a Senator from that state. In 1960, he was elected the 35th president of the United States. He was then sworn in in January 1961 and ruled for less than 3 years.

However, he made some of the greatest transitions in the history of the United States of America for instance the civil rights movement. He played a major role in the fight for the equal rights for the black people. When racial tensions were at the peak in 1963, he said that the black people should shop with the white people in the same stores without holding any demonstrations over it, that they also be allowed to vote peacefully without the fear of violence against them and that they should go to the colleges without any military escort. Thanks to him and Martin Luther, the blacks were granted equal voting rights. The manner, which he advocated for the rights and well being of people in his time, earned him the title of a liberal. This paper will discuss the President John F. Kennedy’s foreign policy.

Once he was sworn in office, it was clear that Kennedy was bound to encounter several international challenges from several quarters but it was thought that he would wisely handle the international issues. Kennedy’s foreign policy in the beginning was not as amazing as expected from his statement in the inaugural speech whereby he said that the United States shall support all countries and help them in meeting hardships in order to achieve liberty. His foreign policy ended up being so disappointing and filled with failures. However, he learnt from his mistake and redesigned American foreign policy by embracing peaceful and diplomatic approaches in resolving international issues. During his reign, cold war was at the peak, which was filled with so many ideological conflicts, competition and the arms race among others. The period between 1961 and 1962, Kennedy faced the challenge of the troubled relationship that existed between the United States of America, which was a capitalist nation and Russia, which was the communist nation.

Kennedy permitted an Eisenhower initiated attack of Bay of Pigs in Cuba in 1961. Cuban exiles ended up facing a fiasco due to the faulty intelligence they had. Having been in office for about two months only, the plan to invade Cuba by the trained refugees who were against Fidel Castro was filled with several assumptions. The forces of Fidel Castro overwhelmed the refugee forces so fast. Eventually, it was so clear and evident that the United States government had something to do with the attempted coup on Fidel Castro despite the fact that the President of the United States refuted the claims. Later on at Vienna Summit in June 1961, Kennedy showed unpreparedness with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.

The next move that worsened the situation with the Soviet Union was his tough comments about the Soviet Union in Berlin. This prompted the Soviets and they decided to build the Berlin Wall. The failure to draw the communism line against the Laos communities left the South of Vietnam as a zone of fighting communism in Asia. With a lot of urging and convincing by the president, the Congress, in 1961 came up with the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA). It was an independent body that was free from any form of interference by the State auspices.

Cuba had taken centre stage in the Cold War by 1962 and made great efforts to neutralize the advantage that America had in nuclear weapons. The ordering of the deployment of long-range nuclear missiles to Cuba did this. This was done alongside the deployment of forty two thousand Soviet troops together with several other associated weaponry (Hybel, 2014). Despite the remote scrutiny by America, this extent of build-up was kept a secret for months by the Soviets only to be detected later by the United States aerial reconnaissance. Kennedy widely consulted with the Executive Committee of the National Security Council and they came up with several options to respond to the Soviet threat for instance air striking the missile bases, blocking the navy or a full-scale invasion of Cuba.

Kennedy settled on a blockade of Cuba, which was backed up with a military action thereat (Hybel, 2014). The announcement of his decision on national television broke the secrecy of the crisis. Luckily enough, the missiles were to be withdrawn several days after the announcement when both sides reached a consensus that the missiles will be withdrawn with the promise that America will not attack Cuba (Roches, 2015). However, not only the Americans but the whole world had to wait for one more week with a lot of tension since it was the first time that the two countries which were the super powers by then got so close to starting a nuclear war.

The announcement that the American nuclear missiles that were targeting Soviet Union were also to be withdrawn and the exchange of notes between the American president and the Soviet’s Premier that the Soviet Union was going to disintegrate and remove the missiles and other weaponry in Cuba brought this crisis to an end (Roches, 2015). This was the toughest situation that any American president had ever found himself in. the way Kennedy resolved the situation showed that he was not only interested in the well-being of the Americans but he was also considerate of the relations that America has with the Soviets. He considered the fact that the Soviets were also watching him (Roches, 2015). During the missiles crisis with Cuba, President Kennedy received overwhelming support from the international community and he was commended for the great turning point that he achieved for the West.

The treaty of the ban of nuclear test was another challenge to the administration of President Kennedy. Based on the previous Eisenhower’s wide negotiations with the Soviet Union, President John F. Kennedy signed a treaty with the Soviets (Hybel, 2014). The treaty did away with atmospheric nuclear testing. However, it still left room for underground nuclear testing. This treaty greatly limited the rate of arms expansion since the beginning of the cold war (Smith & Brinkley, 2017). The three state that signed the treaty that is Britain, United Sates of America and the Soviet Union came to the agreement that they would all refrain from the placement of any nuclear weapon in the outer space. The willingness of President Kennedy to negotiate eventually brought this great development. Later, several other countries also signed the treaty.

Despite the celebrated achievement of the resolution of the Cuba missiles issue, the support that Kennedy offered during the overthrowing of Vietnam’s President Diem with the thought that the successive government would be better than Diem (Roches, 2015). However, this was a very wrong assumption. The participation of the United States in this coup dragged Kennedy into more problems that he anticipated. The regimes that followed after the coup were also not any better unlike what was expected by President Kennedy.

Concerning the developing world, President Kennedy formulated the Peace Corps. The Peace Corps was to offer a response to the escalating spirit of activism, which was now becoming rampant all over the Western world. They sort to bring improvements socially and economically worldwide. After the congress made the initiative a permanent programme in September 1961, the first team of volunteers went to Ghana then later some went to Tanzania and eventually others went to India. By the end of the 20th century, Peace Corps had sent over one hundred and seventy thousand Americans to over one hundred and thirty five nations. When there were emerging concerns that the impoverished Latin American countries would resort to communism, Kennedy formulated the Alliance for Progress to uplift the region’s socio-economic status despite the fact that most of the Latin nations did not support the United States’ embargo on Cuba.

Since the CIA had a different foreign policy from Kennedy’s, he began to have secret negotiations with the Cuban government. The negotiations were organized through William Attwood who was the president’s close friend based in the United Nations. These peaceful negotiations are often linked to his assassination (Roberts, 2016). He would secretly meet with the communists without involving the CIA.

It was the dream of Kennedy to maintain a peaceful relationship with Europe and this became a key guidance in his foreign policy. He laid emphasis that the United States had to work together with Europe to handle the threat of the communist. In addition, he advocated for the unity of Europe but the French President who never supported the American agenda often thwarted his efforts.

President Kennedy left a great legacy in management by the way he orchestrated and led decision-making processes even though the success of the decisions was not always assured. The decision to support the overthrowing of Fidel Castro in the Bay of Pigs fiasco was considered the worst decision that President Kennedy ever made (Smith & Brinkley, 2017). This psychological drive that seeks consensus at all costs supressing the exploration of alternatives was described as group think by the Yale psychologist Irving Janis. Historian Arthur Schlesinger was a part of the decision making process and in his later writings, he confirmed that the meetings were conducted in an environment of assumed consensus such that nobody opposed the decision.

President Kennedy used groupthink to make a lot of decisions on matters of foreign policy but upon realising that it was failing him, he redesigned and adopted candid debate (Hansen, 2013). On learning about the Cuban missiles that pose danger to the United States, the top military has a plan but instead of following its plan of an immediate military strike to fish out the missiles, they follow a new approach of naval blockade (Kennedy, 2013). As the new process was unfolding, more meeting were organised which actually had no ranks or even just a chairman and the conversations were uninhibited. The group later divided into sub groups, one for military strike while the other for the blockade (Rabe, 2012). They developed position papers, which thy swapped, analysed and criticised. The two alternatives were presented to the president who opted for the naval blockade, which succeeded.

President Kennedy possessed an obsessive-compulsive personality. This is because of his great organizational abilities and the way he was so rational in dealing with the issues of international relations. Besides the first mistake he made of agreeing to the attack of Cuba by the exile soldiers, he always chose the most rational way of solving conflicts. For instance, when the top military met and discussed on the way to deal with the Cuban missiles, they presented two options to the president. He chose the most peaceful way of solving the issue, which was the naval blockade. His belief in negotiations to solve conflicts and discussions to come up with solutions also show that he had the obsessive-compulsive personality.

In addition, he was an introvert who gained a lot of energy from being alone. He often preferred to stay alone and think of the best ways to run the country smoothly (Associated Press, 2017). He came up with so many ideas to be debated (Cohen, 2013). His introvert nature is what made him to choose diplomatic approach in solving conflicts in war tone areas. He did not heavily rely on several protocols and meetings to deal with the miscalculation problem (Garland, 2014). He single-handedly, successfully created and then signed to law the Immigration and Nationality Act. He was an orator who had great communication skills (White, 2013). He stated his policies and ideas using simple language but very appealing to the average citizens. Besides, he showed compassion by creating the Peace Corps with the aim of assisting the countries in need by sending them volunteer Americans to support them.

President Kennedy had an authoritative leadership style for instance he came up with the Peace Corps and had the congress approve it. His program, the New Frontier, was styled and succeeded in its first year (Boukhalfa, 2017). As an authoritative leader, he prioritized on the relaxation of East-West tension. He held negotiations with the communists and even signed treaties. He also demonstrated transformational leadership style. In the area of foreign policy, he started with a disaster but in the end he came up with what would develop to major breakthrough in the international relations after the Second World War (Boukhalfa, 2017). The disaster was the support of the invasion of Cuba by the Cuban exiles but he accepted responsibility for the failure

The major events in the American history cannot be separated from the media. During President Kennedy’s time, the television was already central to the Americans. He had been exposed to the media prior to his presidential candidature for instance as a nominated senator, he gave a great speech nominating Stevenson. He became an icon in the Democratic Party as he impressed the television viewers (Soddu, 2012). After officially announcing his presidential candidature, he started his press campaigns the following day. During his presidential campaigns, John Kennedy was a key media target. He developed great relationship with the photographers and reporters who documented almost all his moves. John F. Kennedy’s theme in the 1960 campaign was the need to get America moving again (Gonyea, 2013). It was the first time in American history when the campaign heavily focused on money more so from Kennedy’s family wealth and how the money funded television spots more so in the key primary states. These advertisements targeted specific type of voters and they featured the common citizens who were facing their daily problems (Soddu, 2012). His campaigns featured major outreach to the Hispanic voters and his wife who was pregnant at the time, presented an advertisement in Spanish.

However, Kennedy’s campaign was beyond limit and had some negative propaganda. He ran a devastating advertisement, which attacked President Eisenhower (Gonyea, 2013). In the advertisement, Eisenhower is asked about Nixon's experience and he responds that he could not remember while the others were laughing. Kennedy was the first presidential candidate to use a lot of propaganda during his campaign. President John F. Kennedy was the first sitting president to embrace the use of the media. Due to his experience as a news reporter, he had the eloquence and greatly understood how the press influence public opinion. Besides the acquaintance with print media such as the magazines and newspapers, Kennedy used the television to reach out to the American population. It is estimated that at least in every sixteen days, Kennedy could hold one press conference. He also used the press to channel anti-communism messages

In conclusion, President Kennedy made noticeable mistakes when he first assumed office in foreign policy matters. However he learnt and took responsibility of his mistakes and became a great leader who resorted to diplomacy. On realizing that group think way of decision making was not yielding desirable results, he resorted to the use of candid debate whereby he had teams discussing issues and coming up with the best solutions. He embraced the use of negotiations to solve conflicts and he could even meet the Soviets for negotiations without the knowledge of the CIA, which had a different foreign policy. President John F. Kennedy advocated for peace till his untimely assassination on 22nd November 1963. Besides being on the upfront against communism, he was a source of hope to many countries worldwide because of his commitment to ensure there was democracy and that human rights were upheld. His commitment to uphold and promote liberty, freedom and democracy all over the world has been embraced in the foreign policy trends for over five decades now. President John F. Kennedy greatly shaped the foreign policy of the United States of America.



































References

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