Anne Collins - John F. Kennedy

The new president had everything. He came from a rich family, with a strong father who wanted his children to do well. He was charming and intelligent, with a beautiful young wife and two lovely children. He was a war hero, with an award for courage. And when he gave speeches, people listened and believed in what he said. Surely, Americans thought, John F. Kennedy was a great leader for a great country.

But not everything was so easy. JFK wanted world peace, but there was trouble in Germany, Cuba, and Vietnam. Many Americans fought against the idea of equal rights for black Americans. And a president must be president, even when his back hurts and he is secretly ill.

And all the time, the sudden end of Kennedys extraordinary time as president was coming closer and closer

OXFORD BOOKWORMS LIBRARY
Factfiles

John F. Kennedy

Stage 2 (700 headwords)

Factfiles Series Editor: Christine Lindop

ANNE COLLINS

John F. Kennedy

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the Universitys objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries

Oxford University Press 2014

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

First published 2014

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

No unauthorized photocopying

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the ELT Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above

You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer

Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work

ISBN: 978 0 19 423672 0

A complete recording of John F. Kennedy is available on CD. Pack ISBN: 978 0 19 423664 5

Printed in China

Word count (main text): 6,857

For more information on the Oxford Bookworms Library,
visit www.oup.com/elt/gradedreaders

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Cover image courtesy of: Corbis (John F. Kennedy/John Bryson/Sygma)

Maps by: Peter Bull pp.2, 18, 23

The publishers would like to thank the following for their permission to reproduce photographs:

Alamy pp.6 (Keystone Pictures USA), 7 (Stocktrek Images, Inc), 12 (Keystone Pictures USA), 16 (Everett Collection Historical), 17 (Keystone Pictures USA), 20 (Interfoto), 28 (Charles O Cecil), 29 (Everett Collection Historical), 31 (Everett Collection Historical), 32 (Stocktrek Images, Inc), 36 (RGB Ventures LLC dba Superstock), 37 (Universal Images Group Limited); Corbis UK Ltd pp.1, 5 (Bettmann), 8, 13, 14 (Bettmann), 21, 26, 34, 38 (Bettmann), 41 (Bettmann); Mary Evans Picture Library pp.4 (Friedrich/Interfoto), 19 (Everett Collection); Getty Images pp.10 (National Archive/Newsmakers), 24 (Keystone), 25 (Central Press), 33 (Three Lions), 35 (SSPL/NASA), 40 (Kevin Clark/The Washington Post)

e-Book ISBN 978 0 19 463077 1

e-Book first published 2014

INTRODUCTION

1 A great president

2 The Kennedys

3 A war hero

4 To the White House

5 The First Lady

6 The Cold War

7 Problems in Cuba

8 Peace and war

9 Equal rights for all

10 Race to the moon

11 The world in shock

12 The years after

GLOSSARY

ACTIVITIES: Before Reading

ACTIVITIES: While Reading

ACTIVITIES: After Reading

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ABOUT THE BOOKWORMS LIBRARY

John F. Kennedy was the thirty-fifth president of the United States. He was president for only a short time, from 20 January 1961 to 22 November 1963. But he is one of the best loved American presidents ever, together with Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. When he died suddenly, he was still a young man, only forty-six years old. His death was a terrible shock for people in the US and around the world.

Kennedys full name was John Fitzgerald Kennedy, but people often call him JFK. He was the second youngest man to become president of the US (Theodore Roosevelt, at forty-two, was younger by a year). There are many interesting firsts about Kennedy. He was the first American president to be born in the 1900s. He was the first Catholic president, and the first president to win a Pulitzer Prize, a special award from Columbia University, for a book that he wrote (the book was called Profiles in Courage, and it was about eight US senators who showed political courage). He was also the first US president to die before his mother and father.

John F. Kennedy died more than fifty years ago, but the world still remembers him. There are many books about him, and in 1991 Oliver Stone made a film, JFK, about his death. Important buildings and other places carry his name. Perhaps the most famous is the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, but there is also the John F. Kennedy Space Center, John F. Kennedy University, and many schools. The government of Canada even called a mountain by his name: Mount Kennedy in the Kluane National Park in the Yukon.

But why did people love Kennedy so much? He was a strong leader who wanted to do his best for his country. He was intelligent and he worked hard. He was good-looking and charming. People liked him and they believed in his ideas. He was also very good at giving speeches. If you listen to Kennedys famous speeches today, you can easily understand why people admired him. He gave them hope for the future.

This is the story of John F. Kennedy.

In 1849, a young Irishman, Patrick Kennedy, left Ireland and traveled to the US by ship. At that time, there were terrible problems in Ireland. The most important food for poor people was potatoes. But in the late 1840s, the potatoes went bad, and many people had nothing to eat. About a million Irish people died, and another million left Ireland. Many of these went to the US, hoping for a better life.

Patrick Kennedy found work in Boston, Massachusetts, in the east of the US. He married and had five children. His children married, and they had children too. The Kennedys were very hard-working, and over the years, they made a lot of money in business. They also became an important political family.

One of Patrick Kennedys grandsons was called Joseph, or Joe. In October 1914, Joe married Rose Fitzgerald. The Fitzgeralds, like the Kennedys, were one of Bostons most important political families. Joe and Rose had nine children four boys and five girls. Their first son, Joe, was born on 25 July 1915, and their second son on 29 May 1917. His full name was John Fitzgerald Kennedy, but sometimes his friends and family called him Jack.