Many Cubans began to flee to the United States and during the Eisenhower administration the CIA had begun to train Cuban exiles secretly for an invasion of Cuba. In April 1961 more than “1000 Cuban exiles made an amphibious landing”5 in Cuba at a place called the Bay of Pigs. Their plan was to move inland and join with anti-Castro forces to stage a revolt simultaneously, but instead Castro’s forces were there to meet the invaders. The revolt in the interior did not materialize, and air support, promised by the CIA, never came. The exiles were defeated and the survivors were taken prisoner. Castro began to demand money for their release but Kennedy refused to negotiate with Castro. Kennedy did take steps to encourage both businesses and private citizens to reach an agreement with Castro and to contribute to the ransom. On December 25, 1962, “1113 prisoners were released in exchange for food and medical supplies valued at a total of approximately $53 million.
On June 3, 1961, in Vienna, Austria, Kennedy and USSR leader Nikata Khrushchev met and reviewed relationships between the U. S. and the USSR, as well as other questions of interest to the two states. Two incidents contributed to hostility at the meeting, first being the shooting down of a U. S. spy plane in Soviet air space, and the second was the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in early 1961. The results of the conference made it clear that Khrushchev had construed Kennedy’s failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion as a sign of weakness. No agreements were reached on any important issues and the Soviet premier made it clear that the Soviet Union untended to pursue an even more aggressive policy toward the United States.
Amongst other problems President Kennedy faced, none was more serious than the Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1960 Soviet Premier Khrushchev supplied Cuba with nuclear missiles that would put the eastern United States within range of nuclear missile attack. During the summer of 1962 U. S. spy planes flying over Cuba photographed Soviet-managed construction work and spotted the first missile on October 14. For seven days Kennedy consulted with advisors, discussing the possible responses. On October 22, Kennedy told the nation about the discovery of the missiles, demanded that the Soviet Union remove the missiles, and declared the waters around Cuba a quarantine zone.
For several tense days Soviet vessels en route to Cuba avoided the quarantine zone, while Khrushchev and Kennedy discussed the issue through diplomatic channels. Khrushchev, realizing his weak military position, sent one of two messages to Kennedy in which he agreed to remove the missiles. The following day, before the United States could respond to the first note a second was sent by Khrushchev to try and negotiate terms. Kennedy responded to the first message and an agreement was met for the Soviet missiles to be dismantled and removed from Cuba. In return Kennedy secretly promised not to invade Cuba and to remove older missiles from Turkey. This was perhaps Kennedy’s greatest moment as president. Many feel that because of Kennedy’s aggression that perhaps WWIII was avoided.
On November 22, 1963, President and Mrs. Kennedy were in Dallas, Texas, trying to win support in a state that Kennedy had barely carried in 1960. On his way to a luncheon in Dallas, Kennedy and his wife sat in an open convertible at the head of a motorcade. Lyndon Johnson was two cars behind the president, and Texas Governor John B. Connally and his wife were sitting with the Kennedy’s. As the motorcade approached an underpass, two shots were fired, one bullet passed through the president’s neck and struck Governor Connally in the back, with the other bullet striking the president in the head. The car sped to nearby Parkland Hospital where at 1:00 PM Kennedy was pronounced dead.
Less than two hours after the shooting, aboard the presidential plane at the Dallas airport, Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as the 36th president of the United States. The bullets that killed Kennedy were fired from a sixth-story window of a nearby warehouse. That afternoon, Lee Harvey Oswald, was arrested in a Dallas movie theater and charged with murder. Two days later, as the suspect was being transferred from one jail to another, Jack Ruby sprang out from a group of reporters and as millions watched on television, fired a revolver into Oswald’s left side. Oswald died in the same hospital to which the President had been taken.
On November 24, the body of President Kennedy was carried on a horse-drawn carriage from the White House to the Rotunda of the Capitol. Hundreds of thousands of people filed past the coffin of the slain president. A state funeral was held the next day where “representatives of 92 nations attended.”7 It has been estimated that as many as “1 million people”8 lined the streets of Washington as the funeral procession made its way slowly to Arlington National Cemetery. An eternal flame lighted by his wife and brothers marked the grave. Five days after the funeral, President Johnson appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Earl Warren chairman of a committee to investigate Kennedy’s death. The findings of the commission were announced on September 27, 1964, which stated that investigators had found “no evidence of conspiracy in the assassination.”9 Their report concluded, “The shots which killed President Kennedy were fired by Lee Harvey Oswald.”