What big contributions did JFk make?
Kennedy was the member of a minority religion, Roman Catholicism, that had never won a US presidential election and that had been very soundly whipped the only previous time it had tried (Al Smith, 1928 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Smith ) and some found Kennedy’s audacity as a Roman Catholic seeking the presidency in an overwhelmingly Protestant country itself to be courageous. His inaugural speech ( http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/… ) inspired a generation of Americans and in his state of the union address he declared America’s intent to land a man on the Moon and return him safely to Earth before the decade was out. The promise was carried out. Kennedy openly stood up to Khruschev in the 1962 Cuban missile crisis and forced withdrawal of the Soviet missiles from Cuba; this brought about the end of Khruschev in 1964.
