John F. Kennedy

President John F. Kennedy remains a subject of fascination for both historians and the general public. Consistently ranked among the most popular American presidents, Kennedy led the USA during a time ofrapid social change at home, punctuated by critical foreign policy crises, among them the Bay of Pigs fiasco in Cuba, the erection of the Berlin Wall, the Cuban missile crisis and the escalation of American involvement in Vietnam. This book is an introduction to American foreign policy at the height of the Cold War, when Kennedy perceived himself to be a foreign policy President. Time and again he used the threat of force, good diplomacy and sound judgement to keep the world from falling into the abyss of nuclear war. He also launched major economic development programmes for Latin America, India and Egypt and despatched Peace Corps volunteers around the world.