The Tragedy Of JFK Explained

When it comes to American dynasties, they don't get much more powerful — or romanticized — than the Kennedys. When a 2023 Gallup poll asked Americans to take a look back at past presidents and declare whether or not they approved of how they handled their time in office, John F. Kennedy was a clear winner with a whopping 90% approval rating. Even when he was in office, he had about a 70% approval rating, which is wildly impressive. 

It makes sense. JFK wasn't just a president. He and his family symbolized all that America aspired to. Charismatic and capable of inspiring an entire nation with just a few words, Kennedy seemed to have it all — right down to a loving family and a few ponies roaming the White House lawn. Appearances are often deceiving, though, and behind that image of King Arthur and Camelot, there was a man whose life had not only been touched by tragedy but defined by it.

Long before JFK's assassination played out in front of a horrified nation, the man who would become America's most beloved president was given last rites ... more than once. The final prayer said after his assassination was the fifth time JFK received last rites, and in a small way, that gives some indication of the difficulties he faced. In addition to his struggles and chronic health issues, Kennedy was surrounded by death — and even after his own, some chilling details emerged that suggested history hadn't needed to play out like that at all.

John F. Kennedy's mother, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, kept meticulous records regarding all of her nine children. That's how we know young Kennedy suffered from a laundry list of illnesses, including whooping cough, a bacterial infection that's rarely deadly but can last for months and comes with vomiting and uncontrollable coughing. 

Kennedy also contracted both measles and chicken pox during his youth, but the most distressing illness came when he was just two years old. At the same time his mother went into labor with his sister, he was diagnosed with the highly contagious and potentially deadly scarlet fever. It, too, is a bacterial infection that manifests with symptoms like a full-body rash, aches and pains, fever, swollen glands, difficulty swallowing, and vomiting. It's known to cause permanent health problems, and Kennedy's case was so severe that before he was hospitalized, he was given last rites. 

After a combined 12 weeks in the hospital and isolation, he recovered — but only from the scarlet fever. Ill health continued, and today, it's believed he was always suffering from some form of digestive troubles, often cited as irritable bowel syndrome and its complications. There were also chronic urinary tract infections, ulcers, and prostatitis, which is a painful swelling of the prostate gland. Problems continued into his young adulthood when he was forced to take time off from school after contracting an unknown illness — sometimes said to be hepatitis — and it was all made worse by back pain that started during college.

When it came time to enlist in World War II, Kennedy (pictured, right) didn't take the easy way out. He was sent to the Pacific, where he was assigned to a Patrol Torpedo boat tasked with harassing Japanese supply ships. 

It was wildly dangerous, and on one pitch-black night in August of 1943, Kennedy's boat was on the losing side of a run-in with a Japanese destroyer called the Amagiri. After a collision with the larger ship, two crewmen were never seen again, several were severely injured, and the survivors were left stranded with only a burning wreck. The nearest bit of land was more than three miles away, and perhaps most shocking is that Kennedy swam the distance while dragging another man along. Two additional crewmen had to be lashed to flotsam and towed by the others, as they couldn't swim.

With two of his crew dead and suffering injuries that would earn him a Purple Heart, Kennedy was quoted as telling his crew (via NPS), "There's nothing in the book about a situation like this. A lot of you men have families and some of you have children. What do you want to do? I have nothing to lose." Kennedy then tried to swim for help but found no friendly ships in the area. They continued island-hopping and finally stumbled across friendly Allied scouts. A week after the ordeal began, the survivors were back at a U.S. base.

The Kennedy family might be known as a political powerhouse, but John F. Kennedy initially had no aspirations to become a politician. His goals originally lay more along the lines of becoming a teacher or journalist, and in 1945, he even spent some time covering the end of the war for Hearst Newspapers. It was his older brother, Joseph Patrick Kennedy, Jr. (pictured, right), who was generally considered the more serious and responsible one, who their father often claimed would be president. 

Joe Jr. and John were, by all accounts, incredibly close growing up, and a wartime tragedy would not only take John's brother from him but change the direction of his life. After several years as a successful pilot serving with the British Naval Command, Joe volunteered for Operation Aphrodite even though he had flown more than enough successful missions to earn his way home. The operation was essentially an experimental program exploring the potential of remotely piloted drones, and Joe — along with another pilot, Wilford J. Willy — was flying one of these craft when it exploded.

John had been in the hospital when he heard and reportedly remarked (via NPS), "Now the burden falls on me." After reporting on the end of the war, John returned home. In Joe Jr.'s tragic absence, their father's political ambitions now transferred to John, who began a political career when he won a Congressional seat in 1946.

In a way, the care of individuals with disabilities had progressed little throughout American history. Institutionalized life in asylums condemned for overcrowding and a host of other problems was the norm, but almost immediately after being elected to the presidency, John F. Kennedy made it clear that one of his priorities was changing that. 

Kennedy announced a host of new directives in February of 1963 with overwhelming support from his sister, Eunice. Their dedication was personal, and the story is heartbreaking. Their sister, Rosemary (pictured at right, with mother Rose and sister Kathleen), suffered complications during birth. Those who were there at the time say the midwife insisted that Rose Kennedy wait for a doctor to give birth. She managed for two excruciating hours, keeping her legs tightly closed even as the baby emerged. Her efforts ultimately deprived daughter Rosemary of oxygen. 

Rose was later diagnosed with behavioral problems and learning disabilities at a young age, though she was reportedly quite charismatic. She charmed everyone she met but was essentially shuffled from private school to private school due to learning disabilities and behavioral issues. She thrived in England but was sent back to the U.S. at the beginning of the war. Fed up with her problems, her father decided to lobotomize her. She was reportedly awake as doctors drilled through her skull and into her brain, a procedure that left her mostly paralyzed and unable to talk. She lived for 64 more years in an institution where visitors were strictly prohibited.

The image that John F. Kennedy put forward was one of perfect physical health, and it made sense. He was known for encouraging Americans to exercise. He overhauled federal guidelines for schools and oversaw the development of youth health programs. Perhaps his dedication to health was because he was in chronic pain and bedridden for much of his life. As a result, Kennedy developed a shocking reading speed of about four times the average person's.

Kennedy's health issues are enough to fill a book, starting with a football-related back injury that led to four spinal surgeries, none of which were considered successful and which came with a long list of complications, including abscesses, bone infections, and — later — osteoporosis and several fractured vertebrae. The pain was so bad at times that he was unable to perform everyday tasks. And then there was Addison's disease.

Addison's disease is a potentially life-threatening condition that develops when the body struggles to make hormones. There are a slew of symptoms, including chronic stomach pain, cramps, fatigue, low blood pressure, low blood sugar, and changes in appearance. Kennedy had been showing signs of the disease as early as the years immediately following his World War II service and was among the early adopters of a newly developed treatment. He had back surgeries alongside that, and for his entire life, he was subjected to a laundry list of medications, including multiple types of hormone treatments, antispasmodics, antibiotics, barbiturates, opiate painkillers, and localized anesthetic injections.

It's easy to look at a family like the Kennedys and assume everything was all sunshine and roses, but let's pull back the curtain in a way that's going to give everyone an astonishing amount of respect for the strength of Jacqueline Kennedy. That fateful trip to Dallas in November of 1963 was part of the First Lady's reemergence into the public eye after spending several months away from her duties. In August, she gave birth to a premature son, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, who died at two days old. 

Patrick's death was the third child they had lost. After Jackie Kennedy's first pregnancy (in 1955) ended with a miscarriage, she was given the terrifying news that no pregnancy would be an easy or risk-free one. Difficulties were immediate, and Jackie's second pregnancy ended in tragedy with the delivery of a stillborn daughter.

That was in 1956. The healthy Caroline followed a year later, and in 1960, the birth of John Jr. came with complications that led to his life being saved by a quick-thinking pediatric resident. When news leaked that Jackie had gone into premature labor in 1963, headlines declared the media's confidence that all would be well. It was not. Jackie was still in the hospital when Patrick was buried and still in mourning when the president invited her to accompany him on what should have been a routine trip to Texas.

There are a lot of details that have come out about the assassination of John F. Kennedy since that shocking November day, and some of those things were buried in documents that weren't released until well into the 21st century. That includes a memo included in a document dump that happened in 2017.

The memo was written by the CIA to the FBI and revealed something incredibly weird. About 25 minutes before Kennedy was shot and killed, an anonymous telephone call was made in Cambridge, England, to the senior reporter of the Cambridge News, "The caller said only that the Cambridge News reporter should call the American embassy in London for some big news and then hung up."

Coincidence? Or did someone know something? Even stranger is the fact that it apparently wasn't the only such phone call made ahead of a high-profile death at the time. The memo also suggested that there were at least a few other similar calls made in the U.K. around the same time, including ahead of the death of Dr. Stephen Ward. He died by apparent suicide in 1963 after being involved in a sex scandal and trial that legal experts now say was one of the nation's worst modern miscarriages of justice. The call ahead of Kennedy's assassination was reported to MI5. Although it was noted in the memo that this was something to investigate, nothing seems to have come from it.

It's often said that those who were alive in 1963 remember where they were when John F. Kennedy was shot, and over the years, many who were there on that Dallas street have shared their stories about what it was like to witness the Kennedy assassination firsthand. Teenagers skipped school, families paused to watch the motorcade, and some took videos and snapped photos with no idea they would become some of the most famous in American history.

The details are well-known. Kennedy was seemingly on the brink of announcing that he would be running for a second term when he embarked on a nine-state speaking tour. Texas was, at the time, up in the air, so he headed down there with the goal of doing what he did best — talking to the people. He and Jackie Kennedy got into a car with Governor John Connally and his wife. They headed out through Dallas, and several shots were fired over Dealey Plaza at around 12:30 p.m. The governor was wounded (but survived), Kennedy was declared dead at 1 p.m., and the following hour, America had a new president. 

In later interviews, the medical team that treated Kennedy said that there was no time to determine whether or not the injuries were inevitably fatal. Countless Americans heard the news from one of the country's most trusted news anchors, Walter Cronkite. He reported (via CBS), "From Dallas, Texas, the flash, apparently official: President Kennedy died at 1:00 p.m. Central Standard Time, 2:00 Eastern Time, some 38 minutes ago."

The funeral of John F. Kennedy was monumental and historic, and people mourned not only in the capital but nationwide. One of the most well-known and absolutely heartbreaking images from the funeral is a photo of John F. Kennedy Jr., standing beside his mother, uncle, and sister, raising a hand in a salute to his father's casket as it passed by.

Photographer Dan Farrell described the scene (via Town & Country): "It was the saddest thing I've ever seen in my whole life. I knew it was a good picture ... I'm just glad my emotions didn't take over when I was trying to take the picture." It was a moment that many people who were there didn't even see, a split-second tribute to a father with a footnote that makes this even more tragic.

John Jr. had been practicing his salute in preparation for an Arlington ceremony, but the day he used it to salute his fallen father's casket also happened to be his third birthday. Those who were closest to the family have since recalled John and Jackie's devotion to their young son — and daughter — during their time in the White House, and in 2024, John Jr.'s friend, Sasha Chermayeff, told People that it left a lasting impact on him: "'You never get over it,'" he said. John Jr., too, died tragically young. He was 38 years old when he was killed in a 1999 plane crash, along with his wife and sister-in-law.

It's human nature to look back and wonder if things really needed to play out the way they did, and it turns out that John F. Kennedy's lifelong back pain might have an extra layer of tragedy aside from chronic health issues, pain, and failed surgeries. It may have contributed to his death.

That's according to a few sources, including Dr. Kenneth Salyer. Salyer was a resident doctor when he found himself right in the middle of history in the making, being on duty when Kennedy was shot. He saw Kennedy's injuries firsthand and the steel rod back brace that he was wearing when he was killed. There's some distance between where Kennedy's car was when the first and second shots were fired, and Salyer notes that after the first, Governor John Connally was shot and dropped to the floor. Kennedy, however, didn't have the flexibility to duck, and the second shot tore through his skull. If he'd been pushed to the floor even by the momentum of that first shot, there's a chance things may have ended differently.

Others who were there that day — including Senator Ralph Yarborough and doctors Charles James Carrico and Malcolm Oliver Perry — have also said that not only did the first bullet not hit bones or arteries that would have caused life-threatening injuries, but blamed the brace for forcing him to remain upright and a clear target for the second, fatal shot.

John F. Kennedy is widely known as the president who was a driving force in the shaping of the country throughout the 1960s. He's often mentioned alongside things like the space program and the Civil Rights movement. While it's true that he championed and laid the groundwork for a lot of programs, it's often overlooked that he sadly didn't live to see many of these come to fruition. 

Take civil rights. Kennedy gave some of the most moving speeches on the movement, but it was Lyndon B. Johnson who signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Medicare? Kennedy championed that, too, and it was also officially signed into law by his successor. He was also outspoken on issues of increasing funding for schools, expanding special education programs, and desegregation, but it was Johnson who signed the Higher Education Facilities Act in December of 1963. Although the desegregation of schools started in 1957, we also have to mention that in 2022, an estimated fifth of schools were still technically segregated. 

The big one, perhaps, is the space race. In 1961, Kennedy famously championed the idea of making it to the moon by the end of the decade. It was one of his most famous speeches and arguably a defining point of his career. Even though NASA and the Apollo Program met his challenge, he, of course, didn't see it.

It's no secret that there are a ton of conspiracy theories out there about what really led to the death of John F. Kennedy. Given the number of bizarre things that just don't make sense about JFK's assassination, that's not surprising. However, some evidence that perhaps it wasn't entirely straightforward was buried in the 2025 release of some of the long classified, heavily redacted files the government was still keeping. While it was generally accepted that there wasn't too much in the way of new information there, there were some interesting tidbits. 

Documents suggesting Kennedy wasn't a fan of the CIA added fuel to some conspiracy theories, but there's another document that seems to suggest there was advance warning of the assassination. That came from Sergyj Czornonoh in the form of a handwritten letter to the British Embassy in Washington, D.C. 

The 1978 letter claimed that he had told British authorities back in July of 1963 that he had heard that a man named Lee Harvey Oswald was planning on killing Kennedy. Further letters claimed that Czornonoh had gone to Washington, spoke with authorities at the Department of State, and said that the assassination was planned for Dallas. He also claimed that government officials had harassed him in an attempt to keep him quiet, and the only other document in the file is a promise to provide legal representation from the Legal Center for the Disabled. Did someone know something that could have stopped it?

Anyone who has heard even a few of the theories behind John F. Kennedy's assassination has probably heard it said that Lee Harvey Oswald wasn't the lone gunman. It seems as though an autopsy report would be enough to clear up any questions, but as early as 1966, it came out that there were some massive problems with Kennedy's autopsy. 

Doctors, it turned out, had skipped basic steps like weighing organs. There were other issues, too. The person who drew and labeled diagrams used in official testimony never saw actual photos, and one of the doctors admitted that he'd been so horrified by blood-stained documents he'd burned the originals. The autopsy photos on file are largely illegible and the paper didn't match other photos processed by the White House at the same time, and the person who had processed those photos claimed they were different than the ones on file.

Other forensics experts have called out the autopsy as being flawed. Werner Spitz, one of the world's leading forensic pathologists, was asked to consult on the Kennedy case in 1975. He told USA Today, "There were so many sources of error ... They botched the autopsy. They had absolutely no experience in forensic pathology." Coroner Cyril H. Wecht was one of the pioneers of today's forensic techniques, and when he examined autopsy reports in 1972, he found evidence had disappeared. Would the world have had more answers with an autopsy done today?

Buckle up because things are about to get weird. When we say goodbye to our loved ones, we count on a lot of people — from doctors and coroners to undertakers and morgue workers — to do things correctly and respectfully. However, that doesn't seem to have happened with John F. Kennedy because when coroner Cyril H. Wecht examined Kennedy's autopsy and evidence collected in 1972, he found that not only were some slides and samples missing, but Kennedy's brain was, too. 

To give some important background on the type of person Wecht was, we'll say he was an early proponent of the second shooter theory, and to be clear, he was also a pioneer of forensic pathology and a champion of families dealing with suspicious deaths. He once said (via The New York Times), "The most important thing is never to lose cognizance of the fact that I'm dealing with deceased human beings. Somebody somewhere loved these people."

At the time of his 1972 review of Kennedy's autopsy materials, Wecht stated that no one would ever know the truth without the missing evidence and the brain. The New York Times reported that Kennedy's personal secretary suggested the brain had probably been given to someone from the office of Kennedy's brother, Robert (left), but Robert had been dead for years by then. Investigations have been unsuccessful, and no one knows what happened to it, and definite answers, it seems, will never come.

John F. Kennedy's term was defined by massive events like the Cuban Missile Crisis and conflict with the Soviet Union, so it makes sense that he would have been working hand-in-hand with the CIA. You know, the guys that are supposed to be working to protect the U.S. from international threats?

You'll hear it repeated that Kennedy and the CIA were at odds over a lot of things, but actual, concrete evidence is tricky. The relationship between the two has long walked that line between conspiracy theory and tragic fact. In 2025's release of thousands of documents related to Kennedy and the assassination, there's one that claims he was, in fact, targeted by a group from within his own government. The accusation comes via a memo regarding a CIA agent referred to as Gary Underhill and identified as John Garrett Underhill, Jr. The general idea is that Underhill claimed Kennedy had found out about something — probably connected to the drugs or gun trade — going on in the CIA and was murdered to keep it quiet.

Unlikely? The documents also reveal that shortly after Underhill made his statements, he was found dead. The official ruling was that he had died by suicide, but it's pretty clear from the memo that no one really believed that. What is more tragic: A beloved president murdered by a lone assassin or his own government?

Often, the focus falls on the wife and children that John F. Kennedy left behind, but it's worth remembering that not only was he mourned by his mother, Rose Kennedy, but he was the third child she had lost. Her oldest son, Joe Jr., died during World War II, and her daughter, Kathleen, was also in Europe during the war. Kathleen had married British William "Billy" Cavendish, Lord Hartington. Cavendish was killed just weeks after their 1944 wedding, and four years after that, the 28-year-old Kathleen died in a plane crash in France. 

In 1973, Rose spoke with the BBC about finding out she had lost a third child: "I'm an optimist. When I first heard it, I thought maybe it was just an accident, or a slight... slight sort of thing. But then Bobby [Robert Kennedy] telephoned and said it was serious, and then events moved very quickly." Rose likened the family's story to "the agony and the ecstasy of Michelangelo: we've had these ecstatic moments — and these tragic ones."

The tragedies weren't done with Rose yet, and she famously lost another son when Robert Kennedy was assassinated in 1968. (It's also worth mentioning that it's unclear whether or not Rose knew of her husband's plan to lobotomize their then 23-year-old daughter, Rosemary.) Rose died in 1995, at 104 years old.

America has had a long list of presidents who have survived an assassination attempt and a number of those who were killed in an assassination or of natural causes. Many died long ago, and surprisingly, with modern medicine, they may have survived. That includes William Henry Harrison, who died of a now-treatable case of pneumonia (or perhaps typhoid), Zachary Taylor, who died of a now-treatable stomach ailment or illness, and James A. Garfield, who went into septic shock after doctors did more harm than good while attempting to remove a bullet.

But what about John F. Kennedy? In short, he wouldn't have survived for a few reasons, starting with the fact that the damage to his head and brain was far too extensive. That makes it even more shocking that when Kennedy made it to the hospital, he was still breathing. Dr. Robert McClelland treated Kennedy and told ABC News, "I could actually look down inside his skull."

There's a footnote to this, too, and that's the fact that it's thought that even if the assassination attempt hadn't been as physically devastating, Kennedy's other health issues were so bad that they likely would have meant he would have been facing some almost insurmountable odds, even today. His Addison's disease meant that he was incredibly susceptible to infections. Many otherwise survivable injuries are fatal to those living with the condition.

When it comes to high-profile figures like presidents, tragedy doesn't just stop with the immediate family. There have been a number of thought experiments conducted on just how different our world would be today had John F. Kennedy not been shot, and it's pretty heartbreaking stuff.

For starters, there's the Vietnam War — and that was a conflict that was way worse than you may think. The U.S. started to withdraw in 1973, and official numbers suggest that 58,200 Americans died. Had Kennedy survived, that number may have been much lower, as he was already laying the groundwork for American withdrawal more than ten years prior to it finally happening. It would also mean that the conflict and protests that defined the Vietnam era wouldn't have happened, either, but what would that mean for Vietnam? That's impossible to tell, but it's a fascinating idea.

There's obviously a lot of guesswork at play here. Still, some historians and writers suggest that Kennedy would have been able to fast-track nuclear disarmament, and the relationship between the Soviet Union and the U.S. could have played out very differently. It's not all rainbows and roses, though, as a second Kennedy term was far from a guarantee. If Kennedy had been shot but survived, there was a likelihood that the shadier things that defined his story — like his mafia connections — would have become public pretty quickly.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy of John F. Kennedy's life is that he is more remembered for his death than the legacy he left behind. That's according to his grandson, Jack Schlossberg, and he has a compelling point. When it was announced that documents relating to the assassination were going to be released in 2025, Schlossberg took to social media to condemn the move.

Not only did he say that the family had no say or warning of the release, but he added in a series of posts addressed to Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah (via The New York Times), "You really care about JFK's legacy? You're dismantling it."

Schlossberg pointed out that not only was the current administration obsessing over Kennedy's death in a super weird way that wasn't respecting the family at all, but at the same time, it was making massive cuts to programs like the U.S. Agency for International Development — which Kennedy established — that rendered the organization obsolete. He condemned the fact that his grandfather's death was being used in what he found was a completely abhorrent way, writing (via Time Magazine) back in 2017, "For decades, conspiracies surrounding his death have shifted focus away from the important lessons of his life and the critical issues of the moment. They continue to do so today."