Kent Barker Collection / The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza
January 2, 1960
JFK ENTERS THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE
Senator Kennedy announces his candidacy for President of the United States.
Listen to an excerpt from the oral history interview with Jacques Lowe, the Kennedys' personal photographer for many years, by clicking "Find out more."
Image: Kennedy's presidential campaign button features his face on a background of red, white and blue stripes.
Join The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza for an exclusive lunch and learn experience on Friday, November 22 (61st anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy) with presidential historian Marc Selverstone in conversation with fellow presidential scholar Jeffrey Engel as they discuss Selverstone’s book The Kennedy Withdrawal: Camelot and the American Commitment to Vietnam.
In October 1963, the United States publicly proposed the removal of American troops from Vietnam, earning President John F. Kennedy an enduring reputation as a skeptic on the war. In fact, Kennedy was ambivalent about withdrawal and was largely detached from its planning. Its details were the handiwork of Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, who turned a loosely defined presidential aspiration into a systemic program for a U.S. troop withdrawal. Its announcement in October 1963 ultimately served Kennedy’s political needs, allowing him to limit American involvement while preserving the U.S. commitment to South Vietnam.
Program tickets include a copy of the book and a light lunch reception. Book signing to follow the program. Tickets do not include Museum admission.
Museum members receive discounted ticket pricing. Contact membership@jfk.org to learn more.
Marc J. Selverstone is Professor and Director of Presidential Studies and Co-Chair of the Presidential Recordings Program at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs. He is the author of The Kennedy Withdrawal: Camelot and the American Commitment to Vietnam (Harvard, 2022) and Constructing the Monolith: The United States, Great Britain, and International Communism, 1945-1950 (Harvard, 2009), which won the Stuart L. Bernath Book Prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. He is also the editor of A Companion to John F. Kennedy (Wiley-Blackwell, 2014), general editor of The Presidential Recordings Digital Edition (Virginia, 2014–), and co-editor of the Miller Center “Studies on the Presidency” series with the University of Virginia Press.
About Jeffrey A. Engel
Jeffrey A. Engel is the David Gergen Director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University.
The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza hosts a special program with Talmage Boston, lawyer and author of How the Best Did It: Leadership Lessons from Our Top Presidents. The work takes the leadership lessons gained from our greatest presidents and makes them instructive today for all leaders who seek to enhance their performance. Based on Talmage Boston’s sound evaluations, which have been endorsed by America’s leading presidential historians, every chapter ends with a self-examination questionnaire that allows the reader to evaluate his or her own leadership skills.
Program tickets include a light lunch and a copy of the book, How the Best Did It: Leadership Lessons from Our Top Presidents. Tickets do not include Museum admission. Museum members receive special ticket pricing, contact membership@jfk.org to learn more.
Talmage Boston is a well-known figure among leading historians as an author, speaker, and onstage interviewer. His work has been endorsed by David McCullough, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jon Meacham, Douglas Brinkley, Annette-Gordon-Reed, Evan Thomas, and H.W. Brands, as well as many other esteemed presidential biographers.
Boston is the author of Cross-Examining History (foreword by Ken Burns), Raising the Bar (foreword by former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh), Baseball and the Baby Boomer (foreword by Frank Deford), and 1939: Baseball’s Tipping Point (foreword by John Grisham). He is also one of the most highly recognized lawyers in Texas, having been chosen for three major statewide awards in the last four years by the Texas Bar Foundation and the State Bar of Texas’ Litigation Section. Boston has been named a “Texas Super Lawyer” by Thompson Reuters every year since 2003, and among the “Best Lawyers in America” every year since 2013. He is the only lawyer to receive a “Presidential Citation” from eight different presidents of the State Bar of Texas for outstanding service to the State Bar.
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