What enemies did JFK have?

Answer 1

The management of the US Steel industry, large portions of the powerful (but at this point weaker) southern wing of the US Democratic Party, presumably Republican politicians to a significant degree (though actually probably to a lesser degree than, say, a segregationist white Democratic Senator from Mississippi--the US political parties' frequently formed bonds and varying alliances across party lines between 1930 and 1994, for example president Franklin Roosevelt's, a Democrat and former New York governor, vigorous alliance with the progressive Republican mayor of New York City Fiorello LaGuardia), Fidel Castro and his Cuban communist government after Kennedy's support of a failed coup/revolution there, the Soviet Union, the Chinese Gov't under Mao, certain older and more established US politicians who resented Kennedy's rapid rise (many of these were followers of previous two time Democratic presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson, later UN Ambassador under Kennedy and an ally of the president; both benefitted by the alliance, as Stevenson was a principled and talented ambassador, fast on his feet, who succeeded in embarrassing and discrediting the USSR at the UN during the Cuban Missile Crisis), organized crime, Italian and other (which suffered the beginning of a large further assault on their power over many rackets and cities in the US, as JFK's brother and US attorney general Robert Kennedy, his most trusted advisor, turned FBI resources to fighting organized crime). Most importantly, the Politburo (ruling council) of the USSR and its premier, Nikita Kruschev.

Arguably, French president Charles de Gaulle, but de Gaulle is probably more accurately described as a difficult and uber-nationalist ally than an enemy. At critical moments, he supported Kennedy's foreign policies (i.e. the Cuban Missile Crisis).