What impact did JFK have on the Cold War with examples and how did his assassination affect the nation?

Answer 1

His major achievement in the cold war was pressuring Russia successfully not to install missiles on Cuba. He seriously threatened Russia with an atomic war if it didn't back down and you can only shudder to think what would have happened with the planet if Russia had not given in.

JFK's assassination sent a shock wave through the USA and many other countries. His successor, President Lyndon B. Johnson energetically - and very possibly more energetically than Kennedy himself would have done - continued Kennedy's policies. On the plus side, it made Johnson one of the 'great' Presidents in his domestic policies. He managed to successfully steer his 'Great Society' legislation through Congress concerning civil rights, voting rights, Medicare and Medicaid. He also had the Civil Rights-legislation passed that had been drafted under Kennedy. He also started many projects of urban and inner-city development and successfully developed the "War on Poverty". Unfortunately Johnson showed the same energy in continuing the Vietnam War that Kennedy had allowed to develop. America's involvement could not stop Communist North Vietnam's progress, and the war became highly impopular in the US, mainly because of the draft that forced millions of families to see their sons off to the battlefield and that saw over 210,000 US casualties returning home dead or wounded, most of them draftees. The failed Vietnam War in the end defined Johnson's presidency more than his very important domestic achievements.