238 Kennedy, John F Minutes before the assassination: Texas governor John Connally and his wife (seated, front); Kennedy and the First Lady (back) Richard Nixon Kennedy defeated Nixon in a tightly fought race, with the Democrats gaining 303 electoral college seats against 219 for the Republicans An independent, Harry Byrd, picked up the remaining 15 electoral college seats On January 20, 1961, Kennedy was sworn in as the 35th president The first controversy of his presidency concerned the government of Fidel Castro, which had come to power two years earlier The Eisenhower administration had allowed anti-Castro Cubans to be secretly trained in the southern United States, mainly in Louisiana and Florida, and they had planned to invade Cuba The plan had been drawn up before Kennedy came to power, and on April 17, 1961, Kennedy approved it However, he cancelled the air support that was to have been provided by the U.S Air Force When the Cuban exiles landed at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba, they were quickly overwhelmed by the Communists The next major crisis, the Cuban missile crisis, took place from October 14, 1962, when American U2 spy planes photographed a Soviet Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile site under construction in Cuba He decided that an attack on the site might result in nuclear war, but that inaction would be seen as a sign of weakness In the end, he resolved to order a military blockade of the island and eventually came to an agreement with the Soviet Union’s premier, Nikita Khrushchev, that the Soviet Union would remove the missiles, and the United States would promise never to invade Cuba, and withdraw some missiles from bases in Turkey Kennedy was interested in rapprochement with the Soviet Union, but he had to be perceived as “tough,” especially in Europe On June 26, 1963, he visited West Berlin and addressed a large public crowd with the famous “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech In August 1963 Kennedy was able to sign into law the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which prohibited atomic testing on the ground, in the atmosphere, and underwater, but did not prohibit testing underground Another foreign policy problem that Kennedy faced was the increased fighting in Laos and Vietnam In the former, the Kennedy administration backed a neutral government, and in the latter, the United States was heavily involved in supporting the anticommunist South Vietnamese government led by President Ngo Dinh Diem By 1963 there were 15,000 U.S military advisers in South Vietnam Diem had ruled South Vietnam since late 1954 and was becoming increasingly authoritarian Kennedy felt that it was Diem’s brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, who was a major problem and wanted Diem to get rid of Nhu Diem realized that Nhu was his most powerful supporter and refused This led the Kennedy administration to give the go-ahead for Buddhist South Vietnamese generals to overthrow Ngo Dinh Diem, who, along with Nhu, was murdered The new regime was inherently unstable, causing the United States to commit more combat soldiers, escalating the war The domestic program introduced by Kennedy was known as the New Frontier He tried to legislate to prevent the continuance of racial discrimination He also proposed tax reforms and promised federal funding for education, more medical care for the elderly, and government intervention to boost the economy of the nation Most of these measures were to be introduced by Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B Johnson It was Johnson who, in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, introduced the measures that Kennedy had supported John Kennedy is also well known for his commitment to the space program With the Soviet Union managing to win all the first stages of the space race, Kennedy pushed for greater effort from the American people The moon landing took place on July 20, 1969, during Nixon’s presidency As John Kennedy had only narrowly won the 1960 presidential election, he began his campaign for reelection early This involved trying to win support from the southern states He went to Texas in November 1963, where, on November 22, in Dallas, at 12:30 p.m., he was assassinated A loner, Lee Harvey Oswald, was arrested about 80 minutes later and charged with murdering a Texas policeman He was then also charged