Who was John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and where did he find the driving forces to take him to leadership of the United States in 1961, the youngest president ever elected to office? By the time he was assassinated in Dallas, Texas on 22 November 1963, the world believed it knew him, and he was mourned accordingly: as a man still young and charismatic, a hero of WWII, an inspired speaker, the consummate politician who understood civil rights within the US, and the statesman it needed during the Cold War.
