John F. Kennedy

Why is America’s near-mythic dynasty so nasty up close?

The hero worship of the family of American royalty has a dark side: a tendency toward conspiracism that fits with the MAGA movement.

Eighty years ago this month, the Kennedy who might have been president was killed on a secret mission over England.

Bill Trueheart's battles with friend and fellow Foreign Service officer Fritz Nolting illustrate the American tragedy in Southeast Asia.

The end of the big-city columnist.

The mistress of JFK, there was a lot more than wealth, whiteness, and femininity to make Mary Pinchot Meyer a target of murder.

Former Secret Service agent Paul Landis, largely silent for 60 years, says he found a bullet in Kennedy’s limo. Here's why that’s so significant, if true.

Russia’s recent nuclear threats have revived Cold War animosity with roots in the Cuban missile crisis.

A helpful way to think about the JFK assassination, and political assassinations more generally, is to be more Dragnet about it than discursive.

Revisiting political assassinations.

The standoff 60 years ago has newfound relevance for handling the Ukraine crisis today.

A new history of the Cuban missile crisis emphasizes how close the world came to destruction—and how severe a threat the weapons still pose.

In the nearly sixty years since the Cuban missile crisis, the story of near-catastrophe has only grown more complicated.

High-stakes debates put candidates in the hot seat. But are they helpful to voters?

When J.F.K. ran for President, a team of data scientists with powerful computers set out to model and manipulate American voters. Sound familiar?

Kennedy defined courage as a willingness to take an unpopular stand in service of a larger, higher cause. But what cause?

The agency's earliest ad campaigns emphasized youthful idealism, patriotism and travel opportunities.

When poetry met power in January, 1961.

Betrayal. Paranoia. Cowardice. We've been here before.

MacArthur leaned on JFK to stay out of Vietnam. Had Kennedy survived, might history have been different?