Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy has emerged as the new president of the United States beating Vice-President Richard Nixon by a slim margin.
Senator Kennedy, aged 43, is a Harvard graduate and war hero. He will be the youngest elected president in US history and the first Roman Catholic.
In his victory speech at Hyannis, Massachusetts, he urged all Americans to help him “move this country safely through the 1960s”.
He added: “I can assure you that every degree of mind and spirit that I possess will be devoted to the long-range interests of the United States and to the cause of freedom around the world.”
Then turning to his wife, Jacqueline, who is due to give birth to their second child in three weeks’ time, he said they would now prepare for “a new administration and a new baby”.
Also standing next to Senator Kennedy during his speech was his father Joseph, once US Ambassador to London. And close by was his brother and campaign manager Robert Kennedy.
After a whole night of doubt as to who was the victor of the great American prize of president, Mr Nixon hinted at defeat at 0315 local time at Republican headquarters in Los Angeles.
As supporters chanted: “We want Nixon!” he told the nation to back their new leader.
“I want Senator Kennedy to know – I want you all to know – that if this trend continues and he does become president, he will have my whole-hearted support,” he said.
He did not officially concede victory until some six hours later in a congratulatory telegram to the president-elect.
It has been a heated and exciting election campaign in which television has played an important role for the first time in US election history. Last month millions of viewers watched the pair battle it out in a series of television debates.
With two states still to file a final verdict and Mississippi “unpledged” due to disapproval of both parties’ commitments to civil rights, the results so far are:
Kennedy – 33,029,203 popular votes and 337 electoral votes
Nixon – 32,725,435 popular votes and 185 electoral votes
President Eisenhower is reported to be unhappy with the Democrat victory.
But he sent his congratulations to the president-elect and called a cabinet meeting to arrange the transition of government ahead of Senator Kennedy’s inauguration in January.
Courtesy BBC News
In context
The final result showed JFK won with an even narrower margin than first announced – 34,227,096 popular votes to Richard Nixon’s 34,107,646.
His term ran for just two years before he was assassinated in Dallas on 22 November 1963, an event that left the nation totally stunned.
This short time was marked by major events such as the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961, the Cuban missile crisis a year later and the first – limited – nuclear test ban treaty with the Soviet Union in August 1963.
As part of a general anti-communist policy, he increased US military support for South Vietnam and pledged to defend West Berlin and access to it.
At home, while federal troops were sent to quell anti-black riots in the south, his proposals for civil rights reforms in Congress foundered.
His opponent in the 1960 election, Richard Nixon, won the presidential vote in 1968.
November 8, 1960 gave America and the world its greatest egalitarian democratic leader in history, a man of courage, compassion, and ceaseless commitment to the cause of freedom at home and around the world. John F. Kennedy envisioned and inaugurated an end to the Cold War and to imperialist colonization of emerging Third World nations; placed the moral authority of the presidency behind the first new major civil rights law in a century; established the first commission on the status of women; wrote and passed the first comprehensive laws to aid the mentally challenged; pioneered the Peace Corps, implemented the Food for Peace program. proposed Medicare, launched the U.S. space program, inaugurated the Alliance for Progress, championed the first-ever Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, achieved sustained economic growth, halved the poverty rate in America, passed the first-ever comprehensive tax cut program; kept all U.S. troops in non-combatant status; and prevented overzealous JCOS and CIA jingoists from launching World War III during the Cuban Missile Crisis via his restrained response to provocations, cool mastery of negotiations at the highest level of government, military, and intelligence, and through back channel negotiations with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. It is likely, that had any other U.S. political leader been President in October of 1962, none of us would now be here. His leadership and example inspired millions of citizens around the world to make a commitment to public service and helping their fellow man. God bless the soul of John Fitzgerald Kennedy.