AI IMAGE - Portrait of John F Kennedy standing in front of the White House, 1960s, (2023). American politician John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963) served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the youngest person to assume the presidency by election. He served at the height of the Cold War, and the majority of his foreign policy concerned relations with the Soviet Union and Cuba.