Slideshow: remembering JFK's visits to Brandeis

JFK and Eleanor RooseveltPhoto/Courtesy of the Robert D. Farber University Archives & Special Collections Department, Brandeis University

Eleanor Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy at Brandeis University on Jan. 2, 1960, the day he announced his campaign for president.

Across the country, John F. Kennedy's life is being celebrated on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his birth on May 29. Brandeis can claim several pieces of Kennedy history of its own: he visited campus twice, in 1958 and 1960.

Kennedy first came to Brandeis as a senator in 1958 for a convocation to celebrate the establishment of the university’s landmark Wien International Scholarship Program. As part of the program, Kennedy received an honorary degree from Brandeis. 

Kennedy returned to campus on Jan. 2, 1960, the same day he announced his presidential campaign. A member of the Senate's foreign relations committee at the time, Kennedy came to Brandeis for a televised discussion, a show called "Prospects of Mankind" hosted by founding trustee Eleanor Roosevelt, on international trade and the future of NATO. He was joined by Erwin D. Canham, editor of The Christian Science Monitor and president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Paul Rosenstein-Rodan, professor of economics at M.I.T.’s Center for International Studies. Following the program, Kennedy and Roosevelt held a press conference addressing Kennedy's entry into the presidential race.

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