JFK, or John Fitzgerald Kennedy, was an American politician who acted as the 35th President of the United States from 1961 until his murder towards the conclusion of his 3rd year in government. Kennedy served as president during the Cold War's peak, spending the majority of his tenure working with the Soviet Union and Cuba. Previously to being president, he represented Massachusetts in both houses of Congress as a Democrat.

Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, into a distinguished Kennedy family. In 1940, he completed his studies at Harvard University and enlisted in the United States Naval Reserve. He led a succession of PT boats in the Pacific theatre during WWII. Kennedy's rescue of the PT-109 sinking and subsequent rescue of his fellow sailors won him the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, although he sustained critical injuries. Kennedy was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1947 to 1953, covering a working-class Boston district. He was then elected to the United States Senate, where he acted as Massachusetts' junior senator from 1953 to 1960. Kennedy earned a Pulitzer Prize for his book Profiles in Courage, which he wrote while in the Senate. He nearly beat Republican candidate Richard Nixon, the sitting vice president, in the 1960 presidential election. He was the foremost Catholic president of the United States.

The Pulitzer Prize for Biography is among 7 Pulitzer Prizes for Letters, Drama, & Music awarded every year in the United States. Since 1917, it has been given for a notable autobiography, biography, or recollection written by an American author or co-authors and published during the previous calendar year. It is therefore one of the first Pulitzer Awards, as the program began in 1917 with seven prizes, four of which were given out that year.