How tall was John F. Kennedy?

How tall was John F. Kennedy? The records

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, is listed on this site at 185 cm (6′1″). Unlike modern athletes, Kennedy never had an official "listed height" printed on a roster, so his height has to be pieced together from documents created at different points in his life. Three are especially useful because they were made by institutions rather than by campaign staff or journalists.

The most precise is the autopsy protocol prepared by the Naval Medical School at Bethesda after his assassination on November 22, 1963. That document was later published by the Warren Commission as Commission Exhibit 387, and it is reproduced in Appendix IX of the Commission's report, which the National Archives hosts online. The protocol records the president's height as 72½ inches and his weight as approximately 170 pounds. Converted, 72½ inches is about 184.2 cm, within a centimeter of the 6′1″ figure most references use.

The second document is much earlier. When the JFK Library digitized a large set of photographs and papers in 2011, The Atlantic published a selection that included Kennedy's World War II Navy identification card. As summarized at the time, that card listed him at six feet and just 150 pounds. The third source is the broad consensus of biographies, almanacs and reference works, which generally give 6′1″.

Why the records differ by an inch

A one-inch spread across two decades is normal and does not indicate that anyone was misrepresenting his height. Military clerks in the 1940s generally rounded to the nearest whole inch, and a young officer measured quickly at enlistment, possibly not fully upright, could easily be recorded at an even six feet. The autopsy measurement was taken lying down, and a body measured supine typically reads slightly longer than the same person standing, because the spine is no longer compressed by gravity. Splitting the difference, Kennedy most likely stood around 6′0½″ to 6′1″ during his presidency, which is why 185 cm is a reasonable headline figure.

The weight difference is more dramatic: about 20 pounds between the Navy card and the autopsy. Kennedy was famously thin in his twenties, a period marked by recurrent illness, and filled out in his forties. Photographs from the 1946 congressional campaign and from the White House years show the change clearly.

Height, health and posture

Kennedy's height is sometimes discussed alongside his long history of back trouble, so it is worth being precise about what the record does and does not show. PBS's American Experience biography notes that he lived with chronic back pain throughout his adult life, and that in August 1943 a Japanese destroyer rammed his patrol boat, PT-109, after which he towed an injured crewman through the water and led survivors to an island behind enemy lines. Accounts of his health often connect the wartime ordeal with his later spinal operations.

In the White House, his physician Janet Travell, the first woman to serve as personal physician to a president, treated him with a back brace, a rocking chair and, according to HISTORY, orthopedic shoes intended to correct a spinal imbalance. Photographs of Kennedy in his Oval Office rocking chair reportedly set off a national surge in rocking-chair sales. None of the reliable documents indicate that his back condition changed his measured height in any meaningful way; the autopsy figure is consistent with his earlier records.

What the back brace did influence was how he carried himself. Kennedy is usually photographed standing very straight, and contemporaries noted he avoided bending and lifting. That upright posture is one reason he appears tall in group photographs, even next to men of similar height.

Kennedy among American presidents

At 185 cm, Kennedy sits in the upper half of presidential heights, though well short of the tallest. The table uses this site's figures for each president.

Two of those names matter most to Kennedy's own story. Lyndon Johnson, his vice president and successor, was roughly 7 cm taller, and in photographs of the two together Johnson usually looms over him. Richard Nixon, his opponent in 1960, was only about 3 cm shorter, so on the debate stage the two looked almost evenly matched in height.

The 1960 debates and the "taller candidate" idea

The four Kennedy–Nixon debates in the fall of 1960 were the first televised general-election debates, and PBS notes that Kennedy used the new medium effectively. Because Kennedy was slightly taller and also won the popular vote by a very narrow margin, 1960 is often cited in arguments that taller candidates have an advantage.

The best evidence on that question comes from a 2012 study in The Leadership Quarterly by Gert Stulp and colleagues at the University of Groningen. Using data on all US presidential elections, they found that candidates taller than their opponents received more popular votes, but they were not significantly more likely to win the election itself. Taller presidents were more likely to be reelected, and experts tended to rate taller presidents as "greater." The researchers also found that presidents have, on average, been much taller than other men born in the same years.

Kennedy fits the popular-vote pattern, but the margin of height between him and Nixon was so small that it would be a stretch to say it decided anything. The more commonly cited factor is appearance on camera more broadly: Kennedy looked rested and tanned, while Nixon was recovering from a hospital stay and declined heavy makeup. Height was a minor detail in that picture.

Kennedy versus the average American man of his generation

Kennedy was born on May 29, 1917, in Brookline, Massachusetts. The NCD Risk Factor Collaboration estimates average adult heights by birth year for every country, and for American men the figures around his birth year are:

Interpolating for 1917, the typical American man of Kennedy's generation stood around 173 to 174 cm, so Kennedy was roughly 11 to 12 cm (about 4½ inches) taller than his average contemporary. He would still be well above average today, by about 8 cm. You can explore how American heights rose through the 20th century on our United States average height page.

Where Kennedy ranks: the site's presidential height data

This site holds height records for 45 presidents. Their average is about 180.2 cm (5′11″), so Kennedy sits nearly 5 cm above the presidential mean and ties Andrew Jackson for 11th tallest. The ten presidents ahead of him are Abraham Lincoln, Lyndon Johnson, Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Thomas Jefferson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, George Washington, George H. W. Bush, Chester A. Arthur and Barack Obama.

The more revealing view is the sequence of presidents around him. Kennedy followed two men noticeably shorter than he was and was followed by the second-tallest president in the data:

Kennedy was about 5.5 cm taller than Eisenhower, whom he succeeded when the youngest man ever elected president replaced the oldest president to that point. Visually, the 1961 inauguration photographs of the outgoing and incoming presidents capture that contrast in both age and stature.

Reading historical height records with care

Kennedy is a good case study in how to evaluate the height of any historical figure, because his records illustrate the main sources of error:

1. Measurement position. A standing height, taken against a wall with heels together, is the standard. Autopsy and hospital lengths are taken lying down and usually read a little longer because the spinal discs are not compressed.
2. Rounding. Military and identity documents of the 1940s typically recorded whole inches. A man of 6′0½″ could be written down as 6′0″ or 6′1″ depending on the clerk.
3. Time of day. People are commonly slightly taller in the morning than in the evening, as the spine compresses over the day, which can account for a fraction of an inch on its own.
4. Shoes and posture. Unofficial estimates from photographs are the least reliable, because heels, hats, posture and camera angle can each shift apparent height by an inch or more.

Applying those rules, the two documented measurements, one rounded to six feet in his twenties and one supine at 72½ inches at 46, agree with each other better than they first appear. That is why we treat 185 cm as a sound estimate rather than a generous one.

Weight and build over time

Kennedy's weight is better documented than many presidents' because of the attention paid to his health. The Navy card's 150 pounds at six feet corresponds to a body mass index of about 20, at the lean end of normal. The autopsy figure of about 170 pounds at 72½ inches corresponds to roughly 22.7. Both are within the normal range, but they describe two quite different looks: the lanky young congressman of 1946 and the broader-faced president of 1962.

That change is visible in his clothing. Photographs and surviving suits from the presidential years show a man who wore his suits with a slim, two-button cut that emphasized height, and his preference for a trim silhouette contributed to an image of vigor at a time when his private medical record was more complicated.

How tall Kennedy looked next to the people around him

Kennedy's height is often judged from photographs, so some practical context helps:

• Next to Jacqueline Kennedy, he appears several inches taller in most photographs, although her height is not consistently documented in primary records.
• Next to Nixon, the two looked nearly level, consistent with the roughly 3 cm gap in the table above.
• Next to Lyndon Johnson, he looked noticeably shorter, as Johnson had about 7 cm on him and tended to lean in toward people.
• Next to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev at the 1961 Vienna summit, Kennedy appeared much taller; Khrushchev was widely described as a short man, though his exact height is poorly documented.

Comparisons like these show why the inch-level details matter less than they seem. Shoes, posture and camera angle can change apparent height in a photograph by more than the difference between the Navy record and the autopsy.

Comparing JFK with other presidents and modern figures

If you want to see Kennedy side by side with other leaders, our main height comparison tool can place him next to any president in the catalog, and the height difference calculator gives the exact gap between any two heights. Interesting pairings include Kennedy next to Obama, the two presidents most often compared for their youth and oratory, who differ by only about 2 cm, and Kennedy next to Lincoln, the tallest president, who had about 8 cm on him. For more presidents and public figures, see the celebrity heights hub.