John F Kennedy 

John Kennedy

Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/jk35.html

Inaugural Address
President John F. Kennedy
Washington, D.C.
January 20, 1961

Vice President Johnson, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Chief Justice, President Eisenhower, Vice President Nixon, President Truman, Reverend Clergy, fellow citizens:

     We observe today not a victory of party but a celebration of freedom--symbolizing an end as well as a beginning--signifying renewal as well as change. For I have sworn before you and Almighty God the same solemn oath our forbears prescribed nearly a century and three-quarters ago.

     The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe--the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.

     We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans--born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage--and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.

     Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

     This much we pledge--and more.

     To those old allies whose cultural and spiritual origins we share, we pledge the loyalty of faithful friends. United there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided there is little we can do--for we dare not meet a powerful challenge at odds and split asunder.

     To those new states whom we welcome to the ranks of the free, we pledge our word that one form of colonial control shall not have passed away merely to be replaced by a far more iron tyranny. We shall not always expect to find them supporting our view. But we shall always hope to find them strongly supporting their own freedom--and to remember that, in the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.

     To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required--not because the communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.

     To our sister republics south of our border, we offer a special pledge--to convert our good words into good deeds--in a new alliance for progress--to assist free men and free governments in casting off the chains of poverty. But this peaceful revolution of hope cannot become the prey of hostile powers. Let all our neighbors know that we shall join with them to oppose aggression or subversion anywhere in the Americas. And let every other power know that this Hemisphere intends to remain the master of its own house.

     To that world assembly of sovereign states, the United Nations, our last best hope in an age where the instruments of war have far outpaced the instruments of peace, we renew our pledge of support--to prevent it from becoming merely a forum for invective--to strengthen its shield of the new and the weak--and to enlarge the area in which its writ may run.

     Finally, to those nations who would make themselves our adversary, we offer not a pledge but a request: that both sides begin anew the quest for peace, before the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science engulf all humanity in planned or accidental self-destruction.

     We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.

     But neither can two great and powerful groups of nations take comfort from our present course--both sides overburdened by the cost of modern weapons, both rightly alarmed by the steady spread of the deadly atom, yet both racing to alter that uncertain balance of terror that stays the hand of mankind's final war.

     So let us begin anew--remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.

     Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us.

     Let both sides, for the first time, formulate serious and precise proposals for the inspection and control of arms--and bring the absolute power to destroy other nations under the absolute control of all nations.

     Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths and encourage the arts and commerce.

     Let both sides unite to heed in all corners of the earth the command of Isaiah--to "undo the heavy burdens . . . (and) let the oppressed go free."

     And if a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion, let both sides join in creating a new endeavor, not a new balance of power, but a new world of law, where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved.

     All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.

     In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than mine, will rest the final success or failure of our course. Since this country was founded, each generation of Americans has been summoned to give testimony to its national loyalty. The graves of young Americans who answered the call to service surround the globe.

     Now the trumpet summons us again--not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need--not as a call to battle, though embattled we are-- but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, "rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation"--a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself.

     Can we forge against these enemies a grand and global alliance, North and South, East and West, that can assure a more fruitful life for all mankind? Will you join in that historic effort?

     In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility--I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it--and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.

     And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country.

     My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

     Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.

DALLAS (AP) - Moments before John F. Kennedy's limousine reached the Texas School Book Depository on that November afternoon four decades ago, Nellie Connally turned to Kennedy and remarked: "No one can say Dallas doesn't love and respect you, Mr. President."

"You sure can't," he said.

The first shot sounded like a firecracker. The next two were unmistakably gunfire.

At the 40th anniversary of Kennedy's death, the moments remain frozen in the American psyche, the president's assassination still a source of fascination for historians and an estimated 2.2 million people who visit Dealey Plaza each year.

"It's an age-old search for the truth," said Greg Silva, 39, a Hilmar, Calif., salesman who wasn't even born when Kennedy died but made it a point to visit The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza during a recent business trip to Dallas.

For others, the assassination endures as a deeply personal experience - a lingering mix of heartbreak, nostalgia and the lost promise of Camelot. Those emotions are clear at the museum.

"If you take people there that are old enough to remember the event, you lose them," said Greg Elam, spokesman for the Dallas Convention and Visitors Bureau. "You can tiptoe away and they'll never know it because they are back in that experience." 

Politics had brought the 46-year-old president to Texas, a pivotal and worrisome state in his 1964 re-election plans.

At the urging of local politicians, Kennedy ordered the reflective glass shield atop the presidential limousine removed for his visit to Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. With first lady Jackie at his side, Kennedy smiled and waved at the crowds from the back seat. Up front, Gov. John Connally and his wife, Nellie, beamed at the Texas welcome.

Just before 12:30 p.m., the motorcade slipped out of the glass and steel canyons of downtown and zigzagged toward Elm Street and a drab, seven-storey brick building.

Then the shots rang out.

A half-hour later, Kennedy was declared dead at Parkland Memorial Hospital.

At 2:38 p.m., Vice-President Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as president aboard Air Force One, with Jackie Kennedy at his side. 

Forty years later, Kennedy remains an inspirational figure - a president more popular in death than in life.

"There's still so much sentiment for John F. Kennedy, and so much of it is coloured by the assassination," said David Crockett, a political scientist at Trinity University in San Antonio. "He's the young, attractive, tragic martyr figure assassinated on television, with a wife who's mourning."

When many Americans close their eyes, they can still see Kennedy's three-year-old son, "John John," bravely saluting his father's flag-draped coffin.

After a 10-month investigation, the Warren Commission in 1964 concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald alone killed Kennedy, firing shots from the Texas School Book Depository's sixth floor.

Doubts lingered, however, and in 1978, Congress impaneled a committee to again investigate the assassination. The panel largely relied on the recording of a police motorcyclist's microphone.

The committee's conclusion: Four shots were fired, with one coming from a grassy knoll downtown. In other words, it concluded, Oswald didn't act alone.

But after further studies, the Justice Department in 1988 concluded there was no "persuasive evidence" of conspiracy, and formally closed the investigation.

Oswald was killed two days after Kennedy's assassination - gunned down by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby as he was transferred from one jail to another.

A Dallas jury convicted Ruby of murder in 1964 and sentenced him to death. An appellate court ruling later set the verdict aside, and Ruby died of cancer in prison in 1967 before he could be retried.

Kennedy's daughter, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, who was four days shy of her sixth birthday when her father died, is the sole survivor of her immediate family. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis died of cancer in 1994 and John Kennedy Jr. died along with his wife and sister-in-law in the 1999 crash of a small plane he was piloting.

The crash brought still more pain to a family that dealt first with Kennedy's slaying, then with the assassination of his brother, Robert, during his 1968 presidential campaign.

All of which help explain the unending interest in all things Kennedy.

"They've just had great triumph and great tragedy," said Patrick Maney, a presidential historian at the University of South Carolina.

In Dallas itself, the anguish for some still seems as fresh as on that Friday afternoon 40 years ago.

"There are people who lived in Dallas in '63 who will never come to this site. It is too painful," said Jeff West, executive director of The Sixth Floor Museum, which chronicles Kennedy's life, death and the era in which he lived.

But for others, acknowledging Dallas' place in history helped the healing. "There are people who were here in '63 who are very proud and pleased that we did something to commemorate and mark the spot," West said.

Longtime residents recall how Dallas was labelled the city of hate - "Dallas was the only place ever blamed for killing a president," as historian Conover Hunt put it. Dallas residents talked about telephone operators disconnecting their calls and taxi drivers refusing to give them rides.

"People were spat upon, they were thrown out of restaurants all over the country and this went on for decades," said Hunt, original curator for The Sixth Floor Museum.

At the time, Dallas had a reputation as an ultraconservative city that didn't treat liberals kindly. The day before the assassination, handbills were distributed in Dallas with convict-style photographs of Kennedy and the caption: "Wanted for Treason."

The next day, a full-page ad appeared in the Dallas Morning News. The "American Fact-Finding Committee" demanded to know why the president had "ordered the Attorney General to go soft on communism."

So, when Kennedy was killed, the backlash was immediate.

"All of the nation experienced sadness. But I think the sadness that was experienced here in Dallas was of such great magnitude that it's almost hard to describe it," said Adelle Taylor, 72.

Taylor and her husband, Jim, work as tour guides at Southfork Ranch, made famous by the long-running hit television drama Dallas, which, along with the emergence of the Dallas Cowboys as "America's Team," helped change the Big D's image.

"It's a little ironic that Dallas is known for the shooting of JFK and the shooting of J.R.," said Mark Thompson, sales and marketing director at Southfork Ranch, which draws more than 400,000 visitors a year.

For years after the assassination, many Dallas residents ignored sites connected with Kennedy's killing. Then the city tried to acknowledge the tragedy in 1970 by commissioning artist Philip Johnson to create a cenograph, or empty tomb, in a park two blocks from Dealey Plaza. An entire city block was renamed John F. Kennedy Memorial Plaza.

But the austere nine-metre blocks of white concrete that were meant to be a place for quiet reflection instead confused some visitors.

Eventually, Hunt and others raised $3.8 million US in donations and loans to create The Sixth Floor Museum.

A few kilometres away, though, trash and pigeon droppings litter the front of the closed Texas Theatre, where police arrested Lee Harvey Oswald. The "E" has fallen off the makeshift "TEXAS" marquee that Oliver Stone put up for his 1991 movie, JFK.

City voters have approved $500,000 of the $3 million needed to restore Dealey Plaza to its 1963 look. A group working to renovate the Texas Theatre has raised $2.4 million of the $3.5 million project cost.

The Oak Cliff Foundation envisions remaking the theatre as a movie house and performing arts centre with a lobby exhibit recounting the theatre's role in history. Executive director Beverly Mendoza acknowledges surprise at the reactions she receives from some longtime residents asked to contribute.

"It just floored me," said Mendoza, who moved to Dallas in 1995, "for people to still be so ashamed of what happened here that they couldn't get beyond it to acknowledge it as a place of history."

On the Net:

The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza: www.jfk.orgr

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