What It Was Like to Be John F. Kennedy

[babylonsister]

What It Was Like to Be John F. Kennedy

Posted on Jan 18, 2011


Official White House portrait of John F. Kennedy

By Richard Reeves


Fifty years ago, John F. Kennedy was sworn in as the 35th president of the United States. He gave a stirring inaugural address and then took over a job for which he was unprepared. No one is ever prepared. The presidency is essentially a reactive job, with a man standing alone facing crises unforeseen.

As good as Kennedy’s inaugural was, the speeches that define him historically were given within just over 50 hours in June 1963, one of them prepared secretly over months, the other practically ad-libbed.

This is the story of those hours and those speeches:

At 9:15 a.m., June 10, President Kennedy arrived in Washington from a trip to Hawaii for a meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. On the way home he had stopped in San Francisco to pick up his principal speechwriter, Theodore Sorensen, and they spent the flight making final edits in what was called "the peace speech," an effort known to only a few men.

Kennedy, whose back was in pain, stopped at the White House for a short, steaming bath, then rode out to American University, where he gave the speech at 10:15 a.m. He said: "Some say it is useless to speak of world peace or world law or world disarmament. ... But I believe we should re-examine ... our own attitude ... toward the Soviet Union. ... For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal."

more...

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/what_it_was_like_to_be_john_f_kennedy_20110118/

[rurallib]

1. I regret that I have but one rec to give this post

I am so sick and tired of Republicans trying to distort the memory of President Kennedy.
He was a democrat through and through.

[Demoiselle]

2. We lost so much when we lost him. It still hurts.