Speaker 1: November twenty second, twenty twenty three. Today marks a terrible
Speaker 1: anniversary in the United States that deserves commemoration and remembrance.
Speaker 1: This is the day, sixty years ago that John Fitzgerald
Speaker 1: Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. He was the youngest
Speaker 1: man ever elected to the office of President of the
Speaker 1: United States, a hero of the Second World War, a congressman,
Speaker 1: a United States Senator, a keen observer of the world.
Speaker 1: The first volume of a two volume biography of the
Speaker 1: life of President Kennedy was recently published by the historian
Speaker 1: Frederick Logoval. The opening of the book is dramatic and remarkable.
Speaker 1: It has a young John Kennedy, a keen observer of
Speaker 1: whatever was happening around him, looking out on the streets
Speaker 1: from above Berlin, from the Hotel Adlon near the Brandenburg Gate.
Speaker 1: He sees the Nazi swastikas, he sees the jack booted SS,
Speaker 1: the uniforms, the menace. Yet he sits there wondering will
Speaker 1: there be war? Certainly Europe was teetering on the edge,
Speaker 1: but it seemed improbable, unbelievable, that the world could soon
Speaker 1: be in flames, that war would forever change John Kennedy's life.
Speaker 1: He was a lieutenant junior grade in the United States
Speaker 1: Navy in the Pacific, commanding PT. One nine. When it
Speaker 1: was sliced in half at night on a moonless, dark
Speaker 1: Pacific night by a Japanese destroyer. John Kennedy swam with
Speaker 1: an injured crewman, towing him for miles in open water
Speaker 1: shark infested sees until they made landfall. He was a
Speaker 1: bonafide hero, as was his brother Joseph. His older brother
Speaker 1: killed on what could happily be described as a suicide
Speaker 1: mission over the skies of Europe early in the war.
Speaker 1: The death of his older brother changed the destiny of
Speaker 1: John Kennedy. He was elected to Congress in nineteen forty
Speaker 1: six and then the United States Senate in nineteen fifty two.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty, he was, at forty three years old,
Speaker 1: the youngest man ever elected to the office of President
Speaker 1: of the United States. He demonstrated a judiciousness, a wisdom,
Speaker 1: and the most important quality of the early nuclear age, restraint.
Speaker 1: When the world teter on the edge of nuclear war,
Speaker 1: it was John Kennedy's wisdom that saved humanity. There's almost
Speaker 1: certain that American ground forces would never have been deployed
Speaker 1: to Vietnam had John Kennedy lived. Assassination is a brutal
Speaker 1: crime because it is not just the murder of an individual.
Speaker 1: It is the murder of the aspirations of a people.
Speaker 1: It is the extinguishment of the vision of a leader,
Speaker 1: and an altering of history. For all time, the United
Speaker 1: States has been plagued by assassination. It has taken from
Speaker 1: us some of our greatest leaders and our most noble.
Speaker 1: It took from the nation. Abraham Lincoln, a man of
Speaker 1: wisdom and deep morality, at the end of a war
Speaker 1: that killed over a million people, said these words, with
Speaker 1: malice towards none and charity towards all. Let us seek
Speaker 1: to bind up the wounds of the nation, to care
Speaker 1: for the widow and the orphan. It took from us
Speaker 1: another combat veteran of the Union Army, James Garfield, in
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty. Assassination stole America's promise. In the latter half
Speaker 1: of the twentieth century, Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King,
Speaker 1: the assassin's bullet changed the arc of history. It bended
Speaker 1: it away from justice. It took away the people's voice,
Speaker 1: and we are lesser for it. One of the tragedies
Speaker 1: of recent history is the tabloidization of John Kennedy's life,
Speaker 1: the serialization of it. It's been turned into an episode
Speaker 1: of the Crown. Literally a thousand docuseriies and tawdry tabloid
Speaker 1: television specials have obscured the dignity, the elegance, the wisdom,
Speaker 1: the humanitarianism of the man who, like all people, was
Speaker 1: flawed and a sinner. But that doesn't matter, because when
Speaker 1: John Kennedy raised his hand and he swore the thirty
Speaker 1: five word oath that George Washington took, he never betrayed it.
Speaker 1: He saved the American nation at a time of profound danger,
Speaker 1: and he inspired young people a generation towards public service.
Speaker 1: I was born just outside of the shadow of his assassination.
Speaker 1: It was the defining event for the baby boomer generation.
Speaker 1: Every person in that generation remembers exactly where they were
Speaker 1: at the moment they learned that President Kennedy had been killed.
Speaker 1: But we should not remember President Kennedy through the prism
Speaker 1: of his assassination and death, but rather through his life
Speaker 1: of service. There are some speeches that every American should
Speaker 1: see and watch and absorb and listen to to refresh
Speaker 1: their commitment to American civics and our American civilization. Here
Speaker 1: are some of them. John Kennedy's inaugural address, the greatest
Speaker 1: in American history. There is John Kennedy's last speech at
Speaker 1: Amherst College when he celebrates the role of art in
Speaker 1: American life and the importance of the artist in a democracy.
Speaker 1: There is the speech that he delivers shortly before becoming president,
Speaker 1: when he is President elect to the massage its legislature,
Speaker 1: and he talks about the shining city on a Hill
Speaker 1: that was referenced first by John Winthrop in describing the
Speaker 1: burdens and challenges of the Massachusetts Bay Colony at the
Speaker 1: beginning of a rupture in history, the beginning of a
Speaker 1: new epoch. These speeches tell us something, show us something,
Speaker 1: demonstrate something about the vigorousness of the American spirit, its character,
Speaker 1: its youthfulness. And lastly, there is this speech, the speech
Speaker 1: that explained to the American people why we must explore,
Speaker 1: why we are called to exploration. When we think about
Speaker 1: this in the age of artificial intelligence, in the age
Speaker 1: of profound disruption and change, it is this speech that
Speaker 1: should be our north star our polaris. Think about the
Speaker 1: excitement of discovery, think about the journey ahead. When you
Speaker 1: listen to these words, that some the magnificence of this
Speaker 1: moment and the luckiness we all share to be alive
Speaker 1: in it. John Fitzgerald Kennedy was a remarkable man from
Speaker 1: a remarkable American family. If you visit his gravesite in
Speaker 1: Arlington National Cemetery, you will see there, of course his wife, Jacqueline,
Speaker 1: and his infant child, but also his brothers, Senator Edward
Speaker 1: Kennedy the youngest, Robert Kennedy, who ran his campaign, served
Speaker 1: as Attorney General and then a United States Senator, who
Speaker 1: himself was assassinated in nineteen six, and his brother Joseph,
Speaker 1: a hero of the Second World War in the Army
Speaker 1: Air Corps who died fighting fascism Nazism in disguise of Europe.
Speaker 1: This was a family like any brothers. That's not uncommon.
Speaker 1: What's uncommon is the devotion to service in the nation,
Speaker 1: and it should be remembered today, and it should be
Speaker 1: celebrated today, and it should be honored today. One of
Speaker 1: the darkest in American history