For John F. Kennedy's Inauguration Gift outright of "The Gift Outright" (With some preliminary history in rhyme) by Robert Frost Summoning artists to participate In the august occasions of the state
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Sung by Frank Sinatra to the tune of his 1959 hit single, "High Hopes," but with lyrics changed in support of the 1960 Democratic presidential candidate. "High Hopes (with John Kennedy)" Everyone is
The following Irish folk song inspired the title of the memoir, Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye, jointly written by John F. Kennedy aides David F. Powers and Kenneth P. O'Donnell (in collaboration with
The land was ours before we were the land’s She was our land more than a hundred years Before we were her people. She was ours In Massachusetts, in Virginia, But we were England’s, still colonials
STATE TOTAL VOTE KENNEDY NIXON HASS UNPLEDGED OTHER PLURALITY Alabama 570225 324050 (58.8%) 237981 (41.7%) -- -- 8194 (1.4%) 86069 D Alaska 60762 29809 (49.1%) 30953 (50.9%) -- -- -- 1144 R Arizona
John F. Kennedy joined the US Navy in 1941 and was stationed in the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific during World War II. Commanding the Patrol Torpedo Craft (PT) PT 109, Lieutenant Kennedy and
On the late Friday afternoon of July 15, 1960, Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts appeared before a crowd of eighty thousand people in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to deliver his formal acceptance of the Democratic party’s nomination for President of the United States. Before what was at the time touted as the largest crowd ever to hear a political speech, John F. Kennedy spoke of "the New Frontier" --a frontier of unknown opportunities and perils-- a frontier of unfulfilled hopes and threats.
At an Independence Day celebration at historic Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on July 4, 1962, President Kennedy delivered an address on the importance of the Declaration of Independence to contemporary Americans. “To read it today,” he said, “is to hear a trumpet call. For that Declaration unleashed not merely a revolution against the British, but a revolution in human affairs. Its authors were highly conscious of its worldwide implications.” The President then challenged Americans to “be ready for a Declaration of Interdependence…to discuss with a united Europe the ways and means of forming a concrete Atlantic partnership…to throw off the yoke of poverty…balance our world-wide trade…and deter any aggression in order to achieve a world of law and free choice.” In proposing a “Declaration of Interdependence,” President Kennedy reminded the nation that it could not remain aloof from Western Europe’s trend toward unity. President Kennedy delivered the following speech before an audience that included 43 of the 54 state and territorial governors who were in Philadelphia for the 54th National Governors’ Conference.
When John F. Kennedy became president in January 1961, Americans had the perception that the United States was losing the "space race" with the Soviets. President Kennedy understood the need and had the vision of not only matching the Soviets, but surpassing them. On May 25, 1961, he stood before Congress and proclaimed that “this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.” On September 12, 1962, President Kennedy delivered a speech describing his goals for the nation’s space effort before a crowd of 35,000 people in the football stadium at Rice University in Houston, Texas.
As 1961 drew to an end, the United States and the Soviet Union were at the height of the Cold War, and Cuba and Berlin were hot spots. In April 1961, the United States Central Intelligence Agency had organized 1,400 armed Cuban exiles in a failed attempt to invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. On August 20, 1961, East Germany erected a five foot high concrete wall dividing East and West Berlin and on October 28, 1961, a tense, 16-hour face off occurred at the Berlin Wall between Soviet and American tanks. On August 31, 1961, the Soviet Union began conducting aboveground nuclear tests, detonating perhaps 15 bombs during September 1961. Local newspapers advised Seattleites on how to construct and stock personal nuclear fallout shelters. It was in this context that President John F. Kennedy arrived at Boeing Airport in Seattle, Washington on November 16, 1961 to deliver a major foreign policy speech at the University of Washington Centennial Convocation. He was also in Seattle to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Senator Warren Magnuson of Washington who first elected to Congress in 1936.
In May of 1963, President Kennedy added his weight to the federal government’s preparation for the impending clash with the state of Alabama over the integration of the University of Alabama. Less than a week after the bombing of a Black American’s home and hotel in Birmingham, President Kennedy made a one-day trip to Tennessee and Alabama, saluting the ninetieth anniversary of Vanderbilt University and the thirtieth anniversary of the Tennessee Valley Authority, but in addition reminding his listeners of their roles and responsibilities as citizens. In a spirited and eloquent speech before an estimated crowd of 30,000 people in the stadium at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee on May 18, 1963, President Kennedy reminded his listeners that it falls to the educated man to assume the greater obligations of citizenship—for the pursuit of learning, to serve the public and to uphold the law.
In June 1963, President John F. Kennedy, America’s first Irish-Catholic president, journeyed to his ancestral homeland of Ireland, a homecoming he later described as “one of the most moving experiences” of his life. The President’s eight great-grandparents all migrated to Boston, Massachusetts during the devastating Potato Famine of the late 1840’s, seeking to take advantage of the economic opportunity offered in America. On June 28, the President was invited to address a joint session of the Seanad and the Dail in Leinster House. His Dáil speech was full of references to Irishmen who fought in the American War of Independence and he championed the important place for small nations in the pursuit of world peace. Kennedy’s speech to the combined houses of parliament was the first ceremony in the Dail’s legislative chamber ever seen on national television.
On Monday, October 22, 1962, President Kennedy appeared on television to inform Americans of the recently discovered Soviet military buildup in Cuba including the ongoing installation of offensive nuclear missiles. He informed the people of the United States of the "quarantine" placed around Cuba by the U.S. Navy. The President stated that any nuclear missile launched from Cuba would be regarded as an attack on the United States by the Soviet Union and demanded that the Soviets remove all of their offensive weapons from Cuba. The Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest the world ever came to nuclear war. Recognizing the devastating possibility of a nuclear war, Khrushchev turned his ships back. The Soviets agreed to dismantle the weapon sites and, in exchange, the United States agreed not to invade Cuba.
In an address to a Joint Session of Congress on May 25, 1961 to deliver a special message on "urgent national needs," President Kennedy asked for an additional $7 billion to $9 billion over the next five years for the space program, proclaiming that “this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.” President Kennedy settled upon this dramatic goal as a means of focusing and mobilizing our lagging space efforts. He did not justify the needed expenditure on the basis of science and exploration, but placed the program clearly in the camp of the competing ideologies of democracy vs. communism.
Although Irish Catholics began to play a major role in local and state politics in the latter nineteenth century, the first Catholic to seek a national office was the popular governor of New York, Alfred E. Smith, who was the Democratic nominee for president in 1928. Anti-Catholic prejudice, the fear that a Catholic president would "take orders" from the Pope, insured Smith's defeat. John F. Kennedy quickly discovered that many Americans were still worried that a young Catholic candidate for president would be under the influence of the Catholic Church and that the nation would ultimately be run by the pope in Rome rather than the president in Washington. Some Americans vowed not to support John F. Kennedy for the presidency for this reason. Fear of a government unduly influenced by religious interests was real and seen as a distinct liability for this Catholic candidate. John F. Kennedy finally decided to try to defeat the issue by meeting it head-on, and on September 12, 1960, he spoke before the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in Houston, Texas.
Accession Number: IFP:140 Title: Address to the Houston Ministers Conference, 12 September 1960 Date(s) of Materials: 12 September 1960 Description: Motion picture of Senator John F. Kennedy
AR 8207-A 24 October 1963 President Kennedy addresses the 13th Annual Convention Luncheon of the National Association for Retarded Children. Washington, DC, Mayflower Hotel. Please credit Abbie Rowe
President Kennedy’s address to the United Nations General Assembly in September 1961 was given at a critical moment in the life of that body, one week after the death of UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld who had had been killed in a plane crash in the Congo. Some counseled the President to cancel his plans to address the opening of the General Assembly on September 25. But the President believed the UN had to have a future and he decided to speak forcefully on the real issues confronting the Assembly and the world: a stronger United Nations – disarmament and a nuclear test ban – cooperation on outer space and economic development – an end to colonialism – and recognition of the Communist threats to peace over Berlin and Southeast Asia. On September 25, 1961, President Kennedy stood before the United Nations General Assembly in New York City, endorsing a complete and general disarmament, and challenging the Soviet Union to a “peace race.”
President Kennedy was determined to improve relations with Latin America through peaceful economic cooperation and development—which would also inhibit the rise of communist-leaning insurgents such as Cuba’s Fidel Castro. Kennedy proposed, through the Agency for International Development and the Alliance for Progress, both launched in 1961, to loan more than $20 billion to Latin American nations that would promote democracy and undertake meaningful social reforms, especially in making land ownership possible for greater numbers of their people.
President Kennedy began to feel in the spring of 1963 that there was a possibility for some kind of new movement in U.S. relations with the Soviet Union, and he began to look for an opportunity to make a "peace speech". In his commencement address at American University on June 10, 1963, President Kennedy called on the Soviet Union to work with the United States to achieve a nuclear test ban treaty and help reduce the considerable international tensions and the specter of nuclear war at that time. He announced a new round of high-level arms negotiations with the Russians and boldly called for an end to the Cold War. The Soviet government broadcast a translation of Kennedy’s entire speech, and allowed it to be reprinted in the controlled Soviet press.
The Kennedys made the arts part of their life in the White House. JFK enjoyed literature and poetry, especially the work of the Romantic era English poet Lord Byron and the American Robert Frost. Jacqueline Kennedy loved poetry as well and was also deeply committed to both music and the visual arts. There is little evidence that JFK was particularly sophisticated about the arts. He read widely, but never considered himself an intellectual or an original thinker. His musical tastes ran to Broadway show tunes and Irish ballads rather than Mozart or Beethoven. Once, when asked about the president’s taste in music, the first lady replied that his favorite piece was “Hail to the Chief.”
Created by Department of Defense. Department of the Navy. Naval Photographic Center. Title: Atomic cloud during Baker Day blast at Bikini. Atomic cloud shrouds target fleet. Sweeping out in all
John F. Kennedy was elected president in one of the closest elections in United States history. Kennedy's popular vote margin over Nixon was 118,550 out of a total of nearly 69 million votes cast. His success in many urban and industrial states gave him a clear majority of 303 to 219 in the electoral vote. Kennedy was the youngest elected president, the only Catholic and the first born in the twentieth century.
Massachusetts St. Aidan's Catholic Church Pleasant Street Brookline MA — John Kennedy was baptized here in June of 1917 St. Stephen's Church North End Boston, MA — John F. Kennedy attended often as a
President John F. Kennedy said on April 28, 1961 in Chicago, "If all of you had voted the other way - there's about 5500 of you here tonight - I would not be President of the United States." Theodore