 We can have your attention. Vlasva, Father Creedon, St. Luke's Church, if you'd be kind enough to say an invocation. Father Creedon. Lord, be with us and all of your people tonight as we gather to remember and to memorialize John Fitzgerald Kennedy, a victim of violence. He worked for a world of less violence. We pray for all of those gripped by the hand of terror this night, especially those involved in the hijacking situation and their families. As President Kennedy found strength in responding to awesome responsibilities, we pray that our president and all those in positions of public responsibility may find wisdom and courage and light. We make our prayer strengthened by memory and enlivened by hope and in the unity of the spirit. Amen. And welcome. I'm Caroline. I'd like to thank all of you for being here tonight to tell you how grateful we are for the support and encouragement which each of you has given to the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation. I'd especially like to thank the president and Mrs. Reagan for being with us and for the many times they have been so gracious to the members of our family. I have been asked to tell you briefly about our plans for the Kennedy Library. Its mission is a dual one. It is an archive where people who want to learn more about my father and my uncle Bobby may come and study. But it also seeks, as they did, to inspire people to participate in the political process and to show them the joy and satisfaction public service can bring. It will help us keep in touch with old friends and reach out to new audiences, those not yet involved or too young to remember. In the near future, we will concentrate our efforts on making the library the living memorial it was meant to be. The museum will be a place where history comes alive. Computer simulated games will enable visitors to feel as if they are actually participating in a presidential decision. And they will be able to vote along in elections of the past as well as the future. The endowment has already made it possible for us to create the John F. Kennedy Library Corps. This group of young people from three schools next to the library have taken on the responsibility of improving their communities. They work with the elderly in a local nursing home on a computer project. They have made great progress in neighborhood improvement. And they will be working this summer in the library, guiding visitors, and learning more about the process of government. The JFK Corps has given them a great deal of hope and us a sense of pride. At the entrance to the library, it says, this library is dedicated to the memory of John Fitzgerald Kennedy and to all those who, through the art of politics, seek a new and better world. I'd like to introduce my uncle, Teddy, who has devoted his life to that work. Mr. President and Mrs. Reagan, friends of the Kennedy Library, first of all Mr. President, we want to welcome you to our home on behalf of all the members of our family. You have been extremely kind and generous and hospitable to all of the members of my family on a number of very important occasions for my family. You were kind enough to give the Robert F. Kennedy Medal to Ethel and the members of her family. And you and Mrs. Reagan were extremely kind and generous in receiving my mother in the White House. And then you celebrated the Mass at Holy Trinity Church with the members of our family to remember the 20th anniversary of President Kennedy's passing. And you've reminded us anew of the enduring truth that we are Americans first, and only then are we Democrats or Republicans, that we can disagree, we can debate, we can campaign. But beyond that, we treasure a mutual respect, a civility towards each other, and a shared heritage of freedom. Your presence here this evening, like other such moments in your presidency, reaffirms the ideal that we are one country with one history and one destiny. And it is fitting that you are with us on this evening in support of the John F. Kennedy Library. He called the presidency the center of action in our society. And you have restored the presidency as a vigorous, purposeful instrument of national leadership. On issues, I suspect that two of you would not have always agreed. But I know he would have admired the strength of your commitment and your capacity to move the nation. So we thank you, Mr. President, for helping this project, which is so close to our hearts. It is exactly the kind of thing Jack himself would have done. And in closing, let me say that in the crisis of recent days, I have thought often of you and of some words which my brother spoke during the Berlin crisis nearly a quarter of a century ago. He said, then, we are moving through serious days. All of us love our country, and we should all do our best to serve it. In meeting my responsibilities as president, I need your goodwill and your support and, above all, your prayers. Tonight, Mr. President, as you meet your responsibilities in Lebanon, you have our goodwill, you have our support, and you have all of our prayers. And in witness to that pledge and in memory of this night in behalf of our family, of Jacqueline and his children, of Ethel, all of whom he loved so much, would like to present to you this American ego which was on President Kennedy's desk. And I believe he would very much have wanted you to have it. Thank you very much. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I was very pleased a few months ago when Carolyn and John came to see me and to ask for our support in helping the library. I thought afterwards what fine young people they are and what a fine testament they are to their mother and father. It was obvious to me that they cared deeply about their father and his memory, but I was also struck by how much they care about history. They felt strongly that all of us must take care to preserve it, protect it, and hand it down for future sailors on the sea of scholarship. They're right, of course. History has its claims, and there's nothing so invigorating as the truth. In this case, a good deal of truth resides in a strikingly sculpted library that contains the accumulated documents, recollections, diaries, and oral histories of the new frontier. But I must confess that ever since Carolyn and John came by, I've found myself thinking not so much about the John F. Kennedy Library as about the man himself and what his life meant to our country and our times, particularly to the history of this century. It always seemed to me that he was a man of the most interesting contradictions, very American contradictions. We know from his many friends and colleagues, we know in part from the testimony available at the library, that he was self-deprecating, yet proud, ironic, yet easily moved, highly literary, yet utterly at home with the common speech of the ordinary man. He was a writer who could expound with ease on the moral forces that shaped John Calhoun's political philosophy. On the other hand, he possessed a most delicate and refined appreciation for Boston's political wards and the characters who inhabited it. He could cuss a blue streak, but then he'd been a sailor. He loved history and approached it as both romantic and realist. He could quote Stephen Vincent Benet on General Lee's army, quote, the aid to camp knew certain lines of Greek and other such unnecessary things that are good for peace but are not deemed so serviceable for war. And he could sum up a current statesman with an earthy epithet that would leave his audience weak with laughter, one sense that he loved mankind as it was in spite of itself, and that he had little patience with those who would perfect what was not really meant to be perfect. As a leader, as a president, he seemed to have a good, hard, unillusioned understanding of man and his political choices. He had written a book as a very young man about why the world slept as Hitler marched on. And he understood the tension between good and evil in the history of man, understood, indeed, that much of the history of man can be seen in the constant working out of that tension. He knew that the United States had adversaries, real adversaries, and they weren't about to be put off by soft reason and good intentions. Well, he tried always to be strong with them and shrewd. He wanted our defense system to be unsurpassed. He cared that his country could be safe. He was a patriot to summon patriotism from the heart of a sated country. It is a matter of pride to me that so many men and women who were inspired by his bracing vision and moved by his call to ask not, serve now in the White House, doing the business of government, which is not to say I supported John Kennedy when he ran for president. I didn't. I was for the other fellow. But you know, it's true. When the battle's over and the ground is cooled, well, it's then that you see the opposing general's valor. He would have understood. He was fiercely, happily partisan. And his political fights were tough. No quarter asked, none given. But he gave as good as he got. And you could see that he loved the battle. Everything we saw him do seemed to betray a huge enjoyment of life. He seemed to grasp from the beginning that life is one fast-moving train. And you have to jump aboard and hold onto your hat and relish the sweep of the wind as it rushes by. You have to enjoy the journey. It's unthankful, not to. I think that's how his country remembers him in his joy. And it was a joy he knew how to communicate. He knew that life is rich with possibilities. And he believed in opportunity, growth, and action. And when he died, when that comet disappeared over the continent, a whole nation grieved and would not forget. A tailor in New York put up a sign on the door, closed because of a death in the family. The sadness was not confined to us. They cried the rain down that night, said a journalist in Europe. They put his picture up in Hudson, Brazil, and tents in the Congo, in offices in Dublin and Warsaw. That was some of what he did for his country. For when they honored him, they were honoring someone essentially, quintessentially, completely American. When they honored John Kennedy, they honored the nation whose virtues, genius, and contradictions he so fully reflected. Many men are great, but few capture the imagination and the spirit of the times. The ones who do are unforgettable. Four administrations have passed since John Kennedy's death. Five presidents have occupied the Oval Office. And I feel sure that each of them thought of John Kennedy now and then and his 1,000 days in the White House. And sometimes I want to say to those who are still in school and who sometimes think that history is a dry thing that lives in a book. Nothing is ever lost in that great house. Some music plays on. I've even been told that late at night, when the clouds are still and the moon is high, you can just about hear the sound of certain memories brushing by. You can almost hear, if you listen close, the whore of a wheelchair rolling by and the sound of a voice calling out and another thing, Eleanor, that turned down a hall and you hear the breast strut of a fellow saying, bully, absolutely ripping. Walk softly now and you're drawn to the soft notes of a piano and a brilliant gathering in the East Room where a crowd surrounds a bright young president who is full of hope and laughter. I don't know if this is true, but it's a story I've been told. And it's not a bad one because it reminds us that history is a living thing that never dies. A life given in service to one's country is a living thing that never dies. A life given in service, yes. History is not only made by people, it is people. And so history is, as young John Kennedy demonstrated, as heroic as you want it to be, as heroic as you are. And that's where I'll end my remarks in this lovely evening except to add that I know the John F. Kennedy Library is the only presidential library without a full endowment. Nancy and I salute you, Carolyn and John, in your efforts to permanently endow the library. You have our support and admiration for what you're doing. Thank you. God bless you all. Thank you, Mr. President, and thank you, Mrs. Reagan, for coming. And I want to thank each of you on behalf of my family for coming and carrying on this living memorial to my uncle and to my father. One of my father's favorite passages is from Camus. We have nothing to lose except everything. This is the wager of our generation. If we are to fail, it is better in any case to have stood on the side of one who chose life rather than on the side of those who are destroying. My father chose life, and that was his call to the nation, and to all of us who shared the triumph and tragedy of his day. He thrust and pulled and tugged at our country. He said, look at this child. Its belly is swollen. There are scabs on his face and on his heart. We are in America. This is unacceptable. There, the school is rotten. The children are leaving. Let us go help them. This is our responsibility. He said, not just a nation's responsibility, but yours and mine. For him and for us, there was a challenge everywhere. There were times of danger and uncertainty, but they were also more open to the energies of man than any other time in history. So my father spoke to the young people he loved in his own country and everywhere. Freedom was cherished. His love for man was a special kind. He demanded sacrifice and effort rather than indulgence and ease. For he knew that our happiness would not come from the goods we have, but for the good we could do together. So because of you who share his dream, we know his quest will go on. We will seek not to comfort ourselves, but to contribute to others. My uncle and my father's life was dedicated to the proposition that we should tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of the world. Thank each and every one of you for your help. Thank you.