 Good President, the friend of all people of goodwill, a believer in the dignity and equality of all human beings, a fighter for justice, an apostle of peace, has been snatched from our midst by the bullets of an assassin. The voice is that of Chief Justice Earl Warren. Our nation is bereaved for because of his loss, but we can all be better Americans because John Fitzgerald Kennedy has passed our way. Though we shall never know how different the world might have been had fate permitted this blazing talent to live and labor longer at man's unfinished agenda for peace and progress for all. We're expressed in his own wits during his administration of barely a thousand days. I sometimes think we are too much impressed by the clamor of daily events. News paper headlines and the television screens give us a short view. They so flood us with the stop-press details of daily stories that we lose sight of one of the great movements of history. Yet it is the profound tendencies of history and not the passing excitement that will shape our future. Space is open to us now and our eagerness to share its meaning is not governed by the efforts of others. We go into space because whatever mankind must undertake, free man must fully share. We believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal before this decade is out of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind or more important for the long-range exploration of space and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish but in a very real sense it will not be one man going to the moon. It will be an entire nation for all of us must work to put him there. In a thousand days he articulated for the nation the challenges of the 1960s. To fulfill the role we cannot avoid on the world scene we must re-examine and revise our whole arsenal of tools. First we must strengthen our military tools. We are moving into a period of uncertain risk and great commitments in which both the military and diplomatic possibilities require a free world force so powerful as to make any aggression clearly futile. If we are to keep the peace we need an invulnerable missile force powerful enough to deter any aggressor from even threatening an attack that he would know could not destroy enough of our own forces to prevent his own destruction. As I said upon taking the oath of office only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed. Historians report that in 1914 with most of the world already plunged in war Prince Bülow the former German Chancellor said to the then Chancellor Bethman-Hallwig how did it all happen and Bethman-Hallwig replied if only one knew if this planet is ever ravaged by nuclear war if 300 million Americans Russians and Europeans are wiped out by a 60 minute nuclear exchange if the survivors of that devastation can then endure the fire poison chaos and catastrophe. I do not want one of those survivors to ask another how did it all happen and to receive the incredible reply if only one knew. To turn swords into plowshares John F. Kennedy launched the first step toward the control of arms bringing hope to an age of danger. Every man woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles hanging by the slenderest of threads capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or by madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us. Several representatives have met at the summit and at the brain. They have met in Washington and in Moscow in Geneva and at the United Nations. But too often these meetings have produced only darkness, discord or disillusion. Yesterday a shaft of light got into the darkness. Negotiations were concluded in Moscow on a treaty to ban all nuclear tests in the atmosphere in outer space and underwater. This treaty is not the millennium, but it is an important first step, a step towards peace, a step towards reason, a step away from war. It is much easier to make the speeches than to make the judgments the President had said. If you take the wrong course and on occasion I have, the President bears the responsibility quite rightly, so that finally it comes down that no matter how many advisers you have, frequently they are divided and the President must finally choose. So it was whenever crisis threatened the well-being of his nation. So it was in the fall of 1962 when it was learned that in Cuba, 90 miles from the shores of the United States, the Soviet Union had begun building missile emplacements. In this crisis both the nation and the man were tested for the will and the courage to defend freedom. The President ordered a military quarantine of Cuba and bluntly declared that the Russians must halt what he called this clandestine, reckless and provocative threat to world peace. The line had been drawn, a challenge that invoked the specter of a nuclear confrontation had been issued. This was the burden that John Kennedy accepted. This was the crushing responsibility that was his. It was so in Berlin and Vietnam. It was so in the Congo and in the United States. And his concern would range from the state of the nation's economy to the inviolable rights of man. All the time has come for this nation to fulfill its promise, the fires of frustration and discord are burning in every city, north and south. It is not enough to pin the blame on others, to say this is the problem of one section of the country or another. A great change is at hand and our task, our obligation is to make that revolution, that change, peaceful and constructive for all. Some of the most memorable moments occurred when he left the capital to tour his nation and the world. In Washington he would say, we talk to the United States, it's dangerous and it's opportunities in a somewhat removed way. But out here one can sense the power, the strength, the resources of this nation. Here too he could feel the response to his administration, the respect, the admiration, the affection that Americans felt for him. Sure of his way, here was tangible proof to him that where he led, the nation would follow. He forged the alliance for progress and he came to symbolize the dignity and liberty it promised to the people of this hemisphere. I shall return to Washington and tell the people of my country that you and they are bound together in one of the great adventures of human experience to make of our hemisphere a bright and shining light for all the world. And in the 1960s I believe that we can demonstrate so that all the world will want to follow our example that freedom and prosperity can move hand in hand. I express our thanks to you and I can tell you that the people of my country in good times and bad are committed to the progress of your people and this hemisphere. Gentlemen, Mr. President, one of the Kennedys does not need an interpreter so I'd like to have my wife say just a word to you. Who of the city of Berlin, John F. Kennedy, embodied the resonant determination of the United States to preserve the way of freedom. A citizen of Berlin and therefore as a free man I take pride in the words This as in every city he visited the people cheered him as they would his nation for the two were indivisible carried the image of youth, strength and bigger. Deuced myself to accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris and I've enjoyed it. That which came to be known as the Kennedy style took many forms often it was a quip and a smile. Folk a year ago today to take the inaugural and I'd like to paraphrase a couple of statements I made that day by saying that we observe tonight not a celebration of freedom but a victory of party for we have sworn to pay off the same party debt our forebears ran up nearly a year and three months ago. Our deficit will not be paid off in the next hundred days nor would be paid off in the first 1000 days nor in the life of this administration or perhaps even in our lifetime on this planet but let us begin remembering that generosity is not a sign of weakness and that ambassadors are always subject to Senate confirmation or if the Democratic Party cannot be helped by the many who are poor it cannot be saved by the few who are rich so let us begin might be said now that I have the best of both worlds a Harvard education and a Yale degree to when I was thinking about running for the United States Senate I went to the then senator Smathers and said George what do you think he said don't do it can't win bad year George what do you think this is it they need a young man your chance so I ran and lost 1660 I was wondering whether I ought to run in the West Virginia primary don't do it and actually the only time I really got nervous about the whole matter at Los Angeles was just before the balloting George came up and said I think it looks pretty good for you a thousand days and a thousand nights under John Fitzgerald Kennedy often became a center for cultural activity and that was part of the Kennedy style as he sought to achieve excellence in all that he undertook so did he admire and encourage talent and genius poet the artist the musician continues the quiet work of centuries building bridges of experience between people reminding man of the universality of his feelings and desires and desires and reminding him that the forces that unite are deeper than those that divide is incredibly broad range of interest John F. Kennedy shaped the path of his administration a passionate believer in the value of knowledge he launched a broad program for improving the educational opportunities of young Americans a witness to the tragedy of mental retardation he spurred the drive for research into its causes his conviction that individual Americans could carry abroad a new image of America produced the peace corner under John Fitzgerald Kennedy the office of president was the vortex of action and decision and from his goals and faith and ideals there came a new standard for his nation and you challenge all this in a thousand days ask every person if he's heard the story and tell it strong and clear if he has not that once there was a fleeting whisper glory for Camelot