John Fitzgerald Kennedy: “So we are delighted to welcome you here, Prime Minister, to a country which has had its oldest ties with you stretching…”

“So we are delighted to welcome you here, Prime Minister, to a country which has had its oldest ties with you stretching back nearly 500 years, which has had a good deal to admire in Italy's long past but which is particularly struck by the modern miracle of Italy today--an economic growth rate which has been most astonishing, really, in Europe; a development of its balance of payments which has been almost unprecedented in the last few years; an attack on unemployment which has brought you wide success.”