John Fitzgerald Kennedy

NATO is one of the best and earliest examples of cooperation between Western Europe and the North American nations for the common good of freedom.

It is increasingly clear that our Western European allies are willing to look outward on the world, not merely in at their own needs and demands.

The great interest of the United States and Italy are wholly parallel.

I am glad to be here also, Mr. President, because Italy occupies a position of strategic importance, vital to the security of Europe, vital to the security of the United States.

Together let us build sturdy mansions of freedom, mansions that all the world can admire and copy but that no tyrant can ever enter.

I want to express my appreciation to all of you for your welcome.

I have come on this trip to Europe, which is coming to an end, because I believe so strongly that the great power of Europe should be harnessed to the great power of the United States.

It is our task, I think, Mr. President, to make sure, in the interest of both of our countries, that that association remains as strong in the future as it has been in the past.

In the heart of Europe, reaching down into the Mediterranean towards Africa, the maintenance of a free democracy here in Italy is of great interest, of vital interest, not only to your own people, but also to all of us who believe in…

The United States has carried the great burden of this struggle now for 18 years.

The most important matter, of course, which occupies our attention, and which will continue to occupy our attention, is our common hope that the mission of Governor Harriman and Lord Hailsham will be successful.

So from public and personal grounds both, I wish to express our warmest thanks to you, and to tell you that we look forward to your visiting the United States next time around.

I think the progress that we made during our discussions in coming to an agreement on the instructions of our emissaries, I think made this meeting particularly useful.

I want to express our very warm thanks to you and to Lady Dorothy for the shelter you have given us during the last 24 hours.

The conclusion of a test ban treaty at this time is most urgent and pledged themselves to do all they could to bring this about.

As usual, we were able to accomplish a good deal in this meeting because of the strong basis of understanding which has existed between our two countries and which has existed to my great satisfaction since the period of my incumbency.

So this has been really the high point of our trip.

This is not the land of my birth, but it is the land for which I hold the greatest affection and I certainly will come back in the springtime.

What gives me the greatest satisfaction and pride, being of Irish descent, is the realization that even today this very small island still sends thousands, literally thousands, of its sons and daughters to the ends of the globe to carry on…

I am very glad to be back in England again.

It is in a very real sense the mother of a great many people, a great many millions of people, and in a sense a great many nations.

This is the last place I go, and then I am going to another country, and then I am going to Italy, and then I am going back home to the United States.

I am particularly glad on this occasion that we will have an opportunity to talk about the forthcoming trip of our representatives to the Soviet Union.

If the day was clear enough, and if you went down to the bay, and you looked west, and your sight was good enough, you would see Boston, Mass.

While there may be those removed by two or three generations from Ireland, they may have left 100 years ago their people, and yet when I ask how many people may have relatives in America nearly everybody holds up their hands.