John F. Kennedy: “But our commitment to national safety is not a commitment to expand our military establishment indefinitely.”

Our instrument and our hope is the United Nations--and I see little merit in the impatience of those who would abandon this imperfect world instrument because they dislike our imperfect world.

A year ago, in assuming the tasks of the Presidency, I said that few generations, in all history, had been granted the role of being the great defender of freedom in its hour of maximum danger.

But today, were I to offer--after little more than a week in office--detailed legislation to remedy every national ill, the Congress would rightly wonder whether the desire for speed had replaced the duty of responsibility.

For it is the fate of this generation--of you in the Congress and of me as President--to live with a struggle we did not start, in a world we did not make.