John F. Kennedy: “For only with complete dedication by us all to the national interest can we bring our country through the troubled years…”

Before my term has ended, we shall have to test anew whether a nation organized and governed such as ours can endure.

But if these programs were ever to be ended, our failures in a dozen countries would be sudden and certain.

The future of any country which is dependent upon the will and wisdom of its citizens is damaged, and irreparably damaged, whenever any of its children is not educated to the full extent of his talent, from grade school through graduate…

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.