John F. Kennedy: “Some may choose forms and ways that we would not choose for ourselves--but it is not for us that they are choosing.”

Our Constitution wisely assigns both joint and separate roles to each branch of the government; and a President and a Congress who hold each other in mutual respect will neither permit nor attempt any trespass.

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

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.

Our aim is not simply to be first on the moon, any more than Charles Lindbergh's real aim was to be the first to Paris.