Posted on 11/23/2013 11:06:56 PM PST by Prospero
About seventeen years after the murder of John F. Kennedy, I was given the opportunity to watch an archived film of the President's last public remarks, a short speech to the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, Friday morning, November 22, 1963.
Having been impressed, I still remembered a line or two, and I briefly searched for what I hoped would be unedited footage. I was disappointed, but not surprised, to find what was to be found had been heavily edited.
There may be better copies of his full remakrs out there, but I did finally stumble on one unedited whole tape with good enough audio thankfully, posted on YouTube.
It's a solid speech, to a city in another time, of course, that should set the record straight on where President Kennedy stood on Vietnam, national defense, Soviet expansionism and even American exceptionalism.
The following link advances directly to the beginning of the President's remarks, again... his last remarks before departing for Dallas and "the Ages," etc., which begin at about 43:03 and run a little over 12 minutes.
http://youtu.be/WNSUuseNcOI?t=43m3s
With the obvious exception of Ronald Reagan, no president before or since has spoken of these things of importance so well.
Thank you!
What was JFK’s stand on adultery and general womanizing?
You know, these “moral issues”.
Depends upon whether they were willing to put out or not. He didn’t like it when they didn’t.
Well, we know where he stood on replacing the American people, that he disliked so much.
“However, if there is one man who can take the most credit for the 1965 act, it is John F. Kennedy. Kennedy seems to have inherited the resentment his father Joseph felt as an outsider in Boston’s WASP aristocracy. He voted against the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952, and supported various refugee acts throughout the 1950s.
In 1958 he wrote a book, A Nation of Immigrants, which attacked the quota system as illogical and without purpose, and the book served as Kennedy’s blueprint for immigration reform after he became president in 1960. In the summer of 1963, Kennedy sent Congress a proposal calling for the elimination of the national origins quota system. He wanted immigrants admitted on the basis of family reunification and needed skills, without regard to national origin.
After his assassination in November, his brother Robert took up the cause of immigration reform, calling it JFK’s legacy. In the forward to a revised edition of A Nation of Immigrants, issued in 1964 to gain support for the new law, he wrote, “I know of no cause which President Kennedy championed more warmly than the improvement of our immigration policies.” Sold as a memorial to JFK, there was very little opposition to what became known as the Immigration Act of 1965.”
I’d also think his stance was more horizontal than vertical... perhaps even diagonal in certain instances.
Dalliances with women are hardly a voting issue.
Though we tend to think that it is a sign of weakness, all men tend to fall to it.
Kennedy was a womanizer, but he is way better than what we have now.
I am not excusing it but I do think that we tend to be single issue voters as of late to our detriment.
They are a sign of moral degeneracy and those kind of people are not what we should be voting for.
“all men”?
and all women are whores too?
quite a broad brush there
“everyone does it” is NEVER true
It’s been a problem from the beginning of time.
Churchill drank to excess, was it a sign of weakness and lack of leadership?
We may here on Free Republic, disagree with President Kennedy’s policies and politics, but in light of the current day, his policies back then are to the right of today’s GOPe. Sad.
And I know that Freepers here, while perhaps disagreeing with Kennedy, would have never wished him harm. It is sad when a President is killed. To this day, conspiracies, theories and stories swirl regarding his murder. Was it a Coup? Was it the Soviets?, was it the Cubans, was it even Oswald. Who knows, all I do you is that history would have been different if he had fulfilled his first term and we would not be in the mess we are in today.
I honestly think that he would have stopped Vietnam from embroiling this nation. I think that he would have succeeded in scattering the CIA to the four winds after the Bay of Pigs debacle.
(Let me have an aside here. The Bay of Pigs was a debacle because the plan/s of the previous administration were not presented to him until they were fait acompli. I am not arguing the merits of the Cuban Invasion one way or another, only that elements of the administration {shadow government?] kept those plans under wraps until it was underway.)
ciao
I think YOU are the one painting with a wide brush.
Yes it was a sign of personal weakness and leadership, how did he last after the war was over?
?
You are the one who said “all men” do it. Which is never true.
“Kennedy’s policies and politics, but in light of the current day, his policies back then are to the right of today’s GOPe.”
Agreed
And I also agree that he was inept on foreign policy, but I do not think the man was a demon or a communist.
I SAID “all men tend to fall to it.”
“all” is wrong, far too broad and makes it an untrue statement
It is well known that Kennedy was fully informed of the invasion plans and approved of them.
Listen my dear FRiend, I am not saying that it is correct.
I am only acknowledging that from the beginning of time men stumble on private moral matters but may also be strong leaders and decent men.
We agree to disagree.
I suspect that Jesus himself would piss you off if he were a politician.
I hope you aren’t comparing the horndog to Jesus.
If they are doing all that they are NOT decent men by any stretch of the imagination.
Yeah, that’s the point I was trying to convey /s
Where the heck did you read in that?
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