Read the Last Lines of the Speech JFK Was Supposed to Give on the Night of His Assassination

[happyg]

Jason Howerton

Many historians have wondered how history might have changed if John F. Kennedy wasn’t assassinated on that fateful day in November of 1963. The world will never know, though the final lines of the speech he would have given on the night of his assassination might provide some insight to the direction he was headed.

JFK was shot and killed on November 22, 1963, while riding in a presidential motorcade in Dallas, Texas. The 50th anniversary of his death is later this month.

Michael Beschloss, a presidential historian and PBS contributor, flagged the final lines of the speech that JFK would never be able to give:

Neither the fanatics nor the faint-hearted are needed. And our duty as a Party is not to our Party alone, but to the nation, and, indeed, to all mankind. Our duty is not merely the preservation of political power but the preservation of peace and freedom.

So let us not be petty when our cause is so great. Let us not quarrel amongst ourselves when our Nation’s future is at stake.

Let us stand together with renewed confidence in our cause — united in our heritage of the past and our hopes for the future — and determined that this land we love shall lead all mankind into new frontiers of peace and abundance.



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[Cincinnatus]

Neither the fanatics nor the faint-hearted are needed

Faint hearted, Mr President? Would that include those who betrayed the anti-Castro freedom fighters at the Bay of Pigs? Or those who pretended to have stood up to Khruschev over the missiles in Cuba all the while negotiating secret deals with the Soviets?

Jack Kennedy was one of the worst Presidents this country ever had, all the PR work and post mortem paeans notwithstanding. He was dishonest, a sex addict, a meth junkie, and an incompetent.

This hagiography which surrounds his life and Presidency is not merely displaced, it's offensive.

I became politically aware during his misbegotten Presidency. Couldn't stand him then and think even less of him now that the truth about his persona and his administration emerge.

[Bigun]

Faint hearted, Mr President? Would that include those who betrayed the anti-Castro freedom fighters at the Bay of Pigs? Or those who pretended to have stood up to Khruschev over the missiles in Cuba all the while negotiating secret deals with the Soviets?

Jack Kennedy was one of the worst Presidents this country ever had, all the PR work and post mortem paeans notwithstanding. He was dishonest, a sex addict, a meth junkie, and an incompetent.

This hagiography which surrounds his life and Presidency is not merely displaced, it's offensive.

I became politically aware during his misbegotten Presidency. Couldn't stand him then and think even less of him now that the truth about his persona and his administration emerge.

And certainly NOT the first time such a thing has happened with an assassinated president!

[happyg]

I became politically aware during his misbegotten Presidency. Couldn't stand him then and think even less of him now that the truth about his persona and his administration emerge.]I became politically aware during his misbegotten Presidency. Couldn't stand him then and think even less of him now that the truth about his persona and his administration emerge

So did my husband. He was on a Marine transport, going to the aid of the freedom fighters. On the way there, they were told to turn back by Kennedy. The Marines were devastated because they knew what was going to happen to all those men. Pat said he became a republican right then. That is how close we were to helping them. So sad they had to die over politics, just like today.

[Bigun]

So did my husband. He was on a Marine transport, going to the aid of the freedom fighters. On the way there, they were told to turn back by Kennedy.

And he signed his own death warrant in doing so.

[Rapunzel]

Watching a special on NatGeo right now on the Kennedy assassination I learned some trivia I never knew before. Air Force one's color scheme and the big United States of America down the side was a design Jackie Kennedy came up with.  President Kennedy knew he was getting a new plane and asked her to work with the designers to come up with something that did not look like a regular military transport aircraft and the design we use to this day is what they came up with.

[Cincinnatus]

Want some gossip?

All the president’s women

If I don’t have sex every day, I get a headache,” John F. Kennedy would remark to anyone who would listen, from British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan to a lowly senatorial aide.

Even in the pantheon of sexual narcissists drawn to politics, Kennedy’s obsessive conquesting remains the gold standard for bad behavior. Here, a gallery of some (but almost certainly not all) of his most notable trysts

http://nypost.com/2013/11/10/all-the-presidents-women-3/

[Rapunzel]

The media never, ever, talked about any of his affairs.  He was still a heck of a lot better than what we have now - and a lot better than LBJ. 

[EC]

The media never, ever, talked about any of his affairs.  He was still a heck of a lot better than what we have now - and a lot better than LBJ.

I remember a line from Alistair Cook's autobiography (He did the Letters from America column - longest running column on the BBC) where he said the press corps all knew about the affairs but there was a gentleman's agreement never to report on them.

I'll give JFK credit. He was one tough SOB. Look up his war time record some time (for the lurkers who haven't, not you Rap - you probably can list 4 books on it! I envy your memory!). He swam for miles, towing one of his sailors, to an island after they were torpedoed. Then promptly swam another two miles to another island to get help. Not too shabby for a guy with an incredibly bad back who had to pull strings to get into the Navy in the first place, due to that back.

[Rapunzel]

Most of our presidents private lives would not stand up to scrutiny. - it is amazing how many have had mistresses on the side....  I think the current has "misters" on the side....

I try to look at their policies and I have long felt - right or wrong - this county would not have gone through so much turmoil over the Vietnam war had Kennedy not been killed, I do believe the stories indicating he did not want anything to do with the war (remember IKE started this war and the Bay of Pigs was already in the planning stages when Kennedy was elected)...He learned a very difficult lesson from the disaster of the failed mission.  He believed in lower taxes and I credit him for the foresight he showed in taking us into space.  I have never been able to figure out his conservative fiscal leanings with Teddy's liberal philosophy. and there is no comparison between what he believed economically and the current POTUS...  His health was a drawback and I wonder if he could have survived the Addisons disease for another 6 years - given the pressures of the office and how Addisons and stress affects the adrenal gland.   

[EC]

Kennedy was the Obama ('08 version) of his day. Young, charismatic, ignited the young voters. That had it's disadvantages.

I agree with you about Vietnam. Kennedy was in it to win it and, though he thought it was a foolish war and a waste of lives, treasure and time kept it up as a counter to the USSR. Had he not been assassinated, they would have blinked - again - as they did during the Cuban missile crisis. It may possibly have lead to Glasnost and the fall of the Berlin Wall a decade earlier than it actually happened. Others here may have more pertinent observations - I was in school, they were actually there.

Your first line, though:

Most of our presidents private lives would not stand up to scrutiny.

Got me thinking. There are huge chunks of my life that wouldn't stand up to the scrutiny the press gives now (or should do, in some cases)  I read an article once - can't remember where, might have been a Scott Adams (Dilbert creator) essay - that said that either power corrupts, or all people are corrupt and we just notice it more in the ones in power.

[Rapunzel]

Got me thinking. There are huge chunks of my life that wouldn't stand up to the scrutiny the press gives now (or should do, in some cases)  I read an article once - can't remember where, might have been a Scott Adams (Dilbert creator) essay - that said that either power corrupts, or all people are corrupt and we just notice it more in the ones in power.

Not sure what it was, but 28 years working in a large corporation I never ceased to be shocked at how many managers and their secretaries had affairs and many ended up divorcing their spouse and marrying the secretary.....  I was very naive about such things, today I am older and more jaded.

[EC]

Not sure what it was, but 28 years working in a large corporation I never ceased to be shocked at how many managers and their secretaries had affairs and many ended up divorcing their spouse and marrying the secretary.....  I was very naive about such things, today I am older and more jaded.

You are a good person - that is all it is. Not naive, just figure that a vow is a persons word and is to be kept.

Side note - when you talk about your husband, the love shines through. It makes me smile in a good way.

[rangerrebew]

So did my husband. He was on a Marine transport, going to the aid of the freedom fighters. On the way there, they were told to turn back by Kennedy. The Marines were devastated because they knew what was going to happen to all those men. Pat said he became a republican right then. That is how close we were to helping them. So sad they had to die over politics, just like today.

At least Obama and Kennedy had something in common; they both ordered troops to turn back rather than rescue people.

[massadvj]

The thing that strikes me about the speech is how hopeful and conciliatory it is. 

Can you imagine OPapaDoc making a speech like that today?  No way.  OPapaDoc's first, last and every instinct is to go straight to the gutter and start dividing people.  I think he is the first president to make clear that he does not regard himself as president of ALL Americans, but only those Americans who belong to groups that voted for him or gave him money, and he intends to screw everyone else.

[Bigun]

Got me thinking. There are huge chunks of my life that wouldn't stand up to the scrutiny the press gives now (or should do, in some cases)

These days if you are a conservative running for office and the press cannot find any real dirt on you they make it up!  Believe me I know and so does Herman Cain!
 

[240B]

These days if you are a conservative running for office and the press cannot find any real dirt on you they make it up!  Believe me I know and so does Herman Cain!

As does George Bush, as does Sarah Palin, as does Clarence Thomas and countless others. If the press cannot find something 'real' on a Republican, they simply make stuff up. They do it all the time.
 
All the while assiduously avoiding any mention of Obama's obvious Islamic background, his lack of any transcripts or qualifications, his dubious birth certificate, his numerous undocumented name changes, his radical domestic terrorist(with blood on their hands) connections, his deals in Chicago, and on and on and on.
 
Any conservative is going to get killed in the media, any Liberal is going to be coddled. That is just how it is in America today. They set up a weak candidate with gushing praise, like McCain and Christie, then when they get the nomination, the media turns on them like a pack of wild wolves. They do this over and over and over again.
 
Today, we have to view the media and treat them as an extension of the White House Press office, and an arm of the DNC, because that is what they are. No more, no less.
 
 
Being "borked".
   bork/bɔrk/  [bawrk]    verb (used with object)  to attack (a candidate or public figure) systematically, especially in the media.   
Origin:
1988,  Americanism; after Judge Robert H. Bork,  whose appointment to the Supreme Court was blocked in 1987 after an extensive media campaign by his opponents

[Bigun]

Any conservative is going to get killed in the media, any Liberal is going to be coddled. That is just how it is in America today. They set up a weak candidate with gushing praise, like McCain and Christie, then when they get the nomination, the media turns on them like a pack of wild wolves. They do this over and over and over again.
 
Today, we have to view the media and treat them as an extension of the White House Press office, and an arm of the DNC, because that is what they are. No more, no less.
 
 
Being "borked".
   bork/bɔrk/  [bawrk]    verb (used with object)  to attack (a candidate or public figure) systematically, especially in the media.   
Origin:
1988,  Americanism; after Judge Robert H. Bork,  whose appointment to the Supreme Court was blocked in 1987 after an extensive media campaign by his opponents

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