Jfk’s Inaugural Address
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JFK’s Inaugural Address
On January 20, 1961, on the east side of the United States Capitol Building, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy addressed the people of the United States and delivered one of the most powerful and influential speeches to ever grace the ears of our great nation’s citizens. This inaugural address was so influential that Pope Paul VI “reread the text numerous times over the years” and his 1967 encyclical “echoed its themes and language” (Clarke 6). Also noted by Clarke is former White House Aide Arthur Schlesinger in his 1965 memoir of the Kennedy administration, A Thousand Days, where Schlesinger goes on to say that “the energies that Kennedy released, the purposes he inspired, the goals he established would guide the land he loved for years to come.” Kennedy’s speech was so compelling that Senator Barry Goldwater, former leader of the Republican Party’s conservative wing, commented “God, I’d like to be able to do what that boy did there” (Clarke 7). In my opinion, our adversaries, either political or otherwise, have no choice but to be moved by a piece of literature as momentous as that of President Kennedy’s inaugural address.
President Kennedy’s inaugural speech had many purposes