One of the great things about the Net is what you stumble upon on the way to finding something else. I was trying to find a particular John Kennedy quote today, and stumbled across the text of a news conference he gave on April 12, 1961. The Soviets had just put the first man in orbit around the Earth (a month or so before Alan Shepard's suborbital flight, and nearly a year before John Glenn's orbital mission). Space was certainly one of the topics, but there were many others.....and some echo today's issues while others do not:
jfklibrary.org
One of the most interesting exchanges was the President's off the cuff response in this exchange:
QUESTION: Mr. President, this question might better be asked at a history class than a news conference, but here it is, anyway. The Communists seem to be putting us on the defensive on a number of fronts, now again in space. Wars aside, do you think that there is a danger that their system is going to prove more durable than ours?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think that we are in a period of long drawn-out tests to see which system is -- and I think the more durable, not better, but more durable. We have had a number of experiences with this kind of competition. A dictatorship enjoys advantages, in this kind of competition, over a short period, by its ability to mobilize its resources for a specific purpose. We have made some exceptional scientific advances in the last decade, and some of them -- they are not as spectacular as the man in space, or as the first Sputnik, but they are important. I have said that I thought that if we could ever competitively, at a cheap rate, get fresh water from salt water, that it would be in the long range interests of humanity which would really dwarf any other scientific accomplishment. And I am hopeful that we will intensify our efforts in that area.
I think if we could increase the techniques for improving education, in uneducated sections of the world, that would be -- by using the latest devices of science -- that that would be an extraordinary accomplishment
I do not regard the first man in space as a sign of the weakening of the free world, but I do regard the total mobilization of men and things for the service of the Communist Bloc over the last years as a source of great danger to us, and I would say we are going to have to live with that danger and hazard through much of the rest of this century.
My feeling is that we are more durable in the long run. These dictatorships enjoy many short range advantages that we saw in the Thirties. But in the long run, I think our system suits the qualities, and aspirations of people, the desire to be their own masters -- I think our own system suits better. Our job is to maintain our strength until our great qualities can be brought more effectively to bear. But during the meantime, it is going to require a united effort.
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