Kennedy’s Inauguration

John F. Kennedy, the youngest man and the first Catholic ever elected U.S. president, delivers his inaugural address in the nation’s capital on January 20, 1961. Kennedy, 43, had defeated Vice President Richard Nixon in one of the closest of national elections in history. From the inauguration, almost all Americans would remember lines from his speech, particularly, “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.”

Eight inches of snow had fallen at night before the inauguration, but during the ceremony the sky was a perfect wintry blue. The temperature was 10 degrees below freezing. Kennedy’s speech was bellicose and conciliatory, with many lines that are still memorable: “Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans … Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty.”

“Now the trumpet summons us again – not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not a call to battle, though embattled we are – but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out….” “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate….” Kennedy concluded: “Let us begin. In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than mine, will rest the final success or failure of our course.”