On January 20, 1961, President John F. Kennedy delivered his inaugural address in which he announced 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."
The inaugural ceremony is a defining moment in a President’s career, and
no one knew this better than John F. Kennedy as he prepared for his own inauguration
on January 20, 1961. He wanted his address to be short and clear—devoid
of any partisan rhetoric and focused on foreign policy. He began constructing
the speech in late November, working with friends and advisers. While his colleagues
submitted ideas, the speech was distinctly the work of Kennedy himself. Aides
recount that every sentence was worked, reworked, and reduced. It was a meticulously
crafted piece of oratory that dramatically announced a generational change in
the White House and called on the nation to combat “tyranny, poverty, disease,
and war itself.”
Kennedy wrote his thoughts in his nearly indecipherable longhand on a yellow
legal pad. The climax of the speech and its most memorable phrase, “Ask
not what you country can
do for you—ask what you can do for your country,” was honed down
from a thought about sacrifice that Kennedy had long held in his mind and had
expressed in various ways in campaign speeches.
(Information excerpted from Stacey Bredhoff, American Originals
[Seattle: The University of Washington Press, 2001], p. 108–109.)
