In the Majestic Words of JFK (Or Ted Sorensen, or Winston Churchill or George St. John)

Without question, one of the most majestic and awe-inspiring of all presidential inaugural addresses was the one delivered by the then 43-year old John Fitzgerald Kennedy on January 20, 1961. It was also one of the shortest - a mere 14 minutes. That speech contained such gems as:

'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, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.'
'If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.'
'Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.' and perhaps the most magical of all presidential phrases:
'And so, my fellow Americans - ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.'

The inauguration of John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963) represented a seismic change in American politics. He was, after all, more than a generation younger than his predecessor, President Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969). He was also the first president born in the 20th century and brought to the White House, a dash and flair, an energetic youthfulness and élan unlike anything America and the world had ever seen before. JFK and his picture-perfect family had it all: wealth and movie-star good looks; sophistication, 50-mile hikes and above all, breathtaking charisma. He only lived a brief 46 years; unbelievably, he has now been dead for nearly 60.

Kennedy’s image is that of a fire-breathing progressive. In truth, he was anything but. Rather, he was a slightly right-of-center moderate Democrat whose greatest accomplishments - Medicare, the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts - were mostly completed by his successor, Lyndon Baines Johnson, who was likely American political history’s most masterful legislative prestidigitators. What Kennedy had in spades over Johnson - and most all of our presidents before or since - was the ability to motivate people of all ages to get off their backsides and give something back to “The Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.” The motivation of which we speak was of course wrapped up in the ultimate sentence of JFK’s inaugural address: to "Ask not what your country can do for you, [but rather] ask what you can do for your country.” Ironically, those words for which he is best remembered may well have not come from his pen . . . or that of Ted Sorensen, his brilliantly poetic 33-year old speechwriter. According to Chris Matthews, the former press spokesman for Speaker Tip O’Neil, chief speechwriter for President Jimmy Carter and former MSNBC news host, that phrase likely came from either from one of Winston Churchill’s war-time speeches or George St. John, who was JFK’s headmaster at Choate in the early 1930s. In his 2011 book Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero, Matthews, who interviewed many of Kennedy’s Choate classmates, notes that they frequently heard headmaster St. John tell his students precisely the same thing.

I well remember listening to JKF’s inaugural address on the radio in Miss Cook’s class that January afternoon in 1961. (The next day would be our father’s 45th birthday). The new president sounded so young; his Boston accent was like something we only heard in movies; hearing Robert Frost read the poem The Gift Outright was especially rewarding . . . I was terribly smitten by great poets, thanks largely to “Granny Annie,” my mother’s mother. (Actually, Frost had written a brand new poem for the event entitled Dedication.” He approached the microphone, but blinded by the sun's glare on the snow-covered Capitol grounds, Frost was unable to read it. Thinking quickly, he instead recited "The Gift Outright," a poem he had written in 1942.)

I also well remember wanting desperately to join the Peace Corps and go out on a 50-mile hike. Alas, one needed a minimum of a B.A. in order to join the former, and their parents’ permission to participate in the latter. (I was but 11 at the time and possessed neither the degree nor parental permission.) Nonetheless, JFK inoculated in many of us a desire to be active, to give something of ourselves back to the country of our birth. JFK would be the reason why many of my generation became involved in what used to be known as “causes.” It’s something woefully lacking in today’s world . . .

Post-war: able to get back into tailored clothing!

As a child, I well remember going to either the Union (train) Station in downtown Los Angeles or what was then known as the Los Angeles Airport (where parking was still both unpaved and free). In my recollection, both places were filled with uniformed soldiers, sailors, and marines rushing to make connections. In our neighborhood, there were many men who still bore the scars and halting gait of men who had been injured in the war. Unbeknownst to us - children living lives of relative privilege, many of our parents were actually in the 91%-92% income tax bracket and yet never tried to start a revolution. They were children of the Great Depression who survived a gruesome war and helped rebuild both a nation and a world. For some, it was a matter of noblesse oblige; for most, it was part of the obligation of being a patriotic citizen.

Where have those times gone?

I for one firmly desire to see Congress and the Biden administration institute something akin to “National Service; a series of programs and policies meant for the masses to join, thereby repairing our country while answering JFK’s challenge to “ask what we can do for our country.” In one of the very few conversations I ever had with my father about his 6 years of service during WWII, I remember him telling me that perhaps the best part of being in the service (outside of winning the war and coming back alive) was working alongside and getting to know people he otherwise would never have met. “I learned so much about people who were vastly different from myself . . . and they about me. Imagine: I was the first Jew many of these lads had ever met . . .”

Let’s face it: for quite some time, Americans have been growing further and further apart, whether the dividing lines be race, religion, politics, ethnicity economics or a combination of any or all these things. We frequently take sides, “knowing” that our problems or shortcomings are due to others with whom we have next to no contact with - let alone or knowledge of. This is a loss for all of us. If there were some way for people to work together for the common good, perhaps we could revive the dream of JFK: to ask what we can do for our country. I for one couldn’t care less whether the words come directly from JFK, Ted Sorensen, Winston Churchill or George St. John or Bob Dylan. If America is to survive, we must all find a way to work together.

Interestingly, the one person in the Biden Administration who has spoken most about reviving a national service program is Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. He is all all in favor of expanding the Peace Corps (which still exists), as well as Vista and other such programs. Ironically Elaine Chao, Secretary Pete’s immediate predecessor at DOT (she is the wife Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell) served as the head of the Peace Corps during the first Bush Administration. Perhaps Buttigieg and Chao should get together with President Biden and his Chief of Staff Ron Klain in order to begin the process of creating a new National Service agenda for all of America.