Existing comment:
Fiftieth Anniversary of JFK's Inauguration, 1961-2011
John Kennedy was the first American president born in the twentieth century, the youngest elected and the second-youngest to serve in that office, and its first Catholic. After two terms of "peace and prosperity" under President Dwight Eisenhower, the country was ready to pass the "torch... to a new generation," as Kennedy noted in his inaugural address. Kennedy had proclaimed a "new frontier," aware of the word's significance in American history and its evocation of limitless possibilities. The nation, he contended during his campaign, had not responded energetically to its domestic problems such as poverty, racism, and a sluggish economy, and it had failed to assert strong moral leadership in the world. There would be, in the Kennedy White House, a number of Harvard alumni and Rhodes Scholars, as historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. characterized them, who responded eagerly to Kennedy's clarion call to "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship," confident in their ability to transform America. Perhaps Kennedy's ironic temperament -- his skepticism -- told him that the nation would be confronting hard realities not easily changed. On that bitterly cold inaugural day, the brilliant sunlight reflecting off a snow-covered city, the country was enchanted by a young, vigorous president with a beautiful wife and family. The myth of a new Camelot was born. |