The life of John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy was assassinated 57 years ago. This is his story.

Transcript

00:00Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

00:30As a child, my father was sick a great deal. While his brothers and sisters were out playing

00:55football, he spent hours reading in bed.

00:58This is a model of a PT boat on which I served, PT 109, on which I served during the war.

01:24This is a model of a PT boat on which I served, PT 109, on which I served during the war.

01:54This is a model of a PT boat on which I served, PT 109, on which I served during the war.

02:15The old people without medical care, the families without a decent home, the parents of children

02:22without a decent school, they all know that it's time for change.

02:39I'm not satisfied until every American enjoys his full constitutional rights. I don't want

02:44the talents of any American to go to waste.

02:55In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of

03:03defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility.

03:11I welcome it.

03:42We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they

03:47are easy, but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and measure

03:54the best of our energies and skills.

04:21100 years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs,

04:28their grandsons, are not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice.

04:50Freedom has many difficulties, and democracy is not perfect. But we have never had to put

05:00a wall up to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us.

05:04Ich bin ein Berliner.

05:20Ich bin ein Berliner.

05:50For those of us of a certain age, the Kennedys symbolized a set of values and attitudes about

06:19civic life that made it such an attractive calling. The idea that politics, in fact,

06:27could be a noble and worthwhile pursuit. The notion that our problems, while significant,

06:33are never insurmountable.