WRITING THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS

1.11.09

PAGE 6

[*] indicates audio glitch

TOM PUTNAM : Good afternoon. I’m Tom Putnam director of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. And on behalf of Paul Kirk, chairman of the Kennedy Library Foundation Board; John Shattuck, Foundation CEO; and all of my library colleagues, I welcome you to this very special forum. We appreciate your efforts to make it here in weather that is eerily reminiscent of inauguration day 1961. Fortunately for all of us, unlike that historical occasion, this afternoon’s main speaking program is inside not out.

Let me begin by thanking our underwriters, included lead sponsor, Bank of America, the Lowell Institute, Boston Capital, the Corcoran Jennison Companies, The Boston Foundation, and our media sponsors, NECN, The Boston Globe, and WBUR, which broadcasts Kennedy Library Forums on Sunday evenings.

Today’s conversation is offered in conjunction with the Library’s newest temporary exhibit, “Poetry and Power: The Inaugural Address of John F. Kennedy,” which displays original and never before seen documents from the Library’s collections to track the evolution and drafting of that historic speech. I invite you all to visit the exhibit, either following today’s forum or throughout 2009 when it will be on display.

Allow me a few, sneak previews germane to today’s gathering. One of the first items to be displayed is a page of notes from a post-election meeting in November 1960 between Ted Sorensen and John F. Kennedy in which Mr. Sorensen records some of president-elect’s instructions about the speech. While there are a number of serious recommendations discussed, “avoid pessimism and partisanship,” “read the other presidential inaugurals,” “investigate the secret of the Gettysburg Address,” one fun notation is more mundane.

On the top of the legal pad Ted Sorensen has written, “Gloria, cash!” with an exclamation point, a notation to prompt him to ask his secretary to get to the bank before it closed. [Laughter] And a reminder to all of us that presidential advisors have lives outside of their official duties include essential errands to handle, in this case at a time before automatic teller machines.

Also on display is the first known, existing draft of the speech by Ted Sorensen, which though undated, is believed to have been written after JFK’s farewell speech to the Massachusetts’ legislature on January 9th—and a steno pad used by President Kennedy’s secretary as he dictated his thoughts on a January 10th flight to Palm Beach while reading Mr. Sorensen’s copy. Just ten days before the speech was to be delivered, this was the first real exchange of drafts between the two men and the genesis of many of the most famous lines. Remarkably it would be as if Barack Obama were to have just begun to write his upcoming address during this weekend.

In the exhibit you will also see Mr. Sorensen’s personal copy of Strunk and White’s The E lements of Style with the instructions, “Write concisely. Omit needless words. Use the active voice,” that informed and reinforced JFK’s writing style. While this technique led to crisp, declarative texts, the resulting speeches were not always well received by President Kennedy’s political advisor. In one editorial cartoon, those aides were portrayed peering over the shoulders of a caricature of Mr. Sorensen with the caption, “It’s a good speech. Just a couple of points that need obfuscation.” [Laughter]

Another draft of the speech on display is primarily typewritten except for a couple of sentences in Ted Sorensen’s handwriting at the conclusion that later become the closing words of the address. After reading Mr. Sorensen’s memoir last spring, that passage has new meaning. Let me briefly explain. In 1946 after the end of World War II, as an 18-year old Ted Sorensen applied for non-combatant service as a conscientious objector, not to inure himself from the dangers of combat but to honor his deeply held Unitarian religious beliefs. In his application he explained that while he was willing to defend his country and put himself in harm’s way, he could not kill another human being.

Fourteen years later he penned the following historic words, again on display in his handwriting in our new exhibit, “With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.” Once, after listening to the address in Mr. Sorensen’s presence, I remarked to him that those lines did not strike me as reflective of the catechism in which I was raised.

He recounted a story that after working with JFK for many years the President once asked him, “Is any of my Catholicism rubbing off on you?” “No,” Ted Sorensen replied with a knowing smile, “I think it is my Unitarianism that is making its way into your speeches.” [Laughter]

Theodore C. Sorensen served as special counsel and advisor to President John F. Kennedy who once referred to him as his intellectual blood bank. He was involved in all of the major policy decisions in the Kennedy White House from averting a nuclear disaster during the Cuban missile crisis to advancing civil rights and the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. With history as the final judge of his deeds, not only has he been rewarded with a clear conscience but the knowledge that the decisions that he made and the words that he crafted over the course of his lifetime, helped bring peace to our world and justice to more of its people.

Our moderator this afternoon is Ted Widmer, a former foreign policy speechwriter and senior advisor to President Clinton and the current director of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. He is the editor of American Speeches: Political Oratory from Abraham Lincoln to Bill Clinton. His most recent book, Ark of the Liberties: America and the World, has been described as a, quote, “A sweeping, elegant history of the ideas that shaped American foreign policy.” Ark of the Liberties along with Counselor, Mr. Sorensen’s memoir, are both on sale in our museum store.

One of the many positive developments in the most recent election was the electorate’s decision to reject the critique of Barack Obama’s ability to inspire voters and his fellow citizens with, quote, “Just words.” Through that process, he has inherited one of the central elements of both the candidacy and the presidency of John F. Kennedy, the belief in the power of rhetoric to win votes and to move nations.

In his memoir, Ted Sorensen concludes, “The right speech, delivered at the right time by the right speaker, can ignite a fire, change men’s minds, open their eyes, alter their views, bring hope to their lives and, in all these ways, change the world. I know,” he writes, “I saw it happen.” Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming to the Kennedy Library Theodore Sorensen and Ted Widmer.

[Applause]

TED WIDMER: Thank you, Tom. Can you hear me all right? It’s a great pleasure to back here at the Kennedy Library, although I fear I will always be known as “the other speech writer named Ted.” [Laughter] But I’ve been coming here since pretty near, just after when the library opened—

THEODORE SORENSEN: There is an even more important than us, there is another Ted associated with this Library. [Laughter]

TED WIDMER: Thank you. And I want to thank not only Tom but John Shattuck and Paul Kirk and all the people who work here everyday who make it such and exciting place to visit and to talk. And talk is in the air today. We will be talking about the great 1961 inaugural address—but also the address that we are expecting imminently and about which there is more expectation than any inaugural address I can remember in my lifetime. All of us who worked for a president I think remember our experience writing inaugural addresses at exactly this time of year.

And I remember eight years ago at the end of the Clinton White House, The Onion, the satirical newspaper had a headline on January 20, 2001, “Bush to nation: our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is at an end.” [Laughter] And those issues remain in the air today. But we are expecting a great speech and one that will be reminiscent in ways that we don’t yet know of, of the 1961 inaugural. So I think what we will do is talk for 20 minutes or so about the preparation of that speech with the man who knows more about that speech than any one else—then watch the full inaugural address, which is about 12 minutes long. And then talk more about its impact on the world after its delivery, and then finally open it up to questions from the audience.

So one fact, Ted, that Tom mentioned in his introduction but which I just reread this morning, there are now two books, two very good books on the 1961 inaugural address. And they both indicate that really serious work on the address began in earnest around January 9, 1961. That was the exact day of the speech to the Massachusetts General Court. Is that true? And if so, why did you begin so late?

THEODORE SORENSEN: I’m wondering whether that’s true because I have a distinct recollection of having breakfast Thanksgiving morning, or maybe it was brunch, at the home of Mike Feldman, who was my number two and my closest friend until his death just two years ago. And after the brunch my recollection is going down in his basement and starting to put some notes together. And I had thought when those were typed up by Gloria, my long time secretary and assistant whose name I apparently jotted as a reminder that I needed cash from the bank, on the note that is on display, mentioned by Tom—Gloria typed up those notes and JFK took them down to Florida with him.

I assumed very soon thereafter, so clearly my memory is not too good because when I asked Tom the date of that trip where JFK dictated them en route to his secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, it was still later in the year. So I do remember that the speech to the Massachusetts legislature, I know you called it General Court, but I’ve been mixing up names ever since I wrote something for Senator JFK that he was asked to write for the Harvard alumni. And I called it, “Thoughts in Walking across the Harvard Campus,” only to learn that nobody calls it the campus. [Laughter]

Anyway, I do remember that after the speech, which I remember quite well to the Massachusetts legislature or General Court, JFK and his parents, in a letter to me expressed concern that we had used up all our good lines [Laughter] and there wouldn’t be anything left for the inaugural. [Laughter] And I assured them all that there would still be some good lines for the inaugural. [Laughter] So I must have started earlier than January 9th.

TED WIDMER: It’s an absolutely stunning speech, the one delivered here in Boston and I urge all of you to read it. I’m sure in this crowd there are many people who do know it. It is not that well known outside of Massachusetts. And it’s beautiful. It talks about the history of Massachusetts going back to the very beginning to John Winthrop.

THEODORE SORENSEN: Can I just interrupt one minute?

TED WIDMER: Of course.

THEODORE SORENSEN: It’s because the speech quoted John Winthrop saying that we must be as a city on a hill. Some years later Ronald Reagan used the same quotation. And since then both Winthrop and Kennedy have been forgotten. It is now called the Ronald Reagan statement.

TED WIDMER: Ronald Reagan added the word “shining” inexplicably. So it is now a shining city on a hill, perhaps because glass architecture wasn’t available in the 17th century. [Laughter] But it is a gorgeous speech. And I edited an anthology of great American speeches a few years ago and I hesitated but I did put that in because I thought it deserved a larger audience, although I clearly put in a local speech, which that was.

But it is the equivalent, in many ways, of Lincoln’s farewell speech to Springfield, Illinois. And Barack Obama gave a beautiful farewell speech to the Senate recently. So that is a lesser known tradition. But that speech in Boston is remarkable. I urge you all to read it.

Did you feel any anxiety that you, yourself, had used up your best stuff in that speech?

THEODORE SORENSEN: No. [Laughter]

TED WIDMER: You were confident.

THEODORE SORENSEN: But I will admit that if you look closely, the ending to the Massachusetts legislature speech and the ending to the inaugural have quite a bit in common.

TED WIDMER: Well, one of the great speechwriter traditions is to plagiarize from yourself.

THEODORE SORENSEN: Of course.

TED WIDMER: I think you are allowed to do that. In each of the books that describe the preparation of the address, they talk about the process of outreach, writing to other people. And another great American tradition is to take credit for something in a speech even if you had nothing to do with it. So can we get as precise as possible? Whom did you write to? Who offered substantive contributions? And perhaps you can let us know who did not. [Laughter]

THEODORE SORENSEN: Neither I need to remember nor you need to guess because the exhibit downstairs includes the telegram—you all remember telegrams, which came before all the current means of communication. JFK asked me to send a telegram to Adlai Stevenson; Douglas Dillon, and this must have been after Dillon had been named Secretary of the Treasury, our lead Republican cabinet member; and to Ken Galbraith, who didn’t need to be invited. He was happy to suggest the entire speech. [Laughter] To the newsman and columnist, a very close personal friend of mine who helped us during the campaign, Joe Kraft, Joseph Kraft—anyway, that telegram is on exhibit downstairs.