State of the Union AddressesKennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald)
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State of the Union Addresses
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald)
Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
(c) I have directed prompt action to accelerate our entire missile program.
Until the Secretary of Defense's reappraisal is completed, the emphasis
here will be largely on improved organization and decision-making--on
cutting down the wasteful duplications and the time-lag that have
handicapped our whole family of missiles. If we are to keep the peace, we
need an invulnerable missile force powerful enough to deter any aggressor
from even threatening an attack that he would know could not destroy enough
of our force to prevent his own destruction. For as I said upon taking the
oath of office: "Only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be
certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed."
Secondly, we must improve our economic tools. Our role is essential and
unavoidable in the construction of a sound and expanding economy for the
entire non-communist world, helping other nations build the strength to
meet their own problems, to satisfy their own aspirations--to surmount
their own dangers. The problems in achieving this goal are towering and
unprecedented--the response must be towering and unprecedented as well,
much as Lend-Lease and the Marshall Plan were in earlier years, which
brought such fruitful results.
(a) I intend to ask the Congress for authority to establish a new and more
effective program for assisting the economic, educational and social
development of other countries and continents. That program must stimulate
and take more effectively into account the contributions of our allies, and
provide central policy direction for all our own programs that now so often
overlap, conflict or diffuse our energies and resources. Such a program,
compared to past programs, will require
--more flexibility for short run emergencies
--more commitment to long term development--new attention to education at
all levels--greater emphasis on the recipient nation's role, their effort,
their purpose, with greater social justice for their people, broader
distribution and participation by their people and more efficient public
administration and more efficient tax systems of their own
--and orderly planning for national and regional development instead of a
piecemeal approach.
I hope the Senate will take early action approving the Convention
establishing the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
This will be an important instrument in sharing with our allies this
development effort--working toward the time when each nation will
contribute in proportion to its ability to pay. For, while we are prepared
to assume our full share of these huge burdens, we cannot and must not be
expected to bear them alone.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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