CONGRESSIONAL RECORD – SENATES

December 11, 1963

PAGE 24119

DEATH OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY

Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the date of November 22 and the national tragedy caused by the wanton and senseless act of an assassin has been seared into our memories as individuals and as a nation. On that day we lost a great leader. Many of us standing in this Chamber lost a good friend.

In the days since President Kennedy's death we have emerged from the initial shock of disbelief. As a nation we have roused ourselves from the numbness of despair to a sense of resolution under a new President. In the depths of our grief we were sustained by the memory of a man of wisdom, wit, heart, and grace. We achieved new dignity as a nation through the inspiration of the President's widow, his children, and his family. We have been challenged by President Johnson to take up our tasks in the spirit of President Kennedy.

Today we pause in the course of our work to eulogize our fallen leader. For me this brings a flood of memories -- of a young Senator speaking out courageously for a free Algeria -- of a bright and forceful presidential candidate inspiring a crowd in a cold and snowy Maine park in the early hours of a November morning -- of a new President issuing a challenge and a call to the Nation and the world on his inauguration -- of a warm friend reading poetry and musing on the place of America in history as we sailed off the coast of Maine -- of a thoughtful President wrestling with issues which had concerned him as a Senator and now confronted him in the new context of the Presidency -- of a seasoned and vigorous world leader talking of peace and wisdom and understanding at a gathering of Maine citizens at the University of Maine less than 2 months ago -- and, finally, of a man whose responsibilities encircled the globe, yet whose interests involved the needs of each State in the Union and the rights of each citizen, whatever his race, creed, or color, or economic status.

We of Maine are grateful for those golden years which John F. Kennedy gave us. They were not easy years, but they carried with them the light of promise. President Kennedy, the man, can do no more on the unfinished tasks he set for himself and the Nation. The legacy and the promise of President Kennedy rests with us.

As Norman Cousins has written:

The ultimate tragedy of a man is represented not by death but by the things he tried to bring to life that are buried with him. The legacy of John Kennedy can be a large one – if that is the way the American people wish it to be.

We, the people, will determine whether the spirit of John F. Kennedy lives or dies; we, the people, will determine whether the eternal flame which burns on a Virginia hillside is the symbol of continuing hope or a shattered dream; we the people, must decide.

Mr. President, many tributes have been paid to President Kennedy.

As an indication of the respect and affection in which he was held in Maine, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the RECORD at this time a group of statements and editorials which have been printed in Maine, including three of my own comments to the citizens of Maine.

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

STATEMENT BY SENATOR EDMUND S. MUSKIE UPON THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY -- FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1963

It is difficult to adjust to the shock of the news. It is impossible to comprehend the motives of one who would do this to his country. We have lost a great leader. I have lost a good friend. If I were to suggest what President Kennedy would say, if he were here, it would be: "This is a time to pray for our country." We must be restrained in our reactions; we must stand together -- and, I repeat, pray for our country.

REPORT TO MAINE FROM SENATOR EDMUND S. MUSKIE

Hatred and virulence reached a tragic climax in Dallas, Tex., last week. As I said upon learning of the President's death: "It is difficult to adjust to the shock of the news. It is impossible to comprehend the motives of one who would do this to his country. We have lost a great leader. I have lost a good friend.

If I were to suggest what President Kennedy would say, if he were here, it would be: 'This is a time to pray for our country.' We must be restrained in our reactions; we must stand together and, I repeat, pray for our country."

As Americans, we mourn the loss of a great President, cut down in his prime. As individuals, our hearts go out to the Kennedy family. In the space of a few short months, Mrs. Kennedy lost a son and a husband. May God grant her the physical and spiritual resources she must need to persevere in the face of this tragedy. May God care for her two children.

Deep as may be our grief, we must immediately reaffirm our faith in our system of government, designed to preserve continuity even in the face of such trying circumstances. Our Republic -- although its head may now be bowed in shame that this could happen here -- will survive. America will continue to grow and prosper. Freedom will be maintained. However disastrous, this one insane act cannot stem the tide of freedom. I am confident that Americans of all political persuasion will unite behind President Johnson to complete the unfinished business which President Kennedy so capably and so eloquently set before us.

We, in Maine, will long remember his moving plea for peace and understanding, expressed in his address at the University of Maine on October 19.

He was a man of dignity; yet he was humble. He was a man of great intellect; yet he spoke in simple terms. He was born to great wealth; yet his great concern was for the poor, the oppressed. John F. Kennedy's place in history is secure, but all mankind is immeasurably poorer without him.

LETTER TO MAINE FROM SENATOR ED MUSKIE DECEMBER 11, 1963.

DEAR FRIENDS: None of us will ever forget the 22d day of this past November, or the sad days of deepening, yet unbelieving, awareness that followed.

The memories, though shared with hundreds of millions around the globe, will always be as personal as the tears which stung our eyes and the ache which filled our hearts.

We will remember a President who loved our country deeply, not only for what it has been and is, but also because he believed that it is America's destiny to point the way to a better world for all mankind.

We will remember a leader who dared to lead us where his understanding and his convictions told him we must go.

We will remember the voice of a man who found unforgettable words to remind us of our heritage, to express our hopes, and to summon us to the great unfinished work which is ours to do.

We will remember a warm-hearted friend whose love of home and family were symbolic of his devotion to all those who labored to serve.

We will remember him as one who loved life and lived it fully, welcoming the challenges of the Presidency and thriving on its burdens, stimulated by the wide-ranging interests of a thoroughly civilized man, appealing in the simplicity of his tastes and his clear-eyed faith in the essential goodness of his fellow man.

He believed in us and in our capacity as a people to help build a world where compassion, understanding, and reason will rule.

We will never forget him.

As we remember him, we should bear in mind these words of Norman Cousins "The ultimate tragedy of a man is represented not by death but by the things he tried to bring to life that axe buried with him. The legacy of John Kennedy can be a large one-if that is the way the American people wish it to be."

Sincerely,

EDMUND S. MUSKIE.

From the Lewiston Daily Sun, Nov. 23, 1963

PRESIDENT ASSASSINATED

An assassin's bullets have destroyed the life of the President of the United States, and changed the course of history.

The rifle shots which rang out as the official motorcade rode through the streets of Dallas, Tex., wrote a violent end to the career of President John F. Kennedy and plunged the Nation and the world into mourning.

In the few brief moments of the terrifying sound of gunfire, the President and the Governor of Texas lay wounded. America's First Lady had flung herself in front of her husband in a brave but vain attempt to shield him from the bullets which already had found their mark.

President Kennedy was in Texas as part of an effort to strengthen the Democratic Party there. He had spoken out against factionalism and strife within his party. He did not foresee that a fanatical assassin would take matters into his own hands to strike a blow against life itself. Even the extraordinary precautions always taken to protect a President were not enough.

Violence is common to the politics of many countries. It is unusual and all the more shocking in the United States. That there were hotbeds of extremism in the West and Southwest has been a matter of common knowledge. That it would kindle the awful flames of assassination was unexpected.

The President's assassination cut short his brilliant career at its very height. He was in the preliminary stages of a campaign for another 4-year term, although he had made no official announcement of his candidacy. His visit to Texas, like the tours into other parts of the country, including the recent trip to the University of Maine, formed part of that background campaign.

Every American, regardless of party, has suffered a personal loss. America has lost an outstanding leader whose brave program for a peaceful world was the hope of all mankind.

There are no words to soothe the pain of his grief-stricken wife and family. But an America in mourning strives to share that great sorrow.

[From the Daily Kennebec Journal, Nov. 23,1963]

THE PRESIDENT PASSES

Telephones jangled in every newspaper office in the land Friday -- as anxious Americans sought to learn: "Is it true, what they say about the President?"

This is AD. 1963, a supposedly civilized era.

Yet civilization's veneer is thin indeed. Friday’s tragedy in Dallas brings America up short, in the realization that-for all our devotion to the rule of law, there still are mad dogs among us who obey only the law of the jungle.

It takes a brave man to be President of the United States.

President Truman's temporary Washington residence, Blair House, was shot up by a handful of fanatics and Mr. Truman himself had a narrow escape. A shot fired at Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 killed Mayor Anton Czermak of Chicago. Theodore Roosevelt was wounded by a would-be assassin. President James Garfield was mortally wounded by gunshot. President William McKinley was killed. Abraham Lincoln lost his life to an assassin's bullet.

Yet in this day and age, many Americans had hopefully assumed that civilization had advanced to a point at which law and reason -- at least in this great country -- had everywhere superseded outlawry, or the taking of law into one's own hands. The assumption was premature. Anyone who reads the grim daily grist of crime news from one end of America to the other should understand how utterly uncivilized a large segment of the population still is.

The terrible news from Dallas should move every good American not only to demand a restoration of law and order everywhere in this country, but also to take direct, personal responsibility-at every opportunity to support and assist all law enforcement agencies.

John F. Kennedy served his country courageously and to the best of his ability throughout his tragically short term of office. His sudden passing shocks and saddens all America.

And -- politics or no politics -- all America knows today that John F. Kennedy laid down his life for his country.

[From the Waterville Morning Sentinel, Nov. 23, 1963]

MAINE GRIEVES FOR A NEIGHBOR

It was 100 years ago that a gaunt President of the United States was shot in the back by an assassin.

He was President of a country torn by a civil war whose guns had only recently been stilled.

There is no evidence that President Kennedy's life was taken by a racist, but the tensions in the land today bear a frightening parallel to those which beset Abraham Lincoln.

And overlaying the civil rights issue which again divides North and South is the constant threat of nuclear war posed by the ideological differences between the Communist world and the free world.

How clear is the parallel between the times of Lincoln and the times of Kennedy will be visible only through the perspective of history to be written in another generation.

But, dim though they now may be, the outlines are there.

And only in the pages of history yet to be written can there be an evaluation of President Kennedy's place among U.S. Presidents, even as Lincoln's place was determined only by time.

Few have faced more monumental tasks than did the young man from Massachusetts. He faced them with courage and with dedication to his principles. His fateful trip to Texas was taken to support those principles.

A man of wealth, he might well have chosen the easy life of a moneyed and cultured gentleman. He did not. He chose, rather, a career of service to the country which had given him and his family that wealth.

That career has now been ended by the useless act of an assassin. The nasal New England voice through which his quick, well trained mind was articulated will be heard no longer.

Maine has special reasons for sadness. President Kennedy vacationed on our coast and only a few short weeks ago he was made an honorary alumnus of the University of Maine.

As a man of Massachusetts he has been, throughout most of his life, our close neighbor and during his career as a Senator from Massachusetts he personally met and impressed many Maine people through his visits.

Every American today mourns the death of his President. Every heart goes out to the family which must bear the most intimate of griefs. A President has been cut down in the prime of his life, but so also has a husband, a father and a son.

[From the Lewiston Evening Journal, Nov. 23, 1963]

THE BLACKEST DAY

Today we, the American people, mourn the death of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. There are no words which can be written to describe adequately the depth of emotion we are feeling over the untimely, brutal, calculated murder of our youthful President.

His near 3 years as leader of our Nation were marked by severe international crises, domestic problems that featured racial bitterness in the South and in some of our larger cities and problems involving a Congress which did not always see eye to eye with him insofar as certain important legislative matters were concerned. Despite the complex and often irritating issues which faced President Kennedy these past 3 years, he maintained a basic good humor and a sense of purpose that made his political opponents like him as a man and admire him for his persistency.

The great warmth of the late President was exemplified many times during the course of his press conferences. Many Maine citizens had a recent opportunity to witness it upon his visitation to the University of Maine where he received an honorary degree. And most remembered of all, of course, were those pictures of John Kennedy which appeared in the press and on the television screen to show him the uninhibited, loving father and family man.

Friday, November 22, 1963, will go down in American history as one of the blackest days this Nation has ever faced. It definitely represents the most tragic single event since the surprise attack upon Pearl Harbor. It was a deed most obviously undertaken by one imbued with the stark, deadly hatred which moves only within those who have taken up the cause of the lunatic left or the radical right. The assassination of President Kennedy carries within it the curse of Cain as so often witnessed to by those who are extremists. May his death bring all who have veered over into paths of intolerance and hatred back to the reality demanded of all who have faith in God; back to a realization that intolerance and hatred solve nothing, and that only love of one's fellow man possesses the virtue to bring understanding.

There are no tears shed which can relieve us of a terrible sense of loneliness and lostness. There are no emotions sufficient to disclose the measure of our sympathy for Mrs. Kennedy, 6-year-old Caroline and 3-year-old John. Only through our prayers and our faith may we hope to walk from the valley of shadow back into the light.

Today the world shares the bereavement of John Kennedy's family and friends. May the American people of the immediate tomorrow assure the end of any similar future tragedy by dedicating them to the sacred task of building and preserving peace for our time at home and abroad. Then and only then may the American people proclaim that the death of this dedicated American was not in vain.

[From the Daily Kennebec Journal, Nov. 23, 1963]

THE GREATEST CASUALTY

Friday, November 22, 1963, was a sad and a critical day in the history of the Republic.

A century after a great President had laid down his life in the cause of racial equality another President appeared to have suffered the same fate.

It had not been determined at the time of this writing whether President Kennedy was shot by a fanatical segregationist. The point is that the war hero occupying the world's most powerful and one of its most uncomfortable positions of leadership, believed that the issues of the day called for militancy, whether it be the conflict with world communism abroad, or the struggle for civil rights at home.

A century ago the racial struggle divided the Nation and nearly brought about its extinction. President Lincoln saved the Republic, but in doing so he sacrificed his own life to the most despicable of all adversaries, an assassin.

President Kennedy realized, as many thoughtful observers have confirmed, that the Nation has been drifting perilously close to another internal explosion. He combated this drift in the two ways he knew best, as a battle-scarred soldier openly defying the forces of reaction, and as a skilled politician, carrying his case to the masses, scorning the safety of Secret Service cordons and bulletproof bubble tops.

He paid the supreme sacrifice proving his contention that every American must take risks to protect his rights and his freedoms.

He failed to provide answers available from no other President, living or dead. Why does hate displace charity in our differences between fellow Americans, and why does our generosity abroad generate universal suspicion and dislike?

As he rocked in his chair to ease the pain of his wounds, President Kennedy knew there was no soft security and no solace beyond an appeal for men of good will to search resolutely and prayerfully for a common solution to their differences.

His brutal slaying focuses attention on a vacuum in leadership that will mean many sleepless nights for Americans until it is filled by a statesman equal to its fearful demands.

[From the Portland Evening Express, Nov. 23, 1963]

AN INSTANT IN DALLAS

The United States is a nation in shock today.

Millions of Americans awoke this morning still at a loss to comprehend the events of yesterday; it remains all but impossible to accept the reality of that terrible moment in which was destroyed the life of the most popular President this country ever knew.

But reality it is; stark reality born in an instant of violence in the Texas city known as Dallas. John F. Kennedy, yesterday's President, is dead. Today's President is Lyndon B. Johnson, curiously enough a son of that State which will henceforth be remembered for this deed of infamy as much as for its claims to greatness.

The death of a President during his term of office brings a nation to its knees. The suddenness and malice in the violence of assassination compounds the tragedy. But it seems neither extravagant nor emotional to suggest that the death of no other President in our history, from whatever cause, could have caused so many Americans to feel so deep a sense of personal loss. No President ever has shared such an intimacy with his people as did John F. Kennedy.

The sympathy of the entire world goes out to Jacqueline Kennedy, widow, a lovely and charming lady who yesterday as the vivacious and elegant First Lady was the envy of all. That instant in Dallas has plunged her into bereavement in the most crushing event in what has been a year of great personal tragedy for her.

We pray now for Mr. Kennedy, for Jackie and Caroline and John, Junior, and all those who shared the family circle of the late President. We pray, too, for Lyndon B. Johnson, a man who thought the expenditure of thousands of dollars and months of energy could not win his way into the Presidency but who, through an instant of barbarism in his home State, is thrust into that high office. The best of those among us will pray also for the man who in madness or hate has so lost his sense of balance as to commit so foul a deed.

Mr. Kennedy's innate friendliness and the very qualities which have so endeared him to Americans and the peoples of nations he has visited, have often caused concern for his safety. At home and abroad he mingled and became caught up in crowds as none of his predecessors had done. In so doing he exposed himself to innumerable dangers.

There were those, we are told, who were apprehensive about his Texas tour because it has become an area known for its reactionaries and displays of extremism. In Dallas only a few short weeks ago Adlai E. Stevenson, Ambassador to the United Nations and once a presidential aspirant himself, was insulted and molested by extremists of the street.

But it was felt that any danger that might be attached to the Presidential visit would be at the airport. But it was not so. When the evil thing was done it was not when he was caught up in the embrace of a crowd but at a moment when he was thought to be relatively Safe; at a moment when all the precautions and security in the world could not alter things.

The ideals and principles which Mr. Kennedy brought to his great office will not be lost with his passing. But foremost in our tributes to him should be a firm and steadfast resolve to bring this Nation back to its proper reliance on peaceful processes, to renounce street pressures and gutter tactics which reach their most despicable example in such demonstrations as that degrading and terrifying instant in Dallas. If we do only this Mr. Kennedy will not have died in vain.

We bow today in mourning but we must not bend in despair. The grief which has seized this Nation must not be coupled with fear.

The United States is not, nor has it ever been, one man. It is with considerable difficulty that we strive for objectivity at such a moment, but we must cling to the certain knowledge that our country has not been left leaderless nor given into the hands of irresponsible individuals. The changes precipitated by that cruel and senseless instant in Dallas may be less than those occasioned by an election.

The Nation, so shaken now, will go on not weakened or uncertain, but strengthened, sustained, and rededicated by the service, sacrifice, and martyrdom of John F. Kennedy.

[From The Portland (Maine) Evening Express, NOV. 23, 1963 ]

A MADMAN SLAYS THE PRESIDENT, PLUNGING THE NATION INTO GRIEF

The most incredibly tragic news that can befall a country such as ours is the successful assassination of its Chief Executive.

And this is the news that all Americans still numbed by shock, are trying to grasp today.

The youthful, vigorous, personable John F. Kennedy who rode into Texas on Thursday, fell victim yesterday to the dread that haunts every President and his family and his associates -- the madman's bullet.

Ever since the dawn of our Nation's history it has been fired for many reasons, or for no comprehensible reason at all. For every attempt made on a President's life, others are thwarted. We do not know, at this writing why the bullet was fired at Dallas.

That is far less important, right now, than the stunning realization that the President is dead.

So the Nation grieves, regardless of party, regardless of religion, regardless of national origin, with Mrs. Kennedy, and his family and hers. Yet even as we mourn, we take confidence in the strength of the American system which has already installed his successor, Mr. Lyndon Johnson, until yesterday the Vice President and President of the U.S. Senate.

It is the very strength and stability of our system of executive succession that makes assassination so futile, at least in this day when political moderation is the rule and not the exception in American politics. Of course, there will be changes, but the Republic will go on.

That is for the future to bring. Today we mourn the death of the President of all the American people, struck down in the full flower of manhood, his potential unrealized, his ambitions for his people unfulfilled. It is a desolate day that finds words empty to convey the full tragedy that a single warped mind has heaped upon the Nation, and the world.

[From the Bangor Daily News,

Nov. 23-24, 19631 THE NATION MOURNS

At one moment, a man alive, healthy and smiling; a man waving to well-wishers as he rides with his wife in broad daylight along the street of an American city.

The next moment, a man felled by a bullet; inert and dying in his wife's lap as stunned witnesses gasped in disbelief.

Thus did death come yesterday to John Fitzgerald Kennedy at the prime of his life and of his brilliant political career -a good man, a good American, dedicated to serving his country in war and in peace.

There was peace, in Dallas yesterday. Or there seemed to be. Oh yes, the President was in a State where political differences were flaring.

But when were there not political differences, when was a President not caught up in controversy? He might be heckled, the target of a critical wisecrack -- but slain, shot down in cold blood in his native, civilized land?

Unbelievable.

But it has to be believed. It happened. Hate brooded in a twisted mind-brooded and planned, and then pulled the trigger of the assassin gun.

And so today, the Nation mourns the loss of a good man, a good American -- a man who risked his life in battle but lost it, ironically, in peace. A man slain like another President almost 100 years ago -- Abraham Lincoln -- a martyr to the causes he championed.

The prayers of the Nation today are for the Kennedy family, especially Mrs. Kennedy, who has lost an infant son and her husband in less than 4 months' time.

[From the Portland (Maine) Sunday Telegram, Nov. 24, 1963 ]

PRESIDENT'S DEATH IS GRIEF MAGNIFIED (By Len Cohen)

The death of a President is the shock and sorrow of bereavement magnified. It is not so intense to the average citizen as a death in his own family; but it is a broader kind of shock for it affects the whole country, the whole structure of society that gives people a sense of security in their government and in their nation.

Someone who had visited the White House several times and dined with President and Mrs. Kennedy said Friday, "I can't believe it" -- a phrase that undoubtedly was repeated many times that day by those to whom the late President was a warm friend as well as a public personality.

Those who are no longer young remember, still with vividness, the feeling of disbelief, the sense of personal loss that flooded in on millions when Franklin D. Roosevelt died. There was more reason for that feeling then. Roosevelt had been President 12 years and he had become a father image to multitudes of citizens.

I remember, too, the sense of unreality that permeated the statehouse in Augusta only a few years ago when Governor Clinton Clauson died suddenly after only a year in office.

For the newsmen who were covering the statehouse then, there was the same stark quality about the long day when they waited for the new Governor, John. H. Reed, to arrive and take the oath -- the same, in a smaller way, that those on the scene in Dallas and Washington must have felt on Friday.

And so today, my thoughts are carried back to the day when Governor Clauson's body lay in state in the hall of flags and citizens of Maine, great and small, filed by to publicly express their respect and their grief.

My thoughts go back further to those 2 days of mourning that were observed by the Nation when President Roosevelt died. All the stores in Portland were closed those 2 days; window displays gave way to floral arrangements, from modest wreaths to great basketfuls of flowers.

But if there was grief in the death of Roosevelt, who had worn out heart and brain in the great fights against depression and foreign enemies, there was a tragic loss in the killing of John Kennedy. For he was not the father image. He was the image of youth, of energy, of the young hero who would lead us not only against the foreign enemy but against the enemy within our own country in the form of prejudice and bigotry -- in short, the enemy within ourselves.

For Maine people Kennedy held a special place. For he had come to Maine more than any President in modern times. I remember his first visit as a Senator, when he spoke to a Democratic dinner, at the end of a long evening, reading a speech perfunctorily, skipping pages to shorten it, maybe a little irked at the wearying speakers who preceded him.

I remember his coming back, to another party dinner in Augusta, as a candidate for the nomination this time purposeful, incisive, bold, thoughtful.

He came back again, during the election campaign, radiating the confidence of the man who had won a hard fight for the nomination. He visited again in the summer of 1962, this time for a weekend of relaxation, adding little to the gradually building image of a young man of action tempered by thought, His testing in the crucibles of Oxford, Mississippi, and Cuba was still ahead. He came again, in full vigor, only last month to receive a degree at the University of Maine.

Now he will come no more, to Maine or any other earthly place.

And the people mourn him, as they mourned another President who was cut down by an assassin's bullet almost 100 years ago.

We are never prepared for death. We shall always be shocked by the brutality of assassination. And so we move forward unwillingly into the future, like children entering a dark room.

[From the Portland Press Herald, Nov. 25, 1963]

FREEMEN EVERYWHERE MOURNING LEADER OF UNREALIZED POTENTIAL

The Nation is still too close to the shocking tragedy enacted in Dallas on Friday to view very clearly what will happen at Washington or in the 50 American States, or in the world at large, as the result of John F. Kennedy's murder, and the process that transfers Executive power to Lyndon B. Johnson.

Today everything but the country's heartbeat halts as we bury the martyred President. This is not a fit time to talk about politics, in the narrow meaning applied to partisan strife.

The primary task of any President is to execute the laws and take appropriate measures for national security. As the leader of a political party he is required to be a politician. As the Chief Executive of the United States, he is compelled to be a statesman. The late President John Kennedy excelled as a politician, in contrast with the personality of his predecessor.

Whether he was a great statesman is too early to judge. Twenty years from now, or a half century hence, it may be possible, putting events of the 1960-63 period in correct perspective, to say that the man whose life was snuffed out 3 days ago was a great statesman as well. It may be discovered that while he made mistakes, and admitted them, he had an intuition for doing the right thing, based upon the information available at the time.

Unlike those who have no responsibility for the conduct of foreign policy in the interests of national survival, Presidents must take the long view of history, a duty rendered all the more urgent today because we must accommodate ourselves to living with other nations in the nuclear age. The Kennedy policies were built around retention and improvement of an immensely powerful military force, economic and military alliances with other free nations, programs of assistance to emerging countries unsure of their future destiny, and with a close eye to changes of a beneficial kind felt to be taking place in the world's second most powerful nation, the Soviet Union.

To carry out these policies, the late President called to his side exceptionally able men, among them Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. And merely to list the broad elements of the American foreign policy he pursued shows how difficult it is to evaluate their worth over a scant 3-year period. Profound changes in world history are not made that quickly, and when one adds to all of this political duties of a President, among them the necessity of dealing every day with an often rebellious Congress, there is a temptation to agree with those who insist that being the Chief Executive of the United States is simply too vast a task for a single person.

Yet there was never any indication that the late President Kennedy felt he could not cope with the burdens of the Presidency. A rich man who loved ordinary people, a fairly uncommon thing in itself, he had a great love for life, he enjoyed the accompaniments of the high office he held, he had an instinct for sensing the feelings of all sorts of minority groups, and he enjoyed playing what Frank Kent once called "The Great Game of Politics."

What kind of a record he might have made, as a politician and statesman, given more years in the White House, we will never know. Yet while we mourn our own loss, his death is a great deprivation for the free world within which he moved, and which he was determined to sustain and preserve and expand against the evil forces that have assailed national sovereignty and individual freedom from time immemorial.

[From the Portland (Maine) Evening Express, Nov. 25,1963]

POLICEMAN AND PRESIDENT

Two men were carried to their final resting places today, a policeman, and a President.

Each man died in violence, each man died in the course of his duty. They died but a few minutes apart. But for the death of the President the policeman would not have died. But for the death of the policeman the man presumed to be the assassin of the President might not have been apprehended -- and he might not have died.

Two women, in stations as vastly different as those of the men they mourned, made their final farewells to their husbands today.

They had nothing in common, these men and these women, but they had everything in common. The men, each in his own way, were keepers of the peace, protectors of the people, symbols of the law and order by which an advanced civilization lives. In those roles the two men lived and in them they died.

And the women, strangers 3 days ago but intimates in grief today, shared the duties of wife, mother, companion. One performed her duty and the front pages of the world's newspapers noted it.

The other, just as equal to her responsibilities, lived in obscurity until the day of tragedy that linked them in the heart of the Nation thrust her unwillingly into the headlines.

So it has been with our Nation. To create it, to build it, to preserve it, the meek, and the mighty have stood together and fallen together. And their women have mourned.

The policeman and the President stood and fell together. The widows stand apart but together. Let those women lean on the sympathy of a bereaved Nation. And may their children find proof in their time that their Nation became stronger and better because of the sacrifice of their respective fathers, a policeman and a President

From the Lewiston Daily Sun, Nov. 25, 1963

NATION BOWED IN MOURNING

This day a sad nation, bowed in mourning and prayer, will bury the youngest President it ever had -- a President it lost under tragic circumstances.

We will stop our normal daily activities as a solemn requiem Mass is sung for John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th President of the United States, in St. Matthew's Roman Catholic Cathedral at Washington, D.C. And we will grieve with his family and friends for the loss all of us feel.

That sense of loss perhaps can be expressed in how a young girl explained President Kennedy's assassination to her small playmates. "They must need 'doers' awful bad in Heaven," she said.

It is fitting, too, that President Kennedy will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery at the wish of his family and probably at the wish of many, many Americans who will visit his grave in the days, and weeks, and years to come. He was one of the Nation's war heroes and he died still in the service of his country -- a vigorous fighter for freedom and the dignity of man.

Among the many world leaders, statesmen from foreign lands and officials of our own Government, joining the family of President Kennedy for the state funeral today will be representatives of countries not counted among our allies or even among our friends.

These representatives, here to express the formal solicitude of their governments, should be accorded respect and courteous treatment during their stay. They came on a grave and somber mission and we should not let any incident, however trivial, mar their visit.

It already is enough that President Kennedy was struck down by an assassin in a brutal barbarian assault which does not reflect the democratic and peaceful processes by which we settle our internal differences. We want the world to know our orderly and kindly ways and not picture us as an unruly ruffian. The face the United States shows to the world was of much concern to our late President.

[From the Lewiston Evening Journal, Nov. 25, 1963]

OUR FINAL PRAYER

On this national day of mourning the thoughts of the American people have been and remain directed upon the tragic, untimely death of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Not only is all America concentrating its attention upon the funeral and burial today of our country's youngest Chief of State, but similar consideration is being given this sad day throughout much of the world.

Chiefs of state from many nations, allied to the United States by a mutual interest in the preservation of human freedom, arrived in Washington all day yesterday. A number of important dignitaries from behind the Iron Curtain also were in attendance today at President Kennedy's funeral.

There is no question but what this young leader won the admiration and respect of Americans generally. Even though there naturally was disagreement on the part of various segments of the populace with some of his views, the vast majority of those who disagreed with John Kennedy couldn't help liking him. He was that kind of man.

This same attitude prevailed among foreign leaders who met him or who knew him indirectly through interpretation given them by their own diplomatic corps. Both allied chiefs of state and those heading up countries generally regarded as cold war foes felt respect for the American President. There is no question but what Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev, for example, admired Kennedy's firmness and determination, even though he naturally would have wished for our country to be headed by a less dedicated man.

Today we mourn our late President. In doing this we should not forget our obligation to give of our best as citizens in support of our new leader, President Lyndon B. Johnson. Such would be the wish of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who never placed anything ahead of his duty to his country.

Our final prayer today in remembrance of our murdered President would be that all American might emerge from this tragedy possessed with the same desire for international peace and domestic tranquility as that which prevailed in the mind and heart of John F. Kennedy.

From the Bangor Daily News, Nov. 25, 1963

FROM THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE EARTH

As John Fitzgerald Kennedy is laid to his eternal rest today, sorrowing Americans can find comfort and reassurance in the great outpouring of sympathy that has come from all parts of the world.

The formal diplomatic messages were to have been expected. But there has been much, much more.

France's Charles de Gaulle will attend today's services in Washington to bid final farewell to the man who was leader of the free world as well as President of the United States. Britain will be represented by Prince Philip and Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas Home. Chancellor Ludwig Erhard of West Germany will be a mourner.

Their presence is a tribute to the late President and to the Nation. But most heartwarming of all has been the spontaneous response of the world's common people.

In West Berlin, 80,000 free world men and women marched in a solemn torchlight parade, demonstrating their grief over the loss of the young and vigorous free world leader.

Candles were burned in the windows of Berlin homes.

The commander of the Japanese naval craft that sunk Kennedy's PT boat in World War II -- and thus very nearly taking Kennedy's life at that time -- sent condolences to the Kennedy family. The camel driver friend of President Lyndon B. Johnson sent his personal message of sympathy from Pakistan. A Russian woman -- a private citizen brought an armful of roses to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.

And so it went, after news of the late President's assassination was flashed to the far corners of the earth. The plain and good

people of the world were shocked and grieved.

More than that, their words signified encouragement to the Nation that has the task of leading the struggle for freedom and justice for all men everywhere. They were speaking from their hearts.

They were expressing gratitude for what this Nation has done for them. And they were rallying behind the cause which John Fitzgerald Kennedy symbolized as the President of the United States.

Today's sorrow must be borne. Life must go on. The struggle must go on. The burden is made lighter by the outpouring of sympathy that has streamed into the Nation's Capital from the plain, good people of the world. They have faith in America. This strengthens the faith of Americans in themselves.

And so now to the sad task of saying farewell to John Fitzgerald Kennedy-whose dedicated service to his country was cut short by an assassin's bullet.

From the Lewiston Daily Sun. Nov. 26, 1963

HEAVY BURDEN CHANGES HANDS

Many an eye shed a tear in sorrow Monday as the United States buried its 35th President and Mrs. John F. Kennedy laid to eternal rest her husband and the father of her two children.

Leaders from many parts of the world came to pay their respects and, in tribute, walked behind his casket the long half mile from the White House to the church -- walked through crowds of onlookers in a display to the world of the kind of freedom that this country really possesses. Some would not have dared to appear so openly in their own lands.

Among the leaders of our Nation was one with a new job -- President Lyndon B. Johnson, already burdened by the heavy responsibilities of his office. But it must have been apparent to those representatives from other countries that the United States was not without leadership; that another hand was at the helm of state even as one loosened its grip.

That this was so is due to the foresight of our Nation's founders who established the Vice Presidency -- some with misgivings about its usefulness -- for just such a dire contingency as did occur last Friday.

Within hours of President Kennedy's death, his office was assumed by the Vice President, and that was as it should be and as our forefathers planned it. No nation can long drift on the world's troubled waters and those waters were turbulent even then.

So on Monday the 36th President of the United States walked in the solemn funeral procession for the 35th President of the United States -- probably acutely aware that he must now take up the immediate unfinished chores and plot our course for the future, aware that sorrow must be put aside for the good of a nation.

[From the Lewiston Evening Journal, Nov. 26, 1963 ]

A PORTRAIT OF COURAGE

There have been those who have criticized our former First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy, as too young - too frequently pictured water skiing, and too much inclined toward high fashion. American First Ladies can expect this kind of criticism. If they happen to dress conservatively the criticism will go along another direction, including references to dowdy and uninteresting.

These past few days Jacqueline Kennedy has proved herself eminently worthy as First Lady. She has displayed the sort of courage that may be found in few people. Throughout these days from the moment she witnessed the assassination of her husband in the car with her, this tremendously brave young wife and mother has held her head high and carried through a multitude of obligations which do not confront the average woman following the death of a husband.

Nowhere along the way did Jacqueline Kennedy falter. It was she who told her two children that their father was dead. It was she who trudged the sad half mile from the White House to the cathedral where the pontifical mass was said. It was she who stood in the rotunda of the Capitol and listened to the moving words of Senator MIKE MANSFIELD, of Montana. It was she who returned to the rotunda unannounced to be near the casket holding the body of her husband once more. It was she who stayed the night with her husband's body at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland.

Today we would salute as brave an American woman as any who have been written about in history. Jacqueline Kennedy was First Lady in the noblest sense these last, sad, few days. The heart of America has gone out to her, but it was clear she had within herself those firm, sustaining foundations which ever are found in people of great character.

From the Bangor Daily News, Nov. 26,1963

A TIME FOR FAITH AND ALLEGIANCE

The Nation's elected leader -- John Fitzgerald Kennedy -- has fallen, victim of a madman's bullet. Yesterday, he was given a hero's burial in Arlington National Cemetery. Today, America moves forward under a new President -- Lyndon B. Johnson.

The Nation must move forward without faltering. And it will.

Even as the shocked American populace was mourning the death of the late President Kennedy, it was rallying behind Johnson who, as Vice President, had quickly taken up the reins of Government.

Really, the people were rallying behind more than a man. They were rallying behind the Nation and what the Nation stands for -- freedom and justice.

The new Chief Executive, fortunately, is a man of proven ability -- and by far better fitted through experience to step into the White House than any Vice President before him who found himself in a similar position. Johnson had a long and distinguished career in Congress. As Vice President, he has had important roles in decision and policymaking. The late President entrusted him also with important assignments in foreign lands.

Still, there is no job quite like the Presidency. The President necessarily is leader of the free world as well as of the Nation.

It is a lonely job and one of awesome burdens. The President is called upon time and again in this period of world turmoil to make momentous decisions and to assume full responsibility for them.

He is going to be sorely tested in the Weeks ahead. The Communist World especially is going to set out to find what manner of man he is. And, of course, there are vital issues and problems at home.

And so, in this period of transition, he is going to need the moral support of the American people. We are sure he can count upon it from the vast majority.

It is a time for faith to be reborn and allegiance to be roused and sustained. The struggle against communism must be carried on all over the world. At home, hate and violence must be purged from the Nation's life.

Today, it is essential that the Nation be united and move forward toward its worthy goals. We are confident it will.

[From the Daily Kennebec Journal, Nov.26,1963]

WHAT CAN I Do?

The words just won't come.

There's the awareness that words aren't going to do much good, anyway.

This is being written on Monday, the day of President Kennedy's funeral, when one would prefer to be writing nothing.

Augusta, like communities large and small wherever the American flag flies, is a city in mourning.

The expression, "with a heavy heart," has a literal, physical meaning, one knows now.

So much has happened -- so much that is so terribly wrong -- since last Friday noon in Dallas. Yet this country must learn quickly to live with its grief. John F. Kennedy certainly wouldn't have wanted us all to sit around with long faces, leaving America's work undone.

Let's think of it that way, and roll up our sleeves and get on with the job, the job each of us has to do: Keeping the national economy ticking, doing our part in support of the national defense, striving toward better citizenship and, in consequence, better government at every level, for our country.

When he said it, in his 1960 inaugural address, it sounded a little melodramatic -- to his critics, at least. But those words of President Kennedy have taken on new meaning now:

"Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."

All right. Let's ask -- every individual one of us: "What can I do for my country?" And find an answer. And work at it.

If all will do that, there will be literally no limit to the greatness America can achieve.

John F. Kennedy gave his life for this America of ours. Keeping that in mind, let anyone ask, every day from now on: "What can I do for my country?"

[From the Bangor Daily News, Nov. 28, 1963]

THE LATE PRESIDENT'S WISH

This Thanksgiving Day will be a sorrowful one for America. The late President John F. Kennedy, who prepared a proclamation on the occasion of this traditional American observance, is dead, and the Nation is mourning its loss.

Yet, John F. Kennedy noted in his proclamation that America had much to be thankful for. And this still holds true even in a time of national tragedy. Here, using the late President's own proclamation words, are reasons why all Americans should join in thanksgiving today:

Going back to the early colonists, noted the late President, "they gave reverent thanks for their safety, for the health of their children, for the fertility of their fields, for the laws which bound them together and for the faith which united them under God * * *.

"Today, we give our thanks, most of all, for the ideals of honor and faith we inherit from our forefathers -- for the decency of purpose, steadfastness of resolve and strength of will, for the courage and humility, which we must seek every day to emulate. As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them * * *.

"Let us gather in sanctuaries dedicated to worship and in homes blessed by family affection to express our gratitude for the glorious gifts of God; and let us earnestly and humbly pray that he will continue to guide and sustain us in the great unfinished tasks of achieving peace, justice and understanding among all men and all nations and of ending misery and suffering wherever they exist."

Let these words from the dead guide today's observances. Man is mortal, but not his principles. Let there be prayer and thanksgiving, though sorrow still hovers over the Nation.

A BRAVE AND GRACIOUS LADY

In the aftermath of John F. Kennedy's assassination, the world has been given a new and splendid insight into the character of the Nation's and President's "First Lady" -- Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. She resolutely controlled her own profound grief and faced up to the public role which necessarily befell her. She performed the role magnificently.

The Nation first came to know Mrs. Kennedy as "Jackie" -- a beautiful young woman born to wealth and elegance. She loved to ride horses, to promote the arts, to travel and to enjoy gay parties. This, in the main, was the way the Nation thought of her.

But she's "Jackie" no more. This happy phase of her life was wiped out in a terrible twinkling of time on a fateful sunlit day in Dallas. One moment a happy married woman, the first lady of a great nation; the next a young widow and a former first lady -- her beloved husband of only 10 years cruelly taken from her by the assassin's gun.

Under the circumstances, she might well have crumpled, and the Nation would have understood. But duty lay before her-duty to the memory of her husband, to the Nation and to her children, Caroline and John. She did not falter. Instead, she drew upon what must have been a vast amount of spiritual strength and met the ordealing days head on.

The President had been dead less than 2 hours when she stood beside Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson as he took the oath of office which made him her husband's successor. She added several thoughtful touches to the funeral arrangements, including the inviting of John F. Kennedy's Irish kin to the rites. And there was her unannounced visitation to the President's casket as it was being viewed by the public in the Capitol rotunda. There was the silent midnight visit to her husband's grave on Monday night where the eternal flame was burning. The flame, too, was her idea.

Throughout the 4 painful days, Mrs. Kennedy was a picture of grief, but of composed grief; a grief she sought to shield from her children and from the watching world. The children were too young to comprehend, yet at times they seemed to have a sense of the tragedy and when they did she was quick to console them.

Mrs. Kennedy won the heart of a heartsick world in her last role as First Lady. If her dead husband could speak, we think he might say to her with pride, borrowing a term from his naval days: "Well done."

[From the Maine Campus, Dec. 5,19631

HE LIVED SO MUCH

"There was a sound of laughter; in a moment it was no more. And so, she took a ring from her finger and placed it in his hand * * * and kissed him and closed the lid to his coffin." The words of U.S. Senator MIKE MANSFIELD will long be remembered by the millions of Americans who witnessed the tragic death of a beloved leader, a brilliant statesman, a humorous wit, a sincere man, a loving father, a giving husband who wanted that there be no room in our hearts for hatred and arrogance.

A stunned campus received the news of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on that Friday afternoon 2 weeks ago with shock and disbelief. One young man, reluctant to turn away from a television set late that Sunday evening, said, "People find it hard to believe that he is really dead because he lived so much." It is true that he lived a lot. He lived in our hearts and it is there that we hope his spirit will continue to live.

The dazed University of Maine mourned and mourns with the rest of the world at our great loss. As so many others in the world, we feel that we have lost a true friend. The perfect American, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, only a little over a month ago became an alumnus of the university when he addressed the people of Maine here.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy gave of himself, "above and beyond the call of duty" to his country; he made an indelible mark of progress in the quest for world peace; he achieved the supreme position of leadership in a modern, dynamic, powerful country.

We, who considered ourselves friends of the late President, will never forget his energetic youthfulness, his brilliance of perception, his unfaltering memory, his commanding personality, and his high standards for himself and his country.

We extend our deepest sympathy to Jacqueline Kennedy and to the family of our late President.

[From the Maine Campus, Dec. 5, 1963]

UNIVERSITY OF MAINE, OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT,

Orono, Maine, November 22,1963.

The news of President Kennedy's assassination comes as an incomprehensible shock to the university community. Only a month ago we were honored by his presence at a special convocation on our annual Homecoming Day.

Let us learn, however, from this shattering lesson that hatred can gain control of the human mind and override justice and truth. We are prone to make heroes or villains of our public figures in such a way as to cause some citizens to lose sight of their humanity as individuals. Our civilization must take cognizance of the creation of circumstances which have led to such a terrible event as that of the death of the President of the United States and muster all the forces of reason and judgment so that such an event cannot possibly happen again.

LLOYD H. ELLIOTT,

President.

[From the Bates News, December 1963]

TRIBUTE TO PRESIDENT JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY

Brought to an untimely and sudden end by an assassin's bullet in Dallas, Tex., November 22 -- always to be remembered by this and future generations as a day of infamy and agonizing grief, but also as a day of rededication, by all Americans, to the ideals and principles which inspired and guided our late leader in his relentless struggle for unity and peace for mankind here and throughout the world. Few nations down through the centuries have had the privilege and honor of vesting their responsibilities of high government office in a man equal to his brilliance, courage, loyalty, and compassion. It is most fitting that the world measures him as a statesman of great stature. Truly, if a man is to be inspired and influenced in his pursuit of a better and constructive way of life, he has but to follow the life and deeds of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. For they provide the undimming beacon lights for that ultimate goal. History shall surely record that Society was bettered by his many endeavors in private and public life.

TRIBUTE TO PRESIDENT KENNEDY BY THE CUMBERLAND COUNTY WOMEN'S DEMOCRATIC CLUB, DECEMBER 9, 1963

To be thankful for the time he spent with us, rather than to be sorrowful for his death;

To go on with the work that he began, rather than to stand mutely stricken, because he can't finish it himself;

To keep his qualities of character and personality alive within ourselves,

Rather than to let them be buried in a grave in Arlington;

Let this be our tribute to John Fitzgerald Kennedy.