On Friday, January 20th 1961, at the eastern portico of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., John F. Kennedy delivered his iconic inaugural address. With 1,364 words, Kennedy’s historic speech lasted 13 minutes and 55 seconds. Despite its brevity, the words he spoke reached millions of people around the world and still remain relevant today, proudly standing the test of time.
However, as you may imagine, Kennedy received the momentous support of his ‘intellectual blood bank’ Ted Sorenson. Sorenson was a lawyer and presidential advisor to Kennedy for 8 years before helping him to draft his world-changing inaugural address. Although Sorenson played an arguably crucial part in devising the speech, very few memorable lines can actually be credited to him with lines being credited to Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith and former Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson II. Kennedy’s line “Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate” is almost identical to Galbraith’s suggestion “We shall never negotiate out of fear. But we shall never fear to negotiate.” Stevenson’s suggestion “if the free way of life doesn’t help the many poor of this world it will never save the few rich” was perhaps the basis for Kennedy’s line “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.” Sorenson even stated in his 2008 memoir that the most memorable line of the address,”Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country”, was not him admitting: ”The truth is that I simply don’t remember where the line came from.” It turns out the quotation is actually derived from the works of Cicero, a Roman philosopher.
After Kennedy’s assassination, 2 years and 306 days after this speech, Ted drafted Johnson’s first address to Congress and also acted as a major adviser of Robert F. Kennedy in Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign. As well as this, On March 9, 2007, he spoke at an event with then-senator Barack Obama in New York City. He also provided assistance with President Obama’s 2009 inaugural address, recognising similarities between Senator Barack Obama and Senator John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaigns. Up until his death in 2010, Ted Sorenson remained an important figure behind-the-scenes in US politics, remaining involved in key Democratic campaigns and working with over 3 presidential candidates, drafting speeches, writing articles and publishing books.
Grace - Upon - Paper 