This speech, "The President and the Press," was given 27 April 1961 before The American Newspaper Publishers Association. It posed, amongst others matters, the dilemma every administration has faced of balancing openness with security/secrecy concerns. It is a speech for our day:
But the part that may be most déjà vu is this description of the enemy (at minute 9:55):
JFK ... Speech (full version) (Time 19:43) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdMbmdFOvTs
For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence--on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.Today however, this also describes our own secret governments in nigh every nation, but especially the powerful, imperialist US. The added international woe is the state of the media that has allowed itself to be compromised, cowered, and censored3 by the insatiable forces of power and gain?
Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed,[1] no secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a war-time discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match.2
A final déjà vu word to POTUS and the Press from this 1961 speech:
It is the unprecedented nature of this challenge that also gives rise to your second obligation--an obligation which I [JFK] share. And that is our obligation to inform and alert the American people--to make certain that they possess all the facts that they need, and understand them as well--the perils, the prospects, the purposes of our program and the choices that we face.Let us awake, at last, to our home-grown threats and treasons. Do we even know or care about the Awan Brothers, fusion centers, human trafficking, mind-control programs, food/ climate/ medicine/ vaccine/ financial deceptions, and on and on?
No President should fear public scrutiny of his program. For from that scrutiny comes understanding; and from that understanding comes support or opposition. And both are necessary. I am not asking your newspapers to support the Administration, but I am asking your help in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people. For I have complete confidence in the response and dedication of our citizens whenever they are fully informed.
I not only could not stifle controversy among your readers--I welcome it. This Administration intends to be candid about its errors; for as a wise man once said: "An error does not become a mistake until you refuse to correct it." We intend to accept full responsibility for our errors; and we expect you to point them out when we miss them.
Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed--and no republic can survive. That is why the Athenian lawmaker Solon decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment-- the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution- -not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply "give the public what it wants"--but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate and sometimes even anger public opinion.
This means greater coverage and analysis of international news--for it is no longer far away and foreign but close at hand and local. It means greater attention to improved understanding of the news as well as improved transmission. And it means, finally, that government at all levels, must meet its obligation to provide you with the fullest possible information outside the narrowest limits of national security--and we intend to do it. ...
And so it is to the printing press--to the recorder of man's deeds, the keeper of his conscience, the courier of his news--that we look for strength and assistance, confident that with your help man will be what he was born to be: free and independent.
Let us finally recognize (in the mirror) our own worst enemy!
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1. Note: Not so true in our day of internet where every day has become a news day of propaganda, false news, false flags, and cover-ups of crimes against nations and peoples.
2. (Bold emphasis has been added.) Transcript at https://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/JFK-Speeches/American-Newspaper-Publishers-Association_19610427.aspx
3. Imprisoned by Profit: Media and Democracy at http://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/imprisoned-by-profit-media-democracy-1.3601228 (Time: 53:59 min.) See also: http://dejavu-times.blogspot.ca/2016/06/imprisoned-by-profit.html
