The President and the Press

From The President and the Press

The President and the Press: Address before the American Newspaper Publishers Association (1961) by John F. Kennedy.

Delivered in Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York City, April 27, 1961.

"I want to talk about our common responsibilities in the face of a common danger.

I refer, first, to the need for a far greater public information; and, second, to the need for far greater official secrecy.

In time of "clear and present danger", the courts have held that even the privileged rights of the First Amendment must yield to the public's need for national security.

If you are awaiting a finding of "clear and present danger", then I can only say that the danger has never been more clear and its presence has never been more imminent.

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.

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, 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.

I have no easy answer to the dilemma that I have posed, and would not seek to impose it if I had one.

...our press was protected by the First Amendment...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."