:01:00
The total influence...
:01:02
...economic, political, even spiritual...
:01:05
...is felt in every city, every Statehouse,
every government office.
:01:10
We must guard against the acquisition...
:01:13
...of unwarranted influence,
whether sought or unsought...
:01:16
...by the military-industrial complex.
:01:19
We must never let the weight
of this combination...
:01:22
...endanger our liberties
or democratic processes.
:01:26
November, 1960.
:01:28
Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy
of Massachusetts...
:01:31
...wins one of the narrowest election
victories in American history...
:01:35
...over Vice President Richard Nixon
by a little more than 100,000 votes.
:01:39
Alongside his beautiful and elegant wife,
Jacqueline Bouvier...
:01:43
...Kennedy is the symbol
of the new freedom of the 1960s...
:01:47
...signifying change and upheaval
to the American public.
:01:50
"All men are created equal."
:01:52
Every degree of mind and spirit
that I possess will be devoted...
:01:56
...to the cause of freedom
around the world.
:01:58
Today, the proudest boast is:
:02:00
"Ich bin ein Berliner!"
:02:03
He inherits a secret war against the
Communist Castro dictatorship in Cuba...
:02:08
...a war run by the CIA
and angry Cuban exiles.
:02:11
Castro is a successful revolutionary...
:02:14
...frightening to American business
interests in Latin America.
:02:17
This war culminates in the disastrous
Bay of Pigs invasion...
:02:21
...in April, 1961...
:02:23
...when Kennedy refuses to provide
air cover for the exiled Cuban brigade.
:02:27
Kennedy takes public responsibility
for the failure.
:02:31
He privately claims the CIA lied to him...
:02:34
...and tried to manipulate him into ordering
an American invasion of Cuba.
:02:39
In October, 1962...
:02:42
...the world comes to the brink
of nuclear war...
:02:44
...when Kennedy quarantines Cuba...
:02:46
...after announcing the presence
of offensive Soviet nuclear missiles...
:02:51
...90 miles off American shores.
:02:53
Soviet ships with more missiles
sail towards Cuba...
:02:56
...but at the last moment they turn back.
:02:58
The world breathes with relief.