JFK | Secret Societies Speech | Long Version

remarks of the president to the American newspaper Publishers Association Waldorf aoria Hotel New York City April 27th 1961 Mr

chairman ladies and gentlemen I appreciate very much your generous invitation to be here

tonight you bear responsibilities these days and a article I read some time ago reminded me of how particularly heavily

the burdens of present day events bear upon your profession you rem may remember that in 1851 the New York heral

Tribune under the sponsorship and Publishing of Horus gley employed as its London correspondent an obscure journalist by the name of KL

Marx we are told that foreign correspondent Marx Stone broke and with a family ill and undernourished constantly appealed to

Grey and managing editor Charles Dana for an increase in his munificent salary of $5 per installment a salary which he and Engles ungratefully labeled

as the lousiest petty Bourgeois cheating but when all his financial Appeals were refused Marx looked around for other means of livelihood and fame

eventually terminating his relationship with the Tribune and devoting his talents full-time to the cause that would Beque to the world the seeds of leninism stalinism Revolution and the

Cold War if only this capitalistic New York newspaper had had treated him more

kindly if only Marx had remained a foreign correspondent history might have been different and I I hope all Publishers will bear this

lesson in mind the next time they receive a poverty stricken appeal from from a small increase in the expense account

from an obscure newspaper man I have selected as the title of my remarks tonight the president and the Press some may suggest that this would

be more naturally worded the president versus The Press but those are not my sentiments tonight it is true however that when a well-known Diplomat from

another country demanded recently that our state department repudiate certain newspaper attacks on his colleagues it

was unnecessary for us to reply that this Administration was not responsible for the press for the Press had already made it clear that it was not

responsible for this [Laughter] Administration nevertheless my purpose here tonight is not to deliver the usual

assault on the so-called one-party press on the contrary in recent months I have rarely heard any complaints about political bias in the Press except from

a few Republicans nor is it my purpose tonight to discuss or defend the televising of presidential press conferences I think

it is highly beneficial to have some 20 Mill Americans regularly sit in on these conferences to observe if I may say so

the incisive the intelligent and the courteous qualities displayed by your Washington Correspondents nor finally are these remarks intended to examine the proper

degree of privacy which the Press should allow to any president and his family if in the last few months your White House

reporters and photographers have been in been attending church services with regularity that has surely done them no harm on the other hand I realize that

your staff and wire service photographers may be complaining that they do not enjoy the same green privileges the local golf courses which they once

did it is true that my predecessor did not object as I do to pictures of one's golfing skill in action but neither on the other hand did he ever been a secret

service man my uh topic tonight is a more sober one of concern to Publishers as well as editors I want to talk about our common

responsibilities in the face of a common Danger the events of recent weeks may have helped to illuminate that challenge for some but the dimensions of its threat

have loomed large on the horizon for many years whatever our hopes may be for the future for reducing this threat or

living with it there is no escaping either the gravity or the totality of its challenge to our survival and to our

security a challenge that confronts Us in unaccustomed ways in every sphere of human activity this deadly challenge imposes

upon our society two requirements of direct concern both to the press and to the president two requirements that may seem almost contradictory in tone but

which must be reconciled and fulfilled if we are to meet this National Peril I refer first to the need for

greater public information and second to the need for far greater official secrecy the very word secrecy is

repugnant in a free and open society and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies

to secret Oaths and to secret proceedings we decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far

outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it even today there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed

Society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions even today there is little value in ensuring the survival of our

nation if our Traditions do not survive with it and there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased

Security will be be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment that I do not intend to

permit to the extent that it's in my control and no official of my Administration whether his rank is high or low civilian or military should

interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to sense of the news to stifle dissent to cover up our mistakes or to withhold from the press

and the public the facts they deserve to know but I do ask but I do ask every publisher every editor and every newsman in the nation

to reexamine his own standards and to recognize the nature of our country's Peril in time of War the government and

the Press have customarily joined in an effort based largely on self-discipline to prevent unauthorized disclosures to the enemy in times 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 today no war has been declared and however Fierce the struggle may be it may never be declared in the traditional fashion our way of life is

under attack those who make themselves our enemy are advancing around the globe the survival of our friends is in danger and yet no

war has been declared no borders have been crossed by marching troops no missiles have been fired if the Press is awaiting a

declaration of war before it imposes the self- disipline of combat conditions then I can only say that no war ever posed a greater threat to our

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 it requires a change in Outlook a change in tactics a change in missions by the government by the People by every

businessman or labor leader and by every newspaper for we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless

conspiracy that relies primarily on covet means for expanding its spere of influence on infiltration instead of

invasion on subversion instead of Elections on intimidation instead of free choice on guillas 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 descent is

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 wartime discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match nevertheless every democracy recognizes

the necessary restraints of National Security and the question remains whether those restraints need to be more strictly observed if we are to oppose

this kind of attack as well as outright Invasion but the facts of the matter are that this nation's foes have openly boasted of acquiring through our

newspapers information they would otherwise hire agents to acquire through theft bribery or Espionage that details of this nation's covet preparations to

cter the enemies covet operations have been available to every newspaper reader friend and foe alike that the size the strength the location and the nature of

our forces and weapons and our plans and Strate strategy for their use have all been pinpointed in the press and other news media to a degree sufficient to

satisfy any foreign power and that in at least one case the publication of details concerning a secret mechanism

whereby satellites were followed required its alteration at the expense of considerable time and money the newspapers which printed these stories

were loyal patriotic responsible and well- mean mean had we been engaged in open Warfare they undoubtedly would not have published such items but in the

absence of open Warfare they recognized only the tests of Journalism and not the tests of National Security and my question tonight is whether additional

tests should not now be adopted that question is for you alone to answer no public official should answer it for you no governmental plan

should impose its restraints against your will but I would be failing in my duty to the nation in considering all of the responsibilities that we now bear

and all of the means at hand to meet those responsibilities if I did not command this problem to your attention and urge its thoughtful

consideration on many earlier occasions I have said and your newspapers have constantly said that these are times that appeal to every every Citizen's

sense of sacrifice and self-discipline they call out to every citizen to weigh his rights and Comforts against his obligations to the common

good I cannot now believe that those citizens who serve in the newspaper business consider themselves exempt from that appeal I have no intention of

establishing a new office of War information to govern the flow of news I am not suggesting any new forms of s ship or new types of security

classifications I have no easy answer to the Dilemma that I have posed and would not seek to impose it if I had one but I am asking the members of the newspaper

profession and the industry in this country to reexamine their own responsibilities to consider the degree and the nature of the present danger and

to heed the duty of self-restraint which that danger imposes upon us all every newspaper now asks itself with respect to every story is it news all I suggest

is that you add the question is it in the interest of National Security and I hope that every group in America unions and businessmen and public officials at

every level will ask the same question of their Endeavors and subject their actions to this same exacting test and should the Press of America consider and

recommend the volunt AR Assumption of specific new steps or Machinery I can assure you that we will cooperate wholeheartedly with those recommendations perhaps there will be no

recommendations perhaps there is no answer to the Dilemma faced by a free and open Society in a cold and secret

war in times of Peace any discussion of this subject and any action that results are both painful and without precedent

but this is a Time of peace and Peril which knows no precedent in history it is the unprecedented nature of this challenge that also gives rise to your

second obligation an obligation which I 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 case 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 an Administration but I am asking your help in the tremendous task of informing and

alerting the American people for I have complete confidence and 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 doesn't 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 system without debate without criticism no Administration and no country can succeed and no Republic can

survive that is why the Athenian lawmaker solar decreed 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 in attend P 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 crisis 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 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 it was early in the 17th century that Francis Bacon remarked on three recent inventions already transforming the world the

compass gun powder and the printing press now the Links between the Nations first forged by the compass have made us

all citizens of the world the hopes and threats of one becoming the hopes and threats of us all in that one world's

effort to live together the evolution of gunpowder to its ultimate limit has warn mankind of the terrible consequences of

failure 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