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The President and the Printing: Address before the American Newspaper Publishers Clan, April 27, 1961

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President John F. Kennedy
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York Urban center
April 27, 1961

Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen:

I appreciate very much your generous invitation to be here this night.

Y'all bear heavy responsibilities these days and an article I read some fourth dimension ago reminded me of how particularly heavily the burdens of present mean solar day events bear upon your profession.

You may remember that in 1851 the New York Herald Tribune under the sponsorship and publishing of Horace Greeley, employed every bit its London correspondent an obscure journalist past the name of Karl Marx.

Nosotros are told that strange correspondent Marx, stone broke, and with a family ill and undernourished, constantly appealed to Greeley and managing editor Charles Dana for an increase in his munificent salary of $5 per installment, a bacon which he and Engels ungratefully labeled as the "lousiest petty conservative cheating."

But when all his fiscal appeals were refused, Marx looked around for other means of livelihood and fame, eventually terminating his human relationship with the Tribune and devoting his talents full fourth dimension to the cause that would bequeath the world the seeds of Leninism, Stalinism, revolution and the cold state of war.

If only this capitalistic New York newspaper had treated him more kindly; if only Marx had remained a strange correspondent, history might have been unlike. And I hope all publishers will behave this lesson in mind the next time they receive a poverty-stricken appeal for a pocket-sized increase in the expense business relationship from an obscure paper man.

I have selected equally the championship of my remarks this evening "The President and the Press." Some may advise that this would be more naturally worded "The President Versus the Press." Only those are non my sentiments tonight.

Information technology is truthful, however, that when a well-known diplomat from another country demanded recently that our Country Department repudiate sure newspaper attacks on his colleague it was unnecessary for us to reply that this Administration was non responsible for the press, for the press had already made it clear that it was not responsible for this Administration.

Nevertheless, my purpose here tonight is not to deliver the usual assault on the then-called i political party printing. On the reverse, in recent months I accept rarely heard whatsoever complaints well-nigh political bias in the press except from a few Republicans. Nor is it my purpose tonight to talk over or defend the televising of Presidential printing conferences. I think information technology is highly benign to accept some 20,000,000 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 Firm reporters and photographers have been attention church services with regularity, that has surely done them no harm.

On the other manus, I realize that your staff and wire service photographers may exist complaining that they do not enjoy the same light-green privileges at the local golf courses that they once did.

It is true that my predecessor did not object as I do to pictures of ane's golfing skill in action. Only neither on the other hand did he ever edible bean a Secret Service human.

My topic this night is a more sober one of concern to publishers too every bit editors.

I want to talk virtually our common responsibilities in the face of a mutual danger. The events of contempo weeks may have helped to illuminate that claiming for some; but the dimensions of its threat have loomed big 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 action.

This deadly challenge imposes upon our society 2 requirements of direct business organization 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 nosotros are to meet this national peril. I refer, first, to the need for a far greater public data; and, second, to the need for far greater official secrecy.

I

The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to underground societies, to hole-and-corner oaths and to secret proceedings. Nosotros 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 club past imitating its capricious restrictions. Even today, in that location is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And at that place is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon past those broken-hearted to expand its pregnant to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it is in my control. And no official of my Assistants, whether his rank is high or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here this night every bit an excuse to conscience the news, to stifle dissent, to cover upward our mistakes or to withhold from the press and the public the facts they deserve to know.

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 state'southward peril. In time of war, the government and the press take customarily joined in an effort based largely on self-discipline, to prevent unauthorized disclosures to the enemy. In time of "clear and present danger," the courts accept held that even the privileged rights of the First Subpoena must yield to the public'due south demand for national security.

Today no war has been alleged--and however tearing 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 state of war has been declared, no borders take been crossed by marching troops, no missiles have been fired.

If the printing is awaiting a annunciation of state of war before it imposes the self-discipline 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 tin can merely say that the danger has never been more articulate and its presence has never been more imminent.

Information technology requires a change in outlook, a change in tactics, a modify in missions--past the government, by the people, by every man of affairs or labor leader, and by every newspaper. 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 complimentary pick, on guerrillas by nighttime instead of armies by day. It is a organisation which has conscripted vast human and cloth resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines armed forces, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.

Its preparations are curtained, non 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-fourth dimension subject field no republic would always hope or wish to match.

However, 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 also as outright invasion.

For the facts of the matter are that this nation's foes accept openly boasted of acquiring through our newspapers information they would otherwise rent agents to learn through theft, bribery or espionage; that details of this nation'due south covert preparations to counter the enemy's covert operations take 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 strategy for their apply, have all been pinpointed in the press and other news media to a caste sufficient to satisfy any strange ability; and that, in at least in ane example, the publication of details concerning a hush-hush 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-pregnant. Had nosotros been engaged in open warfare, they undoubtedly would not accept published such items. But in the absence of open warfare, they recognized but the tests of journalism and non the tests of national security. And my question this night is whether additional tests should non at present be adopted.

The question is for you lot alone to answer. No public official should answer it for you. No governmental plan should impose its restraints against your will. Simply 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 paw to meet those responsibilities, if I did not commend this problem to your attention, and urge its thoughtful consideration.

On many earlier occasions, I have said--and your newspapers take constantly said--that these are times that appeal to every denizen'south sense of sacrifice and self-discipline. They call out to every citizen to weigh his rights and comforts against his obligations to the common skilful. I cannot at present believe that those citizens who serve in the newspaper business organisation consider themselves exempt from that appeal.

I have no intention of establishing a new Office of War Data to govern the flow of news. I am not suggesting whatsoever new forms of censorship or any new types of security classifications. I accept no piece of cake answer to the dilemma that I have posed, and would not seek to impose it if I had ane. But I am asking the members of the newspaper profession and the manufacture 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 u.s.a. 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 the national security?" And I hope that every grouping in America--unions and businessmen and public officials at every level-- volition inquire the same question of their endeavors, and subject their actions to the same exacting tests.

And should the press of America consider and recommend the voluntary assumption of specific new steps or machinery, I can clinch you lot that nosotros will cooperate whole-heartedly with those recommendations.

Perhaps there volition be no recommendations. Perhaps there is no respond to the dilemma faced by a free and open club in a cold and secret state of war. In times of peace, whatever discussion of this bailiwick, and any activity that results, are both painful and without precedent. Only this is a time of peace and peril which knows no precedent in history.

Two

It is the unprecedented nature of this challenge that also gives ascension to your second obligation--an obligation which I share. And that is our obligation to inform and alert the American people--to brand sure that they possess all the facts that they demand, and understand them also--the perils, the prospects, the purposes of our program and the choices that nosotros face up.

No President should fear public scrutiny of his program. For from that scrutiny comes agreement; and from that understanding comes support or opposition. And both are necessary. I am non request your newspapers to back up the Administration, but I am request your assistance in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people. For I have complete conviction in the response and dedication of our citizens whenever they are fully informed.

I non only could not stifle controversy amidst your readers--I welcome it. This Administration intends to exist candid virtually its errors; for every bit a wise human being one time said: "An error does not become a mistake until you reject to correct information technology." We intend to accept full responsibility for our errors; and nosotros expect you to point them out when nosotros miss them.

Without contend, without criticism, no Administration and no country tin succeed--and no republic tin 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 Starting time Subpoena-- the just business in America specifically protected past the Constitution- -not primarily to charm and entertain, non to emphasize the niggling and the sentimental, non to simply "give the public what it wants"--simply to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to country our dangers and our opportunities, to signal our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate and sometimes fifty-fifty anger public stance.

This means greater coverage and analysis of international news--for it is no longer far abroad and foreign but close at hand and local. It means greater attention to improved agreement of the news also as improved manual. And it ways, 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 practice it.

Three

It was early in the Seventeenth Century that Francis Bacon remarked on iii recent inventions already transforming the world: the compass, gunpowder and the printing printing. Now the links between the nations first forged by the compass have made us all citizens of the earth, the hopes and threats of one becoming the hopes and threats of us all. In that one world'south efforts to alive together, the evolution of gunpowder to its ultimate limit has warned mankind of the terrible consequences of failure.

And and so it is to the printing printing--to the recorder of man'south deeds, the keeper of his conscience, the courier of his news--that we look for strength and assistance, confident that with your assist human being will be what he was born to be: gratis and contained.

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Source: https://www.jfklibrary.org/archives/other-resources/john-f-kennedy-speeches/american-newspaper-publishers-association-19610427

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