"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. 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 seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment...""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 subversions 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. It mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed..."
"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."
-President John F. Kennedy( Excerpt: "The President and the Press:" Address before the American Newspaper Publishers Association, Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York City, 4.27.1961. Image: -Stan Way, "New Yorker's Expression of Shock At News of John F. Kennedy's Assassination in Dallas, Texas," New York City, Life Magazine, 11.22.1963).
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