John F. Kennedy

This union deserves the hardiest commendation.

I hope others will follow your example.

And I come here today and ask you to continue to work.

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.

Because that goal...

will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we're willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win.

There's an old saying that victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan.

I'm not too...

Conceal responsibility because I'm the responsible officer of the government.

I've said as much as I feel can be usefully said by me in regard to the events of the past few days.

Don't point at that.

Many years ago, the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it.

He said because it is there.

Well, space is there.

And we're going to climb it.

And the moon and the planets are there.

And new hopes for knowledge and peace are there.

And therefore, as we set sail, we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.

It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere...

as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.