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This is G o o g l e's
cache of http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/docs/pppus/kennedy/1962/398.htm
398
Remarks Televised to the National Convention of the Air Force Association
Meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada.
September 21, 1962
Good evening, Governor Foss, Secretary Zuckert, Senator
Cannon, and all who are attending the 16th Annual Convention of the Air Force
Association:
I'm sure that your discussions this year will be as beneficial to your country
as your discussions and services have been in the past. It's very appropriate
that I should speak to you through the medium of spaceborne communications. My
voice and image are coming to you via Telstar,
our American communications satellite, almost as easily as I might have talked
with you on the phone a year or two ago.
I commend the Air Force Association for selecting as
Aerospace Men of the Year Dr. John R. Pierce and Mr. Alton C. Dickieson
of the Bell Laboratories for their leading roles in the development of this
outstanding symbol of America's space achievements. I am happy to note that you
have selected my good friend, Howard Cannon, as your convention chairman. I want
to commend all of those of you who have devoted so much of your lives to the
service of your country. The Air Force has played a significant part in World
War I, a great role in the Second World War and in Korea, and today, even though
we are at peace, we are heavily engaged in many parts of the world and the Air
Force once more is rendering its services as the shield of the United States and
the cause of freedom. The planes which stand on a 15-minute alert at the SAC
bases around our country and around the world protect the freedom of countries
thousands of miles from the United States.
The Air Force has a great role to play in the future in the
struggle against insurrection and guerrilla war, in the maintenance of our
strategic force and strength, in the increasing responsibilities and burdens
which will be placed upon the Air Force in the field of space, to make sure that
space is maintained for peaceful purposes and that no nation secure a position
in space which can threaten the security of the United States and the free
world.
We count on the Air Force today and in the future as we
have in the past, and we count on you who serve the Air Force and our country in
peace and in war.
Gentlemen, I congratulate you, and ask of you the same kind
of dedicated service in the future that we have had from you in the past.
NOTE: The President's remarks were recorded at the White House
for broadcast to the Air Force Association's 16th National Convention and
Aerospace Panorama at Las Vegas, Nev. In his opening words the President
referred to Joe J. Foss, Director of the Air Force Association and former
Governor of South Dakota, Secretary of the Air Force Eugene M. Zuckert, and U.S.
Senator Howard W. Cannon of Nevada.
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