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AMERICAN MORNING

Interview With Ted Sorensen

Aired November 21, 2003 - 09:44   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: The eternal flame marking the gravesite of John F. Kennedy, buried there in Arlington National cemetery, just across the Potomac in D.C. There's a small crowd that has gathered today. Tomorrow, the 22nd day in November, marks that anniversary of 40 years ago, 40 years ago tomorrow, the life of John F. Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas.
That grim anniversary bringing new attention now to his presidency. Few people worked more closely with Kennedy than his brilliant speech writer Ted Sorensen. I sat down recently with Sorensen, who's still deeply reflective about what JFK meant to America, and what JFK meant to him.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TED SORENSEN, SPEECHWRITER FOR JFK: JFK as a president meant so much to this country, because he was a president who fulfilled the American dream. A government that cared about everyone, regardless of rich, or poor, black or white. As a president who simply wanted to do what was first, not his own ambitions, not his party.

And that was an unusual president. And having been with him for many years at that point nothing could have made me more proud.

HEMMER: As you look back, which speech do you think was the most critical?

SORENSEN: Most critical is a -- of course in his inaugural address he had to prove himself to the country and the world. Everyone was skeptical at this young man who was a Catholic, and no Catholic had ever been president before, and he did prove himself.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN F. KENNEDY: Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SORENSEN: Then, some months later, he went on nationwide television to tell the country that we had discovered Soviet nuclear missiles on Cuba, 90 miles away from our shores, and we were determined to see them removed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KENNEDY: Let no one doubt that this is a difficult and dangerous effort on which we have set out. No one can foresee precisely what course it will take, or what costs or casualties will be incurred.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEMMER: In 1963, you say he made a speech at American University that really sticks with you to this day.

SORENSEN: I think that was his greatest speech.

HEMMER: You do?

SORENSEN: That was a speech about peace and it's such sharp contrast to the values that we seem to be proclaiming to the world today. He proclaimed the value of peace.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KENNEDY: Confident and unafraid, we must labor on, not towards a strategy of annihilation, but towards a strategy of peace.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SORENSEN: Re-examine what we mean by peace, he said, not an pax- Americana where we lord it over the rest of the world. No, we want a peace in which every country participates.

HEMMER: How difficult is it for you to think about the day he was assassinated?

SORENSEN: Oh, I don't like to think about it at all.

HEMMER: Do you talk about it at all?

SORENSEN: As little as possible.

HEMMER: Wow. It sticks in your heart that much, doesn't it?

SORENSEN: Well, it hurts. I mean, that day was the worst day of my life. A man who had been the center of my life for eleven years was suddenly gone, senselessly gone. No one thought that could happen or would happen.

And it was just hard to accept that day and it's not easy to accept even now when I look back.

HEMMER: How often do you think about what could have been or what might have been?

SORENSEN: Oh, it would have been so different. We would have had a different country if he had lived. We would have had a different world. I think that he and Khrushchev would have together ended the Cold War a generation or more earlier. And billions and billions we spent piling up nuclear weapons that would never be used would have been spent on hospitals and schools and helping reduce the misery and starvation in most of the world.

HEMMER: Were there lines of these speeches that were removed and taken out that we never heard?

SORENSEN: That's always true. In fact there were occasions when he would look over one of my drafts and he would say, Wait a minute, you tried to get this paragraph in last week. And I'd say, Yes, I still think it's pretty good.

HEMMER: Yes. What do you think was good that was taken out that we never heard?

SORENSEN: I can't remember now because he was a pretty good editor. And if he took it out, it deserved to be taken out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEMMER: Ted Sorensen, recently reflecting on the life of JFK.

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