The Price of Success

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or evil, we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty. John F. Kennedy, 35th President, 1961-1963, from Kennedy's Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961, at the Capital Building, Washington, D.C. , http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=8032 - One of the main purposes in putting this work together was to try to see how our Presidents thought- what made them tick, as it were, and to see if we could learn to emulate those thoughts and translate them into our own personal success. This quote and the idea that "we shall pay any price" reveals (on many levels) Kennedy's determination to maintain freedom and liberty on the international front, his political ambitions and personal will to win, but most certainly would serve to answer the question, "What does it take to succeed?" ~~ On close to the coldest Inauguration Day in history (temperature at noon was 22 degrees), the youngest elected President in U.S. History gave notice to the "old guard" in general and the Soviet Union in particular, that Kennedy and his "new generation" intended for the United States to maintain its position in the world as a bastion of freedom and leader in the international community. He had won the Presidential election by the slimmest of margins and, some would say, by questionable and possibly illegal voting and ballot counting practices. One might cynically say his choice of Vice-President, Lyndon B. Johnson, was certainly not due to a close working relationship, but appeared to be a surprise and politically calculated choice designed to sway the Southern electoral block in order to garner the votes needed to win the election. Despite the closeness and controversy of the election, Richard Nixon, the defeated candidate, declined to demand an investigation or a recount. Both men would stay on the political stage through the socially turbulent decades of the 1960's and 1970's, each embroiled in the Vietnam War, with Johnson displaying the strategic political experience and knowledge to translate many of Kennedy's visions into legislative reality after his death and Nixon being elected to two terms as President, before his historic resignation in 1974.~~ In Kennedy's abbreviated Presidency, he oversaw the development of The Peace Corps, he engaged the United States in "The Space Race" with the goal of being the first nation to send a man to the moon and back by the end of the decade, he promoted a ban on atmospheric nuclear arms testing, confronted Russia and Cuba in the "Cuban Missile Crisis", opposed the Berlin Wall in Russian controlled East Germany, and promoted equal rights at home, all lofty and righteous goals designed to inspire us to make the country and the world a better place. In reality, the price was, and is, indeed high and the burden heavy, with loss of life and resources spent. Would we have paid a larger, heavier and "worse" price for not acting at all? Conversely, one might cynically say these programs were merely public relations measures designed to promote the image of the United States over the Soviet Union in a worldwide competition for support of the United States' political and economic ideologies. Perhaps "the truth" might lie somewhere in between.~~ In any case; Presidential politics aside, in order for you to succeed, would you "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of...your goal?"