John Fitzgerald Kennedy 1917-1963

THE ATLANTIC

His in keeping with the ATLANTIC tradition that we should strive to give the long view of our late President. We turn to Harvard’s leading historian, Samuel Eliot Morison, for an estimate of President Kennedy’s place in history; then to Archibald MacLeish, the poet, for the speech that he delivered in the presence of the President at the dedication of the Robert Frost Library at Amherst. College last October; and finally, because there is solace for us all in listening to the magnificent words with which the President himself rose to an occasion, we quote the stirring passages in which he paid his tribute to Mr. Frost and identified himself, as no President before him has done so poignantly, with “books and men and learning.” — THE EDITOR