The function and responsibility of the President is to set before the American people the unfinished business, the things we must do if we are going to succeed as a nation.

We must seek, above all, a world of peace; a world in which peoples dwell together in mutual respect and work together in mutual regard.

But I think the American people expect more from us than cries of indignation and attack. The times are too grave, the challenge too urgent, and the stakes too high to permit the customary passions of political debate. We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us through that darkness to a safe and sane future. As Winston Churchill said on taking office some twenty years ago: if we open a quarrel between the present and the past, we shall be in danger of losing the future.

There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction.

We dare not forget that we are the heirs of that first revolution.

Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity. The relationship between the soundness of the body and the activities of the mind is subtle and complex. Much is not yet understood. But we do know what the Greeks knew: that intelligence and skill can only function at the peak of their capacity when the body is healthy and strong; that hardy spirits and tough minds usually inhabit sound gods.

America has tossed its cap over the wall of space.