19631776 Club
Kennedy tells 120,000 West Berliners: 'Ich bin ein Berliner'
Speaking from Rathaus Schöneberg, he sets aside his prepared remarks; his own National Security Advisor thinks he may have gone too far.
Twenty-two months after East Germany sealed off its own people behind concrete and wire, West Berlin still felt like an island — surrounded, exposed, and dependent on American will to survive. On June 26, 1963, John F. Kennedy climbed the steps of Rathaus Schöneberg and, before a crowd of 120,000, set aside his prepared remarks in favor of something sharper. "Two thousand years ago, the proudest boast was civis Romanus sum," he said. "Today, the proudest boast is 'Ich bin ein Berliner.'" His National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy thought the speech had gone "a little too far" — which is one way to know it worked…
