When John Fitzgerald Kennedy stepped onto the flag-draped stand high above the Rudolph Wilde Platz in West Berlin on June 26, 1963 he was surprised to be greeted by the 450,000 rapturous Germans who had packed the plaza, hung out the windows of neighboring buildings and who stood on roof tops.
The greatest roar of the German crowd that day came when the young American president first appeared on the platform. Nothing he said that day elicited a roar that matched his mere appearance. For this was the movie star they had heard about. This was Camelot. The chants of "KEH-NA-DEE! KEH-NA-DEE!" started when he made his appearance, before he spoke a word.
Kennedy had the most charming sense of humor that ever an American president had, save perhaps Abraham Lincoln, and he used humor in almost all of his speeches. It was a quick-witted, ad-libbed sense of humor. It could be odd, also. His interlocutors did not know but of course the president did know that he was about to deliver a truculent, confrontational speech directed at the Soviet Union but delivered to these worshiping, embattled, beleaguered people of West Berlin. If ever there was an occasion for him to lose the humor this was it. And he seemed genuinely unsure of himself at first, startled by the size of the crowd and the adulation. What was he to do? He tried out different selves. Here smiling standing next to West Berlin mayor Willy Brandt.
He is champing at the bit but does not want to quell this moment. Yet, he knows that his demeanor and the content of his speech are going to clash with this love-in. The general and the blonde guy look about now also.
On this day JFK signals his intent to get down to business with two mannerisms: he looks down and he plays with his speech index cards. Take one, you can see he is smiling broadly as are blonde and glasses.
General Clay enters stage right to more cheers from the masses and a smile from the president who is now unexpectedly finds himself shunted off the podium and back in Rapture City.
JFK then begins the speech:
Two thousand years ago, the proudest boast was civis romanus sum. Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is "Ich bin ein Berliner!"
Let them come to Berlin.
Adenauer is the gray-haired gent at left and I think that's General Clay there to his left. Adenauer looks disapproving AND HE WAS. Adenauer was not happy. He thought JFK's mojo was running off with his sense. If that is General Clay there, General Clay is not disapproving, he is still basking in the adulation of 450,000 Germans who eighteen years ago he'd as soon as seen dead.
All -- All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin.
They won't let him. The crowd demands his return to the stage. A FUCKING CURTAIN CALL FOR A POLITICIAN!
He seemed distracted, perhaps to give the crowd time to settle. In the next many photos note the facial expressions of the three gentlemen in this photograph. The general at far left bottom, who wears a poker face here, and the two suits to the president's left, the shorter blondish guy looking poker-faced, the dark-haired guy in the glasses with maybe a look of satisfaction on his face.
He looked right, he looked left. The expressions of the three have not changed.
On this day JFK signals his intent to get down to business with two mannerisms: he looks down and he plays with his speech index cards. Take one, you can see he is smiling broadly as are blonde and glasses.
Take one is a Fail and he looks up and smiles a little sheepishly, not a full Kennedy smile and the general has a proud, pleased, impish pucker. Glasses and the blonde look like they're saying to themselves, "Let's get on with this, people."
Take two with the bowed head.
Fail.
Another head down and now he's got his index cards standing up. He has decided that he must start. There is no smile on his face as he bows his head here. When next he picks his head up and faces the enraptured throngs he has his game face on.
The general is still impish, JFK is not impish. He is serious. He begins, "Ladies..."
He thanks the gathered dignitaries adding and to come here in the company of my fellow American, General Clay, who --
-- who has been in this city during its great moments of crisis and will come again if ever needed.
Scram.
Raptures.
Then comes one of those odd places for Kennedy's humor.
I appreciate my interpreter translating my German.
He has been visibly uncomfortable with the adulation, is concerned that his smiling movie star self has now to deliver a dark message. He gets over it, then has the Clay interruption and then, oddly, jokes about his German. With all of that fun finally out of the way he begins again and from here on there are no jokes and his face bears the serious message.
There are many people in the world who really don't understand, or say they don't, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world.
That is NOT a happy face. He audibly raps his fist on the podium during this sequence of parallel construction by Sorenson.
There are some who say -- There are some who say that communism is the wave of the future.
There are some who say -- There are some who say that communism is the wave of the future.
Let them come to Berlin.
The general is not impish. Impish has left the stage.
Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect. But we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in -- to prevent them from leaving us.
And there are some who say, in Europe and elsewhere, we can work with the Communists.
Let them come to Berlin.
And there are even a few who say that it is true that communism is an evil system, but it permits us to make economic progress.
Lass' sie nach Berlin kommen.
Let them come to Berlin.
And he turns away defiantly. "Who dat gonna come to Berlin, who dat, who dat!"
I want to tell you I think 450,000 Germans just had organisms or wet themselves or something. And look at Glasses. He has seen the Holy Spirit. The Blonde can't believe it. "Dude man, CHILL-AX."
Now at this point the camera pans to West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer:
Adenauer is the gray-haired gent at left and I think that's General Clay there to his left. Adenauer looks disapproving AND HE WAS. Adenauer was not happy. He thought JFK's mojo was running off with his sense. If that is General Clay there, General Clay is not disapproving, he is still basking in the adulation of 450,000 Germans who eighteen years ago he'd as soon as seen dead.
The speech is only about 10 minutes long and it ends with Sorenson's exquisite parallel construction:
All -- All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin.
And, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words "Ich bin ein Berliner."
There is fucking bodily essence being spewed all over Rudolph Wilde's Platz at this point. Women got pregnant just from that speech's ending I bet. Not really. I was just kidding.
Kennedy prepares to exit stage right.
They won't let him. The crowd demands his return to the stage. A FUCKING CURTAIN CALL FOR A POLITICIAN!
The Blonde looks pleased, almost smiling...or about to cry. I'm not sure. Glasses looks as pleased as Glasses would get. The general looks on with fatherly pride.
One final wave. The general looks to be smiling broadly.
And then he's gone. Just like that, only 10-15 minutes and he's gone. Always keep 'em wanting more!
Less than five months later he was gone for all time.
