In spite of our current domestic paroxysms, we can still be exceptional. Let JFK remind us of the true meaning of national greatness. In 1963, at the height of the Cold War, he visited the Berlin exclave of West Germany. Surrounded on all sides by the Iron Curtain of the Warsaw Pact, how could this island of freedom survive?
American commitment was paramount, expressed by John F. Kennedy’s 1963 speech in Berlin: