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Presidential Medal of Freedom PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY
Alphabetical List of Recipients
Presentation Speech Excerpts
Citations (in chronological order)
Speech Excerpt Sources
Citation Text Sources
Alphabetical List of Recipients
Anderson, Marian
Bunche, Ralph J.*
Bunker, Ellsworth*
Casals, Pablo
Caulfield, Genevieve
Conant, James B.*
Enders, John F.
Frankfurter, Felix*
Holton, Karl
Kiphuth, Robert J.
Land, Edwin H.
Lehman, Herbert H.
Lovett, Robert A.*
MacDonald, J. Clifford
McCloy, John J.*
Meany, George
Meiklejohn, Alexander
Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig
Monnet, Jean*
Muoz-Marn, Luis*
Randall, Clarence B.
Serkin, Rudolf
Steichen, Edward
Taylor, George W.
Waterman, Alan T.
Watson, Mark S.
Wauneka, Annie D.
White, E.B.
Wilder, Thornton
Wilson, Edmund
Wyeth, Andrew
* Indicates an award of the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction
PRESENTATION SPEECH EXCERPTS
On July 4th, 1963, President Kennedy announced the initial recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Of the thirty-one initial recipients, eight were selected to receive the award "with distinction." Tragically, President Kennedy was assassinated before he could present the awards. President Johnson presented the medals to the men and women President Kennedy had selected to receive the award.
At that ceremony, the initial recipients were told that early in his administration President Kennedy had turned his mind to the means by which we could give appropriate encouragement to deeds well done. He felt deeply that our Nation should pay full homage to those who contribute to enriching the qualities of American life, strengthening the security of free men and building the foundations for peace.
He sought a way of expressing this appreciation in a systematic manner so that it could become a part of American tradition, a means of national thanks and encouragement for the selfless effort and the brilliant task.
So as to provide orderly arrangements for the conferring of this recognition, President Kennedy directed the Distinguished [Civilian Service] Awards Board to survey the fields of achievement and to suggest candidates for the award for the Presidential Medal of Freedom. . . .
The work of the Board, however, was only the beginning of a process. The President reviewed our suggestions with care and reflection. He added and subtracted names and directed that some nominations be held for a later year. The Presidential Medal of Freedom, he felt, should be given only after careful thought, always sparingly so as not to debase its currency.
He and Mrs. Kennedy studied and revised the design submitted for this decoration, and the beautiful medal you see here today bears their joint imprimatur.1 At a later presentation, President Johnson told the recipients why President Kennedy had established the Presidential Medal of Freedom. President Johnson said:
Other peoples in other lands have marked their history through the years by moments of glory and war, and moments of greatness in power over empires and dominions.
Our experience in our own history has been quite different. Our glory is peace, not war. Our greatness is in people, not power. Our genius for 188 years has been the excellence of individuals.
The history of America is a history of outstanding achievement by outstanding individualsinventors and enterprisers, thinkers and doers, creators and constructors.
Our society today is a changing society, changing from rural values to urban values, from manual labor to mental labor, from scarcity to abundance, from provincial horizons to cosmopolitan horizons. Yet, as our society changes, the value of the individual is unchanging. Our trust must and does continue to rest upon the individual who envisions more, aspires to more, and who achieves more for all of us.
What America is to be, America will be, because of our trust in and of the individual and of his capacity for excellence. Only those who doubt the individual can be dubious of America's survival and success in this century of contest. This belief is mine. It was this conviction that led President Kennedy to the establishment of the [Presidential] Medal of Freedom as our highest civilian honor for outstanding individualscitizens who share an extra measure of individual excellence in the mainstream of our well-being and our advancement. On the talents of such citizens rests the future of our American civilization, for it is from the genius of the few that we enrich the greatness of the many.2
CITATIONS
(in chronological order)
MARIAN ANDERSON
Awarded by
President John F. Kennedy
December 6, 1963
Artist and citizen, she has ennobled her race and her country while her voice has enthralled the world.
PABLO CASALS
Awarded by
President John F. Kennedy
December 6, 1963
Statesman of music, he has incarnated the freedom of art, while the cello under his fingers has touched the heart of the world.
GENEVIEVE CAULFIELD
Awarded by
President John F. Kennedy
December 6, 1963
Teacher and humanitarian, she has been for four decades a one-woman Peace Corps in Southeast Asia, winning victories over darkness by helping the blind to become full members of society.
DR. JOHN F. ENDERS
Awarded by
President John F. Kennedy
December 6, 1963
Physician and researcher, he has opened new pathways to medical discovery and has been an example and companion to two generations of doctors in the demanding quest for scientific truth.
KARL HOLTON
Awarded by
President John F. Kennedy
December 6, 1963
Innovator in applying imaginative solutions to problems of juvenile delinquency, he has contributed generously to developing responsible citizenship among our youth.
ROBERT J. KIPHUTH
Awarded by
President John F. Kennedy
December 6, 1963
Teacher and coach, he has inspired generations of athletes with high ideals of achievement and sportsmanship.
EDWIN H. LAND
Awarded by
President John F. Kennedy
December 6, 1963
Scientist and inventor, he has brought his creative gifts to bear in industry, government and education, enriching the lives of millions by giving new dimensions to photography.
GOV. HERBERT H. LEHMAN
Awarded by
President John F. Kennedy
December 6, 1963
Citizen and statesman, he has used wisdom and compassion as the tools of government and has made politics the highest form of public service.
J. CLIFFORD MACDONALD
Awarded by
President John F. Kennedy
December 6, 1963
Businessman and philanthropist, he has directed his concern to the quiet but noble work of enlarging the lives and opportunities of the physically and mentally handicapped.
GEORGE MEANY
Awarded by
President John F. Kennedy
December 6, 1963
Citizen and national leader, in serving the cause of labor, he has greatly served the cause of his Nation and of freedom in the world.
PROF. ALEXANDER MEIKLEJOHN
Awarded by
President John F. Kennedy
December 6, 1963
Educator and libertarian, as teacher by example and philosopher in practice, his free and fertile mind has influenced the course of American higher education.
LUDWIG MIES VAN DER ROHE
Awarded by
President John F. Kennedy
December 6, 1963
Teacher, designer, master builder, he has conceived soaring structures of glass, steel and concrete which at once embody and evoke the distinctive qualities of our age.
CLARENCE B. RANDALL
Awarded by
President John F. Kennedy
December 6, 1963
Leader of industry, counselor to Presidents, he has been a forceful and articulate philosopher of the role of business in a free society.
RUDOLF SERKIN
Awarded by
President John F. Kennedy
December 6, 1963
Artist and teacher, he has given the classical traditions of the piano new life in a disordered age.
EDWARD STEICHEN
Awarded by
President John F. Kennedy
December 6, 1963
Photographer and collector, he has made the camera the instrument of aesthetic perception and thereby transformed a science into an art.
PROF. GEORGE W. TAYLOR
Awarded by
President John F. Kennedy
December 6, 1963
Economist and arbitrator, he has been the voice of reason and good will in the industrial relations of our society, enlisting management and labor in the cause of industrial peace.
DR. ALAN T. WATERMAN
Awarded by
President John F. Kennedy
December 6, 1963
Physicist and public servant, he has been the far-sighted advocate of Federal support of the sciences, using the resources of government to improve the quality and increase the thrust of basic research.
MARK S. WATSON
Awarded by
President John F. Kennedy
December 6, 1963
Soldier in the First World War and correspondent in the Second, he has given the American people informed, wide-ranging and independent coverage of the Nation's security and defense.
ANNIE D. WAUNEKA
Awarded by
President John F. Kennedy
December 6, 1963
First woman elected to the Navajo Tribal Council, by her long crusade for improved health programs she has helped dramatically to lessen the menace of disease among her people and to improve their way of life.
E.B. WHITE
Awarded by
President John F. Kennedy
December 6, 1963
An essayist whose concise comment on men and places has revealed to yet another age the vigor of the English sentence.
EDMUND WILSON
Awarded by
President John F. Kennedy
December 6, 1963
Critic and historian, he has converted criticism itself into a creative act, while setting for the Nation a stern and uncompromising standard of independent judgment.
THORNTON WILDER
Awarded by
President John F. Kennedy
December 6, 1963
Artist of rare gaiety and penetration, he has inscribed a noble vision in his books, making the commonplaces of life yield the wit, the wonder and the steadfastness of the human adventure.
ANDREW WYETH
Awarded by
President John F. Kennedy
December 6, 1963
Painter of the American scene, he has in the great humanist tradition illuminated and clarified the verities and delights of everyday life.
ELLSWORTH BUNKER
FIRST AWARD
Awarded by
President John F. Kennedy
December 6, 1963
Citizen and diplomat, he has brought integrity, patience and a compassionate understanding of other men and nations to the service of the Republic under three Presidents.
DR. RALPH J. BUNCHE
Awarded by
President John F. Kennedy
December 6, 1963
Scholar and diplomat, servant of the emerging world order, he has opened up new vistas in the demanding quest for international justice and peace.
DR. JAMES B. CONANT
Awarded by
President John F. Kennedy
December 6, 1963
Scientist and educator, he has led the American people in the fight to save our most precious resourceour children.
GOV. LUIS MUOZ-MARN
Awarded by
President John F. Kennedy
December 6, 1963
Poet, politician, public servant, patriot, he has led his people on to new heights of dignity and purpose and transformed a stricken land into a vital society.
ROBERT A. LOVETT
Awarded by
President John F. Kennedy
December 6, 1963
Servant of the Republic, he has set high standards for the private citizen in public service by his selfless dedication to the national security under four Presidents.
JEAN MONNET
Awarded by
President John F. Kennedy
December 6, 1963
Citizen of France, statesman of the world, he has made persuasion and reason the weapons of statecraft, moving Europe toward unity and the Atlantic nations toward a more effective partnership.
JUSTICE FELIX FRANKFURTER
Awarded by
President John F. Kennedy
December 6, 1963
Jurist, scholar, counselor, conversationalist, he has brought to all his roles a zest and a wisdom which has made him teacher to his time.
JOHN J. MCCLOY
Awarded by
President John F. Kennedy
December 6, 1963
Diplomat and public servant, banker to the world and godfather to German freedom, he has brought cheerful wisdom and steady effectiveness to the tasks of war and peace.
SPEECH EXERPT SOURCES
1 Remarks of President Johnson and Under Secretary of State George W. Ball at the Presentation of the Medal of Freedom Awards, 1963 Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, John F. Kennedy, 900 (December 6, 1963). Back to Text
2 Remarks at the Presentation of the 1964 Presidential Medal of Freedom Awards, 196364 Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson, 106366 (September 14, 1964). Back to Text
CITATION TEXT SOURCES December 6, 1963 Anderson, Marian; Casals, Pablo; Caulfield, Genevieve; Enders, John F.; Holton, Karl; Kiphuth, Robert J.; Land, Edwin H.; Lehman, Herbert H.; MacDonald, J. Clifford; Meany, George; Meiklejohn, Alexander; Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig; Randall, Clarence B.; Serkin, Rudolf; Steichen, Edward; Taylor, George W.; Waterman, Alan T.; Watson, Mark S.; Wauneka, Annie D.; White, E.B.; Wilson, Edmund; Wilder, Thornton; Wyeth, Andrew; Bunker, Ellsworth; Bunche, Ralph J.; Conant, James B.; Muoz-Marn, Luis; Lovett, Robert A.; Monnet, Jean; Frankfurter, Felix; McCloy, John J.
Remarks of President Johnson and Under Secretary of State George W. Ball at the Presentation of the Medal of Freedom Awards, 1963 Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, John F. Kennedy, 89903 (December 6, 1963).
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