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Wednesday, November 01, 2006

November 1, 1960: Country to 'Start Moving Again' Kennedy Says, Defense Advances Supersonic Bomber, Nixon Optimism

"Senator John F. Kennedy called on Americans [yesterday] to tell the world in the election on Nov. 8 that 'this country is going to start moving again," The New York Times reported today.

"'I do not downgrade America,' Senator Kennedy said, 'but I do downgrade the kind of leadership America's been getting. I run for the presidency,' he continued, 'not to downgrade America -- but to achieve the kind of America for which every American family fought and in which every American family believes.'"

"The Defense Department, in a reversal of administration policy, ordered today a major expansion in developmental work on the B-70 supersonic bomber," The Times reported.

"It would be able to fly intercontinental ranges at a speed of about 2,000 miles an hour and at altitude of about 70,000 feet." In addition to the military justifications for the plane, "An additional justification offered by the Air Force was that work on the B-70 wold be invaluable in development of a supersonic commercial transport.

"A trip with Vice President Nixon in the final days of the campaign is a study in the science of gloom prevention," Russell Baker reports for the New York Times today.

"From the campaign music -- 'Make 'em yell for Nixon, make 'em yell' -- to the small talk in the hotel lobbies and the club car of the Nixon campaign train, the sound is in the spirit of the locker-room pep talk after the team has been clobbered in the game's first half.

"The stories that emanated from the vice president himself yesterday were in the same spirit with the reports that he gives himself a 50-50 chance of carrying the critical big states and is quietly confident about the ultimate victory."