go on the trip because i have to study, daddy. that woman thing. announcer: earlier on washington journal we talked about the life and legacy of former president john f. kennedy marking the 100 anniversary of his birth. this is the executive director of the john f. kennedy library foundation. thank you for being with us. let's begin with this piece in the washington post. america's forever young president turns 100. it begins like this, we cannot imagine john f. kennedy on his 100th earth day. he will always be enshrined as a man in his 40's. had he lived, he would've been 100 today. how should he be remembered? >> he did so much in his short life. many of his ideas are just as important today. his way of governing through inclusion. his big eddie of service, the peace corps, other things. his big ideas of innovation, the race to the moon. many of the things he was fighting for in the 60's are important to what we're fighting for in 2017. iconicook at one of the and not girl speeches from january 1961. now the trumpet summons us again. arms, a call to bear though arms we need. not as a call to battle, though in battle we are. burden of to bear the a long twilight struggle year in rejoicing in hope, atient in jubilation, struggle against the common enemies of man --. he, poverty, disease, and war itself. can we force against these energy in a grant and global alliance, north and south, east that can assure a more fruitful life for all mankind. will you join in that historic effort. speech comehat together and how do we reflect them what he said? >> it is one of the most iconic and i girl addresses, also -- inaugural addresses and also one of the shortest. he asked for ideas and brought those together. the words and the ideas are john kennedy's. felt the, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. he believed that by calling on the better angels of people so much could get done. whether going to the moon, peace corps, or so many other areas. are reflecting on those who died in the battlefield. in this scene john f. kennedy and the internal flame at arlington national cemetery. how quickly did the family come together and determined this would be a lasting tribute to president kennedy. >> no one was expecting this. people were thinking about a reelection campaign. family came together to look at different ways to memorialize him. the biggest ways what president johnson did in legislation, civil rights and others. that president kennedy started, lyndon johnson continued and did a great job with. then you have the kennedy center for the arts. the arts was something very important to the president. we continually show things at the presidential library museum, including the new exhibit the just opened this weekend. >> he was a man that was not without his flaws, his own personal life. has that play into the memorialization of president kennedy? all have flaws. president kennedy had flaws as well. we try to be very transparent. when john kennedy was in office there was a survey that showed 75% of the people trusted government. last year that same survey showed 19%. conferencesess while he was in office. we try to be very transparent by opening files and digitizing them and letting people have raw information so they can make their own judgments. >> this is one of the great what if's by historians. with vietnam have been different had he lived? >> it would have been very different. there is a lot of indication we would not have been in as deeply as long. you could spend the whole broadcast talking about that. there are what if both in domestic and foreign policies. >> let me share a headline this morning. go it merkel, europe must alone based on her meetings with president trump at the nato summit last week. i mentioned the german leader because one of the more famous speeches by president kennedy was in berlin, where he talked about east and west as a divided city. as reflect on the situation today at my president kennedy said 1960's, your thoughts? >> we felt we had a responsibility. he talked about it in the inaugural address. reaching out to people in foreign countries and in cities and villages. he talked about it by on march 1, the peace corps had been established. as of now, there been peace corps volunteers, 225,000 volunteers in 141 countries. he worked on nuclear disarmament. he had conversations with the soviets, with khrushchev about doing a joint space exploration as well. the alliance in south america and so much more. he believed a lie. a lot of that came from when he traveled as a student and early in his congressional career. he understood a lot about the world. theid he expect the size of crowd he saw in berlin when he traveled to west berlin. >> no, he was so moved by that that he actually took the speech that had been written and threw it out and gave unpaid extemporaneous speech. when he talked about, we are all the ller -- berliners, that was based on how moved he was by half a million people in the square and seeing the wall. today as part of the symbolism of his legacy, the john f. kennedy library has a part of the berlin wall in our museum. >> had he lived he would have been 100 years old today. born on may 20 ninth, 1917 in brookline, massachusetts. i'm joined by the director of the jfk library foundation which does what? >> we work with the national archives. all of the presidential papers are owned by the presidential archives. we work with them to help amplify and share information. we coordinate the profile. president obama received the profiles encourage award. he had worked on education initiatives in partnership with the national archives. go back to june of 1963, the same month he traveled to west berlin. he gave a speech on civil rights. he was assassinated before president lyndon johnson could sign. all right legislation in 1964. here's how john kennedy set up the debate. is as clear as the american constitution. whetherthe question is all americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities. whether we will treat our fellow americans as we want to be treated. americans because their skin is dark cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public. children tond his the best public school available. if you cannot vote for the public officials that represent him, if he cannot enjoy the full and free life which all of us want, then who among us could be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place. who would be content for the delay. 100 years of delay have passed its president lincoln freed the , but their heirs and grandsons are not fully free. they are not free from the bonds of injustice. just free from social and economic depression. this nation will not be fully free until all of its citizens are free. june 11, 1963. that was on evolution for president kennedy from his early years in the senate to the white house. >> absolutely. this was not one of his top priorities when he was a member of congress. he evolved and learned a lot. one of the things i have great respect for president kennedy is he did learn as he had more facts. he made the civil rights issue a moral issue and galvanize the nation combined with amazing leaders. john lewis still leading the fight in congress. he also worked to broaden it with the first national commission on the status of women. the first commission looking at intellectual disabilities. believed we were better by including more people, including racial diversity. a caller.ng in >> i'm a veteran. i served under john f. kennedy under the cuban missile crisis. i was also involved with james meredith, the first black man who ever tried to enter oxford, mississippi. i was there on campus. i was five feet from james meredith at different times. i was in the first airborne. historyunderstand why doesn't reflect what he accomplished on the cuban missile crisis concerning russia. back did not crush russia then, why should we trust russia now? >> thank you for your call and thank you for your service. it sounds like you have been involved in many issues of our country and we are better off because of your effort. john kennedy, after the day of tapes, worked to set up better ofthey of paints -- bay pigs, worked to set up security briefings and navy seals and and wanted to get better information. all of those were very important. brothers and others kept us from what could have been tens of millions of people being affected. a graduate of williams college. earned his master's from northwestern. he is the executive director of the jfk library foundation. i relies this is a what if question as well. but if you had a chance to ask jfk one question about his years in the white house what would it be? would be a five-part question, it wouldn't be just one. in terms of thinking about the impact. would he have known that today there would be people in the peace corps serving all over the country. toce corps would have led nonprofits and other things. this idea that service is needed today more than others and what would be his advice. >> joining us from charlotte, north carolina. good morning. like to mention there's i remember where i was when president kennedy was killed. i was with my mother in nigeria. .he was crying president.ry popular 14ust've been about 13 or when he was assassinated. my mother was in tears >> november 22, 1963. >> thank you for the call and your memory. there are people all over the world that were affected on that day. i was in elementary school and was making flags -- i was literally drawing an american flag when i heard about this news. was cut short,at even more than the person, we have a lot of hope from his ideals and what would've been. it is up to all of us to find ways to continue that to think big ideas like the moonshot. when people talk about big ideas today they referred to it as a moonshot, but he literally brought us the first moonshot. our hope is to continue those positive spirits as we celebrate the 100th anniversary. member ofy surviving the immediate jfk family is caroline kennedy former ambassador to japan. bythis video for together the library here was just to say. >> i'm caroline kennedy. may 29 for the my father's 100 birthday. i think about them and miss him every day of my life. growing up without them was made easier thanks to all the people who kept them in their hearts who told me he inspired them to believe in a better world. to give something back to this country that has given so much to so many. remember hiding underneath my father's oval office desk when i was little and setting on his lap. he would point out the way shark and the purple shark to always follow the vote although i could never quite see them. he said they especially like to eat socks and they would have his friends throw their socks over boards which i love. thats part of a generation transformed america. in march for justice. they served in the peace corps. his brothers carried on that work fighting against poverty, violence, and war. rights, healthan care, and immigration. has my father said in his and i grill a dress, this work will not be finished in our lifetimes. us to continue to pass these values on to our children and grandchildren. kennedy in the video for together by the library. what is her role in carrying on the jfk legacy? >> she is great. she was in japan for three years. since she has come back she is gotten reengaged. just the last few months she has been to events at the kennedy center, harvard's kennedy school of government, and the kennedy library and supported all of those in the memory of her father. robert from athens, alabama. robert: you just presented something from caroline kennedy that spoke about something i was. people in the united states, we were so proud of president kennedy and president lincoln. they started something that gave us hope. passedlook today as time peopleare here today, are still china to take away the rights of black people gerrymandering every states -- state where republicans control. why do they want to take away the rights of black people? we served in the military. i thank you so much for this presentation today. we love president kennedy. thank you. >> thank you for the call. you are right. he were making it a moral issue. in some ways we have come a long way since the early 60's, in other ways we have so much more to go and there's so much more discrimination, racial injustice, and economic separation. we have to continue to work in those areas in our neighborhood s, volunteer activities, and legislation. thank you for the call. >> can you talk about the relationship between president kennedy and lyndon johnson during the three years he was in the white house? >> lyndon was picked to help john kennedy get elected. they started off not being particularly close. it grew over time. president kennedy was home in their 1036 days. it was not as close as some of the other presidents and vice presidents. lyndon johnson deserves a lot of credit for his domestic agenda in continuing the work of john kennedy. in racially injustice, the voting rights act, and many other areas. >> so much has been written about the attorney general robert f kennedy. how significant was that to the kennedy presidency? >> present tranny -- kennedy had complete trust in bobby kennedy. they know each other so well for their entire lives. bobby played a critical role. talk about the what if in that sense. then senator edward kennedy served in the senate and continued working on issues like immigration. john kennedy in 1958 wrote a book called "the nation of immigrants." edwardk that bobby and did are all part of the mix. as well as his sister with the special olympics. and the other sister being ambassador to ireland. >> how many siblings survived? just wrotenedy smith a book. i encourage everyone to look at a called "nine of us." >> i'm really glad you're doing the show. it reminds people how important kennedy was to our nation and the whole world. thankful you are putting on this presentation. , with the trump administration in office, it seems to me like we are ratcheting back all the progress that has been made over so many years. trump more than any isis. i wonder what you think president kennedy would think of the truck administration right now? >> thank you. i don't know what he would of thought about donald trump. what i do know he thought about is that it was important to bring people together, whether it be immigration to civil rights. he felt was important to bring the world together. big u.n.edy on the -- bring brings down down the arms race. he also felt, bring people together. he would have taken those basic ideas as well as that of courage , that he personally exhibited in the second world war. he also had lost his older brother. the kennedy family itself are a gold star family. it is important to keep that in mind. "profiles in courage" talks about how people stand up for their police. he really thought that was important. you're in office to stand up for your core beliefs and to help lead. thanks again for the call. there is a piece in the metro section of the "washington post" and roberte kennedy kennedy. like to be around for those who remember him? >> i did not know him personally. from all the people i have talked to, he was funny, he had great like to be around for those who remember wit, he t not himself seriously, he loved the water, and he found energy in the water. the reason why the kennedy library is right on the water is because mrs. kennedy felt that was a fitting tribute to her husband. time with hisof kids. he loved being with them. he traveled extensively. when he was younger, he traveled internationally. he started early running for president. he did not take himself seriously. he took the issue seriously. family, being a particularly in hyannisport. >> how serious were his health issues during his white house years? >> he had health issues throughout his life. one of the things in our museum is that his mom, rose kennedy, kept notecards of all of the kids immunizations. it showed the number of things that he had, smallpox and other things early on. after world war ii he came back and had to recover. last rites a few different times during his years. he was very brave and courageous. >> from mississippi, good morning. >> thanks for the show. america has an evil past and it looks like it has an evil future. in termsok at it just of civil rights, you're fighting against the president that is uncivilized. strange reason the people that do things right get assassinated. it goes all the way back to jesus christ. think looking back and going forward we have to address blocking out evil people. if we don't address that, we will have people who are vicious. had black president who couldn't stop the killing of young black americans with their hands up. we are fighting for civil rights, freedom, and justice. who are we fighting against? we are looking around the world people andg other not realizing we have people read here in the united states. i live in mississippi. we don't have anybody, even black people, in congress addressing these problems. it is two steps forward, five steps backward. , do we have any more john f. kennedy's or any person like that? for god toaiting come out of the sky and correct all of these wrongs? >> thank you. one of the things that john kennedy caught us is to be an optimist. during the 1960 campaign he finished one of the debates with next in -- richard nixon and went to the university of michigan at 2:00 in the morning with thousands of students waiting period he talked about the peace corps and asked them, which we willing to go abroad? and thousands of students signed up. we have a long way to go on these issues. the answer is to get involved. run for city council. make sure people vote. inthe last midterm election 2014 we had lower turnout from young people than any time in 40 years. get young people to vote. increase the amount of education on civics and government in school. i think john kennedy caught us to come together. moonshot, we knew about the technology at the time. he said by coming together we can go to the moon, bring a man there, and bring him back safely by the end of the decade. although john kennedy did not live to see it, we did do that. that first rocket that went up have less power than your smartphone does today. we can with big ideas come together and solve big problems. we have to put our effort into it. >> final question. how is the library reflecting on the jfk centennial? >> we have had a multi-day celebration. saturday we honor the peace corps. yesterday was nasa with and asked and spacesuit engineer. today we are doing a navy flyover. p.m., a cake for 1000 people. any of you are in boston, today. if not today, anytime in the next year to see the new exhibit. >> the executive director of the john f. kennedy library foundation on this what would've been the 100th birthday of president kennedy. thank you very much for being with us. >> thank you. announcer: tonight we will take you to arlington national president trump observes memorial day. then a look at technology used to help wounded veterans. then commencement speeches from around the country. visited someay we of the monuments on the national mall that pay tribute to the men and women that have given their lives defending the country. here is a look.