Another highlight was this although I am unsure about the meaning of the hand gesture. Perhaps it's nothing important. Is it?
(...)
The very word "secret" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are, as a people, inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, secret oaths, and secret procedures.
We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unjustified concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in ensuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it.
And there is a grave danger that those eager to expand its meaning to the very limits of censorship and official cover-up will take advantage of the announced need for greater security. This I do not intend to allow to the extent within my control.
(...)
Because throughout the world we oppose a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means to expand its sphere of influence: infiltration rather than invasion, subversion rather than elections, intimidation rather than free choice, guerrillas by night rather than armies by day.
It is a system that has enlisted vast human and material resources in the construction of a highly efficient and tightly knit machine combining military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific, and political operations.
Its preparations are hidden, unpublicized. Its errors are buried, untitled. Its dissenters are silenced, unlauded. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed.
(...)
The President and the Press: Address before the American Newspaper Publishers Association, April 27, 1961.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy