Mar. 19, 1963 - JFK Remarks at Housing Project in Costa Rica

Mar. 19, 1963 - In Costa Rica today, President Kennedy expressed his satisfaction with the beginnings of the Alliance for Progress and the state of political democracy in Latin America. Speaking in the warm afternoon sun at El Bosque, a housing project financed by the Alliance, Mr. Kennedy warned against any temptation to become disheartened “by the immensity” of the task involved in raising the hemisphere’s economic levels and living standards. After his speech, Mr. Kennedy suddenly walked into the crowd, shaking hands with dozens of men and women. As the surging, screaming mass closed around the President, patting him on the back and grabbing his hand, Secret Service agents had looks of desperation as they struggled for long minutes to extricate him from his admirers. One woman who shook the President’s hand shouted, “I touched him, I touched him.”

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