JFK’s Warning Speech On Secret Societies [VIDEO]

President John F. Kennedy delivered his famous address titled “The President and the Press” on April 27, 1961, to the American Newspaper Publishers Association.

In this speech, he emphasized the vital role of a free press in an open society while addressing the challenges posed by secrecy during the Cold War era.

JFK said that “the very word ‘secrecy’ is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings.”

JFK highlighted the American tradition of rejecting hidden proceedings and excessive concealment, arguing that the dangers of unwarranted secrecy far outweighed any justifications for it. He urged the press to exercise self-restraint in reporting sensitive national security matters without succumbing to censorship, while also calling for greater official secrecy where truly necessary to counter threats.

Many interpret this passage as JFK warning about shadowy forces controlling events from behind the scenes, often linking it to conspiracy theories involving groups like the Illuminati, Freemasons, or a “New World Order.”

However, in the full context of the speech, JFK was primarily referring to the monolithic and ruthless conspiracy of international communism during the height of the Cold War.

He described it as relying on covert infiltration, subversion, intimidation, and guerrillas rather than open warfare, contrasting the disciplined secrecy of communist operations with the transparency required in democracies. Far from exposing domestic secret societies, he was cautioning the press about the need for balanced reporting in a time of existential ideological struggle, while affirming that no democracy could match the wartime discipline of its adversaries without compromising its core values of openness and debate.

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