WE WANT to express, Mr. Ambassador, our very warm welcome to you. You were very generous to all of us on our visit to Mexico City and made us feel that we were not visiting a foreign country but, instead, visiting the home of friends, and we were particularly impressed by your dancing.
So I'm glad that my compatriots and cob leagues here in the United States will have a chance to see the dance. Are you doing the same thing you did? What about the guns? What about the song with the guns?
Do you want to translate what I said? Maybe they can sing a song for us.
Muchas gracias. Viva Mexico.
Note: The President spoke at 12:30 p.m. in the Rose Garden at the White House. In his opening remarks he referred to Ambassador Antonio Carillo Flores, Mexican Ambassador to the United States, who accompanied the group to the White House.
The Ballet responded to the President's remarks by singing "La Barca de Oro." The "song with the guns," to which the President referred, is a ballet inspired by scenes from the Mexican Revolution.
John F. Kennedy, Remarks to Members of the Ballet Folklorico of Mexico. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/237056
