It is a great pleasure to welcome back to the White House these distinguished airmen who won another trophy some months ago, and who I am sure will be back with us on many other occasions. We're glad to welcome not only them, but the Aeronautic Association, which sponsors this distinguished and celebrated award.
We have with us members of the Air force, General Lemnitzer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General LeMay, the Secretaries of the Air force and Navy, Members of the Congress, members of both the military services and the Space Administration, and Mr. Webb, and all those who are interested in our conquest of space, the new ocean, which has captured the imagination of not only the United States, but of all the world.
This large and distinguished trophy has been held by some of the most distinguished pioneers in the field of aviation and science, and some of them are with us today. All of them have won it by being willing to extend the horizon of either knowledge or of human endeavor, and particularly human endeavor, which requires not only great courage, but also the highest kind of talent and the coordination of science and personal qualities.
We are very proud of these four young men who are among the finest that we have. We have welcomed the astronauts who also occupy the same domain, and now these dyers who take a manned aircraft into space--yesterday to over 300,000 feet, and at over 4,000 miles per hour. Yesterday morning Major White did this over the desert in California, and then came east to be with us today.
So we are very proud to have them here, not only for what they have done in space, but also because they represent the kind of Americans whom we are most appreciative of, and the kind of Americans whom we want this country to be identified with. We hope that their example will encourage others to do something that requires reaching beyond what we now know and what We now do.
So I want to present this award with great satisfaction. The names on it and the companies on it, and the individuals who have won it, I'm sure, are glad to have their names added to it, because in so doing they join the previous people who are on it.
So we offer this, and you can take it with you on your plane. I don't know what you're going to do with it, but it's beautiful!
Do you want to say something?
[At this point Maj. Robert M. White spoke briefly and accepted the award on behalf of the X-15 pilots. The President then continued speaking.]
We have the Navy represented, and NASA, and Mr. Williams, and the Air force. We are glad to have all of them here, and we welcome you back each year.
Note: The President spoke on the South Lawn at the White House following an introduction by Martin M. Decker, President of the National Aeronautic Association. Mr. Decker spoke on behalf of the Association and Look magazine, which annually awards the Robert J. Collier trophy for outstanding achievement in aviation. The trophy was presented jointly to Maj. Robert M. White, USAF, Joseph A. Walker, chief engineering test pilot and a physicist with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, A. Scott Crossfield, development engineer and research test pilot of North American Aviation, Inc., and Comdr. Forrest Petersen, USN.
In his opening words the President referred to his presenting the Harmon trophy to three of the pilots (see 1961 volume, this series, Item 486).
During his remarks the President referred to Gen. Lyman L. Lemnitzer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Curtis E. LeMay, Chief of Staff, USAF, James E. Webb, Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and Waiter C. Williams, Associate Director, Manned Spacecraft Center, NASA.
John F. Kennedy, Remarks Upon Presenting the Collier Trophy to four X-15 Pilots Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/236281
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