The claimed quote is:
The first step in debunking a quote is to find the original source. In this case the debunking is easy, because there is no original source.
Kennedy never said that. It's a made-up quote.
The quote does not exist in any book indexed by Google, or Amazon. Zero results. Compare that with the "Monolithic and ruthless conspiracy" quote, which gets over 1,520 results in Google books. This means the "quote" is so new that it's not even got into any conspiracy books yet. And not only is there no record of him having said it, there's no record of anyone even claiming he said it.
In fact the "enslave" quote appears to be a relative modern corruption of an earlier fake JFK quote that cropped up in the 1980s.
[bunk]"The high office of the President has been used to foment a plot to destroy the Americans' freedom and before I leave office, I must inform the Citizen of his plight." -- John F. Kennedy (D) speaking at Columbia University, 10 days before his assassination.[/bunk]
Sometimes with slightly different wording:
[bunk]"The high office of President has been used to foment a plot to destroy American freedom, and before I leave office I must inform the citizen of his plight."[/bunk]
This quote has an older provenance, with mentions in books dating back to 1982 , but there's no record before 1982, and nothing at all in official or academic records, or from newspapers at that time, or any personal accounts or recordings. Not only that, bur there is no record at all of Kennedy visiting Columbia University on any day in November.
The earliest mention seems to be in the 1982 book "Wealth for All: Religion, Politics and War" by R.E. McMaster. It's a typical far-right christian popular economics screed.
There's more investigation of this on the JFK Wikiquote page:
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:John_F._Kennedy
http://web.archive.org/web/20090310...Reference+Desk/Columbia+University+Speech.htm
The first was to the AFL-CIO labor organization, and was a generally upbeat assessment of American industry.
The second was the to Catholic Youth Organization, and is slightly closer in tone, but still nothing like what is claimed. The following is an actual quote from JFK in that speech, and is the only thing of record that he said that day that remotely resembles the claimed quote:
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/16...-by-a-monolithic-and-ruthless-conspiracy-quot
I did a little digging to try to find some possible origins of the "enslave", and the earliest usages:
Earliest full mention on Usenet: 4/10/2004
[BUNK]"There exists in this country a plot to enslave every man woman and child.
Before I leave this high and noble office, I intend to expose this plot." -
President John F. Kennedy - 7 days before he was assassinated.[/BUNK]
This has a different initial wording from the original. It's simply a quote in the signature of Dick Eastman, and could conceivably be the origin. I emailed Dick Eastman, but he did not remember where he heard the quote. Perhaps he wrote down someone else's paraphrasing of the "Monolithic and ruthless conspiracy" quote. One can imagine a preacher coming up with this version when preaching a sermon on the lessons JFK left us. But we'll probably never know where it really came from.
There are a couple of earlier posts on Usenet that sound somewhat similar.
Usenet post by Virgil Gray, 11/25/2001
[BUNK]The enemies of God are going to kill and enslave every man
woman and child in this country. Their first test toward realizing this
began on September 11, 2001. [/BUNK]
alt.conspiracy post 1/18/1996
[BUNK]We have available video tapes of astonishing information. These tapes
cover credible information of a plan to build a one world government of
global domination. They cover things like prophecy, conspiracy and
high tech bio-tech secret plans to enslave every man women and child on
this planet.[/BUNK]
There is also some discussion on Snopes, and on Reddit.
It's often accompanied with this image (which I've annotated in yellow). Note the misspelling of "noble" as "nolbe" (this was fixed in later versions of the image)External Quote:"There's a plot in this country to enslave every man, woman, and child. Before I leave this high and noble office, I intend to expose this plot." - President John F. Kennedy 7 days before his assassination

The first step in debunking a quote is to find the original source. In this case the debunking is easy, because there is no original source.
Kennedy never said that. It's a made-up quote.
The quote does not exist in any book indexed by Google, or Amazon. Zero results. Compare that with the "Monolithic and ruthless conspiracy" quote, which gets over 1,520 results in Google books. This means the "quote" is so new that it's not even got into any conspiracy books yet. And not only is there no record of him having said it, there's no record of anyone even claiming he said it.
In fact the "enslave" quote appears to be a relative modern corruption of an earlier fake JFK quote that cropped up in the 1980s.
[bunk]"The high office of the President has been used to foment a plot to destroy the Americans' freedom and before I leave office, I must inform the Citizen of his plight." -- John F. Kennedy (D) speaking at Columbia University, 10 days before his assassination.[/bunk]
Sometimes with slightly different wording:
[bunk]"The high office of President has been used to foment a plot to destroy American freedom, and before I leave office I must inform the citizen of his plight."[/bunk]
This quote has an older provenance, with mentions in books dating back to 1982 , but there's no record before 1982, and nothing at all in official or academic records, or from newspapers at that time, or any personal accounts or recordings. Not only that, bur there is no record at all of Kennedy visiting Columbia University on any day in November.
The earliest mention seems to be in the 1982 book "Wealth for All: Religion, Politics and War" by R.E. McMaster. It's a typical far-right christian popular economics screed.
There's more investigation of this on the JFK Wikiquote page:
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:John_F._Kennedy
And there's an eyewitness account of his appearance (on the same page as the above)External Quote:
Concerned by such a quote, I have constructed a timeline of Kennedy's whereabouts for November 1963. No single source I have researched indicates Kennedy was at Columbia University in 1963. One such source includes direct contact with Columbia University officials, who agree there is no record of such a visit. In fact, historical records place Kennedy in the Oval Office on Tuesday November 12, 1963 during which time he met with Cartha DeLoach, the then new FBI Liason to the White House ("The Kennedy Men" by Lawrence Leamer, page 730).
Another source (James K. Galbraith, "Exit Strategy: In 1963, JFK ordered a complete withdrawal from Vietnam," Boston Review, October/November, 2003 ) indicates Kennedy also gave a press conference on Vietnam on 11/12/63 but makes no mention of Columbia University.
Kennedy's public whereabouts are very much public record. Had such a quote been made at Columbia University, it like all of his real speeches and quotes would be immortalized in hundreds of documents and websites around the world. Yet, there are a few small references to this "speech", whose citations are circular within those few small websites. Cover up? Get real - there are millions of people alive right now that were around in 1963. NOBODY has a recollection of this speech. NO VERIFIABLE RECORDS exist of this speech. However, there are ample witnesses and documents that accurately record the events of November 12, 1963 - and they all agree there was no speech given at Columbia University.
And the official JFK Library also debunks the quote:External Quote:George J. Leonard, now Prof of Humanities at San Francisco State University: I was a Freshman residing in the dorms (John Jay Hall) at Columbia College on that date. He was not at Columbia. I am an eye witness. The claim is preposterous. Had President Kennedy honored Columbia with a visit, it would have been the greatest event of the year-- if not our lives, given our hero worship for him. We Freshmen were let out of class once just to shake hands with Peter, Paul and Mary that term, who had stopped by the Sundial for a photo op. If a sitting president had arrived for any reason? Just before his martyrdom? (You don't know Columbia's fierce dedication to its claims to fame. They'd call it "Kennedy's Columbia Address" and have a bronze plaque on the site by now. The King of England's visit rated a mural in the Library.) As an eyewitness, I can absolutely state he never came. Moreover, I stayed at Columbia for another 9 years, until my Ph.D, and never heard a single reference to this non-event. Today, when I encountered this webpage, was the first I ever heard of it. We may reasonably infer that the quotation is as bogus as the event. --G. J. Leonard, August 18, 2005.
http://web.archive.org/web/20090310...Reference+Desk/Columbia+University+Speech.htm
And if we look at the newer "enslave"quote, seven days before his Nov 22 1963 assassination would be November 15th, 1963. On Nov 14th JFK gave a news conference: where he said nothing at all like that quote. That news conference is sometimes attributed to Nov 15th, as it appeared in the NYT the following day. Actually on Nov 15th, JFK gave two speeches.External Quote:
Columbia University "Speech"
PRESIDENT KENNEDY'S SUPPOSED SPEECH AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NOVEMBER, 1963.
Many references to this fictitious speech exist in assassination theorist material. Supposedly, the President was discussing changes in the Federal Reserve and the gold standard, and this topic was somehow linked to his assassination. Others also claim he said, "The high office of President has been used to foment a plot to destroy American freedom, and before I leave office I must inform the citizen of his plight." But the simple fact is that President John F. Kennedy did not speak at Columbia University in November of 1963.
Those who believe in the "fact" of President Kennedy having made such a speech, either at Columbia or some other place, will simply deny this denial. At best, they will say that because "all or most records" have been destroyed, we simply don't know the truth; at worst, they will claim that there is a conspiracy to keep this issue silent. If someone chooses to believe in the existence of this speech, he or she does so as a matter of faith, which is fine, as long as that person realizes that it is religion and not history in which he or she is dealing.
The first was to the AFL-CIO labor organization, and was a generally upbeat assessment of American industry.
The second was the to Catholic Youth Organization, and is slightly closer in tone, but still nothing like what is claimed. The following is an actual quote from JFK in that speech, and is the only thing of record that he said that day that remotely resembles the claimed quote:
The invented quote could possibly be an extreme corruption of this, but is more likely a paraphrasing of elements of the April 27th 1961 "conspiracy" speech that led to other mis-quotes:External Quote:The world is engaged in the most difficult and trying struggle in its long history. All of the great epics which have torn the world for the last 2,000 years pale in comparison to the great ideological gulf which separates us from those who oppose us. It is our responsibility not merely to denounce our enemies and those who make themselves our enemies but to make this system work, to demonstrate what freedom can do, what those who are committed to freedom and the future can do.
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/16...-by-a-monolithic-and-ruthless-conspiracy-quot
I did a little digging to try to find some possible origins of the "enslave", and the earliest usages:
Earliest full mention on Usenet: 4/10/2004
[BUNK]"There exists in this country a plot to enslave every man woman and child.
Before I leave this high and noble office, I intend to expose this plot." -
President John F. Kennedy - 7 days before he was assassinated.[/BUNK]
This has a different initial wording from the original. It's simply a quote in the signature of Dick Eastman, and could conceivably be the origin. I emailed Dick Eastman, but he did not remember where he heard the quote. Perhaps he wrote down someone else's paraphrasing of the "Monolithic and ruthless conspiracy" quote. One can imagine a preacher coming up with this version when preaching a sermon on the lessons JFK left us. But we'll probably never know where it really came from.
There are a couple of earlier posts on Usenet that sound somewhat similar.
Usenet post by Virgil Gray, 11/25/2001
[BUNK]The enemies of God are going to kill and enslave every man
woman and child in this country. Their first test toward realizing this
began on September 11, 2001. [/BUNK]
alt.conspiracy post 1/18/1996
[BUNK]We have available video tapes of astonishing information. These tapes
cover credible information of a plan to build a one world government of
global domination. They cover things like prophecy, conspiracy and
high tech bio-tech secret plans to enslave every man women and child on
this planet.[/BUNK]
There is also some discussion on Snopes, and on Reddit.
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