肯尼迪总统 《变革时代》演讲
1963年6月5日，肯尼迪总统在科罗拉多州斯普林斯美国空军学院的毕业典礼上发表了本篇演讲，他指出时代正不断变革，科技日新月异，危机挑战不断，这种情况下，美国需要空军军官与时俱进，博学多才，以服务国家。
General, Secretary Zuckert, General LeMay, Members of the Congress, Mr. Fraser, fellow graduates:
将军，朱科特部长，李梅将军，国会议员们，弗雷泽先生，各位毕业生：
I want to express my appreciation for becoming an instant graduate of this academy, and consider it a high honor.
我想先感谢贵校授予我的荣誉，让我光速从这里毕业。
Mr. Salinger, Press Secretary of the White House, received the following letter several days ago:
白宫新闻发言人，也就是塞林格先生，几天前收了到一份信：
"Dear Sir:
“尊敬的先生：”
"Would you desire to become an honorary member of the Air Force Cadet Wing for granting one small favor? Your name, Mr. Salinger, shall become more hallowed and revered than the combined memories of Generals Mitchell, Arnold, and Doolittle.
“您是否愿意赏光成为我空军学员联队的名誉学员？塞林格先生，您的大名比米切尔将军、阿诺德将军和杜立特将军加起来还要闪耀。”
"My humble desire is that you convey a request from the Cadet Wing to the President. Sir, there are countless numbers of our group who are oppressed by Class 3 punishments, the bane of cadets everywhere. The President is our only hope for salvation. By granting amnesty to our oppressed brethren, he and you could end your anguish and depression.
“我恭卑地求您帮学员联队转告总统。先生，我们联队好多人都受到了三级处分，学员们叫苦不迭。总统是唯一能救我们于水火之人。求总统给我们特赦，您二位可以解救饱受压迫的学员们 。”
"Please, sir, help us return to the ranks of the living so that we may work for the New Frontier with enthusiasm and vigor."
“求您了先生，帮帮忙，让我们回到正常的学院生活，我们才能满怀热情地为新边疆政策做出贡献。”
It is signed "Sincerely, Cadet Marvin B. Hopkins," who's obviously going to be a future General.
然后是署名，“辞职，马尔文·B·霍普金斯学员”，这孩子未来绝对能当将军。
As Mr. Salinger wants to be honored with Generals Mitchell, Arnold, and Doolittle, I therefore take great pleasure in granting amnesty to all those who not only deserve it, but need it.
塞林格先生也挺想和米切尔将军、阿诺德将军、杜立特将军并列的，所以我决定赦免这些受到处分的学员，他们应该赦免，也迫切需要赦免。
It is customary for speakers on these occasions to say in graduating addresses that commencement signifies the beginning instead of an end, yet this thought applies with particular force to those of you who are graduating from our Nation's service academies today, for today you receive not only your degrees, but also your commissions, and tomorrow you join with all those in the military service, in the foreign service, the civil service, and elsewhere, and one million of them serve outside our frontiers who have chosen to serve the Great Republic at a turning point in our history. You will have an opportunity to help make that history-an opportunity for a service career more varied and demanding than any that has been opened to any officer corps in the history of any country.
按照惯例，演讲人应该在毕业典礼上发表毕业演讲，但毕业并不意味着结束，而是新的开始，在当下这个时代，这对于你们军校学员来说更是如此，因为今天你们不仅会被授予学位，还会被授予使命，明天你们就会进入军队和战友一起服役，你们会进入对外机构，对内机构，等等机构，当前正值我国历史上的关键转折点，有百万军人选择前往捍卫，服务我们伟大的共和国。你们有机会创造历史——你们有机会接下人类有史以来最错综复杂的军事任务。
There are some who might be skeptical of that assertion. They claim that the future of the Air Force is mortgaged to an obsolete weapons system, the manned aircraft, or that Air Force officers of the future will be nothing more than "silent silo sitters," but nothing could be further from the truth. It is this very onrush of technology which demands an expanding role for the Nation's Air Force and Air Force officers, and which guarantees that an Air Force career in the next 40 years will be even more changing and more challenging than the careers of the last 40 years.
有些人可能不信。他们会说，空军的武器系统和有人驾驶飞机在未来必然会被淘汰，未来的军官能做的，只不过是“默默坐在飞行圆筒”里罢了，但这种话错得不能再离谱了。正是科技的突飞猛进，空军和空军军官在未来的地位才越来越重要，未来40年，空军的发展会比过去40年更加迅猛、更具挑战。
For some of you will travel where no man has ever traveled before. Some of you will fly the fastest planes that have ever been built, reach the highest altitudes that man has ever gone to, and lift the heaviest payloads of any aviator in history. Some of you will hold in your hands the most awesome destructive power which any nation or any man has conceived. Some of you will work with the leaders of new nations which were not even nations a few years ago. Some of you will support guerrilla and counter-guerrilla operations that combine the newest techniques of warfare with the oldest techniques of the jungle, and some of you will help develop new planes that spread their wings in flight, detect other planes at an unheard of distance, deliver new weapons with unprecedented accuracy, and survey the ground from incredible heights as a testament to our strong faith in the future of air power and the manned airplane.
你们中有些人，将前往从未有人触及的地区、你们中有些人，将驾驶人类历史上速度最快的飞机，飞抵从未有人抵达的高空，带着重量空前的装备飞上蓝天。你们中有些人将会操纵杀伤力惊人的武器。你们中有些人会同成立不过几年的新生国家高层共事。你们中有些人需要帮助盟军的游击队，对抗敌军的游击队，将最新型的军事战术和最古老的丛林战术结合起来，你们中有些人会研发出新飞机翱翔天际，会研发出千里之外探测到敌机的新雷达，在万米高空让地面一览无余的侦查设备，以证明我们对空军和有人飞机的信心。
I am announcing today that the United States will commit itself to an important new program in civilian aviation. Civilian aviation, long both the beneficiary and the benefactor of military aviation, is of necessity equally dynamic. Neither the economics nor the politics of international air competition permits us to stand still in this area. Today the challenging new frontier in commercial aviation and in military aviation is a frontier already crossed by the military-supersonic flight. Leading members of the administration under the chairmanship of the Vice President have been considering carefully the role to be played by the National Government in determining the economic and technical feasibility of an American commercial supersonic aircraft, and in the development of such an aircraft if it be feasible.
今天我宣布，美国会加大力度投入新民航工程。长期以来，民用航空既能从空军发展中得益，也能反过来推进空军发展，所以民航领域同样不可忽视。无论是从经济上来说，还是政治上来说，国际空军竞赛如火如荼，我们不能停滞不前。今天，超音速战斗机再次突破了航空贸易和空军发展的新边疆。本届政府高层正在副总统的带领下，正在考虑联邦政府能采取什么措施，从经济和角度来说，超音速飞机能否运用于美国航空贸易，如果可以的话，那么联邦政府该怎么推动超音速飞机的发展。
Having reviewed their recommendations, it is my judgment that this Government should immediately commence a new program in partnership with private industry to develop at the earliest practical date the prototype of a commercially successful supersonic transport superior to that being built in any other country of the world. An open, preliminary design competition will be initiated immediately among American airframe and powerplant manufacturers with a more detailed design phase to follow. If these initial phases do not produce an aircraft capable of transporting people and goods safely, swiftly, and at prices the traveler can afford and the airlines find profitable, we shall not go further.
听取了他们的建议后，我认为本届政府应该立刻同私企推出新的合作项目，尽可能早地开发出举世最先进的超音速商用运输机的原型机。在美国所有的机身制造厂和引擎制造厂之间，将会初步开启一场公开的设计竞赛，未来竞赛还会加入更多要求。如果竞赛早期开发出的飞机不能安全快速运送人员和货物，价格贵到让旅客付不起，让航空公司亏损，我们就会叫停竞赛。
But if we can build the best operational plane of this type--and I believe we can-then the Congress and the country should be prepared to invest the funds and effort necessary to maintain this Nation's lead in long-range aircraft, a lead we have held since the end of the Second World War, a lead we should make every responsible effort to maintain. Spurred by competition from across the Atlantic and by the productivity of our own companies, the Federal Government must pledge funds to supplement the risk capital to be contributed by private companies. It must then rely heavily on the flexibility and ingenuity of private enterprise to make the detailed decisions and to introduce successfully this new jet-age transport into worldwide service, and we are talking about a plane in the end of the 60's that will move ahead at a speed faster than Mach 2 to all corners of the globe. This commitment, I believe, is essential to a strong and forward-looking Nation, and indicates the future of the manned aircraft as we move into a missile age as well.
但如果我们开发出了理想型的飞机——我相信我们——国会还有全国人民都愿意投入必要的资金和努力，让我国的远程飞机技术保持领先地位，保持这个自二战以来的优势，采取一切必要措施保持领先地位。考虑到大西洋对岸的竞争压力，还有我国公司的产能，联邦政府承诺，会给予我国私企补助金，以降低他们的风险资本。制造新型飞机的细节，并最终带领全世界进入新的喷气机纪元，很大程度上依赖于擅自变动和人才济济的私人航空公司，在60年代之内，我们要开发出速度超过2马赫、能飞抵世界各地。我相信，我们身为一个强大进取的国家，必须努力实现这一目标，带领人类的载人飞机进入新的纪元，正如我们进入航天纪元一样。
The fact that the greatest value of all of the weapons of massive retaliation lies in their ability to deter war does not diminish their importance, nor will national security in the years ahead be achieved simply by piling up bigger bombs or burying our missiles under bigger loads of concrete. For in an imperfect world where human folly has been the rule and not the exception, the surest way to bring on the war that can never happen is to sit back and assure ourselves it will not happen. The existence of mutual nuclear deterrents cannot be shrugged off as stalemate, for our national security in a period of rapid change will depend on constant reappraisal of our present doctrines, on alertness to new developments, on imagination and resourcefulness, and new ideas. Stalemate is a static term and not one of you would be here today if you believed you were entering an outmoded service requiring only custodial duties in a period of nuclear stalemate.
大规模杀伤性武器最主要的价值在于震慑敌人，但这并不代表它们的杀伤力就不重要，我们未来的国家安全也不能仅仅依靠建造更多更大的炸弹，把我们的导弹装在更坚固的防御设施里。因为我们的世界并不完美，人是会犯蠢的，且经常如此，如果我们只是坐下来，一厢情愿地告诉自己，战争不会爆发，那么反而最有可能引发战争。大家必须重视起美苏之间的相互核震慑，但不要觉得这是会永远持续下去的僵局，因为我们身处一个变革的年代，我们需要及时变更政策，不停注重发展，开发想象，勤于思考，创新思想，才能巩固我国安全。“僵局”是一个静态的词，如果你们觉得现在已经是核僵局时代了，传统空军已经被淘汰了，你们只需要按照惯例履行职务就够了，那么你们就不会来军校就读了。
I am impressed by the extraordinary scholastic record, unmatched by any new college or university in this country, which has been made by the students and graduates of this Academy. Four Rhodes scholarships last year, two this year, and other selected scholarships, and also your record in the graduate record examination makes the people of this country proud of this Academy and the Air Force which made it possible.
贵校的学生和毕业生取得了令人瞠目结舌的学术成就，可以说在全美所有新建学院和大学中首屈一指，这令我非常高兴。仅去年一年，贵校就斩获了四份罗兹奖学金，今年又得到了两份，还有其他也很出色的奖学金名额，当然了，你们的毕业考试成绩也让我国人民和空军都对你们感到自豪。
This country is proud of the fact that more than one out of five of your all-military faculty has a doctor's degree, and all the rest have master's degrees. This is what we need for leadership in our military services, for the Air Force officer of today and tomorrow requires the broadest kind of scholarship to understand a most complex and changing world. He requires understanding and learning unmatched in the days before World War II. Any graduate of this Academy who serves in our Armed Forces will need to know economics and history, and international affairs, and languages. You will need an appreciation of other societies, and an understanding of our own Nation's purposes and policy.
现在我国所有军事教员中，起码有五分之一都有博士学位，其他人最低也是硕士，这让我国感到十分自豪。我们军队所需要的指挥官，正是这些人才，从今往后，我们的空军军官需要掌握精湛的学术知识，才能理解这个扑朔迷离、飞速变革的时代。空军军官须跳出二战前的那一套理解和思维。你们所有毕业生未来进入军队服役的同时，都还要既懂经济，又懂历史，会搞外交，还得会说外语。你们要能理解外国社会，同时也要明白我国的目标和政策。
General Norstad's leadership in NATO, General Smart's outstanding tour of duty as the senior military representative in Japan are examples of Air Force officers who use their broad talents for the benefit of our country. Many of you will have similar opportunities to represent this country in negotiations with our adversaries as well as our friends, working with international organizations, working in every way in the hundred free countries around the globe to help them maintain their freedom. Your major responsibilities, in the final analysis, will relate to military command. Some of you may be members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and participate as advisers to the President who holds office.
指挥北约联军的诺斯塔德将军，作为高级军事代表前往日本任职的斯玛特将军，都在运用他们的杰出才能造福国家，他们都是你们学习的榜样。你们中许多人都将会有机会代表我国参加同敌国或友邦的谈判，同国际组织共事，在全球上个只有国家工作，帮助他们捍卫自由。归根结底，你们的首要责任还是和指挥军队有关。你们中有些人会进入参谋长联席会议，成为总统的顾问。
Last October's crisis in the Caribbean amply demonstrated that military policy and power cannot and must not be separated from political and diplomatic decisions. Whatever the military motive and implications of the reckless attempt to put missiles on the island of Cuba, the political and psychological implications were equally important. We needed in October--and we had them and we shall need them in the future, and we shall have them--military commanders who are conscious of the enormous stakes in the nuclear age of every decision that they take, who are aware of the fact that there are no purely political decisions or purely military decisions; that every problem is a mixture of both, men who know the difference between vital interests and peripheral interests, who can maneuver military forces with judgment and precision, as well as courage and determination, and who can foresee the effects of military action on political policy. We need men, in short, who can cope with the challenges of a new political struggle, an armed doctrine which uses every weapon in the struggle around the globe.
去年10月，加勒比海危机就充分证明了，军事和武力必须和政治外交分离开来。苏联在古巴部署导弹的鲁莽行为，无论是出于何种军事目的，无论有何种军事意味，其政治意味和心理意味都同样严重。在核武器时代，像去年10月的那种情况——我们的军队指挥官就需要能意识到自己任何决定的后果，能明白这场危机既不是单纯的政治问题，也不是单纯的军事问题；所有问题都同时涉及政治和军事，他们要能分得清哪些是不可割舍的核心利益，哪些是可舍弃的利益，要能审时度势，并让军队进行相应部署，同时也不可缺乏勇气和决心，他们要能明白自己的军事行动会产生什么样的政治后果——幸好我们当时就有这样的指挥官，我们未来还需要更多这样的指挥官。简而言之，我们需要的新时代指挥官，要有能力解决新型政治挑战，抗击这种以武力扰乱全球的扩张主义。
We live in a world, in short, where the principal problems that we face are not susceptible to military solutions alone. The role of our military power, in essence, is, therefore, to free ourselves and our allies to pursue the goals of freedom without the danger of enemy attack, but we do not have a separate military policy, and a separate diplomatic policy, and a separate disarmament policy, and a separate foreign aid policy, all unrelated to each other. They are all bound up together in the policy of the United States. Our goal is a coherent, overall, national security policy, one that truly serves the best interests of this country and those who depend upon it. It is worth noting that all of the decisions which we now face today will come in increased numbers in the months and years ahead.
在当代的世界，我们面临的关键问题并非只能靠军事手段解决。我们的军队从本质上来说，是为了保护我们和盟国在追求自由的过程中，不受敌人的伤害，但是我们不会有独立的军事政策，也没有独立的外交政策，亦或让裁军政策、对外援助政策等等相互割裂，互不相连。这所有政策都跟美国国家政策紧密相关。我们的目标就是设计一份连贯全面的国防政策，以最好地造福我们国家，让所有公民受惠。值得注意的是，我们今天所面临的这种抉择，还会与日俱增。
I want to congratulate all of you who have chosen the United States Air Force as a career. As far as any of us can now see in Washington in the days ahead, you will occupy positions of the highest responsibility, and merely because we move into a changing period of weapon technology, as well as political challenge, because, in fact, we move into that period, there is greater need for you than ever before. You, here today on this field, your colleagues at Omaha, Nebraska, or at Eglin in Florida, or who may be stationed in Western Europe, or men who are at sea in ships hundreds of miles from land, or soldiers in camps in Texas, or on the Island of Okinawa, they maintain the freedom by being on the ready. They maintain the freedom, the security, and the peace not only of the United States, but of the dozens of countries who are allied to us who are close to the Communist power and who depend upon us and, in a sense, only upon us for their freedom and security. These distant ships, these distant planes, these distant men keep the peace in a great half-circle stretching all the way from Berlin to South Korea. This is the role which history and our own determination has placed upon a country which lived most of its history in isolation and neutrality, and yet in the last 18 years has carried the burden for free people everywhere. I think that this is a burden which we accept willingly, recognizing that if this country does not accept it, no people will, recognizing that in the most difficult time in the whole life of freedom, the United States is called upon to play its greatest role. This is a role which we are proud to accept, and I am particularly proud to see the United States accept it in the presence of these young men who have committed themselves to the service of our country and to the cause of its freedom. I congratulate you all, and most of all, I congratulate your mothers and fathers who made it possible.
我祝贺各位加入美国空军。未来我们在华盛顿都可以预见，你们将肩负起最崇高的责任，因为我们进入了一个变革时代，军事技术日新月异，军事难题今非昔比，在这么一个时代，国家尤其需要你们。今天，你们站在操场上，而你们的同事此刻正在内布拉斯加州的奥马哈，在佛罗里达州的艾格林，亦或在西欧、在远洋的舰船上、德克萨斯州或冲绳岛的营地中，随时待命准备捍卫自由。他们所捍卫的不仅仅是美国，更是在捍卫我们几十个盟国的自由、安全与和平，他们就在共产阵营的嘴边，所以需要依靠我们，甚至从一定程度上来说，只有我们才能保护他们的自由与安全。我们的军舰、战机和士兵远在他乡，从柏林到韩国，半个地球的安宁都在依靠他们守护。这是历史赋予我国的使命，也是我们的坚定选择，纵观历史，我国绝大多数时间都坚持孤立主义，恪守中立，但从18年前开始，她决定肩负起整个自由世界的重任。我相信，我国人民都会欣然接下这一重担，因为我们明白，除了我们之外，没有任何国家再有能力保护自由世界，自由危在旦夕的时刻，美国必须挺身而出，全力以赴。我们对祖国此举感到深深自豪，我看到我国青年欣然接受重任，立志奉献祖国、献身自由，感到尤其自豪。我祝贺各位毕业，还有更重要的，我感谢各位的父母培养出了如此优秀的儿女。
Thank you.
谢谢大家。
声明：本人仅按照原文翻译内容，演讲内容不代表本人观点。此专栏仅供历史和英语交流学习使用，任何读者皆可引用本人的译本。
希望来学习英语的观众明白：我觉得这些专栏的主要精华在于英语原文，而并非我的译本，我的译本很大程度上只是供来学习历史的观众使用的。本人的英语水平一般，翻译得并不会多么精彩，只能在你看不懂时来帮助你了解这些演讲内容最基本的意思，而且翻译时难免会出现差错，切勿直接完全以我的译本为标准。如发现有翻译错误或者歧义内容，欢迎指正。
希望来学习历史的观众明白：任何历史人物都有一定的局限性，随着时代发展，很多观点看法可能已经不再适用今天的世界，西方的观点也不一定适用于我们。通过了解这些演讲，仅可给我们提供一个更全面了解过去和世界的渠道。我们可以从优秀的历史、当代人物身上学到很多，但是请保持独立思考，理性看待演讲内容，切勿全信或将其奉为真理。