Sometimes walls are built not to keep people out - but to keep them in. On This Day in 1961, construction began on the Berlin Wall - an effort by East Germany to keep its citizens from fleeing communist oppression for the West /1 
President Kennedy, locked in a dangerous Cold War struggle with the Soviet Union, criticized the construction of the Berlin Wall, but said it was "a hell of a lot better than a war." During the 28 years the wall stood, Communist troops killed some 600 people trying to flee
Speaking of JFK, he was to have spoken these words on the night of Nov. 22, 1963; three-fifths of a century later they remain powerful - and appropriate given the current climate
