Jim Wright - Speaker of The House

Speaker of The House

In 1986 he was elected Speaker of the House, succeeding Tip O'Neill when the latter retired the following January.

In 1988, he chaired the Democratic Party convention that nominated Michael Dukakis for president. During that convention, Wright introduced John F. Kennedy, Jr, for Kennedy's first televised speech. About 25 years earlier, on November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy, in his final speech before being assassinated, praised Wright's service in the Congress, saying "and here in Fort Worth he has contributed to its growth. He speaks for Fort Worth and he speaks for the country, and I don't know any city that is better represented in the Congress of the United States than Fort Worth."

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