Security not something I think about: Barack Obama

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama has said that though John F Kennedy's assassination transformed the US Secret Service, which protects him and his family today, he does not spend much time worrying about his personal safety.

"It's not something I think about," Obama said. "Mainly because we have a Secret Service that does an outstanding job every single day.

"And, obviously, tragedy reshaped the Secret Service in many ways, but they do an outstanding job and it's thankfully not something I spend a lot of time worrying about," he told ABC News in an interview set to air in full next week.

Obama also reflected on Kennedy's untimely death in 1963, which came nearly three years into his presidency, and its lasting impact on the US.

"And it's been an incredible legacy but JFK in particular, I think, captured the idealism, the ability to imagine and remake America to meets its ideals, in a way we haven't seen before or since," he said.

"And I don't know of anyone who has had that same impact on a generation and inspired so many people as JFK has."

Kennedy's ability to move a generation scarred by World War II into the future is the source of the lasting effect of his presidency, Obama said.

"I think that partly because of his youth, partly, and his grace, partly because of his courage and his history in World War II, partly because of his eloquence and partly because of the time.

"Because there was a shift from the post-World War II generation into the future," he said.

"He really moved people in a way that still resonates with us today."

Thousands of people yesterday joined an event in Dallas' Dealey Plaza, where Kennedy was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald, to mark the 50th anniversary of the assassination.