Clinton Summons J.F.K.’s Spirit in Call for Renewing America : Message: Both presidents, in inaugural speeches, underscored the need for sacrifice, struggle. But unlike Kennedy, Clinton stresses the urgency to take bold action to solve domestic woes.

When Bill Clinton turned and saluted George Bush early in his inaugural address Wednesday, the new President seemed to be not only honoring his predecessor but relieving from duty the generation of World War II veterans that have dominated American public life for 40 years.

More than any President since John F. Kennedy, the 46-year-old Clinton sounded the note of generational transition in his inaugural address. Clinton, the first President born after World War II, assumed power on behalf of a “a generation raised in the shadows of the Cold War” and consciously echoed the language of Kennedy--the man who defined the face of politics for millions of baby boomers just as surely as Franklin D. Roosevelt had done for Bush’s GI generation.

But, though he summoned Kennedy’s spirit, Clinton’s speech actually underscored how dramatically America’s condition has changed since the cold clear day in 1961 when Kennedy took the oath of office.

Speaking to a nation exactly halfway through an unbroken 26-year rise in living standards, Kennedy said virtually nothing about domestic problems and called on Americans to enlist in a “long twilight struggle” against communism.

Speaking to a nation that has triumphed in the Cold War only to see its living standards stagnate, Clinton on Wednesday called on Americans to enlist in another crusade: not to remake the world but “to renew America.”

Like Kennedy, Clinton declared that Americans must accept sacrifice to secure their future. Clinton’s address, like Kennedy’s, guaranteed only struggle, not reward.

But in Kennedy’s vision, America’s willingness to sacrifice would be tested in places like Berlin and Vietnam. In Clinton’s, American resolve will be measured on Detroit factory floors and schools in South-Central Los Angeles--the arenas where the nation must confront its most entrenched social and economic problems.

Following inaugural custom, Clinton’s address was more thematic than specific. Still, he enumerated an impressive, if not imposing, list of goals: increasing investment in economic growth while reducing the deficit, reforming the health care system, advancing political reform to “revitalize our democracy,” easing the suffering of “millions of poor children” and calling “to a season of service . . . a new generation of young Americans” through his program that would allow all young people to receive federal aid for college in return for two years of national service.

Above all, Clinton seemed to aim Wednesday at inspiring among Americans the same sense of dedication and shared sacrifice for tackling domestic problems that usually flowers only in time of war.

“That’s the challenge for him,” said Robert Dallek, a presidential historian at UCLA. “It’s not in Iraq or in Somalia that he has to ask people to sacrifice--it’s at home.”

That was clear in Clinton’s stark rhetoric: “We know we have to face hard truths and take strong steps,” he said at one point.

This was a sharp reversal in tone from Clinton’s campaign--when he shied away from calls for sacrifice. Indeed, he consistently criticized opponents--former Sen. Paul E. Tsongas during the primary election and Ross Perot in the fall--who said that Americans might have to bear such sacrifices as higher taxes or cuts in popular programs to reduce the federal deficit and free more resources for productive investment.

That shift in emphasis is only one complication facing Clinton as he tries to build public support for a new burst of government activism--and a realignment of federal priorities that could involve considerable sacrifice. Another hurdle is the germ of cynicism about government that has spread through American culture since Kennedy’s time.

In many respects, it was much easier for Kennedy than Clinton to summon Americans to new crusades, observed Richard Goodwin, one of Kennedy’s speech writers. “People believed government told them the truth then,” he noted. “It was all before Vietnam and Watergate--people believed you. People believed governments had their interests at heart and presidents spoke the truth. We’ve become much more cynical.”

Still, Goodwin, like many observers, said he believes that Clinton has the opportunity to cut through that cynicism--if he can convince Americans the government intends to aggressively confront the problems that concern them. Making that case seemed another of Clinton’s intentions Wednesday. To some listeners, the most striking aspect of his inaugural speech was its efforts to portray the new Administration’s ambitions in the most sweeping, even evangelical, terms.

After weeks of assiduously playing down expectations for his new Administration, Clinton called for “renewal,” promised “dramatic change” and committed himself to “bold” action.

“Thomas Jefferson believed that to preserve the very foundations of our nation we would need dramatic change from time to time,” Clinton declared. “Well, my fellow Americans, this is our time. Let us embrace it.”

That was not the language of a man who viewed himself with a mandate to tinker at the margins--but rather of a politician hoping to convince Americans that his cause is large enough to justify their engagement.

“It was a speech that said big things are coming,” said James Carville, Clinton’s senior strategist during his race for the White House. “That was the signal I got--and I think it was the signal that the American people got.”

Now, that is the signal Clinton must redeem in action, Carville and other observers said. Even the most eloquent inaugural words are no guarantee of success: Kennedy’s lyrical call to “pay any price, bear any burden . . . to assure the survival and the success of liberty” ultimately translated into the mud and blood of the Bay of Pigs and the Vietnam War.

To many who know Clinton well, the question has never been whether he has a vision of the things the nation must do to confront such problems as declining competitiveness, rising health care costs and inner-city poverty. The issue has always been whether he will risk his political capital to meaningfully address those problems.

His record in Arkansas, his campaign and his decisions during the transition offer no unequivocal answers. Clinton committed himself Wednesday to bold departures--but between those words and deeds that fulfill them are a minefield of political risks. The true meaning of Wednesday’s words won’t be apparent until Clinton demonstrates whether he is willing to absorb some pain in their defense.

“These speeches,” Goodwin said, “only become memorable if actions follow them.”