Sixty years ago on June 10, 1963, President John F. Kennedy went to American University in Washington, D.C. to give the Commencement Address. This was seven months after the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 was successfully resolved by Kennedy and the Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, and five months twelve days before Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas, Texas, on November 22 in a regime change coup orchestrated by the CIA. Kennedy’s speech on June 10 was the tipping point in his struggle with the National Security Establishment over how to wind down the Cold War against Soviet Communism that had hurtled towards the precipice of a nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis seven months earlier. In his speech at the American University, Kennedy reached out to Khrushchev describing his administration’s goal of ending the nuclear arms race between the two military superpowers and the Cold War. By going public in boldly stating his resolve to work for peace by beginning a campaign for nuclear disarmament, Kennedy put himself in an irreconcilable opposition to the military-industrial complex about which his predecessor President Dwight Eisenhower warned Americans in his farewell address on leaving the White House in January 1961. According to James W. Douglass in JFK and the Unspeakable – the author and the book Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently cited for the best compilation of evidence on the murder of Kennedy by the CIA and the cover-up – “To the Pentagon and the CIA, the president’s words of peace at American University seemed to put him on the enemy’s side.”
President Kennedy came to American University bearing a message. “I have chosen this time and place to discuss a topic,” he began, “and the truth is too rarely perceived—yet it is the most important topic on earth: world peace.” In the biography Kennedy, the president’s White House aide and counsellor Ted Sorensen wrote that unlike most of the foreign policy speeches he drafted for the president the Commencement Address was one in which “official departmental positions and suggestions were not solicited.” The speech was entirely a Kennedy-Sorensen partnership in which Sorensen translated Kennedy’s ideas, political realism and ethics into words that transcended Cold War fears and anxieties of the past eighteen years into a practical policy statement with a universal appeal.
The Cuban missile crisis brought Kennedy to confront the single most important fact of the nuclear age that there could not be a predicate for a just war, or any minor conflict, between nuclear armed powers. “I speak of peace because of the new face of war,” spoke the president. “It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn.” Science had nullified the logic and ethics of war between great powers and had trapped the United States and the Soviet Union, as Robert Oppenheimer, physicist and Director of the Los Alamos Laboratory in the Manhattan Project during WW2 that led to the making of the A-bomb, described a decade earlier in a Foreign Affairs article published in July 1953 (‘Atomic Weapons and American Policy’), “We may be likened to two scorpions in a bottle, each capable of killing the other, but only at the risk of his own life.”
The urgency of exiting from the illogic of war between nuclear armed powers required thinking within a radically new framework for peace, and which required conceiving of peace and security as indivisible and transcendent in a world divided by conflicting national interests and ideologies. So, Kennedy asked, “What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek?” Here we may recall that Kennedy as the first Catholic president of the United States was addressing Americans and people around the world, Christians and non-Christians, a week after the death on June 3 of Pope John XXIII who had ushered in a new era of hope and change in his short-lived pontificate (1958-63). Of Pope John XXIII, the Swiss theologian Hans Küng wrote in The Catholic Church: A Short History (2001):
Against massive resistance from the curia, with considerable historical learning and pastoral experience, he opened up to the church, immured in a medieval Counter-Reformation antimodern paradigm, the way to renewal (aggiornamento); to a proclamation of the gospel in keeping with the time; to an understanding with the other Christian churches, with Judaism, and the other world religions; to contacts with the Eastern states; to international social justice (the encyclical Mater et magistra, 1961); and to openness to the modern world generally and the affirmation of human rights (the encyclical Pacem in terris, 1963).
Kennedy certainly would have been moved in a very special way by the role of Pope John and his leadership in convening the Second Vatican Council. It might be said that it was providential, not merely coincidental, that Kennedy’s presidency occurred during the pontificate of Pope John. In a deeply moving book about the president and his brother Robert, Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years (2007), David Talbot wrote, “When Pope John XXIII, who had been deeply alarmed by how close humanity had come to extinction, enlisted Norman Cousins—editor of the liberal magazine Saturday Review and a longtime peace activist—to serve as an informal emissary between the Vatican, Washington, and Moscow, Kennedy readily agreed to discuss strategy with the amateur diplomat.”
The stench of and the shadow cast by the last catastrophic war in Europe and Asia still hung over the world, while how close it had come to another even more devastating only Kennedy and his Soviet-Communist counterpart Khrushchev knew. That there could not be any basis of a just war in the nuclear age post-Hiroshima and post-Nagasaki was one part of the equation in global politics reached by leaders of both the military superpowers; the other part, Kennedy concluded, was that there could be no peace constructed out of partisan politics while denying the universal aspiration of people for relief from hunger, disease, sickness and poverty. As a student of history, Kennedy was ingrained with an understanding how fragile was the hold of peace amid competing interests of nations and their leaders, while as a naval veteran in the Pacific theatre his experience of war made of him a realist striving to build a “peace bridge” across the Cold War divide.
This “peace bridge” in Kennedy’s vision was not to be an excuse for a “Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war.” Instead, his vision of peace was embracing of peoples and cultures in a fraternity of respect “that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children—not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women—not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.” This realist vision was, as Kennedy explained, “the necessary rational end of rational men.”
Mature realism differs from utopianism in that it is unapologetically reflective and self-critical. Kennedy acknowledged that his initiative would be in vain without Soviet leaders adopting an enlightened attitude. But it was equally, if not more, important, he insisted, that “we must reexamine our own attitude—as individuals and as a Nation—for our attitude is as essential as theirs. And every graduate of this school, every thoughtful citizen who despairs of war and wishes to bring peace, should begin by looking inward—by examining his own attitude toward the possibilities of peace, toward the Soviet Union, toward the course of the Cold War and toward freedom and peace here at home.”
Kennedy’s politics in the post-Cuban missile crisis became more explicit in its approach to solving problems, and no problem was of greater urgency than the one he had set for himself in bringing an end to the Cold War. He was insistent that Americans needed to become mature realists just as the greatest realist in history, Jesus, demanded of everyone to take the beams out of their eyes before venturing to remove motes from the eyes of others. Americans could not impose “Pax Americana” unilaterally, nor naïvely believe in their own virtue while denouncing the vice of others.
Kennedy’s realism required of Americans to set aside their predisposition in seeing others simplistically in binary terms of good and evil. The world is culturally diverse, and the ideological differences, as between liberalism and communism, make political differences hazardous. Therefore, urgency for securing peace in the nuclear age could not wait for “a sudden revolution in human nature”; instead, the necessity of moving ahead required assisting “a gradual evolution of human institutions.” He cautioned, “There is no single, simple key to this peace—no grand or magic formula to be adopted by one or two powers. Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts. It must be dynamic, not static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation. For peace is a process—a way of solving problems.” Hence, peace was attainable if Americans, joined together with the people of the Soviet Union and the rest of the world, took the requisite steps as problem-solving. “Our problems are man made,” Kennedy said, and “they can be solved by man.”
At the core of Kennedy’s realist message, as I read him sixty years later in the context of a proxy-war the neocons in the Biden administration are insanely and wickedly waging in Ukraine against Russia, was an admonishment against demonizing the other in the pursuit for peace. Kennedy sought to instruct Americans that the notion when America goes to war it does as “children of light” against “children of darkness”, that the opponents of America or those whom America oppose are unredeemably evil, is inimical to peacemaking in terms of problem-solving. In the months after the most perilous moment during the Cold War, Kennedy told the graduating class of 1963 at American University,
No government or social system is so evil that its people must be considered as lacking in virtue. As Americans, we find communism profoundly repugnant as a negation of personal freedom and dignity. But we can still hail the Russian people for their many achievements—in science and space, in economic and industrial growth, in culture and in acts of courage.
He continued,
Among the many traits the peoples of our two countries have in common, none is stronger than our mutual abhorrence of war. Almost unique among the major world powers, we have never been at war with each other. And no nation in the history of battle ever suffered more than the Soviet Union suffered in the course of the Second World War. At least 20 million lost their lives. Countless millions of homes and farms were burned or sacked. A third of the nation’s territory, including nearly two thirds of its industrial base, was turned into a wasteland—a loss equivalent to the devastation of this country east of Chicago.
No American president before Kennedy, nor after, spoke with such candour and empathy about Russian people and their sacrifice during the war against Nazi Germany. Kennedy was a patriot tested in war with an older brother, Joseph, a navy pilot killed in action during a hazardous bombing mission over Germany. It could not be said about him what was said about his father, Joseph Kennedy Sr, President Franklin Roosevelt’s ambassador to Britain before the war, being an appeaser of the German dictator. Kennedy’s own experience of war made him frankly acknowledge the contribution made by Soviet Union in defeating Hitler’s Germany. What this immense contribution meant was described by Ernest Hemingway, the American novelist and Nobel laureate, in words attributed to him, “Anyone who loves freedom owes such a debt to the Red Army that it can never be repaid.” Kennedy’s public acknowledgement of the sufferings of Russian people at war was also his reminding Americans that Soviet Union had been an ally of America, and that people of both countries could come together for making the world safe by reaching deep into the better part of their common humanity. He spoke earnestly,
So, let us not be blind to our differences—but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.
The ground was well prepared by Kennedy ahead of his speech to set in motion the initial steps for an eventual agreement on nuclear disarmament and bringing an end to the Cold War. The cables exchanged between Kennedy and Khrushchev during the thirteen days of the Cuban missile crisis had also sown the seeds of trust and respect between the two leaders. Then the private communications between them through their intermediaries, such as Norman Cousins for the president, generated enough goodwill to indicate both were ready despite the animus of Cold War politics to negotiate the preliminary practical steps in peacemaking between the two countries. These steps Kennedy announced in his speech.
First, he called for a comprehensive test ban treaty “to outlaw nuclear tests.” He said such a treaty “would check the spiraling arms race in one of its most dangerous areas. It would place the nuclear powers in a position to deal more effectively with one of the greatest hazards which man faces in 1963, the further spread of nuclear arms.” And secondly, he declared that “the United States does not propose to conduct nuclear tests in the atmosphere so long as other states do not do so. We will not be the first to resume. Such a declaration is no substitute for a formal binding treaty, but I hope it will help us achieve one. Nor would such a treaty be a substitute for disarmament, but I hope it will help us achieve it.”
In announcing these measures as the opening moves in the long and difficult path of ending the Cold War and securing peace among nations, Kennedy was also setting the marker for his presidency ahead of the campaign for re-election the following year. In 1960 Kennedy’s campaign for the presidency against the Republican nominee, Vice President Richard Nixon, was one focused on ending the “missile gap” between the United States and Soviet Union which, it was claimed, had arisen during the two terms of the Eisenhower-Nixon administration. It turned out that the assessment of the “missile gap” on which Kennedy relied to highlight the weakness of Republicans in the White House was misleading. The Cuban missile crisis of October 1962, however, had dramatically altered the political landscape domestically and globally going forward toward the November 1964 presidential election. It also brought what was latent within Kennedy into the open, the intent to continue being the leader guiding America into the New Frontier of “science and space, unsolved problems of peace and war, unconquered problems of ignorance and prejudice, unanswered questions of poverty and surplus” that he had declaimed in his acceptance speech as the Democratic party nominee in 1960, but with greater urgency since he together with Khrushchev had glimpsed the infernal fate of mankind if nations armed with nuclear weapons were tempted by miscalculation, folly or hubris to unleash them. The quest for peace, therefore, in the aftermath of the Cuban missile crisis took precedence for Kennedy in moving ahead with the agenda of the New Frontier. And so, in summing up he said,
All this is not unrelated to world peace. “When a man’s ways please the Lord,” the Scriptures tell us, “he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.” And is not peace, in the last analysis, basically a matter of human rights—the right to live out our lives without fear of devastation—the right to breathe air as nature provided it—the right of future generations to a healthy existence?
While we proceed to safeguard our national interests, let us also safeguard human interests. And the elimination of war and arms is clearly in the interest of both. No treaty, however much it may be to the advantage of all, however tightly it may be worded, can provide absolute security against the risks of deception and evasion. But it can—if it is sufficiently effective in its enforcement and if it is sufficiently in the interests of its signers—offer far more security and far fewer risks than an unabated, uncontrolled, unpredictable arms race.
The American University speech, Sorensen wrote in his biography of Kennedy, was largely underplayed by the American press and then forgotten, whereas England’s Manchester Guardian called it “one of the great state papers of American history.” Republican leadership in the Congress characterized the proposals as dreadful mistake, while some Democrats responded with lukewarm support and cautious skepticism. But the official Soviet press published Kennedy’s speech in its entirety, as well as broadcasting it after years of censorship and uninterrupted jamming of radio broadcasts from the West. Khrushchev was noted telling Averell Harriman, the president’s emissary to Moscow, that it was “the best speech by any President since Roosevelt.”
Six weeks after the June 10 speech on July 25, Kennedy initialed the Limited Test Ban Treaty that his administration proposed and negotiated with Moscow after consultations with America’s European allies. Then began his full-court press to get the necessary votes in the Senate for the treaty’s ratification. The hurdle to get the two-thirds majority in the Senate the president knew was steep, but he was undeterred. He also knew the military brass were strongly opposed to any limitations of nuclear arms. According to David Talbot, the president told Norman Cousins and some of his key supporters that “some generals believed the only solution for any crisis situation was to start dropping the big bombs.” The US Air Force Chief of Staff, General Curtis LeMay, was known to be opposed to Kennedy’s views during the Cuban missile crisis and had pushed for bombing the missile sites in Cuba. In the end the Senate voted on September 24, and with the margin of 80 votes for and 19 votes against the first major arms control agreement in the nuclear age was ratified. Sorensen recalled, “No other accomplishment in the White House ever gave Kennedy greater satisfaction.”
Two months less two days after the Senate ratification of the test ban treaty, Kennedy was killed. The warmongers of the military-industrial complex and the warprofiteers of the finance-banking complex got their hirelings from America’s underworld murder in broad daylight the 35th president of the United States in Dallas, Texas, and then physically eliminate while held in police custody Lee Harvey Oswald, the patsy set-up as the alleged lone assassin of the president. Kennedy’s murder was crime of the century, and with it the American myth began rotting in a miasma of unending lies and crimes of the Deep State that a new generation of Americans have awakened to. It was the inflection point in the transition of the constitutional republic into a vile rogue state and lawless unipolar hegemon. John Fitzgerald Kennedy could not have alone put the nuclear genie back into its bottle but his, a prince among peacemakers, was the noblest effort made as if in atonement for the only country that had twice used atomic bombs in war.
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June 7, 2023
The military industrial complex know no bounds or mercy. RFK Jr. is a breath of Classical Liberal fresh air, and if history is any indication, possibly not long for this earth.
Brilliant synopsis Salim.
Excellent essay, Salim. I have come to appreciate RF Kennedy Jr, he has many remarkable stories about his uncle, as well as his dad, on his podcast, about their quest for peace that . I think I had been influenced by the main stream media who desired to taint the history and memory of John and Robert, probably at the bequest of the Military Industrial Complex and the CIA.