Kennedy's Peace Speech and Today

[W. Niederhut]

1 hour ago, Paul Brancato said:

William - is that a turn around position for you? In any case I agree, and have been repeating here and elsewhere usually to the chagrin of whomever I’m talking to. Do you agree that a deal was in reach early, when the former Israeli PM stepped in to negotiate? 

Paul,

    When Putin shocked everyone by invading Ukraine, I agreed with the concept of U.S. and NATO support for Ukrainian sovereignty-- if it could be done judiciously, without escalating to WWIII.  I also expressed regret that more wasn't done to prevent a war.

    At this point, it looks like a bloody stalemate that is accomplishing nothing of value-- so, if Putin is open to negotiations, I think a peace agreement should be pursued, rather than further escalation.

    Also, Biden taunting Putin seems, frankly, stupid.

[Ken Davies]

Well said, my friend.  Senseless slaughter dehumanizes us all.

[Michael Griffith]

On 7/28/2023 at 4:36 PM, Gerry Down said:

Don't all presidents talk about peace? I mean, what person was ever elected president promising war?

To play devils advocate, wasn't Trumps visit to North Korea an attempt at peace? To cool down tensions with North Korea? Didn't Nixon reach out to communist China to ensure peace and he also ended the Vietnam war? Didn't Reagan reach out to Gorbachev to ensure peace (a follow on from JFKs peace speech promise)? Those were arguably real actions while JFKs peace speech was, well, a speech. 

Why is JFK portrayed as the only president that advocated for peace?

Gerry, you obviously have not gotten the JFKA research community memo that insists that all Republican presidents since the 1920s have been warmongers, tyrants, and robber barons (if not fascists).

If we read the American University speech with any care, we quickly see that it was not the hugs-and-kisses dovish speech that liberals paint it as being. Furthermore, liberals ignore the fact that JFK gave the very hawkish Berlin speech after the American University speech. They also forget the speech that JFK gave in Fort Worth hours before he was killed, which included the following statements:

          Three years ago last September I came here, with the Vice President, and spoke at Burke Burnett Park, and I called, in that speech, for a national security policy and a national security system which was second to none--a position which said not first, but, if, when and how, but first. That city responded to that call as it has through its history. And we have been putting that pledge into practice ever since. . . .

          In the past 3 years we have increased the defense budget of the United States by over 20 percent; increased the program of acquisition for Polaris submarines from 24 to 41; increased our Minuteman missile purchase program by more than 75 percent; doubled the number of strategic bombers and missiles on alert; doubled the number of nuclear weapons available in the strategic alert forces; increased the tactical nuclear forces deployed in Western Europe by over 60 percent; added five combat ready divisions to the Army of the United States, and five tactical fighter wings to the Air Force of the United States; increased our strategic airlift capability by 75 percent; and increased our special counter-insurgency forces which are engaged now in South Viet-Nam by 600 percent. I hope those who want a stronger America and place it on some signs will also place those figures next to it.

          This is not an easy effort. This requires sacrifice by the people of the United States. But this is a very dangerous and uncertain world. As I said earlier, on three occasions in the last 3 years the United States has had a direct confrontation. No one can say when it will come again. No one expects that our life will be easy, certainly not in this decade, and perhaps not in this century. But we should realize what a burden and responsibility the people of the United States have borne for so many years. Here, a country which lived in isolation, divided and protected by the Atlantic and the Pacific, uninterested in the struggles of the world around it, here in the short space of 18 years after the Second World War, we put ourselves, by our own will and by necessity, into defense of alliances with countries all around the globe.

          Without the United States, South Viet-Nam would collapse overnight. Without the United States, the SEATO alliance would collapse overnight. Without the United States the CENTO alliance would collapse overnight. Without the United States there would be no NATO. And gradually Europe would drift into neutralism and indifference. Without the efforts of the United States in the Alliance for Progress, the Communist advance onto the mainland of South America would long ago have taken place.

          So this country, which desires only to be free, which desires to be secure, which desired to live at peace for 18 years under three different administrations, has borne more than its share of the burden, has stood watch for more than its number of years. I don't think we are fatigued or tired. We would like to live as we once lived. But history will not permit it. The Communist balance of power is still strong. The balance of power is still on the side of freedom. We are still the keystone in the arch of freedom, and I think we will continue to do as we have done in our past, our duty. . . .

Edited August 3, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[Gerry Down]

On 8/3/2023 at 1:00 PM, Michael Griffith said:

If we read the American University speech with any care, we quickly see that it was not the hugs-and-kisses dovish speech that liberals paint it as being. Furthermore, liberals ignore the fact that JFK gave the very hawkish Berlin speech after the American University speech. They also forget the speech that JFK gave in Fort Worth hours before he was killed

Nice list of key speeches. JFK truly was a cold warrior. Though he almost certainly would not have gone as crazy in Vietnam as Johnson allowed things to go. 

[Kirk Gallaway]

1 hour ago, Gerry Down said:

Nice list of key speeches. JFK truly was a cold warrior. Though he almost certainly would not have gone as crazy in Vietnam as Johnson allowed things to go. 

 i agree,

Of course JFK was a cold warrior. It's pretty naive to think JFK was much different than any politician, talking out of both sides of his mouth depending on  his audience.

Michael has produced a number of other excerpts from speeches of the period and he's met with the stunned silence of a rather tribal consciousness that posits JFK was infallible Catholic saint, which IMO has really been a very obstructionist element on this forum for years.

By hearing historic accounts from people around of JFK, they are so glowing so as not to seem real, at least to me. I don't think anybody really knew JFK. By saying that I don't mean to get in any embroiled conversation about his personal life, but that includes his wife and i would suspect the person who knows him best is his brother, who was still 8 years younger, and I've personally never uncovered any evidence that he ever tried to penetrated many of the deeper motivations behind what JFK did, but of course, how can we know? 

[Paul Brancato]

Nonsense. Has anyone here read his private communications with Krushchev? Think any other president dared to go behind the lines like this? To agree to a withdrawal of missiles from Turkey? Sure, the public persona will contain tailored speeches. But his record in Congress - do I have to quote his 1951 Indochina Speech, or his 1957 Algeria speech? 
Why the heck are you even here Kirk, or Michael? Or numerous others - you don’t understand the man whose death we honor here. You don’t understand why it’s important, why we continue to care. The man who fired Allen Dulles and others after the Bay of Pigs, where he refused to provide air cover or do anything to save the doomed invasion which he did not originate. The man who sent more US troops to ensure James Meredith’s admission to College than there were US advisors in VN at the time of his death. You say Jim, and myself, cherry-pick in order to paint a rosy picture of the man as being different than his predecessors and followers? It’s you who cherry-pick in order to disprove the obvious - that he was a peace lover trying to end the Cold War. Apparently you are all fine with the continual wars. Would you have rooted for the JCS when they proposed Northwoods, or presented a plan to totally annihilate the Soviet Union in 1963? 

Edited August 5, 2023 by Paul Brancato

[Robert Montenegro]

On 7/28/2023 at 7:08 PM, James DiEugenio said:

Has any president since ever made a speech like JFK did at American University?

Am I missing something?

I mean actually accenting what Russia lost during WW 2 and comparing it with an equivalent loss in the USA?

 

That is the most important aspect of President Kennedy's peace speech at American University.

 

Not Roosevelt, Truman, nor Eisenhower ever publicly acknowledged the catastrophic losses the peoples of the Soviet Union suffered against the tyranny of fascism—an acknowledgement that was made all the more palpable, because President Kennedy's Department of Defense and Central Intelligence Agency was filled to the brim with fascist war-criminals who were directly involved with the horrors of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe and Russia! 

 

No matter how flawed RFK Jr. may be, at least he is willing to speak truth to power—now the matter of whether or not he'll follow thru is a very serious contingency...

 

 

Edited August 5, 2023 by Robert Montenegro

[Gerry Down]

7 minutes ago, Robert Montenegro said:

 

That is the most important aspect of President Kennedy's peace speech at American University.

 

Not Roosevelt, Truman, nor Eisenhower ever publicly acknowledged the catastrophic losses the peoples of the Soviet Union suffered against the tyranny of fascism—an acknowledgement that was made all the more palpable, because President Kennedy's Department of Defense and Central Intelligence Agency was filled to the brim with fascist war-criminals who were directly involved with the horrors of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe and Russia! 

 

No matter how flawed RFK Jr. may be, at least he is willing to speak truth to power—now the matter of whether or not he'll follow thru is a very serious contingency...

 

 

The USSR took nazi war criminals too after the war to help boost their industries. In fact they were fighting tooth and nail to get them before the US did.

[Robert Montenegro]

25 minutes ago, Gerry Down said:

The USSR took nazi war criminals too after the war to help boost their industries. In fact they were fighting tooth and nail to get them before the US did.

 

The USSR also wanted to hold war-crime tribunals for about ten-thousand members of the Einsatzgruppen, the bulk of whom ended up in the hands of MI6 and CIA—please note, Einsatzgruppen were not scientists, they were mass-murders.

 

And one has to ask themselves, would the Cold War had ever of taken place if goons like Allen Dulles weren't making secret surrender deals behind Roosevelt's back with Nazi high-command?

 

Consider the words of economist John Kenneth Galbraith, who had known Dulles when Dulles served as the CIA director in the 1950s:

 

 

QUOTE—

 

"...a master of disastrous ineptitude. In those months he sent Gary Powers over the Paris Summit, helped overthrow the neutralist government of Souvanna Phouma in Laos (which later had to be restored) and was the man in charge of the organization that was responsible for perhaps the greatest foul-up in our history, the Bay of Pigs...These were not the achievements of a shrewd or even a halfway intelligent administrator. Nor was shrewdness the quality remarked upon by those of us without organizational loyalty who knew him in those years. While such judgments should be offered (and received) with caution, by some, certainly, he was thought amiable, agreeable but mentally very, very dim. Perhaps in the most charitable view, he had passed his best by the time of his great fiascos...beyond doubt that he had not only passed his best but that his best had never been. Never, not even in the Bay of Pigs, was his capacity for detached misjudgment more disastrous than in his management of Operation Sunrise, as the Wolff negotiations were called...He wanted to go out with a bang. Those who have thought he was foreseeing the Cold War and those who thought he was helping to cause it were both wrong. He was just being Allen Dulles..."

 

—END QUOTE

 

 

Even John Kenneth Galbraith felt that the Cold War may have never taken place is Allen Dulles wasn't busy protecting administrators of the Holocaust against the Soviet Union!

 

Perhaps the Soviets were simply being reactionary—watching someone like Dulles doing what he did, committing treason against the orders of President Roosevelt, who gave the order to all field commanders that the Nazis were to only surrender under unconditional terms!

 

I don't know why that aspect of history is so readily shunted to the dustbin by researchers and historians.

 

I guess we are living in the age of argumentative "what-about-ism" though...

 

 

 

Edited August 5, 2023 by Robert Montenegro

[Ron Bulman]

6 hours ago, Robert Montenegro said:

Even John Kenneth Galbraith felt that the Cold War may have never taken place is Allen Dulles wasn't busy protecting administrators of the Holocaust against the Soviet Union!

 

Perhaps the Soviets were simply being reactionary—watching someone like Dulles doing what he did, committing treason against the orders of President Roosevelt, who gave the order to all field commanders that the Nazis were to only surrender under unconditional terms!

 

I don't know why that aspect of history is so readily shunted to the dustbin by researchers and historians.

Thanks for the Gailbreath part, I'd never read it.  Regarding that last bit in bold, I've thought Dulles guilty of treason in multiple respects for years now.  I've come to wonder if he ever met Otto Skorzeny in person, back in the day, before the JFKA.

[Robert Montenegro]

1 minute ago, Ron Bulman said:

Thanks for the Gailbreath part, I'd never read it.  Regarding that last bit in bold, I've thought Dulles guilty of treason in multiple respects for years now.  I've come to wonder if he ever met Otto Skorzeny in person, back in the day, before the JFKA.

 

I could not tell you if Allen Welsh Dulles ever met Otto Skorzeny.

 

However, Allen Dulles did know and meet with SS-Brigadeführer Walter Friedrich Schellenberg, commander of all SS-Einsatzgruppen units from 1941 to 1945, and from 1942 to the end of the war, the Chief of Amt VI, Ausland-SD and the immediate supervisor of SS-Obersturmbannführer Otto Skorzeny.

 

It stands to reason if Dulles was on good terms with SS-Brigadeführer Schellenberg, why not Schellenberg's immediate subordinate, SS-Obersturmbannführer Skorzeny?

 

 

[Benjamin Cole]

6 minutes ago, Robert Montenegro said:

 

I could not tell you if Allen Welsh Dulles ever met Otto Skorzeny.

 

However, Allen Dulles did know and meet with SS-Brigadeführer Walter Friedrich Schellenberg, commander of all SS-Einsatzgruppen units from 1941 to 1945, and from 1942 to the end of the war, the Chief of Amt VI, Ausland-SD and the immediate supervisor of SS-Obersturmbannführer Otto Skorzeny.

 

It stands to reason if Dulles was on good terms with SS-Brigadeführer Schellenberg, why not Schellenberg's immediate subordinate, SS-Obersturmbannführer Skorzeny?

 

 

Fascinating. I hope you do a post on the nature and purpose of these meetings. One on one? Larger confabs? On what topics?

Did Dulles meet with Schellenberg after Germany declared war on the US (Dec. 11, 1945)? 

 

[James DiEugenio]

BTW, and let us never forget this.

Kennedy's Peace Speech was made within 48 hours of his great civil rights speech.

I have always thought this was amazing.

How many presidents make two speeches like this in their entire career?  Let alone in 48 hours.

Let us also not forget, JFK spoke extemporaneously at  the end of the civil rights speech.

IMO, that speech was the greatest on the subject since Lincoln.

And no president has ever come close to the Peace Speech as far as the Cold War goes.

PS The guy who wrote the first draft of the civil rights speech was the brilliant novelist Richard Yates: Revolutionary Road.

Edited August 6, 2023 by James DiEugenio

[Robert Montenegro]

2 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Fascinating. I hope you do a post on the nature and purpose of these meetings. One on one? Larger confabs? On what topics?

Did Dulles meet with Schellenberg after Germany declared war on the US (Dec. 11, 1945)? 

 

 

I already posted on those meetings:

 

 

[Robert Montenegro]

2 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

BTW, and let us never forget this.

Kennedy's Peace Speech was made within 48 hours of his great civil rights speech.

I have always thought this was amazing.

How many presidents make two speeches like this in their entire career?  Let alone in 48 hours.

Let us also not forget, JFK spoke extemporaneously at  the end of the civil rights speech.

IMO, that speech was the greatest on the subject since Lincoln.

And no president has ever come close to the Peace Speech as far as the Cold War goes.

 

Incredible.

 

 

Edited August 6, 2023 by Robert Montenegro