Darrell Castle talks about the 60th anniversary of President John Kennedy's speech given at American University on June 10, 1963, in which he made a dramatic call for peace -- a watershed moment in American politics and foreign policy.
Transcription / Notes
THE PEACE SPEECH PLUS 60 YEARS
Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 23rd day of June in the year of our Lord 2023. I will be talking about the 60th anniversary of President John Kennedy’s speech given at American University on June 10th, 1963, in which he made a dramatic call for peace. I argue that the speech was a watershed moment in American politics and foreign policy because the organization in control of those things hated and feared peace as much in 1963 as it does now.
What was President Kennedy trying to do? What kind of peace did he seek—he tells us.
“Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace 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.”
“I speak of peace as the necessary, rational end of rational men. I realize that the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war—and frequently the words of the pursuer of peace fall on deaf ears. But we have no more urgent task.”
Weird as it may seem, the desire for peace put the Kennedys, Jack, and Bobby, at war with the most powerful force on this earth. President Eisenhower, who knew a thing or two about war, warned the American people about it in his farewell speech in 1961, and one must assume that he personally warned President Kennedy about what he was facing. The force was what Eisenhower referred to as the military industrial complex, but what we today might refer to as the military, security, intelligence, industrial complex.
Kennedy’s pursuit of peace, which the media often referred to as Camelot, came to a quick end, almost before it could get started. On October 11, 1963, just four months after the speech President Kennedy apparently, according to biographers and to his brother Bobby, bypassed his own National Security Council and issued National Security Memorandum 263, ordering the withdrawal of the 1000 US military advisors from Vietnam by the end of 1963. His plan was not allowed to happen because just 6 weeks later he was dead and the first act of LBJ after taking the oath of office was to countermand Kennedy’s memorandum.
Dr. Ron Paul, in his article, We Need a Peace President, commends the diplomacy of Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crises. “Fortunately, we had a president in the White House at the time who understood the dangers of nuclear brinksmanship. Even though he was surrounded by hawks who could never forgive him for aborting the idiotic Bay of Pigs Cuba invasion, President John F. Kennedy picked up the telephone for a discussion with his Soviet counterpart, Nikita Khrushchev, which eventually saved the world.”
Yes, we know today that Kennedy made a deal with Khrushchev to remove US missiles from Northern Turkey which were right across the Black Sea and visible to Russia on a clear day and Khrushchev removed the Russian missiles from Cuba. Perhaps still today the most clear and shining example of how diplomacy can work if used properly. It is all too clear that we do not have a John Kennedy in the White House today to stop us from taking an unnecessarily confrontational tone towards Russia.
The world was different in 1963 and the United States was different. We were young and had just come from victory in a world war, and there was nothing we could not accomplish. John Kennedy, a genuine war hero in the White House, knew just how powerful the organization which ...