"Peace for All Time": JFK's Historic 1963 Call for Peace Helped Lead to Nuke Treaty with Moscow

this is democracy Now democracynow.org The War and Peace report I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez 60 years ago this week President John F Kennedy gave an historic speech at the height of the Cold War calling for peace and a re-evaluation of relations with the Soviet Union just weeks after Kennedy's speech Washington and Moscow signed the partial nuclear Test Ban Treaty this is part of what President Kennedy said June 10 1963 during a commencement address at American University in Washington D.C I have therefore chosen this time and place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth too rarely perceived and that is the most important topic on Earth peace what kind of a piece do I mean and what kind of a peace do we seek not a Pax Americana enforced in 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 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 in all time I speak of Peace because of the new face of War Total War makes no sense in an age where great powers can maintain Lodge and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces it makes no sense in an age where a single nuclear weapon contains almost 10 times the explosive force delivered by all the Allied Air Forces in the Second World War 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 a generation's yet Unborn today the expenditure of billions of dollars every year on weapons acquired for the purpose of making sure we never need them is essential to the keeping of peace but surely the acquisition of such idle stockpiles which can only destroy and never create is not the only much less the most efficient means of assuring peace I speak of Peace therefore as a necessary rational end of rational management I realize the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of War and frequently the words of the pursuers fall on deaf ears but we have no more urgent tasks some say that it is useless to speak of peace all World law a world disarmament and that it will be useless until the leaders of the Soviet Union adopt a more enlightened attitude I hope they do I believe we can help them do it but I also believe that we must re-examine our own attitudes 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 towards the possibilities of peace towards the Soviet Union towards the course of the Cold War and towards freedom and peace here at home first examine our attitude towards peace itself too many of us think it is impossible too many think it is unreal but that is a dangerous defeatist belief and second let us re-examine our attitude towards the Soviet Union 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 in acts of courage 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 in the Second World War at least 20 million lost their lives countless millions of homes and Families were burned or sacked a third of the nation's territory including two-thirds of its industrial base was turned into a wasteland a loss equivalent to the destruction of this country East of Chicago today should Total War ever break out again no matter how our two countries will be the primary target it is an ironic but accurate fact that the two strongest powers are the two in the most danger of devastation all we have built all we have worked for would be destroyed in the first 24 hours and even in the Cold War which brings burdens and dangers to so many countries including this nation's closest allies our two countries bear the heaviest burdens for we are both devoting massive sums of money to weapons that could be better devoted to combat ignorance poverty and disease we are both caught up in a vicious and dangerous cycle with suspicion on one side breeding suspicion on the other and new weapons be getting counter weapons in short both the United States and its allies and the Soviet Union and its allies have a mutually deep interest in a just and genuine peace and in holding the arms race agreements to this end are in the interests of the Soviet Union as well as ours and even the most hostile Nations can be relied upon to accept and keep those treaty obligations and only those treaty obligations which are in their own interest so let us not be blind to our differences but let us also direct attention to our common interests and the means by which those differences can be resolved and if we cannot and 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 futures and we are all mortal third let us re-examine our attitude towards the Cold War remembering we're not engaged in a debate seeking to pile up debating points we are not here Distributing blame or pointing the finger of judgment we must deal with the world as it is and not as it might have been at the history of the last 18 years been different we must therefore persevere in the search for peace in the hope that constructive changes within the Communist Bloc might bring Within Reach Solutions which now seem Beyond us we must conduct our Affairs in such a way that it becomes in the Communist interests to agree on a genuine peace and above all defending our own vital interests nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war to adopt that kind of cause in the nuclear age with the evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy or of a collective death wish for the world that was President John F Kennedy June 10 1963 just weeks after his speech Washington and Moscow signed the partial nuclear Test Ban Treaty Kennedy would be assassinated on November 22nd 1963 less than six months later joining us now is Katrina Van Den hoovel publisher of the nation magazine columnist for the Washington Post her new piece for responsible statecraft headlined what kind of Peace do we seek at 60 JFK speech never gets old first Katrina congratulations on receiving the Marcus Raskin award for civic and intellectual courage thank you Mark was someone who could not condone The Madness of the arms race which she was present at the creation of you know I'd like to ask you about this extraordinary speech uh Nikita Khrushchev called it the greatest speech by a U.S president since uh Franklin Delano Roosevelt the and the timeliness of it given the situation we're facing now of course then the United States was in a cold war with the Soviet Union but now it's the Russian Federation no longer communist now a an openly capital and we still have a similar confrontation you know what interests me one is when you listen to the speech first of all many people in this country would think President John F Kennedy was a subversive I'm not sure he'd be permitted on TV or some of our TV he might be demonized or slurred peace has become a subversive word in these last decades and that is a tragedy he there's reference to 18 years before as he gives a speech and that's a reference to Hiroshima Nagasaki and also the charged environment coming off of the Cuban Missile Crisis where millions of Americans did feel Hostage to the nuclear arms race that has did in a sense I mean Amy you remember one perhaps a million people in Central Park in June 1982 fighting for a freeze of the intermediate nuclear range missiles but with the waning of fear there's been a normalization in talk about using tactical nuclear weapons and this is so dangerous I think what President Kennedy's speech does and you just did an extraordinary Public Service in retrieving American history there are parts so many don't know and that speech is vital for a road map a guide a primer for today as I write in the responsible statecraft piece the Biden Administration could certainly take a page because they are so far away from this thinking in terms of the belief that military might is what is needed to resolve the critical needs of our country and the world at this time about cousins who was a an anti-nuclear and peace activist who had enormous influence on this uh on this speech the the historians have said that Kennedy did not at all alert either the CIA or The Joint Chiefs of Staff that he was about to make this speech Cuban Missile Crisis and a Bay of Pigs that he couldn't rely on the military and in that context he brought together uh not only Norman Cousins and that's an interesting Side Story because in previous administrations over time people have been brought in as mediators not officials but for example in negotiating with Cuba years before Norman Cousins was a very eminent editor of the Saturday evening post and he also had relations with Kennedy and Kennedy trusted him to speak to Khrushchev and I think that kind of negotiation can be valuable when the officials are frozen uh you know where is John Kerry is in the administration but where is John Kerry perhaps negotiating talking behind the scenes I think we want more transparency in our foreign policy but at the same time negotiations often demand a level of behind the scenes so Katrina we're speaking now as um the largest NATO air deployment exercise in its history is going on in Germany with over 10 000 participants 250 aircraft from 25 Nations Japan and Sweden not um NATO allies are also participating on this in this can you talk about the significance of this at this time and what you feel needs to happen well imagine at this juncture where there could be a track toward escalating negotiations talk instead we have as you noted the largest air exercise NATO air exercise in history and I think that is a measure of the mindset that President Kennedy warned of the militarization of the mindset now I condemned the war the brutal war in addition to what we're witnessing with NATO air exercises Amy Juan we are witnessing the probably the greatest environmental disaster in the modern history of Ukraine with the breach of the dam so there are costs that demand attention and instead were getting all these military investors continue to Hawk pedal their Wares and as President Kennedy said this is not addressing the poverty the disasters the pandemics the climate this is addressing more and more wealth money going to the arms race and that is a tragedy and one that President Kennedy alludes to in his uh great speech the speech then subsequently led to a partial nuclear Test Ban Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union well is idea of words leading to Deeds was a part of the Cold War history ironically what we've witnessed in these last years decades is the rollback of the infrastructure of Arms Control now some people look more abolitionist but the prudentialist let's say are witnessing more and more nuclear stockpiles I believe they've nuclear stockpiles according to a Swedish Institute last month have grown and what has not grown are the negotiations needed to curb the dangerous perilous Menace the bulletin of atomic scientists moved its Doomsday Clock forward to alert people but we seem to be sleepwalking or instead of sleepwalking it's all about the new lists of weapons so you know I don't agree with Ambassador Michael McFall on much I'll tell you but um a very good piece in foreign affairs noted that there is a like 300 military people in a commission are tasked with military equipment purchases there's one there's no conflict diplomatic figure tasked at this moment to trying to find a dual track way to end this war which is ravaging Ukraine and ravaging Russia and those who are serving are the poor the provincial men their men and the elites which is what this dangerous figure precaution is trying to make hay out of are doing pretty well many of the elites so this is a very difficult time internally in addition to what's happening in this country where the russophobia is afflicting the mindset of cancel you know cancel Dostoevsky cancel checkoff I mean I think this is madness and President Kennedy's words are those of a sober person a president I mean if he gave those that speech on the floor of the Capitol he'd be run off which is a measure of what we need to do to return to a sanity and restraint and a diplomatic when you know when War should be the very very very last resort which is not the case I trained abandon Hoover thank you so much for being with us publisher of the nation magazine columnist for the Washington Post her new piece for responsible statecraft will link to it what kind of Peace do we seek at 60 JFK's speech never gets old

Channel: Democracy Now!

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Length: 18min 42sec (1122 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 13 2023