We all have our own perspectives regarding the assassination and why it consumes us. We were various different ages at the time it occurred. Some were young adults, some were teens, some were students from kindergarten to high school. Some in the community were not even born and yet they are just as consumed with trying to understand what really happened and how we find ourselves more than six decades later just now beginning to have a sense of how corrupt and monstrous forces pulled off a coup d’etat in plain sight and then successfully covered it up.
I was just turned twelve and just starting junior high school which was a big step from the simplicity of elementary school. The assassination for me was a great divide between the innocence of childhood and the complexities of adulthood. It sort of mimics what the nation experienced. I have many reasons for my own dedicated interest in the subject. Because of JFK’s resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 I believe I was able to have a life. With less wisdom I’m not so sure the world would have survived. I think of the benefits of JFK’s wisdom frequently because of the nuclear threats we live with today.
Jeff, this speech now gets the recognition and praise that it deserves. And we cannot talk about it "too much." It was largely panned or ignored by the mainstream media at the time; it received faint praise at best. JFK's second best speech was delivered the very next day, on June 11, 1963: his Civil Rights Speech. Two seminal books that address the Peace Speech are "To Move the World," by Jeffrey Sachs; and "Two Days in June," by Andrew Cohen. It was a major disappointment to me that on the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination in Dallas, the keynote speaker, popular historian David McCullough, did not mention the speech AT ALL, even though several others were quoted in part. I found it most peculiar. Either David McCullough did not particularly admire JFK, or perhaps it was considered unacceptable to the establishment in Dallas to acknowledge that a man who was bucking the establishment (and traditional ways of thinking), in an attempt to change the course of American foreign policy at the height of the Cold War, was killed in their city (in other words, unseemly to even obliquely hint that his death might have been over policy, and not the random act of one deranged individual). For whatever reason, David McCullough ignored the Peace Speech on the 50th anniversary of JFK's assassination.
The American people were cheated out of the world they voted for through a violent coup d'etat. They have been cheated out of policies the oligarchy disagrees with ever since.
Don't miss Jeffrey Sachs' book featuring this speech, To Move a Nation: JFK's Quest for Peace. We'll know the 1963 coup has been reversed when a man like Jeffrey Sachs is appointed Secretary of State.
It was a very important speech, signaling to the world, including Nikita Kruschchev, a shift in President Kennedy’s position on aggressively pursuing a Cold War (and resulting arms race) with the Soviet Union. Both Kennedy and Kruschchev had been chastened by the Cuban Missile Crisis (mid October 1962) and how close this confrontation had brought the world to nuclear war. For more than seven months since that crisis, both leaders had been exploring ways to reduce tension and increase cooperation between the two superpowers, including the possibility of a Soviet-American moon landing. A number of first-rate historians have argued that the Peace Speech was part of a broader shift in Kennedy’s view on military aggression and the role of the national security state in American foreign policy. See, for example, the terrific work of Douglas Horne. It is worth thinking about how JFK’s growing disenchantment with military conflict as a chief end to US foreign policy was greeted by many powerful men in his own government.
Thanks, Nancy. JFK's shift from Cold War confrontation to detente is further vividly illustrated (beyond the Peace Speech and the Limited Test Ban Treaty) by his NSAM 271 dated November 12, 1963, which directed---ordered---the Administrator of a reluctant NASA, Jim Webb, to take the personal lead on talks with the USSR about a joint manned lunar landing program. NASA didn't give a damn about a joint lunar landing mission with the Soviets (and the Pentagon surely opposed it), but JFK was ORDERING Jim Webb to "give a damn," and to show results by December 15th, in an interim report. The NSAM unambiguously ordered Jim Webb to "assume personally the initiative and central responsibility within the government for the development of a program of substantive cooperation with the Soviet Union in the field of outer space," and directed that "These proposals should be developed with a view to their possible discussion with the Soviet Union as a direct outcome of my September 20th proposal [before the U.N. General Assembly] for broader cooperation between the United States and the USSR in outer space, including cooperation in lunar landing programs." The fact that JFK personally signed the NSAM was unusual; most NSAMs were signed by the National Security Advisor, McGeorge Bundy. (One such example was NSAM 263, ordering the Vietnam withdrawal to be completed by the end of 1965). JFK's personal signature brooked no opposition and reinforced that this was a major policy directive of his that was involved with NATIONAL SECURITY (hence, its format, in a "National Security Action Memorandum," or NSAM). GWU space historian (emeritus) John Logsdon personally belittled the importance of JFK's "joint lunar landing initiative" in the PBS documentary "Chasing the Moon" in 2019 (in an otherwise fine documentary). Logsdon's attempt to misrepresent JFK's desire for a joint lunar landing with the USSR as not very significant, or not serious, was a major error---and this opinion of his marred an otherwise sterling reputation as a Cold War space historian. Had JFK lived, he surely would have insisted on compliance by Jim Webb and NASA, and would have sold it to the public in the 1964 campaign as part of his "detente initiative." NSAM 271 made clear that the unspoken primary goal of the Apollo program---beating the Soviets to the Moon---had been pre-empted by the importance of peaceful co-existence and detente. END
Douglas, your understanding of America post 11/22/63 AND ability to quote your experiences as a Civil Servant enlighten my day! Thanks for your contribution to “We, the people . . .” and this site!!
I could not agree more Douglas. I'm convinced JFK's Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was the trigger that got him killed.
This from my belief CIA took John McCone's lead in opposing this philosophy of restraint. Next time you have a chance examine McCones move from the United States Atomic Energy Commission to CIA. (See- Spartacus Educational - John McCone) This period of McCone's work history parallels a series of events that occurred during NUMEC's diversion of SNM - Special Nuclear Materials - highly enriched U-235 - the assay of which matched the percentage of enrichment as that of Hyman Rickover's Submarine fuel. Zalmon Shapiro's NUMEC was working on production of fuel for Rickover's submarines during this time.
Note John McCone's business history during WWII s not a clean one, he was suspected and accused of being a war time profiteer.
I think that the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis (through diplomacy, and not war) was the initial trigger that launched the assassination plot, so we differ "just a bit" on that. But the Peace Speech (along with the Test Ban Treaty and "disarmament talk" by JFK in summer and fall speeches), and the not-so-secret attempts at rapprochement with Castro, were definitely "the final nails in JFK's coffin." I view the assassination plot (like Dr. John Newman does) as centered in the Pentagon, with select CIA officials acting as "willing handmaidens"---perhaps even implementing it on the ground, at an operational level, as an act of consensus with key policy-makers in the Pentagon. So the assassination, I believe, was first and foremost, revenge---primarily for (1) not bombing and invading Cuba; and revenge, secondarily, for (2) not giving the Hawks in the Pentagon (LeMay, Burchinal, and Lemnitzer) their chance for a first-strike with nuclear weapons against the USSR. (An invasion of Cuba would have provided that excuse.) Lemnitzer was a big proponent of keeping our overwhelming nuclear weapons advantage, and you may not know this, but John Newman discovered evidence that even though Lemnitzer had been relieved as Chairman of the JCS by Maxwell Taylor on October 1, 1963, Lemnitzer nevertheless stayed in Washington for some time instead of going directly over to his new job as military head of NATO, and actually attended many EXCOMM sessions in the Cabinet Room during the Missile Crisis. Lemnitzer must have been infuriated by the blockade, and by the decision to resolve the crisis through diplomatic means (instead of war). This debate about the earliest origins of the plot could go on forever between researchers, but Dr. Newman has pointed out that Oswald (the patsy) began his strange activities in Dallas circa January 1963, long before the Peace Speech was ever written or delivered. That is why I say the Peace Speech was "the final nail in JFK's coffin."
I am in Doug’s corner here on the Missile Crisis being the cornerstone of the rationale to murder President Kennedy. The peace speech, the test ban treaty, NSAM 263, and other decisions by Kennedy in the autumn 1963 were nails in the coffin or more precisely, confirmation for the executioners that the President had to die. I am less certain the plot centered primarily in the Pentagon; specific people in the CIA were critical to the plan’s creation as well as its execution. Though this distinction may be largely semantic.
Thank you, Doug, for this useful information on Kennedy’s (obviously) serious commitment to cooperation with the Soviet Union on a joint moon landing. I thought I knew a fair amount about the NASMs that Kennedy oversaw in the fall 1963. But I did not know this. As always, your contributions to this important moment in our country’s history are greatly appreciated. It is a pleasure to keep learning from you.
Thank you, Nancy, for spurring me to comment in some detail about NSAM 271. Just because the joint lunar landing never came about, many historians like John Logsdon mistakenly assume it was not serious, (or was not possible to bring to fruition). But it was serious! Combined with the Limited Test Ban Treaty, it would have been a "game changer" in reorienting the public's attitude toward the Cold War and the USSR.
I am honored to refer your readers to the research and to the published and taped analyses of the late polymath Professor George Michael Evica.
So many of today's assassination- and broader deep systems-related, breathlessly reported "discoveries" in fact were detailed by Professor Evica in his books, monographs, essays, white papers, lectures, broadcasts, and international conference presentations as far back as the 1970s.
His first book, titled "And We are All Mortal", was published by the University of Hartford nearly 50 years ago. While sadly out of print, it yet remains (for better and worse) revelatory as it qualifies as essential reading to this day. Look for it on the ABE website, where reasonably priced copies are available for purchase.
Professor Evica's final book-length study, "A Certain Arrogance", is in print. The author leverages aspects of LHO's otherwise criminally unmapped secret life to reveal how civilian and military intel agencies penetrated and manipulated liberal religious and educational institutions for, shall we say, other than benign purposes.
The most humbling, profound event in my literary career occurred when Professor Evica asked me to contribute the Introduction to "A Certain Arrogance".
Thanks, Mr. Drago, for reminding all of us of George Michael Evica's book "And We Are All Mortal." I inadvertently neglected to mention that work in my posting below.
For those interested in a detailed discussion of JFK's Peace Speech and what Jeffrey Sachs wrote about it in his book "To Move the World," you may go to this excerpt from Part 3 of my YouTube narrated powerpoint, "JFK's War with the National Security establishment": https://youtu.be/0kXp92uYLZM?t=1477
We all have our own perspectives regarding the assassination and why it consumes us. We were various different ages at the time it occurred. Some were young adults, some were teens, some were students from kindergarten to high school. Some in the community were not even born and yet they are just as consumed with trying to understand what really happened and how we find ourselves more than six decades later just now beginning to have a sense of how corrupt and monstrous forces pulled off a coup d’etat in plain sight and then successfully covered it up.
I was just turned twelve and just starting junior high school which was a big step from the simplicity of elementary school. The assassination for me was a great divide between the innocence of childhood and the complexities of adulthood. It sort of mimics what the nation experienced. I have many reasons for my own dedicated interest in the subject. Because of JFK’s resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 I believe I was able to have a life. With less wisdom I’m not so sure the world would have survived. I think of the benefits of JFK’s wisdom frequently because of the nuclear threats we live with today.
Jeff, this speech now gets the recognition and praise that it deserves. And we cannot talk about it "too much." It was largely panned or ignored by the mainstream media at the time; it received faint praise at best. JFK's second best speech was delivered the very next day, on June 11, 1963: his Civil Rights Speech. Two seminal books that address the Peace Speech are "To Move the World," by Jeffrey Sachs; and "Two Days in June," by Andrew Cohen. It was a major disappointment to me that on the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination in Dallas, the keynote speaker, popular historian David McCullough, did not mention the speech AT ALL, even though several others were quoted in part. I found it most peculiar. Either David McCullough did not particularly admire JFK, or perhaps it was considered unacceptable to the establishment in Dallas to acknowledge that a man who was bucking the establishment (and traditional ways of thinking), in an attempt to change the course of American foreign policy at the height of the Cold War, was killed in their city (in other words, unseemly to even obliquely hint that his death might have been over policy, and not the random act of one deranged individual). For whatever reason, David McCullough ignored the Peace Speech on the 50th anniversary of JFK's assassination.
The American people were cheated out of the world they voted for through a violent coup d'etat. They have been cheated out of policies the oligarchy disagrees with ever since.
Don't miss Jeffrey Sachs' book featuring this speech, To Move a Nation: JFK's Quest for Peace. We'll know the 1963 coup has been reversed when a man like Jeffrey Sachs is appointed Secretary of State.
It was a very important speech, signaling to the world, including Nikita Kruschchev, a shift in President Kennedy’s position on aggressively pursuing a Cold War (and resulting arms race) with the Soviet Union. Both Kennedy and Kruschchev had been chastened by the Cuban Missile Crisis (mid October 1962) and how close this confrontation had brought the world to nuclear war. For more than seven months since that crisis, both leaders had been exploring ways to reduce tension and increase cooperation between the two superpowers, including the possibility of a Soviet-American moon landing. A number of first-rate historians have argued that the Peace Speech was part of a broader shift in Kennedy’s view on military aggression and the role of the national security state in American foreign policy. See, for example, the terrific work of Douglas Horne. It is worth thinking about how JFK’s growing disenchantment with military conflict as a chief end to US foreign policy was greeted by many powerful men in his own government.
Thanks, Nancy. JFK's shift from Cold War confrontation to detente is further vividly illustrated (beyond the Peace Speech and the Limited Test Ban Treaty) by his NSAM 271 dated November 12, 1963, which directed---ordered---the Administrator of a reluctant NASA, Jim Webb, to take the personal lead on talks with the USSR about a joint manned lunar landing program. NASA didn't give a damn about a joint lunar landing mission with the Soviets (and the Pentagon surely opposed it), but JFK was ORDERING Jim Webb to "give a damn," and to show results by December 15th, in an interim report. The NSAM unambiguously ordered Jim Webb to "assume personally the initiative and central responsibility within the government for the development of a program of substantive cooperation with the Soviet Union in the field of outer space," and directed that "These proposals should be developed with a view to their possible discussion with the Soviet Union as a direct outcome of my September 20th proposal [before the U.N. General Assembly] for broader cooperation between the United States and the USSR in outer space, including cooperation in lunar landing programs." The fact that JFK personally signed the NSAM was unusual; most NSAMs were signed by the National Security Advisor, McGeorge Bundy. (One such example was NSAM 263, ordering the Vietnam withdrawal to be completed by the end of 1965). JFK's personal signature brooked no opposition and reinforced that this was a major policy directive of his that was involved with NATIONAL SECURITY (hence, its format, in a "National Security Action Memorandum," or NSAM). GWU space historian (emeritus) John Logsdon personally belittled the importance of JFK's "joint lunar landing initiative" in the PBS documentary "Chasing the Moon" in 2019 (in an otherwise fine documentary). Logsdon's attempt to misrepresent JFK's desire for a joint lunar landing with the USSR as not very significant, or not serious, was a major error---and this opinion of his marred an otherwise sterling reputation as a Cold War space historian. Had JFK lived, he surely would have insisted on compliance by Jim Webb and NASA, and would have sold it to the public in the 1964 campaign as part of his "detente initiative." NSAM 271 made clear that the unspoken primary goal of the Apollo program---beating the Soviets to the Moon---had been pre-empted by the importance of peaceful co-existence and detente. END
Douglas, your understanding of America post 11/22/63 AND ability to quote your experiences as a Civil Servant enlighten my day! Thanks for your contribution to “We, the people . . .” and this site!!
I could not agree more Douglas. I'm convinced JFK's Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was the trigger that got him killed.
This from my belief CIA took John McCone's lead in opposing this philosophy of restraint. Next time you have a chance examine McCones move from the United States Atomic Energy Commission to CIA. (See- Spartacus Educational - John McCone) This period of McCone's work history parallels a series of events that occurred during NUMEC's diversion of SNM - Special Nuclear Materials - highly enriched U-235 - the assay of which matched the percentage of enrichment as that of Hyman Rickover's Submarine fuel. Zalmon Shapiro's NUMEC was working on production of fuel for Rickover's submarines during this time.
Note John McCone's business history during WWII s not a clean one, he was suspected and accused of being a war time profiteer.
I think that the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis (through diplomacy, and not war) was the initial trigger that launched the assassination plot, so we differ "just a bit" on that. But the Peace Speech (along with the Test Ban Treaty and "disarmament talk" by JFK in summer and fall speeches), and the not-so-secret attempts at rapprochement with Castro, were definitely "the final nails in JFK's coffin." I view the assassination plot (like Dr. John Newman does) as centered in the Pentagon, with select CIA officials acting as "willing handmaidens"---perhaps even implementing it on the ground, at an operational level, as an act of consensus with key policy-makers in the Pentagon. So the assassination, I believe, was first and foremost, revenge---primarily for (1) not bombing and invading Cuba; and revenge, secondarily, for (2) not giving the Hawks in the Pentagon (LeMay, Burchinal, and Lemnitzer) their chance for a first-strike with nuclear weapons against the USSR. (An invasion of Cuba would have provided that excuse.) Lemnitzer was a big proponent of keeping our overwhelming nuclear weapons advantage, and you may not know this, but John Newman discovered evidence that even though Lemnitzer had been relieved as Chairman of the JCS by Maxwell Taylor on October 1, 1963, Lemnitzer nevertheless stayed in Washington for some time instead of going directly over to his new job as military head of NATO, and actually attended many EXCOMM sessions in the Cabinet Room during the Missile Crisis. Lemnitzer must have been infuriated by the blockade, and by the decision to resolve the crisis through diplomatic means (instead of war). This debate about the earliest origins of the plot could go on forever between researchers, but Dr. Newman has pointed out that Oswald (the patsy) began his strange activities in Dallas circa January 1963, long before the Peace Speech was ever written or delivered. That is why I say the Peace Speech was "the final nail in JFK's coffin."
I am in Doug’s corner here on the Missile Crisis being the cornerstone of the rationale to murder President Kennedy. The peace speech, the test ban treaty, NSAM 263, and other decisions by Kennedy in the autumn 1963 were nails in the coffin or more precisely, confirmation for the executioners that the President had to die. I am less certain the plot centered primarily in the Pentagon; specific people in the CIA were critical to the plan’s creation as well as its execution. Though this distinction may be largely semantic.
Thank you, Doug, for this useful information on Kennedy’s (obviously) serious commitment to cooperation with the Soviet Union on a joint moon landing. I thought I knew a fair amount about the NASMs that Kennedy oversaw in the fall 1963. But I did not know this. As always, your contributions to this important moment in our country’s history are greatly appreciated. It is a pleasure to keep learning from you.
Thank you, Nancy, for spurring me to comment in some detail about NSAM 271. Just because the joint lunar landing never came about, many historians like John Logsdon mistakenly assume it was not serious, (or was not possible to bring to fruition). But it was serious! Combined with the Limited Test Ban Treaty, it would have been a "game changer" in reorienting the public's attitude toward the Cold War and the USSR.
I am honored to refer your readers to the research and to the published and taped analyses of the late polymath Professor George Michael Evica.
So many of today's assassination- and broader deep systems-related, breathlessly reported "discoveries" in fact were detailed by Professor Evica in his books, monographs, essays, white papers, lectures, broadcasts, and international conference presentations as far back as the 1970s.
His first book, titled "And We are All Mortal", was published by the University of Hartford nearly 50 years ago. While sadly out of print, it yet remains (for better and worse) revelatory as it qualifies as essential reading to this day. Look for it on the ABE website, where reasonably priced copies are available for purchase.
Professor Evica's final book-length study, "A Certain Arrogance", is in print. The author leverages aspects of LHO's otherwise criminally unmapped secret life to reveal how civilian and military intel agencies penetrated and manipulated liberal religious and educational institutions for, shall we say, other than benign purposes.
The most humbling, profound event in my literary career occurred when Professor Evica asked me to contribute the Introduction to "A Certain Arrogance".
Thanks, Mr. Drago, for reminding all of us of George Michael Evica's book "And We Are All Mortal." I inadvertently neglected to mention that work in my posting below.
You're entirely welcome, Mr. Horne.
For those interested in a detailed discussion of JFK's Peace Speech and what Jeffrey Sachs wrote about it in his book "To Move the World," you may go to this excerpt from Part 3 of my YouTube narrated powerpoint, "JFK's War with the National Security establishment": https://youtu.be/0kXp92uYLZM?t=1477