The Legacy of JFK's Peace Speech

Max Blumenthal on Kennedy's vision for America's role in the world — an approach that has gone missing

I just came across this video put out by the JFK Peace Speech Committee of Boston Community Church, and I had to post it because it speaks to what President John F. Kennedy’s assassination cost the country and the world.

The committee has a monthly screening of JFK's riveting June 10, 1963 speech at American University, which called for nuclear de-escalation and urged Americans to understand the Soviet perspective in the Cold War. The path to true world peace, Kennedy declared, was not a Pax Americana. Idealistic yet realistic, Kennedy declared the leadership of the United States should not seek to dominate or determine outcomes but to wind down the nuclear confrontation and pursue peaceful coexistence with other nations and political systems. The vision and the man died in Dallas.

Blumenthal frames Kennedy’s speech as a warning against the regime change wars the U.S. has waged after the end of the first Cold War, and the revival of military brinksmanship with Russia and other official enemies. It’s a fair reading. As a candidate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said America seems to have forgotten his uncle’s dictum, “the president’s job is to keep the peace.” I was not an RFK voter (because I sensed he was going to throw in with Trump) but his message about rampant militarism was (to me) the most attractive aspect of his candidacy. Now America is funding two huge wars and neither candidate (or RFK Jr.) is talking about peace, only red/blue variations on a Pax Americana. JFK’s vision, says Blumenthal, has gone missing and the world is more violent because of it.

And what Blumenthal says about 9/11 is true. The fact that two of 19 hijackers were shielded by the CIA when they entered the country in January 2000 is based on multiple on-the-record statements of pissed-off FBI agents who worked with the CIA’s counterterrorism center before 9/11. To wit: This is no “conspiracy theory.” Two ace reporters have the lowdown: Dan Christensen of The Florida Bulldog, and Seth Hettena at SpyTalk.