Randolph
Benson
And We
Are All Mortal:
A
Commemoration of the 60th anniversary of JFK’s American University “Peace
Speech”
Delivered
by Randolph Benson
12 Noon,
June 10, 2023
We
gather today to commemorate the 60th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's American
University commencement address, also known as his "Peace Speech",
here at the very spot of the speech.
This
gathering was first held in 1999 by Coalition on Political Assassinations
co-founders John Judge and Bill Kelly, and longtime COPA board member, T
Carter. I first came in 2002, where I filmed the first frames of my film The Searchers.
John Judge held this every year until his death in April 2014. While no one can
possibly replace John, as a former member of COPA and a mentee of John’s, I
felt it was important to continue this tradition, and I’ve held this every year
since John’s death and will continue to do so as long as I’m able.
In the
spring of 1963 President Kennedy began to feel that there was a possibility for
some kind of new movement in our relations with the Soviet Union. He began to
look for an opportunity to make what was described by National Security Advisor
McGeorge Bundy as a “peace speech.” This was a project that was kept extremely
confidential in the White House. Bundy began in a quiet way to get from two or
three members of the White House staff ideas which might go into such a speech.
Speechwriter and presidential advisor Ted Sorensen worked on it. The president
thought a great deal about it, talked with Sorensen and Bundy and made clear
the point of view and the ideas that he wanted.
A draft
of the speech emerged and it was shown to a small group in the White House. The
president had been in Hawaii and on the Friday before the Monday commencement
Ted Sorensen flew to Honolulu with the draft of the speech and the president
worked on his final revisions on his way back to Washington.
According
to Presidential historian Arthur Schlesinger, the speech was not shown to the
State Department or to the Defense Department until two days before the speech.
At noon
on Monday, June 10, 1963 Kennedy addressed the graduating class of American
University delivering the following words (abridged):
There
are few earthly things more beautiful than a university wrote John Masefield
and his tribute to English universities and his words are equally true today.
He didn't refer to spires or towers, to campus dreams and ivied walls.
Masefield admired the splendid beauty of the university, he said, because it
was “a place where those who hate ignorance may strive to know, for those who
perceive truth may strive to make others see.”
I have
therefore chosen this time in this place to discuss a topic on which ignorance
too often abounds and the truth is too rarely perceived. Yet it is the most
important topic on earth: world peace. What kind of peace do I mean and what
kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana, forced on the world by American
weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I'm
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 because of the new face of war.
First
let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it's
impossible. Too many think it’s unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist
belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable, that mankind is
doomed and that we are gripped by forces we cannot control. We need not accept
that view. Our problems are man-made therefore they can be solved by man; and
man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human
beings. Man's reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable and
we believe they can do it again.
There is
no single, simple key to this peace; no grand or magic formula to be adopted by
one or two powers. Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the sum
of many acts. It must be dynamic, not static, changing to meet the challenge of
each new generation. For peace is a process -- a way of solving problems.
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.
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 end 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.
We shall
also do our part to build a world of peace where the weak are safe and the
strong are just. We are not helpless before that task or hopeless of its
success. Confident and unafraid, we must labor on -- not towards a strategy of
annihilation but towards a strategy of peace.
This
speech was immediately to become known around the world as JFK’s Peace Speech.
This speech received very little coverage in the news here in the United
States, however it was front page news in papers around the world. In fact,
Soviet Premier Kruschev ordered the speech to appear of the front page of the
state newspaper, Pravda.
JFK then
aggressively initiated a number of unilateral policy changes in line with what
he expressed in this speech:
On June
28, JFK signed and had delivered to the Joint Chiefs of Staff National Security
Action Memorandums – NSAMs - 55, 56, 57, which ordered:
The
Joint Chiefs of Staff would be wholly responsible for all covert and
paramilitary actions in peacetime, which was effectively removing all power
from the CIA and placing it within the Pentagon, who answered directly to the
President, with all of the oversight of the Executive and Legislative branches.
This has
been accepted as JFK’s first step in “splintering the CIA into a thousand
pieces and scattering them into the winds”, as he said he would after the Bay
of Pigs in 1961.
On
August 5, representatives of the United States, Soviet Union and Great Britain
signed the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which prohibited the testing of
nuclear weapons in outer space, underwater or in the atmosphere.
On
September 20, President John F. Kennedy gave a speech at the United Nations
that proposed converting the “moon race” to a cooperative venture with the
Soviet Union.
On
September 21, JFK ordered the evaluation of massive wheat sales to the Soviet
Union, and talks began between our two countries on September 30 and lasted
until November 5. The agreement had then begun its process of inter- and
intra-governmental review.
On
October 11, he signed NSAM 263, and delivered it to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
It reads, in part:
At a
meeting on October 5, 1963, the President considered the recommendations
contained in the report of Secretary McNamara and General Taylor on their
mission to South Vietnam.
The
President approved the... implementation of plans to withdraw 1,000 U.S.
military personnel by the end of 1963. We recommend that:
A
program be established to train Vietnamese so
that
essential functions now performed by U.S. military personnel can be carried out
by Vietnamese by the end of 1965. It should be possible to withdraw the bulk of
U.S. personnel by that time.
President
Kennedy was assassinated about six weeks later, on November 22. On November 26,
just four days after the assassination, the new president, Lyndon Johnson,
signed NSAM 273 which reversed Kennedy’s Vietnam withdrawal policy, approved an
expansion of America’s involvement in the Vietnam war and approved covert
military and non-military action into Cambodia and Laos, which put the CIA back
in its pre-NSAM 263 position.
In the
following months, the wheat sales were scrapped, nuclear testing re-started,
the expansion of the military state accelerated as well as the war in Vietnam.
However,
on this spot, at the moment, 60 years ago, President John F. Kennedy gave us
his vision for peace. For that he was murdered. For that, we must find common
ground, acknowledge our shared humanity, and work together. As JFK stated,
“confident and unafraid, we must labor on...towards a strategy of peace”.
Thank
you.
