Friends,
Here, in June 1963, we see JFK calling for complete disarmament and
an end to the Cold War. I don't remember hearing anything about this
at the time. It took only four months for the powers-that-be to get
rid of him and resume their plans via LBJ.
rkm
____________________
"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 halting 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."
"We have also been talking in Geneva about other first-step
measures of arms control, designed to limit the intensity of
the arms race and to reduce the risks of accidental war. Our
primary long-range interest in Geneva, however, is general
and complete disarmament -- designed to take place by
stages, permitting parallel political developments to build
the new institutions of peace which would take the place of
arms."
--------------------------------------------------------
Original source URL:
http://honors.umd.edu/HONR269J/archive/JFK630610.html
Commencement Address
President John F. Kennedy
John M. Reeves Athletic Field, American University, Washington DC
June 10, 1963
President Anderson, members of the faculty, board of trustees,
distinguished guests, my old colleague Senator Bob Byrd, who has
earned his degree through many years of attending night law school
while I am earning mine in the next thirty minutes, ladies and
gentlemen:
It is with great pride that I participate in this ceremony of the
American University, sponsored by the Methodist Church, founded by
Bishop John Fletcher Hurst, and first opened by President Woodrow
Wilson in 1914. This is a young and growing university, but it has
already fulfilled Bishop Hurst's enlightened hope for the study of
history and public affairs in a city devoted to the making of history
and to the conduct of the public's business. By sponsoring this
institution of higher learning for all who wish to learn, whatever
their color or their creed, the Methodists of this area and the
nation deserve the nation's thanks, and I commend all those who are
today graduating.
Professor Woodrow Wilson once said that every man sent out from a
university should be a man of his nation as well as a man of his
time, and I am confident that the men and women who carry the honor
of graduating from this institution will continue to give from their
lives, from their talents, a high measure of public service and
public support.
"There are few earthly things more beautiful than a university,"
wrote John Masefield, in his tribute to English universities -- and
his words are equally true today. He did not refer to spires and
towers, to campus greens and ivied walls. He admired the splendid
beauty of the university, he said, because it was "a place where
those who hate ignorance may strive to know, where those who perceive
truth may strive to make others see."
I have, therefore, chosen this time and 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? What kind of peace do we seek? 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 because of the new face
of war. Total war makes no sense in an age when great powers can
maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse
to surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an
age when a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the
explosive force delivered by 11 of 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 to generations yet
unborn.
Today the expenditure of billions of dollars every year on weapons
acquired for the purpose of making sure we never need to use the is
essential to keeping the 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 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 fall
on deaf ears. But we have no more urgent task.
Some say that it is useless to speak of world peace or world law or
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
reexamine our own attitude -- 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 toward the possibilities of peace, toward the Soviet Union,
toward the course of the cold war and toward freedom and peace here
at home.
First: Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of
us think it is impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is a
dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is
inevitable -- that mankind is doomed -- that we are gripped by forces
we cannot control.
We need not accept that view. Our problems are manmade -- 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.
I am not referring to the absolute, infinite concept of universal
peace and good will of which some fantasies and fanatics dream. I do
not deny the value of hopes and dreams, but we merely invite
discouragement and incredulity by making that our only and immediate
goal.
Let us focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace --
based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual
evolution in human institutions -- on a series of concrete actions
and effective agreements which are in the interest of all concerned.
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.
With such a peace, there will still be quarrels and conflicting
interests, as there are within families and nations. World peace,
like community peace, does not require that each man love his
neighbor -- it requires only that they live together in mutual
tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful
settlement. And history teaches us that enmities between nations, as
between individuals, do not last forever. However fixed our likes and
dislikes may seem, the tide of time and events will often bring
surprising changes in the relations between nations and neighbors.
So let us persevere. Peace need not be impracticable, and war need
not be inevitable. By defining our goal more clearly, by making it
seem more manageable and less remote, we can help all peoples to see
it, to draw hope from it and to move irresistibly toward it.
Second: Let us reexamine our attitude toward the Soviet Union. It is
discouraging to think that their leaders may actually believe what
their propagandists write. It is discouraging to read a recent
authoritative Soviet text on Military Strategy and find, on page
after page, wholly baseless and incredible claims -- such as the
allegation that "American imperialist circles are preparing to
unleash different types of wars... that there is a very real threat
of a preventive war being unleashed by American imperialists against
the Soviet Union... [and that] the political aims of the American
imperialists are to enslave economically and politically the European
and other capitalist countries... [and] to achieve world
domination... by means of aggressive wars."
Truly, as it was written long ago: "The wicked flee when no man
pursueth." Yet it is sad to read these Soviet statements -- to
realize the extent of the gulf between us. But it is also a warning
-- a warning to the American people not to fall into the same trap as
the Soviets, not to see only a distorted and desperate view of the
other side, not to see conflict as inevitable, accommodation as
impossible and communication as nothing more than an exchange of
threats.
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 and 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 suffered in the course of the Second World War.
At least twenty million lost their lives. Countless millions of homes
and farms were burned or sacked. A third of the nation's territory,
including nearly two-thirds of its industrial base, was turned into a
wasteland -- a loss equivalent to the devastation of this country
east of Chicago.
Today, should total war ever break out again -- no matter how -- our
two countries would become the primary targets. 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 twenty-four 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 to weapons massive sums of
money that could be better devoted to combating ignorance, poverty
and disease. We are both caught up in a vicious and dangerous cycle
in which suspicion on one side breeds suspicion on the other, and new
weapons beget counterweapons.
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 halting 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 to 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 future. And we are all mortal.
Third: Let us reexamine our attitude toward the cold war, remembering
that we are 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 had the history of the last eighteen 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 Communists' interest to
agree on a genuine peace. Above all, while 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 course in the nuclear age would be
evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy -- or of a collective
death-wish for the world.
To secure these ends, America's weapons are nonprovocative, carefully
controlled, designed to deter and capable of selective use. Our
military forces are committed to peace and disciplined in
self-restraint. Our diplomats are instructed to avoid unnecessary
irritants and purely rhetorical hostility.
For we can seek a relaxation of tensions without relaxing our guard.
And, for our part, we do not need to use threats to prove that we are
resolute. We do not need to jam foreign broadcasts out of fear our
faith will be eroded. We are unwilling to impose our system on any
unwilling people -- but we are willing and able to engage in peaceful
competition with any people on earth.
Meanwhile, we seek to strengthen the United Nations, to help solve
its financial problems, to make it a more effective instrument for
peace, to develop it into a genuine world security system -- a system
capable of resolving disputes on the basis of law, of insuring the
security of the large and the small and of creating conditions under
which arms can finally be abolished.
At the same time, we seek to keep peace inside the non-Communist
world, where many nations, all of them our friends, are divided over
issues which weaken Western unity, which invite Communist
intervention or which threaten to erupt into war. Our efforts in West
New Guinea, in the Congo, in the Middle East and in the Indian
subcontinent, have been persistent and patient despite criticism from
both sides. We have also tried to set an example for others -- by
seeking to adjust small but significant differences with our own
closest neighbors in Mexico and in Canada.
Speaking of other nations, I wish to make one point clear. We are
bound to many nations by alliances. Those alliances exist because our
concern and theirs substantially overlap. Our commitment to defend
Western Europe and West Berlin, for example, stands undiminished
because of the identity of our vital interests. The United States
will make no deal with the Soviet Union at the expense of other
nations and other peoples, not merely because they are our partners,
but also because their interests and ours converge.
Our interests converge, however, not only in defending the frontiers
of freedom, but in pursuing the paths of peace. It is our hope -- and
the purpose of allied policies -- to convince the Soviet Union that
she, too, should let each nation choose its own future, so long as
that choice does not interfere with the choices of others. The
Communist drive to impose their political and economic system on
others is the primary cause of world tension today. For there can be
no doubt that, if all nations could refrain from interfering in the
self-determination of others, the peace would be much more assured.
This will require a new effort to achieve world law -- a new context
for world discussions. It will require increased understanding
between the Soviets and ourselves. And increased understanding will
require increased contact and communication. One step in this
direction is the proposed arrangement for a direct line between
Moscow and Washington, to avoid on each side the dangerous delays,
misunderstandings and misreadings of the other's actions which might
occur at a time of crisis.
We have also been talking in Geneva about other first-step measures
of arms control, designed to limit the intensity of the arms race and
to reduce the risks of accidental war. Our primary long-range
interest in Geneva, however, is general and complete disarmament --
designed to take place by stages, permitting parallel political
developments to build the new institutions of peace which would take
the place of arms. The pursuit of disarmament has been an effort of
this government since the 1920's. It has been urgently sought by the
past three Administrations. And however dim the prospects may be
today, we intend to continue this effort -- to continue it in order
that all countries, including our own, can better grasp what the
problems and possibilities of disarmament are.
The one major area of these negotiations where the end is in sight,
yet where a fresh start is badly needed, is in a treaty to outlaw
nuclear tests. The conclusion of such a treaty, so near and yet so
far, would check the spiraling arms race in one of its most dangerous
areas. It would place the nuclear powers in a position to deal more
effectively with one of the greatest hazards which man faces in 1963,
the further spread of nuclear arms. It would increase our security --
it would decrease the prospects of war. Surely this goal is
sufficiently important to require our steady pursuit, yielding
neither to the temptation to give up the whole effort nor the
temptation to give up our insistence on vital and responsible
safeguards.
I am taking this opportunity, therefore, to announce two important
decisions in this regard.
First: Chairman Khrushchev, Prime Minister Macmillan and I have
agreed that high-level discussions will shortly begin in Moscow,
looking toward early agreement on a comprehensive test ban treaty.
Our hopes must be tempered with the caution of history -- but with
our hopes go the hopes of all mankind.
Second: To make clear our good faith and solemn convictions on the
matter, I now declare that the United States does not propose to
conduct nuclear tests in the atmosphere so long as other states do
not do so. We will not be the first to resume. Such a declaration is
no substitute for a formal binding treaty, but I hope it will help us
achieve one. Nor would such a treaty be a substitute for disarmament,
but I hope it will help us achieve it.
Finally, my fellow Americans, let us examine our attitude toward
peace and freedom here at home. The quality and spirit of our own
society must justify and support our efforts abroad. We must show it
in the dedication of our own lives -- as many of you who are
graduating today will have a unique opportunity to do, by serving
without pay in the Peace Corps abroad or in the proposed National
Service Corps here at home.
But wherever we are, we must all, in our daily lives, live up to the
age-old faith that peace and freedom walk together. In too many of
our cities today, the peace is not secure because freedom is
incomplete.
It is the responsibility of the executive branch at all levels of
government -- local, state and national -- to provide and protect
that freedom for all of our citizens by all means within their
authority. It is the responsibility of the legislative branch at all
levels, wherever that authority is not now adequate, to make it
adequate. And it is the responsibility of all citizens in all
sections of this country to respect the rights of all others and to
respect the law of the land.
All this is not unrelated to world peace. "When a man's ways please
the Lord," the Scriptures tell us, "he maketh even his enemies to be
at peace with him." And is not peace, in the last analysis, basically
a matter of human rights -- the right to live out our lives without
fear of devastation -- the right to breathe air as nature provided it
-- the right of future generations to a healthy existence?
While we proceed to safeguard our national interests, let us also
safeguard human interests. And the elimination of war and arms is
clearly in the interest of both. No treaty, however much it may be to
the advantage of all, however tightly it may be worded, can provide
absolute security against the risks of deception and evasion. But it
can -- if it is sufficiently effective in its enforcement and if it
is sufficiently in the interests of its signers -- offer far more
security and far fewer risks than an unabated, uncontrolled,
unpredictable arms race.
The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war. We do
not want a war. We do not now expect a war. This generation of
Americans has already had enough -- more than enough -- of war and
hate and oppression. We shall be prepared if others wish it. We shall
be alert to try to stop it. But 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 labor on -- not toward a strategy of
annihilation but toward a strategy of peace.
--
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