By Reginald Johnson
In the
most memorable speech of his presidency, John F. Kennedy told the graduates of American
University in June of 1963 that America
had to build a peace that would not just provide security for our nation, but for
all of mankind.
“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 worth
living --- the kind that enables man 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.”
In that speech as
well, Kennedy talked of U.S.
negotiations with the Soviet Union to achieve controls
on nuclear weapons and their testing. He announced a unilateral suspension of
nuclear tests in the atmosphere, so as to promote “our primary long-range
interests” and a “general and complete disarmament.”
Essentially, the
speech was a repudiation of the Cold War.
Five months later, on November 22nd --- 52 years ago
this Sunday --- President Kennedy was assassinated, gunned own in a hail of
bullets as his motorcade drove through Dealey
Plaza in Dallas,
Texas.
A later
investigation by the Warren Commission held that one man, and one man only ----
Lee Harvey Oswald --- was the killer. Oswald was portrayed as a lonely drifter,
alienated from society and pro-communist.
But in the book
“JFK and the Unspeakable --- Why He Died, and Why It Matters,” author James. W.
Douglass maintains that elements of the U.S.
military and intelligence establishment --- enraged over Kennedy’s less
aggressive approach to dealing with Cuba
and Vietnam and
his push for peaceful relations with the Soviet Union
--- had him murdered. Oswald was only a scapegoat in a plot carried out by
other people.
Douglass, a peace
activist and Christian theologian who studied the Kennedy assassination for
years, writes that Kennedy ran afoul of high military officials and the Central
Intelligence Agency in the early 1960s, with a series of foreign policy
decisions.
The first was when Kennedy prevented direct
American assistance in the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba
by Cuban exiles aimed at overthrowing communist dictator Fidel Castro, an
invasion which was repelled by Castro’s forces. The second was in October, 1962
when Kennedy, in the eyes of the military, made too many concessions to Soviet
Premier Nikita Khrushchev during negotiations to settle the confrontation with Russia
over Soviet missile installations in Cuba.
Kennedy rejected a plan by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to launch a preemptive
attack against Cuba
(a step which would likely have triggered a nuclear war).
The third was Kennedy’s push for a nuclear
test ban; and the fourth was JFK’s order that the U.S.
slow its involvement in Vietnam,
and bring all troops home by 1965.
After that,
Douglass contends, Kennedy was a “marked man.”
Douglass shows in
the book how Lee Harvey Oswald, contrary to the myth spun by the Warren
Commission, was actually an intelligence asset, a person manipulated by the CIA
and made to look like some kooky pro-communist sympathizer who hated the United
States and hated Kennedy. The perfect fall
guy.
The author writes
that while it is clear Kennedy entered his presidency with a reputation as a
Cold War hardliner, his attitudes began to change, especially after the Cuban
Missile Crisis, when the world came perilously close to World War 111.
“John Kennedy was no saint. Nor was he an
apostle of non-violence. However, as we are called to do, he was turning. Teshuvah, “turning,” the rabbinic word
for repentance, is the explanation for Kennedy’s short-lived, contradictory
journey towards peace. He was turning from what would have been the worst
violence in history, toward a new, more peaceful possibility in his and our
lives,” Douglass wrote.
As his
administration progressed, Kennedy knew he was out of step with the views of
the military, CIA and national security team. Increasingly, he felt isolated,
Douglass writes. The author maintains that Kennedy was aware of the possibility
of a coup d’etat, and that his life might be in danger.
Nonetheless,
Kennedy was determined to move away from the prevailing Cold War ideology of
“defeating the enemy,” and towards dialogue. Douglass reports that Kennedy set
up back-door channels of communication with both Khrushchev and Fidel Castro,
trying to achieve détente.
The secret
communications between Kennedy and these leaders were facilitated by different
people, including journalists. In fact, at the moment Kennedy was shot in
Dallas, French journalist Jean Daniel, who had previously interviewed Kennedy,
was interviewing Castro in Havana,
and getting his response to Kennedy’s openness to improving relations between
the two countries.
Douglass raises the possibility that Kennedy
willingly put his life on the line for peace.
“Was John F.
Kennedy a martyr, one who in spite of his contradictions, gave his life as
witness to a new, more peaceful humanity?” he asks. Douglass doesn’t answer
that question, instead saying, “let the reader decide.”
Douglass
intersperses his writing about Kennedy and the plot to kill him, with a
discussion of the views of the Trappist monk, Thomas Merton. The connection is
that Merton, a noted Catholic theologian in the 1950s and 1960s, was writing
considerably at the time Kennedy took office about the pressing need for more
dialogue between the nuclear superpowers and a move toward disarmament, in
order to avoid a nuclear holocaust. He expressed his concerns in letters sent
to a number of major public figures of the day, including Kennedy’s
sister-in-law, Ethel Kennedy.
Merton wrote that
while he was skeptical about whether Kennedy had enough character to move away
from the Cold War mindset and towards peace, he hoped he would. It’s not known
whether any of Merton’s letters reached JFK himself.
Douglass based part
of his book title on a term that Merton coined in the mid-sixties --- “The
Unspeakable.” Merton came up with the
term as the nation was rocked by the assassinations of Kennedy, his brother
Robert, Martin Luther King and the mounting death toll in Vietnam.
“The Unspeakable”
referred to a moral depravity on the part of many of the nation’s leaders and individuals who are part of the secretive intelligence/national security apparatus. Put in
another way, Merton felt there was a moral
void on the part of people in power, a void which allows them to perpetrate
massive crimes, such as assassinations, wanton bombing of other countries and
torture, with no accountability.
But The Unspeakable
affects the nation’s citizens as well, Merton said. Lulled to sleep by a media
which rarely asks government leaders about what’s really going on and always paints a positive picture about the country's actions abroad, people
live in a “climate of denial” about the possibility that terrible things are
being done to maintain American power.
“JFK and the Unspeakable” is a remarkable book
that I recommend to everyone. While I have already read quite a bit about the
Kennedy assassination, this book gave me even more information and perspective.
The book brought home again the power and ruthlessness of our national security
state.
I was particularly
moved by Douglass’s writing on John Kennedy’s transformation from Cold War
hardliner to peace advocate.
I agree with Douglass’s assertion that we owe
a debt of gratitude to John Kennedy, and his partner in peacemaking, Nikita Khrushchev,
for taking steps to create a more peaceful relationship between the two
superpowers and for pulling the world back from nuclear annihilation.
.
