Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye!

In JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters, published by Orbis Books, Maryknoll, NY, 2008, author James Douglass asks us:

Is our wariness of the truth of JFK’s assassination rooted in our fear of truth’s consequences, to him and to us? For President Kennedy, a deepening commitment to dialogue to deal with our enemies proved fatal. If we are unwilling as citizens to deal with that critical precedent, what twenty-first century president will have the courage on our behalf to resist the powers that be and choose dialogue instead of war in response to current enemies?

Long-time Catholic Worker Jim Douglass, reflecting on the insights of Thomas Merton, calls us to reassess the unspeakable horror of a presidential assassination and to credit JFK as a courageous leader willing to risk his life in resisting the pressure of military chiefs, diplomats and defense industry moguls who were certain that violent means could serve peaceful ends. Kennedy sought common ground with Nikita Krushchev in avoiding a nuclear cataclysm; he made overtures to Fidel Castro to better our relations with Cuba, and in the days before his death he ordered our military out of Vietnam.

Douglass presents and analyzes Kennedy’s “peace speech,” the commencement talk at American University, Washington, DC, on June 10, 1963, as the high point of JFK’s turning toward peace. The president called his subject “the most important topic on earth: world peace.” Douglass writes:

In both speech and action [suspending U.S. tests in the atmosphere unilaterally] Kennedy was trying to reverse eighteen years of U.S.-Soviet polarization. He had seen U.S. belligerence toward the Russians build to the point of Pentagon pressures for preemptive strikes on the Cuban missile sites. In his decision in the spring of 1963 to turn from a demonizing Cold War theology, Kennedy knew he had few allies within his own ruling circles, but he was encouraged by Pope John XXIII’s efforts and words: “World peace is mankind’s greatest need. I am old but I will do what I can in the time I have.”

To the graduates at American U. and to the world, the president applied a theme of the pope’s recently issued encyclical, Pacem in Terris, by saying: “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 then JFK reached out to our enemy, the Russians, in words that were permitted to be heard throughout Russia:

We can still hail the Russian people for their many achievements—in science and space... 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 history of battle ever suffered more than the Soviet Union in the Second World War. At least 20 million lost their lives... 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.

Krushchev responded to JFK’s overture by entering into negotiations with him, secret even to close advisers on both sides, to avoid a nuclear showdown in the future. Kennedy also expounded in his commencement talk on his vision for world peace:

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 in our time but peace for all time.

Some say that it is useless to speak of world peace or world law or world disarmament... I believe we must reexamine our own attitudes—as individuals and as a nation... Every thoughtful person 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.

Too many of us think peace is impossible. Too many think it is 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... 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.

Douglass says that the Kennedy speech was favorably received in the Soviet Union but downplayed and rejected here at home, especially by those who trusted in military might to achieve our national goals. When the president followed up on his words with specific decisions during crises in Russia, Berlin, the Congo, Cuba, Laos, Indonesia and Vietnam, the signal for the coup was set in motion by government insiders who were disgusted with his softness on Communism and with his unwillingness to wage wars till won.

Contrary to the official finding that Lee Harvey Oswald acted on his own in killing the president, Jim Douglass supplies evidence from many witnesses, and it convinced me, that the CIA engineered the coup. Read for yourself. Lee Hoinacki’s friend, Tim Corbett, summarizes it this way:

The book has all the elements of a mystery thriller—covert CIA infiltration of government agencies such as the Secret Service, the FBI, the Pentagon and State Department, multiple assassins, a Lee Harvey Oswald look-a-like creating incriminating links with Communist Russia and Cuba, a deadly frontal assault on the president from the grassy knoll [as opposed to the official report of shots from the rear], the preemptive murder of Oswald before he could testify about what he called a frame-up, other untimely murders and “suicides” of potential informants, Jack Ruby’s previous connections to the CIA, falsifications in the autopsy report, CIA vehicles involved in various getaways. And finally and tragically: the end of JFK’s vision of peace when the newly sworn-in President Johnson promises the Joint Chiefs of Staff: “Just let me get elected and then you can have your war [in Vietnam].”

Johnny, we hardly knew ye; you died too soon at the bidding of believers in ‘redemptive violence, namely, the opinion that modern wars can be virtuous, coups can be cool, and murders moral. By reading JFK and the Unspeakable, we CPF people may well be energized by the analysis presented in the book to take up the peace mission that Kennedy left unfinished. His cause and his untimely death can provide fresh inspiration for seeking the pacem in terris envisioned by a vigorous young president—inspired by a wise old pope. “Blessed are the peacemakers.....”

Frank McGinty

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