Culture

Jack's guide to making peace

JFK's vision of peace is as relevant now as it was in 1963

June 28, 2013
What can Labour learn from JFK? (© White House PO)
What can Labour learn from JFK? (© White House PO)

Fifty years ago, President John F Kennedy helped to pull the world back from the precipice of nuclear annihilation. If the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 was the moment when the two superpowers stood “eyeball to eyeball” in a nuclear showdown, JFK’s Peace Speech at the American University in Washington DC on 10th June, 1963 marked the moment when the nuclear superpowers found their way back from the brink.

We need to understand how JFK pulled off his peace initiative if we are to stop the spiral of secret wars, NSA spying, and terrorism that haunts us today.

The peace breakthrough was achieved by ideas, not by armaments or spying.  After the near-death experience of the Cuban Missile Crisis, both JFK and his Soviet counterpart, Nikita Khrushchev, knew that the world could not risk another such confrontation. Neither leader had wanted or planned a showdown, yet they had stumbled into a showdown nonetheless, through a cascading series of blunders.

JFK had blundered by agreeing to the CIA’s hair-brained scheme to invade Cuba in April 1961. Cuban exiles trained and equipped by the CIA were killed or captured on the beach at the Bay of Pigs, handing JFK a humiliating defeat and helping to spark escalating actions. Khrushchev threatened to make divided Berlin a new flashpoint, and Kennedy increased arms spending dramatically. Khrushchev then recklessly decided to put intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Cuba, not to start a war, but to even the nuclear and diplomatic playing fields with the US.

When the US discovered the Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, the US top military brass recommended a surprise US military strike on the Cuban missile sites. JFK saved the world by listening to his own inner lights instead of his generals. He reasoned that the Soviets would withdraw their missiles as part of a broader compromise (including a US public pledge not to invade Cuba and private pledge to withdraw US nuclear missiles from Turkey). JFK and Khrushchev struck the deal, defused the crisis, and saved the world.

From that point on JFK was resolved to push forward a peace agenda, having realized that hardliners on both sides–the CIA and military on the US side, and comparable forces on the Soviet side–would otherwise continue to steer the superpowers back towards confrontation. JFK’s quest for peace during 1963 was therefore a campaign to overcome the hardliners on both sides. Kennedy had the confidence that the majorities of both the US and Soviet peoples yearned for a peaceful way out of the nuclear showdown.

In his famed Peace Speech, JFK asked the American people to re-examine their own attitudes towards peace. He urged his fellow Americans to recognize the virtue, even the courage, of the Russian people, and the common aspirations for peace on both sides of the Iron Curtain. The speech worked wonders. Khrushchev soon agreed to the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which prevented most nuclear testing and thus slowed the arms race, and the American people strongly supported the ratification of the treaty when it came before the US Senate. The Senate overwhelmingly ratified the treaty by a vote of 80-19. The crucial Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty followed five years later.

The lessons of this great success transcend the Cold War era. Kennedy showed that seemingly intractable conflicts between nations, even between the US and Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War, can be overcome through vision, eloquence, and practical leadership.

In our world today, there is far too little of this vision.  Instead of talking to America’s opponents, the US sends drones and special operations teams to assassinate our foes.  The violence multiplies, terrorism continues, and bitter conflicts remain unresolved.  Unlike JFK, Obama has turned these secret wars over to the CIA and other intelligence agencies. The revelation that the NSA is spying massively on Americans and the rest of the world is first and foremost a failure of imagination.

It’s high time that we realise that there is a better way to resolve these crises. As JFK said, “peace need not be impracticable, and war need not be inevitable.” By recognizing the common humanity of those who oppose us today, we find the points of common interest and, like Kennedy a half-century ago, help to move the world towards peace.

Jeffrey Sachs is the Director of The Earth Institute and author of To Move The World: JFK’s Quest for Peace published by The Bodley Head at £14.99.

Jeffrey will be speaking at the LSE on 15th July and at an Intelligence Squared event on 16th July. Click on the links for further details and to buy tickets.