Discussion of the Lessons Of JFK’s Peace Speech for Today Is Spreading
President Kennedy speaking at American University, June 10, 1963
As the Schiller Institute has insisted is urgent, the upcoming 60th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s June 10, 1963 extraordinary speech on world peace has sparked increasing discussion of the urgency of reviving JFK’s vision of peace.
A June 4 syndicated column by U.S. economist Jeffrey Sachs, “How JFK would pursue peace in Ukraine,” is being reprinted in various media and languages around the world - among them, Common Dreams and Consortium, Nation.Africa, Brasil 247, and Jordan Times. “Kennedy’s Peace Speech highlights how Joe Biden’s approach to Russia and the Ukraine War needs a dramatic reorientation,” Sachs wrote. “Until now, Biden has not followed the precepts that Kennedy recommended to find peace. By heeding Kennedy’s advice, Biden too could become a peacemaker.” So far, in the Ukraine conflict, “Biden has behaved almost the opposite of JFK,” personally and repeatedly denigrating Russian President Putin, defining the US war aim as the weakening of Russia, refusing all communications with Putin. “It is time for Biden to negotiate with Russia on NATO enlargement, as part of broader negotiations to end the Ukraine war,” Sachs insisted.
Like the Schiller Institute, the UN Sustainable Development Strategies Network of which Sachs is a part, together with the Italian think tank, Pensare Insieme, have also organized an international conference to highlight the importance of JFK’s speech for today. This conference, “John F. Kennedy ‘A Strategy for Peace’ 60 Years Later,” will be held in Rome, Italy and livestreamed. Organizers say they aim “to offer the audience a fresh perspective on the Kennedy presidency as a model of bold moral leadership and practical problem-solving that can be applied to our present-day challenges and urgent need for peace,” according to the UNSDSN.
The Schiller Institute’s online conference, entitled “The World Needs JFK’s Vision of Peace!,” will take place on the anniversary itself, June 10.
Others have also spoken out. Catholic social and peace activist Tony Magliano quoted from Kennedy’s speech in a June 4 op-ed in Independent Catholic News, urging everyone to watch “the most hopefully inspiring peace speech given by a head of state in modern times,” and to “ask your government leaders to watch it,” also. Likewise, the U.S. Catholic magazine and website, published June 5, an article by Kevin Clarke proposing, “President Biden should look to JFK’s example of peacemaking. What might peace in our time look like?”
In Spain, an op-ed published today by the Infolibre website, well-read in layers distrustful of mainstream narratives, reported on the Schiller Institute’s “Urgent Appeal by Citizens and Institutions from All Over the World to the (Next) President of the United States!” featuring the JFK speech, in discussing “The War in Ukraine, NATO and the Disintegration of Russia.” In Brazil, the Dialogos do Sul blog of veteran journalist Paulo Cannabrava, had published the Schiller Institute’s full call on May 29.
