In this book
well-known economist and public intellectual Jeffrey Sachs moves from the world
of economic development and environmental concerns to an examination of how
John F. Kennedy’s thought and rhetoric changed the dynamic of the Cold War.
Sachs apparently came to this project through his friendship with Theodore
Sorensen, Kennedy's primary speechwriter. Also, I suspect that Sachs came to
the project because of his own quest to alter the dynamics in the world about
global poverty, sustainable economic development, and ecological stewardship.
In this book Sachs doesn't break any new historical ground. His main concern is
to examine how the interplay of experience and rhetoric shaped the course of
events both before and after the Kennedy administration.
Sachs notes
that Kennedy had some important role models for his rhetoric and perceptions.
First and foremost among these role models was Winston Churchill. However, his
model was not simply the pugnacious Churchill of 1940 who defied the Nazis, but
also the postwar Churchill, who, while warning of the spread of communism, also
spoke in favor of peaceful talks. Perhaps in Churchill’s less eloquent but most
apt words, more “jaw-jaw” and less “war-war”. This attitude of conciliation was
carried forward by Dwight Eisenhower. Sachs notes a couple of Ike's speeches
that struck a conciliatory note and that appreciated the dangerous dynamics
that were developing between the US and the USSR. The most famous of Ike's
speeches was his farewell speech, which Sachs describes is only one of two
presidential farewell speeches that bears remembrance (the other was George Washington’s).
In Ike's farewell speech, he warned of – indeed I think coin the phrase of –
"the military industrial complex". Ike understood that there were
strong pressures in the US (and certainly within the USSR as well) that pushed
for military confrontation as a part of a profit and power seeking engine
driven by defense contractors and the military. Roughly contemporary with
Kennedy’s time in office was the papacy of Pope John XXIII, whose encyclical Pacem
In Terris (Peace on Earth) provided another eloquent voice speaking out in
favor of peace and justice. Kennedy was thus not alone on his perceptions and
hopes, and he carried forward a line of predecessors and contemporaries from
whom he could gain wisdom and assistance.
Sachs
doesn't dodge the fact that Kennedy made the Cold War worse by the fiasco of
the Bay of Pigs invasion that occurred shortly after he took office. In another
one of history's "what if's", historians of wondered if Ike would've
had the good sense to have pulled the plug on the Bay of Pigs invasion, or
whether he would have gone whole hog with the invasion. Kennedy chose halfway
measures that embarrassed the US, made Castro more belligerent, and that
suggested to the USSR that some further intervention on behalf of their Cuban
comrades was necessary. Sachs details how Khrushchev developed his harebrained
scheme to put offensive missiles in Cuba with the thought of revealing the
fateful come play at a party Congress scheduled in late 1962 (shades of Dr.
Strangelove here). This scheme led to the Cuban missile crisis, where
humankind came within an eyelash of worldwide catastrophe. Credit goes to both
Kennedy and Khrushchev for avoiding a nuclear Armageddon by backing away from
the demands of hardliners. Kennedy had to deal with Air Force Chief of Staff
Curtis LeMay (the model for Stanley Kubrick's general Jack Ripper in Dr.
Strangelove). Khrushchev obviously had his own people to deal with as well.
After this
harrowing experience, Kennedy chartered a new course to try to ease the
tensions of the Cold War. His renewed concerns with this subject eventually led to his June 1963 speech at
American University that has since been dubbed "The Peace Speech".
Kennedy laid out the need for renewed efforts to avoid war, efforts that were
neither naïve nor impossible to achieve. This included a voluntary suspension
of nuclear testing so long as no other nation engaged in tests of their own.
Kennedy followed up the next day with a major speech on civil rights where, I believe
for the first time, he described the civil rights movement in terms of a moral
imperative. These two speeches, perhaps more than his better-known inaugural
address, highlight of Kennedys’ rhetorical gifts and moral vision.
Sachs does a
good job of carefully examining Kennedy's rhetoric. For instance, Sachs shows
how effectively Kennedy used the rhetorical device of antimetabole, the
Greek term referring to the repetition of words in transposed order (e.g., “Ask
not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”) A
great deal of credit for Kennedy’s rhetorical success goes to his aid Ted
Sorensen, who wrote the first drafts and worked revisions in tandem with
Kennedy. As a team, it will come up with signature ways of speaking and arguing
that proved eloquent and effective. Kennedy was able to get the Soviet Union to
the bargaining table, the parties agreed to a partial nuclear test ban treaty
(underground testing was still allowed), and, most notably by the standards of
today, he was able to get overwhelming Senate approval for the treaty. This was
one of the highlights of Kennedy's congressional efforts. As we know, no civil
rights legislation and no economic stimulus bill were enacted until after
Lyndon Johnson became president and oversaw those efforts. While Kennedy's
rhetorical gifts are undoubted, I still have the sense that without Johnson,
the major civil rights legislation and perhaps even the economic stimulus
Kennedy sought would have been sidetracked by Congress. As we know from our
experience with President Obama, formal rhetoric that artfully and clearly sets
forth a vision for possibilities is important, but not sufficient to effect
real change. The trench warfare of congressional approval is also necessary to
translate positive visions into law. Nevertheless, one can't leave this book
without appreciating the skilled vision that Kennedy and Sorensen set forth.
Sachs spends
a little bit more time on the post-Kennedy Cold War, and especially noteworthy
is the period in the early and mid-1980s when Ronald Reagan and the hard core
Republican right wing adapted an extremely confrontational attitude toward the
Soviet Union. This attitude was perceived by the Soviet leadership and
reciprocated. In hindsight, the Nixon-Ford-Kissinger efforts for détente are
much more rational and reasonable. Reagan supporters argue that Reagan's
rhetorical and military build-up in confrontation with the Soviet Union led to
the downfall of the Eastern block and eventually the Soviet Union. But this
argument should be subject to a lot of skepticism and should be rejected
without a more persuasive argument made through a careful historical analysis
than I’ve yet seen. The fact is, the doomsday clock that measured the threat to
human well-being crated by nuclear war (now I think subject to other factors,
such as ecological catastrophe) moved up very close to midnight again during a
period in the 1980’s. However, once Reagan perceived a change in Soviet
attitudes in the person of Gorbachev, Reagan's very effective rhetoric changed
into one of conciliation and the need for rational consideration of the
parties’ mutual need to avoid nuclear war and threatening confrontations.
Neither Kennedy nor later Reagan dropped his strong stance of anti-Communism, but
both came around to a much more sensible position. (Kennedy was more
constrained by the extreme political right wing than was Reagan, who, like
Nixon going to China, had a degree of credibility for a changed attitude toward
the USSR that no Democrat could gain in order to achieve the changes the Reagan
fostered.)
In my
continued reading reflecting back on the presidency of John F. Kennedy, this
book was a worthwhile addition. I thought it might be an exercise in
hagiography, but instead, I found it a measured consideration of Kennedy and
the importance of his and his predecessor’s rhetoric in defining the conflicts
of the Cold War and thereby limiting the potential for a nuclear war. Perhaps
because of my primal Republican background, I've never been an unabashed
Kennedy admirer. His record was mixed, but I have gained a sense that the man
grew during the course of his presidency and that the tragedy of his
assassination did rob the world of his potential. Would he have avoided the
deep entanglement of the Vietnam War? Would he have been able to forward the
program of civil rights as effectively as did Lyndon Johnson? Would changes
brought about by the initial efforts in diffusing the largest tensions of the
Cold War have continued? All these “what if?” questions remain as tantalizing
possibilities that will never receive a definitive answer. The only sure thing
is the actual past; the future—or alternative futures—are marked by
uncertainty. So with Kennedy. We should examine carefully his accomplishments,
his failures, and the gifts he left behind, which though all too few, are
nonetheless significant. I think Sachs performs an important service in this
book in acknowledging that heritage and challenging us today to find similar
instances where we can understand and improve our world through our rhetoric
and politics.
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