Arrogance And Ignorance
Theodore C. Sorensen is an attorney who served as Special Counsel to John F. Kennedy and President Lyndon B. Johnson. He is also a former editor of the Saturday Review, and author of three books on the Kennedy years.
"Kennedy wanted the United States to lead by the force of example, not force of our weaponry...." Theodore C. Sorensen, speechwriter to John F. Kennedy, compared JFK’s worldview with that of the current administration in the commencement address at American University’s School of Public Affairs/School of International Service in Washington, D.C. on May 11, 2003. (Click here to read the complete text of JFK’s and Sorensen’s speeches. What follows are excerpts from Sorensen's speech.)
A world that is universally... committed to international law is the surest answer to terrorism.
It is an overwhelming honor for me to stand here where John Kennedy stood 40 years ago.... I sat in the back, somewhat unwashed, having come straight here from Air Force One which had returned that morning from Honolulu where President Kennedy had asked America's mayors to help calm the civil rights crisis of that summer....
[President Kennedy delivered] an extraordinary speech entitled "The Strategy of Peace." England's Manchester Guardian called it "one of the great state papers of American History." His domestic political opponents called it "a soft line that will accomplish nothing... a tragic mistake." Astonishingly, the Soviet leadership permitted the speech to be broadcast almost in its entirety in Russian in Moscow -- broadcast and published.
In that speech, JFK called, as no one had ever called, for a re-examination of the Cold War, a re-examination of our attitude toward the Soviet Union, toward peace itself. "What kind of peace do we seek?" he asked. "Not a Pax Americana, imposed on the world by American weapons of war...."
That speech recalled the previous October when Kennedy led the Western world through the most dangerous 13 days in human history, when the swift, secret emplacement of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba brought this planet close to incineration. Kennedy had achieved the removal of those missiles without firing a shot, without starting a war, without violating any international law.
Later that day, he signed the Equal Pay Act, prohibiting wage discrimination against women.... The next day, June 11, he directed, from the Oval Office, the admission of the University of Alabama's first two black students....
The next day, June 12, he established the first National Advisory Council on the Arts. One week later he sent Congress the most comprehensive civil rights legislation ever....
Less than one month later he announced the signing of the limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty; the first step towards arms control in the nuclear age, a step for which he had called here at American University, while announcing a U.S. moratorium on atmospheric tests. It was an extraordinary few weeks of new ideas and actions by an extraordinary leader....
JFK's Strategy Of Peace
That limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty... [was one of] hundreds of treaties signed by JFK, including the Inter-American Development Bank, the Neutrality of Laos, aviation, nuclear energy, diplomacy and cultural exchange ground rules for the world. His speech here called for "world law" based on "effective agreements," requiring not "that each man love his neighbor, only that they live together in mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to just and peaceful settlement." As he said, "even the most hostile nations can be relied on to keep those treaty obligations that are in their own interest." He also called for strengthening the United Nations, solving its financial problems and making it "a genuine world security system... capable of solving disputes on the basis of law."
In short, Kennedy wanted the United States to lead by the force of example, not force of our weaponry, by the multilateral use of our diplomacy, not the unilateral use of our weaponry, by sending abroad American food, not American guns, by relying on smart diplomats more than smart bombs.
John Kennedy was a veteran of World War II, and saluted that generation that established at its end enduring institutions for a more peaceful world; the United Nations, NATO -- which for 50 years kept the peace and the Western Alliance together -- the World Bank, the IMF and IFC.
Kennedy... wanted to convey in that commencement address: American values of peace and justice, the best instincts of the American people -- a peaceful, not war-like, people -- thereby increasing the respect and admiration with which we were held around the world, thereby making us more secure, a less likely target for resentment and attack....
Today's Strategy Of War
Unfortunately, you are graduating into a more endangered nation, that in recent years has turned away from Kennedy's strategy of peace and back toward, in his words, a strategy for annihilation, away from treaties and international law, away from the United Nations and our traditional allies, away from arms control and peace.
You have inherited a world planted wall to wall with new and more terrible weapons laws, like using young fanatics as suicide bombers, and the new "bunker buster" of which our Pentagon boasts; and new methods of warfare, such as intentionally 'decapitating' one's enemy by early assassinations of its political leaders. No wonder countless Americans today feel insecure, not only about their jobs and health but also about their physical safety....
To some countries, our glorious victory ousting Iraq's dictator means that the only way to deter an American attack is to have their own nuclear arsenal.... Even our own Pentagon is said to be thinking about the previously unthinkable: our use of nuclear weapons in battle. Having launched a war without approval of the United Nations, or hard evidence of imminent danger or the sanctions of international law, now we must worry that other states -- large or small -- will utilize that precedent to suddenly attack us or their neighbors or adversaries....
There is no relief in sight. Some call the war on terrorism World War III. If so, then a new round of engagements against hostile nations, now reportedly under consideration, may be World War IV, stretching on and on. Many of our enemies are led by religious, ideological or ethnic extremists with whom negotiation is unlikely and for whom deterrence is meaningless.
Thus, there is no obvious answer to terrorism. We cannot attack every nation in which terrorists might secretly train or hide, because that list includes almost every nation, including our own. Nor can we, as some urge, simply declare war on Islam, as some suggest, because of a small handful of fanatics, when its disciples number more than one billion, most of them proud of Islam's glorious past, culture, humanitarian and peaceful tradition and peaceful respect and tolerance of other faiths. And they are only antagonized by loose talk in this country about a new "crusade" to convert the heathen to Christianity.
What could be more unrealistic than to think that we alone can decide the fate of others...
Unfortunately, loose talk is not uncommon in these heady days of military victory. Our declared doctrine of pre-emptive strikes, without legal justification or evidence, is music to the ears of terrorist organizations that specialize in such strikes; but, if followed worldwide, it will create a lawless planet in which the law abiding will suffer the most -- the law of the jungle, in which every warlord has his own weapons of mass destruction, and the first or biggest bomb wins. Some of those who favor this doctrine of pre-emption and its use to impose democracy on other countries call it "new realism." But what could be more unrealistic than to think that we alone can decide the fate of others, without the support of world opinion, world institutions,or our traditional democratic allies? Only the arrogance of power and the ignorance of history could lead us to believe that our vast military superiority confers upon us moral superiority as well.
If our objective is to win wars that we start ourselves, then we are doing very well so far, but if our policy is still Kennedy's policy of avoiding war and all its horrors, then we are not doing so well. Most Americans no doubt disagree. America is on the march, it is said. We won, and the winners have a right to flex their muscles. Both political parties now compete to sound more hawkish, to criticize as naïve, or even unpatriotic those who favor peaceful world cooperation.
The long uneasiness with bloodletting and battle that followed Vietnam has been replaced by a new infatuation for war, a preference for invasion over persuasion. Under administrations of both parties and in both branches of government, we have turned our backs on Kennedy's emphasis on treaties, including the comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban he so eloquently sought here 40 years ago.
The talk now is that America alone is exempt from international law, that America alone can decide who in the world is evil, that America alone has the political and economic model to impose on the world, and that America alone can take on AIDS, terrorism and other global evils, because this is "the American Century," dominated by American arms. There is even talk of an American empire, forgetting that empires based on military might alone never survive.
A hundred and forty years ago, General Robert E. Lee remarked to General Longstreet: "It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it." Wise words. Too many Americans today are becoming too fond of war, after two quick victories....
A Proposed New Strategy Of Peace
All this must change. Americans have neither the heart nor the history for empire or a permanent war footing. Now, in the darkest and most discouraging hour, is the time to reverse course, in JFK's phrase, away from a strategy of annihilation and back toward a strategy of peace. Historically, our proudest boast has been that we are a nation of laws. So we can lead the world to John Kennedy's goal 40 years ago: a world of law.
First, we must end our opposition to the International Criminal Court, the world's first permanent court to punish war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity and aggression....
We must avoid a world in which any nation can decide on its own whether it has grounds to attack its neighbor, or seize its neighbor's resources. This country has both a history and an obligation of leadership in international jurisprudence. In today's unpromising, unpredictable, unruly world, stronger institutions of international justice would make the United States a safer place.
Third, a world of law will require new efforts by international lawyers and diplomats to complete the network of treaties that outlaw the use, possession and distribution of weapons of mass destruction, chemical, biological or nuclear.... renegotiations should begin to enable the United States to amend and accept those treaties, which we have mistakenly rejected, including those on global warming, landmines, biodiversity and human rights. Also, international jurists, under U.N. auspices, should devise legitimate and uniform standards for permitting the use of force.... International law is not a menu from which a country can choose which features it will respect and which -- such as treatment of our prisoners of war -- it insists that its enemies respect. A world that is universally and vigorously committed to international law is the surest answer to terrorism.
Even the most hostile nations can be relied on to keep those treaty obligations that are in their own interest.
The fourth step toward a world of law, as President Kennedy said here 40 years ago, is to strengthen the United Nations -- its financing, its procedures for the settlement of disputes, and giving it more peacekeepers, more weapons inspectors, more human rights monitors and more international prosecutors, stationing them in those countries most likely to misbehave....
Fifth, and finally, we cannot build a peaceful world of law unless we win this century's most important war -- the war against global poverty.... All this can be achieved in this century if we put aside cynicism and despair.... I'm not asking for an unrealistic utopia of pure pacifism. The United States would still be a world leader, necessarily, with its preponderance of wealth and might, and still defend our principles, security and basic interests, but we would be a leader in humanitarian operations, not military operations. A leader looking for reconciliation, not battle....
To pursue that path will require courage. John F. Kennedy was decorated in World War II for his military courage in the Pacific, but he showed even greater courage in his willingness to communicate and compromise with his adversary in the Cuban Missile Crisis in the pursuit of peace.
So must we all, all peoples, all nations; black, white, brown or other; Christian, Muslim, Jewish or other; rich, poor or other; all nations must pursue this path to a world law.... "For, in the final analysis, we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future; and we are all mortal."
Published: May 13 2003
