Here is my humble homage to President Kennedy. It's an excerpt from my novel, Murder of an American Nazi, in which one of the main characters witnesses JFK's address at American University on June 10, 1963:
from pages 101 and 102--
"Listening to the speech that day, Marie became convinced that Kennedy was going to turn American militarism and secrecy on its head. What he said made her proud, for the first time, to be an American. He spoke of disarmament and world peace. He spoke of commonalities Americans shared with the communists. He spoke of the beginning of the end of the days of conflict. He mentioned the word 'peace' over and over. It flew in the face of
everything Marie had come to know about America...
"...(JFK said) 'What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do I seek? Not a Pax Americana forced 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.' An end to American military arrogance and domination? Marie was transfixed.
"...(he continues) 'every thoughtful citizen who despairs of war and wishes to bring peace, should begin by looking inward--by examining his own attitude toward the possibilities of freedom and peace here at home.' The military will hate this (she thought)...And how about defense contractors and the war weapons industry. This is going to be bad for business.
"...(JFK concludes) 'We are devoting to weapons massive sums of money that could be better devoted to combating ignorance, poverty and disease...in the final analysis, our (the US and
its enemies) 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.' "
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2 comments:
Interesting...I will pick up your book and give it a read. I have long suspected the Warren Commission's findings were flawed and that conspirsacy was indeed involved. Just the way LBJ and Jerry Ford seemed like they were rushing to put it behind them raised suspicion for me...
I heard this stunning speech for the first time just a few months ago (and I'm old enough to *remember* the Kennedy administration).
No wonder the Corporate mass media shoved it down the memory-hole: it repudiates almost every principle of U.S. foreign policy put in place from Truman through Bush II (and, alas, probably Obama)!
A good recording of this speech is available, free, in the Internet Archive (www.archive.org/). When radio4all.net gets over its Bad Hair Week, I'll post (in my blog) links to a couple of "New World Notes" shows, which switch between the speech and Jim Douglas' excellent commentary on it.
Keep up the good fight, Tim!
Kenneth Dowst
http://newworldnotes.blogspot.com/
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