Our Friday News Analysis | How Do You Love Your Enemies? Have None! (Part 9)

Supporters of Donald Trump have gathered at Mar-a-Lago, his residence in Palm Beach, Florida. Foto Getty Images via AFP

Editor’s Note | 

Is this Democracy at work, or are we witnessing a divided nation?

It’s a tug of war.

Forty percent of Americans want Trump in; forty percent want him out.
Twenty percent don’t know.

The ancient Greek storyteller, Aesop, coined the phrase: “United we stand. Divided we fall.”

Will the best candidate become President?
Some don’t even care one way or the other.

               What is the Side of the Story that is Not Yet Decisive? Edited by Abraham A. van Kempen.

'IT IS WAR'

By Bas Blokker
NRC Amerika
13 June 2023
https://campagne.nrcmedia.nl/optiext/optiextension.dll?ID=PnkrP9vSSBTP2%2BY7SQJkPCMqS7Q0gvyxb_iYxck7mt_FXncYPF

Good afternoon!

No matter what the other candidates do, Trump keeps them in the shadows. He knows how to transform even a painful issue, such as a lawsuit, into treasured attention and donor money in no time.

'It is war.'

While lawyers and politicians debate on TV and in newspapers about the seriousness of the indictment delivered to Donald Trump on Thursday, the former president's kindred spirits have already concluded: "This is war. Not figuratively, literally!"

• Kari Lake, now out of office, was the most Trumpian candidate in the last midterms when she hoped to become governor of Arizona (and has since refused to admit her loss): "If you try to get President Trump, you have to go through me, and by 75 million Americans like me. And let me say this: Most of us are members of the NRA. That's not a threat. That's a public order notice."

• Andy Biggs, Representative from Arizona: "We are now in the war phase. An eye for an eye."

• Louisiana delegate Clay Higgins appeared to be giving military instructions on Twitter: "This is how the occupier encroaches on the territory we cordoned off. Stay in your positions. The real president has this under control." (One guess who the "real" president is.)

• Wayne Allyn Root, a commentator on the rabid right-wing site Gateway Pundit, wrote: "This is war. This is life or death. This is the end of America if we don't fight fire with fire."

In the pieces that appeared in NRC in recent days about the indictment with the 37 charges against Trump - about the indictment and the consequences for the Republican race – I left out the extreme craziness.

There have been so many warnings about violence and civil war in recent years that I am inclined to raise the threshold slightly. But sometimes I think: am I not doing violence to reality? With the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, Trump supporters have shown how much (partly organized) violence they are willing and capable of.

I don't think it's out of place to draw attention to this on the day Trump has to report to court for what he described as "the final blow" this weekend. "See you in Miami," he wrote on Truth Social. His opponents then heard an echo of his infamous "Come too! It's going to be wild" tweet leading up to January 6. We'll see it this afternoon (this evening with most of you).

A supporter of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis hands out flyers. Photo Erik Lesser/EPA

The media landscape

Let's stick with Trump and the presidential race for a moment – excuse us for talking about this a year and a half ago; the Americans prefer long campaigns. For now, it's Trump against the outsiders. Ten more or less serious candidates have already applied. Last week, former Vice President Mike Pence, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, and former Governor and in-demand TV commentator Chris Christie joined the previous week. Christie is the exception: together with the somewhat more moderate former governor Asa Hutchinson. He is the only one who says in so many words that Trump is unfit for the presidency.

You should not expect the newspapers, radio, and television networks, baked to the Democrats, to express a preference in these Republican preliminaries. But an exciting movement is underway on the right side of the spectrum. They also know that while Trump is ahead in the poll for the Republican primary, he will face a formidable opponent in the general election: himself. As a result, various media have sided with Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida: equally conservative, equally aggressive, but perhaps slightly more electable than the chaotic Trump for non-partisans.

• The Wall Street Journal, with its conservative opinion editorial, is decidedly against Trump. The newspaper has not finalized its choice, but the editorial board, which writes the editorial comments, seems charmed by DeSantis. At most, they say, he should work on his isolationist view of US foreign policy.

• TV channel OANN, looking for a solid market share to the right of Fox News, continues to choose Trump unconcernedly. A message about a rally appears under the headline: "Trump shines in Iowa." An analysis of the state secrets charge alleges "misuse of justice to break Trump."

• The British tabloid press has its say. The Daily Mail published a classic whack job against DeSantis. "His advisers even have to teach him to laugh."

• Fox News is the most interesting to follow because, like The Wall Street Journal, it is owned by the Murdoch media family. Rupert Murdoch would never have taken Trump seriously. But he always gets a platform at Fox for opportunistic reasons (viewing figures). Some hosts have moved away from Trump and are giving much attention (and precious airtime) to DeSantis. But the influential Sean Hannity is still a rock behind the former president. Fox broadcast a Hannity-led town hall meeting a week and a half ago. That was a fabulous bubble bath for Trump: "I don't understand why the other candidates are participating," he said solemnly. "They are at 0 or 1 percent in the polls."

I'll continue to watch Fox's preferences more closely than the polls in the coming months.

THE RADICAL STRATEGY BEHIND TRUMP’S PROMISE TO ‘GO AFTER’ BIDEN

“I will obliterate the Deep State,” Donald Trump said on Tuesday evening at an event at his club in Bedminster, NJ, hours after his arraignment on federal charges. Conservatives with close ties to Donald J. Trump are laying out a “paradigm-shifting” legal rationale to erase the Justice Department’s independence from the president.

By Jonathan Swan, Charlie Savage, and Maggie HabermanNew York Times
15 June 2023

Credit: Doug Mills/The New York Times

When Donald J. Trump responded to his latest indictment by promising to appoint a special prosecutor if re-elected to “go after” President Biden and his family, he signaled that a second Trump term would jettison the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence.

               “I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family,” Mr. Trump said at his golf club in Bedminster, NJ, on Tuesday night after his arraignment earlier that day in Miami.

               “I will totally obliterate the Deep State.”

Mr. Trump’s message was that the Justice Department charged him only because he is Mr. Biden’s political opponent so that he would invert that supposed politicization. In reality, under Attorney General Merrick Garland, two Trump-appointed prosecutors are already investigating Mr. Biden’s handling of classified documents and the financial dealings of his son, Hunter.

Read more: THE RADICAL STRATEGY BEHIND TRUMP’S PROMISE TO ‘GO AFTER’ BIDEN

THE TRUMP, CLINTON, AND PETRAEUS CLASSIFIED DOCUMENT CASES

When a former president of the United States faces the possibility of years in prison related to the mishandling of classified documents, questions arise about how this case compares to how others have handled highly sensitive material.

Courtroom sketch by Bill Hennessy for the PBS NewsHour

By Lisa Desjardins, Correspondent
PBS News Hour
13 June 2023

The 37 federal criminal charges resulted from an investigation led by Special Counsel Jack Smith. At a court appearance Tuesday in Miami, former President Donald Trump entered a plea of not guilty. As we have seen, Republicans insist that Trump is being unfairly and politically prosecuted.

In the past year alone, authorities learned that President Joe Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence also had classified documents, but the circumstances in these cases are different.

With Pence, the Justice Department said it would not pursue criminal charges and cleared him of wrongdoing. A special counsel investigation into Biden’s handling of documents is still ongoing. Unlike Trump, the president has not faced accusations of intentionally hiding his actions or materials.

We thought looking at a few other past cases by the details is worthwhile.

DONALD TRUMP
Former US president
When: 2021-2022.

Documents searched: Dozens of boxes of materials were handed over in three separate groups.

Classified marks: At least 322 documents marked classified in total, per court filings by the Department of Justice. The DOJ has not indicated unmarked documents with classified information in this case.

Top secret? At least 32 documents were marked “top secret,” the highest category of classified information, per the DOJ.

Where were the documents? At his private residence, Mar-a-Lago, in Florida

Any shared inappropriately? Possibly. The grand jury indictment charges that Trump shared a map and described a Pentagon plan for attack. We have not yet heard his defense on those specific charges.

Trump cooperation? This is central in this case. The grand jury indictment alleges not only did Trump delay handing over classified information but that he instructed a staff member to move the documents ahead of a search and that he suggested to an attorney, regarding FBI requests, "Wouldn't it be better if we just told them we don't have anything here?” We have not heard his defense of those accusations.

What DOJ did: The Justice Department has charged Trump with 37 counts related to the classified documents he had.

What Trump did then: He has pleaded not guilty.

HILLARY CLINTON
Presidential candidate. Former secretary of state

When? 2015-2016.

Clinton announced 2015 that she had used a private email server for some work emails. In July 2016, when Clinton was the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, the FBI announced it was not recommending charges. In late October 2016, the FBI briefly reopened the case, only to close it soon after — on Nov. 6 — two days before the election.

Documents searched: 30,000 emails.

Classified marks: Three emails had classified marks, per the FBI.

Classified information: 110 emails had classified information in them.

Top secret: Eight email threads contained top secret information, per the FBI.

Where were the documents? On private email servers at Clinton’s home.

Any shared inappropriately? None is known. The FBI found that while it was possible that Clinton’s server *could* have been hacked, the agency’s investigation found no evidence that it had been.

Clinton cooperation? Clinton and the State Department turned over tens of thousands of email files upon request. She and her attorneys said more than a thousand other emails had been destroyed or “wiped” from her private server. After insisting there were no classified documents and refusing to apologize, Clinton did issue a public apology in 2015. In 2016, the FBI found an additional 14,900 emails that had not been handed over. A tiny amount of these contained classified information, as above.

What DOJ did: FBI Director James Comey read an “unusual statement” on July 5, 2016. He found: No charges were appropriate after a yearlong investigation; there was no evidence of emails being intentionally deleted; and concluded, “We did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”

DAVID PETRAEUS
Former CIA director
When? 2012-2015. The FBI searched the home of Petraeus' mistress in 2012. He pleaded guilty in 2015.

Classified documents: The FBI said it found eight binders of classified material in Petraeus’ home after he had resigned from the CIA and signed a document saying he had no more classified material.

Documents where? In an unlocked drawer after searching Petraeus’ home in 2013.

Any shared inappropriately? Yes. Petraeus shared the material with his then-biographer and eventual mistress, he admitted.

What DOJ and Petraeus did: The agency moved toward prosecuting Petraeus. He agreed to a deal, entering a guilty plea to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified information. Petraeus publicly admitted wrongdoing in the press as well.

What did the judge do? Petraeus was sentenced to two years probation and fined $100,000.

Trump’s court appearance on Tuesday is undoubtedly a historical moment. It's the second time he's been indicted since leaving office — and more investigations are ongoing — as Trump vows to stay in the 2024 presidential race.

After pleading not guilty in Miami, Trump is expected to fly to New Jersey for a campaign event. He’s scheduled to speak past 8 p.m. Eastern.

Read the entire federal indictment charging Trump of mishandling classified documents, including photos of boxed paperwork in a bathroom and shower at his Florida estate.

‘SIGNIFICANT PORTION’ OF TRUMP INDICTMENT BASED ON PROTECTED ATTORNEY-CLIENT PRIVILEGE: EX-FEDERAL PROSECUTOR

According to legal experts, a significant amount of the indictment against former President Donald Trump is based on attorney-client communications, which are protected under US law and will likely lead to a long and drawn-out legal battle in the months ahead.

By Katabella Roberts and Joshua Philipp
June 14, 2023
Epoch Times

Former President Donald Trump greets supporters at Versailles restaurant in Miami on June 13, 2023. (Alex Brandon/AP Photo)

Trump has been charged with 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information; one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice, one count of withholding a document or record, one count of scheme to conceal, one count of corruptly concealing a document or record, one count of concealing a document in a federal investigation, and one count of false statements and representations.

The indictment marks the first time in history that the Department of Justice has charged a former president with a crime and will likely have severe implications for the 2024 presidential race, in which Trump is a leading candidate.

The former president has vowed to remain in the race regardless of the trial's outcome. He pleaded not guilty in a federal court in Miami on June 13 and has called the case against him “political persecution.”

Speaking with EpochTV’s “Crossroads” program on June 13, former federal prosecutor Will Scharf told host Joshua Philipp that it appears as though the DOJ has essentially “gotten into the middle” of the attorney-client privilege between Trump and his lawyer, Evan Corcoran, which Scharf described as “one of the core privileges guaranteed in our legal system.”

The attorney-client privilege protects the confidentiality of communications between individuals and their lawyers, meaning the latter may not disclose either oral or written communications with their clients to anyone unless granted permission by the client to do so.

However, Corcoran was forced to testify in the case against Trump and hand over records, including private correspondence, earlier this year after DOJ-appointed Special Counsel Jack Smith obtained a “crime-fraud exception,” effectively piercing the attorney-client privilege.

Read more: ‘SIGNIFICANT PORTION’ OF TRUMP INDICTMENT BASED ON PROTECTED ATTORNEY-CLIENT PRIVILEGE: EX-FEDERAL PROSECUTOR

Read more: ‘Trump Thrives in a Broken System. He’ll Get Us There Soon,’ by Columnist Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times, 13 June 2023.

               “What if Mitch McConnell, at the close of his scalding speech on the Senate floor blaming Donald Trump for the riot that occurred at the Capitol on Jan. 6, had promised to use his every last breath to ensure that Trump was convicted on impeachment charges and could never, ever become president again?

               What if Melania Trump, after the porn star Stormy Daniels said Trump had unprotected sex with her less than four months after Melania gave birth to their son, had thrown all of Trump’s clothes, golf clubs, MAGA hats, and hair spray onto the White House lawn with this note, “Never come back, you despicable creep!”

               What if the influential evangelical leader Robert Jeffress, after Trump was caught on tape explaining that as a TV star he felt entitled to “grab” women in the most intimate places — or after Trump was found liable by a Manhattan jury of having done pretty much just that to E. Jean Carroll — declared that he would lead a campaign to ensure that anyone but Trump was elected in 2024 because Trump was a moral deviant whom Jeffress would not let babysit his two daughters, let alone the country?

               Where would statements and actions like those have left Kevin McCarthy, his knuckleheads in the House GOP caucus, and other Republicans who now are defending Trump against the Justice Department indictment?”

Read more …

_________________________

Editorial |

What’s going on?

1. Perhaps some benefit and profit from ‘Divide and Conquer?’
2. A minuscule percentage of people vote daily with their money.
3. Their influence opens doors.
4. This might explain why eighty percent of the EU Members of Parliament vote for war while eighty percent of the European people want peace.
5. In June 1963, President John F. Kennedy proposed global peace five months before his assassination.
6. America’s Democracy empowers most adults to vote for the candidate of their conscience.
7. Who’s votes count more that make a difference?
8. Politics is a blood sport.

__________________________

60 YEARS AGO TODAY

Before the day ends, I want to share an incredible and moving historical moment that occurred 60 years ago today, on June 10, 1963.

June 15, 2023
Source: Michael Moore
https://www.michaelmoore.com/p/60-years-ago-today?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=320974&post_id=127439619&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email

By Michael Moore
Published June 11, 2023

President John F. Kennedy, on this day 60 years ago, lays out his plan to end war.
Photo by: Arnie Sachs/CNP/Getty Images

President John F. Kennedy was asked to give the commencement address at American University in Washington, DC. Happening just five months before his assassination, he bravely called for an end to war, the establishment of permanent peace, and the abolition of nuclear weapons. President Kennedy asked Americans not to hate or fear the Russian/Soviet people, that they were a people of virtue who had sacrificed over 20 million of their citizens to defeat Hitler, and that we should never forget that. “We share the same planet,” he pleaded. “We breathe the same air.” He went on to say that we must be at peace with each other. And the billions we spend on weapons of war should be spent on eliminating poverty, educating our children, and creating a clean environment. And here at home, there can be no peace if we live in a nation of inequality. I’m guessing some Americans saw his thinking in a not-so-positive way, just three years after Eisenhower’s equally brave warning about our dangerous “industrial-military complex” that was built to increase profits for the few who made and sold weapons and continually pushed us into war.

I’ve made a few edits to shorten its length and remove/update anachronisms that sound like they’re from an episode of Mad Men.

As I listened to this speech today, I decided to send it to President Biden (and his granddaughters). We need him to be in the spiritual and political soul space President Kennedy was in 60 years ago today. The Russians and the Ukrainians of the Soviet Union were our Allies. World War II would have probably been lost without them. The Russian people and the Ukrainian people are our friends. The madness must end. Peace can be achieved. If we lose our belief in that, as was said 60 years ago on this day, ultimately, all will be lost. Please read Kennedy’s words before you turn out the lights tonight.

— Michael Moore

_________________________________________________

PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY:

“[American University] President Anderson, members of the faculty, board of trustees, distinguished guests, my old colleague, Senator Bob Byrd, who has earned his degree through many years of attending night law school, while I am earning mine in the next 30 minutes, distinguished guests, ladies, and gentlemen:

I am proud to participate in this ceremony at the American University here in Washington, DC.

‘There are few earthly things more beautiful than a university,’ wrote John Masefield in his tribute to English universities — and his words are equally valid today. He did not refer to spires, towers, campus greens, or ivied walls. He admired the splendid beauty of the university, he said, because it was ‘a place where those who hate ignorance may strive to know, where those who perceive truth may strive to make others see.’

I have, therefore, chosen this time and this place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too often abounds, and the truth is too rarely perceived — yet it is the most important topic on earth: world peace.

What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the type that enables citizens and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children — not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women — not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.

I speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no sense in an age when great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resorting to those forces. It makes no sense in an era when a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by all the Allied air forces in the Second World War. It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind, water, soil, and seed to the far corners of the globe and generations yet unborn.

Today the expenditure of billions of dollars annually on weapons acquired to ensure we never need to use them is essential to keeping the peace. But indeed, acquiring such idle stockpiles — which can only destroy and never create — is not the only, much less the most efficient, means of assuring peace.

I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational goal of a sensible humanity. I realize that the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war — and frequently, the words of the pursuer fall on deaf ears.

But we have no more urgent task.

Some say that it is useless to speak of world peace or world law or world disarmament — and that it will be useless until the leaders of the Soviet Union adopt a more enlightened attitude. I hope they do. I believe we can help them do it. But I also believe that we must reexamine our own attitude — as individuals and as a Nation — for our attitude is as essential as theirs. And every graduate of this school, every thoughtful citizen who despairs of war and wishes to bring peace, should begin by looking inward — by examining their attitude toward the possibilities of peace, toward the Soviet Union, toward the course of the cold war and toward freedom and peace here at home.

First: Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable — that humankind is doomed — that forces grip us that we cannot control.

We need not accept that view. Our problems are self-imposed — therefore, they can be solved by us. And humankind can be precisely as we want it to be. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Our reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable — and we believe we can do it again…

Let us focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace — based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions — on a series of concrete actions and effective agreements in the interest of all concerned. There is no single, simple key to this peace — no grand or magic formula to be adopted by one or two powers. Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts. It must be dynamic, not static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation. For peace is a process — a way of solving problems.

With such peace, there will still be quarrels and conflicting interests, as there are within families and nations. World peace, like community peace, does not require that each person love their neighbor — it requires only that they live together in mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement. And history teaches us that enmities between nations, as between individuals, do not last forever. However fixed our likes and dislikes may seem, the tide of time and events will often bring surprising changes in the relations between nations and neighbors.

So let us persevere. Peace need not be impracticable, and war need not be inevitable. By defining our goal more clearly and making it seem more manageable and less remote, we can help all people see it, draw hope from it, and move irresistibly toward it.

Second: Let us reexamine our attitude toward the Soviet Union.

It is discouraging to think their leaders may believe their propagandists' writing.

Indeed, as written long ago: ‘The wicked flee when no one pursueth.’ It is sad to realize the extent of the gulf between the Soviet Union and us. But it is also a warning — a warning to the American people not to fall into the same trap as the Soviets, not to see only a distorted and desperate view of the other side, not to see conflict as inevitable, accommodation as impossible, and communication as nothing more than an exchange of threats.

No government or social system is so evil that its people must be considered lacking in virtue. Yes, as Americans, we find communism profoundly repugnant as negating personal freedom and dignity. But we can still hail the Russian people for their many achievements — in science and space, in economic and industrial growth, in culture, and acts of courage.

Among the many traits the peoples of our two countries have in common, none is more potent than our mutual abhorrence of war. Almost unique among the major world powers, we have never been at war with each other. And no nation in battle history ever suffered more than the Soviet Union in the Second World War. At least 20 million lost their lives. Countless millions of homes and farms were burned or sacked. A third of the nation's territory, including nearly two-thirds of its industrial base, was turned into a wasteland — a loss equivalent to the devastation of this country east of Chicago.

Today, should total war ever break out again — no matter how — our two countries would become the primary targets. It is an ironic but accurate fact that the two strongest powers are in the most danger of devastation. All we have built and worked for would be destroyed in the first 24 hours. And even in the cold war, which brings burdens and dangers to many nations, including this nation's closest allies — our two countries bear the heaviest loads. We are both devoting massive sums of money to weapons that could be better devoted to combating ignorance, poverty, and disease. We are both caught up in a vicious and dangerous cycle in which suspicion on one side breeds suspicion on the other, and new weapons beget counter-weapons.

In short, both the United States and its allies and the Soviet Union and its allies have a mutually deep interest in just and genuine peace and in halting the arms race. Agreements to this end are in the interests of the Soviet Union and ours — and even the most hostile nations can be relied upon to accept and keep those treaty obligations, and only those treaty obligations which are in their interest.

So, let us not be blind to our differences — but also direct attention to our common interests and how those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end our differences now, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our 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.

Third: Let us reexamine our attitude toward the cold war, remembering that we are not engaged in a debate, seeking to pile up debating points. We are not here distributing blame or pointing the finger at the judgment. We must deal with the world as it is and not as it might have been had the history of the last 18 years been different.

We must, therefore, persevere in the search for peace in the hope that constructive changes within the Communist bloc might bring within reach solutions which now seem beyond us. We must conduct our affairs so that it becomes in the Communists' interest to agree on genuine peace. Above all, while defending our vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy — or of a collective death wish for the world.

To secure these ends, America's weapons are nonprovocative, carefully controlled, designed to deter, and capable of selective use. Our military forces are committed to peace and disciplined in self-restraint. Our diplomats are instructed to avoid unnecessary irritants and purely rhetorical hostility.

For we can seek a relaxation of tension without relaxing our guard. And, for our part, we do not need to use threats to prove that we are resolute. We do not need to jam foreign broadcasts out of fear our faith will be eroded. We are unwilling to impose our system on unwilling people — but we are willing and able to compete peacefully with any people on earth.

Meanwhile, we seek to strengthen the United Nations, to help solve its financial problems, to make it a more effective instrument for peace, to develop it into a genuine world security system — a system capable of resolving disputes based on law, of ensuring the security of the large and the small, and of creating conditions under which arms can finally be abolished.

We have also tried to set an example for others — by seeking to adjust small but significant differences with our own closest neighbors in Mexico and Canada.

Speaking of other nations, I wish to make one point clear. We are bound to many countries by alliances. Those alliances exist because our concerns and theirs substantially overlap. For example, our commitment to defend Western Europe and West Berlin stands undiminished because of the identity of our vital interests. The United States will make no deal with the Soviet Union at the expense of other nations and other peoples, not merely because they are our partners but also because their interests and ours converge.

Our interests converge, however, in defending the frontiers of freedom and pursuing the paths of peace. It is our hope — and the purpose of allied policies — to convince the Soviet Union that she, too, should let each nation choose its future, so long as that choice does not interfere with the intentions of others… For there can be no doubt that if all countries could refrain from interfering in the self-determination of others, peace would be much more assured.

This will require a new effort to achieve world law — a new context for world discussions. It will require increased understanding between the Soviets and ourselves. And increased awareness will require increased contact and communication. One step in this direction is the proposed arrangement for a direct line between Moscow and Washington to avoid on each side the dangerous delays, misunderstandings, and misreadings of the other's actions that might occur at a time of crisis.

We have also been talking in Geneva about the other first-step measures of arms control designed to limit the intensity of the arms race and reduce the risks of accidental war. However, our primary long-range interest in Geneva is general and complete disarmament — designed to take place in stages, permitting parallel political developments to build the new institutions of peace which would take the place of arms. The pursuit of disarmament…however dim the prospects may be today, we intend to continue this effort — to continue it so that all countries, including our own, can better grasp what the problems and possibilities of disarmament are.

The one major area of these negotiations where the end is in sight, yet where a fresh start is badly needed, is in a treaty to outlaw nuclear tests. The conclusion of such a treaty, so near and yet so far, would check the spiraling arms race in one of its most dangerous areas. It would place the nuclear powers in a position to deal more effectively with one of humanity's greatest hazards in 1963, the further spread of nuclear arms. It would increase our security — it would decrease the prospects of war. Indeed this goal is sufficiently important to require our steady pursuit, yielding neither to the temptation to give up the whole effort nor the temptation to give up our insistence on vital and responsible safeguards.

Therefore, I am taking this opportunity to announce two important decisions.

First: Chairman Khrushchev, UK Prime Minister Macmillan, and I have agreed that high-level discussions will shortly begin in Moscow, looking toward early agreement on a comprehensive test ban treaty. Our hopes must be tempered with the caution of history — but with our hopes go the hopes of all humankind.

Second: To clarify our good faith and solemn convictions, I now declare that the United States does not propose conducting nuclear tests in the atmosphere as long as other states do not. We will not be the first to resume. Such a declaration is no substitute for a formal binding treaty, but I hope it will help us achieve one. Nor would such a treaty be a substitute for disarmament, but I hope it will help us achieve it.

Finally, my fellow Americans, let us examine our attitude toward peace and freedom at home. The quality and spirit of our society must justify and support our efforts abroad. We must show it in the dedication of our lives — as many of you graduating today will have a unique opportunity to do by serving without pay in the Peace Corps abroad or in the proposed National Service Corps here at home.

But wherever we are, we must all, in our daily lives, live up to the ancient faith that peace and freedom walk together. In too many cities today, peace is not secure because freedom is incomplete.

The executive branch's responsibility at all levels of government — local, State, and National — is to provide and protect that freedom for all of our citizens by all means within their authority. It is the responsibility of the legislative branch at all levels, wherever that authority is not now adequate, to make it acceptable. And it is the responsibility of all citizens in all sections of this country to respect the rights of all others and to respect the law of the land.

All this is not unrelated to world peace. "When one's ways please the Lord," the Scriptures tell us, "they maketh even their enemies to be at peace with them." And is not peace, in the last analysis, basically a matter of human rights — the right to live out our lives without fear of devastation — the right to breathe air as nature provided it — the right of future generations to a healthy existence?

While we proceed to safeguard our national interests, let us also protect human interests. And the elimination of war and arms is clearly in the interest of both. No treaty, however much it may be to the advantage of all, however tightly it may be worded, can provide absolute security against the risks of deception and evasion. But it can — if it is sufficiently effective in its enforcement and if it is sufficiently in the interests of its signers — offer far more security and far fewer risks than an unabated, uncontrolled, unpredictable arms race.

The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war.

[Editor’s Note: Although President Kennedy had decided not to invade Vietnam and to begin de-escalating the US military presence in Southeast Asia within the coming year, barely nine months after his assassination in 1963, Kennedy’s successor and the Pentagon lied to the American people about an “attack” in the Gulf of Tonkin to stage a full-scale US invasion of Vietnam that would last for 11 long years, costing the lives of 3 to 4 million innocent Southeast Asians and nearly 60,000 US troops. And future wars of aggression, conducted by future US Presidents, would result in the loss of hundreds of thousands of more lives.]

KENNEDY: We do not want a war. We do not now expect a war. This generation of Americans has already had enough — more than enough — of war and hate, and oppression. We shall be prepared if others wish it. We shall be alert to try to stop it. But we shall also do our part to build a world of peace where the weak are safe, and the strong are just. We are not helpless before that task or hopeless of its success. Confident and unafraid, we labor on — not toward a strategy of annihilation but toward a strategy of peace.

Thank you.

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The Evangelical Pope| 'At the Service of Understanding,' 12 June 2023. 

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The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of the Building the Bridge Foundation, The Hague.