Like any newly-elected leader, Kennedy spoke of, and envisaged, a brighter, more prosperous and more peaceful future for his country and indeed for the world, starting with his famous Inauguration Address. A gifted speaker with a formidable speechwriting team, Kennedy continued to articulate his vision and inspire audiences right up to his death. A constant theme of his speeches was peace. Not, as he said at The American University on 10 June 1963: a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not: the peace of the grave or the security of the slave, But: genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life worth living. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal. (Read the American University Speech in full). Fifteen years after the Second World War, and less than ten after the Korean conflict, this was a potent and attractive message, as was the idea of cutting spending on armaments to combat ignorance, poverty and disease. But on the day of his 1963 speech, Congress passed its largest ever defence budget: and Kennedy’s presidency had already seen the world come closer to nuclear annihilation than ever before. A hot period in a cold war Kennedy’s short presidency encompassed one of the most dangerous and frightening periods of the Cold War, including the erection of the Berlin Wall in August 1961 and the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962. In addition, civil war in Laos and increasing tension between South and North Vietnam foreshadowed America’s long and painful involvement in south-east Asia, while Communist China, increasingly self-confident and aggressive, split with its Soviet mentor and contemplated developing nuclear weapons. Cuba, after the humiliating failure of the Bay of Pigs expedition in April 1961, intended to stir up revolt against Fidel Castro, remained a festering sore to many Americans. It was a hot period in a cold war, and Kennedy was in the thick of it. Beset by competing advice from Congress, from the US military, from allies and those who hoped for American aid, Kennedy faced a basic dilemma: how could the US stand firm in the fight against global communism, while avoiding a nuclear cataclysm? ‘Nothing really happened’ In October 1964, nearly a year after Kennedy’s death, his friend, ally and mentor Harold Macmillan, British Prime Minister from 1957-63, wrote in his diary that: poor Jack achieved nothing positive . . . In spite of all the talk, on defence on monetary policy, on tariffs─nothing really happened. Yet Macmillan admired and mourned Kennedy, whom he regarded as a great statesmen. It is true that Kennedy did not prevent the Vietnam War; did not resolve US policy towards Castro’s Cuba; did not tear down the Berlin Wall, let alone end the Cold
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