JFK & the Unspeakable: Why He Died & Why It Matters (141 page)

At the same time we seek to keep peace inside the non-Communist world, where many nations, all of them our friends, are divided over issues which weaken Western unity, which invite Communist intervention or which threaten to erupt into war. Our efforts in West New Guinea, in the Congo, in the Middle East, and in the Indian subcontinent, have been persistent and patient despite criticism from both sides. 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 nations by alliances. Those alliances exist because our concern and theirs substantially overlap. Our commitment to defend Western Europe and West Berlin, for example, 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, not only in defending the frontiers of freedom, but in 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 own future, so long as that choice does not interfere with the choices of others. The Communist drive to impose their political and economic system on others is the primary cause of world tension today. For there can be no doubt that, if all nations could refrain from interfering in the self-determination of others, the 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 understanding 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 which might occur at a time of crisis.

We have also been talking in Geneva about other first-step measures of arms control, designed to limit the intensity of the arms race and to reduce the risk of accidental war. Our primary long range interest in Geneva, however, is general and complete disarmament—designed to take place by stages, permitting parallel political developments to build the new institutions of peace which would take the place of arms. The pursuit of disarmament has been an effort of this Government since the 1920’s. It has been urgently sought by the past three administrations. And however dim the prospects may be today, we intend to continue this effort—to continue it in order 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 the greatest hazards which man faces in 1963, the further spread of nuclear arms. It would increase our security—it would decrease the prospects of war. Surely 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.

I’m taking this opportunity, therefore, to announce two important decisions in this regard.

First: Chairman Khrushchev, 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 mankind.

Second: To make clear our good faith and solemn convictions on the matter, I now declare that the United States does not propose to conduct nuclear tests in the atmosphere so long as other states do not do so. 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 towards peace and freedom here at home. The quality and spirit of our own society must justify and support our efforts abroad. We must show it in the dedication of our own lives—as many of you who are graduating today will have an 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 age-old faith that peace and freedom walk together. In too many of our cities today, the peace is not secure because freedom is incomplete.

It is the responsibility of the executive branch at all levels of government—local, State, and National—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 adequate. 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 a man’s ways please the Lord,” the Scriptures tell us, “he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.” 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 safeguard 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. 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 must labor on—not toward a strategy of annihilation but toward a strategy of peace.

Acknowledgments

I am deeply grateful to the friends who read and critiqued this work in progress: Bob and Janet Aldridge, Robert Aitken, Marya Barr, Karol Schulkin, Sandy Bishop, Rhea Millek Bognar, Robert Bonazzi, Clare Carter, Jim Crosby, John Dear, Ronnie Dugger, Dot and John Fisher-Smith, Gaeton Fonzi, Michael Green, Elizabeth Hallett, Leon Holman, Steve Jones, Chester Layman, Barbara Ledingham, Roger Ludwig, Anne Fullerton, Staughton and Alice Lynd, Gerald McKnight, Emmanuel Charles McCarthy, William Hart McNichols, Marietta Miller, Don Mosley, David Oliver, Laurie Raymond, Bert Sacks, Vince Salandria, Marty Schotz, Peter Dale Scott, Ladon Sheats (during his last days on earth), Paul Smith, John Stewart, Mark Taylor, Terry Taylor, Louie Vitale, Kim and Bill Wahl, Edward Walsh, Patrick Walsh, John Williams, Don Wilson, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, Howard Zinn, and Barrie Zwicker. What I have seen through their eyes, questioning mine, has helped me reconsider and revise many points along the way. They are not responsible for my enduring mistakes.

Terry Taylor gave me my first computer. Sisters Mary McGehee and Genevieve Sachse gave me its successor, and John Fievet the successor’s successors. Rick Ambrose, Jerry Levin, and John Fievet have been my computer doctors and advisers. Deepest thanks to them all. Were it not for Rick, his Internet searches, and his and Lexie’s patience through my countless consultations, much of the research for this book would not have occurred.

The first person who peppered me with questions about JFK’s death, while we watched a Seattle Mariners’ baseball game decades ago, was my friend Joe Martin. He has never stopped pursuing those questions. I thank you, Joe, for not giving up on me when I didn’t see the connections you were making between Dallas and a succession of disturbing events since then.

For out-of-town research, I give thanks to Tim Murphy, a constant source of help, Tom Brejcha, Craig Tews, and the Thomas More Society in Chicago—and to Kathy Kelly, Voices in the Wilderness, and Voices for Creative Nonviolence for warm hospitality on my trips to Chicago to interview key witnesses.

Archivists and librarians have sustained this project at every step. At the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, Marty McGann answered patiently my many early morning phone requests for help. Stephen Plotkin and Sharon Kelly of the Research Room at the JFK Library in Boston helped graciously at long distance and during my visit there. Maura Porter and Michelle DeMartino of the JFK Library’s Declassification Unit facilitated my Mandatory Review Requests for Kennedy administration documents. Jim Lesar at the Assassination Archives and Research Center in Washington, DC, provided unpublished materials and documents, as did Regina Greenwell and Linda Seelke at the LBJ Library in Austin. Margaret Goodbody of the D.C. Public Library found for me old articles in Washington newspapers. At the Birmingham Public Library, Johnny Coley, Richard Grooms, and Jim Murray in Social Sciences, and Shirley Nichols in Inter Library Loans, were especially helpful. At the Swarthmore College Peace Collection, Curator Wendy Chmielewski copied for me documents from their file folder on the six Friends’ meeting with President Kennedy on May 1, 1962, and facilitated the transfer of a reel-to-reel tape about the meeting. Diana Peterson shared with me documents from the Quaker Collection of Haverford College on the same meeting, as did Gwen Gosney Erickson, drawing on the archives of the Friends Historical Collection at Guilford College.

Andy Winiarczyk of the Last Hurrah Bookshop (937 Memorial Ave., Williamsport, PA 17701; phone: 570-321-1150) has been my constant friend and resource for books and queries. Dave Hawkins at The Collector’s Archives (Box 2, Beaconsfield, QUE, Canada H9W 5T6; phone: 514-685-4319) has sent many otherwise inaccessible articles and publications. John Judge of the Coalition on Political Assassinations and Tom Jones of JFK Lancer provided helpful references and documents, as did Steve Jones, John Williams, Bob Aldridge, John Armstrong, Jerry Robertson, Edwin Black, Malcolm Blunt, Abraham Bolden, Curtis A. Bolden, Frank Bognar, Kai Bird, Jim Botelho, Frank DeBenedictis, Jeff Dietrich, Clara Solis, Bill Davy, Len Desroches, Sister Alice Godin, Sister Terry Horvath, Daniel Ellsberg, Gaeton Fonzi, H. Bruce Franklin, Jim Gochenaur, Earl Golz, Kathlee Fitzgerald, David Hartsough, Ed Snyder, George and Lillian Willoughby, Vince Palamara, James Johnston, John Kelin, Bill Kelly, Paul Krassner, Barbara LaMonica, Staughton Lynd, Pat McCormick, Bill Sulzman, Gerald McKnight, David McReynolds, Hal Verb, Ray Marcus, Jim Marrs, Peter DeMott, Dan Marvin, Jo Maynes, Herbert S. Parmet, Lisa Pease, Bill Pulte, Marcus Raskin, David Ratcliffe, Peter Dale Scott, Martin Shackleford, Elizabeth Shanklin, Gary Shaw, Matthew Smith, William Weston, Sue Wheaton, Wes Wise, Sherman Skolnick, Grace P. Vale, Tom Vondra, Lawrence S. Wittner, Carl Kaysen, and the late R. B. Cutler, Norb Drouhard, Mary Ferrell, Phil Melanson, and Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. Jerry Rose shared with me articles from
The Third Decade
and
The Fourth Decade
after it ceased publication. And I am grateful to Jim DiEugenio for sending every issue of
Probe
magazine as well as his own JFK files.

Bob Corley loaned me his twenty-six volumes of the Warren Commission Hearings and Exhibits—a priceless resource, without which I could not have done much of my research into the government’s case. Thank you, Bob.

Mohandas Gandhi’s and Thomas Merton’s spirit and writings have formed this experiment in truth since its conception. I am grateful to the International Thomas Merton Society for inviting me to deliver the keynote address at its June 13, 1997, meeting in Mobile, Alabama. That talk on “Compassion and the Unspeakable” provided the framework for this book. I also wish to thank Jim Allen, Judy Cumbee, and Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty for publishing the text of “Compassion and the Unspeakable,” as both a Project Hope fund-raiser and an initial way to test these thoughts with readers.

Jacques Lowe took the stunning photograph of John Kennedy on the cover (used by permission of Woodfin Camp Associates), with cover design by Roberta Savage of Orbis Books and the help of a key question from Tom Douglass.

Two pilgrims into the truth of JFK’s assassination whom I admire greatly and who passed into the communion of saints while the work was in progress are Elmer Maas and Steve Orel. I then asked their assistance, and I thank them for giving it, as I do everyone else in the communion of saints who helped, especially my mother, Madalin Douglass, who led me out of many dead ends.

I have the grace of living with the best writer I know. Unlike the author, Shelley knew when the last line of the story was written – also how to write better many of the previous sentences and paragraphs. Living through the research and writing of this story while carrying out a Catholic Worker ministry of hospitality, as she has with grace and love, has not been easy. Her morning prayer may be the answer to how that and many other gifts in our lives have happened.