Whenever I hear progressives ding Kennedy’s foreign policy record, I cringe. But I also realize they do so out of an ignorance not of their own making, but of one studiously foisted upon them.
It is important to remember, especially with President John Kennedy, that history is written by the victor. Kennedy wasn’t just killed once. He was killed posthumously so that all he was trying to do, and stood for, would be washed away. By making him less than who he was, his assassination would seem less necessary. By painting him as a rabid cold warrior, no one would suspect cold warriors of having killed him.
Sadly, a whole set of generations are now growing up with false history about John Kennedy (and Bobby, albeit less so). I felt the need to correct a bit of that record.
Kennedy was inaugurated three days after Lumumba was killed in the Congo. Kennedy was known to be a supporter of Lumumba, and was devastated when he learned of his assassination.
As Gerard Colby so brilliantly noted in “Thy Will Be Done”:
Within a month of Kennedy’s election, some of Nelson [Rockefeller]’s closest allies … were meeting in the White House’s Cabinet Room or heading key offices in the new administration. Swiftly and quietly, they began implementing many of the changes in government structure and policy that Nelson advocated.
This secret victory [for Rockefeller] was the outcome of Kennedy’s inexperience. Kennedy had spent the past five years running for office. He knew politicians, but not men who could run the government of a world power.
Kennedy turned to Robert Lovett, a former Truman administration veteran. Lovett was also a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation.
So right from the start, without realizing it, Kennedy had brought the empire builders right into the top places in his administration. He’d be fighting them for the rest of his short term.
In his second full month in office, he ended support for the anti-communist dictator in Laos that the CIA-Pentagon forces had installed during Eisenhower’s term. Kennedy said at a news conference that the US “strongly and unreservedly” supported a goal of a “neutral and independent Laos.”
He inherited an already-in-motion operation in the Bay of Pigs when he stepped into the White House. In April, he gave a green light based strictly on the information the CIA had provided, which was that the CIA was simply supporting a native revolution, and was going to offer limited support.
That wasn’t true, but Kennedy didn’t know then that the CIA would deliberately mislead a president. During the mission, the CIA and Navy pressured Kennedy hard to send in the Marines, stationed offshore, in a full-scale invasion. Kennedy resisted, angering the forces hell-bent on overthrowing Castro.
When Kennedy saw the mission was not going as planned, the CIA figured he would not opt to lose, but would throw more forces at it for victory. But they guessed wrong. Kennedy took the hit, and then forced Allen Dulles, the Godfather of the CIA, from the Agency. Many in the Agency hated Kennedy from that point forward, and the feeling was mutual.
That’s when Kennedy made the famous vow to splinter the CIA into 1000 pieces and scatter it to winds. He explicitly set up the Defense Intelligence Agency to corral the CIA’s covert operations under strict military control. The DIA opened October 1, 1961, a move which made CIA operatives’ blood boil even further.
In July of 1961, Allen Dulles and the Joint Chiefs of Staff present Kennedy with a preemptive nuclear strike plan to be launched against the USSR in late 1963, to be preceded by a period of escalating (and manufactured) events. Kennedy walks out, saying to Dean Rusk, “and they call us the human race.”
In September of 1961, Khrushchev initiates a backchannel correspondence with Kennedy. He slips a letter into a newspaper carried to a Kennedy aide. Kennedy writes back. They agree to disagree on many things, but both agree keeping the forces surrounding them from launching a nuclear weapon is of paramount concern. Publicly, Khrushchev shakes a fist at Kennedy, refusing nuclear disarmament.
In October, Khrushchev escalates the Cold War by erecting the Berlin Wall.
In November of 1961, Kennedy resists pressure from the Joint Chiefs to send combat troops to Vietnam. Under intense pressure, he compromises – allows military advisors and support personnel.
Also in November, Kennedy authorizes “Operation Mongoose,” which did not include plans to kill Castro. (The CIA, by their own admission in their IG report, kept the Castro plots from Kennedy.) Mongoose was designed to “help Cuba overthrow Castro” – meaning, aid them in a native revolution, the same thing Kennedy thought he was authorizing with the Bay of Pigs. But this time, he appointed an Army man, General Ed Lansdale, to keep the CIA in check. Kennedy would later say he wasted his brother in the AG position, and should have given him control over the CIA.
Also in 1961, Kennedy reaches out to Sukarno in Indonesia. His nationalism leans in a communist direction. Under the Eisenhower administration, the CIA tried to kill Sukarno. But Kennedy wanted to work with him, and to offer him not arms, but aid of a more productive kind. He appointed a team of economic advisors to study the problem.
Meanwhile, Indonesia was having a crisis in what is now called West Papua, but then called West Irian or Irian Jaya. This site contained a mountain so rich in ore it was called “Copper Mountain”. The mountain is long gone, but the area is now home to the world’s largest gold mine (operated by Freeport McMoRan).
The Dutch had conceded their entire former colony of Indonesia independence except this region of riches. And Sukarno wanted to keep Indonesia whole. The US, allies to both, was caught in the middle. Kennedy asked Ellsworth Bunker to broker an agreement, which led to a promise of West Irian independence. To soothe Sukarno, Kennedy issued a national security memorandum in which he included these instructions:
To seize this opportunity, will all agencies concerned please review their programs for Indonesia and assess what further measures might be useful. I have in mind the possibility of expanded civic action, military aid, and economic stabilization and development programs as well as diplomatic initiatives.
Where the Cold Warriors tried to destroy Sukarno, Kennedy tried to help him. Sukarno was particularly affected when Kennedy was killed. Separately, the Rockefellers were involved in Freeport McMoRan’s predecessor, Freeport Sculpture in Indonesia, which benefited when a coup overthrew Sukarno and brought Suharto to power. (For the tangled story there – see JFK, Indonesia, CIA and Freeport Sulphur.)
Meanwhile, back in the states, on April 11, 1962, Kennedy took on the steel industry with words stronger than anything John Edwards ever said:
Simultaneous and identical actions of United States Steel and other leading steal corporations increasing steel prices by some $6 a ton constitute a wholly unjustifiable and irresponsible defiance of the public interest. In this serious hour in our Nation’s history when we are confronted with grave crises in Berlin and Southeast Asia, when we are devoting our energies to economic recovery and stability, when we are asking reservists to leave their homes and their families for months on end and servicemen to risk their lives–and four were killed in the last two days in Viet Nam and asking union members to hold down their wage requests at a time when restraint and sacrifice are being asked of every citizen, the American people will find it hard, as I do, to accept a situation in which a tiny handful of steel executives whose pursuit of private power and profit exceeds their sense of public responsibility can show such utter contempt for the interests of 185 million Americans.
In May of 1962, Kennedy instructed McNamara to find a way out of Vietnam. McNamara turns to General Paul Harkins and orders him to “devise a plan for turning full responsibility over to South Vietnam and reducing the size of our military command, and to submit this plan at the next conference.” Harkins ignores this order, but McNamara won’t learn this for several months.
In July of 1962, the US becomes one of fourteen nations signing the “Declaration on the Neutrality of Laos” in Geneva. The CIA and Pentagon see this as treason, capitulation to the communists.
I could go on all night, but I won’t. I’ll summarize with a quote from Don Gibson’s book “Battling Wall Street”:
When Kennedy went against his advisors on foreign policy, it was because he rejected the idea that the US had a right to control economic and political event sin other nations. In quite sharp contrast to his strong military stand against the powerful Soviet Union, Kennedy was reluctant to employ military force against smaller and weaker nations. This reluctance was completely consistent with his comments in 1959 … where he rejected “the pageantry of imperialism.”
Chester Bowles cited the following decisions made by Kennedy against a majority of his advisors: refusing to invade Cuba during the Bay of Pigs disaster; refusing to intervene in the Dominican Republic following the assassination of Trujillo; refusing to introduce ground forces into Laos; refusing to escalate our involvement in Vietnam; backing U.N. policy in the Congo, and backing India in a dispute with China and Pakistan. In making these decisions, Kennedy was repeatedly affirming his idea of a US foreign policy against those who either shared the neo-colonialist attitudes of various economic interests in Europe and the US or viewed all interests of the Third World nations as unimportant compared to the ongoing conflict with communism.
Considering the multitude of factors involved in any significant foreign policy decision, it is reasonable to conclude that consistency across a series of such decisions indicates underlying principles.
On June 10 in the last year of his life, Kennedy spoke these words:
I have, therefore, chosen this time and place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth too rarely perceived. And that is the most important topic on earth: peace. What kind of peace do I mean and what kind of a peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced 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, and the kind that enables men and nations to grow, and to hope, and 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 in all time.
Show me a better foreign policy than that.
Thanks Lisa for this article. I tried to email about something but it would not go through.
This one president is why I lean so favorablly towards the democrats. I have yet to give up my faith in you all….;o) I so enjoy your knowledge in this matter.
My G-daughter is trying to do a paper on Kennedy and needs as much non-biased history as she can get. Could you email me a way to get this to her…Thanks..
Emailing you now. And thanks. Yes – Kennedy set a tone I wish more Democrats would aspire to.
Thanks Lisa. Returned email…Thanks, greatly.
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In 1969, the people of West Irian were to determine their own fate, as a province of Indonesia or an independent nation. None of the major powers showed any interest in the territory with primitive people (Papuans) and let Indonesia regulate the self-determination of the people of West Irian. Irian Jaya is now colonized by mainly Java population. The riches of the territory could only be retrieved at the expense of great cost to the ecology.
1962:
January – Two Dutch warships engage four Indonesian torpedo boats off West Irian. One Indonesian boat is sunk; another damaged.
February – U.S. Atty. Gen. Robert F Kennedy arrives in Jakarta to lead negotiations on West Irian. Robert Kennedy continues to the Netherlands; informs the Netherlands government that the U.S. will not support the Dutch should the conflict escalate.
April – Indonesian military pressure on West Irian increases, including air and sea attacks.
August – Dutch agree to transfer West Irian to United Nations in October. UN is to transfer West Irian to Indonesia by May 1963. Elections are to decide the ultimate fate of the territory .
September – Subandrio visits Singapore; states that he cannot guarantee that Indonesia will not make claims on Malaysian territory.
Indonesia’s claim to sovereignty over Irian Jaya
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
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Cannibalism was practiced among prehistoric human beings, and it lingered into the 19th century in some isolated South Pacific cultures, notably in Fiji. But today the Korowai are among the very few tribes believed to eat human flesh. They live about 100 miles inland from the Arafura Sea, which is where Michael Rockefeller, a son of then-New York governor Nelson Rockefeller, disappeared in 1961 while collecting artifacts from another Papuan tribe; his body was never found. Most Korowai still live with little knowledge of the world beyond their homelands and frequently feud with one another. Some are said to kill and eat male witches they call khakhua.
The island of New Guinea, the second largest in the world after Greenland, is a mountainous, sparsely populated tropical landmass divided between two countries: the independent nation of Papua New Guinea in the east, and the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Irian Jaya in the west. The Korowai live in southeastern Papua.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
Believe it or not, I heard there was a very good script floating around Hollywood re Michael Rockefeller and his ultimate end. Can’t imagine why it was never made. (Not.)
What is remarkable about this is how much Kennedy, even tat the height of the Cold War, was prepared to take on the “military-industrial complex” and adopt a truly humanitarian approach. It also shows the extent to which the MI Complex was prepared to flout the authority of their democratically elected President. That is why he and his brother had to be killed. Obama will suffer the same fate if he is even half as radical. Sadly the US is a country where a coup has happened, and most don’t realise that and still think they are living in a democracy.
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“This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence-economic, political, even spiritual-is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
VIDEO – Eisenhower Speech
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
And Eisenhower was a military man through and through and could hardly be considered a radical. So if he was so concerned…. However the overton window has moved so much, you would now be considered a dangerous lefty for saying the same thing.
PS why don’t you blog on European Tribune?
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Enjoy the friendship and sharing of joy here at BooMan’s pond. ET came somewhat later UID40 and met some harsh words. My preference is for American politics, especially when analyzed from the other side across the big pond.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
Ah, I see. Anyone who criticises Israeli Government policy is an anti-Semite. Oldest trick in the book. Been there. Some on ET are better at knocking other people’s copy than writing their own.
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March 1, 1961 – Our Peace Corps is not designed as an instrument of diplomacy or propaganda or ideological conflict. It is designed to permit our people to exercise more fully their responsibilities in the great common cause of world development.
Life in the Peace Corps will not be easy. There will be no salary and allowances will be at a level sufficient only to maintain health and meet basic needs. Men and women will be expected to work and live alongside the nationals of the country in which they are stationed–doing the same work, eating the same food, talking the same language.
USAID
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."