Digest 8: JFK’s greatest speech; “Avoid World War III — Vote Trump” (?); Ex-CIA Officer Frank Snepp
Joseph P. Kennedy
I’ve subsequently done a deep-dive into JFK’s father. He is a fascinating historical figure.
He did insider trading (before he joined the SEC and made it illegal), making a small fortune. He was a giant of early Hollywood, and head of several studios. He then became Ambassador to the UK right before WWII (though an extremely bad one).
A few weeks ago I supported Elon’s attempt to propose/broker peace plans in Ukraine. Here is an interesting historical counterpoint, and an example of a pacifist argument dating very badly (4 minutes):
(I’m not meaning to liken Putin to Hitler, but – much as I support all of Elon’s aims – potentially likening Elon here to JPK.)
David Nasaw further strenuously argues that businesspeople make terrible diplomats/geopolitical negotiators. They have massive overconfidence, little historical/cultural-specific grounding, and tend to be delusional.
‘Avoid World War III — Vote Trump’
Niall Ferguson wrote recently:
Trump was not wholly unconvincing when he argued earlier this year that Russia would not have dared invade Ukraine on his watch, and that China would be equally unlikely to risk an invasion of Taiwan with him back in the White House. “Avoid World War III — Vote Trump” wouldn’t be a wildly far-fetched slogan.
For anyone relying on present day mainstream media, this would of course sound mad. But – daring to write in a nuanced way about Trump – quoting from an April 1984 New York Times article, The Expanding Empire of Donald Trump:
What does it all mean when some wacko over in Syria can end the world with nuclear weapons?
He [Trump] says that his concern for nuclear holocaust is not one that popped into his mind during any recent made-of-television movie. He says that it has been troubling him since his uncle, a nuclear physicist, began talking to him about it 15 years ago.
[Trump has actually been thinking about nuclear armaggedon since 1969.]
His greatest dream is to personally do something about the problem and, characteristically, Donald Trump thinks he has an answer to nuclear armament: Let him negotiate arms agreements - he who can talk people into selling $100 million properties to him for $13 million. Negotiations is an art, he says and I have a gift for it.
The idea that he would ever be allowed to go into a room alone and negotiate for the United States, let alone be successful in disarming the world, seems the naive musing of an optimistic, deluded young man who has never lost at anything he has tried. But he believes that through years of making his views known and through supporting candidates who share his views, it could someday happen.
Is there a plausible argument the trajectory for world peace is improved with Trump in the White House (even if chances of U.S. domestic/civil unrest grow dramatically)? Or, is Trump another delusional businessman?
Had JFK invaded Cuba...?
Had JFK invaded Cuba, as advised, what would have happened? From Graham Allison… (1 minute)
His initial instinct was ‘we have to conduct an airstrike on these missiles now’, to prevent them ever being capable of attacking the U.S.
What he and his colleagues did not know, but we as historians do now know... troops had brought 100 tactical nuclear weapons, so had the U.S. bombed the missiles and followed with the invasion that was planned, unknown to Kennedy, but he would have discovered, that the American troops were incinerated by the Soviet tactical nuclear weapons – and from there to full-scale nuclear war would be a short step.
Deterrence!
This from John Cochrane on GoodFellows, for 30 seconds, I thought really good/important:
With China, we are still at the point of deterrence, not war-fighting. Our job is to convince them not to invade Taiwan... We want China to see that invading Taiwan will hurt it... because it’s going to cost it a lot. So fighting the war now – by trying to cut it off completely from the global economy – is a mistake if your intention is to deter them from starting that war.
And this for 20 seconds, from H.R. McMaster (who I quite often disagree with while listening to), on enough of the China Dream, I thought very good.
Ex-CIA Officer Frank Snepp
This video, on CIA disinformation in Vietnam, was shared by Edward Snowden – so take with whatever sized pinch of salt you think appropriate… (1 minute)
But doubtless interesting.
JFK’s greatest speech
In my last digest, I noted, from Graham Allison:
[In 1963] President John F. Kennedy delivered one of the most significant speeches of his career. (Both his close colleague and speechwriter Ted Sorensen and his Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara regarded it his single most important speech.) In the commencement address at American University…
So, I listened to the full thing. Some brilliant highlights:
…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... I am talking about genuine peace.
With such a 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 man love his 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.
It is an ironic but accurate fact that the two strongest powers are the two in the most danger of devastation.
Above all, while defending our own 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.
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.
The Peacemakers
Part-inspired by JFK’s speech, I have hung a new painting in my apartment.
Towards the end of my time in 10 Downing Street, late 2020, I hung Valley Forge – as part of my late-evening Zoom backdrop.
People often asked about it, and I would reply with words to the effect:
It’s George Washington and Lafayette at Valley Forge, the winter of 1777. A reminder that, no matter how grim things feel right now, we’re not facing off against the most formidable army of the century, during an East Coast winter, without supplies enough to provide our troops shoes.
I’ve now swapped this out for The Peacemakers.
Remarks from George Bush Senior on it that hit me:
The painting shows two of Lincoln’s generals and an admiral meeting near the end of a war that pitted brother against brother. And outside at the moment a battle rages. And yet what we see in the distance is a rainbow—a symbol of hope, of the passing of the storm. The painting’s name: The Peacemakers. And for me, this is a constant reassurance that the cause of peace will triumph and that ours can be the future that Lincoln gave his life for: a future free of both tyranny and fear.
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That’s all for this week. Thank you for reading. If you know one person who might enjoy this, please share it on!