This article appears in the June 16, 2023 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
Schiller Institute Conference: ‘The World Needs JFK’s Vision of Peace’
[Print version of this article]
June 11—The Schiller Institute held an online international conference June 10, 2023, titled “The World Needs JFK’s Vision of Peace,” commemorating President John F. Kennedy’s historic American University speech of June 10, 1963—and the paradigm of Man that it represented, which is decisive to bringing about peace today in this most dangerous of global crises. Watch the video here.
The participants in the intense four-hour dialogue included Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute; Donald Ramotar, former President of Guyana; Pino Arlacchi, former Executive Director of the UN Drug Control Program (1997–2002) and former member of the European Parliament for Southern Italy (2009–2014); Ray McGovern, former senior analyst, CIA, and co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity; Dr. Chandra Muzaffar, founder and president of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST) based in Malaysia; Diane Sare, U.S. Senate candidate (New York); and Harley Schlanger, spokesman for The LaRouche Organization. A message was received from Andrey Kortunov, the Director General of the Russian International Affairs Council. Portions of an interview with film maker and historian Oliver Stone by Schiller Institute representatives were included.
The meeting was moderated by the Schiller Institute’s Dennis Speed, New York, who composed and introduced a selection of powerful archival video and audio clips of JFK, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.
The event also included beautiful video selections of the Schiller Institute Chorus and Orchestra in earlier performances from Mozart’s Requiem and Beethoven’s Mass in C. The Confutatis was presented, from the Mozart Requiem that was performed by the Schiller Institute Chorus in 2014 in Boston, where it had been done in 1964 in memory of JFK, at the request of his widow.
In other cities and countries, the June 10 “peace” speech by JFK, and the urgency of his vision for today, were brought forward in articles, rallies, proclamations, and other events, from Houston, Texas to Mexico City, to Rome, Italy (see photos).
JFK, in His Own Words
Dennis Speed presented selections from three principal speeches by President Kennedy: His American University address of June 10, 1963, calling for a new paradigm for world peace; his speech the following day with an equally profound call for a new civil rights paradigm for America; and other statements on the crucial role of classical art and poetry, including his remarks made at the time of commemoration of the beloved American poet Robert Frost. The video and audio presentations by Lyndon H. LaRouche and Martin Luther King addressed the profound impact of not only the assassination of JFK, but of the cover-up of the forces behind it.
The presentations by the conference speakers reflected the powerful influence of the Kennedy legacy internationally, together with a call from each that this level of sanity and creative thinking is sorely missing among the leaders of the Western world today. Leaders and citizens were strongly encouraged to reflect on President Kennedy’s 1963 speech, given just months before his assassination, and to act to restore that vision today, at a moment of the greatest danger of a new global war, even a nuclear war.
Several speakers noted that the majority of the world, including the BRICS nations and virtually the entire Global South, have rejected the demands of the West’s “rules-based order,” choosing peace and development through cooperation, especially with China and the Belt and Road Initiative over the demands of their former colonial masters.
Prof. Arlacchi noted, in regard to the JFK message:
I don’t see in this Russophobia today any kind of position like this, and this is extremely dangerous. This situation can easily bring a nuclear confrontation. I see European public opinion on Russia; it is completely extreme and irrational, which is not the position of the people. Ordinary people are not against Russia, are not against China, they are not against anything. They want to live in peace and prosper and grow, basically.
Chandra Muzaffar emphasized that JFK had been a Cold Warrior, but that he changed, becoming a voice for peace. The adversaries of the West during the Cold War were both the USSR, and also the Non-Aligned Movement based on the Spirit of Bandung. But, Chandra added,
The Cold War came to an end in 1991 or thereabouts. The Non-Aligned Movement was in a perilous position. And the U.S. saw this as its moment of triumph. It was right there, in control of the whole situation. In a sense, it didn’t have a rival to contend with, but it needed a rival in order to perpetuate its dominance, because otherwise, how would you justify your huge military? How would you justify your attempt to tighten your grip over the world? So, we created yet another foe, yet another adversary. What was this adversary? It was Islamic terrorism…. But today, you have Russia, confronting the United States of America and NATO in Ukraine. Ukraine is the battleground, the Ukrainians as the cannon fodder for this tragedy that is boding for us.”
‘It Is Up to Us’
Ray McGovern commented in particular on remarks made by President Kennedy the day after the assassination of Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother, Nov. 2, 1963. The audio was played of this little-known, very powerful JFK reflection. Kennedy openly names Ambassador to Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge and Kennedy’s National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, as the ones pushing that atrocity, the primary war hawks who gave us the Vietnam War.
McGovern said:
Isn’t it interesting to compare it to today. Who are the hawks? Hah! It happens to be in the Department of State! ... That’s what is going on now, in Ukraine. You have the CIA, the military, and the hawks at the State Department. Back then, you had Bill Bundy at State, and his brother McGeorge Bundy, the President’s National Security Advisor—these guys were the “Best and the Brightest,” they went to the same schools as Blinken and Sullivan—very well- heeled.... You get these people, so enchanted by power, so convinced that they can make things work, you get them in positions of power.... You have a President now who is non compos mentis, and you have Blinken and Sullivan and Nuland running this thing, it’s going to come to a very bad end. What will these ‘best and the brightest’ do now? ... Well, it is up to us to make sure they do the right thing and not double-down.
