Tribute by Viktorov
Moscow in English to the United Kingdom 1800 GMT 25 November 1963--L
(Text) Here is a tribute to the memory of President
Kennedy written by our observer, Yakov Viktorov: For the American people this
has been a day of mourning for President John Kennedy, whose death came so
tragically and untimely. The Soviet people share the American people's sorrow at
this severe loss. They share the American people's anger and indignation at the
criminal activities of the repugnant reactionaries who incited and engineered
the brutal assassination of the President.
John Kennedy will go down in history as one of the
outstanding U.S. statesmen. In the short period that he held office, he
displayed great broadmindedness and a sober appreciation of political realities
and of contemporary international development. We remember that in the first
days of his tenure in the White House, in his first platform speeches, John
Kennedy proclaimed his task to return the United States to the road mapped out
by President Franklin Roosevelt, one of the great men to occupy the White House.
However, the men who succeeded Roosevelt departed from this road. It is to
Kennedy's credit that, despite a certain inconsistency, he did take a sober and
rational stand on the main issue of the day, that of war and peace. He
recognized in essence the invincibility and vitality of the principles of
peaceful coexistence.
Franklin Roosevelt, in his time, always maintained that
preserving and consolidating friendship and cooperation between the United
States and the USSR was an immutable prerequisite for building peace. John
Kennedy also realized the full significance and necessity of bettering and
strengthening Soviet-U.S. relations in the spirit of businesslike cooperation
for the good of the people of both countries and the cause of general peace.
Both Roosevelt and Kennedy shared an understanding of the new factors in the
history of mankind which have taken such a forceful grip on life and which have
radically altered the balance of power in the world arena. Further historians,
in analyzing the development of American policy, will undoubtedly trace the line
from Franklin Roosevelt to John Kennedy. They will link Kennedy's name with U.S.
participation in the history-making test-ban treaty, which was concluded at the
Soviet Union's initiative.
It must also be noted that when it comes to domestic policy,
John Kennedy did not take the road of his immediate predecessors. He strongly
opposed the sway of racism, which he called "a blight on America." The course
steered by President Kennedy in search of a peaceful settlement of controversial
international issues and his speeches flaying racism aroused anger and hatred
against him among the wild-men, among the rabid reactionaries who, as the tragic
march of events has shown, even stooped to a horrible crime: to remove Kennedy
form the political arena.
Let us ask: Who profited from the assassination of Kennedy?
The answer makes it clear that we are dealing with a criminal conspiracy spun by
the darkest forces of reaction. The champions of the cold war, together with the
wild men of all and every ilk, saw and realized perfectly well that every one of
the President's measures aimed at international relaxation met with enthusiastic
approval of the majority of the American people. This is indicated most
convincingly by the way public opinion in the United States reacted to the
signing of the Moscow treaty. It should not be forgotten that the election
campaign has begun in the United States, and the election struggle is most acute
this year. The enemies of President Kennedy and his administration's policy
could not but understand that their fight against Kennedy's candidacy was
hopeless in view of his popularity and growing prestige, so they killed the
President. Now the reactionaries are mobilizing all their forces and means to
remove all traces of their horrible crime, but we are certain justice will
triumph and the assassins will be found.
Today, the day of President Kennedy's funeral, the Soviet
people, together with all people of good will, extend their condolences to the
people of the United States. Premier Khrushchev wrote to President Lyndon
Johnson that the Soviet Government and the Soviet people share the American
people's grief at so great a loss and they express the hope that the search for
solutions of controversial issues, to which President Kennedy contributed so
substantially, will be continued in the interests of peace and for the good of
all mankind. The best way to keep alive the memory of President Kennedy, whose
death was so untimely, is by continuing his lofty initiative permeated by a
striving to rid the world of the menace of a thermonuclear war.