Here are a few snippets from newspaper articles in the months leading up to JFK's assassination. They bear on the question "Was JFK killed because he was planning to end the cold war?" They start with comments on Kennedy's "Strategy of Peace" speech given at American University on June 10, 1963 [see PEACE.TXT in this lib], where he redefined the cold war: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Peacemongers Gain Respectability with Suddenness by Edwin A. Lahey Chicago Daily News Service WASHINGTON (6/12/63) -- The peacemongers have become respectable with a suddenness that almost brought a traumatic shock. President Kennedy announced at American University that discussions would shortly begin in Moscow looking toward a nuclear test ban treaty. His address was a lofty, soul-searching plea for a peace that had some traces of the Holy Thursday message of the late Pope John XXIII... --------------------------------------------------------------------------- June 13, 1963 New York Times: RUSSIANS STIRRED BY KENNEDY TALK ABOUT COLD WAR MOSCOW, June 12 -- Izvestia published tonight the text of President Kennedy's speech on Monday in which he appealed for re-examination of attitudes toward the cold war. The decision to make the speech available to the Soviet people through the government newspaper was interpreted here as an indication that the speech had made a favorable impression in the Kremlin. Critical of Soviet policy in some sections, the speech was being read eagerly by Muscovites, who receive Izvestia in the evenings. ... A Soviet intellectual commented: "The speech and its publication in Izvestia show that there can be mutual understanding." A young woman worker was overheard to ask a friend: "Have you read the Kennedy speech? It is all about peace." ... --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Editorial from the Columbus Dispatch, 6/16/63: Reds Quickly Pick Up New Appeasement Cue The Russians have quickly picked up on the cue given them in President Kennedy's foreign policy speech at American University last Monday in which he said that we "should re-examine our attitude toward the Soviet Union." Pravda published the full text of the President's address and a Soviet news commentator -- who can safely be assumed to reflect official views, journalism being what it is in Russia -- wrote that it is "extremely significant" that "for the first time in twenty years of cold war, a President of the United States has publicly spoken out the necessity of a fundamental reassessment of Soviet-American relations, and, to a certain extent, recognized the necessity of peaceful coexistence." Aside from the fact that, as one of Mr. Kennedy's predecessors in the White House once remarked, "Every word a president says weighs a ton," his statement would not be so noteworthy had it not been preceded by a long series of foreign policy decisions and actions by the Kennedy administration to which the "re-examination" plea seems to come as a logical sequel. Among these, it will be remembered are: * Support for the United Nations' intervention in the Congo which crushed Moise Tshombe of Katanga province, the staunchest anti-Communist leader in the embattled new African state. * Initiating and pushing through the plan by which West New Guinea, surrendered under pressure by the Dutch, was turned over to Communist-oriented Indonesia. * Failure to follow up the initial firm stand in Cuba which forced the Russians to withdraw nuclear missiles and bombers and apparent readiness to accept a permanent Russian military occupation of Castro's island and Communist domination of its people. Coupled with this is the affirmative steps taken to prevent anti-Castro exiles from making raids or larger-scale attempts to regain their Communist-held homeland. * Withdrawal from our military bases in Greece and Turkey. * Abandonment of our advocacy, in the United Nations, of a resolution condemning the Soviets' brutal suppression of the revolt in Hungary in 1956. * persistent attempts by the White House to induce Congress to continue foreign aid to Communist Yugoslavia and Poland and economic help in Indonesia. Also worth noting is the appointment of Averell Harriman, architect of the "troika plan" which resulted in the so-called "neutralization" of Laos, as our chief negotiator for the forthcoming nuclear test-ban talks in Moscow next month. Republican leaders in congress are labeling the Kennedy statement and all its implications "a triumph for the accommodators in his administration which flies in the face of all known experience in dealing with the Communists" and are calling for a review of US foreign policy by Congress. Sen. Strom Thurmond, North Carolina Democrat, charges that Mr. Kennedy has made it clear that the U.S. Policy "is to accept the status quo between the Communists and the free world" and that the president is being deluded into the belief that if we hold onto the status quo, the Soviets will evolve or change -- that "the leopard is really changing its spots" despite all evidence to the contrary. The phrase in the Kennedy speech that we should try to make the world "safe for diversity" is another target of the critics in both parties who are alarmed at its implications of a future policy of accommodations and appeasement. Fortunately, the final decision as to whether or not we should drastically change our foreign policy and fall into the Communists' "co-existence" trap is not for the President alone to make. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- June 1963, New York Times letter to the editor: With President Kennedy on record as being unwilling to continue arms production, the Russians are assured that they do not need to do any serious negotiating... I violently disagree with the President's view that the production of weapons is more dangerous than a risky deal with the Communists... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nov. 1, 1963 New York Times transcript of press conference ... 25. Q. Mr. President, in spite of something you said here in May, 1962, there's talk that Lyndon Johnson will be dumped next year. Senator Thruston Morton used the word "purge." Now, sir, assuming that you run next year, would you want Lyndon Johnson on the ticket and do you expect that he would be on -- will be on the ticket? A. Yes, to both of those questions. That's correct. 26. ... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nov. 11, 1963 New York Times Stevenson Calls on U.S. to Ignore Right-Wingers UNITED NATIONS, N. Y. -- Adlai E. Stevenson said today that the United States must follow a foreign policy that risked displeasing right-wing groups despite the influence the groups might exert in Congress. Mr. Stevenson urged the executive branch of the Government to do what it knew was right and "let the chips fall where they may." ... Mr. Stevenson characterized right-wing extremists, such as the group that demonstrated against him recently in Dallas, as an outspoken minority that agitated fears in the United States that were "utterly ridiculous, unfounded and untrue." ... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Friday, Nov. 15, 1963 New York Times G.I. RETURN WAITS ON VIETNAM TALK WASHINGTON -- Detailed plans for the initial withdrawal of United States troops from South Vietnam depend on policy meetings scheduled to be held in Honolulu next week, President Kennedy said today. ... There are about 16,500 United States officers and men of all services stationed in South Vietnam in support of the Saigon government's war effort. The official objective, announced on Oct. 2, is to withdraw most of the troops by the end of 1965. ... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Friday, Nov. 22, 1963 HOUSTON (UPI) -- President John F. Kennedy toured Texas as a political peacemaker for feuding Democrats Thursday and ran into scattered catcalls and pickets chanting "Cuba" among the hundreds of thousands who greeted him. ... Three women booed the President at a street corner. A small plane flew over his head streaming a banner that read, "co-existence is surrender." ... The President made plans to fly back to Washington Saturday, helicopter to his Middleburg, Va., home and confer there Sunday with Henry Cabot Lodge, U.S. ambassador to South Viet Nam. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Columbus Dispatch, Saturday Nov. 23, 1963 Letter to the editor: The new posture of Lockbourne Air Force Base is not at all confusing when viewed as part of our entire defense picture. Disarmament is the key to every "defenseless" move being made these days. ... The three-stage disarmament plan outlined in [State Department Publication] 7277 is essentially the same plan proposed by Khrushchev before the United Nations General Assembly Sept. 18, 1959. ... McNamara was quoted in The Dispatch, Nov. 19 as saying he could forsee a time when the defense budget would decline. Under our proposals being presented at Geneva our defense system will be turned over to the UN "peacekeeping force" and we will keep only what is needed for internal security. When we reach this point our defense budget will of course decline and this could present an economic problem. Dr. Emile Benoit, a consultant to the ACDA [Arms Control and Disarmament Agency], gave us the answer to this problem last March when he spoke in Columbus. Dr. Benoit said that to counterbalance lack of defense spending, we will have to create new federal spending. ... Various excuses have been offered for our phase out of Thor missiles in Great Britain, Jupiter missiles in Italy and Turkey, the skybolt system, the B47, B52, and RS70 bombers and withdrawal of troops from Europe. Concerning the TAC forces to be moved from France to Lockbourne, are we to believe that if trouble should warrant sending troops back into Europe that the enemy will be so kind as to leave the airfields open for us? Sue Jennings ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Columbus Dispatch, Saturday Nov. 23, 1963 LBJ Policies? Probably Same as Kennedy's WASHINGTON -- What kind of foreign policy can we expect from Lyndon B. Johnson as the new president of the United States? Diplomatic observers and State Department sources expect Johnson to follow essentially the same approach as his predecessor -- perhaps with more firmness as time goes by -- in dealing with Russia, in maintaining close ties with Western Europe, and in continuing efforts to resist the spread of communism in the Far East and Latin America. ... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monday, Nov. 25, 1963 BERLIN (AP) -- The killing of Lee Harvey Oswald was a handsome and highly appreciated gift to the Communist propaganda machine. Within minutes after news of the second Dallas assassination, the machine went into action, depicting Oswald as a martyr, shot in an attempt to hide those responsible for President John F. Kennedy's assassination. ... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------