It was the nation and the race . . . that had the lion’s heart: I had the luck to be called upon to give the roar.
—Winston Churchill
He mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.
—President Kennedy on Winston Churchill when he conferred honorary US citizenship upon the British leader
On October 22, 1962, in a televised address to the American people, President John F. Kennedy drew a clear red line. The background was perhaps the greatest crisis of modern times: The Soviet Union had started to establish nuclear missiles in Cuba. These missiles would pose a direct threat to the United States.
In one of the most momentous speeches ever delivered by a US president, Kennedy served notice to the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, that the era of Soviet expansion had reached its end and that America stood ready to turn back the tide wherever it should rise again:
Any hostile move anywhere in the world against the safety and freedom of peoples to whom we are committed, including in particular the brave people of West Berlin, will be met by whatever action is needed.
It was a remarkable speech, a bravura performance delivered with absolute commitment from the brink of nuclear war, and it worked. In the anxious days that followed, American democracy and Soviet totalitarianism went eyeball to eyeball over the island of Cuba, and it was the Soviet side that blinked.
The Cuban Missile Crisis cemented Kennedy’s place in the pantheon of great US and world leaders, but it took a long road to bring him there, and there were false turns and stumbles on the way. How Kennedy arrived at that famous speech, and how he had the courage and conviction to deliver it in a way that convinced Khrushchev to back down, is a lesson for future leaders.
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In mid-October 1962, Kennedy had been informed about ongoing construction work to place Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba—missiles that could strike deep into the United States. Kennedy assembled his closest advisers to consider options and direct a course of action for the United States that would resolve the crisis. Some advisers, including all of the military chiefs, argued for an air strike to destroy the missiles, followed by a US invasion of Cuba. Others favored just firm warnings to Cuba and the Soviet Union. The president decided upon a middle course, and the way he steered it speaks volumes of the leader he had become. Kennedy combined military action, diplomatic pressure, and powerful rhetoric to convey a strong message to both his friends and his enemies.
First, overriding his generals, on October 22 he ordered a naval quarantine of Cuba. A former naval officer himself, he micromanaged the movements of the US Navy, because he realized that the navy’s actions were a way to communicate American intentions on a larger scale to the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, preparations for a possible military strike on Cuba proceeded and the readiness of the US military was put on the highest level. That same day, Kennedy sent a letter to Khrushchev, declaring that the United States would not permit offensive weapons to be delivered to Cuba and demanding that the Soviets dismantle the missile bases already under construction or completed and return all offensive weapons to the Soviet Union.
Perhaps most important, Kennedy went public with a stark televised address to America, the Soviet Union, and the world. He delivered a speech that marked his determination to counter the Soviet aggression, to mobilize the American people, and to reassure friends and allies of the American resolve to defend both freedom and peace.
Kennedy put the Cuban Missile Crisis into a historical perspective. He drew on the “lessons from Munich,” lessons that he himself had observed on a sweeping visit to Europe almost a quarter of a century before: “The 1930s taught us a clear lesson: Aggressive conduct, if allowed to go unchecked and unchallenged, ultimately leads to war.” He warned against inaction, in words that also prepared the American people for possible sacrifice:
Let no one doubt that this is a difficult and dangerous effort on which we have set out. No one can foresee precisely what course it will take, or what costs or casualties will be incurred. Many months of sacrifice and self-discipline lie ahead—months in which both our patience and our will will be tested; months in which many threats and denunciations will keep us aware of our dangers. But the greatest danger of all would be to do nothing.
The tone of his remarks was stark in setting a clear red line:
It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.
And true to his firm belief in the American responsibility to lead and defend the free world, he concluded:
The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender or submission. Our goal is not the victory of might, but the vindication of right; not peace at the expense of freedom, but both peace and freedom.
Kennedy’s firm stance and rhetoric had an impact. Through secret back channels, the Soviet leader indicated an interest in finding a political solution, and secret negotiations followed. Eventually an agreement was reached between Kennedy and Khrushchev. Publicly the Soviets would dismantle their offensive weapons in Cuba and return them to the Soviet Union, subject to United Nations verification, in exchange for a US public declaration and agreement never to invade Cuba without direct provocation. Secretly, the United States also agreed to dismantle all US missiles deployed in Turkey and Italy against the Soviet Union, but whose presence was not known to the public.
The crisis was over. Most crucially, the world avoided a nuclear disaster. But Kennedy’s handling of the crisis also strengthened the position of the United States, weakened the Soviet Union, and put a brake on Soviet endeavors to expand the power and reach of international Communism.
Because the withdrawal of the US missiles from NATO bases in Italy and Turkey was not made public at the time, Khrushchev appeared to have lost the conflict and become weakened. The perception was that Kennedy had won the contest between the superpowers and Khrushchev had been humiliated. Thus, by communicating clearly and managing his military forces closely, Kennedy delivered a political and diplomatic defeat to the Soviets while avoiding a dangerous military escalation that could have ended in nuclear war.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy showed the ability to match inspiring words with convincing deeds. He demonstrated what happens when the American president acts from a position of strength, and is perceived as strong and determined in his leadership among friends and foes alike. He showed, as Truman had shown, that American global leadership made America stronger, and the world safer. His handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis encapsulated the attitudes his early formative years had shaped and the experience he had gained during the first two years of his presidency. It was Kennedy’s key insight that invigorating communication, backed by deeds, is crucial for effective leadership. The president of the United States must communicate both vision and policies in an inspiring manner, using eloquent rhetoric that convinces the people to follow and leaves friends and foes alike in no doubt about the American resolve—in the words of his inaugural—to “assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
Kennedy also realized that appeasement doesn’t lead to peace. As Europe had shown so painfully in the 1930s and 1940s, the community of free nations must have the strength and resolve to counter the forces of oppression before it is too late. Therefore, the free world needs a strong leader. The United States must exert strong global leadership to instill hope and inspiration for all people in the world who yearn for freedom, peace, and democracy.
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On January 20, 1961, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was sworn in as the thirty-fifth president of the United States. His inaugural address set out the principles that he had developed as a keen observer of international affairs for more than twenty years, and the lessons of engagement and communication that were at their core. For Kennedy, there was simply no alternative to American leadership, and since Americans could not escape their destiny they might as well embrace it:
In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility: I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange place with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it, and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.
Kennedy truly believed that America was destined to lead. He communicated this belief to the American people, to America’s allies, and to America’s enemies in powerful speeches time after time. This inaugural address contains what is probably the strongest commitment to American global leadership ever given by a president of the United States:
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
This memorable passage sent an unmistakable message, to both friends and foes, of determined American resolve to bear the special responsibility of the world’s leading democracy and to execute global leadership in defense of liberty. The inaugural speech was clearly the speech of the leader of the free world. It was widely praised as eloquent, inspiring, and idealistic, but also firm, crisp, and vigorous. It sent a clear signal to America, and to the world, that a new, youthful, energetic president was prepared to lead the free world.
That resolve was on display, even more strikingly, when Kennedy visited Berlin in 1963. He delivered yet another remarkable speech that boosted the morale of the besieged West Berliners, gave hope to the peoples of Western Europe, and manifested his role as the leader of the free world:
Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is, “Ich bin ein Berliner.” . . . There are many people in the world who really don’t understand, or say they don’t, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin. . . . Freedom has many difficulties, and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us. . . . You live in a defended island of freedom, but your life is part of the main. So let me ask you, as I close, to lift your eyes beyond the dangers of today to the hope of tomorrow, beyond the freedom merely of this city of Berlin or your country of Germany to the advance of freedom everywhere, beyond the wall to the day of peace with justice, beyond yourselves and ourselves to all mankind. . . . All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words, “Ich bin ein Berliner.”
Among many memorable lines in many memorable speeches, it is perhaps ironic that Kennedy’s most famous line was not delivered in English, or in America, but in German, and in Germany. And yet that fact perfectly encapsulates the leader he had become. This was a man who ventured to stand just yards away from Soviet-dominated territory and declare, in the language of the city and country where he was standing, that he was one of them. He invoked the images of freedom and peace, in a way that is still quoted and remembered now, over half a century later. The Berlin speech was the culmination of his political career, and the epitome of American leadership in the world.
Kennedy was of the firm conviction that the key to American global leadership was an economically and technologically strong America. When he became president, the Soviet Union was ahead of the United States in the race for manned flights into space. This worried Kennedy, and in the first televised debate with Vice President Richard Nixon on September 26, 1960, he declared:
I want people in Latin America and Africa and Asia to start to look to America to see how we’re doing things, to wonder what the President of the United States is doing, and not to look at Khrushchev or look at the Chinese communists. That is the obligation upon our generation. . . . I think it’s time America started moving again.
Kennedy saw the importance of setting an ambitious goal that would inspire the American people, rallying them to an extra effort to bring the United States in front and to consolidate the global leadership in the defense of freedom. In a special address to Congress on “Urgent National Needs,” on May 25, 1961, he outlined the ambition of “landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.” In a speech at Rice University in Houston, Texas, on September 12, 1962, he further elaborated on this vision, emphasizing its contribution to assuring the American leadership:
Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the industrial revolution, the first waves of modern invention, the first wave of nuclear power; and this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space. We mean to be part of it—we mean to lead it. . . . Yet the vows of this nation can only be fulfilled if we in this nation are first, and, therefore we intend to be first. In short, our leadership in science and in industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligation to ourselves as well as others, all require us to make this effort.
Kennedy’s dream came true. The United States was the first nation to land a man on the moon. The US technological edge provided in itself a powerful contribution to the economic supremacy of the free world over the Soviet Union and the world’s other Communist nations. But more important, the United States enhanced its political image as an admirable role model and leader of the free world.
Kennedy understood that to carry out global leadership, the US president’s communication must be based on strength and vigor. The communication should combine three qualities into a unified, powerful message: the rhetoric itself should be vigorous, appealing, and eloquent; the delivery of the speech should underpin the image of determined leadership through a compelling and dynamic physical appearance; and last, but certainly not least, communication should not just be words but should be backed up with decisive actions and visible leadership.
More than any previous American president, Kennedy was aware of the need to communicate strength to the rest of the world, and he was the first American president who really understood the power of television as a medium of communication. He took advantage of this medium to the utmost to communicate his message in a striking way, through powerful speeches, interviews, and press conferences. He showed an unprecedented openness to the media and the public and embodied youthfulness, dynamism, and determination. Through countless well-composed and rhetorically elegant speeches, he presented his vision and his politics in a way that inspired the American people and the people of the entire free world, showed leadership and strength, and marked an impassable red line for the aggressive Soviet Union and its Communist allies.
President Kennedy’s speeches stand as a landmark demonstration of how inspiring communication can set new goals, create enthusiasm, and mobilize popular support by demonstrating determination, direction, and dynamism.
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There are certain events in Kennedy’s life that shaped his character and run all through his words and deeds. His military service in the Pacific during World War II was undoubtedly an experience that was deeply rooted in his mind. In August 1943, Lieutenant John F. Kennedy and the twelve-man crew of a US Navy patrol torpedo (PT) boat were rammed by a Japanese destroyer and sunk. Two crew members were killed; the rest survived. Kennedy showed great courage and determination in the rescue operation. He helped a seriously wounded comrade ashore on a small island by swimming and towing him for several hours. The next day he towed the wounded crew member to a larger island. During the six days they were stranded, he was tireless in his efforts to get help, and showed great physical strength and stamina, leadership and courage.
The PT 109 incident had a great and lasting influence on Kennedy’s attitude and thinking. He felt responsible for the two dead crew members. Also, his own elder brother, Joseph, was killed during the war. Obviously, that had a deep impact on both the family and John F. Kennedy personally, and in his political activity he returned repeatedly to the sacrifices that generations of Americans had made for their country. Courage and leadership, responsibility and sacrifice were recurring themes in Kennedy’s speeches. The fact that Kennedy had experienced the war firsthand shaped his individual character, his political views, and his governmental actions. The principles upon which he built his attitude toward life were rooted in his personal experiences from a battle of life and death between the forces of oppression and the forces of freedom.
Equally crucial in shaping his character and political attitudes was his trip to Europe in 1939, just before the outbreak of World War II. In the summer of 1939, the world stood on the brink of the greatest war ever fought. The forces of Fascism were rising in Europe and Asia. Hitler and Stalin were feeling their way toward an alliance, with the aim of carving up the young states of Central and Eastern Europe between them. The old democracies of Western Europe were divided and hesitant. Nation after nation felt the threat of the coming conflagration and drew in upon itself, hoping to avoid destruction by appeasing the dictators.
In that most crucial summer, Kennedy made a long visit to Europe. He stayed at the homes of Polish families. He crossed Eastern Europe by train to Moscow. He visited Prague, Vienna, and Munich, and he arrived in Berlin in August, only a few days before Hitler’s invasion of Poland. The climax of his prewar experiences came on September 3, 1939, two days after Hitler launched his blitzkrieg against his eastern neighbor, when he took a seat in the visitors’ gallery of the House of Commons and listened to Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, a leader who had failed to prepare Britain to meet a totalitarian threat, announce that Britain and France were now at war with Germany.
Chamberlain had given Hitler an ultimatum: Leave Poland, or we are at war. Hitler ignored the threat, believing that Britain would cave in over Poland, as it had over his gobbling up of Czechoslovakia in 1938. With a heavy heart, Chamberlain admitted in an address to the British people that the policy of appeasement that he had championed for so long had failed, because Hitler had had no intention of being appeased:
It would have been quite possible to have arranged a peaceful and honorable settlement between Germany and Poland, but Hitler would not have it. He had evidently made up his mind to attack Poland whatever happened, and although he now says he put forward reasonable proposals which were rejected by the Poles, that is not a true statement. . . . His action shows convincingly that there is no chance of expecting that this man will ever give up his practice of using force to gain his will. He can only be stopped by force.
Addressing a packed House, Chamberlain admitted the ruin of the policy that he had championed:
Everything that I have worked for, everything that I have hoped for, everything that I have believed in during my public life, has crashed into ruins.
However, Kennedy listened with much greater enthusiasm to one of the members of Parliament who responded to Chamberlain’s speech: Winston Churchill, who had endured years of political isolation for his opposition to appeasement. Typical of the man, his speech was both far more upbeat than Chamberlain’s and far more eloquent:
The Prime Minister said it was a sad day, and that is indeed true, but at the present time there is another note which may be present, and that is a feeling of thankfulness that, if these great trials were to come upon our Island, there is a generation of Britons here now ready to prove itself not unworthy of the days of yore and not unworthy of those great men, the fathers of our land, who laid the foundations of our laws and shaped the greatness of our country. This is not a question of fighting for Danzig or fighting for Poland. We are fighting to save the whole world from the pestilence of Nazi tyranny and in defense of all that is most sacred to man. This is no war for domination or imperial aggrandizement or material gain; no war to shut any country out of its sunlight and means of progress. It is a war, viewed in its inherent quality, to establish, on impregnable rocks, the rights of the individual, and it is a war to establish and revive the stature of man.
In the visitors’ box, Kennedy would have been perfectly placed to hear and judge the two men for himself. Winston Churchill was not just a skilled politician and a strong leader. He was also a first-class orator. As a young man, Churchill wrote an essay on the power of oratory, “The Scaffolding of Rhetoric” (1897), in which he ranked rhetoric first among the political virtues, and he practiced it himself to perfection. Usually, people listened with great attention to Churchill’s speeches because of their vigor, their vivid imagery and linguistic elegance. It was to a great extent because of his rhetorical skills that Churchill became such a successful and strong leader during World War II and became a symbol of courage and perseverance when Britain was left alone in the struggle against Hitler’s Germany.
The respect Kennedy gained for Churchill and his extraordinary rhetoric lasted throughout his life: In 1955, when he was recuperating from back surgery, he lay in bed reading Churchill for several hours every day, and he often echoed Churchill in his own speeches. This has been analyzed brilliantly by Thurston Clarke in his book, Ask Not: The Inauguration of John F. Kennedy and the Speech That Changed America. For example, Kennedy employed Churchill’s trademark phrase (and the title of the second volume of his monumental war memoirs) when he said in a January 14, 1960, speech to the National Press Club, “We will need in the sixties a president who is willing and able to summon his national constituency to its finest hour.” Churchill’s resounding response to the fall of France, too, inspired one of Kennedy’s own greatest addresses. In a speech to the House of Commons on June 4, 1940, Churchill vowed, “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.” Kennedy was to use that same cadence in his own inaugural address, two decades later. But his vision of Churchill’s rhetoric was best expressed by the comment he made twenty-four years later, on April 9, 1963, when he conferred honorary US citizenship upon the British leader: “He mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.”
Kennedy was to spend much of his career learning how to mobilize the American language and send it into battle “to establish, on impregnable rocks, the rights of the individual” (Churchill, September 3, 1939).
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Kennedy’s background was an unlikely one for a man who was to become the undisputed leader of the free world, as much a champion of his generation as Churchill was of his. His father, Joseph Kennedy, was known as a passionate isolationist during his term as US ambassador to Great Britain from 1938 to 1940. Joe Kennedy was opposed to American support for the United Kingdom and opposed to American involvement in the war. He supported Chamberlain’s appeasement policy and declared in the Boston Globe in November 1940 that “democracy is finished in England.”
Yet the son drew different lessons from the events that his father had witnessed. President Kennedy’s inaugural address was a stark showdown with American isolationism. In that respect, it was also a showdown with his own father and a decisive break with his isolationist heritage. That may be the reason why former president Truman reconciled with the new young president. Initially Truman opposed Kennedy’s candidacy, probably because he disliked his father, Joseph Kennedy, primarily because of his isolationism. Truman endorsed President Kennedy’s inaugural address by telling reporters that history would rank it as one of the greatest inaugurals of all time. “It was short, to the point, and in language anyone can understand,” he said. “Even I could understand it, and therefore the people can.” In Kennedy’s own words, “The torch had been passed on.” From Truman to Kennedy, there is a direct line.
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Those were days in which the torch of leadership of the free world was sorely needed. At the beginning of 1961, on January 6, Khrushchev had delivered an alarming speech under the headline “For New Victories of the World Communist Movement.” In the speech, Khrushchev pledged that the Soviet Union would instigate and support “just wars of liberation” in countries such as Algeria, the Congo, Laos, and Vietnam, and predicted these wars would result in Communist states across the Third World. Khrushchev’s aggressiveness unsettled Kennedy, and he was conscious that it would require decisive leadership to counter the threat from the Soviet Union. Yet his first experiences of leadership were anything but assured. Indeed, two initial failures in his foreign and security policy gravely weakened the president in Khrushchev’s eyes. These initial mistake shaped greatly Kennedy’s approach to leadership and sharpened his awareness of the need to appear as a strong leader. This insight marked the rest of his presidency.
Ironically, the first lesson was taught by Cuba. Kennedy gave the green light to an Eisenhower-initiated invasion of the Bay of Pigs in Cuba in 1961. Kennedy had only been in office two months when he ordered the implementation of a watered-down plan inherited from the Eisenhower administration to topple Cuban leader Fidel Castro. An invasion of Cuba was to be sponsored covertly and carried out by CIA-trained anti-Castro refugees. Assured by military advisers and the CIA that the prospects for success were good, Kennedy gave the go-ahead. In the early hours of April 17, 1961, approximately fifteen hundred Cuban refugees landed at the Bay of Pigs on Cuba’s southern coast. The plan appeared to be based on false assumptions, and Castro’s forces quickly overwhelmed the refugee force. Moreover, the administration’s cover story collapsed immediately. It soon became clear that despite the president’s denial of US involvement in the attempted coup, Washington was indeed behind it. The misadventure cost Kennedy dearly and taught him a painful lesson. He failed to critically examine the plan developed by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon and, as a result, ended up with an operational failure that was painful in and of itself, but even more important, a communication disaster signaling America’s lack of resolve.
One might expect that such an operational and communication disaster would have weakened President Kennedy seriously. Yet, he communicated strength in an hour of weakness. In a speech on April 20, 1961, the day after the misfortune, Kennedy made clear that he would profit from that lesson and intensify the struggle against Communist expansionism:
The message of Cuba, of Laos, of the rising din of Communist voices in Asia and Latin America—these messages are all the same. The complacent, the self-indulgent, the soft societies are about to be swept away with the debris of history. Only the strong, only the industrious, only the determined, only the courageous, only the visionary who determine the real nature of our struggle can possibly survive. . . . I am convinced that we in this country and in the free world possess the necessary resource, and the skill, and the added strength that comes from a belief in the freedom of man. And I am equally convinced that history will record the fact that this bitter struggle reached its climax in the late 1950s and the early 1960s. Let me then make clear as the President of the United States that I am determined upon our system’s survival and success, regardless of the cost and regardless of the peril.
At a press conference on April 21, 1961, Kennedy took full responsibility for the management of the failed operation. At a critical question from a journalist, he gave the famous answer: “There is an old saying that victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan. . . . I am the responsible officer of the government, and that is quite obvious.” This satisfied the American people, and Kennedy’s ratings in the polls rose.
However, the damage had already been done in terms of reduced Soviet respect for Kennedy. The president was unwilling to involve the American military in a full-scale invasion of Cuba, which Khrushchev mistook for American weakness. Further, his handling of the crisis and its diplomatic fallout gave Khrushchev and his advisers the impression that Kennedy was indecisive, not well prepared for decision making in crisis situations, and, in general, too weak. This impression was reinforced by Kennedy’s soft response during the Berlin crisis of 1961, particularly the building of the Berlin Wall.
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World War II ended in victory for the Allies but not in freedom: Fascism was defeated, but Communism emerged stronger and more aggressive than ever. Berlin, Hitler’s monumental capital, was occupied by the victorious Allies but then divided among them. In 1948, Stalin sought to strangle the free and capitalist West Berlin by cutting off all land access to it; led by Truman, the Western allies responded with a yearlong airlift that kept Berlin alive until the Soviet blockade ended.
But the problem of Berlin lingered. West Berlin remained under Western control but it was located deep inside East German territory, and that made its protection from Communist takeover a constant challenge for the Western powers. At the same time, the mere existence of West Berlin was increasingly becoming a burden for the Soviet Union and the Communist regime in East Germany. The divided city was increasingly a demonstration of the difference between Communism and capitalism, with West Berlin and West Germany as free, prosperous, and thriving communities, while East Germany lagged behind because of lack of freedom and the inherent inefficiency of the Communist system. More and more East Germans chose to leave the East and settle in the West.
For the United States, West Berlin’s political freedom and economic success were clear symbols and convincing demonstrations of the superiority of the free, democratic, and capitalist system. The United States was strongly committed to defend West Berlin’s freedom and independence, so a Soviet decision to cut off the land corridor to West Berlin once again would trigger a serious confrontation between the two powers.
In 1958, Khrushchev delivered a speech in which he demanded that the Western powers—the United States, Great Britain, and France—pull their forces out of West Berlin within six months. This ultimatum sparked a three-year crisis over the future of the city of Berlin that culminated in 1961 with the building of the Berlin Wall. Berlin, which Kennedy had visited in 1939, was to leave an indelible mark on his presidency.
In the summer of 1961, Kennedy met with Khrushchev in Vienna to address the ongoing issue of Berlin. However, they did not find any solution to the Berlin problem, and Khrushchev prepared to take his own form of action. On the morning of August 13, 1961, Berliners awoke to discover that a barbed-wire fence had gone up overnight, separating West and East Berlin and preventing movement between the two sides. The barbed-wire fence was soon expanded to include cement walls and guard towers. The Berlin Wall would stop the flow of people who wanted to flee Communist East Berlin, and it became the most poignant image of the Cold War in Europe. Kennedy’s administration quickly condemned the wall, which divided families and limited freedom of movement, but he did not take any action to back up its rhetoric. Khrushchev considered it a soft response and was left with the impression that Kennedy lacked the courage to stand up to a serious challenge.
The Vienna summit was perhaps the worst day of John F. Kennedy’s life. As described by Frederick Kempe in his book Berlin 1961, Kennedy had been unprepared for Khrushchev’s brutality, and Kempe quotes Kennedy as saying that because of the Bay of Pigs, Khrushchev “thought that anyone who was so young and inexperienced as to get into that mess could be taken”; Khrushchev “savaged me” and “beat the hell out of me. . . . I’ve got a real problem.”
The Bay of Pigs and Vienna disasters taught President Kennedy some crucial lessons about leadership and communication. He became almost obsessed with demonstrating strength in words and deeds because he realized that the mere perception of weakness could tempt potential aggressors to test the US resolve, threaten US allies, and destabilize the international order.
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Kennedy’s lesson for our generation is simple and powerful: The United States must clearly communicate its will to lead to the rest of the world. Adversaries and allies alike base their decision making in part on their expectations about American behavior on the international scene. If the United States signals weakness, adversaries are emboldened to engage in aggressive and reckless behavior, risking dangerous escalation of otherwise controllable security situations. American signals of weakness also have a contagious effect on American allies, undermining their will to oppose aggressors and support the United States.
Tragically, one of Kennedy’s best speeches was never delivered. On November 22, 1963, he was scheduled to give an address to the Dallas Citizens Council, but he never reached his destination. In the planned speech, he stressed the need to back words with strength and action:
The United States is a peaceful nation. And where our strength and determination are clear, our words need merely to convey conviction, not belligerence. If we are strong, our strength will speak for itself. If we are weak, words will be of no help.
And he concluded:
We in this country, in this generation are, by destiny rather than choice, the watchmen on the walls of world freedom.
The president was assassinated shortly before he could deliver the speech, but the lines above serve as a powerful summary of Kennedy’s legacy and America’s special role in world history. John F. Kennedy was exemplary when it came to communicating American resolve to the rest of the world. Future American presidents should be fluent in Kennedy’s long list of remarkable foreign-policy speeches.