What JFK tried to do before his assassination w/Jeffrey Sachs

 “What JFK tried to do before his assassination w/Jeffrey Sachs”, Sep 29, 2023, Chris Hedges interviews Jeffry Sachs, duration of video 50:09, The Chris Hedges Report on The Real News Network, at < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wqm9Yl1gGEY >

Introduction by dmorista: In the first 30 minutes of this interview Sachs discusses the major events of the first two years of the John F. Kennedy Presidency. Most prominently these include the Bay of Pigs invasion, that took place from April 17 – April 20, 1961, and the Cuban Missile Crisis that occurred from Oct 16 – Oct 29, 1962. Kennedy learned a number of hard lessons during the first two years of his presidency, and Sachs notes that he had yet to emerge as a great president during those two years. He did learn to fear and loathe the CIA and much of the military high command. Kennedy forced the resignations of CIA Director Alan Dulles, Deputy Director for Plans Richard M. Bissell Jr., and Deputy Director Charles Cabell. Here we might note that Cabell's brother, Earle Cabell, was Mayor of Dallas on November 22, 1963 when Kennedy was shot dead in Dealy Plaza.  Kennedy did not dismiss the military high command, but was acutely aware of the extremist views of figures like Curtis LeMay the head of the Strategic Air Command and a major proponent of nuclear attack on the U.S.S.R. and China, and of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Lyman L. Lemnitzer.  The members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff wanted to implement  a massive nuclear attack on the U.S.S.R. and China during the Cuban Missile Crisis, they said the U.S. would suffer "only 20 - 50 million dead" but could obliterate the Soviet and Chinese societies, an outcome they considered to be a "success" and an "American Triumph".  JFK left a couple of meetings with the Joint Chiefs trembling with rage and shock saying and we consider ourselves to be civilized.

Sachs opines, in the discussion, that by his third year in office JFK had emerged as a Great President; one who attempted to confront the Military Industrial Complex and to end the Cold War by pointing out that the Russians were human beings too, who had similar concerns and hopes as those of the people of the West. Sachs spends a few minutes talking about and quoting from JFK's famous June 10, 1963, American University Commencement Speech. He points out that Kennedy and Ted Sorensen wrote the speech together, in secret, and that no power center in or out of The U.S. Federal Government was able to object to the speech's contents. The speech included bold proposals to begin to disarm the various governments of the world, to pursue space exploration jointly with the Soviets and other nations, to improve living standards for all people of the world, and to end the malign Cold War. Kennedy well understood that the main power of the Presidency was to inspire and mobilize the different sectors of U.S. Society who wanted to live in peace.  Kennedy's initiatives bore nearly immediate fruit when The Test Ban Treaty was signed in Moscow on August 5, 1963; ratified by the United States Senate on September 24, 1963; and entered into force on October 10, 1963. The treaty prohibited nuclear weapons tests "or any other nuclear explosion" in the atmosphere, in outer space, and under water.   The later Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) was also a direct consequence of JFK's initiatives, it began the confirmation process in 1968 and was signed by the U.S. in 1970.  Sachs estimates that rather than 10 nuclear armed countries we might have 30 had the NPT not been implemented.  Of course the dark forces in American Society also understood what JFK was trying to do, and in less than 5 ½ months Kennedy was killed in Dallas.

The political murder of JFK was the opening gambit of hidden operations that eventually led to the horrific and tragic conditions we face in the U.S. and the greater world today. The perpetrators of the assassination were never brought to justice and they struck again and again with impunity. The Big Seven political killings of the 1960s, chronologically: John F. Kennedy (1963), Malcolm X (1965), Martin Luther King (1968), Robert F. Kennedy (1968), Thomas Merton (1969), Fred Hampton (1969), and Walter Reuther (1970); were the ultimate method of demobilizing and demoralizing the progressive people of the U.S. and making them susceptible to reactionary tactics that fostered division, hatred, and vicious identity politics. 

Sachs spends the last 20 minutes of the interview talking about the actual reasons that the current war, in Ukraine, is taking place. He examines the history of NATO expansion after the 1991 negotiations between Gorbachev and figures like James Baker when the Soviet Union was dissolved. Of course, Sachs was an economic adviser first to the Secretary General of the CPSU Central Committee Mikhail Gorbachev, and then to Russian President Boris Yeltsin. He was there, and while he notes that there was no treaty with the language promising that NATO would not move “one inch to the east”, there were plenty of promises to that effect and they were definitely put down in writing. He has given out an e-mail address, in many of his talks, at which he provides links to the archives that prove that point.

Sachs is no Leftist nor is he any sort of reactionary. He is a centrist figure, an economist, and a realist who does his best to look at historical and current events with some degree of understanding.  JFK was no angel, but compared to the much lesser figures who ascended to the Presidency after him he appears, in retrospect, to be a far superior leader.