JFK's Assassination Cut Short My Uncle’s Vision but We Must Revive It, Not Forget It
Featured on FoxNews.com: President John F. Kennedy’s assassination 60 years ago on November 22, left an indelible scar on the American psyche that transcended my family’s loss of an uncle, brother, husband, and father. That national trauma robbed us of something else that day. With him died a vision for our country that we may yet bring back to life. True, much of his legacy — such as his championship of civil rights, desegregation, and the space program — remains with us today, but America has abandoned the goal and vision that he prized most highly: the vision of America as a peaceful nation. John F. Kennedy defied pressure from his cabinet, the CIA, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to go to war in Laos in 1961, Berlin in 1962, to invade Cuba after the Bay of Pigs debacle, and nineteen months later to bomb Russian missile batteries during the Cuban missile crisis. His advisors assured him that the launchpads were not yet operational. They were wrong, and his defiance quite likely saved the world from nuclear Armageddon. Today our nation staggers under a $33 trillion debt burden, much of it the result of military spending. The post-9/11 regime-change wars of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria wasted around $8 trillion and left those countries worse off than we found them. Eight hundred military bases around the world consume trillions more. Imagine what could have been, if we’d devoted those resources toward education, infrastructure, poverty, health, or the environment. We would be, paradoxically, a stronger and more secure nation. It is not too late to step off the war path and onto the peace path that John F. Kennedy envisioned for our nation. Even in its current state of neglect, America is blessed with the world’s largest GDP, abundant natural resources, and an inventive and enterprising population. We can recover the broad prosperity, the thriving middle class, and the sense of optimism and national self-worth of the post-WWII era. All that can be ours if we turn our energies toward peace. Read Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s full op-ed here. If you resonate with this message please subscribe to our newsletter to learn more.