It is a real honor to be here tonight to address the annual dinner of the illustrious John Carroll Society of Washington. The distinction of this audience, of your speakers on past occasions and of the Society itself causes me to approach this assignment with mingled feelings of awe and pride, as well as gratitude for your very kind invitation.
This organization’s sense of high purpose and traditions of dedicated service are directly related, of course, to the name it bears – that of Archbishop John Carroll. The confidant of several presidents and members of Congress, John Carroll was interested and active in public affairs throughout his life – partly through his precedent-setting role as the first American Bishop and in part through family ties. His cousin, Charles Carroll of Carrolton signed the Declaration of Independence; his brother, Daniel, signed the Constitution; another kinsman was the first Mayor of Washington, D.C. (and apparently one of the last); and still others held other posts in the affairs of Maryland and the founding of this Republic. John Carroll himself, when a priest at Rock Creek, was requested by the Continental Congress to accompany a special delegation headed by Benjamin Franklin to Canada, their mission being to reassure the Canadians that the American colonists, in seeking to oust British rule and British advances from the North, had no intention of curbing the liberties or the religion of the Canadian people in general and the Catholics of Quebec in particular.
It is clear, in short, that John Carroll approved of public service as a career and of politicians as people. He emphasized then, just as your organization emphasizes now, the importance of obtaining for our nation high quality leadership – men of courage and compassion, men of real substance and wisdom – men whom, as I need not tell this group, our nation badly needs in the years ahead.
But there is a tendency today, I am afraid, to overlook the importance of these qualities of leadership, compassion and broad social outlook. We seem to be more intent now – in the space age – upon the development and recognition of better scientists and soldiers, more ingenious inventions and more terrible weapons. Critical as our needs in these areas are, something more is needed, it seems to me, to save our nation from the perils which it faces at home and abroad. More than the right kind of scientists and generals, we need the right kind of politicians – men capable of making the hard unpopular decisions our times require – leaders who can help solve not only pressing problems of science and defense, but also the domestic problems of inflation or recession, of race relations, education, the decay of our cities, of agriculture and health – leaders who can carry on and improve the American ideal in this hour of its greatest challenge. In our concern over the education of more scientists and engineers for the future America, let us not neglect the education of its politicians.
I realize, of course, that most Americans are not concerned about the education of their politicians. No education is considered necessary for political success, except how to find your way around a smoke-filled room. Successful politicians, according to Walter Lippmann, are "insecure and intimidated men," who "advance politically only as they placate, appease, bribe, seduce, bamboozle, or otherwise manage to manipulate" the views and votes of the people who elect them. "Don’t teach my boy poetry," a mother recently wrote the headmaster of Eton; "don’t teach my boy poetry, he’s going to stand for Parliament."
Mothers may still want their favorite sons to grow up to be President, but, according to a famous Gallup poll of some years ago, they do not want them to become politicians in the process. It was considered a great joke years ago when the humorist Artemus Ward declared: "I am not a politician, and my other habits are good also." American politicians, said Finley Peter Dunne’s, Mr. Dooley, were "fine strong American citizens, with their hand on the pulse of the people and their free forearm against the windpipe."
And so it is that the great scholars and most talented figures of our times all too rarely enter the political arena. Most intellectuals today, I am afraid, consider their chief function to be not that of serving the majority but that of criticizing it – and politicians are sensitive to critics (possibly because we have so many of them). "Many intellectuals," Sidney Hook has said, "would rather 'die' than agree with the majority, even on the rare occasions when the majority is right." Of course, the intellectual’s attitude is partly defensive – for he has been regarded with so much suspicion and hostility by political figures and their constituents that a 1956 survey of American intellectuals by a national magazine elicited from one of our foremost literary figures the guarded response: "I ain’t no intellectual."
But this nation once had a tradition of sending to Washington representatives of the highest scholarship as well as the highest statesmanship – and I shall mention but a few examples from my own state. John Quincy Adams, after being summarily dismissed from the Senate for a notable display of independence, could become Boylston Professor Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard and then become a great Secretary of State. (Those were the happy days when Harvard professors had no difficulty getting Senate confirmation.) Daniel Webster could throw thunderbolts at Hayne on the Senate Floor and then stroll a few steps down the corridor and dominate the Supreme Court as the foremost lawyer of his time. A little more than one hundred years ago, in the Presidential campaign of 1856, the Massachusetts Republicans sent three brilliant native sons around the campaign circuit: William Cullen Bryant, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Ralph Waldo Emerson. (In those times, apparently, the "eggheads" were all Republicans.)
And in Germany, during the same period, scholars were also in the forefront of public service. Prince Bismarck once remarked that one third of the students of German universities broke down from overwork; another third broke down from dissipation; and the other third ruled Germany. (If you will recall your own college days, I will leave it to each of you to decide which category you fall in.)
But we stand greatly in need today of leaders who can ride easily over broad fields of knowledge and recognize the mutual dependence of the two worlds of politics and scholarship. I am not calling for the election of scholars whose education has been so specialized as to exclude them from participation in current events – men like Lord John Russell, of whom Queen Victoria once remarked that he would be a better man if he knew a third subject – but he was interested in nothing but the Constitution of 1688 and himself.
Nor would I give to either Harvard or Georgetown a seat in the Congress as William and Mary was once represented in the Virginia House of Burgesses. Neither would I adopt from the Belgian Constitution of 1893 the provision giving three votes instead of one to college graduates (at least not until more Democrats go to college).
But I do urge that the American people give increased recognition to the need for developing and rewarding leaders of the caliber of men such as those associated with this Society – men capable of offering thoughtful, constructive solutions to the great problems and perils of our time.
That we live in an age of unprecedented national peril is increasingly evident. The terrors of the nuclear age and the current advantages of Soviet science pose threats far more terrifying to contemplate than the perils braved by John Carroll during the Revolution and the War of 1812. In 1814 the good Bishop witnessed 40 British vessels outside Baltimore Harbor firing 200 pound balls for 25 hours: "An awful spectacle to behold," he wrote. But today John Carroll would read of the possibilities of hydrogen bombs and atomic missiles raining upon Baltimore, Washington and other cities – of Soviet space vehicles conquering outer space – of Russian submarines terrorizing the high seas while their aircraft patrolled the skies – of Communist scientists controlling even our weather and tides.
For the first time since the War of 1812, the American people live on what may be the "front lines" in an international war. Our cities have become the bull’s-eyes of Soviet missile targets. Our defenses are inadequate, our deterrent strength slipping. The very real dangers of destruction or military defeat have never loomed so large; and they will be with us, it appears, for at least a generation to come despite whatever efforts we may now undertake to overcome our weaknesses. It is not surprising that the only question reportedly raised is the Defense Preparedness Subcommittee after a secret CIA briefing was: "When do you think they will hit us?" And members of both parties have responded to this danger by calling for more and better missiles, new aircraft and space vehicles, and a stronger military alliances, budgets and build-ups in general.
But we make a great mistake, it seems to me – and this is the point I wish to emphasize above all else here this evening – in concentrating all of our attention upon the danger of all-out war, destruction and defeat. I do not say this because such a danger is wholly remote, for I have indicated to you that it is indeed possible – and once it is possible, there is no guarantee against such an attack being started by an obsessed dictator or by a reckless military officer. Nor am I afraid of panic seizing our people and paralyzing their will. I have faith in the ability of the American people to face any facts, however grim, and to meet any challenge, however great may be the sacrifices required.
But I do say that the dangers of attack, defeat and destruction are not the greatest threats we face today from the Soviets. In the words of the Rockefeller Report: "Though all-out war is our greatest danger, it does not represent the most likely threat."
I think this is true because I do not think even the Soviets want to engage in a world-wide nuclear war that could bring only disaster to both sides. War has never been an objective of foreign policy but an instrument – a means of securing power and influence, of advancing a nations’ views and interests. Consequently, I do not think even the Kremlin will seek to attack our shores as an end in itself, but will use their superior ability to launch such an attack as a weapon to achieve their objectives in other ways.
It is these other non-military avenues of Soviet advance with which I am concerned today and which I fear our emphasis on the dangers of missile attacks may cause us to forget. For their thrust is more subtle, their significance in terms of Soviet power less apparent, and the task of opposing them more formidable. These other threats include what might be called "Sputnik diplomacy": they include limited "brush-fire" wars; they include economic and political penetration, intimidation and subversion; and they include increased prestige in the minds of key millions of peoples not now committed to either side.
1. Let us consider first the altered diplomatic situation. If the Soviets have achieved a superior military position, even though it is never exercised, their bargaining power at the international conference table is greatly heightened while that of the west is inevitably diminished. It exposed our allies, particularly those within whose borders we wish to locate missile and strategic air command bases, to the most vicious kind of blackmail. Out own lag in missile development and striking power renders considerably less meaningful our ability to deter communist advances around the world through the threat of massive retaliation. It weakens our ability to shield the free world through so-called brink-of-war diplomacy. It alters to a considerable degree the character of our position at any disarmament conference. It weakens immeasurably our prestige in the struggle for uncommitted nations to whom we have repeatedly boasted of the superiority of American arms and science. In these and other ways, the Communists will utilize their military advantages as a means of increasing their power and weakening our security without ever attacking our shores. It is this threat, in my opinion, which represents the most ominous danger posed by Soviet satellite and missile developments; and it places us in a position where we can no longer afford to be negative or even passive about new negotiations or new ideas for peace, disarmament or disengagement.
2. Secondly, let us not permit our concentration on missiles and other weapons of massive destruction to cause us to overlook the steadily increasing dangers in the fields of limited wars and conventional weapons. There is little value in rushing new billions in defense expenditures to fight total wars of massive retaliation if we are unprepared to prevent continued Soviet advances through "brush-fire" wars, subversion and intimidation.
We may expect in the coming years to see the Communists nibble away still further at the periphery of the Free World – not through invasions of Russian troops but through local aggressions waged by the Syrians or the Viet-Minh or the North Koreans or even the Chinese. Each such attack (to say nothing of internal revolts, where we are even more (helpless) will further weaken the West – but no one attack will be large enough to induce us to initiate an all-out war in which we might now be at a serious disadvantage. The age of brink-of-war diplomacy is very nearly over. The question now is whether we will be able to prevent or resist such local wars, through building strength in the most vulnerable areas and increasing our own sadly neglected capacity, mobility and versatility to meet a limited attack short of atomic war. Missiles and satellites, in short, are not the only items in the new defense budget that require our urgent attention. Conventional forces and weapons, and particularly a modern sea lift and air lift capacity, may be needed in the near future far more often than any modern weapon.
3. The third and perhaps most important reason why I do not want us to concentrate only on the military peril that confronts us today is the danger that we will lose sight of the even greater Soviet threat in the economic and political areas. The Russians, as I have said, seek power and influence more than war itself – and they are gaining that power today through expanded economic influence, unprecedented political penetration and increased prestige in such fields as science and culture.
The economic decline, political chaos and ideological disillusionment upon which Communism breeds and spreads are all on the increase – threatening to divide and reduce the strength of the Free World, to curtail the geographic advantage so necessary to the dispersal of our bases and the defense of our shores, and gradually to turn popular opinion against us in a host of uncommitted states whose individual speaking parts may be small, if not inarticulate, but whose common consciousness will powerfully affect the future pattern of world power. Pouring new billions into our missile program will not alone prevent the loss of a disillusioned India, an embittered Tunisia or a chaotic Indonesia.
Important as the recent military alteration of the balance of power may be, it is equally distressing that our balance of trade with the rest of the world is once again moving sharply out of balance. Raging inflation consumes available capital and clogs channels of trade. The new independent nations of the world are encountering increasing difficulty in eliminating the poverty they have previously blamed on their oppressor, in securing an industrial base to raise per capita income and in providing the health, education and community services necessary for a stable society that can remain outside the zone of Communist influence. The astounding explosive growth of the world’s population, centered largely on those nations of the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Latin America least able to support it, seems certain to outstrip all of our efforts to increase living standards and consumer goods by any similar proportions. To feed each day’s increase in population requires that we find 150 square miles of new arable land every day. To feed one year’s gain alone would require a new farm as large as the state of Illinois.
As a result, in the midst of this age of prosperity and abundance, the standard of living for much of the world is actually declining, their poverty and economic backwardness are increasing, and their vulnerability to Communist exploitation becoming daily more obvious. In the world community of nations, the rich are getting richer while the poor are getting poorer. Per capita income in the United States may have climbed to some $2,000 a year for every man, woman and child – but it is $110 a year in Egypt, $54 in India and $25 a year in Libya. The world may be enjoying more prosperity than ever before – but strange as it may seem, it has also never seen so much poverty in all its history.
Into the disorder and distress caused by these trends march Messrs. Khrushchev and company, who can conclude arrangements for foreign aid and trade without respecting the wishes of Congressional Committees, consumers and taxpayers. The leaders of the Soviet Union can – and have – purchased commodities they did not need from wavering nations, sold expensive equipment at a loss to an uncommitted state, purchased raw materials at a level far above the world price from an under-developed nation, and provided loans to potential allies at a rate of interest far below the world bank and other normal levels.
Russian economic aid, limited up to now to less than $2 billion, but unfettered by any pretense of a so-called “business-like” loan basis, has been more effective than our aid in many areas for less money; it has been termed benevolent while ours is tainted; it has been deemed an act of good will while ours is imperialistic. Afghanistan, Syria, Indonesia, Egypt and India have all accepted sizeable offers of Soviet economic aid – Iran, Turkey and Iceland may not be able to resist them for long with interest at 2 1⁄2% and a period of repayment stretching twelve or more years; under-developed nations, for whom the only alternative is bankruptcy and humiliation are obviously willing to incur some risk of Soviet penetration in order to obtain the stability we ourselves have urged them to secure.
The Soviet Union has even passed us in the rate of production of capital goods, in its rate of industrialization and productive growth and in the production of military end items. We, in this country, can produce twice as much steel as the Soviet Union – but practically all of the Russian steel capacity is devoted not to automobiles and freezers but to structural, heavy steel shapes and steel plate production – for armaments and capital goods, for developing their own capacity and for exporting to the underdeveloped nations the capital goods they cannot obtain in sufficient quantity from us.
The unprecedented Communist penetration in the Middle East – the Soviet lead in scientific prestige and manpower – the drastically reduced prestige of the American in Tunisia and indeed all Africa and Asia – the current strain on the solidarity of the Western Alliance – the decline of NATO as a viable force – chinks even in the armor of the Western Hemisphere – the war in Algeria, political confusion in Indonesia, the prospects of bankruptcy in India, the fanning of ancient rivalry in the Middle East – in every part of the globe, the peril to Western security continues to grow. Our aid, trade, information, immigration, education and other programs will certainly demand as much reappraisal as our military needs if we are to reverse these trends.
Military alliances, military aid and the shipment of additional arms offer little, if any, assistance in the solution of these problems. They neither recognize the nationalist pulsations the Communists seek to exploit, nor alleviate the economic chaos that has put the uncommitted world in ferment. Congress and the Administration must, in this year’s Foreign Aid Program, shift the balance as between aid for military and defense support purposes and aid for economic recovery and growth. Especially must we reformulate aid programs which meet the special needs of under-developed countries suffering from capital starvation. Some faint beginnings are already on the books in the Foreign Agricultural Surplus Disposal Program and in the International Development Fund. But capitalization of both these programs – especially the latter – must be considerably increased before they can provide the continuity and reliability so essential to programs of sustained economic growth. We must provide funds which can act as "seed" capital to private investment, both from this country and from Europe – for irrigation and power projects, communications and harbor improvements, for the production of capital goods and investments – through long term loans wherever possible, and through private investors to the extent feasible – but in any event moving effectively to accelerate those programs which will lift underdeveloped economies out of stagnation and keep them ahead of the steady drain of rising populations.
In this connection, one of our most urgent needs is a loan and aid program which will prevent the failure of the Indian second Five Year Plan. The appeal which India has made cannot receive only the half-hearted response with which it has been greeted thus far. This most important of all uncommitted states – the showcase of the democratic "experiment" in Asia – can have, but only if we help, the best prospects of any nation in that part of the world for making a real attack on endemic poverty, securing an industrial base which can raise national and per capita income and providing the health, education and community services necessary for a diversified and democratic society, outside the zone of Communist influence and control.
The importance of our stake in India can be judged by considering the effect on all of Asia and Africa if India should join China – with a population of nearly a billion between them – in the Communist camp. India’s needs can be shared by other countries also – Germany, Canada, the Colombo Plan countries, the World Bank. But the United States must take the lead.
These are but some of the non-military problems we face. I realize that it is much easier to get the people aroused over a satellite we could not fire, a Gaither Report they have not seen and massive Soviet weapons they will, in all likelihood, never experience. It is more difficult to dramatize the more serious threat of Soviet economic advances, and more difficult to bring home to the average citizen how our own security is thus impaired.
In short, our greatest need, in the final analysis, is the kind of leadership provided by this Society and its members – for men with the scholarly insight, the enlightened vision and the determined courage so well exemplified by John Carroll and his family.
In his book "One Man’s America," Alistair Cooke tells the story which perhaps best illustrates my point. On the 19th of May, 1780, as he describes it, in Hartford, Connecticut, the skies at noon turned from blue to gray and by mid-afternoon had blackened over so densely that, in that religious age, men fell on their knees and begged a final blessing before the end came. The Connecticut House of Representatives was in session. And as some men fell down in the darkened chamber and others clamored for an immediate adjournment, the Speaker of the House, one Colonel Davenport, came to his feet. And he silenced the din with these words: "The Day of Judgment is either approaching or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for adjournment. If it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish, therefore, that candles may be brought."
Members of the John Carroll Society, we who are concerned about the dark and difficult days ahead ask once again that you bring us candles to illuminate our way.
Source: Papers of John F. Kennedy. Pre-Presidential Papers. Senate Files, Box 899, "John Carroll Society, Washington, D.C., 13 February 1958." John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.