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International Relations John F. Kennedy

Commencement address at American University

By John F. Kennedy · 1963

A Cold War address calling for a more practical peace, reduced nuclear tensions and greater mutual understanding between the United States and Soviet Union.

Form
Commencement address
Genre
Political speech Peace advocacy
Date
June 10, 1963
External Link
Listen to the speech
External Link
Read the transcript
Tags
Cold WarNuclear disarmamentSoviet UnionPeaceNuclear Test Ban Treaty

Delivered at American University on 10 June 1963, Kennedy’s commencement address examines the possibility of peace during the Cold War. He rejects the idea of peace as an unattainable ideal and instead argues for practical measures that can reduce tensions, limit nuclear dangers and improve relations between rival powers. He urges Americans to reconsider hostile assumptions about the Soviet Union and to recognise the shared human costs of war.

Kennedy also announces that the United States will suspend atmospheric nuclear tests so long as other states do the same, while negotiations continue towards a formal test-ban agreement. The speech stresses diplomacy, restraint and mutual responsibility without abandoning national security. Its central argument is that lasting peace must be built gradually through institutions, agreements and changes in attitudes, rather than expected to emerge from a single political settlement.

Quotes

“If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity.”

John F. Kennedy · Commencement address at American University, 1963 · Primary source

“For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.”

John F. Kennedy · Commencement address at American University, 1963 · Primary source

“What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children—not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women—not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.”

John F. Kennedy · Commencement address at American University, 1963 · Primary source

“Total war makes no sense in an age when great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age when a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by all the allied air forces in the Second World War.”

John F. Kennedy · Commencement address at American University, 1963 · Primary source

“Our problems are manmade—therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.”

John F. Kennedy · Commencement address at American University, 1963 · Primary source

“We are both caught up in a vicious and dangerous cycle in which suspicion on one side breeds suspicion on the other, and new weapons beget counterweapons.”

John F. Kennedy · Commencement address at American University, 1963 · Primary source

“The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war. We do not want a war. We do not now expect a war. This generation of Americans has already had enough—more than enough—of war and hate and oppression. We shall be prepared if others wish it. We shall be alert to try to stop it. But we shall also do our part to build a world of peace where the weak are safe and the strong are just. We are not helpless before that task or hopeless of its success.”

John F. Kennedy · Commencement address at American University, 1963 · Primary source

“Confident and unafraid, we labor on—not toward a strategy of annihilation but toward a strategy of peace.”

John F. Kennedy · Commencement address at American University, 1963 · Primary source

Explore the author

John F. Kennedy

49 quotes · 10 works · 97 themes · 245 tags
Quotes
“Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”“We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”“The idea that Britain loses every battle except the last has proved correct so many times in the past that the average Englishman is unwilling to make great personal sacrifices until the danger is overwhelmingly apparent.”
Works
Why England Slept 1940Profiles in Courage 1956Inaugural Address of President John F. Kennedy 1961
Themes
Renewal within continuityComplacency and preparednessNational character and public action
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