Obama echoes JFK speech -- the one on nukes

David Jackson | USA TODAY

President Obama paid tribute Wednesday to a famous John F. Kennedy speech -- but not the one that's getting the most attention.

On June 10, 1963, a full 16 days before his celebrated "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, Kennedy spoke of his desire to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons -- a theme Obama stressed in his "peace with justice" speech at the Brandenburg Gate.

In calling for a one-third reduction in the world's nuclear stockpiles, Obama pledged to negotiate new cuts with Russia and NATO allies, as well as a new framework to promote the development of peaceful nuclear power. The president said he will host a 2016 summit on nuclear materials worldwide, and called for a treaty to end production of fissile material.

"We may no longer live in fear of global annihilation, but so long as nuclear weapons exist, we are not truly safe," Obama said in Berlin.

Fifty years ago, in a commencement address at American University in Washington, D.C., President Kennedy called for a reduction of Cold War tensions with the then-Soviet Union, saying "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."

In calling for a test ban treaty, Kennedy said: "It would place the nuclear powers in a position to deal more effectively with one of the greatest hazards which man faces in 1963, the further spread of nuclear arms."

The Cold War has been over for more than two decades, but nuclear weapons remain -- and remain a threat, as terrorist groups try to obtain them.

While Obama did call for, ultimately, the end of nuclear weapons, he cited the need in the meantime for the U.S. to maintain a nuclear deterrent.

Rocky relations with Russia -- over the civil war in Syria and other issues -- could also frustrate Obama's hopes for reduced nuclear arsenals, a topic he began studying while a college student during the 1980s.

Some Republicans, meanwhile, said that Obama's plans could amount to unilateral disarmament.

Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces, said Obama made his nuclear cutback proposals "only to appease a foreign audience. The President seems only concerned with winning the approval of nations like Russia, who will applaud a weakened United States."

In his remarks at the Brandenburg Gate, Obama also cited Kennedy's more famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, saying the phrase "echoes through the ages."

The current president also cited a closing comment Kennedy made that day, asking Berliners "to lift your eyes beyond the dangers of today, to the hopes of tomorrow ... to the advance of freedom everywhere, beyond the wall to the day of peace with justice, beyond yourselves and ourselves to all mankind."

In discussing nuclear weapons, Obama cited the cuts required by the New START Treaty with the Russians, and that the nations are on track to cut "deployed nuclear warheads to their lowest levels since the 1950s."

While "we have more to do," Obama also acknowledged that the abolition of nuclear weapons is at best a very long-term goal -- just as it was when Kennedy gave his nuke speech 50 years ago, when Obama himself was not quite two years old.

Said Obama on Wednesday: "Peace with justice means pursuing the security of a world without nuclear weapons, no matter how distant that dream may be."



