At the American University Historic Marker circa mid-1990s. Photo by John Judge
NOTE: RFK, Jr. will give a speech on Tuesday, June 20 at 7 pm on his views on foreign policy and reflections on JFK's American U Peace Speech - that can be live stream viewed here:
RFK Jr. to Deliver Major Foreign Policy Speech in New Hampshire | Kennedy24
Not really a date that stands out in history, June 10th, 1963, sixty years ago, was the day President John F. Kennedy gave the graduation speech at American University in Washington D.C.
He used the occasion to give what many believe was his most important speech, now generally referred to as the Peace Speech. In it Kennedy called for an end to the Cold War, the nuclear arms race and for the establishment of a true peace, "not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war, but the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living...that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children - not merely peace in our time but peace for all time."
It was actually authored by speechwriter Ted Sorensen, based on a draft by peace activist Norman Cousins. On the ride home, in the back seat of the limo, JFK asked Sorensen, "Do you think they got it?"
Well I don't know if the graduates got it, but Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev certainly did, and it probably helped lead to the fall of the wall, the end of the Soviet Union and the Cold War.
When Gorbachev visited Dallas in 1998, - and I missed him by a few hours, he stopped by the Grassy Knoll, where Bob Groden gave him a copy of his book. Then Gorbachev visited the Sixth Floor Museum where Gary Mark had him sign the daily ledger, in which he made a reference to JFK's Peace Speech and wrote: "He looked far ahead and he wanted to change a great deal. Perhaps it is this that is the key to the mystery of the death of President John F. Kennedy."
And indeed, today we recognize that speech as a truly significant event, and that place and time are special. And as Gorbachev wondered, - did it play a role in his murder? That is something we should be wondering too.
As Bill Turner once explained, the motives were piling up - the Bay of Pigs, peaceful resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the backchannel negotiations with Fidel Castro, all against the objections of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the intelligence community. And the Peace Speech was presented without running it past the Pentagon or the CIA, as such things were usually handled, so it was a surprise to them as much as it was to the Russians.
One morning over breakfast with John Judge I read aloud a newspaper quote from Senator Ted Kennedy. He said that despite the fact the Kennedy family put flowers on JFK's grave every November 22, they would prefer President Kennedy's administration, policies and legacy to be remembered and not his assassination.
So after mulling that over for awhile, John and I discussed it and decided to take the Kennedy family up on that request, so besides going to Dallas ti hold a moment of silence ceremony at Dealey Plaza every year, as Penn Jones did and John Judge continued we would try to honor JFK's legacy of Peace. And where best to do that than American University?
We drove there, passing the White House, the Harvard Research Center, that we wanted to emulate, the Naval Observatory where the Vice President lived, to American U. There at the end of the athletic field is an historic marker where the makeshift stage had been erected and JFK gave his speech to the graduate in their cap and gowns.
Now the graduations are held a week earlier, so there aren't many students roaming around the campus on June 10th, but we were there. Then we began to make it tradition of going every June 10th, trying to drum up support via COPA and our circle of friends. Sometimes it was just me and John, T. Carter and Marty Bragg, joined by a few others who lived nearby.
We met at 12 noon, and took turns talking, explaining whey JFK meant something to us, and we would read sections of his speech, for about an hour. Then we would go to lunch and continue our conversations on topic, usually to a nearby Thai restaurant.
One year, early on, we got an open classroom and John Newman and Dan Alcorn made presentations, and the school even let visitors from out of town stay the night in a dorm. A few women came down from New York and one guy actually flew in from London just to attend our little affair.
Documentary film maker and teacher Randy Bensen attended a few time and filmed it, and Randy has been the biggest advocate of keeping the June 10th event a real annual tradition. He was recently talking about it wirh Len Osanic on the Black Op Radio program. A few days before this year's date Len contacted me and asked me if I was going to go to the American U. event. But no, I just can't do it anymore, as it is too painful. It's even painful for me to think about it and write this.
From what I understand, current presidential candidate RFK,Jr., was denied permission to speak there as a memorium, though I'm not sure if he wanted to speak at the graduation ceremony, or just the memorial service on June 10th. The area is open to the public and we never asked permission.
And BTW, Dick Russell's biography of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will be published and available soon. It should be a good one as Dick is a frequent fishing partner of Bobby, Jr. so he's got an inside scoop.
I was glad that Randy Bensen was there, and was joined by a few others, including attorney Dan Alcorn, who was at many of the early events as well. Dan is the President of the Assassination Archives and Research Center (AARC), and spoke on the meaning of the Peace Speech and recent developments in the investigation of President Kennedy's murder.
Dan mentioned not only the significance of the Peace Speech but also the Civil Rights Speech the following evening. "That in two days national policy was dramatically changed to peace and equality. Two of the most consequential days in U.S. history."
While Randy probably filmed much of the event, so we should get it soon on line, Dan Alcorn mentioned how the nuclear test ban treaty was passed against the opposition of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, CIA director John McCone, and Dr. Edward Teller, the theoretical physicist who is often referred to as "the father of the hydrogen bomb."
Peter Dale Scott once attended a meeting at Stanford where Teller was discussing "how to deal with the JFK problem."
Well we know, and Gorbachev knows how they delt with that problem.
American University has a number of JFK connections besides the Peace Speech.
Around the time of the media uproar over Oliver Stone's "JFK," - which began even before the movie was released, an American University professor sponsored a panel discussion in the main theater with the title - Cinema and Politics, that included Dan Moldea, retired Air Force Colonel Fletcher Prouty and a few others But when one backed out at the last minute, John Judge was recruited to sit in. And it was one of John's best moments, as he recounted his mother's experience working as a statistician for the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon, and the immediate change in Vietnam policy after the assassination.
When Moldea tried to make a case for the mob being behind the assassination, John said the "mob were water boys for the CIA," and they didn't control the motorcade route, the autopsy or anything.
John said, "I started at the bottom and worked my way up and Fletcher Prouty started at the top and worked his way down, and we met at the Joint Chiefs of Staff."
C-SPAN filmed it, and I have seen it on Youtube, and will try to find it again and will post it here when I do.
Then a few days later Diane Rehm, who did On My Mind, a daily interview show on National Public Radio (NPR) from a studio at American U., asked John Judge to be on her program. John took Prouty along and introducing him as "The Real Mr. X" from Oliver Stone's "JFK."
Prouty must be a threat to some people because he is often criticized and attempts are made to discredit him, but as far as I'm concerned, he was the first person to call attention to USMC Victor "Brute" Krulak, who had offices in the White House and another one just down the hall from Prouty at the Pentagon. Krulak was known as SACSA - Special Assistant for Counter-Insurgency and Special Activities, responsible for giving the CIA military assistance for their covert operations in Cuba and Vietnam.
And it was Prouty and Krulak who identify a man walking besides the Texas School Book Depository in one of the Tramp photos shortly after the assassination as then recently retired Gen. Ed Lansdale.
The Judge-Prouty interview with Diane Rehm on NPR was also recorded and is archived somewhere, and I'll try to find it and post that here as well, so stay tuned.
There's also a few American Univeristy professors who are players in the JFK game, including Peter Kuznick, director of the Nuclear Studies Institute, who worked with Oliver Stone to produce a series of Untold History TV programs.
Then theres Max Holland's wife, and history professor who advised him to "look for patterns," as I do.
Another professor, Anna K. Nelson, was a member of the Assassinations Records Review Board (ARRB). Her ARRB papers are archived there.
The late Professor Nelson, although an academic achievement award is named after her, wrote an essay for an anthology on government secrecy in which she gets a few key things wrong. She wrote: "The Warren Report concluded that President Kennedy had been killed by bullets fired by only one assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository Three shots had been fired, one hit the president but did not kill him, one went astray and the third killed Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally of Texas...." Got that wrong. That's certainly not what the Warren Report concluded.
She also says Oswald's decision to kill the president came from internal demons, not an external conspiracy."
Of the JFK Act that created the board she served on, she writes, "The act was designed to strip away theories that implicated federal agencies in a conspiracy to murder the young president," which is totally untrue.
The JFK Act did not call for any investigation to discredit conspiracy theories, but rather to gather records, have all of the federal agencies turn their assassination related records over to the National Archives, preserve them and open them all to the pubic as part of the JFK Assassination Records Collection at NARA.
And that has still not yet happened, years after the October, 2017 deadline she helped set.
When Dan Alcorn talked at the June 10th memorial service at the American U. historic marker this year, he mentioned John Judge, and said he still thinks about John nearly every day, as I do.
And it is my memories of John and his incredible vision of what could be, should be, but isn't, that makes me sad, depressed and sometimes mad.
To paraphrase what a Japanese philosopher once said, before reality, comes the vision.
And like John F. Kennedy's vision of peace, John Judge had a vision, and it wasn't just to hold an annual moment of silence at Dealey Plaza, or meet at the Peace Speech marker every June 10, but much more.
John Judge wanted to establish a permanent brick and mortar secret assassination history museum, library, document archive, research center, theater and cafe, in downtown Washington D.C. He wanted to locate it near the Fords Theater, so the busloads of school students had an alternative to the house where Lincoln died, the FBI tour, and Spy Museum.
While I didn't have anything to do with it, he incorporated the non-profit Hidden History Museum (HHM) as a start, and put a board of directors together. But he had a stroke and died before he could full fill his vision and dream. And in the end, John's so-called friends disbanded COPA - The Coalition On Political Assassinations, that John was the director of and spent 20 years building, which is why we had to form CAPA - Citizens Against Political Assassinations.
The executor - and I mean executor of John's estate, ignored his last will to keep his private belongings separate from the HHM, that was to get all the books, COPA archives, documents and papers. The COPA and HHM bank accounts were wrongfully co-mingled, as they were two different types of non-profit organizations, and with his five figure life insurance policy, there was enough to establish the HHM storefront and research center in downtown D.C. as he wanted. His vision.
Instead the HHM board members permitted the HHM to be locked away in a closed strip mall storefront in the boondocks of York, Pennsylvania, and in private hands rather than a permanent institution, where they belong.
It is here where the legacy of President Kennedy and John Judge come together. I agree with Len Osanic, and we should honor JFK's Peace Speech for what it was, as I did for over a decade by being there and getting the ball rolling for the memorial services at the AU historic marker. And when John Judge's vision of a real HHM in DC, rather than a truly hidden one, is realized, I will go back there again, if I am still alive.
As JFK said in that speech, "And we are all mortal," and indeed we are, and in some cases, at least this one, it will probably take those who come after us to full fill these visions and dreams.
The inscription reads: I have seen war on land and sea. I have seen blood running from the wounded. I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed....I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I HATE WAR
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