One year ago, June 10, 2023, Helga Zepp-LaRouche organized and keynoted a Schiller Institute Conference, “The World Needs JFK’s Vision of Peace.” Zepp-LaRouche and her newly-organized International Peace Coalition had just begun meeting weekly on Fridays, holding a provocative but fruitful international dialogue, involving all national populations, on how to change the lethal popular culture of pessimism and indifference, to embark upon a new course of optimistic, mass-based, strategic policy-actions. One year later, the International Peace Coalition has held 53 consecutive Friday meetings, open to all those of good will, devoted to the task of establishing a new security and development architecture for the world. On June 10, 1963, JFK stated his vision of peace in these words: Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. “Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it is unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable—that mankind is doomed—that we are gripped by forces we cannot control. We need not accept that view. Our problems are man-made—therefore, they can be solved by man.”
Now, in the aftermath of the highly successful, annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum over June 508, attended by 19,000 people from 136 nations, forces for peace in the trans-Atlantic world must escalate. On Wednesday, June 12, the Schiller Institute will host, at the National Press Club, an Emergency Press Conference: “The Danger of Nuclear War Is Real, And Must Be Stopped.” The conference features Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector and U.S. Marine intelligence officer, who was recently illegally prevented by the United States State Department from traveling to Russia to address the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum; Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Founder and Chairwoman, Schiller Institute; Col. Richard H. Black (ret.), former head of the U.S. Army’s Criminal Law Division at the Pentagon and former Virginia State Senator; and Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst and co-founder of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
There is a great need to set the record straight as to who in the world is actually pushing for thermonuclear war. During a 22-minute exchange with moderator Sergey Karaganov at the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Vladimir Putin reminded the world that “I’m not the one who started talking about nuclear weapons. It was that little British prime minister.” Putin was referring to Liz Truss, the shortest-serving prime minister in British history, who, in August of 2022, before she was even placed in that office, was asked about launching nuclear war, in an interview during a campaign event: “Your orders to our Trident boat captain on whether you, prime minister, is giving the order to unleash nuclear weapons. It would mean global annihilation … How does that thought make you feel?” In the words of London’s The Independent, which reported the incident at the time, “Truss appeared without emotion as she replied: ‘I think it’s an important duty of the prime minister and I’m ready to do that.’ She added: ‘I’m ready to do that.’”
Shortly after she made the statement, Putin had criticized, not only Truss, but Western leaders who did not attempt to correct her. “You see, no one responded to that in any way. Suppose she just spaced out and let it slip. How can you say such things publicly? She did, though. They should have set her straight, or Washington could have publicly stated that it has nothing to do with this. We have no idea what she is talking about, they could have said. There was no need to hurt anyone’s feelings; all they had to do was dissociate themselves from what she said. But everyone was silent.” No such correction occurred, until Truss was removed from office.
With respect to thermonuclear war, Putin emphasized, during his remarks over the weekend, and turning to directly address his audience for additional emphasis: “Please do not mention such things idly.” He received spontaneous, general applause, because people could sense both how serious he was about the gravity of even discussing the topic, and how different his manner of strategic thought is from leaders in NATO. They are, as you are reading this, through Ukraine, assaulting Russia’s early warning radar systems with American and British missiles inside Russian territory.
In the assessment of Scott Ritter, the world may be one ATACMS missile strike short of thermonuclear annihilation. For that reason, something new and effective must emerge over the short term from the trans-Atlantic nations—a new leadership which has a grasp of reality. It is clear that the results of the just-concluded elections in Europe show the desire of the population for something better. There is, in the case of the United States, for example, access by the citizenry to the power of the Presidency, by means of independent actions taken by private citizens, who have qualified themselves to propose and implement such changes as are required to access and deploy that Presidential power on behalf of the General Welfare of the nation in particular, and the planet as a whole.
That is not to suggest that there is presently a U.S. Presidential candidate of that caliber, or even inclination. The candidacies in New York of Diane Sare for U.S. Senate, and Jose Vega for Congress, however, can represent the standard by which all other candidacies are measured on matters of strategic policy. Such a standard was set by economist and statesman Lyndon LaRouche, through his Presidential campaigns of 1976, 1980 and 1984, during which he proposed, and President Ronald Reagan adopted, his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) policy.
Today, independent candidacies for office, in the United States and other nations as well, combined with an energetic citizenry, informed by the Alert Service now being daily made available by the Executive Intelligence Review, can prove JFK’s vision of peace to be correct. “No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable—and we believe they can do it again.”
