Beschreibung:

KENNEDY, John F. Autograph and Typed speech draft, n.d. [1952] containing EXTENSIVE AUTOGRAPH EMENDATIONS AND RE-WRITTEN TEXT IN JFK'S HAND. Together 9 pages (4 typed, 5 in manuscript), 4to . "I KNOW AS ONE WHO LIVED IT--THE LONESOMENESS, THE HEARTBREAK, AND THE BITTER COST OF WAR" A fascinating, very combative speech from JFK's 1952 Senate campaign - with extensive holograph additions, refuting Henry Cabot Lodge's charge of "indifference" on Korea. "On Saturday, in New Bedford," JFK says, "Mr. Lodge said, & I quote...'Mr. Kennedy does not take Korea seriously.' Yesterday ...Lodge went so far as to suggest that 'the heavy burdens placed on our people by the Korean War are a matter of indifference to Mr. Kennedy.'...This is an unspeakable charge," Kennedy says, "which has been made for the sole purpose of maintaining a political position." He goes on to make an impassioned statement about his own feelings about war--and along the way crosses out a sentimental reference to his brother Joe [excisions in brackets]: "War, with all its sorrows and miseries, has a deep personal meaning for me. I saw it at close range in the waters of the South Pacific during the early days of World War II, where some of the noblest pages in our history were written. I know as one who lived it - the lonesomeness, the heartbreak, and the bitter cost of war in lives taken and bodies broken. Great sorrow was visited upon my own family. My older brother, Joe [dear to me as only an older brother can be], lost his life in a volunteer mission over the English Channel in 1944....I have some understanding of what the loss of a boy in Korea or in any war means to those who loved him. I don't need to be told about it by Mr. Lodge." JFK wants to shift the burden of fighting in Korea away from the U. S. and onto the shoulders of the South Koeans and America's other allies. In a complete page of holograph additions he argues "that the other members of the United Nations should bear their proportionate share of the burden of the fighting. The only way that this can be done is by insisting that all of the assistance that we give them should be on a reciprocal basis, that we will help them if they will help us. This, I have always believed, should be the motivating force behind our entire foreign policy..." An important JFK address that contains a wealth of insights into the future President's views on war and diplomacy.