JFK’s legacy: ‘Foreign policy driven by will for dialogue, cooperation’

By Guglielmo Gallone

There are at least two lessons that can be drawn from the foreign policy of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, President of the United States from 20 January 1961 to 22 November 1963.

The first concerns the use of intelligence, a topic of current relevance given the debate on the inability of Western defense forces to predict the conflicts they are currently grappling with—Gaza and Ukraine are prominent examples. Kennedy's experience tells a story of both failure and success.

On one hand, there was the Bay of Pigs invasion, initiated on 15 April 1961, with a bombardment carried out by American planes disguised as Cuban aircraft and piloted by exiles. Washington's objective was to prevent a Latin American country from joining the communist bloc. According to experts from the CIA and the Pentagon, the Cuban peasant population was hostile to Castro, and they believed that the invasion by exiles supported by the US government would be welcomed with enthusiasm. However, the operation failed just two days after its initiation. The population showed solidarity with the communist regime, the exiles were arrested, and Fidel Castro strengthened his popularity in the eyes of the world. Kennedy immediately replaced Allen Dulles, the head of the CIA at the time, but the setback, which occurred in the "backyard" of the United States, was evident.

The Democratic president managed to regain popularity with his cautious and pragmatic approach to the missile crisis that occurred in October 1962. In just thirteen days, Kennedy had to consider how to respond to the Soviet President Nikita Khrushchev's initiative to build missile launch pads in Cuba and how to avoid a nuclear escalation. The success of the endeavor was largely attributed to the coordination between the presidency and the National Security Council. On 16 October 1962, Kennedy was informed of the Soviet plan thanks to reconnaissance carried out by a U2 aircraft, revealing the construction of the missile launch pads. Once the information was acquired, it was necessary to put oneself in the shoes of the enemy: Did the Soviets want to compel the Americans to intervene, force them to negotiate, or provoke them to see how far they were willing to go? Ultimately, a decision had to be made on what course of action to take. And the decision to issue an ultimatum to Khrushchev proved effective for two reasons. Firstly, it would be up to the Soviets to decide whether to unleash war. Secondly, the absence of Khrushchev's strategy became apparent; he could not have failed to anticipate an American reaction and had allowed ideology to prevail over strategy.

From these two examples, one can understand what intelligence is and how important it is: an informational activity aimed at acquiring knowledge about foreign situations and, based on this, producing information. In between, there is a process of gathering information, coordination, interpretation, analysis, and evaluation that, at times, may involve unconventional activities such as disinformation, espionage, or interference. Certainly, all intelligence agencies experience failures, and one might venture to say that failure is the price to pay for a profession based on the interpretation of hidden, incomplete, sometimes deceptive information, and moreover, connected to a foreign actor. Yet, there is one word that, in this entire process, is more valuable than all the others but is often the most absent today: interpretation. The amount of data that intelligence agencies can collect today is infinitely greater than in the 1960s, but are we sure that we are also capable of interpreting all of this? If technology provides the necessary tools, is human thought truly keeping pace with such a change? Are there still leaders capable of distinguishing between strategy and tactics, of listening to technicians and synthesizing information, endowed with clarity and foresight, and educated in thoughtful analysis?

After the missile crisis, in August 1963, Kennedy and Khrushchev approved the construction of the red line, the direct communication link between the White House and the Kremlin. In this case as well, the decision cannot be confined solely to the need to shorten response times in times of crisis. Rather, it should be seen in the context of the need for communication with the adversary, the strategy of "peaceful coexistence," and the mutual legitimation between East and West that characterized the Cold War. Over time, it became clear that bipolarity did not imply a total opposition between superpowers, but rather control over their respective spheres.

This is demonstrated, first and foremost, by the statement made by Kennedy to the National Security Advisor Walt Rostow in July 1961, in the face of the exodus of over thirty thousand East Berliners to the western part of the city, administered by the Western powers: “Khrushchev is losing East Germany. He can't let that happen. If East Germany falls, the same will happen to Poland and all of Eastern Europe. He'll have to do something to stop the flow of refugees, maybe build a wall. And we won't be able to stop it.” Kennedy's approach was not one of helplessness but strategy: it is always better to learn lessons from the wars of others than from one's own. That's why having an adversary matter. That's why on 13 August 1961, when the Berlin Wall was erected, Kennedy said, "It's not a perfect solution, but a wall is infinitely better than a war.”

This is further demonstrated by the speech delivered by Kennedy at American University in Washington on 10 June 1963, at the end of which the president would announce the initiation of negotiations for the nuclear test ban agreement with Moscow: “What kind of peace do we seek? Not a pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons” or “simply the peace for Americans” but rather “a genuine peace for all men and women" capable of "preventing those conflicts that lead an adversary to choose between a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war.”

Here is the second lesson that can be drawn from Kennedy's experience: the importance of dialogue, self-criticism, and reconsidering one's attitude toward the adversary, avoiding the humiliation of the state and the hatred of the population. These themes are even more relevant today because the global system is no longer bipolar, and we find ourselves in a "third world war fought piecemeal."