Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History (132 page)

Stalin was very much interested in the assessment of Comrade Zhukov as a military leader. He asked me often for my opinion of Zhukov. I told him then, “I have known Zhukov for a long time; he is a good general and a good military leader.”

After the war Stalin began to tell all kinds of nonsense about Zhukov, among others the following: “You praised Zhukov, but he does not deserve it. It is said that before each operation at the front Zhukov used to behave as follows: he used to take a handful of earth, smell it, and say. ‘We can begin the attack,’ or the opposite, ‘The planned operation cannot be carried out.’” I stated at that time, “Comrade Stalin, I do not know who invented this, but it is not true.”

It is possible that Stalin himself invented these things for the purpose of minimizing the role and military talents of Marshal Zhukov.

All the more monstrous are the acts whose initiator was Stalin and which are rude violations of the basic Leninist principles of the nationality policy of the Soviet state. We refer to the mass deportations from their native places of whole nations, together with all Communists and Komsomols without any exception; this deportation action was not dictated by any military considerations.

The Ukrainians avoided meeting this fate only because there were too many of them and there was no place to which to deport them. Otherwise, he would have deported them also.

Let us also recall the “Affair of the Doctor Plotters.” Actually there was no “affair” outside of the declaration of the woman doctor Timashuk, who was probably influenced or ordered by someone (after all, she was an unofficial collaborator of the organs of state security) to write Stalin a letter in which she declared that doctors were applying supposedly improper methods of medical treatment.

Such a letter was sufficient for Stalin to reach an immediate conclusion
that there are doctor plotters in the Soviet Union. He issued orders to arrest a group of eminent Soviet medical specialists. He personally issued advice on the conduct of the investigation and the method of interrogation of the arrested persons.

Stalin personally called the investigative judge, gave him instructions, advised him on which investigative methods should be used; these methods were simple—beat, beat, and, once again, beat.

Comrades, the cult of the individual acquired such monstrous size chiefly because Stalin himself, using all conceivable methods, supported the glorification of his own person. This is supported by numerous facts. One of the most characteristic examples of Stalin’s self-glorification and of his lack of even elementary modesty is the edition of his “Short Biography,” which was published in 1948.

“Stalin is the worthy continuer of Lenin’s work, or, as it is said in our party, Stalin is the Lenin of today.” You see how well it is said; not by the nation but by Stalin himself.

Comrades, we must abolish the cult of the individual decisively, once and for all….

We are absolutely certain that our party, armed with the historical resolutions of the twentieth congress, will lead the Soviet people along the Leninist path to new successes, to new victories.

Long live the victorious banner of our party—Leninism!

“In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen,” said Lincoln in his first inaugural “and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war.” John F. Kennedy adopted the cadences of Lincoln (and corrected Lincoln’s redundant “fellow countrymen”) with “In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than mine, will rest the final success or failure of our course.” He also followed Lincoln in the use of quotation from both the Old and the New Testament, quoting from Isaiah and the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Romans. The most Lincolnesque of all was the use of the oratorical “let”; Kennedy began eight sentences with it, moving from “Let the word go forth… that the torch has been passed” (stressing the point that he was the first president born in the twentieth century) to “So let us begin anew” and “But let us begin” (which Lyndon Johnson later used as the basis of his “Let us continue”) to a paragraph that was later cited by Vietnam hawks as evidence of a determined Cold War mind-set: “Let every nation know… that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

The use of antithesis (“Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate”) and parallelism (“United, there is little we cannot do…. Divided, there is little we can do”) made many passages memorable, culminating in the “ask not” line, which dramatized an idealism and selflessness in calling for sacrifice, though not specifying a particular sacrifice. But rhetorical devices aside, this speech—patterned on the Lincoln style, though not seeking to match the Lincoln legal substance or philosophical profundity—set the standard by which presidential inaugurals have been judged in the modern era. Such skilled political writers as
Adlai Stevenson, John Kenneth Galbraith, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., and Walter Lippmann were consulted by Kennedy alter ego Ted Sorensen, but the result was not a committee product; rather, the excitingly delivered outdoor speech exuded youth and idealism, a sense of history, and a feeling for language that reflected the taste and cool passion of the speaker himself. In the light of Kennedy’s subsequent assassination, the association with Lincoln’s cadences makes a rereading especially poignant.

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WE OBSERVE TODAY
not a victory of a party but a celebration of freedom—symbolizing an end as well as a beginning—signifying renewal as well as change. For I have sworn before you and Almighty God the same solemn oath our forebears prescribed nearly a century and three quarters ago.

The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe—the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.

We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans—born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage—and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty.

This much we pledge—and more. To those old allies whose cultural and spiritual origins we share, we pledge the loyalty of faithful friends. United, there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided, there is little we can do—for we dare not meet a powerful challenge at odds and split asunder.

To those new states whom we welcome to the ranks of the free, we pledge our word that one form of colonial control shall not have passed away merely to be replaced by a far more iron tyranny. We shall not
always expect to find them supporting our view. But we shall always hope to find them strongly supporting their own freedom—and to remember that, in the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.

To those peoples in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required—not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.

To our sister republics south of our border, we offer a special pledge—to convert our good words into good deeds—in a new alliance for progress—to assist free men and free governments in casting off the chains of poverty. But this peaceful revolution of hope cannot become the prey of hostile powers. Let all our neighbors know that we shall join with them to oppose aggression or subversion anywhere in the Americas. And let every other power know that this hemisphere intends to remain the master of its own house.

To that world assembly of sovereign states, the United Nations, our last best hope in an age where the instruments of war have far outpaced the instruments of peace, we renew our pledge of support—to prevent it from becoming merely a forum for invective—to strengthen its shield of the new and the weak—and to enlarge the area in which its writ may run.

Finally, to those nations who would make themselves our adversary, we offer not a pledge but a request: that both sides begin anew the quest for peace, before the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science engulf all humanity in planned or accidental self-destruction.

We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.

But neither can two great and powerful groups of nations take comfort from our present course—both sides overburdened by the cost of modern weapons, both rightly alarmed by the steady spread of the deadly atom, yet both racing to alter that uncertain balance of terror that stays the hand of mankind’s final war.

So let us begin anew—remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.

Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring
those problems which divide us. Let both sides, for the first time, formulate serious and precise proposals for the inspection and control of arms—and bring the absolute power to destroy other nations under the absolute control of all nations.

Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce.

Let both sides unite to heed in all corners of the earth the command of Isaiah—to “undo the heavy burdens and to let the oppressed go free.”

And if a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion, let both sides join in a new endeavor—not a new balance of power, but a new world of law, where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved.

All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.

In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than mine, will rest the final success or failure of our course. Since this country was founded, each generation of Americans has been summoned to give testimony to its national loyalty. The graves of young Americans who answered the call to service surround the globe.

Now the trumpet summons us again—not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need—not as a call to battle, though embattled we are—but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, “rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation”—a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself.

Can we forge against these enemies a grand and global alliance, North and South, East and West, that can assure a more fruitful life for all mankind? Will you join in that historic effort?

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility—I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it—and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.

And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.

My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world,
ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking his blessing and his help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.

“Je suis la France” (“I am France“), spoken by a defiant de Gaulle after his country’s surrender to the Nazis in 1940, was typical of the innocent arrogance of a leader who thought he embodied the spirit of his nation—and, on occasion, did. His stiff-neckedness in the face of weakness caused Winston Churchill to say, “The heaviest cross I bear is the Cross of Lorraine.”

Throughout the fifties, France was torn apart by the “Algerian question”: the desire of many in the colony to break free and the fear of many others, especially in the army, that the French in Algeria would be driven out. Only Charles de Gaulle—head of the Free French in exile during World War II, in retirement after an electoral setback in 1953—had the prestige and the will to use authority to end the rebellion. Only he could tell the angry French generals, “You are not the army’s army; you are France’s army.”

The exponent of grandeur—“France cannot be France without greatness”—was given power to rule by decree in 1958; when an opponent compared him to Robespierre, he mockingly delivered this riposte: “I always thought I was Jeanne d’Arc and Bonaparte. How little one knows oneself.” He understood the importance of speaking and of keeping silent: “There can be no power without mystery,” he wrote in
The Edge of the Sword
. “There must always be a ‘something’ which others cannot altogether fathom, which puzzles them, stirs them, and rivets their attention…. Nothing more enhances authority than silence. It is the crowning virtue of the strong, the refuge of the weak, the modesty of the proud, the pride of the humble, the prudence of the wise, and the sense of fools….” He exuded certitude; when a Nixon speechwriter asked him about separatism in Canada’s Quebec in 1969, de Gaulle answered with absolute assurance, “One day Quebec will be free.”