American University Peace Speech

by John F Kennedy

This is my favourite speech from President Kennedy. It is a very, very important speech in our history because of its demonstration of statecraft in the finest and most important way. The speech was given in the shadow of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The world was perilously close to nuclear war and we needed an active approach to break through. President Kennedy decided he needed to do something as leader of the United States and as a human being to bring the world back from the abyss, and the approach that he took was to try to negotiate a Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty with the Soviet Union. He wrote this speech as an explanation of what he had in mind.