Opinion: Opinion | Why Is Trump Invoking JFK? Hint: Russia

“Let’s get out of the Defense mess before it’s too late…Be brave, Jack.”

Less than two years before his assassination in November 1963, US President John F. Kennedy (JFK) received this letter from filmmaker Rod Serling, best known as the creator of the popular television series The Twilight Zone. The poignancy of this postscript in a March 26, 1962 letter needs to be examined afresh today in the aftermath of the latest release of another tranche of the ‘JFK Files’.

Keeping his promise, President Donald Trump made more than 2000 documents related to JFK’s assassination available to the public on March 16. JFK, who lived by the media and also died on screen, continues to rule the mediascape six decades after his death. While experts are still parsing through more than 64,000 pages of the declassified JFK Files, speculation, conspiracy theories, shock, and awe over the presidential assassination have come back in full strength.

Who’ll Tell The Conspiracy Theorists?

Did the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have JFK assassinated to continue its Vietnam experiment? Did assassin Lee Harvey Oswald work in tandem with the Soviet Union to eliminate the US president who was going the extra mile to push for disarmament at the height of the Cold War? Did the mafia, particularly the Chicago mob, order the hit? Did JFK’s ambitious Vice-President, Lyndon Johnson, have his boss eliminated? None of these questions have yet been answered to the satisfaction of those asking. But this is the nature of conspiracy theories. Nothing assuages the anxieties of conspiracy theorists, and no document can disprove what they already believe.

So, what really is the purpose of declassifying documents that have ended up exposing more than 400 social security numbers and other personal details of political, military and congressional personnel?

CIA, The Mover-And-Shaker

The documents largely reveal the inner workings of the CIA, offering crucial historical context to Cold War events. Details include the active bases in New Delhi and Kolkata, the contamination of Cuban sugar shipment to the Soviet Union, the destabilising efforts to bring down hostile governments, and a lot more. The CIA spycraft is for all to see and deduce lessons from.

Yet, rather than establishing the CIA as the villain that took down a beloved president, the current tranche bolsters the agency’s image as a global mover-and-shaker. JFK’s aide, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., expressed his discomfiture about the CIA’s autonomy and power in 1961, stating that the agency possessed “many of the characteristics of a state within a state”. The CIA remains one of the most influential weapons in the US armoury.

The timing of this revelation is interesting. At a moment when the Trump administration’s uninhibited policy actions—domestic and international—are being dreaded, decried, or defended, an exhibit of US capabilities is useful. And so is bringing JFK back into the political arena. Despite historians’ scepticism around JFK’s policies and character, his public image of perfection has endured to date. JFK remains the usher of what Jackie Kennedy called ‘Camelot’, the Arthurian idyll, in US history. It’s not the first time that Trump has leaned on JFK to gain validation from the US public. In 2016, he attacked his fellow Republican and rival, Ted Cruz, on the grounds of the latter’s father’s alleged involvement in JFK’s assassination.

Trump Could Use Some Help

But let’s get back to Rod Serling’s advice to JFK. Written before the Cuban missile crisis when, according to the Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, “The two most powerful nations had been squared off against each other, each with its finger on the button,” Serling’s letter contained a pat-on-the-back for JFK for his nuclear disarmament efforts. JFK had been campaigning for nuclear disarmament since 1956 and made it an issue during his presidential bid. Just before and during JFK’s presidency, the Soviet Union and the United States suspended nuclear tests between November 1958 and September 1961.

Trump’s self-fashioning as a peacenik who stops wars needs JFK’s blessings. Keeping JFK alive in public image, Trump can lean on the precedent set by JFK in bringing Russia to the negotiating table for the nuclear test ban treaty. Interestingly, JFK was castigated as being “weak” in front of his Soviet counterpart Khrushchev when the two met in Vienna in June 1961, immediately after the CIA-sponsored invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs failed.

When the Soviets resumed nuclear testing, JFK challenged them “not to an arms race, but to a peace race”. Unfortunately, all diplomatic efforts failed, and the US started nuclear testing precisely a month after Serling told JFK to “Be Brave” in his letter. The Cuban crisis unfolded less than six months later, in October 1962.

Image-Making

Now that the Trump administration is avowedly in favour of peace with Russia, invoking JFK’s memory works in their favour. Just a month before his assassination, JFK signed the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty on October 7, 1963. He had spent the previous two months convincing the American public and a divided Senate about the need for nuclear disarmament.

Trump’s act of declassification of the JFK files ostensibly to bring the truth of JFK’s assassination to light can, therefore, be seen as a self-serving one. Like JFK, Trump understands the power of image-making. 

(The author is a Delhi-based author and academic.)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author