The Ukrainian War and the spirit of the peoples

[Cet article a d'abord été diffusé en français.]

It is still difficult today to discuss the lack of freedom within the Western mainstream media without being accused of extravagance or without being convinced to be Putin’s nephew. 

Yet, among other things, this freedom is just one of simple freedom`s multiple faces, and our determination to defend it will only be understood if there is the will to admit that, actually, there is no other way to really win this war in which the NATO rulers want to rush Europe.

Regarding the barriers put today to the freedom of thought, Chomsky(1), Bourdieu(2), Orwell(3), de Sélys and Collon(3b), Scott(4) or Joly(5) and many others previously have also spoken about it long before we said it and will say it again. Particularly, the principle of consent manufacturing, once it has been imposed, leads to the fact that in this respect the feelings of the masses depend on the deleterious influence of the few, pushing everyone toward rushing things, misunderstanding, suspicion or fear. All this demonstrates better than anything else the degree of recklessness we have reached.

One of the good precepts of a philosophy worthy of this name is to never spread useless wailing while facing inevitable situations. Nowadays, the problem in the West is no longer how to preserve the freedom of the press. It is to seek ways of keeping citizens free in front of the suppression of such freedom. The issue is no longer the governments’ concern. It involves the civil society and, first of all, the individuals.

Yet, what would please us most of all here would be to define the conditions and means by which, on the edge or within the war and its easements, freedom can not only be preserved, but also shown. These means are four in number: lucidity, refusal, irony and stubbornness.

Lucidity is the engine of our own freedom

Lucidity supposes resistance ahead of hatred workouts and fate worship. In the world in which we live now, and with all the experience we have, it is certain that everything can be avoided. The war itself, which is a human phenomenon, can be at all times avoided or stopped by human means. Just knowing the history of the previous years regarding European politics is enough proof that wars, of any kind, have obvious causes. This clear view of things excludes blind hatred and chaotic despair. A free citizen, in 2014, does not despair and fights for what he believes to be true as if his action could influence the course of events. If he is a writer, whatever the medium, he would definitely not publish anything that could produce hatred or cause despair. All this is in his power.

Surrender sovereignty, or else refuse to give up

Still, a citizen can also be a state representative. The American and British governments  tried ten years ago to discredit the ideals of the United Nations and to dishonour all the guardians of our collective conscience with lies, deceit and injustice(6) by drawing them into the war in Iraq, only to be prevented in extremis by the will and courageous voice of a French minister(7). These same governments are now trying again to pull the strings in order to rush us into the war in Ukraine, and soon also against Russia, using the same infamous, shameless methods(8). However, they want to use NATO to bypass the Security Council of the UN, having learned from their 2003 failure. The NATO Summit in Wales on 4 and 5 September, bringing together 28 allied member states, has no other purpose than to replace in the public eyes a resolution of the Security Council on the next intervention in Ukraine, which will be preceded by the arrival of the American troops in Eastern EU bases(9), and also in Italy, Holland and Germany. That's nothing other than a reoccupation of Europe by the United States Army. The European states have actually not left their colonial status during the past 70 years, except during brief respites like the Gaullist period. In this respect, the TTIP and the recent fines applied to the European banks are only ways to restore the direct taxation of Europeans after the indirect taxation manifested through purchases of American Treasury bonds by all states.

Which man will find the courage to walk in the footsteps of Dominique de Villepin at the next summit and to refuse loudly that his country follow the fatal path where the United States and Britain want to lead the alliance? Who, without giving into haste, misunderstanding, suspicion or fear, will remember the words of Democritus, “a man's character makes his fate”? In the framework of this summit, the heavy responsibility and immense honour they have, should induce them to give priority to the disarmament of the opponents in Ukraine, with a peace that would not be in an Orwellian language, but instead in collaboration with the Eurasian Union.

Should we serve the lies or the freedom ?

Facing the rising tide of stupidity, it is also necessary to oppose some refusals. All the constraints of the world will never allow for some truthful minds to accept to be dishonest. Nevertheless, if only one knows the mechanism of information, it is easy to check the authenticity of any news. That is where a free journalist and a citizen must give full attention, because even if he can’t say what he thinks, he is allowed to not say what he does not think or what he believes is false. This is how a free newspaper is measured, by what it says and by what it doesn’t say. This freedom defined by the negative is, by far, the most important of all, if we know how to keep it, because it will therefore pave the way to true freedom. Accordingly, an independent newspaper shows the sources of its information, helps the public to evaluate them, repudiates the ballyhoo, removes invective comments, and overcomes the standardization of information through comments. In short, it serves the truth as humanly as possible. This measure, as relative as it is, allows him at least to deny something that no force in the world could push him accept: to serve lies.

This is what we expect from all contributors and columnists at the end of the next NATO summit.

Stubbornly cherish the truth

This is where things get ironical. As a principle we can say that any mind which has the taste and the means to enforce the constraint is not subject to irony. One can hardly imagine Kerry, Netanyahu, Fabius, Ashton, Yatsenyuk, taking just some examples among others, using the Socratic irony. Irony remains therefore an unprecedented weapon against the powerful. It complements the refusal by allowing not the fallacy rejection, but the truth presentation. A free journalist, in 2014, does not imagine his oppressors to be too intelligent. He is pessimistic regarding human beings. A truth stated dogmatically is censored nine times out of ten in mainstream news outlets. The same truth said pleasantly is censured only five times out of ten. This explains why French newspapers such as Le Canard Enchaîné can regularly publish the brave articles we all know. So, a free journalist in 2014 is necessarily ironic, although many times still unwillingly. Yet, truth and freedom, demanding mistresses as they are, have few lovers.

As a matter of fact, this attitude of mind that we have briefly defined is not efficiently sustained without a minimum of obstinacy. Many obstacles are placed in the path of the freedom of expression. The most severe are not the ones discouraging the people’s mind, as threats, suspensions, and lawsuits generally produce the opposite effect than the one initially intended. Yet, we must admit that there are discouraging obstacles: the constancy of ignorance, organized cowardice, aggressive stupidity, ostracism, and so on and so forth. Those are major obstacles that people must overcome. In this respect stubbornness is a cardinal virtue. By a curious but obvious paradox, it supports objectivity and tolerance.

Independent minds influence history

Here is a set of rules meant to protect freedom from becoming servitude. And after that? one will ask. After that? Let's take it easy, though. If only every Western country’s citizens were willing to maintain in their own sphere whatever they believe to be true and just. If only they wanted to contribute individually to the maintenance of freedom, resist the abandonment and make their will known, then and only then the war would be won, in the deepest sense of the word.

Yes, it is often unwillingly that a free spirit of this century shows its irony. Is there anything funny in this world on fire? Yet, the virtue of man is to face all that denies him. Nobody wants to start all over again today the twice bad experiences of 1914 and 1939. We should therefore try a different method, that of justice and transparency, under the auspices of the United Nations, since NATO can’t take on the UN’s responsibilities, in order to lead to inspections and peaceful disarmament. Yet, justice is only expressed in open hearts and still clairvoyant minds. Train these hearts and minds, wake them up, for it is the modest and ambitious task that belongs to the independent human beings. This is something we should keep in mind without looking further. History will or will not reflect these efforts. But they will have been made.

Even though, despite all our efforts, a new war ultimately occurs, Europe once again being destroyed within the most terrible years of its long history, we must work today for its future reconstruction. It will start by instilling the spirit and courage, and honour. Then future generations will remember our voices, will find our spirit and will walk in our footsteps long after NATO will have been swallowed by history. Countries that will cultivate these values do not cease to raise up history and mankind.

Dr. Bruno Paul, after the Manifesto by Albert Camus.

Translation by Georgeta Moldovan.

_________________

(1) ‘Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media', Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, 1988.

(2) ‘Sur la télévision’, Pierre Bourdieu, 1996.

(3) '1984', E.A. Blair, a.k.a George Orwell, 1949.

(3b) 'Attention Médias ! Mediamensonges du Golfe. Manuel Antimanipulation’, Michel Collon, 1992

(4) ‘The deep politics and the deep state’, Conscience-Sociale.org, 03/2014.

(5) ‘Dialogue aux enfers entre Machiavel et Montesquieu’, Maurice Joly, 1864.

(6) a) « Colin Powell’s speech in front of the UN Security Council », 05 February 2003 ; 
b) Ever since 2004, the US inspections led during the war say that Iraq had abandoned its nuclear, chemical and biological programme after 1991 (Iraq Survey Group Final Report, GlobalSecurity.org, 2004) ; 
c) ‘Colin Powell : comment la CIA m'a trompé’, Nouvel Observateur, 03/2013.

(7) Dominique de Villepin’s speech at the UN on February 14th 2003 ; video.

(8) “Russia Invades Ukraine”, Strategic NATO Public Relations Stunt. Where are the Russian Tanks?, Global Research, 08/2014.

(9) published a few hours after our article’s first release : 'Europe de l'Est: l'Otan veut déployer cinq nouvelles bases', RiaNovosti, 31/08/2014.

Kicking the deep state off the US land (The U.S. in 20th/21st c., Part 3)

Foreign Policy has published this week an article by Andrew Foxall titled ‘Kicking Putin off the Island’ that I found typical of doublethink. [1] 

(Image source)

Doublethink is shortly characterized by an inversion of logic. The victim is targeted as being the aggressor, etc. It is easy to replace things in the correct order when you know that. This is thus what I’ve decided to perform with Foxall’s article, keeping as much as possible close to the original sentences for demonstration purpose, and updating links.
A second factor was the relevant mention of the central role of the civil society in the liberation process, what I called in French “peupler l’espoir” in a footnote of the previous part of this serie ('The inevitable counter-revolution of the American people'). P.D. Scott has written about this role too.[1b]

I’ve chosen to not simply replace the name Putin by Obama in the original text because the U.S. political context is much more complex: Obama is the world’s loneliest leader, isolated and surrounded by stupidity. He is the consenting prisoner of the U.S. deep state. 

The only order that is really worth anything does not come through the enforcement [...] of law, it comes through the establishment of a society which is just and in which harmonious relationships are established and in which you need a minimum of regulation to create decent sets of arrangements among people. But the order based on law and on the force of law is the order of the totalitarian state, and it inevitably leads either to total injustice or to rebellion-eventually. 

"The Problem is Civil Obedience", Howard Zinn (May 5, 1970) 

---

Kicking the deep state off the U.S. land

The United States of America after Obama don't need to be ruled by the deep state, and driving a wedge between the president and his craven inner circle is the first step. 

By BRUNO PAUL, Dr. 

The deep state has directly or indirectly ruled the U.S. since 1963. And, after 50 years in power, there are few signs that he will abdicate his position anytime soon. Using the voice of Hillary Clinton, the deep state has stated it may seek re-election in 2016, meaning he would rule until 2020 -- by which time it will rule since 57 years. 

No tyranny, however, lasts forever -- Hitler's 1,000-year Reich lasted all of 12 years -- and it is in this context that we should view the deep state's rule. Its power is not what it once was: The social contract it implicitly built with the American people in his earlier years -- he could do whatever he liked, as long as life improved for many of them -- is broken. High rates of economic growth are long gone, and so too is the increasing standard of living that they provided. Americans are becoming restless and, although the opposition congressmen as a whole are cowed and quiet (with a very few exceptions), opposition movement have performed well in recent election polls. The deep state resorted to destabilizing Ukraine (at least, in part) to boost its falling approval ratings, which are now record low. 

While many U.S.-watchers cannot imagine the country without the deep state at the helm, it's time for leaders to start. In confronting a moribund, revanchist transnational deep state, the world must have a clear vision of the ideal post-deep state America. 

In a lot of ways, Obama was an unlikely president. As the first African-American President of the United States, his race and culture have played a prominent role in this, both positively and negatively. His relative youth (47 when elected) has alternately resulted in his being praised for his freshness and criticized for his inexperience. His temperament and demeanor have drawn praise for his perceived unflappability and criticism for the perception of his lacking emotional attachment. [2] When G.W. Bush stepped down on January 2009, Obama became acting president. One of his first acts was to order the first two Predator airstrikes of his presidency in Pakistan. The Guardian described the deep state recently as having "brought darkness to America," but, driven and certain of his own staying power, it ascended without hesitation. It hasn't looked back since its inception. 

Since decades, the deep state has fostered a grotesquely decayed, corrupt, illiberal system that constrains democracy, centralizes all power, curtails media freedoms, reins in the judiciary, restricts civil liberties, and treads on human rights. Outside of U.S., the regime carries out extrajudicial murder, engages in the arbitrary use of force, and promotes Washington interests with utter disregard for international norms. 

It wasn't always this way. 

Up to 1963, the U.S. had the potential to develop along a liberal-democratic path. The country was a multiparty democracy in which officials were chosen in regular elections; its fledgling economy was based on markets and private property, and its media independent and pluralistic. Starting 1989, the Russian military withdrew peacefully from Eastern Europe and the Soviet successor states, pursued cooperation with the West on nuclear disarmament, although Russia was forced to accept the expansion of NATO. To be sure, serious issues remained (not the least of which, U.S. deep state above the legal system and its pervasive nature of organized crime), but the country was headed in a promising direction when its government strongly reduced deficits and curbed debt. U.S. President Bill Clinton described this period as "a time of real possibility and opportunity." 

Except with the visible growing inequality, nowhere is the deep state's impact on U.S. as visible as in the country's political sphere. Since the 1963 parliamentary elections - the last before JFK was killed – the two parties are increasingly polarized. In the most recent parliamentary elections, in 2013, polarization in the House and Senate is at the highest level since the end of Reconstruction. 

Since the ‘Halloween Massacre’ in November 1975, the deep state assembled an inner circle of individuals that would assist the top executives in building a "new" USA. Although the faces have changed over the years, many remain the same, or share the same ideology of Christian Reconstructionism. 

Pr. P.D. Scott has described this inner circle consists of linked groups of people. It is a cohort of individuals who control key sectors of U.S. kleptocratic economy and its brutal security services, but who've never felt the heat of sanctions over U.S. actions in foreign countries -- something European Court of Human Rights has called a "cruel and inhuman treatment." By targeting these individuals in this inner circle, the world would drive a wedge between the deep state and his closest allies. But it can do more to weaken his standing. 

Sanctions should become the status quo, and they should go further than visa bans and asset freezes, to include asset seizures. Given the choice between siding with the deep state and protecting some of their vast wealth stored in others capitals and financial centers, enough of them will go with the latter. 

The friction and resentment that this creates will demonstrate the growing fissures within the deep state -- over what is needed to improve U.S. economy, what direction the country is headed, and whether international isolation is sensible -- and may even lead to U.S. citizens deciding the country needs new leadership. This would make clear to the next generation of politicians, policymakers, and businessmen that being associated with the deep state and his system comes with a price. 

If the world is going to uproot the deep state, it must remember that past successes employed more subtle strategic campaigns. The West likes to say to have won the Cold War because of the superiority of capitalism over Soviet communism, but one of the most subversive -- and effective -- acts it undertook was to offer visas to Soviet students as part of "cultural exchange" programs. In doing so, the students were exposed to the West's democratic and liberal values and took these back to germinate in the Motherland. When Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's twin reformist policies of glasnost ("openness") and perestroika ("restructuring") took hold, Soviet citizens were equipped to take advantage. In the words of one U.S. foreign service officer involved in these programs, those citizens "came, they saw, they were conquered, and the Soviet Union would never again be the same." 

Now, once again, all countries should liberalize their visa regimes with the West, rather than follow the European Union's lead in freezing talks on a visa-free regime. This will make it easier for the next generation of U.S. decision-makers to expose themselves to liberal-democratic values and, as a result, they will be far better prepared when the deep state leaves power. 

Offering cultural exchanges may seem like a long-term program, but in the short-term the West could pay more attention to countering the deep state's increasingly anti-Russia propaganda in the West. Across the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc, Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe broadcasts were an important alternative to the Kremlin's communication. Now, because the Western leaders are reviving a Cold War thinking, all countries must provide money, expertise, technology, and support for English and Spanish-language broadcasting in America. This would meet the deep state's propaganda head-on, and begin to drive out bad information with good. It would send a clear message that the world is not going to give up on the U.S. deep state just yet. 

It is not possible to turn the clock back to a pre-deep state era, but that doesn't mean the world should consign the U.S. to the dustbin of history. Despite what political scientists might claim, it is not inevitable that the post-deep state U.S. will be fascist again. Although politicians are embattled and less prominent than they used to be, there are still capacity to take offense in the U.S.. Even the Soviet Union's Politburo was not as monolithic as many assumed. Whether the end of the deep state's rule is evolutionary or revolutionary, the world must be clear about how it hopes to see U.S. develop; it must be willing to put long-term strategic objectives over short-term economic interests. 

U.S. without the deep state is cloaked in uncertainty, and there is no guarantee it would be more democratic or liberal -- when anti-government protests broke out in the U.S., they had more to do with rejecting the 1% than rejecting the deep state’s take-no-prisoners style of leadership. But the world leaders should help guide a post-deep state U.S. for the sake of the U.S. people, Europe, and the world as a whole. Governments should engage in dialogue with american NGOs and civil society [3], supporting those battling corruption and promoting human rights, civil liberties. They ought to speak to U.S. politicians actively supporting these goals in their country, committed to establish a constitutional convention and a political awakening among citizens. 

The deep state might be influencing Western governments to flex their military muscles in Ukraine and demonstrating their steely indifference to political demands from the citizens, but in the end it is the others governments and civil society, and not the transnational deep state, who could ultimately determine U.S.'s future. 

___________________ 

[1] As Georges Orwell defined it in his book 1984: “To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself – that was the ultimate subtlety; consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink.[...] 

The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them... To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just as long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies – all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.” 

[1b] Peter Dale Scott ; see also his conclusion chapter in "Road to 9/11 - Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America”, Peter Dale Scott, University of California Press, 2007.

[2] Wikipedia.org; accessed 5/1/2014. 

[3] A short list of insightful initiatives or articles:
 National Liberty Alliance successfully promotes a constitutional convention ;
‘Fighting the Militarized State’, Truthdig (03/2014) ;
‘Maryland lawmakers want to cripple the NSA's headquarters’, The Verge (02/2014) ;
‘Corporatocracy: How the Corporate Welfare State Divides & Conquers’, Boiling Frogs Post (02/2014) ;
‘How to Dismantle the American Empire’, von Mises Institute (02/2014) ;
‘Get ready: the day we fight back against mass surveillance is coming’, The Guardian (02/2014) ;
‘The costume of Constitutionality’, Justice On Line (01/2014) ;
‘Restoring Our American Legacy. A politically incorrect guide to building wealth, security and effective political action in the 21st century’, The Daily Bell, Fall 2013 ;
Were America’s Founders ‘unhinged’ and suffering from a ‘meltdown’? Foreign Policy Journal, (01/2014) ;
‘The Fight of Our Lives’, Anti War (01/2014) ;
‘The Last Gasp of American Democracy’ Truthdig, (01/2014) ;
‘The Greatest Gift for All’, Foreign Policy Journal (12/2013) ;
‘How to Democratize the US Economy: A long-term plan to renovate the American dream begins at the local level and scales up’, The Nation (10/2013) ;
‘How the NSA Made Your Legal Defense Illegal’, von Mises Institute (03/2014) ;
Citizens’ Grand Jury initiative ;
"The Problem is Civil Obedience", Howard Zinn (May 5, 1970); a 2012 video is available ;
Olivier Stone’s Untold History of the United States ;
‘Let’s Get This Class War Started’, Truthdig (10/2013) ;
‘Stand up, Americans’, Paul Craig Roberts (10/2013) ;
‘Re-Decentralizing the Fed’, Project Syndicate (10/2013) ;
‘The Banality of Systemic Evil’, NY Times (09/2013) ;
‘Government Nullification: The Rightful Remedy and How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century’, Foreign Policy Journal (09/2013) ;
Initiatives like Consensus911 / AE911 / Reopen911 / 9/11 & War on Terrorism (on GlobalResearch).

The Test of Citizenship: The speech that no US President can no longer give

This speech is copied as much as possible from President John F. Kennedy’s speech “The President and the Press” given before the American Newspaper Publishers Association at Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York City, April 27, 1961 [1]. 

JFK's original speech has to be understood in the perspective of President Dwight Eisenhower’s Farewell address January 17, 1961 and ten days after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion April 17, 1961 because of the CIA. But also in the perspective of President F.D. Roosevelt's speech "Message to Congress on Curbing Monopolies" April 29, 1938 who stated :

"Unhappy events abroad have retaught us two simple truths about the liberty of a democratic people.
The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism—ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.

The second truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if its business system does not provide employment and produce and distribute goods in such a way as to sustain an acceptable standard of living.

Both lessons hit home.

Among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is growing."

My modified version has to be understood following Edward Snowden's and all others whistleblowers' revelations. The inner politics behind what is revealing nowadays has been summarized in a previous political anticipation.

All the differences (in strikeout text) or additions (in italics) made by me to the original text are clearly indicated inline.

__________________

 

Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen:

I appreciate very much your generous invitation to be here tonight.

You bear heavy responsibilities these days and an article I read some time ago reminded me of how particularly heavily the burdens of present day events bear upon your profession.

You may remember that in 1851 the New York Herald Tribune under the sponsorship and publishing of Horace Greeley, employed as its London correspondent an obscure journalist by the name of Karl Marx.

We are told that foreign correspondent Marx, stone broke, and with a family ill and undernourished, constantly appealed to Greeley and managing editor Charles Dana for an increase in his munificent salary of $5 per installment, a salary which he and Engels ungratefully labeled as the "lousiest petty bourgeois cheating."

But when all his financial appeals were refused, Marx looked around for other means of livelihood and fame, eventually terminating his relationship with the Tribune and devoting his talents full time to the cause that would bequeath the world the seeds of Leninism, Stalinism, revolution and the cold war.

If only this capitalistic New York newspaper had treated him more kindly; if only Marx had remained a foreign correspondent, history might have been different. And I hope all publishers will bear this lesson in mind the next time they receive a poverty-stricken appeal for a small increase in the expense account from an obscure newspaper man.

     I have selected as the title of my remarks tonight "The President and the Press." Some may suggest that this would be more naturally worded "The President Versus the Press." But those are not my sentiments tonight.

It is true, however, that when a well-known diplomat from another country demanded recently that our State Department repudiate certain newspaper attacks on his colleague it was unnecessary for us to reply that this Administration was not responsible for the press, for the press had already made it clear that it was not responsible for this Administration.

Nevertheless, my purpose here tonight is not to deliver the usual assault on the so-called one party press. On the contrary, in recent months I have rarely heard many complaints about political bias in the press except from a few Republicans. Nor is it my purpose tonight to discuss or defend the televising of Presidential press conferences. I think it is highly beneficial to have some 20,000,000 Americans regularly sit in on these conferences to observe, if I may say so, the incisive, the intelligent and the courteous qualities displayed by your Washington correspondents.

Nor, finally, are these remarks intended to examine the proper degree of privacy which the press should allow to any President and his family.

If in the last few months your White House reporters and photographers have been attending church services with regularity, that has surely done them no harm.

On the other hand, I realize that your staff and wire service photographers may be complaining that they do not enjoy the same green privileges at the local golf courses that they once did.

It is true that my predecessor did not object as I do to pictures of one's golfing skill in action. But neither on the other hand did he ever bean a Secret Service man.

My topic tonight is a more sober one of concern to publishers as well as editors.

I want to talk about our common responsibilities in the face of a common danger. The events of recent weeks may have helped to illuminate that challenge for some; but the dimensions of its threat have loomed large on the horizon for many years. Whatever our hopes may be for the future--for reducing this threat or living with it--there is no escaping either the gravity or the totality of its challenge to our survival and to our security--a challenge that confronts us in unaccustomed ways in every sphere of human activity.

This deadly challenge imposes upon our society two requirements of direct concern both to the press and to the President--two requirements that may seem almost contradictory in tone, but which must be reconciled and fulfilled if we are to meet this national peril. I refer, first, to the need for a far greater public information; and, second, to the need for far greater official secrecy.

I

The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it is in my control. And no official of my Administration, whether his rank is high or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to censor the news, to stifle dissent, to cover up our mistakes or to withhold from the press and the public the facts they deserve to know.

But I do ask every publisher, every editor, and every newsman in the nation to reexamine his own standards, and to recognize the nature of our country's peril. In time of war, the government and the press have customarily joined in an effort based largely on self-discipline, to prevent unauthorized disclosures to the enemy. In time of "clear and present danger," the courts have held that even the privileged rights of the First Amendment must yield to the public's need for national security.

Today no war has been declared--and however fierce the struggle may be, it may never be declared in the traditional fashion. Our way of life is under attack. Those who make themselves our enemy are advancing around the globe. The survival of our friends is in danger. And yet no war has been declared, no borders have been crossed by marching troops, no missiles have been fired.

If the press is awaiting a declaration of war before it imposes the self-discipline of combat conditions, then I can only say that no war ever posed a greater threat to our security. If you are awaiting a finding of "clear and present danger," then I can only say that the danger has never been more clear and its presence has never been more imminent.

It requires a change in outlook, a change in tactics, a change in missions--by the government, by the people, by every businessman or labor leader, and by every newspaper. For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence--on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.

Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed except by whistleblowers. It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a war-time discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match.

Nevertheless, every democracy recognizes the necessary restraints of national security--and the question remains whether those restraints need to be more strictly observed if we are to oppose this kind of attack as well as outright invasion.

For the facts of the matter are that this nation's foes have openly boasted of acquiring through our newspapers technical systems information they would otherwise hire agents to acquire through theft, bribery or espionage;

that details of this nation's covert preparations to counter the so-called enemy's covert operations have been available to every newspaper reader, friend and foe alike; that the size, the strength, the location and the nature of our forces and weapons, and our plans and strategy for their use, have all been pinpointed in the press and other news media to a degree sufficient to satisfy any foreign power; and that, in at least in one case, the publication of details concerning a secret mechanism whereby satellites countries were followed spied required its alteration and control at the expense of considerable time and money.

The newspapers which printed these stories were loyal, patriotic, responsible and well-meaning. Had we been engaged in open warfare, they undoubtedly would not have published such items. But in the absence of open warfare, they recognized only the tests of national security journalism and not the tests of national security citizenship. And my question tonight is whether additional tests should not now be adopted.

The question is for you alone to answer. No public official should answer it for you. No governmental plan should impose its restraints against your will. But I would be failing in my duty to the nation, in considering all of the responsibilities that we now bear and all of the means at hand to meet those responsibilities, if I did not commend this problem to your attention, and urge its thoughtful consideration.

On many earlier occasions, I have said--and your newspapers have constantly said--that these are times that appeal to every citizen's sense of sacrifice and self-discipline. They call out to every citizen to weigh his rights and comforts against his obligations to the common good. I cannot now believe that those citizens who serve in the newspaper business consider themselves exempt from that appeal.

I have no intention of establishing a new Office of War Information to govern the flow of news. I am not suggesting any new forms of censorship or any new types of security classifications. I have no easy answer to the dilemma that I have posed, and would not seek to impose it if I had one. But I am asking the members of the newspaper profession and the industry in this country to reexamine their own responsibilities, to consider the degree and the nature of the present danger, and to heed the duty of self-restraint which that danger imposes upon us all.

Every newspaper now asks itself, with respect to every story: "Is it news?" All I suggest is that you add the question: “Is it in the interest of the citizens' freedom in this nation?” after asking "Is it in the interest of the national security?" And I hope that every group in America--unions and businessmen and public officials at every level-- will ask the same question of their endeavors, and subject their actions to the same exacting tests.

And should the press of America consider and recommend the voluntary assumption of specific new steps or machinery, I can assure you that we will cooperate whole-heartedly with those recommendations.

Perhaps there will be no recommendations. Perhaps there is no answer to the dilemma faced by a free and open society in a cold and secret war. In times of peace, any discussion of this subject, and any action that results, are both painful and without precedent. But this is a time of peace and peril which knows no precedent in history.

II

It is the unprecedented nature of this challenge that also gives rise to your second obligation--an obligation which I share. And that is our obligation to inform and alert the American people--to make certain that they possess all the facts that they need, and understand them as well--the perils, the prospects, the purposes of our program and the choices that we face.

No President should fear public scrutiny of his program. For from that scrutiny comes understanding; and from that understanding comes support or opposition. And both are necessary. I am not asking your newspapers to support the Administration, but I am asking your help in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people. For I have complete confidence in the response and dedication of our citizens whenever they are fully informed.

I not only could not stifle controversy among your readers--I welcome it. This Administration intends to be candid about its errors; for as a wise man once said: "An error does not become a mistake until you refuse to correct it." We intend to accept full responsibility for our errors; and we expect you to point them out when we miss them.

Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed--and no republic can survive. That is why the Athenian lawmaker Solon decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment--the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution--not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply "give the public what it wants"--but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate and sometimes even anger public opinion.

This means greater coverage and analysis of international news--for it is no longer far away and foreign but close at hand and local. It means greater attention to improved understanding of the news as well as improved transmission. And it means, finally, that government at all levels, must meet its obligation to provide you with the fullest possible information outside the narrowest limits of national security--and we intend to do it.

III

It was early in the Seventeenth Century that Francis Bacon remarked on three recent inventions already transforming the world: the compass, gunpowder and the printing press. Now the links between the nations first forged by the compass have made us all citizens of the world, the hopes and threats of one becoming the hopes and threats of us all. In that one world's efforts to live together, the evolution of gunpowder to its ultimate limit has warned mankind of the terrible consequences of failure.

And so it is to the printing press--to the recorder of man's deeds, the keeper of his conscience, the courier of his news--that we look for strength and assistance, confident that with your help man will be what he was born to be: free and independent.

[1] source: JFKLibrary