Introduction
KENNEDY’S ALGERIA SPEECH AS HISTORY
The American historian Robert Dallek begins his 2003 biography of John F. Kennedy, An Unfinished Life, by asking “why another Kennedy book?”1 The answer Dallek gave was that his book filled a void by using newly released documents that provided important details of Kennedy’s life heretofore unknown. Obviously, almost twenty years later, the same question can be asked about this book. The answer again is that it fills a void by addressing for the first time, in any substantial way, the details of Kennedy’s Algeria speech—a major foreign policy address that then-Senator Kennedy delivered on July 2, 1957 in the US Senate calling for an “independent personality”2 for the Algerian nation. Almost universally, policymakers in the United States and France interpreted Kennedy’s phrase independent personality to mean that he was really calling for an independent Algeria—a sovereign nation freed from French colonial rule that had lasted more than a century.
This speech has been mentioned countless times in articles and books about Kennedy and his approach to foreign policy, but rarely has the substance of his remarks or their background been discussed in any extended manner.3 Nor has serious consideration been given to the speech’s significance to American diplomatic history—a matter of importance to anyone (from general readers to scholars) interested in American foreign policy toward colonialism in the post-World War II era (an era in which the United States responded guardedly to the challenges of world leadership). While this was not a speech that changed existing policies, it marked an event that added significantly to the narrative of America’s repeated attempts to balance the powerful forces of nationalism in Africa and Asia with the moribund remnants of the European colonialism of its NATO allies.
To the extent contemporary authors have dealt with Kennedy’s Algeria speech, they have examined it primarily in the context of domestic politics. Kennedy was a leading candidate for the 1960 Democratic presidential
Introduction
nomination, and discussing such issues as Algeria would enhance his stature by contributing to his foreign policy credentials. Consider the remarks of Alistair Cooke, the British-American journalist, who dismissed Kennedy’s speech cynically in the Manchester Guardian Weekly (July 1957), stating that Kennedy had only one goal in mind, that of “pitching [himself] into center stage.”4 This view is regrettable.
Undoubtedly, Kennedy was seeking issues to enhance his position as a presidential challenger. Yet the sole focus on domestic politics overlooks Kennedy’s longstanding anticolonial views—opinions he had expressed on multiple occasions beginning in 1947, his first year in the US Congress. (A select list of Kennedy’s anticolonial statements is contained in the Appendix.) This preoccupation with Kennedy’s political motives also fails to acknowledge that, considering his other anticolonial speeches, the Algeria speech represented the most complete and compelling expression of his outlook on this subject. Similarly, this preoccupation has precluded, until now, a full examination of the implications Kennedy’s Algeria speech has for an understanding of US foreign policy at this time. The more appropriate way of describing Kennedy’s speech, therefore, is that the speech was motivated by both political and foreign policy concerns. While politics increasingly dominated Kennedy’s life as the 1960 presidential race drew closer, he also believed it imperative to America’s national interest and to that of France to speak out against its colonial practices in Algeria at this time.
THE IMPORTANCE OF KENNEDY’S SPEECH
The fact that Kennedy’s speech expressed his beliefs so thoughtfully and so thoroughly suggests the importance he attached to it. Truly, he never spoke on the subject of colonialism again with such command and eloquence. Further, it was his first major foreign policy address following his appointment to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January 1957. The speech, titled “Imperialism—The Enemy of Freedom,” has an abiding quality, though the issues it addresses have long since been settled. In speaking on Algeria, Kennedy was dealing with an extremely controversial situation involving one of the longest and deadliest colonial wars ever fought. The Algerian conflict dominated the political and social affairs of France for eight years. France was a principal NATO ally of the United States and keystone of the West’s opposition to the Soviet Union in Europe. The Algerian conflict, over time, became a major contextual element of the development of Third World consciousness. Accordingly, policymakers in most European countries paid close attention to the speech as did many Third World leaders throughout Africa and Asia. These Third World leaders were buoyed by Kennedy’s words and
the position he took in the speech, believing that America might return to its anticolonial tradition and that this would have positive implications for their own independence. Moreover, Kennedy took pains to widely advertise his speech on Capitol Hill and to the domestic and international press so as to attract maximum attention.
It is an understatement to say that this speech deserves our attention now as much as it deserved the controversy it caused in America and Europe at the time he spoke. Admittedly, this address will always be overshadowed by other Kennedy speeches such as his “Farewell to the Massachusetts State Legislature” on January 9, 1961, in which he invoked the spirit of John Winthrop’s “City Upon a Hill,” or the unconditional support he expressed for the people of West Germany in his rousing “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech at Berlin’s City Hall on June 26, 1963. His inaugural address on January 20, 1961 is regarded as one of the nation’s best, and his commencement speech dealing with arms control, delivered at American University on June 10, 1963, remains in many ways unsurpassed on that subject.
It is true that Kennedy’s speech did not change America’s policies on Algeria or other colonial issues. He did not expect that it would. It was not a watershed speech such as that given by Senator Arthur Vandenberg (R-MI) on January 10, 1945, breaking with the Republican Party’s longstanding isolationism and providing needed support for a truly bipartisan post-World War II foreign policy. (Vandenberg himself said that he addressed the US Senate “in the spirit of anxious humility” to put that body on notice that “there are critical moments in the life of every nation which call for the most courageous thinking of which we are capable. We confront such a moment now”).5 Much like President Franklin Roosevelt’s first inaugural address given at the US Capitol on March 4, 1933, in which he counselled against all forms of fear, including “fear itself,”6 during one of the darkest moments of the Depression, both speeches succeeded in summoning a different temperament in the nation that, in the case of Vandenberg’s speech, paved the way for the Truman Doctrine (March 1947) and the Marshall Plan (April 1948) and in the case of Roosevelt, the New Deal. Rather, Kennedy’s speech more resembles that of the declaration of conscience that Senator Margaret Chase Smith (R-ME) delivered in the US Senate on June 1, 1950, denouncing the fear mongering of fellow Republican Joseph McCarthy (R-WI).7 Like Senator Smith, Kennedy spoke from a sense of urgency. In the case of Algeria, the urgency stemmed from Kennedy’s perception that the current policies on Algeria were taking both the United States and the French down the same road that had been traveled in Indochina—a road that ended in the disastrous French defeat at Dienbienphu, Vietnam in May 1954.
The fact that Kennedy’s speech did not change US policy toward Algeria, however, should not be the only standard by which it is judged. Other reasons
argue for its relevance. In fact, its importance is threefold. First, it reflects the maturing of Kennedy’s thinking about American foreign policy at this time. In fact, Kennedy’s Algeria speech in July 1957, his Senate speech on Poland and Eastern Europe in August 1957, and his October 1957 Foreign Affairs article titled “A Democrat Looks at Foreign Policy” (all separated by only three months) taken together fully convey the essence of Kennedy’s emerging worldview. All of these show the hand of Frederick L. Holborn, a young Harvard teaching assistant working in Kennedy’s office at this time. Holborn largely researched and wrote the Algeria speech, and it would not be saying too much to state that Holborn greatly helped to facilitate the development of Kennedy’s foreign policy outlook. This author was fortunate to speak with Holborn, then a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, before his death in 2005.8 More will be said about Holborn and Kennedy’s foreign policy outlook in chapter 1.
Second, Kennedy’s speech represented a serious challenge to US policy regarding the Algerian conflict and the nation’s policies on colonialism in general. It was rare that anyone had confronted the status quo in this area, and Kennedy should be given credit for boldly taking on this issue since more discussion of America’s policies toward the emerging nations in Asia and Africa was sorely needed. Moreover, Kennedy’s speech involved an important critique of the Eisenhower-Dulles approach to world politics—one of many he would offer in the years leading up to the 1960 election. While Kennedy made no other major speeches on Algeria, he continued to raise objections to the colonialism of the nation’s European allies, both because of moral reasons but also because he felt it jeopardized America’s own national interests.
The third reason accounting for the importance of Kennedy’s Algeria speech was its handling of a major dilemma over colonialism that bedeviled American foreign policy throughout the Truman and Eisenhower administrations. Vernon McKay indicates that, as the Cold War with the Soviet bloc began to seriously concern American leaders, they became increasingly conflicted about how the United States should respond to the forces of nationalism then sweeping Africa and Asia and the desires of the emerging nations in these regions for independence. This quandary “emerged at once as the major preoccupation of American policy.”9 McKay elaborates:
This dilemma was the conflict between our interest in supporting the principle of self-determination and our need for a strong NATO alliance. The essence of the problem was quite simple: we needed friends in both Europe and Africa [and Asia], and whatever we did to please one group angered the other. For this reason, all American policy statements from 1950 to 1958 contained certain paragraphs to placate Europeans and others to appeal to Africans.10
More will be said about this dilemma in chapter 1. In chapter 7, we will consider Kennedy’s handling of it in his Algeria speech and other statements on colonialism.
CONTEXT AND CONTENT
“Politics are vulgar when they are not liberalized by history,” wrote Sir John Seeley, “and history fades into mere literature when it loses sight of its relations to practical politics.”11 Accordingly, this book will consider Kennedy’s speech in its historical context—a context in which the remnants of European colonialism in Asia and Africa became increasingly ill-suited to the dawning of a new age.
To illustrate this period of profound change in global politics, consider some of the events that were unfolding at the time of Kennedy’s speech. US foreign policy, for example, was still dealing with the fallout of the Suez crisis of the previous fall (October-November 1956). There were serious questions whether NATO would fully recover from having three key alliance members—Britain, France, and the United States—pitted against one another in this crisis that also saw the Soviet Union (implausible as this may seem since it occurred during the Cold War) allied with the United States. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, a Third World leader, basked in the approval of the Arab world because of his “victory” at Suez. Domestically, the United States was dealing with a serious social issue concerning the racial integration of public schools which came to a head with troops being used to avoid violence in Little Rock, Arkansas. This racial strife negatively impacted America’s image abroad, particularly in the Third World. The United States had begun to doubt its scientific and technological superiority over the Russians as their launch of Sputnik made them first into space. The Soviets had likewise tested successfully an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) with grave implications for US national security.
Largely in response to these Soviet successes, the Gaither Commission on Defense recommended increasing substantially the arsenal of US missiles, thus escalating the superpower arms race. The Treaty of Rome was signed establishing the European Common Market. In the Third World, the West African nation of Ghana became independent and claimed a seat (like so many other nations in Africa and Asia during this period) in the United Nations and other international organizations. Thus, at a time when Africa was breaking apart into several separate and independent nations, Europe was seeking to unify its countries into one economic and, possibly, political entity. Mao began his “let 1,000 flowers bloom” campaign, which ended in an ideological purge of opponents of the Communist Party. The United States
experienced its first combat death in Vietnam, the beginning of a tragic era in which the nation continued to view the Third World primarily through the militaristic perspective of the Cold War. In France, the government of Guy Mollett was replaced in June 1957 (one month before Kennedy’s speech) by that of Maurice Bourges-Maunoury, which itself was replaced after five months by the government of Felix Gaillard. This instability alone made any settlement of the war in Algeria almost impossible, as Kennedy would mention in his speech. Algeria in 1957 was rocked by a general strike, further demonstrating the widespread disapproval of continued French rule. The French newspaper L’Express published major stories dealing with the French military’s extensive use of torture and acts of terrorism in Algeria, further alienating native Algerians in an escalating cycle of violence. This same year, the French vetoed any suggestion of a role for the United Nations in Algeria since they considered it purely a domestic matter.
This new age (which provided the context of Kennedy’s speech) would be global in scope, and Europe would no longer be its center. Instead, the spirit of nationalist self-determination would dominate all other considerations in the emerging nations of Asia and Africa. It would only seem logical, therefore, that figures such as Kennedy, who sought to lead this new age, would speak out against the remaining anomalies, such as that exemplified by colonialism. Kennedy’s Algeria speech represented a serious challenge to the status quo policies of US leaders who allowed these anomalies to remain unchallenged for fear that such challenges would disrupt relations between the United States and European NATO allies.
Kennedy’s words held a particular resonance because they drew on America’s deeply rooted anticolonial traditions. The United States was a nation born in revolution and here, too, there was an inevitable logic to the reality that the majority of Americans would support the nationalist struggles in Asia and Africa. In fact, many encouraged—even demanded—that the United States lead the “world revolution”12 that was transforming these areas, principally in the name of self-determination. This clearly was Kennedy’s view. He unmistakably calls for the United States to champion the political and economic aspirations of nations in the Third World. Consider excerpts from Kennedy’s speech in Washington, DC, in January 1960 titled “The Global Challenge”:
If the title deeds of history applied, it is we, the American people who should be marching at the head of the world-wide revolution, counseling it, helping it to come to a healthy fruition. . . . Yet we have allowed the Communists to evict us from our rightful estate at the head of this world-wide revolution. We have been made to appear the defenders of the status quo, while the Communists
have portrayed themselves as the vanguard force, pointing the way to a better, brighter, and braver order of life.13
Kennedy’s Algeria speech, therefore, represents a counterpoint to existing policies—an alternative to the bipolar rigidities of the Cold War. This alternative might have allowed the nation to achieve a greater versatility in its foreign policy and diplomatic practices, as well as a reconciliation between its competing anticommunist and anticolonialist propensities. Attaining this reconciliation often proved difficult for US policymakers in the post-World War II period. By examining the speech, however, students and policymakers of American foreign policy may come to see that alternatives existed for US policies on colonialism and question why they were not considered. It is important, therefore, to understand Kennedy’s speech as both content and context. Such an understanding is invaluable in reading the speech and likewise appreciating its historical significance. The content of the speech and its importance to American diplomatic history has been mentioned and will be fully discussed in the pages that follow. Not to be overlooked, however, is the fact that Kennedy’s speech provides a context in which to further consider America’s colonial policies. His speech demonstrated that viable alternatives existed to the stalemated foreign policy that American leaders were convinced they had no choice but to follow. Such an historical context makes reading about the events surrounding Kennedy’s speech more intelligible because it furnishes us with an understanding of the entire range of factors and personalities that both impacted Kennedy’s speech and were affected by it. This is a role that any work of history, including this book of American diplomatic history, seeks to have. The impact of providing the reader with both the details of the event itself, as well as their significance can be incalculable. George F. Kennan, American statesman and author of the Containment doctrine, emphasizes the importance that works of history can have for American leaders:
If we, the scholars, with our patient and unsensational labors, can help statesmen to understand not only the dangers we face and the responsibility they bear for overcoming these dangers but also the constructive and hopeful possibilities that lie there to be opened up by wiser, more restrained, and more realistic policies . . . we will be richly repaid for our dedication and our persistence, for we will then have the satisfaction of knowing that scholarship, the highest work of the mind, has served, as it should, the highest interests of civilization.14
Nor is it naïve to believe that Kennedy’s speech could have played this role of content and context. It would have been far better if American leaders had
considered other approaches to the nation’s policy on colonial issues rather than relying, almost exclusively, on the prevailing Cold War mindset.
THE PRIMACY OF FOREIGN POLICY
The reader will benefit throughout this work in knowing of Kennedy’s enduring interest in American foreign policy. This point is obviously relevant to understanding his Algeria speech. Equally important, it accounts for his very involvement in government where the power resides to shape policies that affect every aspect of America’s dealings with the world. Indeed, Kennedy’s interest in foreign policy was always a preoccupation and grew to be almost all-consuming after he became president.
Kennedy educated himself in foreign affairs by years of study, travel, and conversations with leaders in other countries. He was an avid reader of history and political biography. History was his major area of study as a Harvard undergraduate, and his historical interests were evident to those meeting him for the first time. William Carelton, a political scientist and friend of the Kennedy family, observed that “it was clear to me that John had a far better historical and political mind than his father or elder brother, indeed that John’s capacity for seeing current events in historical perspective and projecting historical trends into the future was unusual.”15 Kennedy believed that foreign policy issues were paramount in the nuclear age. “Foreign policy today,” Kennedy stated in a 1951 speech, “irrespective of what we might wish, in its impact on our daily lives, overshadows everything else. Expenditures, taxation, domestic prosperity, the extent of social services—all hinge on the basic issue of war and peace.”16 French diplomat and Minister of Foreign Affairs (1958–1968) Jacques-Maurice Couve de Murville stated emphatically that Kennedy’s interest in international politics was overriding. He said Kennedy was attuned to US-French relations “beginning of course with the question that, at that time, was the most important . . . decolonization.”17 Theodore Sorensen, Kennedy’s counselor and speechwriter, stated that “foreign affairs had always interested him far more than domestic. They occupied far more of his time and energy as President.”18 Roger Hilsman, another Kennedy aide, wrote in a similar vein: “Certainly, he thought foreign affairs were central to his concern. He used to say that a domestic failure hurt the country, but a failure in foreign affairs could kill it.”19 It is clear also that in choosing Dean Rusk—described as an “ideal staff person”20—to be his secretary of state, Kennedy was signaling that he meant to run foreign policy from the White House. According to Hirsh Freed, a Kennedy associate, Kennedy was “never really . . . interested in local politics in the city of Boston or in the state of Massachusetts. . . . His
interest lay in international politics, the topic that engaged most of his serious talk.”21 This was true even in his initial race for Congress in 1946. From his earliest years in the Senate, he made it a priority to become a member of the Foreign Relations Committee. Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson (D-TX) had blocked this appointment and only agreed to it in January 1957, after Kennedy’s ascent in the Democratic Party. Historian James MacGregor Burns underscores this point.
There was no committee assignment that Kennedy prized more highly. . . . Kennedy wanted Foreign Relations not only for its obvious political advantages, but because he believed he belonged there. . . . His youthful experiences at his father’s embassy, his interest in foreign policy while in the House, and his extensive travels equipped him, he felt to shape foreign policy with other committee members like Fulbright, John Sparkman, and Morse.22
In a similar vein, Dallek provides insight into Kennedy’s determination to pair his political calculations with his policy interests: “If he was going to run for president, establishing himself as a Senate leader on foreign affairs seemed like an essential prerequisite.”23Against this background, it is understandable why Kennedy would wade into the Algerian controversy. The speech played a significant role in helping to establish him as an outspoken and authoritative voice in foreign policy circles.
Kennedy’s European diaries from the summer of 1945 as well as his coverage of the San Francisco conference establishing the United Nations as a journalist for the Chicago Herald-American in the same year testify to this abiding concern.24 “Joining a debate on vital matters of national security appealed to him,” Dallek notes, “as the highest duty of a senator.”25
It is important at this juncture to mention the role that Kennedy’s democratic beliefs had in shaping his foreign policy outlook. In a thought-provoking article in the New York Times Magazine of August 8, 1954, titled “Foreign Policy Is the People’s Business,” Kennedy argued forcefully for a greater role for American public opinion in the policymaking process. Interestingly, he also called attention to the significance of French public opinion in his Algeria speech and how it was “slowly moving toward recognition of the facts of life that Algeria is not realistically integral to France.”26 These views stood in marked contrast to those of the Eisenhower-Dulles approach in which “the average layman—or Congressman—is deemed unable to comprehend the mystic intricacies and intrigues of foreign affairs.”27 It was, in part, these democratic beliefs that Kennedy cited for making his Algeria speech. He viewed his speech in the context of the “advice and consent” powers in foreign policy delegated to the Senate by Article II, Section 2 of the US Constitution.28 In this capacity, the Senate was both a conduit for reflecting
Introduction
the views of its members on American foreign policy issues as well as a means for informing the opinions of Americans about these same questions. Nor should it surprise anyone familiar with Kennedy’s career that he would speak on Algeria—a subject fraught with risk in the foreign policy community. Although Kennedy generally avoided controversies, he did take an independent stance on other equally controversial issues on past occasions when he felt the situation necessitated it. His support for the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1954,29 for example, set him apart from other leaders in New England. Indeed, Kennedy had described this very independence by elected representatives in Profiles in Courage. For Kennedy, this willingness to stand apart or even alone was synonymous with political courage. More will be said about Kennedy’s interest in American foreign policy in later chapters.
THEORY, METHODOLOGY, AND SCOPE
This book is written from a Realist perspective. I regard power and the principal forms power takes—political, military, and economic—to be the most important elements shaping the international state system at any period in history, including today. Nothing that I have read or observed suggests to me that world order resides in a natural harmony of interests among nations. Further, history indicates that those periods that are most orderly and most successful in sustaining a long-term and general peace are based on a balance of power. Today, this balance is much more complex—more asymmetrical than the simple military calculus of past epochs. Nonetheless, power still predominates and countervailing power is required if a general world peace is to exist. This does not prevent small wars and other forms of violence but it does forestall a war that is global in nature. Nor does a Realist outlook exclude elements of Idealism or recognition of the often times compelling and persuasive force of what Joseph Nye in his 1990 book Bound to Lead called “soft power.”30 In fact, the most constructive foreign policy usually consists of both national interest and moral values.
This Realist perspective meant that, in analyzing Kennedy’s Algeria speech, I treated several subjects more prominently than others. It was important to understand the dynamics of US-French relations on colonial questions, especially Algeria—what factors shaped each nation’s policy; how were these policies implemented diplomatically; how did each nation view its own national interests and whether these national interests were seen as in conflict. It was also important to understand the factors that underlay the sharp partisan divisions in the United States on colonial questions (which came to the fore when Kennedy spoke on Algeria) during an ostensibly bipartisan era, and what factors influenced these divergent positions. Finally, it was imperative
to grasp Kennedy’s motives for giving the speech. In other words, to appreciate what made Kennedy, a man driven to reach the pinnacles of political power in the United States, deliver a major speech on an issue seemingly motivated, in a serious way, by ideals and morality.
A corollary of an author’s theory of international politics is the methodology he or she uses to research a subject. (On this matter, I gained immensely from the work that John Lewis Gaddis has done on conceptual approaches in the study of international politics.31) The realist outlook on foreign policy usually relies primarily on history for the questions it poses and the answers it receives. This was the case in my research, in which I relied heavily on historical sources. I benefited greatly from the primary source documents in Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) for the period 1942 to 1957 for several world regions.32 These sources included declassified telegrams, phone conversations, memoranda (some from the offices of the president and the secretary of state), National Security Council (NSC) studies, and National Intelligence Estimates (NIE). All dealt with French colonialism throughout North Africa, the rise of nationalism in the region and the consequences this had for France in that region, as well as the effects on America’s policies.
I discuss developments in Africa and Asia at this time that were within the scope of this work. I believe I have included sufficient details of the history of the Third World and of the decolonization process to explain the role it played in the historical context of Kennedy’s Algeria speech. In this regard, I am aware of the almost iconic role that the Algerian war has in the history of the Third World. I am equally aware that, according to Jacqueline Swansinger, in texts dealing with the Cold War, “the Algerian War has long been a marginalized event in the history of France-American relations. Although recognized as one of the premier episodes in the long-story of decolonization, it has not been well integrated into the Cold War saga.”33 Mindful of this marginalization, I tried to address it correctly in this book. Unquestionably, the Algerian conflict became a model for other anticolonial conflicts. It has particular relevance to the matter of “internationalizing” these conflicts—an effort that was highly successful in Algeria and for other emerging nations in gaining their independence. Matthew Connelly’s A Diplomatic Revolution demonstrates how “Algeria became the ‘epicenter of the North-South conflict.’”34 Jeffrey Byrne makes similar points in his Mecca of Revolution. 35 Indeed, Jacqueline Swansinger in her review of Connelly’s masterly book writes that it was
Connelly’s achievement . . . to embed the Algerian conflict and the challenge of the Third World nationalism within the shifting dynamics of the Cold War he also demonstrates the ways in which the successful Algerian struggle presages the conditions of the new post-Cold War order. He argues that the
Introduction
Algerian Revolution’s primary offensive was diplomatic, and that the war was won on the stage of international opinion rather than in the military realm.36
It is important for the reader, however, to understand that this book was never intended to be one about the history of the Third World, or an in-depth description of the decolonization process, or of the Algerian War itself. While these subjects plainly are related, they are not a primary part of the narrative of Kennedy’s speech. Rather, the book’s main elements include such topics as the speech itself and its implications for American foreign policy; its background and preparation; the controversy it caused; Kennedy’s reasons for giving the speech; American policymakers’ perception of France’s role in North Africa; America’s policy toward France and its own national interests in North Africa; and, finally, how closely did Kennedy’s perceptions of North Africa and Algeria correspond to the unofficial statements and private diplomacy of American policymakers. Any extended treatment of the Third World movement would have been outside the scope of this book and seriously jeopardized its focus.
Further, this book was written primarily from the outlook of US political leaders. Nevertheless, no scholar should fall victim to what Sally Marks has called the “what does Washington have to say”37 syndrome as his or her sole outlook. Therefore, I believe that it is essential that most issues of post-World War II American foreign policy best be studied from a global perspective— indeed, a perspective in which the Cold War and developments in the Third World are taught and written about in close association with an emphasis on their interrelationship. This is the emphasis of such scholars as Edward Judge and John Langdon. It is an emphasis that is well placed.38 I sincerely hope that this book will contribute to this globalist outlook.
I also want to state that I regarded a multicountry, multiarchival review as counterproductive. My primary source material was in the United States. Still, I feel assured that I included sufficient documentation dealing with the views of French leaders, the background to France’s policies in Algeria and to French and Third World opinion of Kennedy’s speech. In support of my approach, I cite Connelly who, in his preface to A Diplomatic Revolution, indicated that, although his own interest in the North African conflict extended beyond the limits of Washington, “there is doubtless interesting work to be done on American officials’ perceptions of the Algerian war.”39 I want to note that Connelly cited Kennedy’s Algeria speech on four occasions in A Diplomatic Revolution, and characterized the speech as being “no less interesting for being ‘political.’”40
ORGANIZATION
There is a story to be told then, made all the more compelling by Kennedy’s subsequent presidency and the irony of his own involvement in Cuba and Vietnam—quasi-colonial ventures that stand in sharp contrast to the views of his Algeria speech. The chapters that follow tell the story of Kennedy’s Algeria speech and its implications for American foreign policy. It is an important story and an important speech, which will become evident as each chapter unfolds.
Chapter 1 provides the background to the speech. This chapter, as expected, is rich in context. Among many background elements, chapter 1 looks at the domestic and international environment at the time Kennedy spoke. This chapter also discusses the Kennedy persona in some detail. I include a brief portrait of the man, his political and foreign policy views, the preparation he and his staff did for the speech, and the risks Kennedy was taking in speaking on such a controversial topic. My main reason for describing Kennedy in this work is to provide the reader with a vivid and informative view of the man as he stepped to the Senate’s podium on that July 1957 day.
Chapter 2 deals with the politics and ideals of Kennedy’s Algeria speech. Clearly, his speech had several political objectives. Yet this was only part of the story. His enduring opposition to colonialism, particularly French colonialism, was another part. I also cover Kennedy’s persistent critique of the Eisenhower-Dulles approach to international affairs, as well as the outlines of the new direction in American foreign policy that Kennedy championed.
Chapter 3 provides a full discussion of Kennedy’s Algeria speech and the give-and-take he engaged in with other senators who were in attendance that day. The Republican critique of his remarks and Kennedy’s dialogue with such Republican senators as Everett Dirksen (R-IL) and John Sherman Cooper (R-KY) receive special attention.
Chapter 4 deals with the controversy Kennedy’s speech sparked and the reaction to it both domestically and internationally.
Chapter 5 deals primarily with the views of US leaders toward the rise of nationalism in North Africa and the associated decline of French influence in that region, as well as the adjustments, if any, France made in its colonial policies as a result of this situation. Chapter 6 deals primarily with the implications nationalism and France’s declining power in North Africa had for the United States in terms of its own national interests and policies. It is important that the narratives of both chapters 5 and 6 be closely connected with Kennedy’s speech. Accordingly, quotes were drawn from the speech that demonstrate this connection. This necessitated some minor duplication of material covered in chapter 3. Further, chapters 5 and 6 are divided into
Introduction
subheadings that reflect the major subjects of each chapter. This is the chapters’ primary form of organization; the information under each subheading, however, is organized chronologically. As a consequence, some key events may repeat themselves under different subheadings, largely because of their relevance to more than one subject.
From the first, it has been intriguing to this author to determine whether Kennedy’s views about North Africa were far afield of those held privately by American officials. Fortunately, I was able to use the US government documents about America’s policies toward this region that I previously mentioned. Needless to say, analysis of these documents is an integral part of this work. My findings and their implication for American foreign policy in this region are the subject matter of chapters 5 and 6. The reader should know that these chapters are inextricably a part of any consideration of Kennedy’s speech although he is mentioned less frequently than in other chapters. These chapters provide the reader with a basis to assess Kennedy’s speech against the background of official, and more importantly unofficial, policy statements by US leaders.
MAJOR THEMES OF THE BOOK
There are several major themes that underlie this book, not the least of which is to situate it, including its purpose and ultimate importance, in the international and domestic contexts then unfolding. The first is that Kennedy’s Algeria speech was an important contribution to America’s post-World War II policies toward colonialism, even if it was officially ignored. The speech contains all of the challenges and prospects that colonial issues had for American foreign policy and its success in the Cold War era that now included numerous emerging nations in Africa and Asia, as well as the drive for unification among the European nations. All of the essential elements of the Algerian conflict are contained in Kennedy’s speech, and, derivatively, many if not all of these same elements in other colonial struggles.
Second, the speech represented new thinking on colonialism and its connection to NATO, and the impact each had upon the other. Kennedy stated emphatically that a major purpose of his speech was to do precisely that— encourage new thinking on these subjects and possibly “unfreeze [existing] attitudes.”41
Third, its contribution continues today in helping the policymaker and the historian understand the difficulties and opportunities (whether lost or taken) in shaping America’s foreign policy when contentious issues such as colonialism must be resolved.
Fourth, Kennedy’s speech, as explained, serves both as content and context. It details are enriching on Algeria and colonialism, but it also helps to bracket the era in which he spoke—another contextual element that enhances our understanding.
Fifth, the connection between the US-Soviet rivalry and the several colonial situations during this period is also a part of the narrative. The speech provides key insights into Kennedy’s thinking on Algeria and Holborn’s preparation of the Algeria speech. (Nor should we forget that Kennedy’s insights are integral to his foreign policy outlook at this time.) In a real sense, we get to understand the history of his speech and its preparation “from the inside,” i.e., from the very beginning of these policies in the minds of Kennedy and Holborn. It is exciting to read history this way and to appreciate that almost every event, such as Kennedy’s speech, is the result of a choice—a “willed occurrence”—on the part of history’s leading actors.42
Sixth, Kennedy’s speech exposed (not for the first time) the partisan (Democrat-Republican) and ideological (Realist-Liberal Internationalist) divisions in the Senate and the nation as a whole whenever colonial issues came to the fore.
Seventh, Kennedy’s very public speech contrasts sharply with the private statements of American leaders on France and Algeria. This contrast illustrates for the reader the often times wide divergence between public and private diplomacy, particularly when dealing with complex issues like Algeria. The reader should be mindful of these overarching and interrelated themes that animate this engrossing story.
It is important now to turn to the essential background of Kennedy’s Algeria speech and to consider some insights about the man himself and the risks he was taking as he stood to address the US Senate about the situation in Algeria.
NOTES
1. Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy 1917–1963, ix.
2. This phrase—independent personality—was widely understood to mean Algeria’s self-determination and freedom from colonial French rule.
3. Among the works that come to mind, Richard Mahoney’s JFK: Ordeal in Africa (1983) does the best job in describing Kennedy’s Algeria speech. Though somewhat dated, Mahoney’s book is the only full text that treats Kennedy’s speech for several pages. Chris Matthews’s Jack Kennedy: The Elusive Hero (2011) analyzes Kennedy’s speech but principally from the perspective that the speech was politically motivated. The same is the case with Thomas Oliphant and Curtis Wilkie’s The Road to Camelot: Inside JFK’s Five Year Campaign (2017). Other works such as Victor
Introduction
Lasky’s JFK: The Man and Myth (1963); Theodore Sorensen’s Kennedy (1965); Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.’s A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (1965); Alistair Horne’s A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954–1962 (1972); Robert McMahon’s Colonialism and the Cold War: The United States and the Struggle for Indonesian Independence, 1945–1949 (1981); Herbert Parmet’s JFK: The Presidency of John F. Kennedy (1983); Matthew Connelly’s A Diplomatic Revolution (2002); Dallek’s An Unfinished Life (2011); and Edward Judge and John Langdon’s The Struggle Against Imperialism: Anticolonialism and the Cold War (2018) mention the speech and its importance but only in the briefest detail. This list could go on at great length but enough has been said to indicate the characteristic manner in which authors, some more noted than others, have dealt with Kennedy’s Algeria speech. Scholarly articles such as Miloud Barakoui’s “Kennedy and the Cold War Imbroglio: The Case of Algerian Independence,” in the Arab Studies Quarterly, Spring 1999; Jeffrey Lefebrve’s “Kennedy’s Algeria Dilemma: Containment, Alliance Politics, and the Rebel Dialogue,” in Middle Eastern Studies, April 1999; and Ronald J. Nurse’s “Critic of Colonialism: JFK and Algerian Independence,” in The Historian, February 1977 contain excellent information about Kennedy’s speech but their analysis too is limited.
4. Quoted in Oliphant and Wilkie, The Road to Camelot, 97.
5. Quoted in Senator Robert C. Byrd, The Senate, 1789–1989. (online)
6. President Franklin Roosevelt, “First Inaugural Address of March 4, 1933,” in Great American Speeches, ed. Gregory Soriano, 155–161.
7. Ibid., 183–186.
8. Frederick Holborn, in discussion with the author, May 30, 1989, Washington, DC.
9. Vernon McKay, Africa in World Politics, 320.
10. Ibid.
11. Sir John Seeley was a nineteenth century English historian and political essayist. This quote appears in Dean Acheson’s Fragments of My Fleece, 82.
12. The term “world revolution” refers to a speech titled “America and the World Revolution” that was given in the spring of 1961 at McGill University, Montreal, by the English historian Arnold Toynbee.
13. John F. Kennedy, “The Global Challenge” in The Strategy of Peace, 6.
14. Lee Congdon, George Kennan: A Writing Life, 103.
15. John T. Shaw, JFK in the Senate: Pathway to the Presidency, 12.
16. Ibid., 158. The quote in Dallek’s book is from a speech Kennedy gave in 1951.
17. Jacques-Maurice Couve de Murville oral history interview, JFK #1, 5/20/1964. John F. Kennedy Oral History Collection. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library (JFK Library).
18. Sorensen quoted in William J. Walton, Cold War and Counter-Revolution: The Foreign Policy of John F. Kennedy, 4.
19. Ibid. Roger Hilsman quoted in Walton.
20. James Chace, Dean Acheson: The Secretary of State Who Created the American World, 383.
21. Hirsh Freed as quoted in Parmet, JFK: The Presidency, 147.
22. James MacGregor Burns, John Kennedy: A Political Profile, 85.
23. Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 184.
24. John F. Kennedy, Prelude to Leadership: The European Diaries of John F. Kennedy, Summer 1945.
25. Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 184.
26. John F. Kennedy, “Imperialism—The Enemy of Freedom,” in the Daily Congressional Record, Proceedings and Debates of the 85th Congress: First Session, Volume 103—Part 8, 9720.
27. Senator John F. Kennedy, “Foreign Policy Is the People’s Business,” New York Times Sunday Magazine, August 8, 1954, in John F. Kennedy: A Compilation of Statements and Speeches Made During His Service in The United States Senate and House of Representatives, 1964, 1007.
28. Article II, Section 2 of the US Constitution mainly deals with treaties. However, over time this section has been used to invoke consultations between the president and the Congress on a wider range of issues.
29. Kennedy showed political courage and a nationalist mindset in supporting the building of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Needless to say, the commercial interests of Massachusetts were expected to be hurt because ports such as Boston would be effectively bypassed by the seaway. Kennedy’s stance on this issue is amply documented in Shaw’s JFK in the Senate.
30. See Joseph Nye, Bound to Lead.
31. John Lewis Gaddis, “New Conceptual Approaches in the Study of American Foreign Relations,” Diplomatic History (summer 1990): 405–423.
32. I owe a debt to Professor Irwin M. Wall for the example of his scholarly use of FRUS documents in his excellent book France, United States, the Algerian War, which examines US support for Charles de Gaulle both before and after the fall of the Fourth Republic in May 1958. I quote from a few of the same sources but for entirely different reasons.
33. Jacqueline Swansinger, “A Little Post-Modern War,” Review of Matthew Connelly’s A Diplomatic Revolution, https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf. php?id—6609, 2.
34. Ibid.
35. See Jeffrey Byrne, Mecca of Revolution: Algeria, Decolonization, and the Third World Order.
36. Swansinger, “A Little Post-Modern War,” 2.
37. See Sally Marks, “The World According to Washington,” Diplomatic History 11, no. 3 (Summer 1987).
38. See Judge and Langdon, The Struggle Against Imperialism.
39. Connelly, A Diplomatic Revolution, vii.
40. Ibid., 145.
41. Senator John F. Kennedy to Morton Kaplan, July 26, 1957. Pre-Presidential Papers, Senate/Algerian Speech Files, 1957, Box 919, “Folder: Correspondence A to Z, July 22, 1957.” JFK Library.
42. See R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of History.
