John F. Kennedy

Monday is the 30th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. That day is seared into our memories and we will remember it forever. However, in addition to his death, I remember his life and his challenge to a “peace race.”

In September, 1961, he told the U.N. General Assembly that it was “our intention to challenge the Soviet Union not to an arms race, but to a peace race to advance with us step by step, stage by stage, until general and complete disarmament has actually been achieved.”

The Soviet Union accepted this challenge and together they expanded his goal into a Joint Statement of Agreed Principles for Disarmament Negotiations, which the U.N. General Assembly adopted on Dec. 20, 1961. In 1968 this goal was included in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as “general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

Subsequent American administrations have repudiated this goal but it is still alive in the world. Last Jan. 14 we signed the chemical weapons convention to eliminate all chemical weapons and even the chemicals necessary to produce chemical weapons. Since then, more than 140 other nations have signed this document. The elimination of chemical weapons is not an end in itself but “effective progress” toward the goal proposed by Kennedy.

I remember Kennedy’s death but I also remember his challenge to a “peace race” with the hope that someday we will have another President with enough vision and courage to repeat his challenge--not just to the former Soviet states, but to all the nations of the world.

EDWARD C. PERRY II

Palm Springs