What Bush could learn from JFK: Kennedy's bold strategy of peace delivered more for America than Bush's simple warmongering.(Special report: the foreign policy crisis)

JOHN F. KENNEDY WAS DECORATED FOR HIS MILITARY heroism in the South Pacific in World War II. However, he showed even greater courage as president during the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962. At that time, his right-wing critics were denouncing him for pursuing a "no win policy" in his approach to the Soviet Union's Cold War military challenge. Nevertheless, when this nation was subjected to its greatest threat, by the sudden, secret emplacement of Soviet nuclear missiles 90 miles from our shores, Kennedy had the courage and confidence to communicate, negotiate, even compromise with his chief adversary, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, the man whose recklessly hostile arms deployment had every appearance of preparing for anything from the intimidation to the devastation of the United States. It was a compromise in the pursuit of a peaceful settlement, under which the Soviets swiftly withdrew all their missiles, under inspection, and without the United States ever firing a shot.

Eight months later, Kennedy demonstrated the same kind of courage, defying his domestic critics with a bold commencement address at American University, a speech without precedent, in which he urged the American people to re-examine the usefulness of the Cold War, to re-examine the very meaning of peace itself. In that same speech, Kennedy also called for the adoption of a nuclear test ban to slow down the arms race, beginning with the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty to prevent further poisoning of the atmosphere. …