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Subject: Clinton at Brandenburg Gate
Recirculated with permission of author.
media.837: Pundits and young Presidents
media.837.1: Joe W. (jw) Mon 11 Jul 94 08:24
An AP story (7/11/94) refers to President Clinton's upcoming speech
in Berlin:
BERLIN (AP) -- It was 1963, and a young American president had
promised to defend West Berlin as if it were his own. The Berliners
were proud and touched by John F. Kennedy's remarks. So was an
idealistic 16-year-old named Bill Clinton.
Clinton is now president, and on Tuesday he'll stand at
Brandenburg Gate, where Kennedy had stood, to deliver what U.S.
diplomats are describing as a "historic speech" addressing
security in the post-Cold War Europe.
The speech will be given Tuesday at 7am EDT.
Most pundits have downplayed the significance of Clinton's trip. The
Washington Times predicted "little gain" in a recent *headline* no less.
I'm sure that would break their little hearts.
Anyway, for some similar media opinion about a young President's travels
to Europe, let's set the wayback machine to June 1963:
===========================================================================
Columbus Dispatch
June 12, 1963
Timing of Kennedy's European Trip Poor
by Alice Widener
Many pro-American diplomats in Rome believe the timing of President
Kennedy's trip to Europe is not very advantageous for him.
...underneath the show of good manners... there will be much skepticism
about the astuteness of his political and military policies...
...an often-heard description of him goes like this: "He is a likeable
young man with immature judgment who talks well but hasn't the will to
follow through on the vital decision."
...A high-ranking NATO officer told me in London, "Understandably,
President Kennedy would like to turn back the clock of warfare and
stop development of nuclear weapons on earth and in space. But this
cannot be done."
...he probably will be forced to bring home an account showing big
travel expenses but no sales.
===========================================================================
New York Times
June 15, 1963
President Draws Criticism for Shifts in Programs at Home and Abroad
by Arthur Krock
The tendency of President Kennedy to evade coming to grips with problems
until they reach the crisis stage was again emphasized by recent events
in both the foreign and domestic policy areas.
...the President's political temporizing with the racial controversy in
this country until confronted, as inevitably he would be, by Negro
demands for political action that grew with every pressurized concession
he made, fits precisely the same pattern of his personal disposition
and official policy. So does the ill-timed trip Mr. Kennedy is about to
make to Italy, West Germany, and the United Kingdom...
===========================================================================
New York Times
June 23, 1963
Editorial
Is This Trip Necessary?
In the face of much adverse comment and good reasons not to go, President
Kennedy is proceeding with his trip to Europe at a most inauspicious
time. He will arrive in a Europe in transition, when governments are
changing, when the new Pope's coronation will pre-empt popular
attention, when the Atlantic community is in considerable disorder...
===========================================================================
New York Times
June 24, 1963
Dim Prospects for a Salesman
by C. L. Sulzberger
About the only concrete achievement President Kennedy might expect from
his European trip is to get some motion into our stalemated plan for
a multilateral nuclear force in NATO. But even this prospect is dim.
...his English stopover will appear even more foolish than the rest of
the trip.
===========================================================================
Hmmm... if only our Presidents were the astute and unerring experts on
foreign policy that our pundits are. The irresistable urge, it seems, with
a young President is to speak in condescending tones and offer back-handed
compliments like "talks well" or "good salesman." But any really sage
advice must come from military father-figures like "high-ranking NATO
officers" rather than any young upstart. Kennedy was no doubt the same
age or younger than most of his media critics, whose egos therefore
compelled them to show they were smarter, would be more "decisive,"
more expert of foreign policy, and masters of ineffable qualities such
as "timing." It's much easier to suffer an old president, when we can
politely defer to our elders. Anyway, pundits are undoubtedly masters
of timing. When they get it all wrong, they don't miss a beat--they're
outta here, on to the next supercilious prattle, and don't ever look
back... usually.
But they are much better simply reporting the facts as they occur than
they are at prediction.
To wit...
===========================================================================
New York Times
June 30, 1963
President's Trip to Europe as Seen From Abroad
He Has Strengthened European Confidence in American Leadership
Paris
...The President's visit has been a bold and, thus far, effective American
intervention in the West's most significant debate.
...But if Mr. Kennedy has not altered General de Gaulle's own ideas, the
President has drastically changed the European situation within which
General de Gaulle must work...
Germany
Two uninvited guests played major roles in President Kennedy's triumphal
tour of West Germany and Berlin this week. Their names were Charles de
Gaulle and Nikita Khrushchev.
...President Kennedy set for himself as a major endeavor the restoring
of a sense of intimacy with the Bonn government and the winning of its
commitment to the large goals he has set for the Atlantic community.
In this he appears to have been successful.
...The extraordinary personal acclaim accorded Mr. Kennedy by the
people of Cologne, Bonn, Frankfurt and West Berlin certainly
contributed greatly to the new atmosphere of intimacy.
===========================================================================
New York Times
June 30, 1963
Cheers and Issues
The President on Tour
For John F. Kennedy the man it was a week of extraordinary personal
achievement. For John F. Kennedy the President it was a week of testing,
the outcome of which remains to be seen.
...The President's trip is one that many critics said he should not
make. He should stay home, they said, to deal with the race crisis.
His trip could accomplish nothing, they said...
The trip got off to a deceptively chilly start... but then came a
35-mile drive to Cologne... More than a million Rhinelanders lined
the route, chanting "Ken-ned-DEE" and wildly applauding. In Cologne
itself he drew a crowd of 350,000... Mr. Kennedy got a roar when he
ended a speech with "Kolle Alaaf!" meaning "Hooray for Cologne!"
In Bonn he got another cheer when he said Chicago has more ethnic
Germans than the West german capital. All this about 20,000,000
West germans watched on TV.
...Tuesday came another motorcade, another million cheering Germans
and another show of "Willkommen" signs... In a speech that was
translated for broadcast on TV in 12 countries, Mr. Kennedy struck
the keynote of interdependence between the United States and a
"fully cohesive Europe."
...The emotional climax came Wednesday when the President flew to
Berlin. Still another million, at least, screamed "Ken-ned-DEE" in
the streets. One placard held up for him to read said: "John. You our
best friend."
The TV cameras were on Mr. Kennedy for most of the eight hours he was
in the city, and especially at the dramatic moments which he gazed in
silence over The Wall at the Brandenburg Gate, where the Communists
had hung great banners between the pillars to block his view; and at
Checkpoint Charlie...
In a speech at City Hall he got a tremendous ovation when he flashed
another bit of German, saying:
"All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin. And
therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words 'Ich bin ein
Berliner.'"
===========================================================================
See y'all at the Brandenburg Gate. :-)
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