Clinton at Brandenburg Gate

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

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. :-)