this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2025
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What was John F. Kennedy referring to when he said “a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy”?

The President and the Press: Address before the American Newspaper Publishers Association, April 27, 1961

Excerpt

For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence--on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.

Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a war-time discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match.

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[–] diphthong@lemmy.world 7 points 8 hours ago (6 children)

In the quote he says he's talking about the Cold War.

[–] ehpolitical@lemmy.ca 4 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (5 children)

He makes reference to it, but also speaks of some kind of opposition from "around the world" that was working on "expanding its sphere of influence". He also described this thing as operating in secret, not out in the open. Was Russia operating secretly? (I don't know much about the Cold War.)

[–] adespoton@lemmy.ca 12 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

For those of us who lived through it, what he said was blatantly obvious at the time.

[–] ehpolitical@lemmy.ca 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Makes sense, I was too young to remember most of it. Still, does his description not strike you as resembling what we see happening in the U.S. today?

[–] adespoton@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 hour ago

I disagreed with it at the time and do again now… there’s no grand conspiracy; people are just depressingly predictable in how they respond to economic and cultural pressures. Some people recognize the trends and attempt to ride them or even control them (or stop them), but with a few notable exceptions, history tends to just roll on regardless — which can look to some as if there must be some cabal of puppet masters calling the shots.

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