of liberty.” That is very eloquent and very strongrhetoric. As is typical for public addresses, it was open to interpretation, which was a good thing. With his election to the presidency of the most powerful nation in the world, John Kennedy sent a message that he would be resolute in the defense of liberty at home and abroad. How much Kennedy was guided in the succeeding days and years by the message of his inaugural address is uncertain. One can examine his role in expanding the American presence in Southeast Asia—specifically in Vietnam—and one can, alternatively, look at his signature creation of the Peace Corps as an example of his commitment, as he also declared in that speech, to assist “those people in the huts and villages across the globe struggling to break the bonds of misery.”

President Kennedy was a powerful symbol. His election represented to many at home and abroad a revival of sorts. It followed the eight-year term of the visibly older Dwight Eisenhower, and Kennedy triumphed over latter’s vice president, Richard Nixon, who was the Republican nominee. The young, handsome, intelligent, and vibrant senator brought to the White House an aura of royalty (not for nothing was his administration dubbed “Camelot,” after the musical that opened on Broadway the same time as the election), and Kennedy, assisted by the brilliant speechwriter Theodore Sorenson, rose to the moment with his inaugural address. The rhetoric of that speech, however, held the seeds of conflict as well as of peace. To “support any friend, oppose any foe” to protect liberty was a tall order. The commitment in resources and people required would prove daunting, as would questions about American resoluteness and credibility should we as a nation fail to adequately “oppose any foe.”

A key challenge here involves commitments where nuances are ignored. Third-world conflicts that pitted East against West (i.e., the Soviet Union and its allies against the United States and its allies) too often involved the legacy of European colonialism and the mess imperialism left of much of the lower-income world. The Soviet Union exploited that history of European colonialism to ally itself with guerrilla movements inspired by Marxist-Leninist ideology, prompting resistance from the United States. Yet those same movements came about in the context of French, British, and Portuguese colonialism. To oppose any foe, then, meant opposing what the Soviets called Movements of National Liberation, despite the conditions under which these movements emerged. The result would be either support for right-wing governments that opposed communism, creation and/or support of national liberation movements that similarly opposed communism, or acquiescence in the triumph of those forces that ideologically opposed liberty (i.e., Marxist-Leninist guerrilla movements). It was, in a word, a hopeless situation.

As the situation in Vietnam deteriorated and the need for more American military and civilian advisors grew, President Kennedy became something of a prisoner of his own verbiage. The Peace Corps’ efforts in Africa, Latin America, and Asia represented an absolute good. The commitment to “pay any price, bear any burden, [and] meet any hardship” left the president little room to maneuver in the infinitely complicated reality of international affairs.