Debt to America

Daniel Finkelstein is a regular contributor to The Times which, in my view, has by far the strongest team of feature writers - of all the UK newspapers these days.

I seldom agree with everything that these commentators have to say - but their opinions are generally thoughtful and intelligent, sometimes funny and amusing, and often well-balanced - as opposed to being tribal, predictable and partisan.

Here's a recent piece by Daniel Finkelstein on the legacy of President Kennedy and America's role as the 'leader' of the free world - the theme of which will be familiar to people of a certain age, but less so perhaps to members of the younger generation.        

We must never forget our debt to America

By Daniel Finkelstein

Ahead of Barack Obama’s speech in Berlin we should remember that the US made the choice to protect Europe.

“We will never have another day like this one,” said John Kennedy as he slumped, exhausted, into his chair on Airforce One and the plane took off for Dublin. And, sadly, he was right. His visit to Berlin in June 1963 was his last great hurrah. He was assassinated a few months later.

Next week is the 50th anniversary of one of the most famous and significant speeches of the postwar era. Standing on the steps of City Hall in West Berlin President Kennedy issued a challenge to those who doubted the value and durability of freedom: “Lass’ sie nach Berlin kommen.” Let them come to Berlin. And he finished his short address with the celebrated words with which he will always be associated: “Ich bin ein Berliner.”

While not quite spontaneous, the words had not been in Kennedy’s script when the day began. The enthusiasm of the German crowds had been so great that he and his entourage had been swept away. His formal text on the history of Berlin seemed wan.

He showed to the general accompanying him the reading cards that had been prepared. “You think this is any good?” he asked. “This is terrible, Mr President,” replied General Polke. “I think so too,” Kennedy replied. And so he scribbled down the German words he remembered from earlier drafts and used them instead. He was rewarded with a 15-minute ovation from the almost half a million people gathered to hear him.

There is a myth that Kennedy had made a grammatical error by inserting “ein” in the sentence, and had therefore announced that he was a jelly doughnut. This is quite wrong. The “ein” was necessary. But what he said was no less odd if you think about it. For while the President wasn’t a jelly doughnut, he wasn’t a Berliner either.

All these years later America’s commitment to Western Europe seems part of the natural order of things. But it wasn’t. It was a choice. America had a choice. And it still does. That is the enduring significance of Kennedy’s speech.

It expressed powerfully the fact upon which postwar liberal democracy has rested — the decision of Americans that they would attach their own great power and wealth to the cause of freedom in Europe. Kennedy didn’t need to say he was a Berliner and America didn’t need to fight its way to Berlin or to stay there once they arrived. Today Barack Obama is in Berlin, renewing the commitment.

By coincidence, next week is not merely the anniversary of Kennedy’s speech, but also of the great decision on which it was founded. It is the 65th anniversary of the day in 1948 when the Russians decided to blockade Berlin. Rail, highway and water traffic in and out of the allied sectors of Berlin would be forbidden in order to allow Soviet control of the whole city.

And on the day he heard, President Harry Truman gathered members of his Government in his office and told them this: “We stay in Berlin. Period.” Within days his Administration had begun an airlift of food and other supplies to the two and a half million people cut off by Stalin. The airlift seemed, when it began, technically impossible and it was deeply risky politically. American boys had just come home from war. They desperately did not want another one. But the airlift was a complete success. In May 1949 the blockade was ended.

For the 40 years that followed, America first saved and then protected Western Europe. Berlin was the front line — Kennedy’s biographer Robert Dallek described it as the President’s “greatest daily concern” — but the commitment went far deeper than that. For the US spent billions of dollars on the postwar reconstruction of the ravaged countries of Europe including this one. Money that could have been spent on its own problems.

There are all sorts of reasons for recalling all this. But the most important one is almost pathetically simple. British people owe a huge debt to the United States that we don’t often talk about and can easily forget. And these two anniversaries provide a moment for thanks.

The proper understanding of Soviet communism that has been achieved after the fall of the Berlin Wall demonstrates that fear of Soviet expansion was not fanciful and that their ambitions did extend to the subverting of Western democracy. And it also shows the poverty and oppression that would have followed had they been successful.

And we owe the Americans for being Berliners. Even the strongest supporters of Tony Blair reject the idea that his support for the Iraq war was primarily about supporting an American decision. But for me, “we did because they asked us” is not a disreputable answer. I think America has earned the right to expect support from Britain and we should think very hard before withholding it, even when we have doubts.

But there is another lesson. Not long before he set off for Berlin John Kennedy had given what has become known as his peace speech, in which he said the Soviets and Americans could leave the Cold War behind. His rhetoric deeply impressed Nikita Khrushchev and helped to persuade him to agree to a test ban treaty.

In an interesting new book, To Move the World, which he introduced on these pages, the economist Jeffrey Sachs argues reasonably that Kennedy set an example. The rhetoric of peace helps to build trust. The President’s speech in Berlin is seen as an aberration. JFK was caught up in the heady moment, swayed by the crowds. And even at the time, his advisers told him he had gone too far.

But I think his peace speech and his speech in Berlin belong together. Peaceful co-operation with the Soviet Union was made possible by Kennedy’s decision to seek it, certainly. It was also made possible by his determination that peace would not be paid for by surrender. Khrushchev made peace because he realised that war was possible; he had misjudged Kennedy at the beginning of his period of office. There was only so far JFK could be pushed.

Britons often jib at American world leadership. The world is a worse place when they don’t show it.