A few days ago, James Higham — the co-founder of the British site Orphans of Liberty — featured a quote from John Fitzgerald Kennedy, shortly before his assassination.

November 22, 2013, marks the 50th anniversary of that fateful day. I was in nursery school at the time and will never forget the expression on my mother’s face. It seemed the world would end. She passed a quiet word to my teacher, whose face went ashen at the news.

Ten days before his brutal slaying in Dallas, Kennedy spoke before an audience at Columbia University in New York City. There, he allegedly warned, not unlike his predecessor, Republican Dwight David Eishenhower (emphases mine):

The high office of President has been used to foment a plot to destroy the Americans’ freedom, and before I leave office I must inform the citizens of this plight.

Eisenhower’s wording was more oblique — a warning about the ‘military-industrial complex’. Heavens, we have certainly seen the results of that come to pass in our lifetimes.

On November 2, 1963, the South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem — a Roman Catholic — was overthrown and executed. It would seem that the CIA were working with their peers in the military to effect his removal.

It is interesting that Kennedy was surprised by these events. He had not asked for Diem’s removal, despite the latter’s disdain for the native South Vietnamese Buddhist faith and practice.

Maxwell Taylor, a Kennedy administration insider, recalled:

that Kennedy “rushed from the room with a look of shock and dismay on his face.”[148] He had not approved Diem’s murder.

Yet, other Kennedy advisors attempted to assuage the president’s anguish by saying that his removal would shorten the Vietnam conflict.

Kennedy would live for only another 20 days. Were people out to get him? It was a perfect assassination in that we’ll probably never know the truth.

James Higham has researched other aspects of statecraft during that period, including the story of popular music relating to Los Angeles’s Laurel Canyon, which I covered the other day. Unfortunately, since the author of that saga, David McGowan, has since published a book on it, most of the links have been removed.  It was a compelling read.

Nonetheless, Higham has presented us with another dimension of statecraft and national power, courtesy of one Democrat president and representatives from the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Quotes follow from his post:

On June 28, 1945, President Truman said:

“It will be just as easy for nations to get along in a republic of the world as it is for us to get along in a republic of the United States.” On October 24, 1945, the United Nations Charter became effective.

On July 1948, Sir Harold Butler, in the CFR’s “Foreign Affairs,” saw “a New World Order” taking shape:

“How far can the life of nations, which for centuries have thought of themselves as distinct and unique, be merged with the life of other nations? How far are they prepared to sacrifice a part of their sovereignty without which there can be no effective economic or political union?”

On Feb. 7, 1950, International financier and CFR member James Warburg told a Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee:

“We shall have world government whether or not you like it – by conquest or consent.”

On Feb. 9, 1950, the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee introduced Senate Concurrent Resolution #66 which began:

“Whereas, in order to achieve universal peace and justice, the present Charter of the United Nations should be changed to provide a true world government constitution.”

Perhaps this is what Eisenhower and, sadly, Kennedy were referring to. Perhaps Eisehnower, because of his more temperate verbiage, was left alone. Perhaps also it was because he was no longer the leader of the free world.

We don’t know.

That said, may we remember these words, for better or worse. May we also be diligent in watching what our leaders — our elected servants — say and do, and vote accordingly.

That is the only voice we have.