This Morning’s Rendezvous with Destiny

Civil rights leaders meet with President John F. Kennedy in the Oval Office of the White House after the March on Washington, D.C.. August 28, 1963 (Public Domain)

As you probably know, on Jan. 21, Martin Luther King Day, 60 prominent Americans, including two of Robert Kennedy’s children and a nephew and co-workers of Dr. King, called for a “Truth and Reconciliation Committee” to re-open the investigations into the actually-unsolved assassinations of Malcolm X in 1961, John F. Kennedy in 1963, and Dr. King and Robert Kennedy in 1968.

The demand itself is fully justified, even if a few of the signers may be misusing it for other purposes. But none of that is our point here. Here, our question is—why now, after more than 50 years?

The authors of the call may not know it—some might heatedly deny it. But it is because the opportunity that beckoned 50 years ago, despite all the differences—the chance for which the oldest of us have fought for over 50 years—is back again today, but bigger and better. IF we act now—today!

Franklin Roosevelt had prepared, for after the war, the law and institutions for a Westphalian world order of perfectly sovereign nation-states, joining voluntarily in an international Hamiltonian credit system, and each free to employ such a system in their own country.

But Roosevelt died an untimely death before the war was over. When Vice President Truman heard that the Roosevelt had died, his first response was, “But I can’t be President. I’m such a little man.” Lyndon LaRouche, then in U.S. military service in Asia, said exactly the same thing. Truman accepted British orders to crush Roosevelt’s plans for the postwar period.

Later, beneath his placid exterior, Truman’s successor Eisenhower began to fight back. He came out openly to put a halt to British aggression against Egypt in the Suez Crisis of 1956. The Russian Sputnik of October 1957, triggered America’s drive into science, high-technology and space, which began under Eisenhower and quickly accelerated during John Kennedy’s 1,000 days.

Franklin Roosevelt’s widow Eleanor had counselled John Kennedy on continuing her husband’s work, and he began to do this across the board as President, before he was shot. Man’s first and so-far only visits to another heavenly body were among the greatest accomplishments of the tragic 20th Century.

Those who have studied this period understand that the irreplaceable roles of Dr. King and John and Robert Kennedy were inextricably interlinked, for all their many and long fights and disagreements. Malcolm X was also very important. If the Malcolm X who was coming to light in 1965 had lived, the “black power” tricks and traps which were used to trip up Dr. King, would never have succeeded as they did.

The British Empire killed all of these men, and that empire went on a worldwide rampage of war and economic collapse. But we should remember what Lyndon LaRouche has said about this in discussion: The American people should have met the assassinations with their own open determination to continue the work of these leaders—even more strongly than before. Instead they retreated—except for a few like LaRouche. LaRouche was targetted for assassination and then unjustly jailed for five years after he changed history with the Reagan-era Strategic Defense Initiative. But he went on to propose the Eurasian Land-Bridge, which is now a great world reality.

Now we stand at the greatest moment of opportunity. The challenges we face are the not the challenges of the past—they are the new challenges of the future. Right now, if British-allied Democrats are trying to divide Trump’s base, we must rally the base by recruiting them to our program for the real solutions which are needed now, while splitting the Democratic base in the same process.

We must summon forth what history demands from within each of us, with the help of LaRouche’s inspiring ideas and his personal example. As he said once at a conference many years ago: “You may be tired; you may be upset. But when history demands you turn that lever—you turn that lever!”

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