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Easy Solution, Now. The most telling criticisms of the extremist groups were delivered by President John Kennedy in two speeches on his first trip to the West Coast since his inauguration. Wearing the crimson academic robe of a Harvard LL.B., and speaking above the pink geraniums in the Edmundson Pavilion of the University of Washington, Kennedy defended his foreign policies against those who "lack confidence in our long-run capacity to survive" and those who "want some quick and cheap and easy solution, now." Most Americans, he said, accept the reality that "we must face problems which do not lend themselves to easy, quick or permanent solutions. And we must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent nor omniscient, and that we cannot right every wrong or reverse each adversity, and that therefore there cannot be an American solution for every world problem."
The essential reality of a tangled world, the President continued, is that "diplomacy and defense are not substitutes for one another. Either, alone, would fail ... At a time when a single clash could escalate overnight into a holocaust of mushroom clouds, a great power does not prove its firmness by leaving the task of exploring the other's intentions to sentries or those without full responsibility. Nor can ultimate weapons rightfully be employed, or the ultimate sacrifice rightfully demanded of our citizens, until every reasonable solution has been explored.
"In short, we are neither warmongers nor appeasers, neither hard nor soft. We are Americans, determined to defend the frontiers of freedom by an honorable peace, if peace is possible, but by arms if arms are used against us."
Return to a Theme. It was a speech, said aides, that Kennedy had long wanted to get off his chest. Once having done so, the President returned to the theme time and again in his talks during a three-day tour that took him to Seattle for a banquet honoring Senator Warren Magnuson (see box), to Bonham, Texas, for the funeral of Sam Rayburn, to Phoenix for another ceremonial dinner for Arizona's venerable Democratic Senator Carl Hayden, 84, and finally to Los Angeles for a Democratic fund-raising dinner.
In Los Angeles, as in Seattle, Kennedy spoke soberly against "those on the fringes of our society who have sought to escape their own responsibility by finding a simple solution, an appealing slogan or a convenient scapegoat." These "discordant voices," said the President, "look suspiciously at their neighbors and their leaders. They call for a man on horseback because they do not trust the people. They find treason in our finest churches, in our highest court, and even in the treatment of our water. They equate the Democratic Party with the welfare state, the welfare state with socialism, and socialism with communism. They quite rightly object to politics intruding on the military—but they, are anxious for the military to engage in politics."