What was John F. Kennedy referring to when he said “a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy”?

The President and the Press: Address before the American Newspaper Publishers Association, April 27, 1961

Excerpt

For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence–on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.

Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a war-time discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match.

  • yesman@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    He’s talking about the Soviet Union. This would have been clear to anyone at the time. Conspiracy just means more than one person working together.

    • ehpolitical@lemmy.caOP
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      10 hours ago

      It was mostly before my time, so I don’t have that kind of insight. When I read it, it sounds to me a lot like what we see happening in the U.S. today.

      • palordrolap@fedia.io
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        4 hours ago

        Well, back then it was the Soviets, and now quite a lot of what we see in the west is being guided by the hand of Putin, so it basically is the same thing happening all over again.

        • ehpolitical@lemmy.caOP
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          23 minutes ago

          What I’m trying to get at is 1) Exactly what this thing is that JFK was talking about; and 2) Whether this precise thing has continued to exist since JFK’s time up to today. With the very elaborate way JFK was speaking, it sounds to me like it had to involve more than just the Soviets, and not like something that would have easily and suddenly died off. But I suspect you must be right, that the Soviets were and obviously are significantly involved still. Maybe I’m just asking an impossible question.

      • CurlyWurlies4All@slrpnk.net
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        5 hours ago

        He was talking about the Soviet Union. Don’t they teach this very basic history in school?

        Who do you think was conducting the ‘Cold War’ in the last sentence?

        • ehpolitical@lemmy.caOP
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          33 minutes ago

          If he was talking about nothing more than the Soviet Union, why didn’t he simply say ‘we are opposed around the world by the Soviet Union’? Seems like a very complicated way of saying Soviet Union. And no, the schools I went to didn’t teach about covert global conspiracies, the likes of which John F. Kennedy was clearly warning us against here.

        • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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          12 hours ago

          With out any diligence this makes more sense and likely why they assassinated him.

          Remember folks tupac was in killed in las vagas and killer was never found.

          Brian Thompson the United Health Parasite was denied a claim to life in NYC and some how they found some rich Chad as a fall guy 🤡

          • ehpolitical@lemmy.caOP
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            12 hours ago

            Any guess as to what or who he was referring to specifically? Like, who is “they”?

            • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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              12 hours ago

              Again talking out of my ass but the oligarchs who were in charge at during that time along with the spooks who colluded to kill him.

              Speeches like these got them big mad.

              Its like the business plot, we know rich people did a thing but the government covered it up so we won’t know what actually happened.

              That the beauty of being the owner of the country. The state works for you even if you kill the president

              • ehpolitical@lemmy.caOP
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                11 hours ago

                Assuming he was telling the truth and he was right, it doesn’t sound like something that would have disappeared from the world any time soon. Which then makes me wonder if what he was referring to has anything to do with what’s happening today, cause there does seem to be a striking resemblance if we compare it to his description…?

        • ehpolitical@lemmy.caOP
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          11 hours ago

          He makes reference to it, but also speaks of some kind of opposition from “around the world” that was working on “expanding its sphere of influence”. He also described this thing as operating in secret, not out in the open. Was Russia operating secretly? (I don’t know much about the Cold War.)

          • Em Adespoton@lemmy.ca
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            11 hours ago

            For those of us who lived through it, what he said was blatantly obvious at the time.

            • ehpolitical@lemmy.caOP
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              11 hours ago

              Makes sense, I was too young to remember most of it. Still, does his description not strike you as resembling what we see happening in the U.S. today?

              • Em Adespoton@lemmy.ca
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                4 hours ago

                I disagreed with it at the time and do again now… there’s no grand conspiracy; people are just depressingly predictable in how they respond to economic and cultural pressures. Some people recognize the trends and attempt to ride them or even control them (or stop them), but with a few notable exceptions, history tends to just roll on regardless — which can look to some as if there must be some cabal of puppet masters calling the shots.

                • ehpolitical@lemmy.caOP
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                  29 minutes ago

                  Sorry, do you mean you disagreed with what JFK was saying, that you didn’t believe him?

          • diphthong@lemmy.world
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            11 hours ago

            Yes they were operating in secret. There are many examples of their infiltration, such as the Cambridge Five.

    • Riddick3001@lemmy.world
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      11 hours ago

      Who are “they”?

      Russian and Chinese communism

      Yes, both have been forms of authorities rules.

      And in light of OP’s question. To me “they” are all the authoritarians; both the extreme left and right winged.

    • RowRowRowYourBot
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      9 hours ago

      He was talking about worldwide communism. This was during the Cold War and no one would even think America was an oligarchy at the time. The audience knew it was the Soviets he was talking about primarily.