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Today is the 50th anniversary of assassination of US President John F. Kennedy. Though the 35th US President never visited Pakistan, his wife did. The walls of the US consul general's residence in Karachi are perhaps still adorned with at least one large portrait of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy.

Riding a wave of popularity following his "historic" tour of Europe, this Democratic President, who faced a number of foreign crises, specially in Cuba and Berlin, cut a nuclear test ban pact (the Limited Test Ban Treaty) with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev only 10 days after his emissary W. A. Harriman went to Moscow. This achievement of JFK, Khrushchev and British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, however, gave birth to a profound question in relation to the effectiveness of treaty design to produce desired results. Robert Dallek, the author of An Unfinished Life (a biography of JFK), asks: "[D]id the treaty inhibit proliferation and slow the arms race?" His answers is: "[C]learly not." According to Dallek, "[T]he agreement did not deter China, France, India, Israel, or Pakistan from developing nuclear weapons. Nor did it prevent the building of more additional and more devastating nuclear bombs and delivery systems. Yet Kennedy, Macmillan, and Khrushchev took great and understandable satisfaction from the treaty".

Dallek further argues, "[T]he agreement, as millions of people appreciated, marked a pause in Cold War tensions that, in the early sixties, seemed to make a global conflict all too likely." In the context of South Asia, JFK is known as one of the best friends India ever had; after all, New Delhi owed a lot to him as he provided it with unstinted support in its war against `Communist China'. Earlier, a test ban pact had provided a Stalin-basher Khrushchev with a valuable opportunity to focus on what the latter considered an emerging threat from China. His assassination, however, led to a serious deterioration in the US-India ties as President Richard Nixon, who succeeded Kennedy's successor Lyndon B. Johnson (also a Democrat), sought to establish close military and economic ties with Pakistan in the early 1970s for Islamabad's highly valuable role in arranging Henry Kissinger's secret trip to China ahead of any US President's visit to the former Middle Kingdom, although it is still a matter of great debate that Pakistan quit both South-East Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO) and Central Treaty Organisation (CENTO) in response to US' lack of military co-operation that began with the 1965 Indo-Pak War to the secession of the then East Pakistan in 1971 which was clearly aided and executed by India.

It was during the 1970s that the US-India ties continued to nosedive till the election of Democrat President Jimmy Carter in 1979. That Republican Presidents Nixon, his successor Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan, who succeeded Carter, shared antipathy with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi from the late sixties to her assassination in 1984 was a fact that had found its best expression in one of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) founders' clear tilt towards the then Soviet Union.

The occasion of JFK's 50th anniversary of assassination also brings to one's mind, among other things, the introduction of televised Presidential debates in the history of the world. The first televised Presidential debate on Sept 26, 1960 was said to have been watched by 65 to 70 million viewers. This televised debate worked wonders for Kennedy's electoral prospects as it resulted in eliminating Richard Nixon's lead over Kennedy.

It was during one of those Presidential debates that any top US leader conceded the profoundly growing edge of the Soviet Union in space sciences in particular. Kennedy scored clear points by making an interesting comparison between the achievements and spending of the two Cold War rivals-the US and the Soviet Union-in the spheres of science and technology, underscoring the need for increased US spending and attention on these areas.

Mary Ferrell Foundation, which is dedicated to the cause of preserving US legacy, has plausibly argued, "[T]he Kennedy-Nixon debates ushered in a new relationship between the government and media, and an immediacy and connection between politicians and the general public. Kennedy's youth and style, his ease with the media, and his attractive wife Jackie, all fed this transition in politics."

Last but not least, televised debates added a new dimension to Pakistan's political scene with the arrival of satellite television in the country. TV talk shows presenting comments and analyses on day-to-day developments in the 2002, 2008 and 2013 general elections introduced viewers to diverse thoughts and viewpoints amid an ambience characterised by largely unshackled freedom of expression.

The writer is newspaper's News Editor and Member of the American Economic Association (AEA)

Copyright Business Recorder, 2013


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