Please, Mr. President, not another Cold War The Boston Globe Tuesday, June 19, 2007 President John F. Kennedy overstated his case in his inaugural address in 1961, when he said: "We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty." President George W. Bush made the same mistake last week when he said: "The evil and hatred that inspired the death of tens of millions of people in the 20th century is still at work in the world. We saw its face on September the 11th, 2001." Bush, dedicating the Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington, said 100 million people died because of that ideology. Nevertheless, some of those deaths were caused by American overreaction to its conflict with the Soviet Union, the focus of Kennedy's Cold War rhetoric in his 1961 address. By the time Kennedy became president, the United States had created a nuclear arsenal, overthrown governments in Guatemala and Iran, refused to accept a settlement of the Vietnam conflict, and embarked on a domestic witch hunt against supposed Communist sympathizers. Under Kennedy the United States entangled itself further in Vietnam. All this was done to thwart a Soviet threat that in hindsight was neutralized by maintaining a strong NATO alliance in Europe. After Sept. 11, Bush replicated the excesses of the Cold War when he established a prison outside the law at Guantánamo Bay, circumscribed domestic civil liberties, encouraged the use of torture abroad, and alienated long-time allies by insisting on invading Iraq without their support. "Like the Communists, the followers of violent Islamic radicalism are doomed to fail," Bush said. He is right, but why strengthen their cause by abusing human rights and embarking on a divisive military intervention, much like those in the Cold War? Among the victims of Communism Bush mentioned last week were the millions slaughtered by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. They might not have come to power had the Vietnam War not destabilized Indochina. Bush cites history, but hasn't learned from it. Kennedy talked tough at first, but his handling of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 was a masterful blend of threats, military actions, and concessions. In 1963, he negotiated the first treaty to limit nuclear weapons testing. The day before he left for Dallas, where he would be assassinated, he told an aide: "I want you to organize an in-depth study of every possible option we've got in Vietnam, including how to get out of there." Bush seems too inflexible to abandon Cold War mimicry. His successor will need to learn from the seasoned Kennedy, who in 1963 addressed America's adversaries as fellow human beings with whom he could reason. "Confident and unafraid," he said at American University, "we labor on ... toward a strategy of peace."