The mainstream media is up in arms over Trump's actions. Multiply that reaction by about 1,000 and you'll get a sense of what Kennedy was facing with his attempt to move America in a similar direction.

The first thing everyone should be aware of is that Russia must always be considered to be America's premier official enemy. That's because that's the principal way to justify not only the enormously large amount of taxpayer-funded largess that flows into the "defense" establishment but, more important, keeps America as a national-security state rather than have its original, founding governmental structure of a limited-government republic restored.

That's what the entire Cold War racket was all about. When the Nazis were defeated at the end of World War II, the giant military-intelligence establishment that had been formed as part of the war was not about to let go of its power. Without skipping a beat, it immediately converted the Soviet Union (i.e., Russia) from America's wartime partner and ally into America's new official enemy.

The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming! The Reds were everywhere. North Korea. Vietnam. Cuba. Hollywood. The army. The State Department. Latin America. China. Congress. Martin Luther King. The civil-rights movement. Some even claimed that President Eisenhower was an agent of the Reds.

Through it all, the minds of Americans were imbued with the notion that it was better to be dead than Red. From the first grade in the public (i.e., government) schools to which their parents were forced to send them, American children received deep indoctrination and fear of the worldwide communist conspiracy to take over the world — a conspiracy that was supposedly centered in Moscow. It was an indoctrination that would last a lifetime.

Then along comes John F. Kennedy, who came into office as pretty much a standard Cold Warrior but who then achieved one of the most remarkable breakthroughs in history. Beginning with the Bay of Pigs disaster, followed by Pentagon exhortations to launch a surprise nuclear attack on Russia, followed by Operation Northwoods, and followed by the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy came to the realization that the Cold War was one great big dangerous and deadly racket.

That's when he committed himself to bringing an end to the deep, ongoing, perpetual anti-Russia mentality with which the American people had been imbued. It was time for America to move in a different direction — one based on peaceful, friendly coexistence with Russia. That's what JFK's Peace Speech at American University was all about.