Mr. Hannity: "Liberals," including US Catholic bishops, reproachfully stirred up millions of people to join nuclear freeze demonstrations in the early 1980s. (p. 76)

My response: Some brief background on this issue might help clarify the discussion. Early in the Cold War, American administrations pursued a strategic, offensive-defense security doctrine known as Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). The idea was for the US to maintain "strategic parity" with the Soviet Union --that is, a balance among number, power, sophistication and readiness of atomic bombs such that neither country would dare to start a nuclear war against the other thanks to fear of equally destructive retaliation by the adversary. Except for a temporary challenge during President John F. Kennedy's administration, which began courageously downsizing America's nuclear arsenal, the MAD doctrine more or less continued to guide American nuclear policy through containment to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) of the 1970s, which aimed to mutually reduce US and Soviet nuclear forces. The acronym of MAD was quite appropriate; this delicate policy was truly insane, as it could not be continued for long without leading eventually to a global nuclear disaster.

Today, Britain's Times Online reports that six Arab states - Morroco, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, UAE, and Saudi Arabia - have announced plans to establish their own nuclear programs.

All want to build civilian nuclear energy programmes, as they are permitted to under international law. But the sudden rush to nuclear power has raised suspicions that the real intention is to acquire nuclear technology which could be used for the first Arab atomic bomb. (Times Online, 11/4)

Importantly, this news comes one day after the New York Times reported that administration officials had posted documents, allegedly captured in Iraq, that included information describing how to build a nuclear bomb. The documents were posted over the objections of intelligence chief John Negroponte. A week after the International Atomic Energy Agency says it privately protested the website's disclosures, U.S. officials finally took down the documents - a day before the New York Times published its story.

sure, why not... the war without end - the war on terror - isn't doing much for george's poll numbers and certainly iraq isn't helping him out... let's start banging the same drums we heard prior to shock and awe and see if we can't stir up some action...

   In his sharpest comments to date on the Iranian nuclear crisis, President Bush warned Friday that Iran is seeking to produce nuclear weapons and intends to use them to destroy Israel.

This is not about conspiracy theories, assassinations or JFK's death.  This is about his life---in particular, two days in his last year of life that I remember as the high points of his presidency, especially in terms of the future---our future, and beyond.

He is remembered by a single soundbite from his elegant Inaugural (that gets ever briefer each time---an entire generation may now believe that all he said was two words, "Ask not.") Historians may rightly point to the Berlin crisis in 1961 and especially the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

But on this anniversary of his death, I want to highlight two consecutive days in June 1963.  They stand out on this day in particular because it seems to me, if somehow JFK had learned he had one year to live, he would have done pretty much what he did throughout 1963, and these two summer days would be the summer of his life and legacy.