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hired a drama coach to improve his speaking, and biographer Richard Reeves related his practice sessions: “Home alone in Washington, he would put on a silk bathrobe, pour himself a brandy, light up a cigar, and speak along with records of Winston Churchill’s greatest speeches.” 4 Kennedy himself would soon mobilize language in the battle for peace.
    Kennedy had an important weapon, his own verbal Excalibur, a linguistic sword of unparalleled strength and balance, able to cut to the core of an issue with remarkable insight and eloquence. This was Ted Sorensen, trusted counselor, speechwriter, adviser, and according to most, Kennedy’s intellectual alter ego. As Kennedy’s top national security adviser, McGeorge Bundy, noted, “There just is no exaggerating [Sorensen’s] value and his closeness to the President … he had a deep sense of the President’s own values and purpose.” 5 Sorensen was Kennedy’s chief speechwriter throughout his eight Senate years. He helped Kennedy assemble and write
Profiles in Courage
. He was Kennedy’s wordsmith throughout the 1960 campaign and in the White House. And he was on hand as adviser, scribe, and speechwriter for every major challenge that Kennedy confronted, drafting the key documents that ended the Cuban Missile Crisis and those that would lead the final public campaign for peace.

    Kennedy with Ted Sorensen.
    Sorensen embodied virtues and values ideally suited for the cause of peace. He was a midwesterner, a son of Nebraska, with its great tradition of anti-war sentiment. At Sorensen’s urging, Kennedy featured Senator George Norris’s principled and brave opposition to the U.S. entry into World War I in
Profiles in Courage
. Sorensen was the son of a Jewish mother and Unitarian father—a“Jewnitarian,” as Sorensen joked in his memoirs. Both faiths shared the belief, in Sorensen’s words, that “human beings represent the one true God here on Earth, and that good works by man are sanctifying God’s name.” 6 We can hear echoes of that faith in the closing words of Kennedy’s inaugural address: “With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.”
    Kennedy and Sorensen teamed up on the great Peace Speech and the others that followed later that summer. While we don’t know all of the sources that they drew upon, they would likely have reviewed several important speeches on peace given since the end of World War II, including Churchill’s “Sinews of Peace,” delivered at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, in March 1946, and three by Eisenhower: “Chance for Peace,” delivered in April 1953, the month following Stalin’s death; the “Atoms for Peace” speech at the UN in December 1953; and his farewell address, given three days before the end of his presidency in January 1961. As for Kennedy’s own previous speeches, two had set the stage for the peace initiative: the inaugural address, of course, and also his first speech to the UN General Assembly in September 1961.
    One final and enormous rhetorical influence arrived just before Kennedy’s speech. It came not as a speech, but as a written message from the beloved Pope John XXIII, in his dying days. The pope had sent a message of peace during the darkest days of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Khrushchev had expressed his personal gratitude to the pope for that message. That in turn encouraged the pope to devote his final days to the encyclical
Pacem in Terris
(Peace on Earth), which moved the global public, particularly the pope’s message that “any disputes which may arise between nations must be resolved by negotiation and agreement, and not by recourse to arms.” 7 The words of that inspiring encyclical, issuedon April 11, 1963, just two months before Kennedy’s Peace Speech, likely informed Kennedy’s