[icon color=»Accent-Color» size=»regular» image=»steadysets-icon-chat»] Contexto
La campaña de 1956 estuvo marcada por el favoritismo del Presidente Eisenhower desde un comienzo. El primer mandato había sido tranquilo y sin sobresaltos. El único elemento perturbador fue el ataque al corazón sufrido por el mandatario y del cual, según sus médicos, se encontraba totalmente recuperado. Dentro de los logros de la administración estaba la de haber terminado el conflicto de Korea sin mayor traumatismo para el honor de las trapas norteamericanas. En los días finales de la campaña presidencial manejó dos hechos con tranquilidad: la invasión de Hungría por parte de la Unión Soviética y el ataque a Egipto por parte de fuerzas británicas, Francesas e Israelíes. Eisenhower mantuvo a Norte América por fuera de ambas contiendas lo que se tradujo en apoyo ciudadano. El Presidente no tenia porque mostrar su mano dura pues tenia la percepción de ser el general de la segunda guerra mundial, quizás si hubiera sido un civil habría que mostrar su decisión militar efectiva. Stevenson, por su parte, preconizaba la suspensión de las pruebas atómicas y la terminación del servicio militar obligatorio. El spot que vemos tiene el siguiente guión en ingles: NARRADOR: A Stevenson-Kefauver Campaign Committee presentation: Peace is non-partisan. Adlai E. Stevenson and Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts discuss our most vital problem. STEVENSON: I think that’s right, I think obviously that the major issue in this campaign and the major concern of the whole world is the subject of war and peace. And clearly everyone, whatever his politics, agrees that peace is, must be the goal of America and of our generation. So the point, Jack, is not ends – we’re all in favor of the same ends, which are peace. The real point is the means of getting there. KENNEDY: Yes, Governor, I think that obviously with the development of atomic and hydrogen weapons that war as a successful means of prosecuting policy has been eliminated. So that therefore, the central problem of all of us is to develop policies which will protect the security of the country without war, and which will check the advance of the Communists. STEVENSON: There are two great factors at work at the same time. One of them of course is Communism as you have indicated — the growth, the spread of Communism all over the face of the earth. And the other is the revolution of the newly independent people. Many people forget, I’m afraid, that in a matter of a few years more than half the human race has attained political independence for the first time in hundreds of years. And this would go on whether there was any Communist problem at all. KENNEDY: I think, Governor, that’s demonstrated by the three severe crises, which the United States was involved in: Cypress, Suez, and North Africa do not directly involve Communism but involve the desire of these people to be independent. And unfortunately they regard the United States as the enemy of that effort and not its friend. STEVENSON: Yes, and of course Communism always exploits these discontents and makes the most of it and turns them against us. What emerges in my mind perhaps more significantly than anything else is that these underdeveloped countries are going to develop. They’re going to industrialize, they’re going to have more of the good things in life, they’re going to improve their standard of living one way or another. They’re either going to do it our way, the free way, by consent of their people, or they’re going to do it the Soviet way, the Communist way, by involuntary methods, by forced labor, forced savings, and so on. The important thing, it seems to me, Jack, is to persuade these people that they may preserve their independence, that they can keep free too, the way we have been. But to do that we’re going to have to help them. KENNEDY: And I think that there would be nothing more important than you could do as President is to show that the United States speaks with its traditional voice and puts out its hand of friendship to all these people. STEVENSON: And after all, you don’t stop ideas at boundaries, and you don’t stop them with bullets, and basically this is a competition for people’s allegiance because at heart we have all the advantage. Because we are on the side of freedom and individual liberty. We must exploit this advantage. We must make people, persuade them that we have their welfare, their improvement at heart too. KENNEDY: This basic problem of maintaining the peace and holding our security seems to me has three elements — first, to maintain our traditional allies, the friendship of our traditional allies in Western Europe; secondly, to weaken the hold that the Soviet Union has on its satellite countries; and thirdly, to win as we’ve already discussed the friendship of these people now emerging. STEVENSON: And that is the basic issue – the reassertion of American leadership. The annunciation of the pursuit of a coherent policy which commands the confidence of all of our friends in the world, and there are many. I think that is the first concern of any President of the United States, that it must be. If eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, it is also the price of peace, until that happy day that we can all look forward and pray for, when we can live in peace and security, when our sons will not have to fight again to preserve the independence of the United States. NARRADOR: We need a new leadership for a new America. Vote for Adlai E. Stevenson and Estes Kefauver..