Preface

by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, July 15, 2024

The world is still in a state of shock. The only reason the July 13 assassination attempt on Donald Trump failed, was because of the extremely accidental movement of his head by a fraction of an inch, so that his ear, and not his eye, was hit. Had that movement not occurred, the shot could have been Sarajevo 2.0 for throwing the U.S. and subsequently the world into chaos, followed by a global nuclear war.

The next three and a half months will be a period of maximum danger, escalation of military conflict around Ukraine and Southwest Asia, increasing ungovernability in France and possibly other countries, increasing financial turbulence, and above all the escalating danger of a direct military confrontation between ‘Global NATO’ and Russia and China.

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary started an exploratory mission to Kyiv, Moscow and Beijing, and found that the road to diplomacy does exist. We therefore call on Elder Statesmen, religious leaders, former diplomats and elected officials, retired military and other civilian leaders—from all nations—to step forward and create a Council of Reason to explore the potential for a new international security and development architecture, which can take into account the interests of every single country on the planet.

Petition 

July 4, 2024—We, the undersigned, welcome the renewed peace initiative of the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, as currently presented in his speech at the Russian Foreign Ministry on June 14, 2024. We urge the commencement of a diplomatic process forthwith, not withstanding the present state of hostilities between NATO/Ukraine and Russia. 

Time is of the essence. Any further escalation heightens the danger that the present conflagration will escalate to the level of region-wide war, or even thermonuclear confrontation, and that far more quickly than might be imagined. To ensure that this does not happen, we should follow this advice: “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate. Let both sides explore what problems unite us, instead of belaboring those problems which divide us.” 

Those words, of American President John F. Kennedy, were echoed by his adversary, Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev, in a letter he wrote to JFK:”I have participated in two world wars, and know that war only ends when it has carved its way across cities and villages, bringing death and destruction in its wake.” That has been the unnecessary toll in this war, a war that could have concluded over two years ago, by the end of March, 2022. Instead, through the clearly-documented intervention of the UK’s Boris Johnson and NATO, the already-negotiated proposal for peace between Russia and Ukraine was scuttled. Hundreds of thousands of lives were unnecessarily sacrificed as a result. 

The Putin June 14, 2024 proposal is the world’s opportunity to “get back on track.” It could prove the first step in creating a new international strategic architecture, to replace the now-dead post-1989/91 “unipolar” construct. This June 14 peace initiative is a successor to a series of failed, sabotaged, but persistent peace attempts, as openly documented to the world in the conclusion and attempted implementation of Minsk-2 in 2015, as well as in the willingness to negotiate even after the commencement of Russia’s Special Military Operation, February 24, 2022. It was seen in the March, 2022 treaty that was initialed by both Russian and Ukrainian official representatives, but never adopted, because of Boris Johnson’s imperial intervention.

We here declare, emphatically, that the goal of dismembering Russia by using the Ukraine conflict as a springboard for regime change there, is clearly a madman’s enterprise in the era of thermonuclear weapons. In view of the suffering caused by war and aggression, and the danger of this conflict escalating into a Third World War, broad support for this initiative is an important expression of the will of all rational people to survive.

The war-mongering, and profit and revenge-driven calls for Russia to be defeated, are based on the mistaken assumption that the theater of war—including nuclear war—can be limited. This was not, however, the case in either the First or Second World Wars. Through today’s military capabilities, which can reach any target in the world in the shortest possible time, such a “limited war” assumption is evidence of a huge misjudgment of the reality of our time. Those calling for war, and against negotiations, mistakenly believe that they might have a safe chance of survival. In thermonuclear war, there is no hiding place.

To repeat: We urge the commencement of a diplomatic process forthwith, not withstanding the present state of war between NATO/Ukraine and Russia. To this end, we urge the Ukraine Rada to rescind the order preventing direct negotiations with Russia. We fully support the construction of a new security architecture for Europe and indeed for the world. We urge the warring parties – and those in supporting roles – to come together in good faith to negotiate a lasting peace based upon mutually beneficial economic relationships among the countries involved.

    Specifically, we recommend the following steps: 

    First, to begin initial discussions, based upon the Russian peace proposal of June 14, 2024. 

    Second, based on progress in those initial discussions, to seek the earliest possible declaration of an agreed upon ceasefire in the conflict. 

    Third, once an agreed-upon ceasefire’s terms have been set to paper, reinforce and strengthen trust through a new economic architecture, including forces from outside of the conflict that have advanced various proposals for advancing peace. 

We must, with regard to these negotiations, not only remember, but re-commit to the lessons of the Peace of Westphalia that ended the Thirty Years War: a lasting peace requires that one take into account “the interest of the other, ” and all others, for that matter. “No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.” That was the conviction of Kennedy and Khrushchev, who as leaders, faced a moment when they, together, might have destroyed all human life, perhaps forever. They negotiated, and humanity prevailed. We stand, perhaps not yet in, but very close to that very same place now. We must not fail.

Affiliation for identification purposes only

• Col. (ret.) Lawrence B. Wilkerson, Former Special Assistant to the U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Former Chief of Staff to the U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell
• Scott Ritter, former U.N. weapons inspector; former U.S. Marine intelligence officer
• Col. (ret.) Richard H. Black, former head, Criminal Law Division at the Pentagon; former Virginia State Senator and Delegate
• J. Kirk Wiebe, Member, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS); former senior analyst, National Security Agency.
• Dr. Clifford Kiracofe, Former Senior Staff Member, U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations; President, Washington Institute for Peace and Development
• E. Martin Schotz, MD, Member, JFK Peace Speech Committee
• Muhammad Salim Akhtar, National Director, American Muslim Alliance
• Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Founder, Schiller Institute
• Joachim Bonatz, Vice President, East German Board of Trustees of Associations (OKV—Ostdeutsches Kuratorium von Verbaenden e.V.), Berlin
• Graham Fuller, Former CIA official, Afghanistan station chief; former Vice-Chair, long-term forecasting, National Intelligence Council; author
• Francis A. Boyle, Professor of International Law, University of Illinois Law School
• George Koo, Chairman, Burlingame Foundation; retired business consultant, U.S.-China relations
• Coleen Rowley, Retired FBI agent and whistleblower; member, VIPS (Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity)
• Steven Starr, Professor, University of Missouri; expert on dangers of nuclear war
• Dr. James Cobey, MD, Founder of Health Volunteers Overseas; member, International Committee to Ban Landmines (ICBLM), which received the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize; Executive Board member, Voices from the Holy Land
• Harry Bury, International peace activist and Catholic priest; a coordinator of Twin Cities Nonviolent.