IN SEARCH OF PEACE

foreign foreign [Music] Americans think about our relations with the rest of the world here in the mid-1960s it's important for us to recall two fundamental changes that have occurred in the last few decades the first day transformation of the position of the United States in world affairs and secondly a most dramatic change in the very shape of the world about us shortly after World War II we found ourselves faced with a number of crises arising out of the conflict between the Communist world and the Free World [Applause] Mr Stalin tried to keep his troops in Iran in 1945 and 46. gorillas descended upon Greece from Bulgarian Yugoslavia there was a blockade of Berlin Mass divisions moved across the 30th parallel into South Korea we found ourselves in Desperate Cuban Missile Crisis one simple question do you ambassadors are in deny that the USSR has placed and is placing medium and intermediate range missiles and sites in Cuba yes or no don't wait for the translation yes or no we've had a number of crises in which the Communist world has resorted to force in an effort to impose their will upon others not through ballot boxes not through elections but by the use of force we've had a series of aggressions in Southeast Asia [Music] it has been necessary for the United States and others to meet these aggressions promptly and with firmness and this has been based upon the understanding that if aggression is allowed to proceed it feeds upon itself and the one only postpones to an even greater catastrophe the difficulty of dealing with an aggression which has gained momentum but in using force on occasion to meet aggression it's worth reminding ourselves we've done so with prudence because we just cannot let the world situation move down a slippery slope into General War and so the combination of firmness and Prudence has been a characteristic of our post-war of this post-war period and the reason for both is that we believe that both are necessary to build a piece [Music] let me say that a first and Central objective of our foreign policy is the safety of our own nation that is a primary responsibility for government one of the reasons why there is close cooperation between the state department and the Department of Defense is it the safety of our country as the primary object of foreign policy and the primary responsibility of the Department of Defense is to support American foreign policy as our policy of containment reinforced by our military dispositions around the world has as this policy has made itself felt the Communist world has moved to a basically different strategy when they knew that the threat of direct aggression or the possibility of direct aggression was not going to be permitted to pay off they moved to a technique of subversive Insurgency they moved to attacking governments from within and as they've changed their tactics we moved to counter this threat perhaps one of the most interesting examples of our efforts in this connection is the case of Thailand foreign it's a country which has been working to move into a more modern stance in the world a country which is desirous of developing itself it's also a country which has a very realistic view of the threat from the north from the Communists if you look at a map you'll find that that area of Thailand borders on Laos and therefore is uh related to our position in Vietnam we have worked with the ties to improve their total internal security situation through the development of better Communications better transportation through having their government uh represented in the Villages at the corners of the country [Music] we have provided them with a type of military assistance which will permit them to detect subversion and to react and control subversion I think that most people remember that the Chinese came out in the open and said that they regarded Thailand as a Target that they were going to move to subvert Thailand in fact we did not need to be told this we had seen the indicators and knew that this was going to be the pattern of Chinese aggression in the area and we found the ties not only willing to to help themselves but very determined to help themselves in welcoming our assistant foreign [Music] [Applause] these borders and in this area of the world are very easy to penetrate the Chinese operatives and the uh the North Vietnamese operatives who moved down through Laos uh are capable of moving either into Vietnam or moving towards Thailand and they are active they are probing this is an active front in a sense this is uh a real effort at penetration by the Communists which we and the thailanders are moving to meet now this is the nature of the threat that we have to deal with today we have to help these people maintain their independence we have to help them in the techniques that are required or necessary so that their populations feel that their Central governments are concerned and are doing something about them we are moving in effect to make it equally unprofitable to try and subvert countries secondly I would say that um we must work together with the other industrialized countries of the world Western Europe Japan in order to work together to support a growing World economy and to meet the obligations of the industrialized countries to assist the less developed countries in their necessary progress our immediate task in the post-war period of course was to help the industrialized countries of Western Europe recover which we did through the Marshall Plan and attain a very high level of of uh prosperity then to organize the defense of the western world through NATO then to set up the instruments through which we can work together in maintaining the prosperity of the industrialized world because the industrialized nations are all highly interdependent on one another this we have done through the organization for economic cooperation and development through the monetary Fund in a variety of ways today we we deal with our common monetary problems as common problems through consultation through a very great degree of common effort we deal with our trade problems through the gap which is an organization created for this purpose and the organization for economic cooperation and development we're moving to free world trade as much as possible from restrictions of tariffs and other kinds of impediments to the free flow of goods in order so we can all enjoy a higher prosperity Western Europe has moved toward economic cooperation through the common market the European economic community and we have worked in the Atlantic world to try to bring about a a much higher level of common prosperity and with Japan which has become a member of the organization for economic cooperation and development but we still have a great deal of work to do in in creating a partnership in which the industrialized countries the world can work together on these big common tasks the tasks of helping the less developed Nations these new nations that have come into being Nations that are created out of the Old Colonial systems that we knew Pope in the pre-war period and this we've been endeavoring to do in a variety of different ways and I think with considerable success foreign [Music] we have to work together if we're going to be able to to fulfill the fantastically great responsibilities which exist for free Nations that are also Rich Nations that are industrialized nations in a world where free nations are menaced by the power of a competing system a totalitarian system a communist system third we have to think a great deal about all of the vast areas of the world of where new nations have arrived on the scene or where older Nations have not yet moved into the technical and scientific age in which we ourselves now living most of these new countries have achieved the political purposes of Independence but these new governments now face what has come to be called the revolution of rising expectations they have a job to do for their own people and that is not something which they can all do for themselves they need outside help we're in a position to help in a number of ways the foreign aid efforts that we make both through economic assistance and through military assistance are intended to help these countries sustain and Advance their own freedom and their own economic welfare the ornate programs by their nature are limited instruments we can only do so much the main part of the job has to be done by these countries themselves but where they want to advance their own freedom and Welfare we can help a lot we are concentrating our foreign aid funds in those places we're not putting any money into a number of countries where the leadership of the country is not seriously interested in advancing the welfare of their people we are putting lots of resources into a small number of countries where the conditions are such the leadership is such the development program is such that our resources will have multiplied results the people of those areas will be able to strengthen their own freedom and their own welfare significantly Nigeria is a almost a classic case they have a long way to go to establish a democratic political system in the full sense of the word they have uh very uh severe difficulties and problems to overcome in the education field in the health field in agriculture in industry in transport we can help with those things and we are doing so we have I suppose one of the largest programs we have anywhere in the world to assist in the establishment of improved educational facilities in Nigeria we are for example working to establish a good teacher training College in Nigeria I do feel that to provide the materials by the students will be very very expensive this is true but you are providing it in your own field if you provide them individually all of these things that you do produce and provide in an audio visuals class you may take with you and keep and any good teacher will do this if I were asking you as an English major say to do something in the area of geography this would be one thing but you are all going out as teachers or you would not be here this will turn out many teachers over the years to come they will be better teachers than Nigeria's had prior to now and the effect of that program will be multiplied many times over in the years to come one of the great achievements of course was the Improvement of upholstery growing in eastern Nigeria where one of our technicians a man from Mississippi worked effectively for several years he's now moved to another country but he left behind a strong system of of poultry growing and marketing based on co-ops and and improved stock and the and the farmers Having learned how to manage poultry production and sale effectively in the in Nigerian fishing we've had American experts who have shown the Nigerian fishermen how to put inboard Motors into their native canoes which has greatly expanded the range of their ability to go out and get the fish in the speed with which they can bring them back to Market and so on we've helped them find shrimp and to learn how to build trawlers to go get the shrimp this is not only a very attractive addition to the diet in Nigeria but also has a good export Market World Market so that can help Nigeria earn more foreign exchange our foreign assistance programs contribute directly to the cause of Peace in the world because they enable the people of Asia and Africa and Latin America to move toward what what they want to move toward namely economic and social progress and political democracy it is enormously in the interest of ourselves and of world peace that we help them achieve the change that they want and demand through peaceful Evolution through Democratic processes and we are so engaged and we are being successful in many parts of the world in doing just that then I would say that we are critically interested in building a decent world order that means uh International cooperation through institutions such as the United Nations Regional agencies of All Sorts in order to recognize that no country no citizen can live alone anymore in other words uh the world has become so small and our daily lives have become so intermingled with the data lives of other peoples that International cooperation is simply a sheer necessity of the most Elementary Facts of Life you know we're a big country we're a very strong country but we can't do the job alone and the U.N it seems to me offers us an opportunity in concert with other nations of the world to play a significant peacekeeping role I think I would stress in particular that the UN has been most successful in its history in the peacekeeping field itself we have a United Nations force in Cyprus very small and a modest one that's helping to keep the peace there we've had a United Nations emergency force and a true supervisory organization that is helping to keep the peace between the Arabs and Israel now I think that in this respect this has served our own national interests because these are areas where each one of them contain the seeds of General War and the Very fact that through some kind of a United Nations presence the U.N has been able to at least stabilize the situation maintain a minimal ceasefire means that there is some hope in many of these very difficult problems for minimal conditions to be promoted so they can actually be moved from the battlefield to the conference table I think Cyprus really is classic in this regard the United Nations Force I believe prevented a much more serious outbreak which would have involved two of our closest allies turkey and Greece in a much more direct way and might very well have drawn in the major Powers over a basic conflict of interest in the Eastern Mediterranean the United Nations provides us as it does many other countries with the opportunity to mobilize support not only for our own policy but in trying to localize these difficult situations to try to apply the processes of Pacific settlement and to improve conditions in the world what I'm trying to suggest is that our objective really is to try to achieve the kind of a world that the charter of the United Nations and visages and then I would say that we must never suppose that enmity is permanent and that we can afford to live in a condition of total enmity with the Communist world it is simply too late in history for us to accept that view and therefore we must probe the possibilities of improving our relations with the Communist world now this is uh because uh among other things uh we must not have a third world war there won't be enough left after that war to draw the lessons from it and start over again as we try to do after World War II with the United Nations and so in small things and enlarge we must continue to probe for the possibilities of agreement rather than disagreement to try to discover and build upon elements of common interest between ourselves and the Communist world see whether we can resolve some of these great crises which have plagued Us in this post-war period Europe itself became an attractive and powerful force in Eastern Europe and gradually as Eastern Europeans have looked at their Destiny it's been more and more apparent that dynamism that the methods for running a modern society efficiently in ways that widen and maximize the opportunities for the individual are coming not from Moscow and the techniques of communism they're coming from the Free World uh Western Europe has been notably impressive to them because of their long ties to Western Europe but the Vitality of the American economy in our society and the Vitality of free societies elsewhere has been another indirect factor in this change in Eastern Europe Romania is an interesting illustration of one aspect of this process as early as 1961 the Romanian government declared firmly that it was going to de-russianize its uh life from what it regarded is inappropriate elements that it is acquired uh notably in the Stalin period and this changed the character of everything from school books to the signs in the streets I'm pleased with the the fact of our country being an independent country being uh very having her own line of development of her own ideas of course I'm my opinion is that the country should be should have relations with all countries we agree with the principles of cooperation of peaceful coexistence of mutual advantage in the relations with the other countries we have reacted to their impulse to dilute the hold over their life from Moscow and to widen their normal connections with Western Europe the United States and the world and one can see in other countries as well this uh very precise attempt to reassert the continuity of their life with their long historical past now directly what we have done is to try to make it possible four nations in Eastern Europe with communist regimes who wish to express their nationality their continuity with the Humane strands of Western culture which we share we've made it possible for them to associate themselves in trade in cultural relations in visits of their young administrators and teachers we do have an interest in seeing those Nations increasingly assert their independence and their nationality and their continuity with their past so that they begin to form a more normal and uh stable part of the world with much more natural and viable connections with Europe and the world aside from the drawing of them into the world community in an orderly and constructive way we do face the great unsolved issues of the Cold War itself which Center technically around two massive questions one the settlement of the German question that is in Germany reunified on the principle of self-determination reunified in ways which will be a threat neither to the east nor to the West which means a European security arrangement related to that objective is the great objective of bringing the arms race under control which centers on the question of whether the Soviet Union and when the Soviet Union is prepared to accept effective International inspection until until the day in which these fundamental issues of the Cold War uh are capable of settlement we shall carry forward seeking in limited areas agreements which Advance our interests and those of the Free World and Advance also in their judgment their own interests I think we should keep two things in mind to start with the first is that what we think about problems in other parts of the world what we do about them makes an enormous difference our strength and our wealth and our influence decides that this is just so indeed I suppose that influence on American foreign policy is a major object of almost every foreign office in the world because what we do and think make a great deal of difference but having said that I think it's important for us to remember that we're dealing with a world which we can influence but cannot control other nations in the world don't snap there feels and salute when we speak the world looks quite different from say Beirut or Rangoon than it does from Washington we're dealing with 120 Nations and they have their own interests they live in their own parts of the world their own aspirations and so we must think of our relation to the rest of the world as one of cooperation influence persuasion rather than one of command now we have great power but actually the greatest power we have is not in our military strength which is almost unbelievable but in the simple and decent purposes of the American people these are the things which guide our policy these are the things which Infuse the spirit of our foreign policy and help to explain to other people around the world what it is we as an American people are all about but there are burdens to be born in dealing with the rest of the world we have commitments to a considerable number of nations for Mutual defense we must meet those commitments if unhappily or tragically aggression appears on the scene we must bear the burdens of Defense we must bear the burdens of foreign aid for we must also bear the burden of patience of understanding in order to get on with this job of building a peace because almost every other problem is minor compared to the overriding and overwhelming problem of the world in which men can in fact destroy themselves and so it's that uh patience and determination and calm and Readiness to do what is required which is the essence of our relations with the rest of the world in this mid-60 period [Music] thank you [Music]