President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us of the dangers of the
Military-Industrial Complex in his Farewell Address.
Good evening, my fellow Americans.
First, I should like to express my gratitude to the radio and
television networks for the opportunities they have given me, over the
years, to bring reports and messages to our nation.
My special thanks go to them for the opportunity of addressing you this
evening.
Three days from now, after half a century in the service of our
country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in
traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is
vested in my successor.
This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell,
and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen.
Like every other citizen, I wish the new President, and all who will
labor with him, Godspeed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed
with peace and prosperity for all.
Our people expect their President and the Congress to find essential
agreement on issues of great moment, the wise resolution of which will
better shape the future of the Nation.
My own relations with the Congress, which began on a remote and tenuous
basis when, long ago, a member of the Senate appointed me to West Point,
have since ranged to the intimate during the war and immediate post-war
period, and, finally, to the mutually interdependent during these past
eight years.
In this final relationship, the Congress and the Administration have,
on most vital issues, cooperated well, to serve the Nation good rather
than mere partisanship, and so have assured that the business of the
Nation should go forward. So, my official relationship with the Congress
ends in a feeling, on my part, of gratitude that we have been able to do
so much together.
We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has
witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved
our own country. Despite these holocausts America is today the
strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world.
Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America's
leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material
progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in
the interests of world peace and human betterment.
Throughout America's adventure in free government, our basic purposes
have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement,
and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among peoples and among
nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious
people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension
or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at
home and abroad.
Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the
conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention,
absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology—global in scope,
atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method.
Unhappily the danger it poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To
meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and
transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to
carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a
prolonged and complex struggle—with liberty the stake. Only thus shall
we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward
permanent peace and human betterment.
Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or
domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that
some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution
to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our
defenses; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in
agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research—these
and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be
suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.
But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader
consideration: The need to maintain balance in and among national
programs—balance between the private and the public economy, balance
between the cost and hoped for advantages—balance between the clearly
necessary and the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential
requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the
individual; balance between actions of the moment and the national
welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of
it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.
The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their
government have, in the main, understood these truths and have responded
to them well, in the face of threat and stress. But threats, new in kind
or degree, constantly arise. Of these, I mention two only.
A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our
arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential
aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.
Our military organization today bears little relation to that known of
any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of
World War II or Korea.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no
armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and
as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk
emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to
create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to
this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the
defense establishment. We annually spend on military security alone more
than the net income of all United States corporations.
Now, this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large
arms industry is new in the American experience. The total
influence—economic, political, even spiritual—is felt in every city,
every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize
the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to
comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood
are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of
unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the
military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of
misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties
or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an
alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the
huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful
methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our
industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution
during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more
formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is
conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been
overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing
fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the
fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a
revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs
involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for
intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds
of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal
employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever
present—and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific
research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert
to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become
the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate
these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our
democratic system—ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free
society.
Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As
we peer into society's future, we—you and I, and our government—must
avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease
and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage
the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also
of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive
for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of
tomorrow.
During the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows
that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a
community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud
confederation of mutual trust and respect.
Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to
the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we
are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though
scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain
agony of the battlefield.
Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing
imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with
arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so
sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official
responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment.
As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war—as
one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization
which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years—I
wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.
Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady progress toward
our ultimate goal has been made. But, so much remains to be done. As a
private citizen, I shall never cease to do what little I can to help the
world advance along that road.
So—in this my last good night to you as your President—I thank you for
the many opportunities you have given me for public service in war and
peace. I trust that in that service you find some things worthy; as for
the rest of it, I know you will find ways to improve performance in the
future.
You and I—my fellow citizens—need to be strong in our faith that all
nations, under God, will reach the goal of peace with justice. May we be
ever unswerving in devotion to principle, confident but humble with
power, diligent in pursuit of the Nation's great goals.
To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to
America's prayerful and continuing aspiration:
We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have
their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity
shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may
experience its spiritual blessings; those who have freedom will
understand, also, its heavy responsibility; that all who are insensitive
to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty,
disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and
that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in
a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.
Now, on Friday noon I am to become a private citizen. I am proud to do
so. I look forward to it.
Thank you, and good night.
And President Kennedy addressed the United Nations urging the world, led
by the United States and the Soviet Union, to engage in a Peace Race - not
only to eliminate nuclear weapons, but also to disarm generally.
ADDRESS BEFORE THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE UNITED NATIONS, SEPTEMBER 25,
1961.
Mr. President, honored delegates, ladies and gentlemen:
We meet in an hour of grief and challenge. Dag Hammarskjold is dead.
But the United Nations lives. His tragedy is deep in our hearts, but the
task for which he died is at the top of our agenda. A noble servant of
peace is gone. But the quest for peace lies before us.
The problem is not the death of one man--the problem is the life of
this organization. It will either grow to meet the challenges of our
age, or it will be gone with the wind, without influence, without force,
without respect. Were we to let it die, to enfeeble its vigor, to
cripple its powers, we would condemn our future.
For in the development of this organization rests the only true
alternative to war--and war appeals no longer as a rational alternative.
Unconditional war can no longer lead to unconditional victory. It can no
longer serve to settle disputes. It can no longer concern the great
powers alone. For a nuclear disaster, spread by wind and water and fear,
could well engulf the great and the small, the rich and the poor, the
committed and the uncommitted alike. Mankind must put an end to war--or
war will put an end to mankind.
So let us here resolve that Dag Hammarskjold did not live, or die, in
vain. Let us call a truce to terror. Let us invoke the blessings of
peace. And as we build an international capacity to keep peace, let us
join in dismantling the national capacity to wage war.
II
This will require new strength and new roles for the United Nations.
For disarmament without checks is but a shadow--and a community without
law is but a shell. Already the United Nations has become both the
measure and the vehicle of man's most generous impulses. Already it has
provided--in the Middle East, in Asia, in Africa this year in the
Congo--a means of holding man's violence within bounds.
But the great question which confronted this body in 1945 is still
before us: whether man's cherished hopes for progress and peace are to
be destroyed by terror and disruption, whether the "foul winds of war"
can be tamed in time to free the cooling winds of reason, and whether
the pledges of our Charter are to be fulfilled or defied--pledges to
secure peace, progress, human rights and world law
In this Hall, there are not three forces, but two. One is composed of
those who are trying to build the kind of world described in Articles I
and II of the Charter. The other, seeking a far different world, would
undermine this organization in the process.
Today, of all days our dedication to the Charter must be maintained. It
must be strengthened first of all by the selection of an outstanding
civil servant to carry forward the responsibilities of the Secretary
General--a man endowed with both the wisdom and the power to make
meaningful the moral force of the world community. The late Secretary
General nurtured and sharpened the United Nations' obligation to act.
But he did not invent it. It was there in the Charter. It is still there
in the Charter.
However difficult it may be to fill Mr. Hammarskjold's place, it can
better be filled by one man rather than three. Even the three horses of
the Troika did not have three drivers, all going in different
directions. They had only one--and so must the United Nations executive.
To install a triumvirate, or any panel, or any rotating authority, in
the United Nations administrative offices would replace order with
anarchy, action with paralysis, confidence with confusion.
The Secretary General, in a very real sense, is the servant of the
General Assembly. Diminish his authority and you diminish the authority
of the only body where all nations, regardless of power, are equal and
sovereign. Until all the powerful are just, the weak will be secure only
in the strength of this Assembly.
Effective and independent executive action is not the same question as
balanced representation. In view of the enormous change in membership in
this body since its founding, the American delegation will join in any
effort for the prompt review and revision of the composition of United
Nations bodies.
But to give this organization three drivers--to permit each great power
to decide its own case, would entrench the Cold War in the headquarters
of peace. Whatever advantages such a plan may hold out to my own
country, as one of the great powers, we reject it. For we far prefer
world law, in the age of self-determination, to world war, in the age of
mass extermination.
III
Today, every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when
this planet may no longer be habitable. Every man, woman and child lives
under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads,
capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or by
madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us.
Men no longer debate whether armaments are a symptom or a cause of
tension. The mere existence of modern weapons--ten million times more
powerful than any that the world has ever seen, and only minutes away
from any target on earth--is a source of horror, and discord and
distrust. Men no longer maintain that disarmament must await the
settlement of all disputes--for disarmament must be a part of any
permanent settlement. And men may no longer pretend that the quest for
disarmament is a sign of weakness--for in a spiraling arms race, a
nation's security may well be shrinking even as its arms increase.
For fifteen years this organization has sought the reduction and
destruction of arms. Now that goal is no longer a dream--it is a
practical matter of life or death. The risks inherent in disarmament
pale in comparison to the risks inherent in an unlimited arms race.
It is in this spirit that the recent Belgrade Conference--recognizing
that this is no longer a Soviet problem or an American problem, but a
human problem--endorsed a program of "general, complete and strictly an
internationally controlled disarmament." It is in this same spirit that
we in the United States have labored this year, with a new urgency, and
with a new, now statutory agency fully endorsed by the Congress, to find
an approach to disarmament which would be so far-reaching, yet
realistic, so mutually balanced and beneficial, that it could be
accepted by every nation. And it is in this spirit that we have
presented with the agreement of the Soviet Union--under the label both
nations now accept of "general and complete disarmament"--a new
statement of newly-agreed principles for negotiation.
But we are well aware that all issues of principle are not settled, and
that principles alone are not enough. It is therefore our intention to
challenge the Soviet Union, not to an arms race, but to a peace race-
-to advance together step by step, stage by stage, until general and
complete disarmament has been achieved. We invite them now to go beyond
agreement in principle to reach agreement on actual plans.
The program to be presented to this assembly--for general and complete
disarmament under effective international control--moves to bridge the
gap between those who insist on a gradual approach and those who talk
only of the final and total achievement. It would create machinery to
keep the peace as it destroys the machinery of war. It would proceed
through balanced and safeguarded stages designed to give no state a
military advantage over another. It would place the final responsibility
for verification and control where it belongs, not with the big powers
alone, not with one's adversary or one's self, but in an international
organization within the framework of the United Nations. It would assure
that indispensable condition of disarmament--true inspection--and apply
it in stages proportionate to the stage of disarmament. It would cover
delivery systems as well as weapons. It would ultimately halt their
production as well as their testing, their transfer as well as their
possession. It would achieve under the eyes of an international
disarmament organization, a steady reduction in force, both nuclear and
conventional, until it has abolished all armies and all weapons except
those needed for internal order and a new United Nations Peace Force.
And it starts that process now, today, even as the talks begin.
In short, general and complete disarmament must no longer be a slogan,
used to resist the first steps. It is no longer to be a goal without
means of achieving it, without means of verifying its progress, without
means of keeping the peace. It is now a realistic plan, and a test--a
test of those only willing to talk and a test of those willing to act.
Such a plan would not bring a world free from conflict and greed-- but
it would bring a world free from the terrors of mass destruction. It
would not usher in the era of the super state--but it would usher in an
era in which no state could annihilate or be annihilated by another.
In 1945, this Nation proposed the Baruch Plan to internationalize the
atom before other nations even possessed the bomb or demilitarized their
troops. We proposed with our allies the Disarmament plan of 1951 while
still at war in Korea. And we make our proposals today, while building
up our defenses over Berlin, not because we are inconsistent or
insincere or intimidated, but because we know the rights of free men
will prevail--because while we are compelled against our will to rearm,
we look confidently beyond Berlin to the kind of disarmed world we all
prefer.
I therefore propose on the basis of this Plan, that disarmament
negotiations resume promptly, and continue without interruption until an
entire program for general and complete disarmament has not only been
agreed but has actually been achieved.
IV
The logical place to begin is a treaty assuring the end of nuclear
tests of all kinds, in every environment, under workable controls. The
United States and the United Kingdom have proposed such a treaty that is
both reasonable, effective and ready for signature. We are still
prepared to sign that treaty today.
We also proposed a mutual ban on atmospheric testing, without
inspection or controls, in order to save the human race from the poison
of radioactive fallout. We regret that the offer has not been accepted.
For 15 years we have sought to make the atom an instrument of peaceful
growth rather than of war. But for 15 years our concessions have been
matched by obstruction, our patience by intransigence. And the pleas of
mankind for peace have met with disregard.
Finally, as the explosions of others beclouded the skies, my country
was left with no alternative but to act in the interests of its own and
the free world's security. We cannot endanger that security by
refraining from testing while others improve their arsenals. Nor can we
endanger it by another long, uninspected ban on testing. For three years
we accepted those risks in our open society while seeking agreement on
inspection. But this year, while we were negotiating in good faith in
Geneva, others were secretly preparing new experiments in destruction.
Our tests are not polluting the atmosphere. Our deterrent weapons are
guarded against accidental explosion or use. Our doctors and scientists
stand ready to help any nation measure and meet the hazards to health
which inevitably result from the tests in the atmosphere.
But to halt the spread of these terrible weapons, to halt the
contamination of the air, to halt the spiralling nuclear arms race, we
remain ready to seek new avenues of agreement, our new Disarmament
Program thus includes the following proposals:
--First, signing the test-ban treaty by all nations. This can be done
now. Test ban negotiations need not and should not await general
disarmament.
--Second, stopping the production of fissionable materials for use in
weapons, and preventing their transfer to any nation now lacking in
nuclear weapons.
--Third, prohibiting the transfer of control over nuclear weapons to
states that do not own them.
--Fourth, keeping nuclear weapons from seeding new battlegrounds in
outer space.
--Fifth, gradually destroying existing nuclear weapons and converting
their materials to peaceful uses; and
--Finally, halting the unlimited testing and production of strategic
nuclear delivery vehicles, and gradually destroying them as well.
V
To destroy arms, however, is not enough. We must create even as we
destroy--creating worldwide law and law enforcement as we outlaw
worldwide war and weapons. In the world we seek, the United Nations
Emergency Forces which have been hastily assembled, uncertainly
supplied, and inadequately financed, will never be enough.
Therefore, the United States recommends that all member nations earmark
special peace-keeping units in their armed forces--to be on call of the
United Nations, to be specially trained and quickly available, and with
advanced provision for financial and logistic support.
In addition, the American delegation will suggest a series of steps to
improve the United Nations' machinery for the peaceful settlement of
disputes--for on-the-spot fact-finding, mediation and adjudication--for
extending the rule of international law. For peace is not solely a
matter of military or technical problems--it is primarily a problem of
politics and people. And unless man can match his strides in weaponry
and technology with equal strides in social and political development,
our great strength, like that of the dinosaur, will become incapable of
proper control--and like the dinosaur vanish from the earth.
VI
As we extend the rule of law on earth, so must we also extend it to
man's new domain--outer space.
All of us salute the brave cosmonauts of the Soviet Union. The new
horizons of outer space must not be driven by the old bitter concepts of
imperialism and sovereign claims. The cold reaches of the universe must
not become the new arena of an even colder war.
To this end, we shall urge proposals extending the United Nations
Charter to the limits of man's exploration of the universe, reserving
outer space for peaceful use, prohibiting weapons of mass destruction in
space or on celestial bodies, and opening the mysteries and benefits of
space to every nation. We shall propose further cooperative efforts
between all nations in weather prediction and eventually in weather
control. We shall propose, finally, a global system of communications
satellites linking the whole world in telegraph and telephone and radio
and television. The day need not be far away when such a system will
televise the proceedings of this body to every corner of the world for
the benefit of peace.
VII
But the mysteries of outer space must not divert our eyes or our
energies from the harsh realities that face our fellow men. Political
sovereignty is but a mockery without the means of meeting poverty and
illiteracy and disease. Self-determination is but a slogan if the future
holds no hope.
That is why my nation, which has freely shared its capital and its
technology to help others help themselves, now proposes officially
designating this decade of the 1960s as the United Nations Decade of
Development. Under the framework of that Resolution, the United Nations'
existing efforts in promoting economic growth can be expanded and
coordinated. Regional surveys and training institutes can now pool the
talents of many. New research, technical assistance and pilot projects
can unlock the wealth of less developed lands and untapped waters. And
development can become a cooperative and not a competitive enterprise--
to enable all nations, however diverse in their systems and beliefs, to
become in fact as well as in law free and equal nations.
VIII
My country favors a world of free and equal states. We agree with those
who say that colonialism is a key issue in this Assembly. But let the
full facts of that issue be discussed in full.
On the one hand is the fact that, since the close of World War II, a
worldwide declaration of independence has transformed nearly 1 billion
people and 9 million square miles into 42 free and independent states.
Less than 2 percent of the world's population now lives in "dependent"
territories.
I do not ignore the remaining problems of traditional colonialism which
still confront this body. Those problems will be solved, with patience,
good will, and determination. Within the limits of our responsibility in
such matters, my Country intends to be a participant and not merely an
observer, in the peaceful, expeditious movement of nations from the
status of colonies to the partnership of equals. That continuing tide of
self-determination, which runs so strong, has our sympathy and our
support.
But colonialism in its harshest forms is not only the exploitation of
new nations by old, of dark skins by light, or the subjugation of the
poor by the rich. My Nation was once a colony, and we know what
colonialism means; the exploitation and subjugation of the weak by the
powerful, of the many by the few, of the governed who have given no
consent to be governed, whatever their continent, their class, their
color.
And that is why there is no ignoring the fact that the tide of
selfdetermination has not reached the Communist empire where a
population far larger than that officially termed "dependent" lives
under governments installed by foreign troops instead of free
institutions-- under a system which knows only one party and one
belief--which suppresses free debate, and free elections, and free
newspapers, and free books, and free trade unions--and which builds a
wall to keep truth a stranger and its own citizens prisoners. Let us
debate colonialism in full--and apply the principle of free choice and
the practice of free plebiscites in every corner of the globe.
IX
Finally, as President of the United States, I consider it my duty to
report to this Assembly on two threats to the peace which are not on
your crowded agenda, but which causes us and most of you, the deepest
concern.
The first threat on which I wish to report is widely misunderstood: the
smoldering coals of war in Southeast Asia. South Viet-Nam is already
under attack--sometimes by a single assassin, sometimes by a band of
guerrillas, recently by full battalions. The peaceful borders of Burma,
Cambodia, and India have been repeatedly violated. And the peaceful
people of Laos are in danger of losing the independence they gained not
so long ago.
No one can call these "wars of liberation." For these are free
countries living under their own governments. Nor are these aggressions
any less real because men are knifed in their homes and not shot in the
fields of battle.
The very simple question confronting the world community is whether
measures can be devised to protect the small and the weak from such
tactics. For if they are successful in Laos and South Viet-Nam, the
gates will be opened wide.
The United States seeks for itself, no base, no territory, no special
position in this area of any kind. We support a truly neutral and
independent Laos, its people free from outside interference, living at
peace with themselves and their neighbors, assured that their territory
will not be used for attacks on others, and under a government
comparable (as Mr. Khrushchev and I agreed at Vienna) to Cambodia and
Burma.
But now the negotiations over Laos are reaching a crucial stage. The
cease-fire is at best precarious. The rainy season is coming to an end.
Laotian territory is being used to infiltrate South Viet-Nam. The world
community must recognize--and all those who are involved--that this
potent threat to Laotian peace and freedom is indivisible from all other
threats to their own.
Secondly, I wish to report to you on the crisis over Germany and
Berlin. This is not the time or the place for immoderate tones, but the
world community is entitled to know the very simple issues as we see
them. If there is a crisis it is because an existing peace is under
threat, because an existing island of free people is under pressure,
because solemn agreements are being treated with indifference.
Established international rights are being threatened with unilateral
usurpation. Peaceful circulation has been interrupted by barbed wire and
concrete blocks.
One recalls the order of the Czar in Pushkin's "Boris Godunov:" "Take
steps at this very hour that our frontiers be fenced in by barriers. . .
. That not a single soul pass o'er the border, that not a hare be able
to run or a crow to fly."
It is absurd to allege that we are threatening a war merely to prevent
the Soviet Union and East Germany from signing a so-called "treaty" of
peace. The Western Allies are not concerned with any paper arrangement
the Soviets may wish to make with a regime of their own creation, on
territory occupied by their own troops and governed by their own agents.
No such action can affect either our rights or our responsibilities.
If there is a dangerous crisis in Berlin--and there is--it is because
of threats against the vital interests and the deep commitments of the
Western Powers, and the freedom of West Berlin. We cannot yield these
interests. We cannot fail these commitments. We cannot surrender the
freedom of these people for whom we are responsible. A "peace-treaty"
which carried with it the provisions which destroy the peace would be a
fraud. A "free city" which was not genuinely free would suffocate
freedom and would be an infamy.
For a city or a people to be truly free they must have the secure
right, without economic, political or police pressure, to make their own
choice and to live their own lives. And as I have often said before, if
anyone doubts the extent to which our presence is desired by the people
of West Berlin, we are ready to have that question submitted to a free
vote in all Berlin and, if possible, among all the German people.
The elementary fact about this crisis is that it is unnecessary. The
elementary tools for a peaceful settlement are to be found in the
charter. Under its law, agreements are to be kept, unless changed by all
those who made them. Established rights are to be respected. The
political disposition of peoples should rest upon their own wishes,
freely expressed in plebiscites or free elections. If there are legal
problems, they can be solved by legal means. If there is a threat of
force, it must be rejected. If there is desire for change, it must be a
subject for negotiation, and if there is negotiation, it must be rooted
in mutual respect and concern for the rights of others.
The Western Powers have calmly resolved to defend, by whatever means
are forced upon them, their obligations and their access to the free
citizens of West Berlin and the self-determination of those citizens.
This generation learned from bitter experience that either brandishing
or yielding to threats can only lead to war. But firmness and reason can
lead to the kind of peaceful solution in which my country profoundly
believes.
We are committed to no rigid formula. We see no perfect solution. We
recognize that troops and tanks can, for a time, keep a nation divided
against its will, however unwise that policy may seem to us. But we
believe a peaceful agreement is possible which protects the freedom of
West Berlin and allied presence and access, while recognizing the
historic and legitimate interests of others in insuring European
security.
The possibilities of negotiation are now being explored; it is too
early to report what the prospects may be. For our part, we would be
glad to report at the appropriate time that a solution has been found.
For there is no need for a crisis over Berlin, threatening the peace--
and if those who created this crisis desire peace, there will be peace
and freedom in Berlin.
X
The events and decisions of the next ten months may well decide the
fate of man for the next ten thousand years. There will be no avoiding
those events. There will be no appeal from these decisions. And we in
this hall shall be remembered either as part of the generation that
turned this planet into a flaming funeral pyre or the generation that
met its vow "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war."
In the endeavor to meet that vow, I pledge you every effort this Nation
possesses. I pledge you that we will neither commit nor provoke
aggression, that we shall neither flee nor invoke the threat of force,
that we shall never negotiate out of fear, we shall never fear to
negotiate.
Terror is not a new weapon. Throughout history it has been used by
those who could not prevail, either by persuasion or example. But
inevitably they fail, either because men are not afraid to die for a
life worth living, or because the terrorists themselves came to realize
that free men cannot be frightened by threats, and that aggression would
meet its own response. And it is in the light of that history that every
nation today should know, be he friend or foe, that the United States
has both the will and the weapons to join free men in standing up to
their responsibilities.
But I come here today to look across this world of threats to a world
of peace. In that search we cannot expect any final triumph--for new
problems will always arise. We cannot expect that all nations will adopt
like systems--for conformity is the jailor of freedom, and the enemy of
growth. Nor can we expect to reach our goal by contrivance, by fiat or
even by the wishes of all.
But however close we sometimes seem to that dark and final abyss, let
no man of peace and freedom despair. For he does not stand alone. If we
all can persevere, if we can in every land and office look beyond our
own shores and ambitions, then surely the age will dawn in which the
strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved.
Ladies and gentlemen of this Assembly, the decision is ours. Never have
the nations of the world had so much to lose, or so much to gain.
Together we shall save our planet, or together we shall perish in its
flames. Save it we can--and save it we must--and then shall we earn the
eternal thanks of mankind and, as peacemakers, the eternal blessing of
God.
President George H.W. Bush stood astride an arc of history marking the
decline of British dominance of world affairs, to the Cold War battle
between the U.S. and Soviet Union for power, to the fall of the U.S.S.R.,
and a renewed hope for peace through a vision of a New World Order. He
also represented a connecting thread of the growing role and power
exercised by the CIA and intelligence community from the time of its
establishment by President Harry S Truman up to the present day. Despite
initial optimism for a Peace Dividend after the collapse of the Soviet
Union during George H.W. Bush's administration, that hope eventually began
to fade. Mikhail Gorbachev, leader of the U.S.S.R. at the time of its
collapse, was led
to believe that NATO would not be expanded any closer to its former
borders. However, that expectation was not met and NATO began its eastward
expansion in 1999. As surely as the opportunity to achieve a more peaceful
through disarmament was lost after the assassination of President Kennedy,
so too was a similar opportunity lost as NATO expanded in the direction of
the former Soviet Union - now Russian Federation.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower had warned in his Farewell Address of the
threat posed by the Military-Industrial Complex. After the assassination
of President Kennedy, former President Truman recommended wrote for the
Washington Post - Limit
CIA Role To Intelligence:
Over fifty-seven years after President Kennedy addressed the idea of a
Peace Race, the same Establishment, Deep State, Military Industrial
Complex, intelligence community, etc. still stands opposed to a more
peaceful relationship with what remains of the former Soviet Union. NATO
still remains decades after the U.S.S.R. is no more. The same powers and
interests that urged on the Cold War now advocate for the a renewed
chilling of relationships between East and West. We have seen this all
play out before. President Trump knows it. The Deep State knows it. More
and more of the people know it.
President Trump is trolling them. The icon of the New World Order,
President George H.W. Bush is dead. The order he represented is
not.