cannot and should not be concealed; they set limits to the possibilities of agreement; and they will give rise to further crises, large and small, in the months and years ahead, both in the areas of direct confrontation-Germany and the Caribbean-and in areas where events beyond our control could involve us both-areas such as Africa and Asia and the Middle East.

In times such as these, therefore, there is nothing inconsistent with signing an atmospheric nuclear test ban,87 on the one hand, and testing underground on the other; about being willing to sell to the Soviets our surplus wheat while refusing to sell strategic items; 88 about probing their interest in a joint lunar landing while making a major effort to master this new environment; 89 or about exploring the possibilities of disarmament while maintaining our stockpile of arms. For all of these moves, and all of these elements of American policy and Allied policy toward the Soviet Union, are directed at a single, comprehensive goal-namely, convincing the Soviet leaders that it is dangerous for them to engage in direct or indirect aggression, futile for them to attempt to impose their will and their system on other unwilling people, and beneficial to them, as well as to the world, to join in the achievement of a genuine and enforcible peace.

While the road to that peace is long and hard and full of traps and pitfalls, that is no reason not to take each step that we can safely take. It is in our national self-interest to ban nuclear testing in the atmosphere so that all of our citizens can breathe more easily. It is in our national interest to sell surplus wheat in storage to feed Russians and Eastern Europeans who are willing to divert large portions of their limited foreign exchange reserves away from the implements of war. It is in our national self-interest to keep weapons of mass destruction out of outer space, to maintain an emergency communications link with Moscow,90 and to substitute joint and peaceful exploration in the Antarctic 91 and outer space for cold-war exploitation.

No one of these small advances, nor all of them taken together, can be interpreted as meaning that the Soviets are abandoning their basic aims and ambitions. Nor should any future, less friendly Soviet action-whether it is a stoppage on the autobahn, or a veto in the U.N., or a spy in our midst, or new trouble elsewhere cause us to regret the steps we have taken. Even if those steps themselves should be undone by the violation or renunciation of the test ban treaty, for example, or by a decision to decline American wheat-there would still be no reason to regret the fact that this nation has made every responsible effort to improve relations.

For without our making such an effort, we could not maintain the leadership and respect of the free world. Without our making such

87 Post, doc. X-69.

88 See post, doc. VI-9.

See post, doc. X-95.

90 See post, doc. VI-6.

For the text of the Antarctic Treaty, see American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1961, pp. 452–458.

an effort, we could not convince our adversaries that war was not in their interest. And without our making such an effort, we could never, in case of war, satisfy our own hearts and minds that we had done all that could be done to avoid the holocaust of endless death and destruction.

Historians report that in 1914, with most of the world already plunged in war, Prince Bülow, the former German Chancellor, said to the then Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg: "How did it all happen?" And Bethmann-Hollweg replied: "Ah, if only one knew." My fellow Americans, if this planet is ever ravaged by nuclear war, if 300 million Americans, Russians, and Europeans are wiped out by a 60-minute nuclear exchange, if the pitiable survivors of that devastation can then endure the ensuing fire, poison, chaos, and catastrophe, I do not want one of those survivors to ask another, "How did it all happen?” and to receive the incredible reply, "Ah, if only one knew."

Therefore, while maintaining our readiness for war, let us exhaust every avenue for peace. Let us always make clear both our willingness to talk, if talk will help, and our readiness to fight, if fight we must. Let us resolve to be the masters, not the victims, of our history, controlling our own destiny without giving way to blind suspicion and emotion. Let us distinguish between our hopes and our illusions, always hoping for steady progress toward less critically dangerous relations with the Soviets but never laboring under any illusions about Communist methods or Communist goals.

Let us recognize both the gains we have made down the road to peace and the great distance yet to be covered. Let us not waste the present pause by either a needless renewal of tensions or a needless relaxation of vigilance. And let us recognize that we have made these gains and achieved this pause by the firmness we displayed a year ago as well as our restraint-by our efforts for defense as well as our efforts for peace. In short, when we think of peace in this country, let us think of both our capacity to deter aggression and our goal of true disarmament. Let us think of both the strength of our Western alliances and the areas of East-West cooperation.

For the American eagle on the Presidential seal holds in his talons both the olive branch of peace and the arrows of military might. On the ceiling in the Presidential office, constructed many years ago, that cagle is facing the arrows of war on its left. But on the newer carpet on the floor, reflecting a change initiated by President Roosevelt and implemented by President Truman immediately after the war, that eagle is now facing the olive branch of peace. And it is in that spiritthe spirit of both preparedness and peace that this nation is stronger than ever before-strengthened by both the increased power of our defenses and our increased efforts for peace, strengthened by both our resolve to resist coercion and our constant search for solutions. And it is in this spirit that I assure you that the American eagle still faces toward the olive branch of peace. In the months and years ahead, we intend to build both kinds of strength-during times of détente as

well as tension, during periods of conflict as well as cooperation—until the world we pass on to our children is truly safe for diversity and freedom and the rule of law covers all.

I-11

"IT IS ESSENTIAL... THAT THE WORD GO FORTH FROM THE UNITED STATES TO ALL WHO ARE CONCERNED ABOUT THE FUTURE OF THE FAMILY OF MAN, THAT WE ARE NOT WEARY IN WELL-DOING": Remarks Made by the President (Kennedy) Before the Protestant Council of the City of New York, November 8, 1963 92

I-12

"LET US BE FULLY AWARE OF THE WIDE RANGE OF OUR MILITARY RESOURCES AND THE FREEDOM THEY CAN GIVE US TO PURSUE THE PEACEFUL OBJECTIVES OF THE FREE WORLD WITHOUT FEAR OF MILITARY AGGRESSION": Remarks Made by the Secretary of Defense (McNamara) Before the Economic Club of New York, November 18, 1963 (Excerpt)93

I-13

"WE ASK... THAT WE MAY ACHIEVE IN OUR TIME AND FOR ALL TIME THE ANCIENT VISION OF PEACE ON EARTH, GOOD WILL TOWARD MEN'": Remarks Prepared for Delivery by the President (Kennedy) at the Trade Mart, Dallas, November 22, 1963 94

I-14

"LET US CONTINUE": Address by the President (Johnson) Before a Joint Session of Congress, November 27, 1963 95

92

" White House press release (New York, N.Y.) dated Nov. 8, 1963; asdelivered text in the Department of State Bulletin, Nov. 25, 1963, pp. 806–810. "For text, see post, doc. IV-36.

"White House press release dated Nov. 22, 1963; Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1963, pp. 890-894. President Kennedy was assassinated en route to the Trade Mart, where these remarks were to have been delivered.

White House press release dated Nov. 27, 1963; as-delivered text in the Department of State Bulletin, Dec. 16, 1963, pp. 910-912. Also available as H. Doc. 178, 88th Cong. Portions of President Johnson's address dealing with foreign policy are quoted in Secretary of State Rusk's address of Dec. 10, post, doc. I-16.

I-15

"[PRESIDENT KENNEDY] BELIEVED AND TAUGHT US... THAT OUR NATIONAL PURPOSE IS TO BUILD A WORLD COMMUNITY FOUNDED NOT ON UNIFORMITY BUT ON DIVERSITY": Address by the Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs (Cleveland) Before the Institute of World Affairs, Pasadena, Calif., December 1, 1963 96

I-16

"HISTORY TELLS US THAT MEN WILL BE FREE; AND THAT IS OUR COMMITMENT": Address by the Secretary of State (Rusk) Before the Farmers Union Grain Terminal Association, St. Paul, Minn., December 10, 1963 97

I come in a period of national mourning because the nation lives and must get on with its appointed tasks. President Kennedy would have had it no other way.

I shall not try to put into words the personal grief shared with us here by hundreds of millions of ordinary men and women throughout the world. We have been diminished by the loss of so much gallantry, so much energy and vision, so much dedication and common sense. We are benumbed and shamed by the cost of senseless violence, but lifted up and inspired by the rediscovery, in the midst of our sorrow, of the power of the hopes and aspirations of man and the strength of decency and moderation in our relations with the rest of the world.

In these days of sadness and shock we have found new sources of confidence. We have found them in the resilience of our constitutional system, in the capacity of our country to unite behind the man who now carries the awesome and lonely burden, in the sure hand and the clear head with which he has taken up his task, and in the confidence which those beyond our borders have given us in these critical days. I should like to ask you therefore to recall once more the words of President Johnson to the Congress, words which expressed the deepest conviction of one who is intimately in touch with the world about us and the policies which guide our foreign relations: 98

This nation will keep its commitments from South Viet-Nam to West Berlin. We will be unceasing in the search for peace; resourceful in our pursuit of areas of agreement, even with those with whom we differ; and generous and loyal to those who join with us in common cause.

In this age when there can be no losers in peace and no victors in war, we must recognize the obligation to match national strength with national restraint. We must be prepared at one and the same time for both the confrontation of power and the limitation of power. We must be ready to defend the national interest and to negotiate the common interest. This is the path that we shall continue

Department of State press release No. 608, Nov. 30, 1963; the Department of State Bulletin, Dec. 23, 1963, pp. 964–969.

Department of State press release No. 614 (as-delivered text as printed in the Department of State Bulletin, Dec. 30, 1963, pp. 990-996).

98 See ante, title I-14.

to pursue.

Those who test our courage will find it strong, and those who seek our friendship will find it honorable. We will demonstrate anew that the strong can be just in the use of strength-and the just can be strong in the defense of justice.

As your Secretary of State I wish to talk to you about our foreign relations. Let me start with a simple remark which I earnestly hope you will never forget: Foreign policy is about you. It is about your home, your community, your safety, your well-being, your chance to live a decent life and to prepare a better world for your children. Foreign policy is not a game played by "those people in Washington" with other players from far-off distant places. It is as close to you as the member of your family, or the neighbor's boy, in uniform-and there are almost a million of them outside the continental United States as close as the taxes you pay to sustain the struggle for freedom, as close as the prices and the markets for what you produce. Even more personal, it is as close as your highest hopes, your puzzled concern that man can be both so good and yet so evil, your own impulse to do something to build a better world, your own private and personal search for the answer to the ageless question: "What is the chief end of man?"

There are those who say that the Department of State has no constituency, but I know better. How we dispose of our affairs at home can decide elections; but how we dispose of our relations with the rest of the world can decide the survival of mankind. So we have our constituency-every man, woman, and child across our great nation.

Our time has seen some breathtaking changes. Technology has advanced on a thousand fronts and at accelerating speeds. The atom has been unlocked, and man has begun to reach out from his earthly home toward the moon and the planets. But to me, one of the most wondrous miracles of all is the rise in farm productivity.

As Mr. Thatcher [M. W. Thatcher, general manager of the Farmers Union Grain Terminal Association] mentioned, I was born on a small farm in Cherokee County, Georgia. It wasn't much of a farm by your standards-just a few acres of red clay. Today, when I read the statistics on increased yield per acre and output per man-hour, I can hardly believe them. And the miracle of rising agricultural production continues to unfold.

The abundance of food and fiber that you produce is a powerful element in our national strength. It is a powerful asset in the defense of our national interests and our national life, and in promoting peace and freedom throughout the world.

The miracle of American agriculture has not merely produced more and more food for a still hungry world. It has turned men's hopes toward science and technology and their appetites away from plunder and conquest. It has opened the historical possibility of meeting by peaceful means the elementary daily needs of the whole human race.

Have you paused to consider that for the first time in history there is no nation-no nation-regardless of social system, that today is asserting a right to invade its neighbor in behalf of food? Have you