in which to express their views. The Soviet Union is also deeply opposed to formal religion, which it considers "the opiate of the people." It is committed not to the expanded freedoms which the whole world seeks but to the harnessing of the individual to the service of the state.

Now what about the strengths and weaknesses of the United States? Our disadvantages as we approach the challenge of the decisive

1960's are substantial.

The most damaging of these is the fact that the American people and their Congress have not yet fully awakened to the requirements. They are uncertain about the nature of the problem and are skeptical of its meaning for their own future.

In addition, we are plagued with a long record of racial discrimination. Paradoxically, our intensified efforts to solve this problem may be expected to create a continuing series of "incidents" which will tend to create distrust among the two-thirds of the people of the world whose skins are darker than most of ours.

Finally, while our economy is gradually recovering from a recession, we are nowhere near producing to our full capacity. More than 5 million of our ablest skilled people are still out of work, and 20 percent of our machines remain idle. Because we are failing to produce what we could produce, our opposition to foreign imports is inevitable, with cries for higher tariffs and increased isolationism.

Although these disadvantages are sobering, it would be a profound mistake to underestimate our very great strengths.

Our first great asset is that we were born a revolutionary people, under a towering revolutionary leadership. Even more important, this revolution has been a continuing one. Great American liberal leaders such as Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Wilson, and Roosevelt have risen one after another to challenge the American people to reexamine their society, to renew their commitments to liberty and freedom, and to adapt their constitutional principles to the fast-flowing developments of a changing world. The armed revolution of 1776 set America free. But it was the peaceful revolution headed by Thomas Jefferson which gave political meaning to that revolution, and it was the leadership of Andrew Jackson and those who followed him which created a tradition of increasing economic justice for all citizens.

Another great asset is our extraordinary American educational system, which has prepared us to respect others, to honor the individual, and to look on differences of religion, national origin, and viewpoint not only as a right but as a national strength.

But the most important advantage of all is one of which we appear least aware: the fact that what we want for the people of the new emerging continents is precisely what they want for themselves.

We have no desire for satellites or nations subservient to our will. We have no wish to control others or to force them into tidy, preconceived concepts of history. For the people of Tanganyika, Bolivia, Burma, Korea, and of other nations, young and old, we want expanded economic opportunities, increased dignity and justice, more doctors to

take care of their sick, more food to feed their hungry, more and better schools to wipe out their illiteracy, improved communications so that we can better understand each other, the right to travel, to trade, to move freely, to speak, to think, and to worship in their own way, within cultures of their own choosing.

This identity of objectives is the primary, overriding advantage of the United States in its efforts to create a peaceful, prosperous, nonCommunist world partnership. The fact that the Soviet Union's objectives for the people of the new nations are so deeply antagonistic to their own is the fundamental point of Soviet weakness.

Yet the central question remains: What will we do with our great and varied strengths? How will we apply them? Can we muster the understanding to meet the challenge and to rally our forces to deal with it effectively?

Let me briefly list the kind of global program which I believe to be essential.

1. It is essential, above all, that we understand honestly, and clearly explain to the American people, the real objectives of our overseas efforts.

Our national purposes are positive and constructive, not negative and destructive. The revolution to which I refer would still exist if there were no communism anywhere on earth. Our objective, therefore, is not simply to defeat communism, important as we know this to be, but rather to rally the energies of other people to help them to build their own countries in their own ways and within the framework of their own history and cultures. Our objective can be briefly stated: to help assure for the people of the world their freedom of choice. 2. It is equally important that we understand the totality of the effort which we must make.

A powerful American military apparatus is of the utmost importance to discourage and, if necessary, to defeat armed aggression. It is also essential that we learn to help others to deal with internal subversion, above all to encourage the individual motivation that will enable those whom we assist to use their training and weapons to protect their right to build free, prosperous nations of their own.

3. Although military power against external aggression and internal security measures are essential in blocking Communist efforts, they should be only the starting point for our American effort in the sixties. If we are to seize and hold the initiative, we must concentrate most of our effort in helping others to build for the future.

Most important of all, our objectives must look beyond the goal of a greater material production-more wheat, more bicycles, more shoes, and more machinery-to the human values. Progress must be achieved in a way that gives the people themselves a greater sense of participation and increased individual justice.

["LET US CALL A TRUCE TO TERROR... LET NO MAN OF PEACE AND FREEDOM DESPAIR": Address by the President of the United States (Kennedy) Before the U.N. General Assembly, September 25, 1961-Post, doc. 41]

“THIS IS A TIME OF NATIONAL MATURITY AND UNDERSTANDING AND WILLINGNESS TO FACE ISSUES AS THEY ARE, NOT AS WE WOULD LIKE THEM TO BE": Address by the President (Kennedy) at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, October 12, 1961 89

S. "WE HAVE NO ALTERNATIVE BUT TO DEAL WITH THE WORLD AS IT IS AND TO ADDRESS OURSELVES TO THE PROBLEMS THAT ACTUALLY CONFRONT US": Address by the Under Secretary of State (Bowles) at a Regional Foreign Policy Briefing Conference, Kansas City, Missouri, October 26, 1961 (Excerpt)

90

Frustration and bafflement hold great danger for us. Today they manifest themselves in at least four types of thinking among some of our most impatient citizens.

A first category includes those who believe that a nuclear war is inevitable. Indeed, a few years ago an occasional American was heard to urge in private that we move into a war at once and "get it over with." Such reckless and unrealistic thinking reflects the fact that we Americans never felt the full impact of modern war and, in particular, the fact that many of us do not comprehend the catastrophic destructiveness of nuclear weapons.

In the past, war for most Americans involved some domestic restrictions and, for a few, deep sacrifices. But with the exception of our civil strife, war has never yet been a truly national disaster for America.

Today the earth has shriveled in size and the destructive power of weapons has been multiplied fantastically. A nuclear war under present conditions would mean the total destruction of great cities and thousands of towns and villages. Its casualties would not be primarily the soldiers in uniform but millions of civilians, including women and children. When we consider both the blast and the fallout, it is impossible to estimate what the ultimate effects on human life would be.

White House (Chapel Hill) press release dated Oct. 12, 1961; the Department of State Bulletin, Oct. 30, 1961, pp. 699–701; Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1961, pp. 666-669.

"Department of State press release No. 736 (text as printed in the Department of State Bulletin, Nov. 20, 1961, pp. 850-856).

Doc. 8

Our response, of course, would devastate the aggressor, and there is every reason to believe that the damage to the Communist empire would be even greater than in our own country. Yet this is hardly a contest which any thoughtful man would enter lightheartedly or in ignorance of the implications to mankind.

Of course we cannot achieve peace by running away from the very prospect of war. That prospect must be boldly and courageously faced. It is therefore totally essential that we possess not only the means but also the will to fight if there is no other way to check aggression against our vital interests.

Until there evolves some kind of world society which can assure controlled disarmament, the peaceful settlement of disputes, and international justice under law, the military power of the free world is vital to the peace of the whole world.

But being prepared to fight is an entirely different thing from provoking a fight. It would be folly to ignore this vital difference.

A second category of escapist thinking is that of those people who would have us withdraw from the world in which we are living on the assumption that we can somehow return to partial or total isolationism. This escapism expresses itself in many forms.

If we have a disagreement with our allies, there are those who demand that we abandon our alliances.

If we are outvoted on a particular issue in the United Nations, there are those who urge that we withdraw from membership.

If a friendly nation is threatened with aggression, there are those who believe we should let that nation sink or swim for itself and not risk the life of a single American soldier.

If some of our factories are running into difficulties, there are those who say that foreign imports should be banned.

If a foreign nation expresses criticism of the United States, there are those who insist that we should call off our assistance.

Although these expressions of our frustration are understandable, they must be recognized and labeled as dangerously shortsighted and self-defeating in terms of our interests. Let us look at a few examples.

The idea that we should abandon alliances whenever we disagree. with our allies ignores the fact that these alliances are as essential to the United States as they are to the other members. NATO does not exist to protect Europe alone; it also exists to protect North America by discouraging a Soviet attack. We not only add our strength to theirs; they also add their strength to ours. What today's neoisolationists are demanding, in effect, is that we cut ourselves off from all sources of support.

The same shortsightedness is found in the argument that we should cut off or cut down our imports in order to protect American industry from foreign competition.

Most free nations depend upon the sale of their goods overseas to secure the income they need to pay for essential imports and to maintain their economic freedom. If they cannot survive as free and independent states, whether allied or neutral, they become easy targets for Communist subversion or aggression. If this occurs, their popu

lation and resources will be added to the strength of the Communist empire and used against us, and the strength of the free world will accordingly be diminished.

But even if we put aside all political considerations, the demand that we shut off foreign imports makes little economic sense. The United States exports a great deal more than it imports. Other nations must sell to us in order to buy from us. Cutting down our imports inevitably means a corresponding decline in our exports, with the loss of profits and hundreds of thousands of jobs both here and abroad. If the United States and the non-Communist world are to be strong and prosperous, trade among the free nations must be expanded, not cut.

Or let us consider the argument of those who insist that we apply punitive measures whenever a nation criticizes American policies or our American way of life.

We do not maintain diplomatic contacts with other nations, nor do we provide them assistance, simply to win their friendship and attract their support. Our primary purpose is to help these nations become strong and healthy, so that they may be permitted freedom of choice as free and independent societies.

As long as we support free nations, we are underwriting free speech, and as long as they enjoy free speech, we will suffer some criticism. Nothing would please Moscow and Peiping more than a policy of tossing to the wolves any nation which criticizes or disagrees with the United States.

In brief, any policy of isolationism, partial or total, is an absurdity in the modern world. We could not become isolationist without becoming a garrison state, in which our military expenditures would be far greater, in which our economic well-being would be diminished, and in which our fundamental liberties would be impaired.

Our incomes would be lower, and our taxes would be higher. The threat from the outside would be greater, and our means of resisting this threat would be weaker. We would not gain freedom of action but would suffer a paralysis of action-peering over our parapets at a hostile world entirely beyond our influence.

And where would we get the necessary iron ore, manganese, tin, rubber, and other essential commodities which are essential to keep our factories going and our nation strong?

For many years one of the major purposes of Soviet strategy has been to isolate the United States from the rest of the world, politically, economically, and militarily. Those who by one means or another encourage such a withdrawal are unwittingly contributing to this objective.

A third category of escapist thinking is illustrated by those who claim to recognize the perils which our nation faces but who insist upon fighting the shadow of the peril rather than the substance.

People who fall prey to this temptation seem less concerned about the power of modern weapons, about the vast implications of the social and economic revolution in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, or about the threat posed by Sino-Soviet imperialism. Instead they would