Dwight D. Eisenhower photo

Address at Annual Dinner of the American Society of Newspaper Editors

April 21, 1956

[Broadcast over radio from the Statler Hotel, Washington, D.C.]

Mr. MacDonald, Mrs. MacDonald, Mr. Chief Justice and Mrs. Warren, and members of this distinguished audience:

When I last appeared before this body, almost exactly three years ago, stories from battlefields and fighting fronts crowded the front pages of our press. Human freedom was under direct assault in important sectors by the disciples of communistic dictatorship. Violence and aggression were brutal facts for millions of human beings. Fear of global war, of a nuclear holocaust, darkened the future. To many, the chance for a just and enduring peace seemed lost--hopeless.

Today, three years later, we have reason for cautious hope that a new, a fruitful, a peaceful era for mankind can emerge from a haunted decade. The world breathes a little more easily today.

Now the prudent man will not delude himself that his hope for peace guarantees the realization of peace. Even with genuine good will, time and effort will be needed to correct the injustices, to cure the dangerous sores that plague the earth today. And the future alone can show whether the Communists really want to move toward a just and stable peace.

Yet not for many years has there been such promise that patient, imaginative, enterprising effort could gradually be rewarded in steady decrease in the dread of war; in an economic surge that will raise the living standards of all the world; in growing confidence that liberty and justice will one day overcome statism; in the better understanding among all peoples that is the essential prelude to true peace.

This week marks the anniversary of one of the most important events in Freedom's progress. One hundred eighty-one years ago on April 19th, our forefathers started a revolution that still goes on. The shots at Concord, as Emerson wrote, were heard "round the world."

The echoes of Concord still stir men's minds.

The Bandung meeting, last year, of Asian and African leaders bears witness to Emerson's vision. There, almost two centuries after Concord, and halfway round the earth, President Sukarno of Indonesia opened the conference with an eloquent tribute to Paul Revere and to the spirit of the American Revolution.

Now why do the musket shots of a few embattled farmers at the Concord bridge still ring out in far-off lands?

The reason is clear.

Concord was far more than a local uprising to redress immediate grievances. The enduring meaning of Concord lies in the ideas that inspired the historic stand there. Concord is the symbol of certain basic convictions about the relationship of man to the state.

These convictions were founded in a firm belief in the spiritual worth of the individual. He must be free to think, to speak, and to worship according to his conscience. He must enjoy equality before the law. He must have a fair chance to develop and use his talents. The purpose of government is to serve its citizens in freedom.

Our forefathers did not claim to have discovered novel principles. They looked on their findings as universal values, the common property of all mankind.

These deep convictions have always guided us as a nation. They have taken deep root elsewhere in the Western world. In the 19th Century they inspired a great surge of freedom throughout Western Europe and in our own hemisphere.

These ideas of freedom are still the truly revolutionary political principles abroad in the world. They appeal to the timeless aspirations of mankind. In some regions they flourish; in some they are officially outlawed. But everywhere, to some degree, they stir and inspire humanity.

The affairs of men do not stand still. The ideas of freedom will grow in vigor and influence--or they will gradually wither and die. If the area of freedom shrinks, the results for us will be tragic. Only if freedom continues to flourish will man realize the prosperity, the happiness, the enduring peace that he seeks.

II.

The appeal of the ideas of freedom has been shown dramatically during the past decade. In that time, 18 nations of 650 million people--almost a quarter of the population of the globe--have gained independence.

In manifold ways these nations differ widely from each other and from us. They are the heirs of many ancient cultures and national traditions. All of the great religions of the world are found among them. Their peoples speak in a hundred tongues.

Yet they share in common with all free countries the basic and universal values that inspired our nation's founders.

They believe deeply in the right of self-government.

They believe deeply in the dignity of man.

They aspire to improve the welfare of the individual, as a basis of organized society.

The new nations have many of the sensitivities that marked our own early years as a free nation. They are proud of their independence and are quick to resent any slight to their sovereignty. Some of them are concerned to avoid involvements with other nations, as we were for many long years.

Certainly we Americans should understand and respect these points of view. We must accept the right of each nation to choose its own path to the future.

All of these countries are faced with immense obstacles and difficulties. Freedom and human dignity must rest upon a satisfactory economic base. Yet in many of these new nations, incomes average less than $ 100 per year. Abject poverty blinds men's eyes to the beauty of freedom's ideals. Hopelessness makes men prey to any promise of a better existence, even the most false and spurious.

Ofttimes the peoples of these countries expected independence itself to produce rapid material progress. Their political leaders are therefore under heavy pressure to find short-cuts and quick answers to the problems facing them.

Under these conditions, we cannot expect that the vision of a free society will go unchallenged. The Communists, aware of unsatisfied desires for better conditions of life, falsely pretend they can rapidly solve the problems of economic development and industrialization. They hold up the Soviet Union as a model and guide. But the Communists conceal the terrible human costs that characterize their ruthless system of dictatorship and forced labor.

Now we have a vital interest in assuring that newly independent nations preserve and consolidate the free institutions of their choice.

The prospects for peace are brightest when enlightened self-governing peoples control the policy of nations. Peoples do not want war. Rulers beyond the reach of popular control are more likely to engage in reckless adventures and to raise the grim threat of war. So the spread of freedom enhances the prospect for durable peace.

That prospect would be dimmed or destroyed should freedom be forced into steady retreat. Then the remaining free societies, our own among them, would one day find themselves beleaguered and imperiled. We would face once again the dread prospect of paying dearly, in blood, for our own survival.

In every comer of the globe, it is far less costly to sustain freedom than to recover it when lost.

Moreover, our own well-being is bound up in the well-being of other free nations. We cannot prosper in peace if we are isolated from the rest of the world. If our economy is to continue to flourish and grow, our nation will need more trade, not less. The steady growth of other nations, especially the less developed nations, will create new and growing demands for goods and services. It will produce an environment which will benefit both them and us.

Indeed, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Seattle--every American town and farm--has a stake in the success or failure of these new nations--a stake almost impossible to exaggerate.

If these new nations are to achieve economic progress with freedom, they will have to provide many of the necessary ingredients for themselves--indeed, most of them.

Only these peoples and their leaders can supply the initiative, the spark, and determination essential to success. And they must mobilize the larger part of the resources they require.

But these nations are gravely lacking in trained men for management, production, education and the professions. Their institutions for such training are limited. Hence they are handicapped in trying to extend modern techniques to agriculture, industry and other fields.

They also face shortages of capital and foreign exchange, even though they strain to mobilize their own resources. Private foreign investment should be utilized as much as feasible; but for many areas, it will clearly fall far short of the requirements. Moreover, their task of improving conditions of life is made the more difficult by their large and rapidly increasing populations.

Inevitably these nations must look abroad for assistance, as ours did for so many years. They want help, first of all, in real and understanding and enduring friendship. They want help in training skilled people and in securing investment capital to supplement their own resources. For such help they will look to us as the most prosperous and advanced economy of the world.

Foresight will compel an understanding response from us. In our own enlightened interest we can and must do much to help others in pursuit of their legitimate aspirations.

Further, we must recognize that economic and technical assistance cannot be a transitory policy. The problems of economic progress are not to be solved in a single spurt. Our efforts must be sustained over a number of years.

To do the most good, some part of our material help will have to be furnished on a long-term basis which these nations can plan on. For some purposes, commitments on a strictly annual basis are not sufficient. It takes time to complete major projects like hydro-electric and reclamation developments. If the new nations can plan on some part of our help for several years, they will be better able to mobilize resources of their own and assistance from others.

Furthermore, our assistance must be used flexibly to fit needs and plans as they develop. We must be ready to adapt our help promptly to meet changing conditions.

The development program for Mutual Security now before the Congress is based on these considerations. It seeks from the Congress the additional authority that would add essential flexibility and continuity to a part--a modest part--of the program. The amounts requested are the practicable minimum. In its entirety it is not, I assure you, an excessive program. It is in our national interest, in the fullest sense of that term.

III.

The ideas of freedom are at work, even where they are officially rejected. As we know, Lenin and his successors, true to Communist doctrine, based the Soviet State on the denial of these ideas. Yet the new Soviet rulers who took over three years ago have had to reckon with the force of these ideas, both at home and abroad.

The situation the new regime inherited from the dead Stalin apparently caused it to reappraise many of his mistakes.

Having lived under his one-man rule, they have espoused the concept of "collective" dictatorship. But dictatorship it still remains. They have denounced Stalin for some of the more flagrant excesses of his brutal rule. But the individual citizen still lacks the most elementary safeguards of a free society. The desire for a better life is still being sacrificed to the insatiable demands of the state.

In foreign affairs, the new regime has seemingly moderated the policy of violence and hostility which has caused the free nations to band together to defend their independence and liberties. For the present, at least, it relies more on political and economic means to spread its influence abroad. In the last year, it has embarked upon a campaign of lending and trade agreements directed especially toward the newly-developing countries.

It is still too early to assess in any final way whether the Soviet regime wishes to provide a real basis for stable and enduring relations.

Despite the changes so far, much of Stalin's foreign policy remains unchanged. The major international issues which have troubled the post-war world are still unsolved. More basic changes in Soviet policy will have to take place before the free nations can afford to relax their vigilance.

IV.

At Concord, our forebears undertook the struggle for freedom in this country. History has now called us to special tasks for sustaining and advancing this great cause in the world.

As we take stock of our position and of the problems that lie ahead, we must chart our course by three main guide lines:

The first one is: We must maintain a collective shield against aggression to allow the free peoples to seek their valued goals in safety.

We can take some cautious comfort in the signs that the Soviet rulers may have relegated military aggression to the background and adopted less violent methods to promote their aims. Nevertheless, Soviet military power continues to grow. Their forces are being rapidly modernized and equipped with nuclear weapons and long-range delivery systems.

So long as freedom is threatened and armaments are not controlled, it is essential for us to keep a strong military establishment ourselves and strengthen the bonds of collective security.

Without help from us, many of our allies could not afford to equip and maintain the forces needed for self-defense. Assistance to them is part of our proper contribution to the systems of common defense. If these systems did not exist, we would have to bear much greater costs ourselves. Thus in aiding our allies, the Mutual Security Program also advances our own security interests.

We hold our military strength only to guard against aggression, and to ensure that the world remains at peace. War in our time has become an anachronism. Whatever the case in the past, war in the future can serve no useful purpose. A war which became general, as any limited action might, could result in the virtual destruction of mankind.

Hence our search must be unceasing for a system to regulate and reduce armaments under reliable safeguards. So far, the Soviet Union has refused to accept such safeguards. But even now we are earnestly negotiating toward this end. The problems involved are difficult and complex. We cannot afford to underestimate them. But we cannot afford to slacken our efforts to lift the burden of armaments and to remove their threat.

If effective measures of disarmament could be agreed upon, think how the world could be transformed! Atomic energy used for peace--not war--could bring about the development of a new industrial age. Far more human energy and output could be devoted to reducing poverty and need. To that end, as I said to this same body three years ago, we would "join with all nations in devoting a substantial percentage of the savings achieved from disarmament to a fund for world aid and construction."

Of even more importance, the pall of mutual suspicions, fear and hatred that covers the earth would be swept away in favor of confidence, prosperity and human happiness.

Our second guide line is this: Within the free community, we must be a helpful and considerate partner in creating conditions where freedom will flourish.

Beyond defense, the crucial task of the free nations is to work together in constructive ways to advance the welfare of their peoples. Arms alone can give the world no permanent peace, no confident security. Arms are solely for defense--to protect from violent assault what we already have. They are only a costly insurance. They cannot add to human progress. Indeed, no matter how massive, arms by themselves would not prevent vital sections of the world falling prey to Communist blandishment or subversion.

If we are to preserve freedom here--it must likewise thrive in other important areas of the earth. For the welfare of ourselves and others, we must, therefore, help the rest of the free world achieve its legitimate aspirations. For our mutual benefit, we must join in building for greater future prosperity, for more human liberty and for lasting peace.

Within the Atlantic Community, our aim must be to strengthen the close bonds which have steadily developed since World War II. On Monday next, the Secretary of State will speak on this topic.

In the less developed nations, the urgent need is for economic and social progress for their peoples. Tonight I have been speaking particularly about the newer nations of Asia and Africa, which face such urgent problems. Of equal importance is continuing progress in other areas, especially by our neighbors in Latin America who are our fast friends. These developing nations need the full measure of our help in understanding and resources.

The steady progress of the free world also depends on the healthy flow of peaceful trade. Our example will be of great importance in freeing the channels of such trade from wasteful restraints. We can take an important step to that end by joining the Organization for Trade Cooperation. Our national interest will be served by passage of the legislation for that purpose now pending in the Congress.

Another important task is in helping to resolve disputes between friends we value highly. Such disputes impair the unity of the free nations and impede their advance. In these situations, each side would like the United States to back its point of view without reservation. But for us to do so could seldom contribute to the settling of disputes. Rather, it would sharpen the bitter enmities between the opposing sides and impair our value in helping to reach a fair solution.

Our aim and effort must be to assist in tempering the fears and antagonisms which lead to such disputes.

My words apply with special force to the troubled area of the Middle East. We will do all in our power--through the United Nations whenever possible--to prevent resort to violence there in that region. We are determined to support and assist any nation in that area which might be subjected to aggression. We will strive untiringly to build the foundations for stable peace in the whole region.

In these and many other constructive ways, our nation must help to build an environment congenial to freedom.

Our third guide line is this: We must seek, by every peaceful means, to induce the Soviet bloc to correct existing injustices and genuinely to pursue peaceful purposes in its relations with other nations.

As I have said, many of the wrongs of Stalin against other nations still prevail under his successors. Despite the efforts of the West at Berlin and Geneva, Germany is still divided by the Soviet veto of free all-German elections. The satellite nations of Eastern Europe are still ruled by Soviet puppets. In Asia, Korea remains divided, and stable peace has not yet been achieved.

We must be tireless in our efforts to remedy these injustices and to resolve the disputes that divide the world. These knotty problems will eventually yield to patient and sincere effort. We stand ready to explore all avenues for their just settlement. We will not grow weary in our quest for peaceful remedies for the enslavement or wrongful division of once-free nations.

The interests and purposes of the United States and of the free world do not conflict with the legitimate interests of the Russian nation or the aspirations of the Russian people. A Soviet government genuinely devoted to these purposes can have friendly relations with the United States and the free world for the asking. We will welcome that day.

V.

My friends, we cannot doubt that the current of world history flows toward freedom. In the long run dictatorship and despotism must give way. We can take courage from that sure knowledge.

But as a wise American, Mr. Justice Holmes, once said: "The inevitable comes to pass through effort." We should take these words to heart in our quest for peace and freedom. These great aspirations of humanity will be brought about--but only by devoted human effort.

Concord is a symbol of the faith, the courage, the sacrifice on which the victory of freedom depends. We in our day must strive with the same dedication that brought the militia men to the Concord bridge. If we do so, freedom will surely prevail.

Thank you very much.

[At this point the broadcast ended. The President then resumed speaking to the members of the Society.]

To give you my feeling about what I would like to say now, I will tell you a story of when I was a young lieutenant in a regiment on the Mexican border. There was not a great deal to do in those days, and some people indulged in acquaintanceship with John Barleycorn more than they should.

One morning a couple of us young second lieutenants were up as usual long before the captains were, and we were standing by one captain's tent as he got his feet out of the bunk. He was sitting there on the edge of it with his head in his hands, and he says: "I am nothing but a mountain goat. All I do is jump from jag to jag."

Now any man who through 35 minutes or 30 minutes has been trying to hit the high spots of the world today, and America's position in the international situation, certainly feels that he has been jumping from jag to jag on the mountain tops.

So I wanted rather to come off the summit of those high spots and talk with you for just a few minutes about some of the very great intricacies in this problem that we call developing foreign policies and in implementing them throughout the world.

Now I think there is no use explaining the cold war. We all have pretty clear ideas of what is going on. But one thing that we do worry about is: who is winning and who is losing?

Well, I don't think anybody knows, because the situation differs in every single corner of the globe. I have heard many people at home here say that we are losing the cold war every day. Others take exactly the opposite view, and these more hopeful ones can point to some facts rather than merely allegations about our prestige abroad, or how many friends do w-e have, and that sort of thing.

For example, why was there such a sudden change in the Soviet policy? Their basic aim is to conquer the world, through world revolution if possible, but in any way. Anyone that has read any of their books knows that their doctrine is lies, deceit, subversion, war if necessary, but in any way: conquer the world. And that has not changed.

But they changed their policies very markedly. They were depending on force and the threat of force only. And suddenly they have gone into an entirely different attitude. They are going into the economic and political fields and are really wearing smiles around the world instead of some of the bitter faces to which we have become accustomed.

Now any time a policy is winning and the people are completely satisfied with it, you don't change. You change policies that markedly, you destroy old idols as they have been busy doing, only when you think a great change is necessary. So I think we can take some comfort; at least we can give careful consideration to the very fact they had to change their policies.

And I think the whole free world is trying to test and determine the sincerity of that plan, in order that the free nations themselves, in pursuing their own policies, will make certain that they are not surprised in any place.

We look at some of the advances we think they have made, but let us remember: they did not conquer Korea, which they announced they were going to do. They were stopped finally in the northern part of Vietnam; and Diem, the leader of the Southern Vietnamese, is doing splendidly and a much better figure in that field than anyone even dared to hope.

The Iranian situation which only a few short years ago looked so desperate that each morning we thought we would wake up and read in our newspapers that Mossadegh had let them under the Iron Curtain, has not become satisfactory, but that crisis has passed and it is much better.

The difficulty in Egypt between our British friends and our Egyptian friends over the big base was finally settled.

The Trieste problem which had plagued the world for many years, if not an ideal solution, has had a practical solution. The first bridgehead that Communism had succeeded, or practically succeeded in establishing in our hemisphere, has been thrown out.

These are cold war victories, because the purposes of the Russians were defeated.

Now they have attempted to go into economic fields, and here their unity of action, brought about by the fact they are a single government, is creating new problems.

A group of free nations can stay together fairly easily when you have got a definite threat to their very existence right in their faces. As long as the Germans, for example, were powerful and aggressive in Europe in the Second World War, there was no great trouble in keeping the other nations pretty well together in policy and in action. But when those are lifted and you go into the economic field, each of us--each country--has its own economic problems of itself; now it becomes very difficult for a group of free nations through spontaneous cooperation to achieve a unity to oppose the other man.

Let me take one example, just to show you how these things work out. Let us take Japan. There is no one in this room that needs a blueprint of how important it is to us that Japan stay outside the Iron Curtain. A nation of 90 million industrious and inventive people, tied in with Communist China and with the Soviets, would indeed pose a threat to us that would be very grave indeed.

Japan is 90 million people living on fewer arable acres than there are in the State of California. How are they going to live? Well, they have got to trade. They have got to deal with other people outside. We won't trade with them; every day--well, if not every day, every week, there come to government, including to my desk, pleas for greater protection against Japanese goods.

Now this is not wholly one-sided, because some of our citizens have found out that last year--I think my figures are correct-while we were buying 60 million dollars' worth of cotton textile goods from Japan, they bought 120 million dollars' worth of our cotton. So even that problem is not clear in exactly what you should do.

But anyway, we won't trade with them, so they can't make a living with us except on a minor scale. But we get tired, properly--we can't be trying to sustain any other nation just with our money--so we don't just give them the millions by which they can go and buy all the things they need abroad.

But the next thing we come up against: we are very certain in our own minds that some of these nations--not all the United States people, but some of them, are very loud in their denunciation of any country that trades with the communist countries. So the Japanese can't trade with their natural markets, with Manchuria and China. Finally all of those southeastern markets--all the southeastern Asian markets have been largely destroyed-they are so poor they can't support Japan.

So what does Japan do? Where are we chasing her? Chasing her to one place. She has to look less and less to us and more to the mainland next to her. She has to, now, begin to look rather longingly, unless something is done. Now that is the kind of cross-purpose that comes up, and this goes on around the world. Britain and France and Germany, indeed every country with which we deal, has some problem different economically from
our own.

So we have a real job in trying to get agreed policies among the free nations and then to implement them.

And I come, then, to the real purpose for asking you people to listen to me for a few minutes more after my rather long, prepared address.

It is this: Our nation is called to leadership--and I am not going to argue the point, I know you all understand--leadership in the world, to lead it towards freedom, to keep expanding our areas of freedom and not allow the communist cloud to engulf us little by little.

Now when a nation leads, it is not enough that even an entire government, legislative and executive, should see this problem as one. That doesn't make it a truly national policy in anything that is as long-term, as vital, as is required in national leadership of the whole world. Every citizen has a job that he cannot delegate. He cannot delegate it to the most powerful and the most influential political leaders. He must take his part in getting himself informed.

What I want to say is this: there is nothing more important in the world today than that America--167 million Americans-shall be informed on the basic facts in this whole struggle.

We ought to get it as far away from demagoguery, from political partisanship, from every extraneous influence that we possibly can. Just get the naked truth to these people with interpretation through editorial pages, and so on, to let them see the relation of one fact to another.

There are no easy panaceas. You can't say: "We simply won't trade with the communist nations"--make that work for all of us. In fact, to make such a statement is, to my mind, giving up one of the great strengths for which the Yankee has always been noted: he is a good trader.

In that kind of trade, who gets the best of it?

We should think of those things and not try to pull out any slogan, any single idea, that will meet this situation. But of all things, it is necessary to get the facts to the American people.

The other is to get, so far as we possibly can, the facts of America's purposes--her intentions, her disinterested motives, her lack of ambition for other territory and increased domination--to the world. We must get it out to the world.

This is difficult, because all over the world we don't have you people. We don't have American newspapers. Some of our wire services reach part way, but very inadequately. The United States Information Service is merely to help. It would be far better did we not have to depend on it at all. It should even itself depend on private media wherever it can reach them in other countries.

This information should go out abroad just as at home, through the processes of a free press so far as possible, and government should only support that effort.

One more point, and I am finished.

The world changes, and in these days it changes rapidly. A policy that was good six months ago is not necessarily now of any validity. It is necessary that we find better, more effective, ways of keeping ourselves in tune with the world's needs, and helping to educate the world to know that it itself--each nation--must do the major part of the job. Any outsider can merely be helpful, can give moral and some little physical support--material support.

But the sums that we put out are a bagatelle compared to what is needed and what these people, most of them impoverished, must provide for themselves if the whole free world is to advance.

Now through different kinds of means, one of which, I should think, would be getting together and keeping a sort of rotating advisory body, citizens who are not burdened with the general and never-ending cares of office must devote their brains to the job in partnership with government. We must constantly keep "up to snuff" because if we don't, we are bound to lose. We must be ahead of the problem. We must see its major parts. We must get its critical factors set up so that we understand them thoroughly in simple fashion, and then we must pursue a common course vigorously, persistently, and with readiness to make whatever sacrifices may be demanded.

And then, I say, we will be worthy of the farmers of Concord.

I apologize again for taking so much of your time. Thank you, and good night.

Note: The President's opening words referred to Kenneth MacDonald, President of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, and Mrs. MacDonald, and the Chief Justice of the United States and Mrs. Warren.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, Address at Annual Dinner of the American Society of Newspaper Editors Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/233111

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