Remarks to the Permanent NATO Council at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris.

THERE IS really no important reason for me coming here this morning. I have no business to transact or any propositions to place before you. I come rather as one who wants to offer his own testimony to his own convictions and to my country's convictions as to the importance of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and to the importance of this Permanent Council in furthering the work of cooperation among the nations in that organization.

I am a representative of a large country, but I seek no position for my country in NATO other than that of an equal partner ready to do its part with all others regardless of size in the great work of assuring the security of the whole. I should like to point out that though one nation may have greater material resources, greater financial or economic or industrial strength than another, no nation in its spirit in the moral force that it can exert in the world needs take a second place to any other.

NATO is really more a matter of spirit than it is just of strength. It is the strength of ideals, the strength of our determination to preserve those ideals, to work together as true partners, that make NATO a valuable, necessary, and constructive force in the world.

So I repeat, I come back--I come here again to this Council table not to offer anything new, merely to give you my testimony as to the value of this great group and the nations that you collectively represent.

I make only one prophecy: if we are firm among ourselves, if we refuse to retreat one inch from principle, if we remain flexible insofar as tactics, methods, and procedures are involved, and if we keep high our zeal and give to NATO the same patriotic passion and deep devotion that we each give to our own country, then there will be no war. We will be safe, we will progress together to a better world.

Thank you very much.