YOUR message and your mission remind the leaders and the peoples of all nations that we are all travelers together on this ancient ship called Earth. You are pursuing two of the noblest aims of man-the quest for knowledge of his past and the hope for peace in his future. May your courageous voyage bring you safely to port and may your eminent example contribute to greater cooperation among all nations for all that is best for mankind.
Note: The expedition led by Thor Heyerdahl, Norwegian explorer and anthropologist, left Morocco on May 17, 1969, aboard the Ra, a 60-70 foot boat of woven papyrus. They traveled 2,600 miles to within 600 miles of Barbados before being forced to abandon the craft. Although partially submerged, the Ra drifted on alone to South America.
On July 3, 1969, the President received a radio message from Thor Heyerdahl in mid-Atlantic. The President radioed his message n reply to the crew of the Ra on the following day. The message from Thor Heyerdahl follows:
Seven men from seven nations, attempting to cross the widest span of the Atlantic Ocean from Morocco in Africa to the New World in a replica of an ancient Egyptian papyrus ship, take pleasure in sending you, Mr. President, our message of best wishes upon having covered 2,000 miles and thus completed half our voyage. Our objective is to investigate whether or not it might have been possible for ancient civilizations in the Mediterranean area to bring cultural impulses to the original populations of the New World.
Simultaneously, it is our desire to experiment in small scale with international cooperation under difficult and stressed conditions and thus to test the unity of mankind both in time and space. Our expedition has the privilege to sail under the flag of the United Nations, together with the flags of each nation represented on board, which are: the United States represented by Norman Baker, the Soviet Union by Yuri Senkevich, Italy by Carlo Mauri, Chad by Abdoulaye Djibrime, Egypt by Georges Sourial, Mexico by Santiago Genoves, and Norway by the undersigned. Having found in our little world of floating papyrus bundles that cooperation of men of different national, racial, linguistic, religious, and political backgrounds can be readily accomplished and highly fruitful to the common cause, we take the liberty to extend symbolically the sincere wish that the captains of greater vessels, like the large and small powers, shall have success in every effort made to encourage friendship and cooperation between the different peoples of the world in the true spirit of the United Nations.
Respectfully yours,
THOR HEYERDAHL
Richard Nixon, Message to Thor Heyerdahl and the Crew of Expedition Ra. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/239540