Statement by the President on the Draft Treaty To Prevent the Spread of Nuclear Weapons

This morning, on my instructions, the United States Delegate to the Geneva Disarmament Conference, Mr. William C. Foster, has presented a draft treaty to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.

President Kennedy gave voice to international concern over this gravest of all unresolved human issues. He urged the disarmament conference to find ways to both the understanding of urgent needs, and the undertaking of prompt action. For he knew, as each individual citizen senses, the time to halt nuclear spread is before its contagion takes root.

It was in that spirit that he constructed the nuclear test ban treaty, the first hopeful, helpful step in the long journey toward peace.

Now we continue that journey today in Geneva.

This draft treaty would bind its signers in a pledge to refrain from actions which would lead to any further increase in the number of nations having the power to unleash nuclear devastation on the world. This United States draft is an important step forward. It plainly demonstrates that a treaty can be drawn which meets the legitimate interests of nuclear and nonnuclear powers alike.

Our draft treaty is now open for discussion and negotiation. The United States is prepared to move forward with promptness and determination to make this proposal a reality. We call upon all those at Geneva to join in this effort.

I speak for all my countrymen in reaffirming our conviction that the peace of the world requires firm limits upon the spread of nuclear weapons.

This has been the policy of the United States for 20 years. The policy is still as right as ever.

In this great issue the interests of the people of the United States are at one with the interests of all people everywhere. The threat to peace--and to human life itself--is universal. If the response is universal, the threat can be met.

President Eisenhower and President Kennedy sought, as I seek now, the pathway to a world in which serenity may one day endure. There is no sane description of a nuclear war. There is only the blinding light of man's failure to reason with his fellow man, and then silence.

The time is now. The hour is late. The fate of generations yet unborn is in our hands. And "humanity with all its fears, with all the hopes of future years is hanging breathless" on that fate.