Statement by the President on the 17th Anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO today, with the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty, the Western nations drew together in a historic undertaking to safeguard the freedom, common heritage, and civilization of our peoples.

For the United States this meant founding the last corner on the long road from self-imposed isolation to full acceptance of our responsibilities in the world. For our allies the North Atlantic Treaty signified a departure, no less historic, from traditional pursuit of national interests narrowly construed. In the treaty we together acknowledged a common destiny and the duty to pursue it together.

We decided that if we didn't hang together, we would hang separately. Nearly two decades of time have demonstrated the wisdom of those who read the lesson for the future in two world catastrophes out of the past.

The Atlantic alliance deterred the threatened aggression which brought it into being. Behind the military bulwark it raised from the Black Sea to the North Cape, an era of unprecedented growth and well-being began.

Within the framework of security it provided, the vision of a united Europe became a practical undertaking, now far advanced.

The Atlantic alliance has succeeded perhaps better than its founders dared hope. Yet we must never forget why it has prospered.

The unique quality of the alliance for peace lies in the joining of sovereign nations in an integrated system of collective defense. We and our partners, in painstaking effort, created the peacetime planning agencies and integrated military commands called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. These institutions afford practical assurance that aggression would be met by allies acting at once and as one. They have insured the peoples of the Atlantic community 17 years of peace.

NATO was created as an instrument of peace. Its objectives are to remove temptation to aggression and to provide the foundation for seeking a settlement in Central Europe, based on the principle of self-determination, providing increased security for East and West alike. Every lesson of our common experience argues that these objectives should be pursued in closest concert.

Together with 13 other allied nations, we have declared our resolve to carry on, to strengthen and perfect our NATO system in this constructive spirit. We shall not abandon an institution which has proved itself in the hour of peril.

We look forward to the day when unity of action in the Western family is fully reestablished and our common interests and aspirations are again expressed through institutions which command universal support among us.