Statement by the President Concerning Adlai Stevenson's Special Mission to South America.

I HAVE ASKED Ambassador Adlai E. Stevenson to undertake a special mission on my behalf to the countries of South America. He will consult with officials of the Governments of the South American continent about what can be done to perfect and accelerate our Inter-American program for social and economic development as well as our cooperation in other respects. I am delighted that Governor Stevenson has agreed to undertake this mission.

Governor Stevenson plans to leave very soon and will be away for about three weeks. We are consulting the governments concerned and our embassies, and the itinerary has not yet been finally worked out. But I can say that Governor Stevenson hopes to visit all the countries in South America. He regrets, and I do also, that he will not be able to visit all the other American Republics with which we have diplomatic relations.

It seems to us that this is an especially appropriate time for Governor Stevenson to visit South America again. The American Governments are preparing for the Ministerial Meeting of the Inter-American Economic and Social Council which is to be held beginning on July 15 in Uruguay. The United States Government views this meeting as one of great potential significance and promise for strengthening the free and independent nations of this hemisphere and both national and Inter-American institutions for social progress and economic development.

Our Latin American neighbors and we are also bound together under the United Nations Charter in worldwide arrangements for peace and security, for economic cooperation, and for the protection of human rights. As the United States Representative in the United Nations, Governor Stevenson is in an excellent position to canvass with our South American friends the relationship between our hemispheric arrangements and our common interest in an effective United Nations. He will assuredly speak for me as well as for himself in expressing admiration for the magnificent record of liberal leadership which the Latin American Governments continue to exert in the work of the United Nations.

On March 13 I suggested to the people of this hemisphere an "Alliance for Progress, a vast cooperative effort . . . to satisfy the basic needs of the American people, for homes, work and land, health and schools." While the name, Alliance for Progress, might be new, the ideas I put forward are not the monopoly of any single American state, but flow naturally from our long tradition of Inter-American cooperation. On April 14 I stated that "Our common purpose today is to harness these new aspirations and these new tools in a great Inter-American effort--an effort to lift all the peoples in the Americas . . . into a new era of economic progress and social justice." I said that the OAS, the oldest organization of nations in existence, should move ahead to meet this new challenge. I asked all the free republics of the hemisphere to join this cooperative undertaking to eliminate hunger and poverty, ignorance and disease from our hemisphere. I believe these aspirations are common to the Americas and that there exists a firm will and determination to move ahead with this great work. Inter-American machinery must be strengthened. We need to outline basic development goals. It is essential that each government individually and cooperating with others, define objectives in the key areas of economic and social betterment such as education, land use and tenure, taxation, public health. And we must do it while enlarging, not restricting, the area of freedom, while guaranteeing, not destroying, the human rights and the dignity of the individual.

In this effort each country needs first of all to help itself. But we must also help each other and move together.

Governor Stevenson will be ready to explain our ideas as to how we believe this can be done. And he will seek the ideas of our good neighbors. These exchanges of ideas about our new plans and responsibilities will be a useful part of the preparations for our meeting in Uruguay.

In my statement of March 13 I also emphasized that our cooperation in this hemisphere should not be only in economic and social fields. We need to explore methods of obtaining closer relationships in the cultural field as well--between our schools and universities, our teachers and students, in our scientists and artists, our writers and thinkers--in short each manifestation of the diversity of the culture and tradition of our peoples. I think there are few people in the United States better qualified than Adlai Stevenson to examine and discuss all these possibilities. I am sure that his journey will contribute immeasurably to our preparations for the Montevideo conference and to the strengthening of the Inter-American system.