Remarks at the Inaugural Meeting of the Inter-American Economic and Social Council.

Ambassadors, representatives, ministers, Mr. Secretary:

Today marks another milestone in the Alliance for Progress. For today we begin to select the Panel of Experts established by the Charter of Punta del Este.

This Panel is an historic innovation, not only in Inter-American relations, but in the effort to develop the economies of half the world. Not since the Marshall Plan has a group of allied nations embarked on a program of regional development guided by a regional body largely selected by the developing nations themselves.

These experts will review the long-term development plans of the Latin American nations--advising them on measures to strengthen the plans and the self-help and the social reform measures which will accompany them. In addition they will provide help in financing agencies to provide external resources in the most effective manner.

I am confident that the skills and ability of the men you select will enable all the nations of the Hemisphere to benefit greatly from their work. And I assure you that the United States will give the greatest possible weight to the conclusions of the experts in the distribution of funds. Similarly, we will instruct our representatives to international agencies to rely heavily on the work of the Panel.

I am confident that this new and imaginative creation of the Inter-American system will vastly strengthen our common effort--the Alliance for Progress for all our people.

I have also, today, signed an agreement for the use of $6 million in Alliance for Progress Funds to strengthen the OAS. This money will be used for studies and technical assistance--called for by the Charter of Punta del Este--to help nations in planning the growth of their economies. Thus a pledge of long standing has been fulfilled.

I would also like to express my gratification at the important progress which has been made since the Alliance for Progress was proposed in March.

In August, the American nations drafted the Charter of Punta del Este--the framework for the decade of development--a document whose scope and significance is matched only by the Charter of the OAS itself. The Inter-American Bank, ECLA, and the OAS have agreed to provide development missions to assist nations in their planning--and some of these missions are already in the field. In addition, you have strengthened the machinery of the Inter-American Economic and Social Council, and prepared for today's selection of the Panel of Experts.

For its part the United States has streamlined its own AID program--placing general responsibility for coordination of our effort in the hands of a distinguished administrator with long experience in the work of development-Ambassador Moscoso. And we have already developed new sets of standards to guide our work.

In these--and in many other ways--we have developed the basic structure for our future effort--for the work of the next 10 years. But we have not waited for the establishment of that structure to begin our work.

All over Latin America new development plans are being formulated, and some have already been completed. New tax and land reform programs--basic requirements of social progress--have been instituted or are being prepared. Many of the American nations are now mobilizing their resources, and the energies of their people, for the task of development. And the United States, for its part, has already committed more than $800 million of the more than $1 billion which it pledged to the first year of the Alliance--a year which ends on March 13.

But despite this speed, I am determined to do better, as far as this country goes, in the coming months. The urgent needs of our people in this Hemisphere cannot wait. Their need for food and shelter, for education and relief from poverty, and above all, their need to feel hope for their future and the future of their children, demands attention and toil this year, this month, today.

Measured by the past, we have moved swiftly. Measured by the needs of the future, we must all do much better. And I can assure you that the energies of this Government-and my own personal efforts--will be devoted to speeding up the pace of development. For I share with you a determination that before this decade comes to a close the Americans will have entered upon a new era--when the material progress of American man and woman, and the justice of his society, will match the spiritual and cultural achievements of this Hemisphere.

I am fully aware of the immensity of the task, and of the difficulties that we face. But I know we share the faith of one of the earliest settlers of my country--William Bradford of Massachusetts--who, when told in 1630 that the hazards of settling this part of the United States were too great to overcome, answered .

"All great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and must be both enterprised and overcome with answerable courage,.. the dangers were great, but not desperate; the difficulties were many, but not invincible . . . all of them, through the help of God, by fortitude and patience, might either be borne or overcome." We shall overcome them.