Message to President Tubman of Liberia on the Occasion of the Monrovia Conference of African States.

Dear Mr. President:

I want to extend to you and to the delegates to the Monrovia Conference the best wishes of the Government and the people of the United States for the success of your conference.

When the leaders of the African nations meet together to discuss the freedom, the security and the economic well-being of their people, all friends of Africa rejoice. We greatly applaud the determination of African leaders to come to grips with their own problems. They are African problems and they must be solved, first of all, in African terms. Solutions thus arrived at advance not only the interest of the African peoples; they contribute also to international understanding and world peace.

The United States of America welcomes African moves toward greater regional or continent-wide cooperation. It strongly hopes for the success of African arrangements designed to keep the peace in Africa, which can serve as an inspiration for other parts of the world community.

It is our further hope that your conference, through discussion of economic and social problems of the African peoples, may arrive at understandings and decisions which will promote economic growth. I assure you that the United States is anxious to assist in promoting that growth because of our conviction that no nation in the world today can live in peace and prosperity while others are denied the full realization of social progress and human dignity.

To you, your fellow Chiefs of State, and the Foreign Ministers and other representatives at the Monrovia Conference, I express in my own name and in the name of the American people our most sincere hope that this Conference will achieve a full measure of practical success, contributing thereby to the further strengthening of freedom in Africa and throughout the world.

JOHN F. KENNEDY

[His Excellency, William V. S. Tubman, President of the Republic of Liberia, Monrovia]