Proclamation 4789—United Nations Day, 1980

This year marks the 35th Anniversary of the founding of the United Nations, an organization dedicated to maintaining international peace and security, developing friendly relations among nations, and achieving international cooperation in solving global problems. Today 153 nations work within the United Nations framework to resolve some of the most crucial problems of our time.

Never has the United Nations been more important to the United States and to the world than it is today. The past year has seen momentous international events. Many have not yet run their full course but have already changed the way we see the world around us. We have become more conscious of the risks of war and more aware of the urgent tasks of peace.

Today, peace is threatened in many ways. There are the visible threats like the invasion by a super power of an innocent, defenseless land. And, there are the more subtle threats of hunger, spiraling inflation, inadequate health care, and depleted natural and monetary resources. These threats have filled the United Nations with a strong sense of the urgency of creating an international system based on active and equitable, social and economic cooperation among the countries of the North and South.

The United Nations, through the work of its specialized agencies and programs, its regional organizations and international conferences, has become an indispensable frontline defense against the events and forces that threaten world stability. It has played a central role in setting the pace and direction for international cooperation in an interdependent world.

The United States has always been an active and dedicated supporter of the United Nations. As President, I have been proud to carry on and expand this tradition. My Administration continues to be firmly committed to a strong United Nations system.

Now, Therefore, I, Jimmy Carter, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate Friday, October 24, 1980, as United Nations Day. I urge all Americans to use this day as an opportunity to better acquaint themselves with the activities and accomplishments of the United Nations.

I have appointed Mr. Charles L. Brown to serve as 1980 United States National Chairman for United Nations Day, and the United Nations Association of the United States of America to work with him in celebrating this special day. I invite all the American people, and people everywhere, to join me in expressing sincere and steadfast support for the United Nations on its thirty-fifth anniversary. It is only through multilateral institutions like the United Nations that the solutions to our ever more urgent global problems will be found.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-ninth day of August, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and fifth.

JIMMY CARTER