Harry S. Truman photo

The President's Toast at a Dinner for the Foreign Ministers of the Pan American Union

April 02, 1951

Your Excellencies the Foreign Ministers of our sister Republics, and Ambassadors who represent you here, Mr. Vice President, Mr. Chief Justice, Mr. Speaker:

The is a most happy occasion for me. I hope that you have enjoyed your visit here as much as we have enjoyed having you.

From what I can hear from the Secretary of State, you have made great progress as a result of this most important meeting of the foreign ministers of the 21 Republics of the Western Hemisphere.

The President of France, I think, made a very great address to your organization, in which he emphasized the necessity for complete cooperation, not only in this hemisphere but among all the free countries of the world, if we do not expect to be completely overwhelmed by a theory of government in which none of us believes.

It gives me great pleasure tonight to have had you as guests of the President of the United States. It also gives me very great pleasure to offer a toast--not in the Russian style. Were we to do it in the Russian style we would drink 21 toasts. In this instance I shall offer a toast to the 20 Presidents of the sister Republics of the Western Hemisphere.

Note: The President proposed the toast at a stag dinner at the Carlton Hotel in Washington. In his opening words he referred to the foreign ministers and ambassadors of the 21 nations comprising the Pan American Union, Albert W. Barkley, Vice President of the United States, Fred M. Vinson, Chief Justice of the United States, and Sam Rayburn, Speaker of the House of Representatives. Later the President referred to Dean Acheson, Secretary of State, and to President Vincent Auriol of France, who had addressed a meeting of the foreign ministers in Washington on March

Foreign Minister Manuel C. Gallagher of Peru responded with an address and a toast.

Harry S Truman, The President's Toast at a Dinner for the Foreign Ministers of the Pan American Union Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/230366

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