IV.

But all these problems pale when placed beside those which confront us

around the world. No man entering upon this office, regardless of his

party, regardless of his previous service in Washington, could fail to be

staggered upon learning--even in this brief 10 day period--the harsh

enormity of the trials through which we must pass in the next four years.

Each day the crises multiply. Each day their solution grows more difficult.

Each day we draw nearer the hour of maximum danger, as weapons spread and

hostile forces grow stronger. I feel I must inform the Congress that our

analyses over the last ten days make it clear that--in each of the

principal areas of crisis--the tide of events has been running out and time

has not been our friend.

In Asia, the relentless pressures of the Chinese Communists menace the

security of the entire area--from the borders of India and South Viet Nam

to the jungles of Laos, struggling to protect its newly-won independence.

We seek in Laos what we seek in all Asia, and, indeed, in all of the

world--freedom for the people and independence for the government. And this

Nation shall persevere in our pursuit of these objectives.

In Africa, the Congo has been brutally torn by civil strife, political

unrest and public disorder. We shall continue to support the heroic

efforts of the United Nations to restore peace and order--efforts which

are now endangered by mounting tensions, unsolved problems, and decreasing

support from many member states.

In Latin America, Communist agents seeking to exploit that region's

peaceful revolution of hope have established a base on Cuba, only 90 miles

from our shores. Our objection with Cuba is not over the people's drive for

a better life. Our objection is to their domination by foreign and domestic

tyrannies. Cuban social and economic reform should be encouraged. Questions

of economic and trade policy can always be negotiated. But Communist

domination in this Hemisphere can never be negotiated.

We are pledged to work with our sister Republics to free the Americas of

all such foreign domination and all tyranny, working toward the goal of a

free hemisphere of free governments, extending from Cape Horn to the Arctic

Circle.

In Europe our alliances are unfulfilled and in some disarray. The unity of

NATO has been weakened by economic rivalry and partially eroded by national

interest. It has not yet fully mobilized its resources nor fully achieved a

common outlook. Yet no Atlantic power can meet on its own the mutual

problems now facing us in defense, foreign aid, monetary reserves, and a

host of other areas; and our close ties with those whose hopes and

interests we share are among this Nation's most powerful assets.

Our greatest challenge is still the world that lies beyond the Cold

War--but the first great obstacle is still our relations with the Soviet

Union and Communist China. We must never be lulled into believing that

either power has yielded its ambitions for world domination--ambitions

which they forcefully restated only a short time ago. On the contrary, our

task is to convince them that aggression and subversion will not be

profitable routes to pursue these ends. Open and peaceful competition--for

prestige, for markets, for scientific achievement, even for men's minds--is

something else again. For if Freedom and Communism were to compete for

man's allegiance in a world at peace, I would look to the future with ever

increasing confidence.

To meet this array of challenges--to fulfill the role we cannot avoid on

the world scene--we must reexamine and revise our whole arsenal of tools:

military, economic and political.

One must not overshadow the other. On the Presidential Coat of Arms, the

American eagle holds in his right talon the olive branch, while in his left

he holds a bundle of arrows. We intend to give equal attention to both.

First, we must strengthen our military tools. We are moving into a period

of uncertain risk and great commitment in which both the military and

diplomatic possibilities require a Free World force so powerful as to make

any aggression clearly futile. Yet in the past, lack of a consistent,

coherent military strategy, the absence of basic assumptions about our

national requirements and the faulty estimates and duplication arising from

inter-service rivalries have all made it difficult to assess accurately how

adequate--or inadequate--our defenses really are.

I have, therefore, instructed the Secretary of Defense to reappraise our

entire defense strategy--our ability to fulfill our commitments--the

effectiveness, vulnerability, and dispersal of our strategic bases, forces

and warning systems--the efficiency and economy of our operation and

organization--the elimination of obsolete bases and installations--and the

adequacy, modernization and mobility of our present conventional and

nuclear forces and weapons systems in the light of present and future

dangers. I have asked for preliminary conclusions by the end of

February--and I then shall recommend whatever legislative, budgetary or

executive action is needed in the light of these conclusions.

In the meantime, I have asked the Defense Secretary to initiate immediately

three new steps most clearly needed now:

First, I have directed prompt attention to increase our air-lift capacity.

Obtaining additional air transport mobility--and obtaining it now--will

better assure the ability of our conventional forces to respond, with

discrimination and speed, to any problem at any spot on the globe at any

moment's notice. In particular it will enable us to meet any deliberate

effort to avoid or divert our forces by starting limited wars in widely

scattered parts of the globe.

(b) I have directed prompt action to step up our Polaris submarine program.

Using unobligated ship-building funds now (to let contracts originally

scheduled for the next fiscal year) will build and place on station--at

least nine months earlier than planned--substantially more units of a

crucial deterrent--a fleet that will never attack first, but possess

sufficient powers of retaliation, concealed beneath the seas, to discourage

any aggressor from launching an attack upon our security.

(c) I have directed prompt action to accelerate our entire missile program.

Until the Secretary of Defense's reappraisal is completed, the emphasis

here will be largely on improved organization and decision-making--on

cutting down the wasteful duplications and the time-lag that have

handicapped our whole family of missiles. If we are to keep the peace, we

need an invulnerable missile force powerful enough to deter any aggressor

from even threatening an attack that he would know could not destroy enough

of our force to prevent his own destruction. For as I said upon taking the

oath of office: "Only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be

certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed."

Secondly, we must improve our economic tools. Our role is essential and

unavoidable in the construction of a sound and expanding economy for the

entire non-communist world, helping other nations build the strength to

meet their own problems, to satisfy their own aspirations--to surmount

their own dangers. The problems in achieving this goal are towering and

unprecedented--the response must be towering and unprecedented as well,

much as Lend-Lease and the Marshall Plan were in earlier years, which

brought such fruitful results.

(a) I intend to ask the Congress for authority to establish a new and more

effective program for assisting the economic, educational and social

development of other countries and continents. That program must stimulate

and take more effectively into account the contributions of our allies, and

provide central policy direction for all our own programs that now so often

overlap, conflict or diffuse our energies and resources. Such a program,

compared to past programs, will require

--more flexibility for short run emergencies

--more commitment to long term development--new attention to education at

all levels--greater emphasis on the recipient nation's role, their effort,

their purpose, with greater social justice for their people, broader

distribution and participation by their people and more efficient public

administration and more efficient tax systems of their own

--and orderly planning for national and regional development instead of a

piecemeal approach.

I hope the Senate will take early action approving the Convention

establishing the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

This will be an important instrument in sharing with our allies this

development effort--working toward the time when each nation will

contribute in proportion to its ability to pay. For, while we are prepared

to assume our full share of these huge burdens, we cannot and must not be

expected to bear them alone.

To our sister republics to the south, we have pledged a new alliance for

progress--alianza para progreso. Our goal is a free and prosperous Latin

America, realizing for all its states and all its citizens a degree of

economic and social progress that matches their historic contributions of

culture, intellect and liberty. To start this nation's role at this time in

that alliance of neighbors, I am recommending the following:

--That the Congress appropriate in full the $500 million fund pledged by

the Act of Bogota, to be used not as an instrument of the Cold War, but as

a first step in the sound development of the Americas.

--That a new Inter-Departmental Task Force be established under the

leadership of the Department of State, to coordinate at the highest level

all policies and programs of concern to the Americas.

--That our delegates to the OAS, working with those of other members,

strengthen that body as an instrument to preserve the peace and to prevent

foreign domination anywhere in the Hemisphere.

--That, in cooperation with other nations, we launch a new hemispheric

attack on illiteracy and inadequate educational opportunities to all

levels; and, finally,

--That a Food-for-Peace mission be sent immediately to Latin America to

explore ways in which our vast food abundance can be used to help end

hunger and malnutrition in certain areas of suffering in our own

hemisphere.

This Administration is expanding its Food-for-Peace Program in every

possible way. The product of our abundance must be used more effectively to

relieve hunger and help economic growth in all corners of the globe. And I

have asked the Director of this Program to recommend additional ways in

which these surpluses can advance the interests of world peace--including

the establishment of world food reserves.

An even more valuable national asset is our reservoir of dedicated men and

women--not only on our college campuses but in every age group--who have

indicated their desire to contribute their skills, their efforts, and a

part of their lives to the fight for world order. We can mobilize this

talent through the formation of a National Peace Corps, enlisting the

services of all those with the desire and capacity to help foreign lands

meet their urgent needs for trained personnel.

Finally, while our attention is centered on the development of the non-

communist world, we must never forget our hopes for the ultimate freedom

and welfare of the Eastern European peoples. In order to be prepared to

help re-establish historic ties of friendship, I am asking the Congress

for increased discretion to use economic tools in this area whenever

this is found to be clearly in the national interest. This will require

amendment of the Mutual Defense Assistance Control Act along the lines I

proposed as a member of the Senate, and upon which the Senate voted last

summer. Meanwhile, I hope to explore with the Polish government the

possibility of using our frozen Polish funds on projects of peace that

will demonstrate our abiding friendship for and interest in the people

of Poland.

Third, we must sharpen our political and diplomatic tools--the means of

cooperation and agreement on which an enforceable world order must

ultimately rest.

I have already taken steps to coordinate and expand our disarmament

effort--to increase our programs of research and study--and to make arms

control a central goal of our national policy under my direction. The

deadly arms race, and the huge resources it absorbs, have too long

overshadowed all else we must do. We must prevent that arms race from

spreading to new nations, to new nuclear powers and to the reaches of outer

space. We must make certain that our negotiators are better informed and

better prepared--to formulate workable proposals of our own and to make

sound judgments about the proposals of others.

I have asked the other governments concerned to agree to a reasonable delay

in the talks on a nuclear test ban--and it is our intention to resume

negotiations prepared to reach a final agreement with any nation that is

equally willing to agree to an effective and enforceable treaty.

We must increase our support of the United Nations as an instrument to end

the Cold War instead of an arena in which to fight it. In recognition of

its increasing importance and the doubling of its membership

--we are enlarging and strengthening our own mission to the U.N.

--we shall help insure that it is properly financed.

--we shall work to see that the integrity of the office of the

Secretary-General is maintained.

--And I would address a special plea to the smaller nations of the

world--to join with us in strengthening this organization, which is far

more essential to their security than it is to ours--the only body in the

world where no nation need be powerful to be secure, where every nation has

an equal voice, and where any nation can exert influence not according to

the strength of its armies but according to the strength of its ideas. It

deserves the support of all.

Finally, this Administration intends to explore promptly all possible areas

of cooperation with the Soviet Union and other nations "to invoke the

wonders of science instead of its terrors." Specifically, I now invite all

nations--including the Soviet Union--to join with us in developing a

weather prediction program, in a new communications satellite program and

in preparation for probing the distant planets of Mars and Venus, probes

which may someday unlock the deepest secrets of the universe.

Today this country is ahead in the science and technology of space, while

the Soviet Union is ahead in the capacity to lift large vehicles into

orbit. Both nations would help themselves as well as other nations by

removing these endeavors from the bitter and wasteful competition of the

Cold War. The United States would be willing to join with the Soviet Union

and the scientists of all nations in a greater effort to make the fruits

of this new knowledge available to all--and, beyond that, in an effort to

extend farm technology to hungry nations--to wipe out disease--to increase

the exchanges of scientists and their knowledge--and to make our own

laboratories available to technicians of other lands who lack the

facilities to pursue their own work. Where nature makes natural allies of

us all, we can demonstrate that beneficial relations are possible even

with those with whom we most deeply disagree--and this must someday be the

basis of world peace and world law.