On Thursday, the President of the United States
will present once again to the United Nations the deep yearning of the
people of our country for a just and dependable peace - a peace in which
all peoples can advance and prosper in systems of their own choosing rather
than one in which enormous resources are consumed in ever - increasing
amounts by instruments of death and destruction.
Our President will be speaking in this world
assembly not for Democrats, not for Republicans, not for independents,
nor for sections or regions in our country. He will be speaking for all
the American people; and behind him, I am convinced, will be proudly arrayed
every last one of our countrymen, 180 million strong, no matter their party,
no matter other subordinate considerations.
This is a situation gravely important to our
country and to the cause for peace. It places a special responsibility
upon me, as I see it, upon Henry Cabot Lodge, upon our opponents in this
campaign - the responsibility of conducting ourselves, in all that we say
and do, with maturity and judgment. We have responsibility in avoiding
resort to statements which tend to divide America, which tend to disparage
America, and which in any way would encourage Chairman Khrushchev and his
fellow dictators to believe that this Nation, the leader of the free world,
is weak of will, is indecisive, is unsure of and hesitant to use her vast
power, is poorly defended, is held at bay by imperialistic communism, or
is divided in opinion on world affairs believing that the majority of mankind
holds her in disdain.
A great struggle was never won by a lack of
belief in one's own strength and unity of purpose or by a defeatist attitude.
We know the regimented Communists will march, lockstep, through the United
Nations, hanging desperately together to avoid hanging one another separately.
There will be, on their part, no deviation.
We know that they, on their side, will exploit
every distinction we draw among ourselves and that they will do their best
to draw the United Nations - and us - into their web.
In our press, on television, from our radios,
we will read, see and hear the self-serving pronouncements of these single-purposed
men. I say simply this:
As our free Nation deliberately subjects itself,
because of its freedom, to the impact of these dictatorial leaders and
their twisted philosophy, let us not panic or search for faults in ourselves
that would give strength to their distorted reasoning. Instead, let America,
all partisanship aside, stand confidently in the right, united behind the
President as he presents our case before the United Nations, secure and
unperturbed in the knowledge that we are on the side certain ultimately
to win - the side of freedom and justice, supported by our Nation's vast
military and economic strength, the greatest on earth.