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JFK'S COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS AT
AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 1963
World Peace
It follows the full text transcript of
John F. Kennedy's Commencement Address at
American University, also known as his World Peace speech, delivered at
John M. Reeves Athletic Field, American University,
Washington D.C. - June 10, 1963.
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President
Anderson, members of the faculty, board of
trustees, distinguished guests, my old
colleague, Senator Bob Byrd, who has earned his
degree through many years of attending night law
school, while I am earning mine in the next 30
minutes, distinguished guests, ladies and
gentlemen: |
It is with great
pride that I participate in this ceremony of the
American University, sponsored by the Methodist
Church, founded by Bishop John Fletcher Hurst,
and first opened by President Woodrow Wilson in
1914. This is a young and growing university,
but it has already fulfilled Bishop Hurst's
enlightened hope for the study of history and
public affairs in a city devoted to the making
of history and the conduct of the public's
business. By sponsoring this institution of
higher learning for all who wish to learn,
whatever their color or their creed, the
Methodists of this area and the Nation deserve
the Nation's thanks, and I commend all those who
are today graduating.
Professor Woodrow Wilson once said that every
man sent out from a university should be a man
of his nation as well as a man of his time, and
I am confident that the men and women who carry
the honor of graduating from this institution
will continue to give from their lives, from
their talents, a high measure of public service
and public support.
"There are few earthly things more beautiful
than a university," wrote John Masefield in his
tribute to English universities--and his words
are equally true today. He did not refer to
spires and towers, to campus greens and ivied
walls. He admired the splendid beauty of the
university, he said, because it was "a place
where those who hate ignorance may strive to
know, where those who perceive truth may strive
to make others see."
I have, therefore, chosen this time and this
place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too
often abounds and the truth is too rarely
perceived--yet it is the most important topic on
earth: world peace.
What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace
do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the
world by American weapons of war. Not the peace
of the grave or the security of the slave. I am
talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace
that makes life on earth worth living, the kind
that enables men and nations to grow and to hope
and to build a better life for their
children--not merely peace for Americans but
peace for all men and women--not merely peace in
our time but peace for all time.
I speak of peace because of the new face of war.
Total war makes no sense in an age when great
powers can maintain large and relatively
invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to
surrender without resort to those forces. It
makes no sense in an age when a single nuclear
weapon contains almost ten times the explosive
force delivered by all the allied air forces in
the Second World War. It makes no sense in an
age when the deadly poisons produced by a
nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and
water and soil and seed to the far corners of
the globe and to generations yet unborn.
Today the expenditure of billions of dollars
every year on weapons acquired for the purpose
of making sure we never need to use them is
essential to keeping the peace. But surely the
acquisition of such idle stockpiles--which can
only destroy and never create--is not the only,
much less the most efficient, means of assuring
peace.
I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary
rational end of rational men. I realize that the
pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the
pursuit of war--and frequently the words of the
pursuer fall on deaf ears. But we have no more
urgent task.
Some say that it is useless to speak of world
peace or world law or world disarmament--and
that it will be useless until the leaders of the
Soviet Union adopt a more enlightened attitude.
I hope they do. I believe we can help them do
it. But I also believe that we must reexamine
our own attitude--as individuals and as a
Nation--for our attitude is as essential as
theirs. And every graduate of this school, every
thoughtful citizen who despairs of war and
wishes to bring peace, should begin by looking
inward--by examining his own attitude toward the
possibilities of peace, toward the Soviet Union,
toward the course of the cold war and toward
freedom and peace here at home.
First: Let us examine our attitude toward peace
itself. Too many of us think it is impossible.
Too many think it unreal. But that is a
dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the
conclusion that war is inevitable--that mankind
is doomed--that we are gripped by forces we
cannot control.
We need not accept that view. Our problems are
manmade--therefore, they can be solved by man.
And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of
human destiny is beyond human beings. Man's
reason and spirit have often solved the
seemingly unsolvable--and we believe they can do
it again.
I am not referring to the absolute, infinite
concept of peace and good will of which some
fantasies and fanatics dream. I do not deny the
value of hopes and dreams but we merely invite
discouragement and incredulity by making that
our only and immediate goal.
Let us focus instead on a more practical, more
attainable peace-- based not on a sudden
revolution in human nature but on a gradual
evolution in human institutions--on a series of
concrete actions and effective agreements which
are in the interest of all concerned. There is
no single, simple key to this peace--no grand or
magic formula to be adopted by one or two
powers. Genuine peace must be the product of
many nations, the sum of many acts. It must be
dynamic, not static, changing to meet the
challenge of each new generation. For peace is a
process--a way of solving problems.
With such a peace, there will still be quarrels
and conflicting interests, as there are within
families and nations. World peace, like
community peace, does not require that each man
love his neighbor--it requires only that they
live together in mutual tolerance, submitting
their disputes to a just and peaceful
settlement. And history teaches us that enmities
between nations, as between individuals, do not
last forever. However fixed our likes and
dislikes may seem, the tide of time and events
will often bring surprising changes in the
relations between nations and neighbors.
So let us persevere. Peace need not be
impracticable, and war need not be inevitable.
By defining our goal more clearly, by making it
seem more manageable and less remote, we can
help all peoples to see it, to draw hope from
it, and to move irresistibly toward it.
Second: Let us reexamine our attitude toward the
Soviet Union. It is discouraging to think that
their leaders may actually believe what their
propagandists write. It is discouraging to read
a recent authoritative Soviet text on Military
Strategy and find, on page after page, wholly
baseless and incredible claims--such as the
allegation that "American imperialist circles
are preparing to unleash different types of wars
. . . that there is a very real threat of a
preventive war being unleashed by American
imperialists against the Soviet Union . . . [and
that] the political aims of the American
imperialists are to enslave economically and
politically the European and other capitalist
countries . . . [and] to achieve world
domination . . . by means of aggressive wars."
Truly, as it was written long ago: "The wicked
flee when no man pursueth." Yet it is sad to
read these Soviet statements--to realize the
extent of the gulf between us. But it is also a
warning--a warning to the American people not to
fall into the same trap as the Soviets, not to
see only a distorted and desperate view of the
other side, not to see conflict as inevitable,
accommodation as impossible, and communication
as nothing more than an exchange of threats.
No government or social system is so evil that
its people must be considered as lacking in
virtue. As Americans, we find communism
profoundly repugnant as a negation of personal
freedom and dignity. But we can still hail the
Russian people for their many achievements--in
science and space, in economic and industrial
growth, in culture and in acts of courage.
Among the many traits the peoples of our two
countries have in common, none is stronger than
our mutual abhorrence of war. Almost unique
among the major world powers, we have never been
at war with each other. And no nation in the
history of battle ever suffered more than the
Soviet Union suffered in the course of the
Second World War. At least 20 million lost their
lives. Countless millions of homes and farms
were burned or sacked. A third of the nation's
territory, including nearly two thirds of its
industrial base, was turned into a wasteland--a
loss equivalent to the devastation of this
country east of Chicago.
Today, should total war ever break out again--no
matter how--our two countries would become the
primary targets. It is an ironic but accurate
fact that the two strongest powers are the two
in the most danger of devastation. All we have
built, all we have worked for, would be
destroyed in the first 24 hours. And even in the
cold war, which brings burdens and dangers to so
many nations, including this Nation's closest
allies--our two countries bear the heaviest
burdens. For we are both devoting massive sums
of money to weapons that could be better devoted
to combating ignorance, poverty, and disease. We
are both caught up in a vicious and dangerous
cycle in which suspicion on one side breeds
suspicion on the other, and new weapons beget
counter weapons.
In short, both the United States and its allies,
and the Soviet Union and its allies, have a
mutually deep interest in a just and genuine
peace and in halting the arms race. Agreements
to this end are in the interests of the Soviet
Union as well as ours--and even the most hostile
nations can be relied upon to accept and keep
those treaty obligations, and only those treaty
obligations, which are in their own interest.
So, let us not be blind to our differences--but
let us also direct attention to our common
interests and to the means by which those
differences can be resolved. And if we cannot
end now our differences, at least we can help
make the world safe for diversity. For, in the
final analysis, our most basic common link is
that we all inhabit this small planet. We all
breathe the same air. We all cherish our
children's future. And we are all mortal.
Third: Let us reexamine our attitude toward the
cold war, remembering that we are not engaged in
a debate, seeking to pile up debating points. We
are not here distributing blame or pointing the
finger of judgment. We must deal with the world
as it is, and not as it might have been had the
history of the last 18 years been different.
We must, therefore, persevere in the search for
peace in the hope that constructive changes
within the Communist bloc might bring within
reach solutions which now seem beyond us. We
must conduct our affairs in such a way that it
becomes in the Communists' interest to agree on
a genuine peace. Above all, while defending our
own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert
those confrontations which bring an adversary to
a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a
nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the
nuclear age would be evidence only of the
bankruptcy of our policy--or of a collective
death-wish for the world.
To secure these ends, America's weapons are
nonprovocative, carefully controlled, designed
to deter, and capable of selective use. Our
military forces are committed to peace and
disciplined in self- restraint. Our diplomats
are instructed to avoid unnecessary irritants
and purely rhetorical hostility.
For we can seek a relaxation of tension without
relaxing our guard. And, for our part, we do not
need to use threats to prove that we are
resolute. We do not need to jam foreign
broadcasts out of fear our faith will be eroded.
We are unwilling to impose our system on any
unwilling people--but we are willing and able to
engage in peaceful competition with any people
on earth.
Meanwhile, we seek to strengthen the United
Nations, to help solve its financial problems,
to make it a more effective instrument for
peace, to develop it into a genuine world
security system--a system capable of resolving
disputes on the basis of law, of insuring the
security of the large and the small, and of
creating conditions under which arms can finally
be abolished.
At the same time we seek to keep peace inside
the non-Communist world, where many nations, all
of them our friends, are divided over issues
which weaken Western unity, which invite
Communist intervention or which threaten to
erupt into war. Our efforts in West New Guinea,
in the Congo, in the Middle East, and in the
Indian subcontinent, have been persistent and
patient despite criticism from both sides. We
have also tried to set an example for others--by
seeking to adjust small but significant
differences with our own closest neighbors in
Mexico and in Canada.
Speaking of other nations, I wish to make one
point clear. We are bound to many nations by
alliances. Those alliances exist because our
concern and theirs substantially overlap. Our
commitment to defend Western Europe and West
Berlin, for example, stands undiminished because
of the identity of our vital interests. The
United States will make no deal with the Soviet
Union at the expense of other nations and other
peoples, not merely because they are our
partners, but also because their interests and
ours converge
Our interests converge, however, not only in
defending the frontiers of freedom, but in
pursuing the paths of peace. It is our hope--
and the purpose of allied policies--to convince
the Soviet Union that she, too, should let each
nation choose its own future, so long as that
choice does not interfere with the choices of
others. The Communist drive to impose their
political and economic system on others is the
primary cause of world tension today. For there
can be no doubt that, if all nations could
refrain from interfering in the
self-determination of others, the peace would be
much more assured.
This will require a new effort to achieve world
law--a new context for world discussions. It
will require increased understanding between the
Soviets and ourselves. And increased
understanding will require increased contact and
communication. One step in this direction is the
proposed arrangement for a direct line between
Moscow and Washington, to avoid on each side the
dangerous delays, misunderstandings, and
misreadings of the other's actions which might
occur at a time of crisis.
We have also been talking in Geneva about the
other first-step measures of arms control
designed to limit the intensity of the arms race
and to reduce the risks of accidental war. Our
primary long range interest in Geneva, however,
is general and complete disarmament-- designed
to take place by stages, permitting parallel
political developments to build the new
institutions of peace which would take the place
of arms. The pursuit of disarmament has been an
effort of this Government since the 1920's. It
has been urgently sought by the past three
administrations. And however dim the prospects
may be today, we intend to continue this
effort--to continue it in order that all
countries, including our own, can better grasp
what the problems and possibilities of
disarmament are.
The one major area of these negotiations where
the end is in sight, yet where a fresh start is
badly needed, is in a treaty to outlaw nuclear
tests. The conclusion of such a treaty, so near
and yet so far, would check the spiraling arms
race in one of its most dangerous areas. It
would place the nuclear powers in a position to
deal more effectively with one of the greatest
hazards which man faces in 1963, the further
spread of nuclear arms. It would increase our
security--it would decrease the prospects of
war. Surely this goal is sufficiently important
to require our steady pursuit, yielding neither
to the temptation to give up the whole effort
nor the temptation to give up our insistence on
vital and responsible safeguards.
I am taking this opportunity, therefore, to
announce two important decisions in this regard.
First: Chairman Khrushchev, Prime Minister
Macmillan, and I have agreed that high-level
discussions will shortly begin in Moscow looking
toward early agreement on a comprehensive test
ban treaty. Our hopes must be tempered with the
caution of history--but with our hopes go the
hopes of all mankind.
Second: To make clear our good faith and solemn
convictions on the matter, I now declare that
the United States does not propose to conduct
nuclear tests in the atmosphere so long as other
states do not do so. We will not be the first to
resume. Such a declaration is no substitute for
a formal binding treaty, but I hope it will help
us achieve one. Nor would such a treaty be a
substitute for disarmament, but I hope it will
help us achieve it.
Finally, my fellow Americans, let us examine our
attitude toward peace and freedom here at home.
The quality and spirit of our own society must
justify and support our efforts abroad. We must
show it in the dedication of our own lives--as
many of you who are graduating today will have a
unique opportunity to do, by serving without pay
in the Peace Corps abroad or in the proposed
National Service Corps here at home.
But wherever we are, we must all, in our daily
lives, live up to the age-old faith that peace
and freedom walk together. In too many of our
cities today, the peace is not secure because
the freedom is incomplete.
It is the responsibility of the executive branch
at all levels of government--local, State, and
National--to provide and protect that freedom
for all of our citizens by all means within
their authority. It is the responsibility of the
legislative branch at all levels, wherever that
authority is not now adequate, to make it
adequate. And it is the responsibility of all
citizens in all sections of this country to
respect the rights of all others and to respect
the law of the land.
All this is not unrelated to world peace. "When
a man's ways please the Lord," the Scriptures
tell us, "he maketh even his enemies to be at
peace with him." And is not peace, in the last
analysis, basically a matter of human
rights--the right to live out our lives without
fear of devastation--the right to breathe air as
nature provided it--the right of future
generations to a healthy existence?
While we proceed to safeguard our national
interests, let us also safeguard human
interests. And the elimination of war and arms
is clearly in the interest of both. No treaty,
however much it may be to the advantage of all,
however tightly it may be worded, can provide
absolute security against the risks of deception
and evasion. But it can--if it is sufficiently
effective in its enforcement and if it is
sufficiently in the interests of its
signers--offer far more security and far fewer
risks than an unabated, uncontrolled,
unpredictable arms race.
The United States, as the world knows, will
never start a war. We do not want a war. We do
not now expect a war. This generation of
Americans has already had enough--more than
enough--of war and hate and oppression. We shall
be prepared if others wish it. We shall be alert
to try to stop it. But we shall also do our part
to build a world of peace where the weak are
safe and the strong are just. We are not
helpless before that task or hopeless of its
success. Confident and unafraid, we labor
on--not toward a strategy of annihilation but
toward a strategy of peace.
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