平和の戦略(アメリカン大学卒業演説)
1963年6月10日
The Strategy of Peaace.
Address before the graduating class of American Unv.
JUN 10,1963
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, ladies and gentleman: 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 to 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 of 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 than
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 to 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 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 this 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 universal peace and good
will of which some fantasies and fanatics dream. I do not deny the values
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 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 with
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 see, 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 unlease 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 achivements - 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 countries,
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 counterweapons.
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 tensions 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 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 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.
Stert RM File her/
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 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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