ダラストレードセンター演説(草稿)
1963年11月22日
Dallas Address
November 22.1963
I am honored to have this invitation to address the annual meeting of the
Dallas Citizens Council, joined by the members of the Dallas Assembly -
and pleased to have this opportunity to salute the Graduate Research Center
of the Southwest. It is fitting that these two symbols of Dallas progress
are united in the sponsorship of this meeting.
For they represent the best qualities, I am told, of leadership and learning
in this city - and leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.
The advancement of learning depends on community leadership for financial
political support, and the products of that learning, in turn, are essential
to the leadership's hopes for continued progress and prosperity. It is
not a coincidence that those communities possessing the best in research
and graduate facilities - from MIT to Cal Tech - tend to attract new and
growing industries.
I congratulate those of you here in Dallas who have recognized these basic
facts through the creation of the unique and forward-looking Graduate Research
Center.
This link between leadership and learning is not only essential at the
community level. It is even more indispensable in world affairs. Ignorance
and misinformation can handicap the progress of a city or a company, but
they can, if allowed to prevail in foreign policy, handicap this country's
security. In a world of complex and continuing problems, in a world full
of frustrations and irritations,
America's leadership must be guided by the lights of learning and reason
- or else those who confuse rhetoric with reality and the plausible with
the possible will gain the popular ascendancy with their seemingly swift
and simple solutions to every world problem. There will always be dissident
voices heard in the land, expressing opposition without alternative, finding
fault but never favor, perceiving gloom on every side and seeking influence
without responsibility. Those voices are inevitable.
But today other voices are heard in the land - voices preaching doctrines
wholly unrelated to reality, wholly unsuited to the sixties, doctrines
which apparently assume that words will suffice without weapons, that vituperation
is as good as victory and that peace is a sign of weakness.
At a time when the national debt is steadily being reduced in terms of
its burden on our economy, they that debt as the single greatest threat
to our security. At a time when we are steadily reducing the number of
Federal employees serving every thousand citizens, they fear those supposed
hordes of civil servants far more than the actual hordes of opposing armies.
We cannot expect that everyone, to use the phrase of a decade ago, will
"talk sense to the American people." But we can hope that fewer
people will listen to nonsense.
And the notion that this Nation is headed for defeat through deficit, or
that strength is but a matter of slogans, is nothing but just plain nonsense.
I want to discuss with your today the status of our security because this
question clearly calls for the most responsible qualities of leader- ship
and the most enlightened products of scholarship. for this Nation's strength
and security are not easily or cheaply obtained, nor are they quickly and
simply explained. there are many kinds of strength and no one kind will
suffice. Overwhelming nuclear strength cannot stop a guerrilla war.
Formal pacts of alliance cannot stop internal subversion. Displays of material
wealth cannot stop the disillusionment of diplomats subjected to discrimination.
Above all, words alone are not enough. The United States is a peaceful
nation.
And where our strength and determination are clear, our words need merely
to convey conviction, not belligerence. If we are strong, our strength
will speak for itself. If we are weak, words will be of no help. I realize
that this Nation often tends to identify turning-points in world affairs
with the major addresses which preceded them.
But it was not the Monroe Doctrine that kept all Europe away from this
hemisphere - it was the strength of the British fleet and the width of
the Atlantic Ocean. It was not General Marshall's speech at Harvard which
kept communism out of Western Europe - it was the strength and stability
made possible by our military and economic assistance. In this administration
also it has been necessary at times to issue specific warnings - warnings
that we could not stand by and watch the Communists conquer Laos by force,
or intervene in the Congo, or swallow West Berlin, or maintain offensive
missiles on Cuba. But while our goals were at least temporarily obtained
in these and other instances, our successful defense of freedom was not
due to the words we used, but to the strength we stood ready to use on
behalf of the principles we stand ready to defend.
This strength is composed of many different elements, ranging from the
most massive deterrents to the most subtle influences. And all types of
strength are needed - no one kind could do the job alone. Let us take a
moment, therefore, to review this Nation's progress in each major area
of strength.
First, as Secretary McNamara made clear in his address last Monday, the
strategic nuclear power of the United States has been so greatly modernized
and expanded in the last 1,000 days, by the rapid production and deployment
of the most modern missile systems, that any and all potential aggressors
are clearly confronted now with the impossibility of strategic victory
- and the certainty of total destruction - if by reckless attack they should
ever force upon us the necessity of a strategic reply. In less than 3 years,
we have increased by 50 percent the number of Polaris submarines scheduled
to be in force by the next fiscal year, increased by more than 70 percent
our total Polaris purchase program, increased by more than 75 percent our
Minutemen purchase program, increased by 50 percent the portion of our
strategic bombers on 15-minute alert forces. Our security is further enhanced
by the steps we have taken regarding these weapons to improve the speed
and certainty of their response, their readiness at all times to respond,
their ability to survive an attack, and their ability to be carefully controlled
and directed through secure command operations. But the lessons of the
last decade have taught us that freedom cannot be defended by strategic
nuclear power alone.
We have, therefore, in the last 3 years accelerated the development and
deployment of tactical nuclear weapons, and increased by 60 percent the
tactical nuclear forces deployed in Western Europe. Nor can Europe or any
other continent rely on nuclear forces alone, whether they are strategic
or tactical. We have radically improved the readiness of our conventional
forces - increased by 45 percent of the number of combat ready Army divisions,
increased by 100 percent the procurement of modern Army weapons and equipment,
increased by 100 percent our procurement of our ship construction, conversion,
and modernization program, increased by 100 percent our procurement of
tactical aircraft, increased by 30 percent the number of tactical air squadrons,
and increased the strength of the Marines.
As last month's "Operation Big Lift" - which originated here
in Texas - showed so clearly, this Nation is prepared as never before to
move substantial numbers of men in surprisingly little time to advanced
positions any- where in the world. We have increased by 175 percent the
procurement of airlift aircraft, and we have already achieved a 75 percent
increase in our existing strategic airlift capability.
Finally, moving beyond the traditional roles of our military forces, we
have achieved an increase of nearly 600 percent in our special forces -
those forces that are prepared to work with our allies and friends against
the guerrillas, saboteurs, insurgents and assassins who threaten freedom
in a less direct but equally dangerous manner.
But American military might should not and need not stand alone against
the ambitions of international communism. Our security and strength, in
the last analysis, directly depend on the security and strength of others,
and that is why our military and economic assistance plays such a key role
in enabling those who live on the periphery of the Communist world to maintain
their independence of choice.
Our assistance to these nations can be painful, risky, and costly, as is
true in Southeast Asia today.
But we dare not weary of the task. For our assistance makes possible the
stationing of 3.5 million allied troops along the Communist frontier at
one-tenth the cost of maintaining a comparable number of American soldiers.
A successful Communist breakthrough in these area, necessitating direct
United States intervention, would cost us several times as much as our
entire foreign aid program, and might cost us heavily in American lives
as well. About 70 percent of our military assistance goes to nine key countries
located on or near the borders of the Communist-bloc - nine countries confronted
directly or indirectly with the threat of Communistic aggression - Viet-Nam,
Free China, Korea, India, Pakistan, Thailand, Greece, Turkey, and Iran.
No one of these countries possesses on its own the resources to maintain
the forces which our own Chiefs of Staff think needed in the common interest.
Reducing our efforts to train, equip, and assist their armies can only
encourage Communist penetration and require in time the increased overseas
deployment of American combat forces.
And reducing the economic help needed to bolster these nations that undertake
to help defend freedom can have the same disastrous result. In short, the
$50 billion we spend each year on our own defense could well be ineffective
without the $4 billion required for military and economic assistance.
Our foreign aid program is not growing in size, it is, on the contrary,
smaller now than in previous years. It has had its weaknesses, but we have
undertaken to correct them. And the proper way of treating weaknesses is
to replace them with strength, not to increase those weaknesses by emasculating
essential programs. Dollar for dollar, in or out of government, there is
no better form of investment in our national security than our much-abused
foreign aid program. We cannot afford to lose it.
We can afford to maintain it. we can surely afford, for example, to do
as much for our 19 needy neighbors of Latin America as the Communist bloc
is sending to the island of Cuba alone. I have spoken of strength largely
in terms of the deterrence and resistance of aggression and attack.
But in today's world, freedom can be lost without a shot being fired, by
ballots as well as bullets.
The success of our leadership is dependent upon respect for our mission
in the world as well as our missiles - on a clearer recognition of the
virtues of freedom as well as the evils of tyranny.
That is why our Information Agency has doubled the shortwave broadcasting
powers of the Voice of America and increased the number of broadcasting
hours by 30 percent, increased Spanish language broadcasting to Cuba and
Latin America from 1 to 9 hours a day, increased seven-fold to more than
3.5 million copies the number of American books being translated and published
for Latin American readers, and taken a host of other steps to carry our
message of truth and freedom to all the far corners of the earth.
And that is also why we have regained the initiative in the exploration
of outer space, making an annual effort greater than the combined total
of all space activities undertaken during the fifties, launching more than
130 vehicles into earth orbit, putting into actual operation valuable weather
and communications satellites, and making it clear to all that the United
States of America has no intention of finishing second in space. This effort
is expensive - but it pays its own way, for freedom and for America.
For there is no longer any fear in the free world that a Communist lead
in space will become a permanent assertion of supremacy and the basis for
military superiority. There is no longer any doubt about the strength and
skill of American science, American industry, American education, and the
American free enterprise system. In short, our nation space effort represents
a great gain in, and a great resource of, our national strength - and both
Texas and Texans are contributing greatly to this strength.
Finally, it should be clear by now that a nation can be no stronger abroad
than she is at home.
Only an America which practices what it preaches about equal rights and
social justice will be respected by those whose choice affects our future.
Only an America which has fully educated its citizens is fully capable
of tackling the complex problems and perceiving the hidden dangers of the
world in which we live. And only an America which is growing and prospering
economically can sustain the worldwide defenses of freedom, while demonstrating
to all concerned the opportunities of our system and society. It is clear,
therefore, that we are strengthening our security as well as our economy
by our recent record increases in national income and output - by surging
ahead of most of Western Europe in the rate of business expansion and the
margin of corporate profits, by maintaining a more stable level of prices
than almost any of our overseas competitors, and by cutting personal and
corporate income taxes by some $11 billion, as I have proposed, to assure
this Nation of the longest and strongest expansion in our peacetime economic
history.
This Nation's total output -which 3 years ago was at the $500 billion mark
- will soon pass $600 billion, for a record rise of over $100 billion in
3 years. For the first time in history we have 70 million men and women
at work.
For the first time in history average factory earnings have exceeded $100
a week. For the first time in history corporation profits after taxes -
which have risen 43 percent in less than 3 years - have an annual level
of $27.4 billion.
My friends and fellow citizens: I cite these facts and figures to make
it clear that America today is stronger than ever before. Our adversaries
have not abandoned their ambitions, our dangers have not diminished, our
vigilance cannot be relaxed.
But now we have the military, the scientific, and the economic strength
to do whatever must be done for the preservation and promotion of freedom.
The strength will never be used in pursuit of aggressive ambitions - it
will always be used in pursuit of peace.
It will never be used to promote provocations - it will always be used
to promote the peaceful settlement of disputes. We, in this country, in
this generation, are - by destiny rather than by choice - the watchmen
on the walls of world freedom.
We ask, therefore, that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility,
that we may exercise our strength with wisdom and restraint, and that we
may achieve in our time and for all time the ancient vision of "peace
on earth, good will toward men."
That must always be our goal, and the righteousness of our cause must always
underlie our strength. For as was written long ago: "except the Lord
keep the city, the watchmen waketh but in vain."
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