“Arms alone are
not enough to keep peace. It must be kept by men.”
John F. Kennedy
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John
F. Kennedy: at
"What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana, enforced on
the world by American weapons of war, 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 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 the words of
the pursuers frequently fall on deaf ears, but we have no more urgent task. Too
many of us think peace is impossible, but that is a dangerous defeatist
attitude. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable, that mankind is
DOOMED! We cannot accept that view. Our problems are manmade therefore they can
be solved by man. Man has 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 goodwill of which some fantasies and fanatics dream. Let us
focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace, based not on a sudden
revolution of human nature, but on a gradual evolution of human institutions. Genuine
peace must be the product of many nations. 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. World peace, like community peace, does not require
that each man love his neighbour, it requires only that they live together in
mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement.
Peace need not be impossible 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 people to see it, to draw hope from it, and to move irresistibly
towards it. Let us not be blind to our differences, but let us draw attention
to our common interests, and the means by which those differences can be
resolved. For 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. Nuclear powers must avoid those confrontations which bring
an adversary to a choice of 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 a collective death wish for the world. We must seek to
strengthen the United Nations, to make it a more effective instrument for
peace, capable of resolving disputes on the basis of law, of ensuring the
security of the large and the small and of creating conditions under which arms
can be abolished. Our primary long range goal is general and complete disarmament,
designed to take place in stages, permitting parallel political developments to
build the new institutions of peace, which would take the place of arms. 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 proceeding to safeguard our national interest, let us also safeguard
human interests, and the elimination of war and arms is clearly in the interest
of both. Confident and unafraid let us labour on - not towards a strategy of
annihilation, but towards a strategy of peace."