"THE PEACE WE SEEK..."

Excerpts from President Eisenhower's foreign policy speech:

The Issue. In the spring of victory [in 1945], the soldiers of the Western Allies met the soldiers of Russia in the center of Europe. They were triumphant comrades in arms. Their peoples shared the joyous prospect of building, in honor of their dead, the only fitting monument--an age of just peace . . . This common purpose lasted an instant--and perished ... The amassing of Soviet power alerted free nations to a new danger of aggression ... It instilled in the free nations--and let none doubt this--the unshakable conviction that, as long as there persists a threat to freedom, they must, at any cost, remain armed, strong and ready for any risk of war. It inspired them--and let none doubt this--to attain a unity of purpose and will beyond the power of propaganda or pressure to break.

There remained, however, one thing essentially unchanged and unaffected by Soviet conduct: . . . the readiness of the free world to welcome sincerely any genuine evidence of peaceful purpose enabling all peoples again to resume their common quest of just peace. And the free world still holds to that purpose ...

The Alternatives. What can the world--or any nation in it--hope for if no turning is found on this dread road? . . . The worst is atomic war.

The best would be this: a life of perpetual fear and tension, a burden of arms draining the wealth and the labor of all peoples, a wasting of strength that defies the American system or the Soviet system or any system to achieve true abundance and happiness for the peoples of this earth . . .

This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is: two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population . . . We pay for a single fighter plane with a half-million bushels of wheat. . . This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron . . .

The Opportunity. The new Soviet leadership now has a precious opportunity to awaken, with the rest of the world, to the point of peril reached, and to help turn the tide of history. Will it do this? We do not yet know. Recent statements and gestures of Soviet leaders give some evidence that they may recognize this critical moment. We welcome every honest act of peace. We care nothing for mere rhetoric. We care only for sincerity of peaceful purpose--attested by deeds. The opportunities for such deeds are many. The performance of a great number of them waits upon no complex protocol but only upon the simple will to do them ... A world that begins to witness the rebirth of trust among nations can find its way to peace that is neither partial nor punitive.

The Promise. The fruit of success in all these tasks would present the world with the greatest task--and the greatest opportunity--of all. It is this: the dedication of the energies, the resources, and the imaginations of all peaceful nations to a new kind of war. This would be a declared, total war, not upon any human enemy, but upon the brute forces of poverty and need. The peace we seek . . . can be fortified --not by weapons of war--but by wheat and by cotton, by milk and by wool, by meat, timber and rice. These are words that translate into every language on earth . ..

This Government is ready to ask its people to join with all nations in devoting a substantial percentage of any savings achieved by real disarmament to a fund for world aid and reconstruction. The purposes of this great work would be: to help other peoples to develop the undeveloped areas of the world, to stimulate profitable and fair world trade, to assist all peoples to know the blessings of productive freedom . . .

The Challenge. Again we say: the hunger for peace is too great, the hour in history too late, for any government to mock men's hopes with mere words and promises and gestures. Is the new leadership of the Soviet Union prepared to use its decisive influence in the Communist world--including control of the flow of arms--to bring not merely an expedient truce in Korea but genuine peace in Asia? Is it prepared to allow other nations, including those in Eastern Europe, the free choice of their own form of governments? Is it prepared to act in concert with others upon serious disarmament proposals?

If not--where then is the concrete evidence of the Soviet Union's concern for peace? There is, before all peoples, a precious chance to turn the black tide of events. If we failed to strive to seize this chance, the judgment of future ages will be harsh and just. If we strive but fail, and the world remains armed against itself, it at least will need to be divided no longer in its clear knowledge of who has condemned humankind to this fate ...

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