Eisenhower's Declaration or Independence on Foreign Policy

"THE GREATER PURPOSES"

In speeches from the White House and Philadelphia's Convention Hall, President Eisenhower in the week of crisis set down this philosophy of U.S. foreign policy:

THAT ancient crossroads of the world [the Middle East] was, as we all know, an area long subject to colonial rule. This rule ended after World War II, when all countries there won full independence. Out of the Palestinian mandated territory was born the new state of Israel. These historic changes could not, however, instantly banish animosities born of the ages. Israel and her Arab neighbors soon found themselves at war with one another. And the Arab nations showed continuing anger toward their former colonial rulers, notably Great Britain and France.

The U.S., since the close of World War II, has labored tirelessly to bring peace and stability to this area. But unfortunately passion in the area threatened to prevail over peaceful purpose. The direct relations of Egypt with both Israel and France kept worsening to a point at which first Israel, then France, and Great Britain also, determined that in their judgment there could be no protection of their vital interests without resort to force. The U.S. was not consulted in any way. Nor were we informed in advance.

As it is the manifest right of any of these nations to take such decisions and actions, it is likewise our right, if our judgment so dictates, to dissent. We believe these actions to have been taken in error. For we do not accept the use of force as a wise or proper instrument for the settlement of international disputes.

We are fully aware of the grave anxieties of Israel, of Britain and of France. We know that they have been subjected to grave and repeated provocations. The present fact nonetheless seems clear: the actions taken can scarcely be reconciled with the principles and purposes of the United Nations. And beyond this, we are forced to doubt even if resort to war will for long serve the permanent interests of the attacking nations.

I am ever more deeply convinced that the U.N. is the soundest hope for peace in the world, and for this very reason I believe its processes need to be strengthened. I speak particularly of increasing its ability to secure justice under international law. In all the recent troubles in the Middle East there have indeed been injustices suffered by all involved. But I do not believe that another instrument of injustice--war--is the remedy for these wrongs.

There can be no peace without law. And there can be no law if we were to invoke one code of international conduct for those who oppose us and another for our friends. The society of nations has been slow in developing means to apply this truth. But the passionate longing for peace on the part of all peoples of the earth compels us to speed our search for new and more effective instruments of justice. The peace we seek and need means much more than mere absence of war. It means the acceptance of law and the fostering of justice in all the world.

Always tne Frontier

IN [today's] world, at such a time, decent respect for the opinion of mankind--in the words of our Declaration of Independence--requires that we state plainly the purposes we seek, the principles we hold. What" are the true marks of our America, and what do they mean to the world? We are a people born of many peoples. Our culture, our skills, our very aspirations have been shaped by immigrants and their sons and daughters from all the earth. We know, as our forefathers knew, the firm ground on which our beliefs must stand. Freedom is rooted in the certainty that the brotherhood of all men springs from the fatherhood of

God. And thus, even as each man is his brother's keeper, no man is another's master.

So it is that the laws most binding upon us as a people are laws of the spirit, proclaimed in church and synagogue and mosque. These are the laws that truly declare the eternal equality of all men, of all races, before the man-made laws of our land. And we are profoundly aware that in the world we can claim the trust of hundreds of millions of people across Africa and Asia only as we ourselves hold high the banner of justice for all.

We are proudly a people with no sense of class or caste. We judge no man by his name or inheritance, but by what he does, and for what he stands. And so likewise do we judge other nations. There can be no second-class nations before the law of the world community. We, finally, look upon change, the ever-unfolding future, with confidence rather than doubt, hope rather than fear. We as a people were born of revolution and we have lived by change, always a frontier people, exploring, if not new wilderness, then new science and new knowledge.

Principles tnat Cannot Bend

W/ E cannot and we will not condone armed aggression, W no matter who the attacker and no matter who the victim. We cannot, in the world any more than in our own nation, subscribe to one law for the weak, another law for the strong, one law for those opposing us, another for those allied with us. There can be only one law, or there will be no peace.

We do not speak, let me emphasize, in any angry spirit of self-righteousness. We value deeply and lastingly the bonds with those great nations, those great friends with whom we now so plainly disagree. And I, for one, am confident that those bonds will do more than survive. But this we know above all: there are some firm principles that cannot bend--they can only break. We shall not break ours.

We believe that integrity of purpose and act is the fact that must most surely identify and fortify the free world in its struggle against Communism. We cannot proclaim this integrity when the issue is easy--and stifle it when the issue is hard. To do this would be to do something much worse than merely making our great struggle in the world more difficult. For if we were ever to lose that integrity, there would be no way to win a true victory in that struggle.

This would be a surrender that we shall not make.

A Vital Paradox

BUT let me say we hold firmly to a vital paradox and to a fixed purpose: We maintain strength only in order some day to yield it--in league with all other nations. We shall go on working ceaselessly for the sure and safe accord that alone will make this possible. For we seek, above all else, to lift from the backs of men and all nations their terrible burden of armaments.

Finally, ever constant in the principles by which we live, we sense a special concern for the fate and fortune of those 700 million people in 18 nations who have won full independence since World War II. We know and respect both their national pride and their economic need. Here we speak from the heart of our heritage. We, too, were born at a time when the tide of tyranny running high threatened to sweep the earth. We prevailed and they shall prevail.

For the everlasting promise of our own Declaration of Independence was what Lincoln declared it to be: liberty not alone to the people of this country, but hope for the world for all future time.

These, then, are America's greater purposes.

They spring from our final faith in freedom.

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