President Kennedy's Final Address to the United Nations General Assembly

Sir.

president

as someone who has been interested in the election of

president

s. I want to congratulate you on your election to this high office, mr. secretary

general

delegates to the United Nations ladies and gentlemen we meet again in the search for peace 24 months ago when I lost I had the honor of

address

ing this body the shadow of fear lay darkly across the world the freedom of West Berlin was a immediate danger the agreement on a neutral position seemed remote to us the United Nations mandate in the Congo was under fire stop the darkness today the clouds have lifted a little so that new rays of hope can break through the pressures on West Berlin seem temporarily relieved political unity has largely been restored in the Congo a neutral coalition in Laos, although still in difficulty, at least as far as the integrity of the United Nations Secretariat is concerned a decade of development of the United Nations has been reaffirmed The United Nations is underway and for the first time in 17 years a concrete step has been taken to limit the nuclear arms race.

I am referring, of course, to the treaty to ban nuclear testing in the atmosphere, outer space and under water, concluded by the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States and already signed by almost 100 countries. It has been hailed by people around the world who are grateful to be free from fears of nuclear fallout, and I am confident that our next Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. will receive the overwhelming support of the United States Senate, the The world has not escaped the darkness, the long shadows of conflict and crisis still envelop us, but today we meet in an atmosphere of growing hope and in the moment of comparison, my presence here today is not a sign of crisis but of competition .

I am NOT here to report on a new threat to peace or new signs of war. I have come to greet the United Nations and to show the support of the American people for its daily deliberations on the value of this body's marriage to the reduction of global poverty. Tension must not be an excuse for the narrow pursuit of self-interest if the Soviet Union and the United States, with all their competing global interests and ideological commitments and with nuclear weapons still pointed at each other today, can find areas of common interest. And if an agreement is reached, surely other

nations

can do the same -

nations

caught in regional conflicts, in racial issues or in the agony of old colonialism, chronic disputes that divert valuable resources from the needs of the people or drain the energies of both. parties, serve no one's interests. and the badge of responsibility in the modern world is the willingness to seek peaceful solutions, it is never too early to try and it is never too late to speak, and the United States, as a major nuclear power, has a special responsibility to the world in which that is found.

Indeed, a triple responsibility: a responsibility to our own citizens, a responsibility to the people of the entire world who are affected by our decisions, and to the next generation of humanity. We believe that the Soviet Union also has special responsibilities and that those responsibilities require our two nations to focus less on our differences and more on the means to resolve them peacefully for too long. We have both increased our military budgets, our nuclear arsenals, and our ability to destroy all life in this hemisphere. Human Animal Plant without any corresponding increase in our security our conflicts are undoubtedly real our concepts of the world are different no service is served by not making our disagreements clear a central difference is the American people's belief in self-determination for all peoples we believe that the people of Germany in Berlin must be free to reunite their capital and their country we believe that the people of Cuba must be free to secure the fruits of the revolution that have been betrayed from within and exploited from outside the affection of freedom and our determination to safeguard that freedom will be equal to any threat or challenge, but I would say to the leaders of the Soviet Union and its people that if we want any of our countries to be fully protected we need a much better weapon than the H-bomb, a better weapon than ballistic missiles or nuclear submarines and that the best weapon is peaceful cooperation, in recent years we have agreed on a limited nuclear test ban treaty, an emergency communications link between our capitals, a declaration of principles for disarmament, increased cultural exchange, cooperation in outer space for peaceful purposes. the exploration of Antarctica and the mitigation of last year's crisis around Cuba.

I believe, therefore, that the Soviet Union and the United States, together with their allies, can reach new agreements, agreements that arise from our mutual interest in avoiding mutual destruction, there can be no doubt about the agenda of further measures we must follow seeking agreements on measures to prevent war by accident or miscalculation we must continue to seek agreements on safeguards against surprise attacks, including observation posts at key points we must continue to seek agreements on new measures to stop the nuclear arms race By controlling the transfer of nuclear weapons, convert fissile materials for peaceful purposes and ban underground testing with proper inspection and enforcement, we must continue to seek agreement on a freer flow of information and people from east to west and west to east, we must continue to seek agreement .

Encouraged by yesterday's affirmative response to this proposal by the Soviet Foreign Minister for an agreement to keep weapons of mass destruction out of outer space, let us get our negotiators back to the negotiating table to reach a workable agreement to this end. , purposes that

final

ly in a field where the United States and the Soviet Union have a special capacity in the field of space there is room for new cooperation for future joint efforts in the regulation and exploration of space. I include among these possibilities a joint expedition to the moon, space does not present problems of sovereignty, my resolution of this

assembly

, the members of the United Nations have renounced any claim to territorial rights in outer space or over celestial bodies and declared that the right International and the Charter of the United Nations will apply and therefore man's first flight to the moon should be a matter of national competence, why should the United States and the Soviet Union, in preparing for such expeditions, engage in immense duplication of construction and research expenses?

Without a doubt, we should explore whether the scientists and astronauts of our two countries and that freedom are more durable than coercion and in the competition for a better life everyone can be a winner, the effort to improve the conditions of man, however, is not a task for a few is the task of all nations acting alone acting in groups acting in the United Nations against plague and pestilence and plunder and pollution, the dangers of nature and the hunger of children are the enemies of all nations, since man had such an ability to control his own environment to end thirst and hunger, to conquer poverty and disease, to banish illiteracy and mass human misery, we have the power.

To make this the greatest generation of humanity in the history of the world or to make it the lost unit, the provision of Development Assistance by individual nations must continue, but the United Nations must also play a greater role in help bring the fruits to all men. of modern science and industry a United Nations conference on this subject held earlier this year in Geneva opened new doors for developing countries next year a United Nations conference on trade will consider the needs of these nations of new markets and more than four-fifths of the United Nations development decade, but more can be done today. .

A global health communications center under the World Health Organization could warn about epidemics and the adverse effects of certain drugs. In addition to transmitting the results of new experiments and new discoveries, regional research centers could advance our common medical knowledge and train new scientists and doctors for new nations, a global satellite system could provide weather and communications information to all corners of the earth, a global conservation program could protect forests while achieving sin forever, improve marine food harvests from our oceans, and prevent air and water pollution from industrial and nuclear pollution. and,

final

ly, a global agricultural productivity and food distribution program similar to ours.

The country's Food for Peace program must now give every child the food she needs. New efforts are needed to give full meaning to this Assembly's declaration of human rights, now in its 15th year, and new means must be found to promote free expression and the trade of ideas through travel and communication and through greater exchanges of people in books and broadcasts or as the world renounces competition in arms, competition of ideas must flourish and that competition must be as complete and fair as possible, the United States delegation will be willing to suggest to initiatives of the United Nations in achieving all these objectives because this is an organization for peace and peace cannot come without work and without progress the peacekeeping record of the United Nations has been proud, although its tasks are always formidable, we are fortunate to have the skills of our distinguished secretary-

general

and the valiant efforts of those who have been serving the cause of peace in the Congo in the Middle East during their careers in Kashmir in Western New Guinea and Malaysia, but we that the United Nations has done in the past is less important than the tasks for the future we cannot take for granted that its peacekeeping mechanism must be robustly funded, which it cannot be if some members are allowed to prevent it from fulfilling their obligations by not fulfilling their own.

The United Nations must be supported by all those who exercise their franchise here and its operations must return to the end too often, a project. I also hope that the recent initiative by several members to prepare reserve Peacekeepers for the United Nations call-up will encourage similar commitments by others in this nation. willing to provide logistical and other material support, policing is also not sufficient without provisions for a Pacific solution, we should increase the use of special investigative and conciliation missions, make greater use of the International Court of Justice and accelerate the work of the International Law Commission. the United Nations cannot survive as a static organization its obligations are increasing as well as its size its Charter must be changed as well as its customs the authors of that charter did not intend for the science of weapons to be frozen in perpetuity and war has made all much more than 18 years ago in San Francisco a world and a human race with a common destiny in a world like this absolute sovereignty no longer guarantees us absolute security the peace conventions must throw a chest and then anticipate the inventions of the war The United Nations, building on its successes and learning from its failures, must become a true global security system, but peace does not rest.

Two years ago I told this organization that the United States had proposed and was willing to sign a treaty today limited ban on nuclear testing. that treaty has been signed it will not end the war it will not move the basic conflicts it will not ensure freedom for all but it can be 11 in our communities by explaining the principles of the lever that he is said to have declared to his friends give me a place where I can stand and I will move the world, my fellow inhabitants of this planet, let us take our stand here in this Assembly of Nations and see that if in our own time we can make the world adjust and lose peace your