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 and 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 the 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 alternatives, 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
see that debt as the greatest single 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 you today the status of our strength and our
security because this question clearly calls for the most
responsible qualities of leadership 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 due not 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 Minuteman purchase
program, increased by 50 percent the portion of our strategic
bombers on 15-minute alert, and increased by too percent the total
number of nuclear weapons available in our strategic 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
the number of combat ready Army divisions, increased by 100 percent
the procurement of modern Army weapons and equipment, increased by
100 percent our ship construction, conversion, and modernization
program, increased by too 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 anywhere 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 areas, 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
Communist 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 power 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 I 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 of 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 national 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
$too 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.
That 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
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 watchman waketh but in vain."
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Book/CDs by Michael E. Eidenmuller, Published by McGraw-Hill (2008)
Texts Source: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum
Image (Screenshot) Source:
YouTube.com
Page Updated: 9/27/21
U.S. Copyright Status: Texts = Public domain. Image = Fair Use.