Evening star., 1955-07-26
Text of Presidents Talk
On Geneva Conference

FOLLOWING is a transcript OF
President EiSenho,Der'S radio
teleUisioe report last night on
the Genera Conference:
Good evening, friends. Secre-
tary Dulles and I, with our as
sociates. went to the Big -Four
Conference at Geneva resolved
to represent as accurately as
we could the aspirations of the
American people for peace and
the principles upon which tins
country believes that peace
should be based.
In this task we had the BIZ
partisan, indeed almost the
unanimous. support of the Con-
gress. This fact greatly strength
ened our hand throughout the
negotiations. Our grateful
thanks go out to all your Sena-
tors and your Congressman in
the United States Congress
Aside from this, we had, during
the past week, thousands of
kilograms of encouragement and
support from you as individuals.
Along with these came similar
kilograms from great organiza-
tions, church organizations, bus
iness and great labor organiza-
tions.
Perplexities of Peace
All of these combined served
to make us feel that possibly
we were faithfully representing
the views that you would have
us represent. Now peace-the
pursuit of peace-involves many
perplexing questions. For ex-
ample:
Justice to all nations, great
ana small;
Freedom and security for all
these nations;
The prosperity of their several
economies and a rising stand
ard of living in the world;
Finally. opportunity for all of
us to live in peace and in Sc
curity.
Now, naturally, in the study of
such questions as these, we
don't proceed recklessly. We
must go prudently and cautious
ly-both in reaching conclusions
and in subsequent action. We
cannot afford to be negligent or
complacent. But, we must be
hopeful. We must have faith in
ourselves and in the justice of
our cause. If we don't do this,
we will allow our own pessimism
ana our own lack of faith to
defeat the nobleSt purposes that
we can pursue.
Impressions and Opinions
Now, because of the vital sig
nificance of all these subjects,
they will be exhaustively sur
veyed by our Government over
a period of many weeks. To-
night, the most that I can give
to you are a few personal i'm
pressions and opinions that may
have some interest for you and
certainly have some bearing on
the outcome and on the progress
of those negotiations.
OF course, an interesting sub
ject that could be taken up, had
I the time, would be the per-
sonalities of the several delega-
tions, the relationship or appar-
ent relationships of one to the
other-the principal considera-
tions that seem to motivate them.
These would all have a bearing
on this problem. But I forego
them and take up instead Just
two general opinions in which
am sure every American shares:
The first of these, that we must
never be deluded into believing
that one week of friendly. even
fruitful, negotiation can wholly
eliminate a problem arising out
of the wide gulf that separates
so far, East and West. A gulf as
wide and deep as the difference
between individual liberty AND
regimentation, as wide and deer
as the gulf that lies between the
concept of man made in the
image of his God and the concept
of man as a mere instrument OF
the State. Now, if we think
of those things we are apt to be
possibly discouraged.
But was also profoundly i'm
pressed with the need for all OF
us to avoid discouragement mere
ly because our own proposals
our own approaches and our own
beliefs are not always immedi-
ately accepted by the other side
Recalls Purposes
On the night I left for Geneva
I appeared before the televisior
to explain to you what we were
seeking. l told you that we were
going primarily to attempt tc
change the spirit in which these
great negotiations and confer
ences were held. A transcript
was made of that talk, and ]
should like now to read you one
paragraph from it.
This is what I said with re-
spect to our purpose: I'VE real
ize that one ingredient has been
missing from all past confer
ences. This is an honest intent
to concilate, to understand, to be
tolerant, to try to see the other
fellows viewpoint as well as we
see our own. l say to you II we
can change the spirit in which
these conferences are conducted
y -