THE FUTURE OF AMERICA'S FOREIGN POLICY

Two days ago this nation joyfully and confidently celebrated its 200th birthday. And in a little less than 4 months our people will go to the polls to elect a President and begin charting our course through our third century.

No two events more vividly symbolize our contemporary challenge, its hope and its promise. For two hundred years we struggled to build a nation from a wilderness, a sanctuary for the oppressed, and a home for all those who love liberty and believe in man's right to govern himself. And during those two hundred years, despite occasional setbacks and mistakes, we have succeeded in vindicating the dreams of the great men who came together in Philadelphia to proclaim a new nation.

At home, we have created a society more free, just and prosperous than any other on earth. And abroad no nation

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has done more to defend peace, promote prosperity, feed the hungry, heal the sick, spread knowledge, welcome refugees from tyranny, and champion the rights of man.

The past gives perspective to our endeavors, pride in where we are, and hope for what we may become. But the future, as always, depends on choices which now are ours to make.

Much will be said in the months between now and November about the state of our nation. Some of it will make sense; some will not. Some of it will reflect reality; some of it will not -- but rather the desire to create a temporary mood or to capitalize on it. Let us recall that four years ago we were told by some that we had become a nation of potential war criminals, that our military

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establishment had passed the bounds of reason and was out of
control, that our foreign policy aggressively invited conflict and
that we were neglecting the needs of our people. That was not
true then. It is not true now.

Today we are told that we have let our military position
slip to the point that we are second-rate, that we are being
pushed around and that our government is resigned to seeking
the best available terms. That also is not true, and the American
people know it. They know we remain far and away the strongest
nation in the world. They know that America's dedication to
peace and progress is essential to the world's security and
well-being. They have learned painfully long ago that military
conflict abroad threaten American lives; more recently they
have seen how global economic conflict can threaten American

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jobs and well-being. With our defense shield the core of the
security of free countries, with our economy representing a
third of the Gross National Product of the entire free world,
our actions and the confidence of those nations who depend on us
are crucial for the prospects of all free peoples. We must avoid a
complacency that is unworthy of our challenges. But equally we
must resist a rhetoric of impotence which disquiets friends and
emboldens adversaries.

The people of Chicago hardly need a lecture about the
vigor and strength of their country. Chicago has been called
"the pulse of America," "the city of the big shoulders." Chicago
is a symbol of America's phenomenal productivity, energy, and
economic power. No other city so embodies the sense of
America's fibre. Here is where the skyscraper was born;

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here is where the atomic age began. This city is a promontory
from which to view the world of tomorrow, This city is a
world in which America must live and which it therefore must
help to shape. Chicago's excitement is a testimony to might
and mass and beauty and to the raw pursuit of excellence.

It is clear that before us lies a period of potentially
unparalleled creativity. This is an age of complex and dangerous
forces. But the United States, and the great industrial democracies
which share our values and our ideals, have the opportunity to
give a new meaning to the vision of human dignity which for
centuries has brightened the prospects of Western man.

Thirty years ago, with the Truman Doctrine, the
Marshall Plan, the formation of our alliances and new
international economic institutions, America burst forth on the

world scene in a great outburst of creative statesmanship.

Because it had conquered the depression, the generation which
shaped our postwar policy had faith in the power of
governmental programs to promote economic advance and
social progress. Because it had won a war whose moral
imperatives were clear-cut, it acted on the assumption that
we would always face straightforward moral choices. That
generation was inspired by the hope that at some point its
exertions could end, as our allies became self-sustaining
and our adversaries mellowed.

Today, reality is more complex. We have learned
that economic development cannot be achieved overnight or
through governmental projects alone. The nuclear age imposes
upon us the inevitability of co-existence. We now live in a
world of greater diversity, a world of many centers of power

and ideology. America, for the first time in our history, faces
the reality of permanent involvement in international affairs.

The challenges of peace, prosperity, and justice are
unending; there are no easy and no final answers. Good intentions
alone do not constitute a foreign policy. We must learn to conduct
foreign policy as other nations throughout history have had to
conduct it -- with persistence, subtlety, flexibility, nuance, and
perseverance; with the knowledge that what can be achieved at
any one point will always fall short of the ideal; but that without
ideals the search for the merely practical becomes stultifying.
We can no longer afford to oscillate between isolation in
preservation of our purity, and interventionism in pursuit of
objectives whose attainment would permit us to withdraw from
the world. Foreign policy must be conducted not as a response

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to domestic passions, or to international crises, but as a
long-term enterprise -- engaging our best efforts for as far
ahead as we can see -- of building a better and safer world.

Our national objectives and ideals if they are well
conceived cannot change every four years, or with every new
Administration. To pretend that they do, or even that they can,
would make American policy itself a major factor of instability
in the world.

Whether we call it "structure" or "architecture,"
whether the process which produces policy is solitary or done by
committee, the nation will have to continue to engage itself in
managing the transition from the postwar international order
based primarily on defense against aggression to a new
international system which adds to security the needs of economic
cooperation and political consensus on a global scale.

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And we must do so under radically altered psychological conditions at home. The generation that undertook the great initiatives of the post-war period was inspired by the recollection of a conflict whose morality was unquestioned and whose outcome was conclusive. The generation that will have to sustain contemporary foreign policy recalls only wars that appeared morally ambiguous and whose outcomes were profoundly frustrating. Ours is a period much less confident of the ability of governments to manage the great issues of the era.

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And yet too much depends on us to permit our commitment to falter. We have physical strength in abundance. We must marshal the vision to put it into the service of our ideals.

The time has come to build a new foreign policy consensus similar in scope but different in content from that which All the setbacks of the last decade - from Vietnam to Iraq - have been essentially self-inflicted errors by our domestic diversification. Democrats and Republicans, Congress and the Executive, government and citizen must once again conduct the foreign policy debate in the spirit of partnership - recognizing that we are not at war with each other, but engaged in a vital national enterprise affecting our future and the world at large. Our electoral process can do much to strengthen our role in the world - both by healing the wounds of the last decade, and by forging the

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elements of a new nonpartisan consensus in foreign
policy. This election, whatever its outcome, should be
remembered as the time when the American people
THE
rediscovered their unity in formulation and execution of
foreign policy.

Despite the domestic turmoil of recent years,
much has already been achieved.

For the first time in a decade and a half, we are at
peace. Our relations with the industrial democracies are the
closest they have been in twenty years and our collaboration
is steadily expanding into new fields. Here in the Western
Hemisphere, we are forging a new association based on
equality and mutual respect. We have inaugurated a hopeful
new policy in Africa. Important progress towards peace in

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the Middle East has been made and the elements for
major new advances exist. In Asia, our relations with
Japan have never been better. We have opened a new
relationship with the People's Republic of China that will
expand in keeping with the Shanghai Communique. And
with respect to the Soviet Union we have combined vigilance
with conciliation, a determination to resist expansion with
a readiness to build relations on a more stable and lasting
basis than a balance of terror.

But great tasks remain: to strengthen further the
solidarity with our major allies; to explore new prospects
for reducing tensions with our adversaries; and to shape the
new dialogue between the industrial and developing nations into

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a constructive long-term relationship of common benefit.

Let me turn now to these issues:

The Collaboration of the Democracies

The collaboration of the industrial democracies of
Western Europe, North America, and Japan has been the
central core of America's foreign relations throughout the
postwar period. It remains the principal focus of our
foreign policy today. And it has been constantly strengthened
in recent years.

The intensity, regularity, and scope of the permanent
dialogue among the industrial democracies can scarcely be
exaggerated. President Ford since he has been in office has
conferred with the leaders of our NATO and Japanese allies
at four Summit meetings and over 60 individual meetings,

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abroad or in Washington. I have met with Foreign Ministers or heads of government of the industrial democracies over 200 times since I have been Secretary of State -- including over 100 times with leaders of the major nations represented at the Puerto Rico Summit. This solidarity is a record unmatched by any other group of independent nations. For many years there have been no major disputes between America and our allies; today there are no significant differences in approach or policy. The relations among the industrial democracies have not been as close in many decades -- and are far closer than they were ten years ago.

Of course, frequency of consultation is not enough.

We must never cease to keep our alliances relevant to current

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conditions. Our alliances were formed a generation
ago to stave off common dangers -- the threat of Communist
aggression and the fear of economic collapse. These
goals have been substantially achieved.

Our economies are the most prosperous on earth; we
comprise 65 percent of the world Gross National Product
and 70 percent of its trade. Our technology, managerial
skill, and productive dynamism have proven to be indispensable
to all nations that seek to develop their economies and
improve the lot of their citizens. The developing countries
and the socialist countries -- despite their habitual
denunciation of the free market system -- now recognize
that they must turn to the industrial democracies for trade and
assistance in improving their own economies.

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We confront the agenda before us with confidence
and aware that our cohesion which has brought us this far
remains crucial to all that we do:

-- We must maintain our common security in changed
circumstances. For most of the post-war period
we relied on strategic forces for both deterrence
and defense. Today, the numbers and destructive
power of nuclear weapons tend to produce a strategic
stalemate. Challenges below the strategic nuclear
level become more dangerous; forces for regional
defense, land, sea and air, therefore grow more
important. Our alliance forces must reflect these
new realities and be strengthened in crucial categories.

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-- We must continue to coordinate our economic strategies to encourage economic growth while controlling inflation. In a period of growing economic interdependence, we cannot afford to have national economic policies working at cross purposes.

-- We must develop joint approaches to relations with the developing nations. Almost all development in the world today gains its impetus from the industrial democracies. There is no reason for defensiveness. If we compete among ourselves for the favor of the developing nations, we dissipate our own resources and tempt the developing nations in unproductive and unrealistic directions. If the industrial nations

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cooperate among themselves, we have the best chance to bring about cooperative relations between developed and developing. Only this can end tactics of confrontation and contribute to new global arrangements in which all nations participate and benefit.

-- Finally, the industrial democracies must coordinate our policies with respect to East-West trade. The volume of that trade has been growing at a rapid rate -- more in the other industrial democracies than in the United States. We must better understand the implications of interchange between market and centrally controlled economies; we must avoid its political

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exploitation; we must study the implications of the
mounting debts of the non-market economies; we
must shape the trade in a direction beneficial to
the over-all purposes of the industrial democracies.

This is the meaning of the President's meeting ten days
ago with the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Great
Britain, Italy and Japan at the Puerto Rico Economic Summit.

There, as at Rambouillet last November, the allied leaders
discussed such basic issues as how to consolidate our economic
recovery and head off a resurgence of inflation. They
exchanged views on East-West economic relations, and the
status of the dialogue with the developing nations. The meeting

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reflected and promoted the growing cooperation of the
industrial democracies. It symbolizes their political will
to shape their future together.

All the tasks that I have enumerated here grow out of
the strength of the industrial democracies. And all
these tasks are inescapable. We have every reason to
face the future with confidence. A world that yearns for
peace and freedom, for economic advance, for fundamental
human justice, today looks to our nations for understanding
and for leadership. If the democracies remain strong and
united, we can usher in a era of unprecedented peace and
progress.

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The Agenda of War and Peace

Throughout its existence, the Atlantic Alliance has
based its quest for peace on two complementary policies.
First, we must maintain our defenses, resist military
challenges, and prevent the Soviet Union from transforming
its military strength into political expansion. Secondly,
we must seek to resolve conflicts and disputes through
negotiation, foster habits of restraint in international conduct,
and expand the area of constructive relations.

However we label such an approach, its objectives
are imposed by the unprecedented conditions of the nuclear
age. No statesman will lightly risk the lives of tens of
millions. Every President, after entering office and seeing

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the facts, has come to President Eisenhower's insight
that "there is no alternative to peace."

We have no illusions about the Soviet ideological
and geopolitical challenge; but neither should there be
illusions about what is needed to deal with it.

The strength of the West -- military, economic, and
moral -- must be used to shape international relationships
in accordance with our vision of a better world and with a
full sense of responsibility toward the awful cataclysm of
nuclear war. We must avoid both a sentimentality that would
substitute goodwill for strength, and mock toughness that would
substitute posturing for a clear perception of our interests.
We will maintain the balance of power, but we will also

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recognize that peace, to be lasting, must rest upon more
than a balance of terror constantly contested. Specifically:

-- We will continue to seek a fair and reliable agreement on strategic arms limitation because this is in our interest and the interest of world peace.

The President will not hesitate to sign an agreement that protects our national interests and those of our allies. But he will never agree simply for the sake of agreement or run risks with our national security.

-- We will continue, together with our allies, to seek negotiated solutions to East-West political problems in order to diminish the risks of confrontation.

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-- We will continue to develop cooperative ties on
the basis of reciprocity to foster responsible
international behavior and a mutual interest in
better political relations.

It goes without saying that a reduction of tensions
requires an equivalence of obligations and commitments:

-- Agreements reached must be balanced and reliable;
they must be complied with strictly both as to their
letter and their spirit.

-- There must be consistent patterns of behavior in
different parts of the world. We will not permit the
relaxation of tensions to be practiced selectively. We
cannot accept insistence on restraint on strategic arms

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or in Central Europe while tensions are exacerbated
in other parts of the world in the name of national
liberation or proletarian internationalism.

-- There must be tolerable definitions of ideological
rivalry. We do not fear ideological competition;
indeed, we assume it. We have every reason for
confidence in the power of the idea of freedom. But
we cannot agree that ideology alone is involved when
Soviet military power is exerted in remote areas or
when ideology is invoked so that regional or local
instabilities can be exploited.

-- The relaxation of tensions must not become a subterfuge
to play allies off against each other. Allied cohesion

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ensures that relaxation of tensions is broadly
based; division and competition among us would
only dissipate our advantages and open up
opportunities for adversaries.

In Europe, the relaxation of tensions must apply to
the Eastern as well as Western half of the continent.

There should be no room for misconceptions about American
policy:

- We are determined to deal with Eastern Europe on
the basis of the sovereignty and independence of
each of its countries. We recognize no spheres of
influence and no pretentions to hegemony.

- For this reason, we will continue to develop our bilateral ties in economic and other fields with the nations

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of Eastern Europe, and encourage similar
efforts on the part of our Western European allies.

-- We will continually seek improvements in the
basic conditions of human life in Eastern Europe --
in terms of emigration, unification of families,
freer flow of information, increased travel and
economic interchange.

Improving relations between East and West is a long-
term process. We pursue it on the basis of our purposes and
our ideals. We will never slacken the quest for peace.

We can only benefit from the challenge of peaceful
competition. Nowhere have the industrial democracies suffered

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setabcks because of lack of strength. Without exception,
the problems have been internal; they are therefore within
our power to remedy.

We must not so bemuse ourselves with rhetoric that
we forget that in every category of relevant power, the
democracies have the means to preserve and foster their
objectives. We need only to stay together and stay the
course.

In the military field, we have the strength to defend
our interests. In the economic area, our performance has
been overwhelmingly superior. In the ideological competition,
it is not our nations, but the East, that has shown fear of
the power of freedom. The winds of change are blowing from the
West. If we act with wisdom and unity, the free nations

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have it in our power to leave our children a safer and
more hopeful world than the one we found.

## The Emerging Structure of a Global Community

Within the past decade and particularly over the past
several years, a new dimension of international affairs
has moved to center stage: the relations between the
Northern and the Southern Hemispheres.

For the first time in history the international system
has become truly global. Decolonization and the expansion of
the world economy have given birth to scores of new centers
of power and initiative. The globe's security and prosperity
have become more and more indivisible.

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Yet in a world of over 150 sovereign nations, many
of which have only recently achieved independence, progress
toward understanding of our common destiny has been halting
and uneasy. Too many nations still seek to extort what is
meaningful only if freely offered. Attempts at economic warfare,
and sterile disputes between the industrial and developing
nations, have been all too characteristic of international
conferences. Such tactics overlook some basic realities:

- Development is an arduous and long-term process,
  not susceptible to quick or easy solutions. It requires
  great efforts to bring about social change, above all by
  the developing countries themselves.

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-- If there is to be any hope of development, the
new nations need the sustained help of the
industrial democracies. The Communist countries
have been to all practical purposes irrelevant to
this process and clearly unwilling to assist it.

-- A serious development effort requires cooperation.
Confrontation and artificial voting majorities destroy
the psychological basis for a sustained relationship.
Parliamentary victories in international forums prove
empty if they are not followed by the willing imple-
mentation of the minority.

The United States has a vital stake in the health of the
world economic system. We need only recall the oil embargo

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of 1973 to know that interdependence is more than a slogan. That event helped to produce the worst inflation as well as the most severe recession of the post-war period. The price and supply of energy and raw materials, the conditions of trade and investment, the protection of the environment, the use of the oceans and space -- these are all issues on which American jobs and livelihood and progress depend. And we know as well that no structure of international relations can be durable if the world remains divided between the rich and the poor, the privileged and the oppressed, the hopeful and the despairing.

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We have offered our cooperation in our own interest and in the hope that it will help build a better world. But we insist that others meet us in the same spirit. We will not submit to blackmail or to pressure. We will resist hostile resolutions and unworkable proposals. Artificial majorities and claims to a monopoly on morality in world forums will only undermine public support here and in the other industrial democracies -- the only nations capable of contributing effectively to development.

The task is to build consensus based on mutual respect and self-interest. Only in this way can we encourage realistic methods of international collaboration and lay the foundation for a cooperative international economy.

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To this end the United States has in the last few
years assumed a role of leadership. We have offered
comprehensive initiatives in such areas as energy, food,
trade, finance, commodities, technology transfer, and the
special problems of the poorest countries. We have done so
in many international forums: at the Seventh Special Session
of the UN General Assembly last September; at the Paris
Conference on International Economic Cooperation in December;
at the Jamaica Conference on world monetary issues in January;
at the UN Conference on Trade and Development in Nairobi
this spring. Progress has been achieved on many of our
proposals; many new institutions and vehicles of cooperation
are already underway.

Thus, just as we seek to move beyond a balance of
power in East-West relations, so we are seeking long-term

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cooperation in North-South relations with a view to building
a genuine world community.

In this enterprise there is no more important place
to start than in our own Hemisphere. If we are to build a stable,
prosperous and just world structure, we will need the firm
foundations of close bonds with our friends in Latin America.

Our traditional special relationship in the Hemisphere
antedates our cooperation with other regions of the developing
world. We share unique experiences in the Americas --
the exploration and development of new continents, the
forging of nations free from colonial domination, the
development of unique human and moral ideals. We have
shaped democratic institutions and spurred economic growth,
conscious that we benefitted greatly from our relationship

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with each other. We have long held a common interest in
shielding our Hemisphere from the intrusion of others. We
have led the world in building international organizations to
serve our cooperative endeavors for both collective security
and economic progress.

The challenge we face today is that history -- and
indeed the very growth and success we have achieved -- have
complicated our relationship. What used to be a simple
perception of Hemispheric uniqueness, and a self-contained
exclusive relationship, have become enmeshed in the wider
concerns we all now have in the rest of the world.

The United States recognizes its global responsibility
to maintain the world balance of power, to help resolve the
age-old political conflicts that undermine peace, and to help
shape a new international order encompassing the interests

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and aspirations of the more than 150 nations that now
comprise our planet.

At the same time, in the Sixties and Seventies Latin
American nations have become steadily more prosperous and
self-confident. They are now major factors in their own
right on the world scene. Their economies are among the
most advanced of the developing world -- indeed they can
be said to constitute a "middle class" among the nations of
the world, encouraging progress but with an increasing stake
in stability. They are increasingly important in the global
economy and the world's political forums. And they have a
growing sense of solidarity with developing nations in Africa
and Asia. Such global involvement is inevitable; at the same
time, it inevitably creates new and conflicting pressures on

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traditional friendships.

The United States has sought to build a new framework in
our Hemispheric relations which takes into account new realities
without sacrificing the precious advantage of our tradition of
collaboration.

Most important, given the long period of neglect,
real or perceived, our sister republics in the Western
Hemisphere now know that we care. We have inaugurated a
new dialogue based on equality and mutual respect and on a
recognition of sovereign independence. This dialogue does
not reflect demands by one side and defense of old patterns
by the other. On the basis of the new Latin American
strength and self-confidence, we now deal with one another
with a mutuality of regard and understanding quite

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impossible a few years or even a decade ago. There is a
growing recognition that we have shared concerns as well as
different perspectives; that the nations of this Hemisphere,
where men sought a haven from oppression, have an
opportunity to begin a new era of cooperation between industrially
advanced and developing countries.

In the past few years, the United States has offered
initiatives to deal coherently with the catalogue of Hemispheric
issues: political, economic, and moral. A milestone in
this process came at the General Assembly of the Organization
of American States in Santiago last month where we presented
a comprehensive series of proposals:

-- to advance Hemispheric cooperation for
development, including trade opportunities and

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access to contemporary technology;

-- to strengthen joint efforts to deal with the
issue of human rights in the Hemisphere;

-- and to modernize our inter-American system of
political consultation.

[The United States is demonstrating leadership on all these issues. As a result, Latin American nations expressed their belief at Santiago that a new chapter in Hemispheric relations is opening up.] There was a climate of candor, of friendship without complexes, and of common endeavor. [Our initiatives no longer raise fears of paternalism or domination, but are welcomed again by our sister republics as reflecting mutual interests and our proper role.]

We believe that we have inaugurated a new era of

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inter-American cooperation based on equality and mutual
benefit. And we believe, too, that this can serve as a bridge
between developed and developing nations everywhere and as
an example for the world community.

America and the World

The world has entered a new era. We live in a time
marked by change and uncertainty; our age cries out for new
patterns of order and new efforts to better the human condition.

The challenges of peace and progress and justice require
sustained and devoted effort from the responsible nations of
the world, and a permanent role of leadership by the United States.

The United States has faced challenge before. No
other people could have celebrated its birthday so joyfully
or with such optimism about its future. America has always

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stood for something beyond its own physical strength. The
heritage we have celebrated this week is a vision of mankind's
most glorious ideals -- the equality of all peoples and individuals;
the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Only in
our free countries where these principles are secure do they
sometimes seem platitudes; to a world in which the majority
of mankind lives without them, they are the burning issues of
our time.

America's success has come from its blend of
pragmatism and idealism. Our pragmatic tradition has helped
us confront reality, neither blinded by dogma nor daunted by
challenge. Our idealism has given us not only principles to
defend, but the conviction and courage to defend them. In
today's world of complexity, we need more than ever a moral

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compass to steer by, a sense of conviction that enables us
to persevere through the stages of the attainable toward the
ideal which will always lie beyond.

The world no longer offers us the simplicity of
detachment or temporary applications of overwhelming power.
In a world of interdependence, of unending challenge and of
diversity, we must recognize our permanent involvement. Nor
do we have reason for apology or hesitation. We remain the
most powerful nation on earth. And there is much to accomplish
together with the other industrial democracies as long as we
offer the leadership we alone are able to provide. And other
nations will join us in collaborative endeavors if they see us --
the world's most powerful nation -- offering leadership.

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So it is time to put an end to our domestic divisions, for
they are the principal obstacle to the full realization of our
opportunities. We have consumed too much of our substance in
domestic strife; we run the risk that in pursuit of such
self-absorption we will lower our sights. All great achievements
were dreams before they were realities. The truly creative
actions do not grow out of fine calculations of expediency and
technical analyses. They require a vision which draws men
to far horizons.

Almost seventy years ago Winston Churchill, with
that blend of optimism and humanity that so set him apart
from lesser men described our contemporary challenge:

"What is the use of living, if it be not to strive
for noble causes and to make this muddled world