- 13 -

In all these areas the American role has frequently
been decisive. The design still stands, our responsibilities
remain. There is every prospect for major progress.

There is every reason for confidence.

## The Domestic Dimension

If this be true, what then is the cause of our problem?
Why the setbacks? Why the signs of impasse between the
Executive and the Congress? What must we do to pull
ourselves together?

Setbacks are bound to occur in a world which no nation
alone can dominate or control. The peculiar aspect of
many of our problems is that they are of our own making.
Domestic division has either compounded or caused
difficulties from the southern flank of NATO to the Pacific,

- 14 -

from the Eastern Mediterranean to relations between the
superpowers.

Paradoxically, herein resides a cause for optimism.

For to the extent that the causes of our difficulties are
within ourselves, so are the remedies.

The American people expect an effective foreign
policy which preserves the peace and furthers our national
interests. They want their leaders to shape the future not
just manage the present. This requires boldness, direction,
nuance and above all confidence between the public and the
government and between the Executive and the Legislative
branches of the government. But precisely this mutual
confidence has been eroding over the past decade.

There are many causes for this state of affairs.

- 15 -

Some afflict democracies everywhere; some are unique to
America's tradition and recent history.

Modern democracies are besieged by social, economic,
and political challenges that cut across national boundaries
and lie at the margin of governments' ability to control.

The energies of leaders are too often consumed by the
management of bureaucracy, which turns questions of public
purpose into issues for institutional bargaining. Instant
communications force the pace of events and of expectations.

Persuasion -- the essential method of democracy -- becomes
extraordinarily difficult in an era where issues are complex
and outcomes uncertain. A premium is placed on simplification
-- an invitation to demagogues. [Too often, the result is a
disaffection that simultaneously debunks government and

- 16 -

drains it of the very confidence that a democracy needs
to act with conviction.

All of this has compounded the complex problem of
executive-legislative relations. In every country, the
authority of the modern state seems frustratingly impersonal
or remote from those whose lives it increasingly affects;
in nearly every democracy, executive authority is
challenged by legislators who themselves find it difficult
to affect policy except piecemeal or negatively. Issues
become so technical that legislative oversight becomes
increasingly difficult -- just as the issues become
increasingly vital. The very essence of problem-solving
on domestic issues -- accommodation of special interests
-- robs foreign policy of consistency and focus when

-17-

applied to our dealings with other nations.

Statesmen must act, even when premises cannot be proved; they must decide, even when intangibles will determine the outcome. Yet predictions are impossible to prove; consequences avoided are never evident.

Skepticism and suspicion thus become a way of life [and] infect the atmosphere of executive-legislative debate;] reasoned arguments are overwhelmed by a series of confrontations on peripheral issues.

America faces as well the problem of its new generation.

The gulf between their historical experience and ours is enormous. They have been traumatized by Vietnam as we were by Munich. Their nightmare is foreign commitment as ours was abdication from

- 18 -

international responsibility. It is possible that both
generations learned their lessons too well. The young
take for granted the great post-war achievements in
restoring Europe, building peacetime alliances, and
maintaining global prosperity. An impersonal,
technological, bureaucratized world provides them
too few incentives for dedication and idealism.

Let us remember that America's commitment to
international involvement has always been ambivalent

[-- even while our doubts were being temporarily
submerged by the exertions of World War II and the

- 19 -

post-war era. The roots of isolationism, nourished
by geography and history, go deep in the American
tradition. The reluctance to be involved in foreign
conflicts, the belief that we somehow defile ourselves
if we engage in "power politics" and balances of power,
the sense that foreign policy is a form of Old World
imperalism, the notion that weapons are the causes of
conflict, the belief that humanitarian assistance and
participation in the economic order are an adequate substitute
for political engagement -- all these were familiar
characteristics of the American isolationism of the

-20-

'20's and '30's. We took our power for granted,
attributed our successes to virtue and blamed our
failures on the evil of others. We disparaged means.
In our foreign involvement we have oscillated between
exuberance and exhaustion, between crusading and
retreats into self-doubt.

Following the Second World War a broad spectrum
of civic leaders, professional groups, educators,
businessmen, clergy, the media, Congressional and
national leaders of both parties -- led American public opinion
to a new internationalist consensus. Taught by them and the

- 21 -

experience of the War, the nation understood that
we best secured our domestic tranquility and prosperity
by enlightened participation and leadership in world
affairs. Assistance to friends and allies was not a
price to be paid but a service to be rendered to international
stability and therefore to our self-interest.

But in the last decade, as a consequence of
Indochina and other frustrations of global engagement,
some of our earlier impulses have reasserted
themselves. Leadership opinion has, to an alarming
degree, turned sharply against many of the
internationalist premises of the postwar period.

We now hear, and have for several years, that suffering

-22-

is prolonged by American involvement, that injustice
is perpetuated by American inaction that defense
spending is wasteful at best and produces conflict at
worst that American intelligence activities are immoral, that
the necessary confidentiality of diplomacy is a plot to
deceive the public, that flexibility is cynical and amoral --
and that tranquillity is somehow to be brought about by an
abstract purity of motive for which history offers no example.]

This has a profound -- and inevitable -- impact on the
national mood and on the national consensus regarding foreign policy.
In the nation with the highest standard of living and one of the
richest cultures in the world, in the nation that is certainly the
most secure in

- 23 -

the world, in the nation which has come closest of all
to the ideals of civil liberty and pluralist democracy --
we find a deep and chronic self-doubt especially in
the large urban centers and among presumptive leaders.

Will the American people support a responsible and
active American foreign policy in these conditions? I
deeply believe that they will -- if their leaders, in and
out of government, give them a sense that they have
something to be proud of and something important to
accomplish.

When one ventures away from Washington into
the heart of America one is struck by the confidence,
the buoyancy, and the lack of any corrosive cynicism.

- 24 -

We who sit at what my friend Stewart Alsop -- a great journalist -- once called "the center" tend to dwell too much on our problems; we dissect in overly exquisite detail our difficulties and our disputes.

[I] find it remarkable that two-thirds of the Americans interviewed in a nationwide poll in December, at a time of severe recession, still thought an active role in the world served their country's interests better than withdrawal. Even as other nations are closely watching the way we act in Washington, I suspect they marvel at the resiliency of our people and our institutions.

[There is a great reservoir of confidence within America. We have the values, the means and we bear

-25-

the responsibility to strive for a safer and better world. And there
is a great reservoir of confidence around the globe in this
country's values and strength.

Where Do We Go From Here?

So, let us learn the right lessons from today's trials.

We shall have to pay the price for our setbacks in IndoChina
by increasing our exertions. [We no longer have the margin of safety.]
In the era of American predominance, America's preferences
held great sway. We could overwhelm our problems with our
resources. We had little need to resort to the style of
nations conducting foreign policy with limited

- 26 -

means -- patience, subtlety, flexibility. Today, disarray,
abdication of responsibility or shortsightedness exact
a price that may prove beyond our means.

We are still the largest single factor in
international affairs -- but we are one nation among many.

The weight of our influence now depends crucially on our
purposefulness, our perserverance, our creativity,

our power and our perceived reliability. We shall have to
work harder to establish the coherence and constancy
of our policy -- and we shall.

- 27 -

We must give up the illusion that foreign policy
can choose between morality and pragmatism. America
cannot be true to itself unless it upholds humane values
and the dignity of the individual. But equally it cannot
realize its values unless it is secure. No nation has
a monopoly of justice or virtue and none has the
capacity to enforce its own conceptions globally. In
the nuclear age, especially, diplomacy -- like
democracy -- often involves the compromise of
clashing principles. I need not remind you that there
are some 140 nations in the world of which only a bare handful
subscribe to our values.

[ ] Abstract moralism can easily turn into retreat from
painful choices or endless interference in the domestic

- 28 -

affairs of others; strict pragmatism, on the other hand,
robs policy of vision and heart. Principles without
security spells impotence, security without principles
means irrelevance. The American people must never
forget that our strength gives force to our principles
and our principles give purpose to our strength.

Let us understand, too, the nature of our commitments.

We have an obligation of steadfastness simply by virtue
of our position as a great power upon which many others
depend. Thus our actions and policies over time embody
their own commitment whether or not they are enshrined
in legal documents. Indeed our actions and the
perception of them by other countries may represent
our most important commitments.

- 29 -

At the same time, diplomacy must be permitted
a degree of confidentiality, or most serious exchange
with other governments is destroyed. To focus the
national debate on so-called secret agreements which
no party has ever sought to implement and whose alleged
subject matter has been prohibited by law for two years is
to indulge what Mencken called the "national appetite
for bogus revelation." It goes without saying that a
commitment involving national action must be known to
the Congress or it is meaningless.

One lesson we must surely learn from Vietnam
is that new commitments of our nation's honor and
prestige must be carefully weighed. As Walter Lippman
observed, "for foreign relations, as in all other
relations, a policy has been formed only when commitments

- 30 -

and power have been brought into balance." But after
our recent experiences we have a special obligation
to make certain that commitments we have made will
be rigorously kept -- and that this is understood by all
concerned. Let no ally doubt our steadfastness. Let
no nation ever believe again that it can tear up with
impunity a solemn agreement signed with the United States.

We must continue our policy of seeking to ease
tensions. But we shall insist that the easing of tensions
cannot occur selectively. We shall not forget who
supplied the arms which North Vietnam used to make
a mockery of its signature on the Paris Accords.

Nor can we overlook the melancholy fact that not
one of the other signatories of the Paris Accords has

- 31 -

responded to our repeated requests that they at least
point out North Vietnam's flagrant violations of these
agreements. Such silence can only undermine any
meaningful standards of international responsibility.

At home, a great responsibility rests upon all of
us in Washington.

Comity between the executive and legislative
branches is the only possible basis for national action.

The decade-long struggle in this country over executive
dominance in foreign affairs is over. The recognition
that the Congress is a coequal branch of government is
the dominant fact of national politics today. The Executive
accepts that the Congress must have both the sense
and the reality of participation; foreign policy must be

- 32 -

a shared enterprise. The question is whether the Congress
will go beyond the setting of guidelines to the conduct of
tactics; whether it will deprive the Executive of discretion
and authority in the conduct of diplomacy while at the
same time remaining institutionally incapable of
formulating or carrying out a clear national policy of
its own.

The effective performance of our constitutional system
has always rested on the restrained exercise of the powers
and rights conferred by it. At this moment in our history
there is a grave national imperative for a spirit of
cooperation and humility between the two branches of our
government.

Cooperation must be a two-way street. Just as the
Executive has an obligation to reexamine and then to

- 33 -

explain its policies, so the Congress should reconsider
the actions which have paralyzed our policies in the
Eastern Mediterranean, weakened our hand in relations
with the USSR, and inhibited our dialogue in this
Hemisphere. [ Foreign policy must have continuity.
If it becomes partisan, paralysis results. Problems
are passed on to the future under progressively worse
conditions. ]

When other countries look to the United States, they
see one nation. When they look to Washington they see
one government. They judge us as a unit -- not as a
series of unrelated or uncoordinated institutions. If we
cannot agree amongst ourselves, there is little hope

- 34 -

that we can negotiate effectively with those abroad.

So one of the most important lessons to be drawn
from recent events is the need to restore the civility
of our domestic discourse. Over the years of the
Vietnam debate rational dialogue has yielded to
emotion, sweeping far beyond the issues involved. Not
only judgments but motives have been called into question.
Not only policy but character has been attacked. What
began as consensus progressively deteriorated into
poisonous contention.

Leaders in Government must do their share. The
Administration, following the President's example, will
strive for moderation and mutual respect in the
national dialogue. We know that if we ask for public
confidence we must keep faith with the people.

- 35 -

[Debate is the essence of democracy. But it can elevate the nation only if conducted with restraint.]

The American people yearn for an end to the bitterness and divisiveness of the past decade. Our domestic stability requires it. Our international responsibilities impose it.

[You, in this audience, are today in a unique position to contribute to the healing of the nation.]

## The Coming Agenda

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said "No great man ever complained of a want of opportunity." Neither does a great nation.

- 36 -

Our resources are vast, our leadership is
essential, our opportunities are unprecedented and insistent.

[ The challenges of the coming decades will dwarf today's disputes. A new world order is taking shape around us.

It will engulf us or isolate us if we do not act boldly.

We cannot consume ourselves in self-destruction. We
have great responsibilities:

-- We must maintain the vigor of the great democratic alliances. They can provide the anchor of shared values and purposes as we grapple with a radically new agenda.

-- We must overcome the current economic and energy crisis. A domestic energy

- 37 -

program is thus an urgent national priority.

Looking ahead, we envisage a fundamentally
reformed international economic system, a
Bretton Woods for the 1980's and beyond.

-- We must stand up for what we believe in
international forums, including the United
Nations, and resist the politics of
resentment, of confrontation, and stale
ideology. International collaboration has a
more vital role now than ever but so has mutual
respect among nations.

-- We must meet our continuing responsibility
for peace in many regions of the world,

- 38 -

especially where we uniquely have the
confidence of both sides, and where failure
could spell disaster beyond the confines of
the region, as in the Middle East.

We will not be pushed by threats of war or
economic pressure into giving up vital
interests. But equally, we will not in the
President's words "accept stalemate or
stagnation with all its attendant risks to
peace and prosperity."

-- We must stop the spiral -- and the spread --
of nuclear weapons. We can then move on
to a more ambitious agenda -- mutual

- 39 -

reductions in strategic arms, control of
other weaponry, military restraint in other
environments.

-- We must overcome two scourges of mankind:
famine and the vagaries of nature. We
reaffirm the food program announced at
the World Food Conference last November.
Our fundamental challenge is to help others
feed themselves so that no child goes to bed
hungry in the year 2000.

-- We must continue to reduce conflict and
tension with our adversaries. Over time,
we hope that **vigilance and conciliation**

- 40 -

will lead to more positive relationships
and ultimately a true global community.

-- We must ensure that the oceans and
space become areas of cooperation
rather than conflict. We can then leave
to future generations vast
economic and technological resources to
enrich life on this earth.

[Our nation is uniquely endowed to play a creative and decisive role in the new order which is taking form around us]

In an era of turbulence, uncertainty and conflict, the world still looks to us for a protecting hand, a mediating influence, a path to follow. It sees in us, most of all, a tradition and

- 41 -

vision of hope. Just as America has symbolized for
generations man's conquest of nature, so too has America --
with its banner of progress and freedom -- symbolized man's
mastery over his own future.]

For the better part of two centuries our forefathers,
citizens of a small and relatively weak country, met
adversity with courage and imagination. In the course of
their struggle they built the freest, richest and most
powerful nation the world has ever known. As we, their
heirs, take America into its third century, as we take up
the unprecedented agenda of the modern world, we are
determined to rediscover the belief in ourselves that
characterized the most creative periods in our history.

We have come of age and we shall do our duty.

4/12/74

DRAFT II

ADDRESS BY SECRETARY OF STATE KISSINGER TO THE
AMERICAN SOCIETY OF NEWSPAPER EDITORS
WASHINGTON, D. C. - April 17, 1975

I am here to sound a note of hope about America's
place in the world.

A nation faced with setbacks has a number of
choices.

It can paint apocalyptic visions and sink into
gloomy resignation.

It can wallow in recrimination, looking for
scapegoats rather than lessons.

It can try to ignore or sugar-coat its difficulties
and fatuously proceed as if nothing had really changed.

Or it can examine its situation dispassionately,
draw appropriate conclusions, and chart its future
with realism and hope.

A week ago President Ford chose this latter
course. He set forth a program for executive-legislative

-2-

cooperation across the whole range of our international
challenges. He looked forward, not backward. He called
upon Congress and the American people to turn this moment
of malaise into a demonstration of spirit -- to prove
once again our resilience and our vision, and to put
these into the service of building a better world.

The threatening clouds that have gathered on our
international horizon obscure more promising vistas of
past achievement and future opportunities. Setbacks
are bound to occur in a world which no nation alone
can dominate or control. But our deeper problems
are of our own making. They can be traced not so much
to our trials abroad as to the sagging of our own unity
and self-confidence after a convulsive decade. And
if the causes are within ourselves, then so are the
remedies.

It is this that I wish to address today: our
difficulties, our strengths and what is needed here

-3-

at home to carry forward our quest for a more peaceful,
prosperous and just human community.

For what really counts are not individual setbacks
or detours but the nation's response to the overall
challenge. What is being tested is the mettle of our
people and our institutions. And in these we have
every reason to place our trust and our hope.

## The Overall Design

It should not be forgotten that the central thrust
of our foreign policy over the last six years was to
adjust our conceptions, our methods, and our commitments
to the conditions of a new era -- including an America
already fatigued by Indochina.

We were convinced that a continuing, strong
American role was indispensable to global stability
and progress. But we knew as well that this required
tailoring our role to new realities abroad and a new
mood at home.

-4-

A generation after World War II:

- Allies were stronger; our alliances needed fresh balance and purpose.

- The world of potential adversaries was fractured into competing centers of power and doctrine; new relations based on negotiation and restraint became promising.

- There was a rough balance in strategic weaponry; arms control and strong defense were inseparable elements of national security.

- Across the globe nations were gaining autonomy and self-confidence; they needed our steady, transitional assistance to help them reach toward greater self-reliance.

These policies were designed to elicit from the American people and Congress -- weary from two decades of global enterprise and domestic turmoil -- support for the continuing world responsibility of the United States.

-5-

It is worth recalling how far we have come.

Our major alliances with the Atlantic world and
Japan remain firm anchors of security and prosperity.

They are now a solid basis for close cooperation on
a range of unprecedented new problems.

We have launched a hopeful new dialogue with Latin
America and moved toward resolving long-standing issues.

We have taken historic steps to stabilize and
improve our relations with our major Communist adversaries.

We have reduced tensions, deepened dialogue, and produced
some major agreements.

Ours has been a key role of leadership in helping
to ease long-standing political conflicts such as
Berlin and the Middle East.

And we have taken the major initiatives to mobilize
an international response to new global challenges such
as energy, food, and the vast reaches of the oceans.

In all these areas the American role has been crucial.
The design still stands, our responsibilities remain.

-6-

But we must now pursue them in more sober circumstances.

There should be no illusions that the objective fact
of recent setbacks has raised questions about our
constancy. We will answer these questions; we will
dispel any doubts.

For us to do this, however, we must proceed as
a united people.

## Indochina

Let us start with the current headlines.

The President fully understood the national mood
when he requested military as well as humanitarian
assistance for South Vietnam. He knows the American
people are understandably tired of a conflict that has
already cost us so much.

But a Presidential speech has profound international
consequences. It is the Administration's responsibility
-- it is the President's responsibility -- to do what
we believe is right, not what is necessarily popular.

-7-

We are concerned about what the Vietnamese think of us. What is to be their reaction to America, and Americans, to whom they bound their future?

We are concerned about what other countries think of us. What conclusions will they draw when they see us walk away from friends with whom we fought for a decade?

And we are concerned about what we think of ourselves. When we look back on this period will we understand why we failed to help people who relied on us at the time of their greatest need? I think not.

These are the deeper factors that made the President request additional assistance rather than terminate our material and moral support to our friends.

And once this decision was made, the only sensible course was to request an amount that had an objective basis. Our purpose is to help the South Vietnamese stabilize the situation and thus create the conditions

-8-

for an early political settlement. Failing that, we
have a profound obligation to evacuate safely the
Americans in South Vietnam and those Vietnamese linked
to us who wish to leave.

The levels of aid cited by the President -- based
on General Weyand's analysis -- are what we believe
is needed for any one of these objectives. The lesser
amount requested in January reflected very different
conditions before the massive North Vietnamese advances.
It would be intellectually indefensible simply to
reiterate the earlier figures. And we would have no
better chance of success, since the opposition to aid
is a matter of principle, not of arithmetic.

We believe this assistance is of fundamental
importance. And we believe that, whatever the outcome,
the fact that American leaders requested it is also of
fundamental importance -- in the eyes of America, the

-9-

world and history.

The Administration has made its case. We will
abide by the verdict -- without recrimination or
vindictiveness.

It is important that all Americans do so. For
one of the greatest casualties of Vietnam has been the
civility of our domestic discourse. Over the years
debate has yielded to emotion, sweeping far beyond
the issues involved. Not only judgments but motives
were called into question. Not only policy but character
was attacked. What began as an overwhelming national
consensus progressively deteriorated into vicious,
poisonous contention. And disturbing traces remain.
As fateful events in Indochina once more dominate
the news, dormant passions threaten once more to erupt.

This type of debate must be put behind us. Foreign
policy in a democracy cannot be conducted when its
leaders are vilified, when there is no modicum of trust,

Always
 Secretly
 Confidentious
 Amused

-10-

when symbols of authority are systematically derided.

And in the end it is the whole nation that suffers.

Civil discourse is a two-way street: leaders in Government and others allied with them too often abused their position and demonstrated excesses. They too must now show restraint and compassion.

For if the bitterness of the debate continues, it will corrode not only our society but the foundations needed to sustain our foreign policy.

## The International Context

As the President said, it is a time for clear thinking and straight talk about where we stand and where we're going.

If we should not despair over our current difficulties, neither should we gloss them over. We must face up to the basic reality that events in Indochina bring objective consequences. A great nation invested almost fifteen years of resources and prestige. This is not to judge the wisdom of that engagement. Nor

-11-

is it to say that it was all in vain or without redemption
for the sacrifices made. But when such an effort nears
failure, to dismiss the ramifications for our posture
in the world is not only wishful but dangerous.

It is fashionable to maintain that pointing to
serious consequences makes for a self-fulfilling prophecy;
that if we would only keep silent, there would be no
problem. This ignores the elementary fact that other
nations judge us by our actions, not our rhetoric.
It implies that we can manufacture credibility and mask
inconstancy. It suggests that we can achieve our aims
through proclamations rather than exertion.

Such an attitude would only compound our problems.
Precisely because we have drawn down our credits of
steadiness and coherence we must now shed illusions.
Precisely because we have used up some fat in our
resources and our reputation we must face facts as they
are.

-12-

This is not to state an extreme domino theory,
with adversaries inexorably extending their reach
and friend after friend toppling over. This simplistic
version discredits the more real -- if gradual and
preventable -- dangers that arise when a great power's
resolve and reliability are called into question.

When other countries look to the United States,
they see one nation. When they look to Washington
they see one government. They judge us as a unit --
not as a series of unrelated actions. When they
measure our constancy, our will, our purpose, our
ability to follow through on what we promise, their
index is our performance -- and our worldwide performance
is there for all to see.

This is the perception of friend and foe alike.

Those who gear their policies to ours -- either to rely
on our fidelity, or to hinder our purposes -- are making
crucial domestic decisions of their own. Foreign countries,

-13-

and their leaders, are calculating our steadfastness.

This is a fact, not a theory. It does not spring from our rhetoric. Nor will it go away because we choose to ignore it. It is this reality we must bear in mind as we probe for the roots of our present predicament.

## The Domestic Dimension

The causes of our unease are deep-seated. Some afflict democratic societies everywhere; some are special to America's history and tradition.

Modern governments are besieged by social, economic and political problems which cut across national boundaries and lie at the margin of their ability to control. Large bureaucracies complicate the challenge of leadership, turning issues of conception into issues of management. Instant communications force the pace of events. Persuasion -- the essential method of democracy -- becomes extraordinarily difficult in an era that is without simplicity and without certainty.

-14-

The result is profound erosion of the psychological
basis of our unity. It simultaneously debunks govern-
ment and drains it of the very public confidence that
a democracy requires. In this country we have witnessed
the destruction of three Presidents in succession;
domestic turmoil, a social revolution, a constitutional
crisis. In many other democratic countries we see an
almost inexorable ebbing of confidence in whichever
government is in office.

We face as well the problem of a new generation. The
young are frustrated by impersonal mass institutions;
they are impatient for change. They find little
inspiration or incentive for loyalty in a technological,
bureaucratized, materialistic society. They seek
spiritual direction -- which we seem unable to provide.
The gulf between their historical experience and ours
is enormous. They have been traumatized by Vietnam as

-15-

we were by Munich. They derive no lesson from the
tragedies of the previous era and no inspiration from
the great period of American achievement in foreign
affairs in the postwar period. The alienation of the
young is a powerful factor in the demoralization of
any society.

We face, in addition, a complex problem of
executive-legislative cooperation in a new period.
The modern state seems frustratingly remote from the
human beings whose lives it affects; modern legislatures
find it difficult to affect policy except piecemeal or
negatively. Accommodation of special groups -- the
essence of problem-solving on domestic issues -- robs
diplomacy of consistency and focus, which are the
essence of national action abroad.

In this country the decade-long struggle over
alleged executive usurpation in foreign affairs is
over. It is last year's issue. The assertion of

-16-

Congressional authority is with us; it is the dominant fact of national politics today. The question now is whether Congress will hamstring the diplomacy of the Executive Branch while being institutionally incapable of formulating or carrying out a clear national policy of its own, or whether both branches will, with some humility, recognize that a spirit of compromise is a grave necessity for this nation at this moment in our history. The Executive Branch will do its part to consult and concert so as to forge a new partnership.

The problems we face are _national_ problems, not those of the Administration alone. If they are exacerbated by struggles between the branches of government, they will be inherited by the next Administration, but under worse conditions.

For Americans the adjustment to a more complex world inevitably will be difficult. We are a people accustomed to triumph, to unlimited horizons. Our earlier experience taught us that exertions had a

-17-

terminal point, that striving was rewarded. We had
a soaring idealism, a faith in law -- rarely tempered
by the experience of tragedy or knowledge of the con-
tingent quality of human ends. We took our power for
granted and attributed our successes to virtue. We
disparaged means. Thus in our foreign involvement
we have oscillated between exuberance and exhaustion,
between crusading and retreats into self-doubt.

We are a self-centered nation. In periods of
success, we project ourselves. In periods of difficulty,
we attack ourselves.

And so America today is a paradox. In the nation
with the highest standard of living and one of the
richest cultures in the world, in the nation that is
perhaps the most secure in the world, in the nation
which has come closest of all to the ideals of civil
liberty and pluralist democracy -- we find a deep and
chronic malaise. It is a psychological condition, as

-18-

genuine as it is self-induced.

The result is a nation at the height of its powers
that needs to recover its faith in itself.

We no longer have the margin of safety we once had
for disarray or abdication or short-sightedness in
the conduct of foreign policy. The Cold War had its own
moral simplicity which is now a thing of the past. In
the era of American predominance, America's simple
preferences held great sway. We could overwhelm our
problems with our resources. We had less need to resort
to the traditional style of nations conducting foreign
policy with more modest means -- subtlety, maneuver,
patience, flexibility. Now we must have these qualities --
but in a democracy they place a very high premium on
public understanding and confidence in government.

In the era of our predominance, our constancy was
not in question; now it is. We are still the largest
single factor in international affairs -- but we are one

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nation among many. The weight of our influence now
depends crucially on our perserverance, our creativity,
and our perceived reliability. We can no longer afford
the excesses of moralism -- either in overinvolvement in
the affairs of others or in abject renunciation of
our great responsibilities. For a troubled world still
looks to America, as much as ever, for courage and
leadership.

Let us remember that America's commitment to
political involvement in the world has always been
problematical. The roots of isolationism, nourished
by geography and history, go deep in the American
tradition. The reluctance to be involved in foreign
conflicts, the deep-seated aversion to "power politics"
and balances of power, the notion that weapons are
themselves the causes of conflict, the conception that
humanitarian assistance and participation in the economic
order are an adequate substitute for political engagement --
these were characteristic of the American isolationism

-20-

of the '20's and '30's.

Following the Second World War, a broad spectrum of civic leaders, professional groups, educators, businessmen, clergy, the media, Congressional leaders and national leaders of both parties -- led American public opinion in a new internationalist consensus. Taught by the very experience of the Second World War, the nation understood that we best secured our domestic tranquillity by enlightened participation, indeed leadership, in world affairs. Assistance to friends and allies was not a price to be paid but a service to be rendered to international stability and therefore to our self-interest.

But in the last decade, as a consequence of Indochina, leadership opinion turned sharply against many of the internationalist premises of the postwar period. For years now we have had drummed into us the view that conflicts are stimulated by American military equipment given in support of friends, that injustices are perpetuated by American action or inaction, that

-21-

suffering is only prolonged by American steadfastness
to allies, that defense spending is a waste, that
American intelligence activities are immoral, that
the confidentiality of diplomacy is a plot to deceive
the American public, that flexibility is cynical and
amoral -- and tranquillity is somehow to be purchased
by America's abandonment of its causes and its friends.

These themes strike a responsive chord in a
disillusioned public. And they are all the more persuasive
at a time of serious recession and inflation and un-
employment at home. But they are indiscriminate and
unworkable in a period of evident and complex dangers
abroad.

Will the American people now support a responsible
and active American foreign policy? They will -- if
their national leaders, in government and outside of
government, give them a sense that they have something
to be proud of and something important to accomplish.

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Then the enthusiasm of the American nation will be
evident again.

There is a great reservoir of faith around the
world in this country's values and strength. Equally,
there is a great reservoir of confidence within America
in the contribution this country can and must make
to a better world.

## Some Guiding Principles

What are the lessons to be drawn for the future?

In the world at large, many of the advantages and
much of the trust we have enjoyed in the past can no
longer be taken for granted. We will have to work
harder to earn it -- and we shall.

— Certainly, when it comes to new commitments, this
nation must proceed with care, with all possible fore-
sight, and in full consultation with Congress. But those
commitments to which we adhere must be fulfilled
scrupulously and rigorously. Commitments are the product

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of our interests, not the other way around. And we
must remember that other nations gear themselves to
our policies, to our actions, to our reputation for
reliability -- not to legal documents.

— In present circumstances, we shall maintain our vigilance. We shall not permit others to press for advantage during a period of málaise. And we will remember who supplied the arms for the assault on the Paris Agreement.

— It is time for us a people to recognize that the difference between moral questions and practical questions in foreign policy is that moral questions are harder, not easier. Most international conflicts are not between right and wrong, but between two rights. We must stand for our ideals and promote them in the world. But no one has a monopoly on justice. Diplomacy involves the compromise of clashing ideals. Strict moralism is a pretext to avoid painful choices. Strict pragmatism

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robs a policy of vision and heart. We must avoid both
extremes.

— We cannot ignore the larger design of international
affairs. Obviously, there is no automatic linkage
between disparate events. But it should be equally
obvious that foreign policy is mosaic, that we cannot
keep pulling out strands without risking the whole
fabric. A melange of special interests does not add
up to the national interest.

-- Finally, as a mature nation, we must learn
that success is a process and not a final condition,
that exertion is perpetual and must be an end in itself.

## The Coming Agenda

As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "No great nation
ever complained of a want of opportunity."

Our resources are vast, our leadership essential,
our opportunities unprecedented and insistent.

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The United States provides the core of the great alliances:

-- with the industrial democracies of the West, the anchor of our security, the foundation for detente, and the expression of shared values and purposes;

-- with Japan, through a newly mature partnership dedicated to Asian stability and cooperative solutions to global economic problems;

-- with other nations of Asia, where friends and allies will be gearing their policies to their perceptions of this country in the wake of events in Indochina; and

-- with Latin America, which I visit next week -- a promising proving ground for relations between countries in varying stages of development.

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The United States is indispensable to the process of reducing conflict and tension in the world. With the Soviet Union we are seeking a reliable long-term relationship founded on mutual restraint and more positive cooperation. But this nation, from the beginning, has based detente on the promise that the Soviet Union must know that the alternative course offers no prospect except danger.

With the People's Republic of China, we must expand the hopeful beginnings of the past few years and move toward a mutually productive relationship. The importance which China attaches to its relationship with us is directly related to its estimate of our power and influence on the international scene.

The United States possesses military strength second to none. Only with a strong national defense

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can we balance potential adversaries, buttress
our alliances and thus nourish the processes of
detente among all nations. We seek as well to en-
hance international security through prudent measures
of arms control. We must slow, then reverse, the
growth of strategic weapons among major powers. And
we face serious international dangers unless we stop
the spread of nuclear weapons to new nations and
regions.

The United States is the only country that has
the confidence of both sides in many regional conflicts.

The conflict in the Middle East threatens the world's
economic and political stability. Over the past few
years we have been in a unique, indeed indispensable,
position to help the parties move toward a negotiated
solution and peace. We have made striking progress.

-28-

Despite recent delays, the United States is determined to maintain this momentum. Stalemate or stagnation cannot be tolerated -- for the sake of our national interest and for world peace. We will move ahead on whatever course is most promising.

The United States is by far the world's largest producer and supplier of food. Without our foresight and commitment, the world cannot hope to close the ominous gap between population growth and food production. At the World Food Conference in Rome last November we set forth a comprehensive plan to meet man's most basic need over the longer term. New institutions that we called for have begun to take shape. We must not let near term prospects for good weather and good harvests lull us back into inaction.

We have a moral obligation to help others feed themselves.

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And we have a political interest in tracing a con-
structive pattern for other producers of other
resources in an interdependent world.

The United States is central to any solution of
<u>the energy problem</u>. We consume one-third of the
world's energy and we are a major producer in our own
right. Our technology and leadership are vital.
Together with other consumers we have made major pro-
gress in conservation, in safeguarding against energy
emergencies, in planning alternative sources, and in
creating international mechanisms to protect the
interests of both producers and consumers. Essential
to all these efforts, however, is a determined program
of conservation and energy development at home. Without
our own major effort, there is no hope of success for
our collective efforts.

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The United States has the world's most dynamic
economy and the most advanced technology. We must
apply these assets to the emerging agenda:

-- reforming the international economy in
trade, finance and raw materials;

-- ensuring that the oceans, with their
immense resources and strategic importance,
become areas of cooperation rather than
conflict;

-- harnessing technology to the service of
mankind while protecting the environment.

-- reconciling the interests of developed
and developing nations with humanity,
realism and cooperation.

These issues and challenges in the coming decades
will dwarf today's disputes. An incipient world order

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is taking shape around us. Our nation is uniquely endowed to play a creative and decisive role. But we and our friends must come to terms with ourselves. We must understand our own interests and act purposefully. If not, the field will lie open to others -- others not necessarily friendly to us. The result could be a reshaping of the world which takes little account of our values and our interests.

It is time for America to act without guilt and without self-doubt. It is time for American's leaders, in and out of government, to say what they are for, not what they are against. In the words of Longfellow, it is time to "look not mournfully into the Past. Wisely improve the present. Go forth to meet the shadowy future without fear, and with a manly heart."

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In an era of turbulence, uncertainty and conflict, the world still looks to us for a protecting hand, a mediating influence, a path to follow. It sees in us, most of all, a tradition and a vision of hope. Just as America has symbolized for generations man's conquest over nature, so too has America -- with its banner of progress and freedom -- symbolized man's mastery over his own future.

We are at a crucial point. As we move toward our third century, as we take up the agenda of the modern world, let us recover the belief in ourselves that characterized the most creative periods in our history.

We are no longer innocent. Nor are we guilty. We have come of age.