Draft V

February 1, 1976

AMERICA'S DESTINY: THE GLOBAL CONTEXT

University of Wyoming, Laramie

February 2, 1976

It is good to be here in the West. It is good to be

here because it teaches me once again that America is not
so many in Washington would have us believe it is, but one who has been there and seen, knows the cynical, confused, and tired nation, one would be led to believe if he never travelled outside the City of Washington.

Instead, as I have so often seen in my trips around the

country, the American people continue to have pride in their country. They know that America has done more for the world, and more for peace over the past 30 years than any nation in history. They know we have given more of our substance, fed more of the starving, taken in more immigrants, and educated more people from other lands than any nation.

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before us. The American people are tired of hearing how
evil we are, how terrible our mistakes, and how misguided
our purposes. They know better. And they want better.

It is true that we have passed through a decade and
more of tragedy; we have been witness to assassination;

we have been involved in a tragic war that shattered our domestic unity;
and we have suffered the agony of our greatest constitutional
crisis since the Civil War.

But we have come through these difficult times
with our institutions as strong as ever. We still remain the
world's greatest democracy; we continue to be the bastion
to which other nations look for their protection; and we
remain the symbol of hope to the millions around the world

who live in tyranny and poverty but yearn for the freedom
and prosperity, we represent

America has, from the beginning of its history,
meant much to the world. The founding fathers of this
nation were animated by a sense of obligation, and of
mission, to other peoples and to posterity. They launched
the most important political experiment of modern history.

Our revolution, our independence, and our democratic
processes set examples which excited and encouraged
imitation around the globe. America represented a

an inspiration to the most important political experiment of modern
laboratory -- the spectacle of successful self-government,
economic opportunity, social equality, civil and religious
liberty and the tremendous capacities of a free people to
shape their own destiny.

These values led this country later in our history to affect the world in a new way -- as a distant but powerful magnet drawing great tides of immigration. It was a movement of ideas as well as people which not only shaped this nation, but vastly altered the assumptions and social structures of the old world.

In more recent decades, America's impact on the world has been more immediate. For much of this century, global peace and prosperity have depended upon our exertions.

When World War II ended, we took the lead in helping a shattered globe rebuild from devastation. We shaped the commercial and financial system that spread prosperity and economic opportunity to far corners of the world. We

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built peacetime alliances to maintain global stability and
defend the values we share with the great industrial democracies.

We resisted aggression. We mediated conflicts. And we led the fight against disease, hunger, ignorance and the forces of oppression and terror that have scarred this century.

No other nation has made such a contribution. Now it can make such a contribution now. The best hope for a planet still beset by war, poverty and tyranny is a strong, committed, vigilant America.

## Nation-Building in the Global Context

We must never forget that in serving peace and progress we serve ourselves and live up to our best traditions.

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We declared our independence " in decent respect to
the opinions of mankind." Our founding fathers were

sophisticated statesmen who understood the European balance
of power and knew how our country could profit from it. Our

The shrewd diplomacy
independence was not won by American arms alone. Franklin

and Jefferson perceived that the European powers saw the
conflict in North America as part of a global struggle; their
shrewd diplomacy led to the involvement of Britain's enemies

France, Spain and Russia favorable to our cause. We then
only defect Britain sufficed in the modern era,
cut loose from them in a separate treaty of peace by which

Economically weak

John Jay won the British Crown's recognition and liquidated the
residual problems of our war with England. We cut loose from

our temporary allies.

After thirty years of further turmoil in which we

came to the brink of war with France and suffered the capture
of our capital by the British, we became alert to new

opportunities provided by changes on the international scene, we moved
a strategy to take advantage of them.
The effective elimination of France and Spain from the

hemisphere, the expansion of Russia in the Pacific northwest,
and the growing disaffection of Great Britain from the European

powers led us in 1823 to concert with Britain in the Monroe Doctrine,
Thereafter, for the hundred years between Waterloo and
1914, America benefitted from the existence of a world
balance of power, presided over by Britain, which maintained
global stability and prevented international war.

With the Monroe Doctrine, we took on a major foreign
policy commitment: protection of the Western Hemisphere from

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the old world. We did so in the firm knowledge that England,

in furtherance of its own global interests, would see to its
enforcement for us; that she would resist the extension of

European empires in the new world. In the words of Prime
Minister Canning, the Doctrine "called the new world into
existence to redress the balance of the old."

Thus, the distribution of power in world relations,

in using it, our perception of it, and careful engagement with it, protected the young United States; it enabled us, in reliance upon the British Navy, to turn our back on the Atlantic and open the continent before us.

Theodore Roosevelt noted that long before Jefferson negotiated an end to the French claim to Louisiana, foreign

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claims had been effectively undermined by the great western
movement of Americans and the free communities they quickly
founded. But the consolidation of their pioneering achievement
was made possible by those negotiations and by the subsequent
series of remarkable diplomatic successes. The annexation
of Florida, the Oregon boundary settlement with Great
Britain, the Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo, the Gadsden
Purchase, Secretary of State Seward's purchase of Alaska
from Russia -- all were triumphs of diplomacy during decades
when most citizens believed America did not have -- or need --
a foreign policy.

Indeed, our very achievements in dealing with the
world brought Americans under the sway of a shared mythology.

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As a society made up of men and women who had fled the
persecutions and power politics of the old world, Americans --
whether Mayflower descendants or *new* arrivals from the
failed revolutions of 1848 -- came to assume that we were
*beyond the reach of the* *necessities* of traditional foreign policy.

While our security continued to be assured by our place
in the international structure of the time, we became bemused by the
popular belief that President Monroe's obligation to defend the
western hemisphere and, indeed, almost any obligation we might
choose to assume, depended on unilateral American decisions
to be entered into or ended entirely at our discretion. Shielded
by two oceans and enriched by a bountiful nature, we proclaimed
our special situation as universally valid *even while* ~~other nations~~

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with a narrower margin of survival knew that their range of
choice was far more limited.

The concern of other peoples for security only reinforced our sense of uniqueness. We came increasingly to regard diplomacy with suspicion. Arms and alliances were seen as immoral and reactionary. Negotiations were considered less a means of reconciling our ideals with our interests, but a device to entangle us in the constant quarrels of a morally questionable world. Our native inclination for straight-forwardness brought increasing impatience with diplomacy, whose essential attribute is ambiguity.

In this atmosphere even the purchase of Alaska was regarded in its day as a towering folly explainable only in

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terms of American gullibility in the face of old world diplomatic
guile. Congress was prevailed upon only with the greatest
difficulty to provide the seven million dollars to complete
the deal. The mythology of American ineptitude in its
diplomatic pursuits carried into the twentieth century.

Will Rogers was always assured of a laugh when he
cracked, "America never lost a war and never won a
conference" -- an attitude which even contemporary Secretaries
of State have experienced.

Forget not the wisdom by which the founding fathers
won on our independence and secured our safety, and disdainful of
the techniques by which all nations -- even the United States --
must preserve their interests, America entered the twentieth
century.

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century — which would prove to be the most complex and turbulent time in history.

As Lord Bryce said in his *American Commonwealth*,

> America had been sailing "on a summer sea", but a cloud bank was "on the horizon and now no longer distant, a time of mists and shadows, wherein dangers may be concealed whose form and magnitude she can scarcely conjecture."

## America's Ascendancy: Maintaining Global Stability

In the early years of this century America faced an
> apparent choice between continued detachment and active involve-
> ment in world affairs. Apparent, not real, for the Pax
> Britannica on which we had relied was eroding. Increasingly,
> for so long a time it can seem an end.
> 
> We had become almost without
> notice if the world's major economies
> were the only democratic nation with power enough to
> sufficient.

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maintain a precarious world balance. But nothing in our
experience had equipped us to recognize the new responsibility
that had fallen to us. We continued to reject the demands of the
politics of power, and abhorred alliances as contrary to American
principles. In the place of foreign policy we fell back on our
tradition of law, in repeated attempts to
legislate solutions to international conflicts.

Our entry into World War I was produced by real
geopolitical interest, such as freedom of the sea and the
prevention of the diminution of the Eurasian land mass by a

hostile power; but we chose to interpret our participation on terms
legal and idealistic grounds; we fought the war "to end all wars."

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The Great Depression drew our energies further inward to deal with the problems of our own society even as that same depression, simultaneously generated overwhelming perils abroad. Only with the greatest caution could President Franklin D. Roosevelt begin to assert global leadership openly and take steps against the mounting dangers by preparing America for war.

World War II was well underway before we were shocked out of isolation by external attack. Total victory and refusal to consider the security of the post-war world in terms of any notion of equilibrium ill prepared us for the war's aftermath when the destruction of Europe's traditional power centers suddenly saw the projection of Soviet power into the

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center of the European continent.

Yet in the first postwar years America found within itself
extraordinary capacities of statesmanship and creativity.

Leaders of both parties and many <u>persuasions</u> -- Truman, Eisenhower, Vandenberg and Marshall, Acheson, <u>Burke</u> and Dulles --

<u>sheild</u>

built a national consensus for responsible American leadership

<u>based on</u>

in the <u>world</u> for a foreign policy of both principle and pragmatism.

Albert Einstein said at the outset of the <u>Nuclear Age</u> that "everything has changed, except our mode of thinking."

To cope with a world whose basic conditions were so radically
altered was a task comparable in magnitude to that which
faced the founding fathers. When Dean Acheson said he was

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"present at the creation" he referred not only to the creation
of our postwar policy, but to a new era in the history of mankind.

American foreign policy had come full circle. The
sophistication of the Founding Fathers manipulated the balance
of power to gain our Independence and then placed us in the inter-
national system to assure our survival. A century and a quarter of
almost total security tempted us to isolationism, with our
free World Wars in this century, we have
foreign policy focussed on the Western Hemisphere. In this century
learned day ... and the burdens of
two World Wars have taught us the responsibilities of
world leadership in an inseparable

Americans can be enormously proud of what their
country accomplished in the post-war decades to build a more

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st stable and prosperous world. The recovery of western
 Europe and Japan, the creation and ~~constant~~ revitalization of
 peacetime alliances, the shaping of the global trade and
 monetary system, the economic advance of newer and poorer
 nations, the measures to control the nuclear arms race --
 these comprise an enduring achievement of American leadership. ~~stationarity~~
 And in the process we learned that world peace and progress are
 indispensable with a secure and prosperous America fulfilling
 its destiny and implementing its moral principles.

America has been thrust into the role of global leadership with a dual responsibility: to maintain global peace by the traditional methods of balance of power and diplomacy, but we know that nuclear war could destroy civilization + climate + to go beyond this to a new era of interdependence and a new traditional foreign policy.

upon restrained and responsible conduct on their part -- on issues where America's interests are affected directly, as in Europe, as well as in peripheral conflicts, such as Angola.

An active American role in other parts of the world is also essential. The Middle East is perhaps the most critical example. We must be involved there because of our historical and moral commitment to Israel; because of our important interests in the Arab world; because continued instability strains our relations with allies and risks severe global economic dislocation; and because continuing crisis in the Middle East risks direct U.S.-Soviet confrontation.

It is because of the broad significance of regional conflicts such as those in Angola and the

international order. If we succeed, the prospects

for America and the world are bright. If we fail we will be slept by others so do not have our
principles; one period will witness mounting
mounting despair and deepening disarray and
conflict - both at home and in the world.

We can approach these new challenges with
confidence. Our technological advance, our
managerial genius, our achievements in science
and medicine, the productivity of our farms and
industries, our physical resources, our commitment
to the rule of law -- have led the nations of the
role in solving
world to look to us for leadership on the global

We have been demonstrating
the resilience of our economy by emergency from a place
wherein fast + more steadily than any the subside.

Fundamental to this effort is an international
climate of economic cooperation. In the past few years,
Americans have seen clearly just how much international

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economic relations are a determinant of order and
including our own well-being + the peace +
progress for all nations. The foremost economic
challenge of our time is the division of the planet
between north and south -- industrial and developing --
which has become as pressing an issue as the division
between east and west.

The United States has taken far-reaching steps
to lay the foundations for economic cooperation.

- We have worked closely with the other great industrial democracies in trade, energy, and monetary reform.

- We have organized a comprehensive international program to expand food production in developing countries, and to channel resources -- including the new wealth of the oil producers -- to improving the financing, production, storage, and distribution of food.

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Our nation's military, economic, and moral strength
is unparalleled, and indispensable to any effort to
build a better life for our children and for the
peoples of the world.

Our foreign policy structure is sound and ready
to encounter the future. Our effort to help construct
an international structure that fosters peace, justice
and freedom is well underway.

But our hopes of shaping our future as a nation
cannot succeed unless we are confident, united, and
resolute as a people.

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we lose it we will have become like all those
nations before us who rose to the heights only
to pass from the stage of history because they
lacked the moral and physical stamina that
leadership demands.

We have passed through a decade and more
of tragedy; we have been witness to assassination;
we have been involved in a war we would not win and
from which we could not extricate ourselves; and we
have suffered the agony of our greatest constitutional
crisis since the Civil War.

But we have also come through this difficult time
with our institutions as strong as ever. We still
remain the world's greatest democracy; we continue
to be the bastion to which other democracies look for

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their protection; and we remain the symbol of
hope for the millions around the world who live in
tyranny and poverty but yearn for the freedom and
prosperity we represent.

Whether we like it or not, history has made
America the repository and guardian of the best
values of mankind, for no other free nation is
strong enough or cohesive enough to replace us.
Without our commitment there can be no security;
without our dedication there can be no progress.
Either we help shape the world of the future or
others will shape it for us, and to our disadvantage.
We have no choice but to lead, for there is no one to
take our place. We must have the fortitude to oppose
military pressures and the vision to work for a more

The Secretary
of State

Speech

Washington, D.C.

April 17, 1975

Bureau of Public Affairs

Office of Media Services

U.S. FOREIGN POLICY: FINDING STRENGTH THROUGH ADVERSITY

*Secretary Henry A. Kissinger before the American Society of Newspaper Editors.*

President Hays [Howard H. (Tim) Hays, President, ASNE], distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen:

I am here to sound a note of hope about the future of our foreign policy, despite the fact that we are now going through a period of adversity. A nation facing setbacks can submerge itself in acrimony, looking for scapegoats rather than lessons. It can ignore or gloss over its difficulties and fatuously proceed as if nothing serious had happened. Or it can examine its situation dispassionately, draw appropriate conclusions, and chart its future with realism and hope.

President Ford has chosen this latter course. A week ago he called upon Congress and the American people to turn this time of difficulty into a demonstration of spirit—to prove once again our devotion and our courage and to put these into the service of building a better world.

For the entire postwar period our strength and our leadership have been essential in preserving peace and promoting progress. If either falters, major shifts in political alignments will occur all around the world. The result will be new dangers for America's security and economic well-being. The Middle East war and oil embargo of 1973 demonstrated how distant events can threaten world peace and global prosperity simultaneously. Reduction of American influence in key areas can have disastrous consequences.

How other nations perceive us is thus a matter of major consequence. Every day I see reports from our embassies relaying anguished questions raised by our friends. What do events in Indochina, the southern flank of NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization], and the Middle East signify for America's competence-constancy-credibility-coherence? How will Americans react? What are the implications for future American policy?

We can be certain that potential adversaries are asking themselves the same questions—not with sympathy but to estimate their opportunities.

It is fashionable to maintain that pointing to dangers produces a self-fulfilling prophecy; that the prediction of consequences brings them about. Unfortunately, life is not that simple. We cannot achieve credibility by rhetoric; we cannot manufacture coherence by proclamation; and we cannot change facts by not talking about them.

We can do little about the world's judgment of our past actions. But we have it within our power to take charge of our future: If the United States responds to adversity with dignity, if we make clear to the world that we continue to hold a coherent perception of a constructive international role and mean to implement it, we can usher in a new era of creativity and accomplishment. We intend to do just that.

I know that it is not easy for a people that

PR 204

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faces major domestic difficulties to gear itself up for new international efforts. But our economic future is bound up with the rest of the world—and with international developments in energy, trade, and economic policy. Our economic health depends on the preservation of American leadership abroad.

This country has no choice. We must, for our own sake, play a major role in world affairs. We have strong assets—a sound foreign policy design, major international achievements in recent years, and the enormous capacities of an industrious and gifted people. We have the resources—and the will—to turn adversity into opportunity.

## Indochina

Let me start with our most tragic and immediate problem.

I can add nothing to the President's request for military and humanitarian assistance for the anguished people of South Viet-Nam. I support this appeal and have testified at length to that effect before congressional committees over the past several days.

The time will come when it will be clear that no President could do less than to ask aid for those whom we encouraged to defend their independence and at whose side we fought for over a decade. Then Americans will be glad that they had a President who refused to abandon those who desperately sought help in an hour of travail.

In Indochina our Nation undertook a major enterprise for almost 15 years. We invested enormous prestige; ten of thousands died and many more were wounded, imprisoned, and lost; we spent over $150 billion; and our domestic fabric was severely strained.

Whether or not this enterprise was well-conceived does not now change the nature of our problem. When such an effort founders, it is an event of profound significance—for ourselves and for others.

I, for one, do not believe that it was ignoble to have sought to preserve the independence of a small and brave people. Only a very idealistic nation could have persevered in the face of so much discouragement.

But where so many think that the war was a dreadful mistake, where thousands grieve for those

they loved and others sorrow over their country's setback—there has been sufficient heartache for all to share.

The Viet-Nam debate has now run its course. The time has come for restraint and compassion. The Administration has made its case. Let all now abide by the verdict of the Congress—without re-crimination or vindictiveness.

## The Design

Let us therefore look to the future. We start with a sound foreign policy structure.

We are convinced that a continuing, strong American role is indispensable to global stability and progress. Therefore, the central thrust of our foreign policy has been to adjust our role in the world and the conceptions, methods, and commitments which define it to the conditions of a new era—including an America fatigued by Indochina.

The postwar order of international relations ended with the last decade. No sudden upheaval marked the passage of that era, but the cumulative change by the end of the 1960's was profound. Gone was the rigid bipolar confrontation of cold war. In its place was a more fluid and complex world—with many centers of power, more subtle dangers, and new hopeful opportunities. Western Europe and Japan were stronger and more self-confident; our alliances needed to be adjusted toward a more equal partnership. The Communist world had fragmented over doctrine and national interests; there were promising prospects for more stable relations based on restraint and negotiation. And many of our friends in other parts of the globe were now better prepared to shoulder responsibility for their security and well-being, but they needed our assistance during the period of transition.

At home, the American people and Congress were weary from two decades of global exertion and years of domestic turmoil. They were not prepared for confrontation unless all avenues toward peace had been explored. The challenge for our foreign policy has been to define an effective but more balanced U.S. role in the world, reducing excessive commitments without swinging toward precipitate and dangerous withdrawal.

We have come a long way. Our major allies the Atlantic world and Japan have grown in

(Y)

3

strength politically and economically; our alliances are firm anchors of world security and prosperity. They are the basis for close cooperation on a range of unprecedented new problems—from detente to energy. We have launched a hopeful new dialogue with Latin America. We are looking to a new era of relations with Africa.

We have taken historic steps to stabilize and improve our relations with our major adversaries. We have reduced tensions, deepened dialogue, and reached a number of major agreements.

We have begun the process of controlling the rival strategic arms programs which, unconstrained, threaten global security. When the Vladivostok agreement is completed a ceiling will have been placed for the first time on the level of strategic arsenals of the superpowers.

We have helped to ease long-standing political conflicts in such sensitive areas as Berlin and the Middle East. And we have taken the major initiatives to mobilize the international response to new global challenges such as energy, food, the environment, and the law of the sea.

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, 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. 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 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 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

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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 ex-
perience and ours is enormous. They have been
traumatized by Viet-Nam as we were by Munich.
Their nightmare is foreign commitment as ours was
abdication from international responsibility. It is
possible that both generations learned their lessons
too well. The young take for granted the great
postwar achievements in restoring Europe, building
peacetime alliances, and maintaining global pros-
perity. An impersonal, technological, bureaucra-
tized 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 postwar era. The roots of isola-
tionism, 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 imperialism,
the notion that weapons are the causes of conflict,
the belief that humanitarian assistance and partici-
pation in the economic order are an adequate sub-
stitute for political engagement—all these were
familiar characteristics of the American isola-
tionism of the 1920's and 1930'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 in-
volvement 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, ed-
ucators, businessmen, clergy, the media, congres-
sional and national leaders of both parties led
American public opinion to a new internationalist
consensus. Taught by them and experience of the
war, the Nation understood that we best secured
our domestic tranquillity and prosperity by en-
lightened 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 engage-
ment, some of our earlier impulses have reasserted
themselves. Leadership opinion has, to an alarming
degree, turned sharply against many of the interna-
tionalist premises of the postwar period. We now
hear, and have for several years, that suffering is
prolonged by American involvement, that injustice
is perpetuated by American action, that defense
spending is wasteful at best and produces conflict
at worst, that American intelligence activities are
immoral, that the necessary confidentiality of di-
plomacy is a plot to deceive the public, that flexi-
bility 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 con-
sensus 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 so
tainly the most secure in the world, in the Nat-
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 respon-
sible 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 cor-
rosive cynicism. 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 the
country's interests better than withdrawal. Even
other nations are closely watching the way we act

5

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 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 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 perseverance, 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.

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 affairs of others; strict pragmatism, on the other hand, robs policy of vision and heart. Principles without security spell 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.

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 2 years, is to indulge what [Henry Louis] 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 Lippmann observed: "In foreign relations, as in all other relations, a policy has been formed only when commitments 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 responded to our repeated requests that they at least point out North Vietnam's flagrant violations of these agreements. Such silence

6

can only undermine any meaningful standards of
international responsibility.

At home, a great responsibility rests upon all
of us in Washington. Comity between the Exec-
utive 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 Exec-
utive accepts that the Congress must have both the
sense and the reality of participation; foreign
policy must be 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 formu-
lating or carrying out a clear national policy of its
own.

The effective performance of our constitu-
tional 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 na-
tional 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 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, paral-
ysis 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 unco-
ordinated institutions. If we cannot agree amongst
ourselves, there is little hope 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 Viet-Nam 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 con-
sensus 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.

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 complains of want of opportunity.
Neither does a great nation."

Our resources are vast, our leadership is essen-
tial, 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 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

7

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, 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 stagnation or stalemanship 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 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 tensions with our adversaries. Over time,

we hope that vigilance and conciliation 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 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.

If present trends continue we will deprive ourselves of both the carrot and the stick; conciliatory policies and firm measures alike will be undermined by growing doubt about the steadiness of our national will. An atmosphere of suspicion and a lack of even the most elementary confidentiality will reduce governmental discipline and self-confidence, turning our actions defensive, and unusually susceptible to short-term political considerations. In an era where the danger of war has been reduced but the habit of confrontation continues, the grey area between military conflict and diplomacy assumes critical importance. Yet, leaks, sensational investigations and the demoralization of our intelligence services.

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at a time when our adversaries are stepping up
their own efforts are systematically depriving
our government of any ability to respond.

An effective foreign policy requires a strong
executive authority which can act with assurance
and speak with confidence on behalf of all
Americans. But when the Executive is disavowed
repeatedly and publicly, other governments wonder
who speaks for America and what an American
commitment means. Our government is in danger of
progressively losing the ability to shape events, and
a great nation that does not shape history eventually
becomes its victim.

Too much depends upon a strong and confident
America to allow this state of affairs to continue.

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hopeful note. The threat of war around the
globe has been reduced.

The principal danger we face
is our domestic division.

The American people have heard enough about
how evil we are, how terrible our mistakes, and
how misguided our purposes. They know better.
And they know how much damage these continuing
attacks on their country have done, and will do,
to undermine America's ability to keep the peace.

We have every obligation to draw the right
lessons from our past mistakes, and to see that
they never happen again. But we have an equally
compelling duty to put an end to the namecalling,
the ceaseless search for malfeasance, and the
denigration of our country that have so come to
characterize the nature of our domestic debate. For
the campaign of self-torture some among us seem so
intent upon pursuing will, in the end, only weaken

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It is time we recognized that, increasingly,
our difficulties abroad are of our own making. If
America is to be safe we must cease dismantling and
demoralizing our intelligence capabilities. If
America is to preserve its values and maintain the
global balance of stability we cannot emasculate
our defense forces or those of our key allies for
short term political reasons. And if America is to
have any hope of helping to build a world
environment in which our citizens can thrive and
be free we cannot continue to deny ourselves the
traditional tools of diplomatic flexibility -- for
without these our only option is to retreat -- to
become an isolated fortress island in a hostile and
turbulent global sea, awaiting the ultimate
confrontation with the only response we will not