Press release of President John F. Kennedy's Address to the United Nations, 25 September 1961
Press release of President John F. Kennedy's address before the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York City. In his speech, the President addresses the recent death of U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold, presents six proposals for the new Disarmament Program,...
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OCR Page 1 of 9IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SEPTEMBER 25, 1961
Office of the White House Press Secretary
(AS ACTUALLY DELIVERED)
THE WHITE HOUSE
FOLLOWING IS THE TEXT OF THE PRESIDENT'S
ADDRESS TO THE UNITED NATIONS, DELIVERED
AT 11:30 A. M., E. D. T., SEPTEMBER 25, 1961,
NEW YORK CITY
Mr. President, honored delegates, ladies and gentlemen:
We meet in an hour of grief and challenge. Dag Hammarskjold is dead.
But the United Nations lives. His tragedy is deep in our hearts, but the
task for which he died is at the top of our agenda. A noble servant of
peace is gone. But the quest for peace lies before us.
The problem ie not the death of one man the problem is the life of this
organization. It will either grow to meet the challenge of our age -- or it
will be gone with the wind, without influence, without force, without respect.
Were we to let it die to enfeeble its vigor -- to cripple its powers -- we
would condemn the future,
For in the development of this organization rests the only true alternative
to war -- and war appeals no longer as a rational alternative. Unconditional
war can no longer lead to unconditional victory. It can no longer serve to
settle disputes. It can no longer concern the great powers alone, For
a
nuclear disaster, spread by winds and waters and fear, could well engulf the
great and the small, the rich and the poor, the committed and the uncommitted
alike, Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind,
So let us here resolve that Dag Hammarskjold did not live -- or die -- in
vain. Let us call a truce to terror. Let us invoke the blessings of peace.
And, as we build an international capacity to keep peace, let us join in
dismantling the national capacity to wage war.
II.
This will require new strength and new roles for the United Nations, For
disarmament without checks is but a shadow -- and a community without
law is but a shell. Already the United Nations has become both the measure
and the vehicle of man's most generous impulses. Already it has provided
in the Middle East, in Asia, in Africa this year in the Congo a means of
holding violence within bounds.
But the great question which confronted this body in 1945 is still before
us whether man's cherished hopes for progress and peace are to. be
destroyed by terror and disruption whether the "foul winds of war" can
be tamed in time to free the cooling winds of reason and whether the
piedges of our Charter are to be fuifilled or defied: pledges to secure
peace, progress, human rights and world law.
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