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[United Nations Presidential Address, 9/23/91]
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3
1
Snow, McGroarty, Duggan
Grossman, Simon, Bunton
UN.TS
September 20, 1991
Draft One
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS: THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY
UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY HALL
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1991
11 A.M.
[INTRODUCTORY ACKNOWLEDGMENTS; PERSONAL REMINISCENCES]
Today I plan to deliver a different kind of address than you
have heard from a President of the United States. I do not plan
to dwell on a superpower rivalry that led to this organization's
founding and defined international politics for a half century,
although I will discuss it for a moment, because it provides a
foundation for my main topic: The new world that faces us all.
For nearly 50 years, world affairs revolved around a
conflict between the United States and the communist world --
principally, the Soviet Union. Many wars, many debates, many
events reflected the competition between two ideologies:
communism, which asserted the primacy of governments over
individuals; and democratic capitalism, which declared that
governments derive their just rights from the people they serve.
At its core, the competition between ideologies hinged upon
one crucial question: Do people have inalienable rights? Can
higher principles establish limits upon state power?
Well, I look around this room and I see the answers. Today,
a single delegation represents the people of Germany; two
delegations represent Korea; the republics of Estonia, Latvia and
Lithuania all send their own delegations. Just one week ago, 159
Snow, McGroarty, Duggan
Grossman, Simon, Bunton
UN.TS
September 20, 1991
Draft One
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS: THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY
UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY HALL
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1991
11 A.M.
[ INTRODUCTORY ACKNOWLEDGMENTS; PERSONAL REMINISCENCES]
Today I plan to deliver a different kind of address than you
have heard from a President of the United States. I do not plan
to dwell on a superpower rivalry that defined international
politics for a half century, although I will discuss it for a
moment, because it provides a foundation for my main topic: The
new world that faces us all.
For nearly 50 years, world affairs revolved around a
free word - the 05 it
conflict between the United States and other democracies and the
communist world -- principally, the Soviet Union. Many wars,
many debates, many events reflected the competition between two
ideologies: communism, which asserted the primacy of governments
over individuals; and democratic capitalism, which declared that
governments derive their just rights from the people they serve.
At its core, the competition between ideologies hinged upon
one crucial question: Do people have inalienable rights? Can
higher principles establish limits upon state power?
Well, I look around this room and I see the answers. Today,
a single delegation represents the people of Germany; two
delegations represent Korea; the republics of Estonia, Latvia and
Lithuania all send their own delegations. Just one week ago, 159
2
nations enjoyed membership in the U.N. Today, the number stands
at 166. Seven nations in one week -- in fact, all joined in one
day: That's extraordinary. This burst in membership illustrates
the determination of people around the world to enjoy the rights
due them simply because they are human beings.
We have entered a new era of individual rights. The changes
around the world hail a new age of liberty.
I look back upon the past year, and I also see the makings
of a new era of peace. Less than a year ago, the Soviet Union
joined the United States and a host of other nations in defending
a tiny country against aggression -- and opposing Saddam Hussein.
For the very first time, superpower competition took a back seat
to international cooperation.
At that moment, the Cold War truly drew to an end. The
United Nations, in one of its finest moments, constructed a
measured, principled, deliberate and courageous response to
Saddam Hussein. This body stood up to an outlaw who threatened
not just Kuwait, but many states within the region. In so doing,
the United Nations itself may have thrown off the shackles of the
Cold War.
Now, for the very first time, a world of promise has begun
to take shape -- like mountains emerging at dawn's first light.
In this world, nations take seriously the United Nations Charter
and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These documents,
signed in moments of high hope, once again can united and inspire
people of all nations, faiths and creeds.
3
Think about it: In the long history of the United Nations,
superpower competition rendered hopeless the charter's
determination "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of
war
to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the
dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men
and women and nations large and small
to promote social
progress and better standards of life in larger freedom."
For many in this room, and for many of the nations that
belong to this body, "larger freedom" did not exist during the
Cold War. Totalitarian regimes cared less about observing
individual rights than about forcing the masses to conform to a
planner's vision of a perfect society. The totalitarian state
tossed individuals about, murdered and tortured doubters, hurled
troublemakers into labor camps or sent them away to distant
settlements -- all to silence men and women who tried to point
out that the theory of communism made no sense. It enforced
ignorance and want upon people. It smothered their talents and
virtues. It imprisoned whole nations.
It survived as long as it did because it promised the
impossible. As Jeane Kirkpatrick, a former ambassador to the
United Nations, notes: Communism offered up a world view that was
universal, teleological, final, comprehensive, moral -- and
unifying: It promised an end to alienation.
It promised everything, and for years people reached out in
the vain hope that it could deliver everything for everyone.
4
The communist ideal fell when people saw that freedom --
true freedom; an uncertain, risky, responsibility fraught freedom
-- works. When they no longer could ignore the failures of their
governments and their economies, they rose up and shouted
defiantly: We are people! Treat us with dignity! Understand
that your power flows from us! In one of history's rich ironies,
so-called Peoples' republics fell victim to the people.
Many of us watched in amazement as the Berlin Wall came
tumbling down; as the old Warsaw Pact nations emerged from their
long dark confinement into the bright light and bracing air of
freedom. Some of us also wept with joy as kinsmen threw off
their chains, unfurled their flags, celebrated the cultures that
they had struggled so long -- and at such great personal peril -
- to keep alive, and preserved the common bonds that gave them
strength, courage, and hope that the forces of freedom eventually
would prevail over the minions of tyranny. The whole world
celebrated as the sudden release of nations that for so many
years had been held captive.
But communism also made a captive of history. It suspended
ancient disputes; it subordinated ethnic rivalries and
nationalist aspirations.
As totalitarian masters relaxed their grip on their victims,
and as individuals began again to taste their rightful freedom,
old animosities raced to the surface; old hatreds reasserted
themselves; and in the tumultuous aftermath of communism's
5
collapse, people who for years had been denied their past and
future began searching for their own identities.
That struggle has unleashed warfare between Croatians and
Serbians; Armenians and Azerbaijanis; Kurds and Iraqis -- each
battle merely picking up hatreds that have festered for
generations.
You see signs of this tumult everywhere, including here.
The United Nations has organized but four peacekeeping missions
during its first 43 years; it has mounted nine missions in the
past 36 months. Although we now seem mercifully liberated from
the fear of nuclear holocaust, we face new threats in the form of
smaller, but nonetheless virulent conflicts.
Communism also shattered fundamental social institutions:
the family, the community; the place of worship. We must restore
these institutions in our own quest for a New World Order -- and
order characterized by the rule of law, rather than the resort to
force; the cooperative settlement of disputes, rather than the
anarchic warfare.
We must face this challenge squarely: First, by suing for
the peaceful resolutions of disputes now in progress; second, and
more importantly, by trying to prevent others from erupting.
No one here can promise that today's borders will remain
fixed for all time: They won't. We must strive instead to ensure
that people resolve border disputes peacefully, and that any new
nations that might join our community will arrive peacefully, and
not after years of bloody savagery.
6
We can start preventing new hostilities by defending the
inalienable rights outlined in the UN's founding documents:
individual liberties, rights to property, and the protection of
minority rights. If people cannot speak their minds; if they
cannot form political parties freely and elect governments
without coercion; if they cannot practice their religion freely;
if they cannot raise their families in peace; if they cannot
enjoy a just return from their labor; if they cannot live
fruitful lives and, at the end of their days, look upon their
achievements and their society's progress with pride -- if these
simple conditions for the good life do not exist, tempers will
flare and bullets will fly. Governments that fail to carry out
their primary responsibility -- protecting the freedoms that
enable people to live good lives -- will fall in favor of systems
that do.
In the years to come, we will face the challenge of
reconciling people's yearnings for freedom and identity with the
need to live in a peaceful world. We must nurture feelings
people's sense of identity without shredding the fabric of
international society and without inciting the kind of bloody
factionalism that led to our first world war -- and ultimately,
perhaps, to the Cold War.
For the people in this room, the challenge is simple: Honor
the commitments we have made by signing the United Nations
Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
7
[[This chamber in past years has made a mockery of its
founding document by distorting the meaning of such simple terms
as "liberty" and "democracy. "
The New World Information and Communications Order and the
New World Economic Order enjoyed great currency here not too many
years ago. Both crusades mocked the principles upon which this
organization was founded. They promoted equality, by which they
meant an especially virulent form of envy. They ignored the
human striving to create lasting things; the human thirst for
sensible risk. It sought, under cover of lofty rhetoric, to
replace the natural human impulse for production and self-
expression with the corrosive striving to seize wealth from one
party and give it to another.
George Orwell once derided this dishonest rhetoric by
noting, "The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic,
realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings
which cannot be reconciled with one another
Words of this kind
are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the
person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows
his hearer to think he means something quite different. II
David Hare, talking about the United Nations during the days
of hypocritical rhetoric, put the matter more bluntly. "When
they speak," he said of some representatives, "dead frogs fall
from their mouths. "
8
If we hope to build confidence in our abilities to promte
prosperity and peace, we must reject the Newspeak of the old era
and speak clearly and honestly. ]]
Let us begin with the charter's pledge "to practice
tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good
neighbors."
This pledge renounces bigotry and dishonesty, and commits
this body to tolerance and concord. In that spirit, I call upon
you today to repeal UNGA resolution 3379, the so-called "Zionism
is racism" resolution. This resolution invites the world to
embrace religious bigotry and take sides on a dispute that has
defied the best efforts of statesmen for decades.
In repealing this resolution no one agrees to submit
unequivocally to every decision made by the government of Israel.
Many of us will disagree with particular stands taken by Israel,
just as we do with any member state.
But understand: Zionism is not a policy; it expresses the
essence of Israel, a land born out of a gruesome Holocaust; a
land created as a homeland for the Jewish people. To equate
Zionism with the intolerable sin of racism is to reject Israel -
- something this body cannot and should not do.
We stand on the verge of convening an historic peace
conference between Israel and its Arab neighbors. The United
Nations can support this process by repealing unconditionally
Resolution 3379, and conceding that each nation in this
conference deserves a seat at the table.
9
The United Nations played a major role in ringing up down the
final curtain on communism. It now has a chance to support a
Middle East peace. Repeal Resolution 3379. Give peace a chance.
for speech
Similarly, we must give the conditions for broader peace a
chance by confronting the challenge of protectionism. In the
also
years to come, we/must invite every nation to share in the
promise of liberty. I can think of no better way to encourage Expand
"Greatur freedom.
this new era than by promoting the free flow of goods and ideas.
The information revolution has destroyed the weapons of enforced
readered
isolation and ignorance. It has made geography obsolete. Ideas
Anove
zip around the globe at the speed of light. Devices of mass
communication can send news over high walls and through the
thickest stone cells. In our lifetime, technology has
overwhelmed tyranny, proving that the age of information also can
become the age of liberation -- if we limit state power wisely
and let our cultures make the best use of new ideas, new
products, new insights.
[section on un role]
The world has discovered the importance of democracy, and
everywhere we see parties forming and governments arranging for
free elections. But the path to a peaceful world demands more
than just free elections. It also requires economic growth.
When economies grow, they serve people, they fulfill needs, and
they create opportunities. Growth drives out the rationale for
envy; it permits every person to gain -- not at the expense of
others, but to the benefit of others.
10
This applies to international relations as well. We can
minimize the possibility of war -- and especially of global
conflict -- if we protect free trade and free information.
Many nations represented here have joined the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. The Uruguay Round unfortunately
has stalled, as nations struggle to retain comparative advantage
in various areas. This striving is natural, but it also has
prevented negotiators from settling the greatest free-trade
agreement ever.
I cannot emphasize too strongly the importance of completing
a new GATT treaty. Protectionism set off the Great Depression,
and a new wave of protectionism could unleash furies the likes of
which we have never seen.
The international economy now, not when it offers the
greatest competitive discipline, and the greatest hope of urging
our own industries on to greater heights. I call upon all
members of GATT to redouble their efforts to reach a successful
conclusion for the Uruguay Round -- and then to begin yet another
round of freer and fairer trade.
You see, economic progress promises more than full shop
shelves. It provides the soil in which democracy can flourish.
Whenever an old and tangible evil vanishes, people naturally
embrace unrealistic hopes. In our time, many people assume that
we have entered a Brave New World full of prosperity and free of
fear. But that is naive.
11
Self-interest always will tug nations in different
directions, and these struggles occasionally will flare into
violence. Elsewhere, demagogues will try to peddle false dreams
to people whose hunger for hope overwhelms their common sense.
We have been liberated from the fear of nuclear conflagration --
our nation's atomic scientists turned their doomsday clock back
to ten minutes before midnight last year; this year, they may
turn it back to noon.
Nevertheless, the end of the Cold War issues in new
uncertainty. We can never say with confidence where the next
conflict may arise, which nation will spawn the next dangerous
aggressor. Terrorists still use our citizens as pawns; and we
must band together to overwhelm this affront to basic human
dignity.
In a world defined by change, we must be as firm in
principle as we are flexible in our response to changing
international affairs.
It is my solemn hope and wish that this organization, will
serve as the world's conscience, a bastion of rigorous freedom
and righteous courage. Commit yourselves to becoming a special
body -- not one that enforces its views through force, but one
that inspires nations through its commitment to reason and its
passion for the values of love, productivity, and brotherhood.
I learned years ago that the United Nations has few
resources for addressing troubled situations involving
superpowers. But I also came to love the special spirit of this
The WN's
12
place. Your strength lies in its economic and social objectives,
in encouraging economic development -- and deploying economic
punishments, where necessary; in serving as a vehicle through
which willing parties can settle old disputes. In the months to
come, I look forward to working with Secretary General Perez de
Cuellar as we pursue peace in Cyprus, protect democracy
throughout Central America, work toward resolving tensions in
Cambodia, and try to establish a lasting peace the Western Sahara
and Angola.
Finally, many of you may wonder about America's role in the
new world I have described. Let me assure you, The United States
has no intention of encouraging or building a Pax Americana. We
encourage a Pax Terra constructed upon shared responsibilities
and aspirations. No one in this chamber deserves a reward for
standing up to Saddam Hussein. We did what we should have done.
We fulfilled our obligations under the U.N. Charter when we
joined hand to push back an aggressor.
My nation cannot lead this world to a promising future of
wealth and well-being and it will not try. Nor will we surrender
our sovereignty to any international institution. No nation
should do that.
Each of us has an obligation to follow where our national
interests lead. Yet together, we have a responsibility for
building a common interest around shared principles. We have an
opportunity to spare our sons and daughters the sins and foibles
13
of the past; we can build a future more satisfying than any our
world has ever known.
None of us can hide from this responsibility. The
communications revolution and the evolution of weapons of mass
destruction have made it impossible for nations to isolate
themselves. As we become increasingly linked by ties of security
and trade, it will become impossible to distinguish domestic
policy from foreign policy. Increasingly, we all depend upon one
another for our peace and our prosperity.
The only historical force we must confront is the march
toward liberty. The future lies undefined before us, full of
promise; littered with peril. In our activities as citizens and
statesmen, we will define just what kind of future we shall
enjoy: a future made peaceful by reflection and choice, or one
blistered by fires of war and subjected to the ugly whims of
coercion and chance.
We can make history here. We can build a decent future
here. We can inaugurate an era of peace and understanding here.
Here, we can help define and shape a New World Order.
Take this challenge seriously. Inspire future generations
to praise and venerate you.
Good luck, and may God bless the United Nations, and the
principles upon which it stands.
Questions:
Do we wish to talk about SDI?
Snow, McGroarty, Duggan
Grossman, Simon, Bunton
UN.TS
September 20, 1991
Draft One
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS: THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY
UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY HALL
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1991
11 A.M.
[Introductory acknowledgments: incoming president: Mr.
Shihabi; outgoing president, Mr. de Marco; Secretary General
Perez de Cuellar. PERSONAL REMINISCENCES]
Today I plan to deliver a different kind of address than you
have heard from a President of the United States. I do not plan
to dwell on a superpower rivalry that defined international
politics for a half century, although I will discuss it for a
moment, because it provides a foundation for my main topic: The
new world that faces us all.
For nearly 50 years, world affairs revolved around a
conflict between the free world -- the United States and other
democracies -- and the communist world -- principally, the Soviet
Union. Many wars, many debates, many events reflected the
competition between two ideologies: communism, which asserted the
primacy of governments over individuals; and democratic
capitalism, which declared that governments derive their just
rights from the people they serve.
At its core, the competition between ideologies hinged upon
one crucial question: Do people have inalienable rights? Can
higher principles establish limits upon state power?
2
Well, I look around this room and I see the answers. Today,
a single delegation represents the people of Germany; two
delegations represent Korea; the republics of Estonia, Latvia and
Lithuania all send their own delegations. Just one week ago, 159
nations enjoyed membership in the U.N. Today, the number stands
at 166. Seven nations in one week -- in fact, all joined in one
day: That's extraordinary. This burst in membership illustrates
the determination of people around the world to enjoy the rights
due them simply because they are human beings.
We have entered a new era of individual rights. The changes
around the world hail a new age of liberty.
I look back upon the past year, and I also see the makings
of a new era of peace. Less than a year ago, the Soviet Union
joined the United States and a host of other nations in defending
a tiny country against aggression -- and opposing Saddam Hussein.
For the very first time, superpower competition took a back seat
to international cooperation.
At that moment, the Cold War truly drew to an end. The
United Nations, in one of its finest moments, constructed a
measured, principled, deliberate and courageous response to
Saddam Hussein. This body stood up to an outlaw who threatened
not just Kuwait, but many states within the region. In so doing,
the United Nations itself may have thrown off the shackles of the
Cold War.
Now, for the very first time, a world of promise has begun
to take shape -- like mountains emerging at dawn's first light.
3
In this world, nations take seriously the United Nations Charter
and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These documents,
signed in moments of high hope, once again can united and inspire
people of all nations, faiths and creeds.
Think about it: In the long history of the United Nations,
superpower competition rendered hopeless the charter's
determination "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of
war
to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the
dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men
and women and nations large and small
to promote social
progress and better standards of life in larger freedom."
For many in this room, and for many of the nations that
belong to this body, "larger freedom" did not exist during the
Cold War. Totalitarian regimes cared less about observing
individual rights than about forcing the masses to conform to a
planner's vision of a perfect society. The totalitarian state
tossed individuals about, murdered and tortured doubters, hurled
troublemakers into labor camps or sent them away to distant
settlements -- all to silence men and women who tried to point
out that the theory of communism made no sense. It enforced
ignorance and want upon people. It smothered their talents and
virtues. It imprisoned whole nations.
It survived as long as it did because it promised the
impossible. As Jeane Kirkpatrick, a former ambassador to the
United Nations, notes: Communism offered up a world view that was
4
universal, teleological, final, comprehensive, moral -- and
unifying: It promised an end to alienation.
It promised everything, and for years people reached out in
the vain hope that it could deliver everything for everyone.
The communist ideal fell when people saw that freedom --
true freedom; an uncertain, risky, responsibility fraught freedom
-- works. When they no longer could ignore the failures of their
governments and their economies, they rose up and shouted
defiantly: We are people! Treat us with dignity! Understand
that your power flows from us! In one of history's rich ironies,
so-called Peoples' republics fell victim to the people.
Many of us watched in amazement as the Berlin Wall came
tumbling down; as the old Warsaw Pact nations emerged from their
long dark confinement into the bright light and bracing air of
freedom. Some of us also wept with joy as kinsmen threw off
their chains, unfurled their flags, celebrated the cultures that
they had struggled so long -- and at such great personal peril -
- to keep alive, and preserved the common bonds that gave them
strength, courage, and hope that the forces of freedom eventually
would prevail over the minions of tyranny. The whole world
celebrated as the sudden release of nations that for so many
years had been held captive.
But communism also made a captive of history. It suspended
ancient disputes; it subordinated ethnic rivalries and
nationalist aspirations.
5
As totalitarian masters relaxed their grip on their victims,
and as individuals began again to taste their rightful freedom,
old animosities raced to the surface; old hatreds reasserted
themselves; and in the tumultuous aftermath of communism's
collapse, people who for years had been denied their past and
future began searching for their own identities.
That struggle has unleashed warfare between Croatians and
Serbians; Armenians and Azerbaijanis; Kurds and Iraqis -- each
battle merely picking up hatreds that have festered for
generations.
You see signs of this tumult everywhere, including here.
The United Nations has organized but four peacekeeping missions
during its first 43 years; it has mounted nine missions in the
past 36 months. Although we now seem mercifully liberated from
the fear of nuclear holocaust, we face new threats in the form of
smaller, but nonetheless virulent conflicts.
Communism also shattered fundamental social institutions:
the family, the community; the place of worship. We must restore
these institutions in our own quest for a New World Order -- and
order characterized by the rule of law, rather than the resort to
force; the cooperative settlement of disputes, rather than the
anarchic warfare.
We must face this challenge squarely: First, by suing for
the peaceful resolutions of disputes now in progress; second, and
more importantly, by trying to prevent others from erupting.
6
No one here can promise that today's borders will remain
fixed for all time: They won't. We must strive instead to ensure
that people resolve border disputes peacefully, and that any new
nations that might join our community will arrive peacefully, and
not after years of bloody savagery.
We can start preventing new hostilities by defending the
inalienable rights outlined in the UN's founding documents:
individual liberties, rights to property, and the protection of
minority rights. If people cannot speak their minds; if they
cannot form political parties freely and elect governments
without coercion; if they cannot practice their religion freely;
if they cannot raise their families in peace; if they cannot
enjoy a just return from their labor; if they cannot live
fruitful lives and, at the end of their days, look upon their
achievements and their society's progress with pride -- if these
simple conditions for the good life do not exist, tempers will
flare and bullets will fly. Governments that fail to carry out
their primary responsibility -- protecting the freedoms that
enable people to live good lives -- will fall in favor of systems
that do.
In the years to come, we will face the challenge of
reconciling people's yearnings for freedom and identity with the
need to live in a peaceful world. We must nurture feelings
people's sense of identity without shredding the fabric of
international society and without inciting the kind of bloody
7
factionalism that led to our first world war -- and ultimately,
perhaps, to the Cold War.
For the people in this room, the challenge is simple: Honor
the commitments we have made by signing the United Nations
Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
[[This chamber in past years has made a mockery of its
founding document by distorting the meaning of such simple terms
as "liberty" and "democracy."
The New World Information and Communications Order and the
New World Economic Order enjoyed great currency here not too many
years ago. Both crusades mocked the principles upon which this
organization was founded. They promoted equality, by which they
meant an especially virulent form of envy. They ignored the
human striving to create lasting things; the human thirst for
sensible risk. It sought, under cover of lofty rhetoric, to
replace the natural human impulse for production and self-
expression with the corrosive striving to seize wealth from one
party and give it to another.
George Orwell once derided this dishonest rhetoric by
noting, "The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic,
realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings
which cannot be reconciled with one another
Words of this kind
are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the
person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows
his hearer to think he means something quite different."
8
David Hare, talking about the United Nations during the days
of hypocritical rhetoric, put the matter more bluntly. "When
they speak,' he said of some representatives, "dead frogs fall
from their mouths."
If we hope to build confidence in our abilities to promte
prosperity and peace, we must reject the Newspeak of the old era
and speak clearly and honestly. ]]
Let us begin with the charter's pledge "to practice
tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good
neighbors."
This pledge renounces bigotry and dishonesty, and commits
this body to tolerance and concord. In that spirit, I call upon
you today to repeal UNGA resolution 3379, the so-called "Zionism
is racism" resolution -- and to do so this year. Resolution 3379
invites the world to embrace religious bigotry and take sides on
a dispute that has defied the best efforts of statesmen for
decades.
In repealing this resolution no one agrees to submit
unequivocally to every decision made by the government of Israel.
Many of us will disagree with particular stands taken by Israel,
just as we do with any member state.
But understand: Zionism is not a policy; it is the idea that
led to the creation of a home for the Jewish people, to the state
of Israel. To equate Zionism with the intolerable sin of racism
is to twist history, since the Jewish people died by the millions
during World War II, precisely because of their race. To equate
9
Zionism with racism is to reject Israel -- something this body.
cannot and should not do.
We stand on the verge of convening an historic peace
conference between Israel and its Arab neighbors. The United
Nations can support this process by repealing unconditionally
Resolution 3379, and conceding that each nation in this
conference deserves a seat at the table.
The United Nations played a. major role in ringing up the
final curtain on communism. It now has a chance to support a
Middle East peace. Repeal Resolution 3379. Give peace a chance.
The U.N. Charter also pledges to "employ international
machinery for the promotion of the economic and social
advancement of all peoples." I can think of no better way to
encourage this new era than by promoting the free flow of goods
and ideas.
In truth, ideas and goods will travel around the globe with
or without our help. The information revolution has destroyed
the weapons of enforced isolation and ignorance. It has made
geography obsolete. Ideas zip around the globe at the speed of
light. Devices of mass communication can send news over high
walls and through the thickest stone cells. In our lifetime,
technology has overwhelmed tyranny, proving that the age of
information also can become the age of liberation -- if we limit
state power wisely and let our cultures make the best use of new
ideas, new products, new insights.
10
By the same token, the world has learned that capitalism --
free markets -- provide levels of prosperity, growth and
happiness that centrally planned economies could never dream of.
Even the most charitable reckoning of economic growth over the
past decade indicates that the economies of the free world have
grown at twice the rate of the former communist world. But long
lines throughout the former communist world indicate that the
growth rates may have differed even more dramatically.
The path to peace requires economic growth. When economies
grow, they serve people, they fulfill needs, and they create
opportunities. Growth drives out the rationale for envy; it
permits every person to gain -- not at the expense of others, but
to the benefit of others.
This applies to international relations as well. We can
minimize the possibility of war -- and especially of global
conflict -- if we protect free trade and free information.
Many nations represented here have joined the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. The Uruguay Round unfortunately
has stalled, as nations struggle to retain comparative advantage
in various areas. This striving is natural, but it also has
prevented negotiators from settling the greatest free-trade
agreement ever.
I cannot emphasize too strongly the importance of completing
a new GATT treaty. Protectionism set off the Great Depression,
and a new wave of protectionism could unleash furies the likes of
which we have never seen.
11
I call upon all members of GATT to redouble their efforts to
reach a successful conclusion for the Uruguay Round -- and then
to begin yet another round of freer and fairer trade.
You see, economic progress promises more than full shop
shelves. It provides the soil in which democracy can flourish.
So the future beckons, full of hope. Yet as we venture to
create new ties, to forge a New World Order, we must avoid
embracing unrealistic hopes.
We have been liberated from the fear of nuclear
conflagration -- our nation's atomic scientists turned their
doomsday clock back to ten minutes before midnight last year;
this year, they may turn it back to noon. But the end of the
Cold War issued in an entirely new set of uncertainties.
We must do our best to control nuclear proliferation, and
prevent the spread of the poor man's atom bombs: chemical and
biological weapons. We must remember that self-interest will
continue tugging nations in different directions, and these
struggles occasionally will flare into violence.
We know that demagogues will try to peddle false dreams to
people whose hunger for hope overwhelms their common sense. We
can never say with confidence where the next conflict may arise,
which nation will spawn the next dangerous aggressor. Terrorists
still use our citizens as pawns; and we must band together to
overwhelm this affront to basic human dignity.
12
In a world defined by change, we must be as firm in
principle as we are flexible in our response to changing
international affairs.
I learned years ago that the United Nations has few
resources for resolving large-scale conflicts. But I also came
to love the special spirit of this place.
The strength of the United Nations lies in its economic and
social missions, in encouraging economic development -- and
deploying economic punishments, where necessary; in serving as a
vehicle through which willing parties can settle old disputes.
In the months to come, I look forward to working with Secretary
General Perez de Cuellar as we pursue peace in Cyprus, protect
democracy throughout Central America, work toward resolving
tensions in Cambodia, and try to establish a lasting peace the
Western Sahara and Angola.
Finally, many of you may wonder about America's role in the
new world I have described. Let me assure you, The United States
has no intention of encouraging or building a Pax Americana. We
encourage a Pax Terra constructed upon shared responsibilities
and aspirations.
My nation cannot lead this world to a promising future of
wealth and well-being and it will not try. Nor will we surrender
our sovereignty to any international institution. No nation
should do that.
Each of us has an obligation to follow where our national
interests lead. Yet together, we have a responsibility for
13
building a common interest around shared principles. I have
talked today about the core values for our future: individual and
minority liberties, democracy, free markets, and a collective
determination to advance these goals wherever we can.
We have an opportunity to spare our sons and daughters the
sins and foibles of the past; we can build a future more
satisfying than any our world has ever known.
None of us can hide from this responsibility. The
communications revolution and the evolution of weapons of mass
destruction have made it impossible for nations to isolate
themselves. As we become increasingly linked by ties of security
and trade, it will become impossible to distinguish domestic
policy from foreign policy. Increasingly, we all depend upon one
another for our peace and our prosperity.
The only historical force we must confront is the march
toward liberty. The future lies undefined before us, full of
promise; littered with peril. In our activities as citizens and
statesmen, we will define just what kind of future we shall
enjoy: a future made peaceful by reflection and choice, or one
blistered by fires of war and subjected to the ugly whims of
coercion and chance.
We can make history here. We can build a decent future
here. We can inaugurate an era of peace and understanding here.
Here, we can help define and shape a New World Order.
Take this challenge seriously. Inspire future generations
to praise and venerate you.
14
Good luck, and may God bless the United Nations, and the
principles upon which it stands.
Questions:
Do we wish to talk about SDI?
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14 PAGES
UNCLASSIFIED
CLASSIFICATION
Snow, McGroarty, Duggan
Grossman, Simon, Bunton
UN.TS
September 20, 1991
Draft One
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS: THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY
UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY HALL
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1991
11 A.M.
[INTRODUCTORY ACKNOWLEDGMENTS; PERSONAL REMINISCENCES]
Today I plan to deliver a different kind of address than you
have heard from a President of the United States. I do not plan
to dwell on a superpower rivalry that led to this organization's
founding and defined international politics for a half century,
although I will discuss it for a moment, because it provides a
foundation for my main topic: The new world that faces us all.
For nearly 50 years, world affairs revolved around a
conflict between the United States and the communist world --
principally, the Soviet Union. Many wars, many debates, many
events reflected the competition between two ideologies:
communism, which asserted the primacy of governments over
individuals; and democratic capitalism, which declared that
governments derive their just rights from the people they serve.
At its core, the competition between ideologies hinged upon
one crucial question: Do people have inalienable rights? Can
higher principles establish limits upon state power?
Well, I look around this room and I see the answers. Today,
a single delegation represents the people of Germany; two
delegations represent Korea; the republics of Estonia, Latvia and
Lithuania all send their own delegations. Just one week ago, 159
2
nations enjoyed membership in the U.N. Today, the number stands
at 166. Seven nations in one week -- in fact, all joined in one
day: That's extraordinary. This burst in membership illustrates
the determination of people around the world to enjoy the rights
due them simply because they are human beings.
We have entered a new era of individual rights. The changes
around the world hail a new age of liberty.
I look back upon the past year, and I also see the makings
of a new era of peace. Less than a year ago, the Soviet Union
joined the United States and a host of other nations in defending
liberty -- and opposing the treacherous barbarity of Saddam
Hussein. For the very first time, superpower competition took a
back seat to international cooperation.
At that moment, the Cold War truly drew to an end. The
United Nations, in one of its finest moments, constructed a
measured, principled, deliberate and courageous response to
Saddam Hussein. This body stood up to an outlaw who threatened
not just Kuwait, but many states within the region. In so doing,
the United Nations itself may have thrown off the shackles of the
Cold War.
Now, for the very first time, a world of promise has begun
to take shape -- like mountains emerging at dawn's first light.
In this world, nations take seriously the United Nations Charter
and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These documents,
signed in moments of high hope, once again can united and inspire
people of all nations, faiths and creeds.
3
Think about it: In the long history of the United Nations,
superpower competition rendered hopeless the charter's
determination "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of
war
to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the
dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men
and women and nations large and small
to promote social
progress and better standards of life in larger freedom. "
For many in this room, and for many of the nations that
belong to this body, "larger freedom" did not exist during the
Cold War. Totalitarian regimes cared less about observing
individual rights than about forcing the masses to conform to a
planner's vision of a perfect society. The totalitarian state
tossed individuals about, murdered and tortured doubters, hurled
troublemakers into labor camps or sent them away to distant
settlements -- all to silence men and women who tried to point
out that the theory of communism made no sense. It enforced
ignorance and want upon people. It smothered their talents and
virtues. It imprisoned whole nations.
It survived as long as it did because it promised the
impossible. As Jeane Kirkpatrick, a former ambassador to the
United Nations, notes: Communism offered up a world view that was
universal, teleological, final, comprehensive, moral -- and
unifying: It promised an end to alienation.
It promised everything, and for years people reached out in
the vain hope that it could deliver everything for everyone.
4
The communist ideal fell when people saw that freedom --
true freedom; an uncertain, risky, responsibility fraught freedom
-- works. When they no longer could ignore the failures of their
governments and their economies, they rose up and shouted
defiantly: We are people! Treat us with dignity! Understand
that your power flows from us! In one of history's rich ironies,
so-called Peoples' republics fell victim to the people.
Many of us watched in amazement as the Berlin Wall came
tumbling down; as the old Warsaw Pact nations emerged from their
long dark confinement into the bright light and bracing air of
freedom. Some of us also wept with joy as kinsmen threw off
their chains, unfurled their flags, celebrated the cultures that
they had struggled so long -- and at such great personal peril -
- to keep alive, and preserved the common bonds that gave them
strength, courage, and hope that the forces of freedom eventually
would prevail over the minions of tyranny. The whole world
celebrated as the sudden release of nations that for so many
years had been held captive.
But communism also made a captive of history. It suspended
ancient disputes; it subordinated ethnic rivalries and
nationalist aspirations.
As totalitarian masters relaxed their grip on their victims,
and as individuals began again to taste their rightful freedom,
old animosities raced to the surface; old hatreds reasserted
themselves; and in the tumultuous aftermath of communism's
5
collapse, people who for years had been denied their past and
future began searching for their own identities.
That struggle has unleashed warfare between Croatians and
Serbians; Armenians and Azerbaijanis; Kurds and Iraqis -- each
battle merely picking up hatreds that have festered for more than
50 years.
You see signs of this tumult everywhere, including here.
The United Nations has organized but four peacekeeping missions
during its first 43 years; it has mounted nine missions in the
past 36 months. Although we now seem mercifully liberated from
the fear of nuclear holocaust, we face new threats in the form of
smaller, but equally virulent conflicts.
All of us must face this challenge squarely: First, by suing
for the peaceful resolutions of disputes now in progress; second,
and more importantly, by trying to prevent others from erupting.
No one here can promise that today's borders will remain
fixed for all time: They won't. We must strive instead to ensure
that people resolve border disputes peacefully, and that any new
nations that might join our community will arrive peacefully, and
not after years of bloody savagery.
We can start preventing new hostilities by defending the
inalienable rights outlined in the UN's founding documents:
individual liberties, rights to property, and the protection of
minority rights. If people cannot speak their minds; if they
cannot form political parties freely and elect governments
without coercion; if they cannot practice their religion freely;
6
if they cannot raise their families in peace; if they cannot
enjoy a just return from their labor; if they cannot live
fruitful lives and, at the end of their days, look upon their
achievements and their society's progress with pride -- if these
simple conditions for the good life do not exist, tempers will
flare and bullets will fly. Governments that fail to carry out
their primary responsibility -- protecting the freedoms that
enable people to live good lives -- will fall in favor of systems
that do.
In the years to come, we will face the challenge of
reconciling people's yearnings for freedom and identity with the
need to live in a peaceful world. We must nurture feelings
people's sense of identity without shredding the fabric of
international society and without inciting the kind of bloody
factionalism that led to our first world war -- and ultimately,
perhaps, to the Cold War.
For the people in this room, the challenge is simple: Honor
the commitments we have made by signing the United Nations
Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
This chamber in past years has made a mockery of its
founding document by distorting the meaning of such simple terms
as "liberty" and "democracy." [anecdotes]
Not too many years ago, this chamber debated a New World
Information and Communication Order that sought to constrain free
speech, not to defend it. This shameful interlude has drawn to
an end, and the Committee on Information has embraced a more
7
traditional interpretation of free speech. It has begun trying
to provide accurate information to the U.N., and this chamber has
called for "a free flow of information at all levels." That's a
far cry from the clumsy censorship embodied in the NWICO.
For years, the U.N. approved of the export of tyranny -- it
supported so-called liberation movements, from which freedom-
loving people now must liberate themselves. Still, with free
elections in Nicaragua, prospects for free elections in Angola,
Afghanistan, Mozambique -- and what once was called the USSR, the
tide has turned.
And, during that unfortunate age, the United Nations
promoted a coercive New World Economic Order that, if enacted,
would have turned the planet into a series of breadlines. The
New World Economic Order defined equality as an especially
virulent form of envy; it ignored the human striving to create
lasting things; the human thirst for sensible risk. It sought,
under cover of lofty rhetoric, to replace the natural human
impulse for production and self-expression with the corrosive
striving to seize wealth from one party and give it to another.
George Orwell once derided this dishonest rhetoric by
noting, "The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic,
realistic, justice have each of tghem several different meanings
which cannot be reconciled with one another
Words of this kind
are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the
person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows
his hearer to think he means something quite different."
8
David Hare, talking about the United Nations during the days
of hypocritical rhetoric, put the matter more bluntly. "When
they speak," he said of some representatives, "dead frogs fall
from their mouths."
If we hope to build a future characterized by prosperity and
peace, we must begin by establishing our own credibility --
rejecting the Newspeak of the old era and defining clearly and
rigorously what we mean by essential terms.
Let us begin with the charter's pledge "to practice
tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good
neighbors."
This pledge renounces bigotry and dishonesty, and commits
this body to tolerance and concord. In that spirit, I call upon
you today to repeal UNGA resolution 3379, the so-called "Zionism
is racism" resolution. This resolution invites the world to
embrace religious bigotry and take sides on a dispute that has
defied the best efforts of statesmen for decades.
In repealing this repulsive resolution no one agrees to
submit unequivocally to every decision made by the government of
Israel. Many of us will disagree with particular stands taken by
Israel, just as we do with any member state.
But understand: Zionism is not a policy; it expresses the
essence of Israel, a land born out of a gruesome Holocaust; a
land created as a homeland for the Jewish people. To equate
Zionism with the intolerable sin of racism is to reject Israel -
- something this body cannot and should not do.
9
We stand on the verge of convening an historic peace
conference between Israel and its Arab neighbors. The United
Nations can support this process by repealing unconditionally
Resolution 3379, and conceding that each nation in this
conference deserves a seat at the table.
The United Nations played a major role in ringing up the
final curtain on communism. It now has a chance to support a
Middle East peace. Repeal Resolution 3379. Give peace a chance.
Similarly, we must give the conditions for broader peace a
chance by confronting the challenge of protectionism. In the
years to come, we must invite every nation to share in the
promise of liberty. I can think of no better way to encourage
this new era than by promoting the free flow of goods and ideas.
The information revolution has destroyed the weapons of enforced
isolation and ignorance. It has made geography obsolete. Ideas
zip around the globe at the speed of light. Devices of mass
communication can send news over high walls and through the
thickest stone cells. In our lifetime, technology has
overwhelmed tyranny and saddled us with the responsibility to
begin fulfilling our own promises.
The age of information also can become the age of
liberation -- if we limit state power wisely and let our cultures
make the best use of new ideas, new products, new insights.
But we can achieve that liberation only if we strive to
build sturdy ties of shared interest -- and if we destroy the
barriers to free trade and free information.
10
Many nations represented here have joined the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and you all understand that
protectionist impulses have prevented nations from settling the
greatest free-trade agreement in world history.
I cannot emphasize too strongly the importance of this
accord. Protectionism set off the Great Depression, and a new
wave of protectionism could unleash furies the likes of which we
have never seen.
We cannot afford to destroy the international economy now,
not when it offers the greatest competitive discipline, and the
greatest hope of urging our own industries on to greater heights.
I call upon all members of GATT to redouble their efforts to
reach a successful conclusion for the Uruguay Round -- and then
to begin yet another round of freer and fairer trade.
You see, economic progress promises more than full shop
shelves. It provides the soil in which democracy can flourish.
As we think about a new age of liberty, let us remember that
governance never will be a science. Human beings are perverse
creatures. If you predict that they will follow one course of
action, they will take another -- just out of sheer spite.
"Scientific" government never works because the process of
democracy in the end boils down to an expression of something
vital and intangible: values.
Communism blotted out history, but it also shattered
fundamental social institutions: the family, the community; the
place of worship. We must restore these institutions in our own
11
quest for a New World Order, and we must give them the freedom to
flourish in our age of "greater freedom," our new era of liberty.
Whenever you consider a resolution, think not of lofty
theories and the urgings of interest groups. Think of your loved
ones. Ask how your resolutions and actions might affect them.
Weigh carefully the ways in which your decisions will influence
future families.
Whenever an old and tangible evil vanishes, people naturally
embrace unrealistic hopes. In our time, many people assume that
we have entered a Brave New World full of prosperity and free of
fear. But that is naive.
But self-interest always will tug nations in different
directions. No nation should ever surrender its sovereignty to
an international body, including this one, but every nation ought
to understand that it bears a real responsibility for building a
better future in this world.
The things we hold most dear demand the highest price in
blood, sweat, toil, tears and pain. In the present euphoria, we
may be tempted to forget the most important lesson of the age,
which is that no social order can long survive without the
consent of the governed, and that precious liberties demand
constant attention and care.
I would like to think that those of us in this room,
chastened by bloody wars and tense peaces, would protect liberty,
democracy and human rights as zealously as we should. But
history tells us that people tend to drop their guard when they
12
see no great menaces ahead. They tend to take their own
liberties for granted.
It is my solemn hope and wish that this organization, which
has permitted itself to fall prey to fads over the years, will
become the world's conscience, the last bastion of rigorous
freedom and righteous courage. Know that principled men and
women necessarily will suffer condemnation from peers who seek
easy solutions to tough problems. Understand that national
interests sometimes collide with the demands of human rights and
natural law. But commit yourselves to becoming a special body -
- not one that enforces its views through force, but one that
inspires nations through its commitment to reason and its passion
for the values of love, productivity, and brotherhood.
I learned years ago that the United Nations has few
resources for addressing troubled situations involving
superpowers. Its real strength lies in its economic and social
objectives, and its serving as a vehicle for helping willing
parties settle old disputes. In the months to come, I look
forward to working with Secretary General Perez de Cuellar as we
pursue peace in Cyprus, protect democracy throughout Central
America, work toward resolving tensions in Cambodia, and try to
establish a lasting peace the Western Sahara and Angola.
Finally, many of you may wonder about America's role in the
new world I have described. Let me assure you, The United States
has no intention of encouraging or building a Pax Americana. We
encourage a Pax Terra constructed upon shared responsibilities
13
and aspirations. No one in this chamber deserves a reward for
standing up to Saddam Hussein. We did what we should have done.
We fulfilled our obligations under the U.N. Charter when we
joined hand to push back an aggressor.
My nation cannot lead this world to a promising future of
wealth and well-being and it will not try. Nor will we surrender
our sovereignty to any international institution. No nation
should do that.
Each of us has an obligation to follow where our national
interests lead. Yet together, we have a responsibility for
building a common interest around shared principles. We have an
opportunity not merely to spare our sons and daughters the sins
and foibles of the past; we can build the foundations of a future
more satisfying than any our world has ever known.
But we have the responsibility. The only historical force
we must confront is the march toward liberty. The future lies
undefined before us, full of promise; littered with peril. In
our activities as citizens and statesmen, we will define just
what kind of future we shall enjoy: a future made peaceful by
reflection and choice, or one blistered by fires of war and
subjected to the ugly whims of coercion and chance.
We can make history here. We can build a decent future
here. We can inaugurate an era of peace and understanding here.
Here, we can help define and shape a New World Order.
Take this challenge seriously. Inspire future generations
to praise and venerate you.
14
Good luck, and may God bless the United Nations, and the
principles upon which it stands.
age of electrons -- technology has outrun tyranny -- china, etc.
; info
revolution, etc.
respect, gatt, common security, clear definition of terms and
goals, eternal vigilance. foundation of principle, values: end
with bushian invocation of all the above.