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    "localId": "46820028",
    "label": "Address to U.N. General Assembly, 25 September 1961",
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    "title": "Address to U.N. General Assembly, 25 September 1961",
    "description": "This folder contains materials collected by the office of President John F. Kennedy's secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, concerning President 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, and provides information on the current crises in Laos, South Vietnam, and Berlin, Germany. Materials in this folder include a draft, press copy, and reading copy of the speech.",
    "citationUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/46820028",
    "identifierLocal": "JFKPOF-035-048",
    "collections": [
        "Papers of John F. Kennedy: Presidential Papers: President's Office Files",
        "Speech Files"
    ],
    "subjects": [
        "United Nations. General Assembly"
    ],
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    "ocrText": "- 5 -\nTo underscore that rights and their choice, I ask this body to sponsor a\nfree plebiscite in West Berlin, enabling its citizens to express their preference\nfor future status. And if self-determination is a valid principle on both sides of\na stone wall, the people of East Berlin should be invited to join in this plebiscite\nas well.\nPerhaps they will be denied that right. Perhaps self-determination can\nbe denied by force to those who lack it -- as happened in Hungary. But it can\nnever be easily taken from those now free to enjoy it -- for it will never\nbe\ntraded away, and it will never be surrendered short of war.\nIf the Communists are not intent on extending their empire to West Berlin,\nthere will be no war. If they do not seek to impose their will on others in defiance\nof settled rights and commitments, there will be no war. But the Western powers\nhave calmly resolved to defend, by whatever means are forced upon them, their\nobligation and their access to the free citizens of West Berlin and the self-\ndetermination of those citizens.\nNor can we be driven out by a world-wide campaign of threats and intimida-\ntion. That campaign is designed to cause the timid and the weak to advocate our\nin Berlin.\npursuing a course of appeasement/ But this world organization was founded in\nthe wake of a devastating war that followed successive acts of such appeasement,\ninviting\neach one until a group of ruthless dictators misjudged the ability\nand the willingness of freemen to resist domination. This time we are determined\nthat history shall not repeat itself. The ambitions may be the same the tactics\nof intimidation may be the same. But the weapons of war are very different indeed --\nand so are our unity and spirit.\nIf there are moderates in the Communist world who have been arguing that\nthen\nintimidation does not produce results, /our standing firm on Berlin will strengthen\ntheir hand -- and at the same time strengthen the chances for peace, in Asia, the\nMiddle East and all over the world."
}