Address at 18th U.N. General Assembly, 20 September 1963
This file contains materials collected by the office of President John F. Kennedy's secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, concerning President Kennedy's address to the 18th General Assembly of the United Nations. In his speech the President discusses the recently signed treaty banning at...
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OCR Page 1 of 85FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SEPTEMBER 20, 1963
OFFICE OF THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY
(New York, N. Y. )
THE WHITE HOUSE
ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT
TO THE 18TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF
THE UNITED NATIONS
NEW YORK, N. Y.
(AS ACTUALLY DELIVERED)
Mr. President -- as one who has taken some interest
in the election of Presidents, I want to congratulate you on
your election to this high office -- Mr. Secretary-General,
Delegates to the United Nations, Ladies and Gentlemen:
We meet again in the quest for peace.
Twenty-four months ago, when I last had the honor
of addre/sing this body, the shadow of fear lay darkly across
the worl The freedom of West Berlin was in immediate peril.
Agreemen on a neutral Laos seemed remote. The mandate of
the United Nations in the Congo was under fire. The financial
outlook for this organization was in doubt. Dag Hammarskjold
was dead. The doctrine of troika was being pressed in his
place, and atmospheric nuclear tests had been resumed by the
Soviet Union.
Those were anxious days for mankind -- and some men
wondered aloud whether this organization could survive. But
the 16th and 17th General Assemblies achieved not only survival
but progress. Rising to its responsibility, the United Nations
helped reduce the tensions and helped to hold back the darkness.
Today the clouds have lifted a little so that new
rays of hope can break through. The pressures on West Berlin
appear to be temporarily eased. Political unity in the Congo
has been largely restored. A neutral coalition in Laos, while
still in difficulty, is at least in being. The integrity of the
United Nations Secretariat has been reaffirmed. A United
Nations Decade of Development is underway. And, for the first
time in 17 years of effort, a specific step has been taken to
limit the nuclear arms race.
I refer, of course, to the treaty to ban nuclear
tests in the atmosphere, outer space, and under water -- con-
cluded by the Soriet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United
States -- and already signed by nearly 100 countries. It has
been hailed by people the world over who are thankful to be
free from the fears of nuclear fallout, and I am confident
that on next Tuesday at 10:30 o'clock in the morning it will
receive the overwhelming endorsement of the Senate of the
United States.
The world has not escaped from the darkness. The
long shadows of conflict and crisis envelop us still. But we
meet today in an atmosphere of rising hope, and at a moment
of comparative calm. My presence here today is not a sign of
crisis, but of confidence. I am not here to report on a new
threat to the peace or new signs of war. I have come to salute
the United Nations and to show the support of the American
people for your daily deliberations.
For the value of this body s work is not dependent on
the existence of emergencies -- nor can the winning of peace
consist only of dramatic victories. Peace is a daily, a weekly,
a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding
old barriers, quietly building new structures. And however un-
dramatic the pursuit of peace, that pursuit must go on.
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