in his tribute to English universities--and his words are equally true today. He did not

refer to spires and towers, to campus greens and ivied walls. He admired the splendid beauty

of the university, he said, because it was "a place where those who hate ignorance may

strive to know, where those who perceive truth may strive to make others see."

I have, therefore, chosen this time and this place to discuss a topic on which ignorance

too often abounds and the truth is too rarely perceived--yet it is the most important topic

on earth: world peace.

What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced

on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of

the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth

worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a

better life for their children--not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women--not merely peace in our time but peace for all

time.

I speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no sense in an age when

great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to

surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age when a single

nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by all of the allied

air forces in the Second World War. It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons

produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed to the

far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn.

Today the expenditure of billions of dollars every year on weapons acquired for the purpose

of making sure we never need to use them is essential to keeping the peace. But surely

the acquisition of such idle stockpiles--which can only destroy and never create--is not

the only, much less the most efficient, means of assuring peace.

I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men. I realize that

the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war--and frequently the words

of the pursuer fall on deaf ears. But we have no more urgent task.

Some say that it is useless to speak of world peace or world law or world disarmament-and

that it will be useless until the leaders of the Soviet Union adopt a more enlightened

attitude. I hope they do. I believe we can help them do it. But I also believe that we

must reexamine our own attitude--as individuals and as a Nation--for our attitude is as essential

as theirs. And every graduate of this school, every thoughtful citizen who despairs of war

and wishes to bring peace, should begin by looking inward--by examining his own attitude

toward the possibilities of peace, toward the Soviet Union, toward the course of the

cold war and toward freedom and peace here at home.

First: Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible.

Too many think it unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion

that war is inevitable--that mankind is doomed--that we are gripped by forces we cannot control.

We need not accept that view. Our problems are manmade--therefore, they can be solved

by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human

beings. Man's reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable--and we believe

they can do it again.

I am not referring to the absolute, infinite concept of universal peace and good will of

which some fantasies and fanatics dream. I do not deny the value of hopes and dreams

but we merely invite discouragement and incredulity by making that our only and immediate goal.

Let us focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace--based not on a sudden

revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions--on a series

of concrete actions and effective agreements which are in the interest of all concerned.

There is no single, simple key to this peace--no grand or magic formula to be adopted by one

or two powers. Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts. It

must be dynamic, not static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation. For

peace is a process--a way of solving problems.

With such a peace, there will still be quarrels and conflicting interests, as there are within

families and nations. World peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love

his neighbor--it requires only that they live together in mutual tolerance, submitting their

disputes to a just and peaceful settlement. And history teaches us that enmities between

nations, as between individuals, do not last forever. However fixed our likes and dislikes

may seem, the tide of time and events will often bring surprising changes in the relations

between nations and neighbors.

So let us persevere. Peace need not be impracticable, and war need not be inevitable. By defining

our goal more clearly, by making it seem more manageable and less remote, we can help all

peoples to see it, to draw hope from it, and to move irresistibly toward it.

Second: Let us reexamine our attitude toward the Soviet Union. It is discouraging to think

that their leaders may actually believe what their propagandists write. It is discouraging

to read a recent authoritative Soviet text on Military Strategy and find, on page after

page, wholly baseless and incredible claims--such as the allegation that "American imperialist

circles are preparing to unleash different types of wars ... that there is a very real

threat of a preventive war being unleashed by American imperialists against the Soviet

Union ... [and that] the political aims of the American imperialists are to enslave economically

and politically the European and other capitalist countries... [and] to achieve world domination

... by means of aggressive wars."

Truly, as it was written long ago: "The wicked flee when no man pursueth." Yet it is sad

to read these Soviet statements--to realize the extent of the gulf between us. But it

is also a warning--a warning to the American people not to fall into the same trap as the

Soviets, not to see only a distorted and desperate view of the other side, not to see conflict

as inevitable, accommodation as impossible, and communication as nothing more than an

exchange of threats.

No government or social system is so evil that its people must be considered as lacking

in virtue. As Americans, we find communism profoundly repugnant as a negation of personal

freedom and dignity. But we can still hail the Russian people for their many achievements--in

science and space, in economic and industrial growth, in culture and in acts of courage.

Among the many traits the peoples of our two countries have in common, none is stronger

than our mutual abhorrence of war. Almost unique, among the major world powers, we have

never been at war with each other. And no nation in the history of battle ever suffered

more than the Soviet Union suffered in the course of the Second World War. At least 20

million lost their lives. Countless millions of homes and farms were burned or sacked.

A third of the nation's territory, including nearly two thirds of its industrial base,

was turned into a wasteland--a loss equivalent to the devastation of this country east of

Chicago.

Today, should total war ever break out again--no matter how--our two countries would become

the primary targets. It is an ironic but accurate fact that the two strongest powers are the

two in the most danger of devastation. All we have built, all we have worked for, would

be destroyed in the first 24 hours. And even in the cold war, which brings burdens and

dangers to so many countries, including this Nation's closest allies--our two countries

bear the heaviest burdens. For we are both devoting massive sums of money to weapons

that could be better devoted to combating ignorance, poverty, and disease. We are both

caught up in a vicious and dangerous cycle in which suspicion on one side breeds suspicion

on the other, and new weapons beget counter-weapons.

In short, both the United States and its allies, and the Soviet Union and its allies, have

a mutually deep interest in a just and genuine peace and in halting the arms race. Agreements

to this end are in the interests of the Soviet Union as well as ours--and even the most hostile

nations can be relied upon to accept and keep those treaty obligations, and only those treaty

obligations, which are in their own interest.

So, let us not be blind to our differences-but let us also direct attention to our common

interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot

end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in

the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet.

We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.

Third: Let us reexamine our attitude toward the cold war, remembering that we are not

engaged in a debate, seeking to pile up debating points. We are not here distributing blame

or pointing the finger of judgment. We must deal with the world as it is, and not as it

might have been had the history of the last 18 years been different.

We must, therefore, persevere in the search for peace in the hope that constructive changes

within the Communist bloc might bring within reach solutions which now seem beyond us.

We must conduct our affairs in such a way that it becomes in the Communists' interest

to agree on a genuine peace. Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear

powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a

humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would

be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy-or of a collective death-wish for the

world.

To secure these ends, America's weapons are nonprovocative, carefully controlled, designed

to deter, and capable of selective use. Our military forces are committed to peace and

disciplined in self-restraint. Our diplomats are instructed to avoid unnecessary irritants

and purely rhetorical hostility.

For we can seek a relaxation of tensions without relaxing our guard. And, for our part, we

do not need to use threats to prove that we are resolute. We do not need to jam foreign

broadcasts out of fear our faith will be eroded. We are unwilling to impose our system on any

unwilling people--but we are willing and able to engage in peaceful competition with any

people on earth.

Meanwhile, we seek to strengthen the United Nations, to help solve its financial problems,

to make it a more effective instrument for peace, to develop it into a genuine world

security system--a system capable of resolving disputes on the basis of law, of insuring

the security of the large and the small, and of creating conditions under which arms can

finally be abolished.

At the same time we seek to keep peace inside the non-Communist world, where many nations,

all of them our friends, are divided over issues which weaken Western unity, which invite

Communist intervention or which threaten to erupt into war. Our efforts in West New Guinea,

in the Congo, in the Middle East, and in the Indian subcontinent, have been persistent

and patient despite criticism from both sides. We have also tried to set an example for others--by

seeking to adjust small but significant differences with our own closest neighbors in Mexico and

in Canada.

Speaking of other nations, I wish to make one point clear. We are bound to many nations

by alliances. Those alliances exist because our concern and theirs substantially overlap.

Our commitment to defend Western Europe and West Berlin, for example, stands undiminished

because of the identity of our vital interests. The United States will make no deal with the

Soviet Union at the expense of other nations and other peoples, not merely because they

are our partners, but also because their interests and ours converge.

Our interests converge, however, not only in defending the frontiers of freedom, but

in pursuing the paths of peace. It is our hope--and the purpose of allied policies--to

convince the Soviet Union that she, too, should let each nation choose its own future, so

long as that choice does not interfere with the choices of others. The Communist drive

to impose their political and economic system on others is the primary cause of world tension

today. For there can be no doubt that, if all nations could refrain from interfering

in the self-determination of others, the peace would be much more assured.

This will require a new effort to achieve world law--a new context for world discussions.

It will require increased understanding between the Soviets and ourselves. And increased understanding

will require increased contact and communication. One step in this direction is the proposed

arrangement for a direct line between Moscow and Washington, to avoid on each side the

dangerous delays, misunderstandings, and misreadings of the other's actions which might occur at

a time of crisis.

We have also been talking in Geneva about other first-step measures of arms control,

designed to limit the intensity of the arms race and to reduce the risks of accidental

war. Our primary long-range interest in Geneva, however, is general and complete disarmament--designed

to take place by stages, permitting parallel political developments to build the new institutions

of peace which would take the place of arms. The pursuit of disarmament has been an effort

of this Government since the 1920's. It has been urgently sought by the past three ado

ministrations. And however dim the prospects may be today, we intend to continue this effort--to

continue it in order that all countries, including our own, can better grasp what the problems

and possibilities of disarmament are.

The one major area of these negotiations where the end is in sight, yet where a fresh start

is badly needed, is in a treaty to outlaw nuclear tests. The conclusion of such a treaty,

so near and yet so far, would check the spiraling arms race in one of its most dangerous areas.

It would place the nuclear powers in a position to deal more effectively with one of the greatest