Address at a Dinner Sponsored by the Committee for International Economic Growth and the Committee To Strengthen the Frontiers of Freedom.

Mr. Vice President, Mr. Johnston, Dr. Bush. Your Excellencies and ladies and gentlemen of this distinguished audience:

Before I convey to you the thoughts that I have put down on paper for this purpose this evening, I want to give a word of explanation about my understanding about this meeting.

The invitation that I received requested that I add my voice to those who support the mutual security program of the United States and cooperation among the free nations of the world. There was not a word said about any function honoring me, and I heard no such talk from either the Co-Chairmen or any of my staff. So I want to take this moment to thank my friends from so many countries who have paid to me overgenerous and possibly undeserved compliments.

I want to say to them something that they already know--and I am sure you do--that the greetings that I received from so many places in Europe and Asia were simply one thing: the effort of great peoples to tell the people of the United States of their respect for them, their admiration and their affection. I was the messenger, and if I were a successful messenger in that office, in bringing that feeling from these countries to my own, then I am indeed happy and proud.

In any event, I thank you all for your compliments.

This gathering heartens every true believer in preparedness, freedom, and peace. That leaders from all across the land would assemble here-energetically to reaffirm support of mutual security--is good news indeed. This rededication could not come at a better time.

For trends are developing, particularly in Washington, that are profoundly disturbing.

Unless an alert citizenry takes effective action to support those in the Congress who champion the cause of mutual security, it could well result:

In jeopardizing an important part of the nation's defense;

In endangering our worldwide alliance structure;

And in weakening efforts to resist Communist expansion and to forge a just peace.

Two months ago I requested the Congress to continue adequate support of our long proven mutual security program. I asked an appropriation of $4 billion, 175 million--a sum one-twentieth of our Federal budget and one-tenth of our Defense budget. This amount is imperatively required.

The Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff all share this conviction.

One bright development is that, in the past few days, the Committees of Congress legislatively concerned with our relations with other nations, have reasserted the overriding importance of our mutual security program to America's security and free world progress.

Only this evening I have been informed by Senators Fulbright and Dirksen that the Senate this evening acted constructively on this program in the authorizing legislation. The same has of course happened in the House.

But, at the same time, other groups strategically situated in Congress have proclaimed it as their fixed purpose to slash the appropriation for this mainstay of the free world by more than a billion dollars.

They cite isolated instances of malfunctioning in operational staffs as an excuse to attack a great program, which for 14 years has been indispensable in protecting America's stake in security, in free world cooperation, and in global peace. On such grounds and on the erroneous contention that our mutual security program is ineffectual, they would reduce it by twenty-five percent or more.

Every American citizen needs to understand what this would mean.

It would be, for America and all the free world, a crushing defeat in today's struggle between communistic imperialism and a freedom founded in faith and justice.

It would mean, within a matter of months, new international tensions and new international problems of the utmost gravity for every one of our citizens.

It would mean the virtual abandonment of an effort which has yielded our Nation greater benefits in security, better neighbors, and opportunities for expansion of profitable trade than has been achieved by any comparable expenditures for any other Federal purpose.

An America aroused can prevent these calamitous results, for in this Republic government must respond to the will of the people.

Mutual security has never been, nor is it now, Republican or Democratic. Like our own defense program, of which it is an essential part, it is bipartisan to the core.

This program was started 14 years ago by my Democratic predecessor. It was first enacted into law by the Republican 80th Congress. Both political parties, patriotically joined in the national interest, are its parents. And still today both parties are pledged to its support.

Here, specifically, are solemn promises made to the American people in the public document:

First, ".... we strongly favor collective defense arrangements . . ."

Second, "we believe that . . . America must support the efforts of underdeveloped countries . . ."

Third, "... we will intensify our cooperation with our neighboring republics . . ."

Here is another set of pledges:

First, "we shall continue to support the collective security system . . ."

Second, "where needed, we shall help friendly countries maintain such local forces and economic strength as provide a first bulwark against Communist aggression or subversion."

Third, "we will continue efforts with friends and allies to assist the underdeveloped areas of the free world . . ."

Now in their meaning, these two sets of pledges are identical. The first three are in the Democratic Platform of 1956. The last three are in the Republican Platform of the same year. These commitments still stand. America has the right to expect both parties to keep their word.

Indeed, even beyond the call of integrity, both parties have excellent reason to do so.

For mutual security has effectively supported freedom everywhere on earth. It has made possible a greater and mutually advantageous trade. No other investment has yielded greater dividends in terms of stability, security and free world morale.

This is the program that helped to save Greece from Communist guerrillas. It helped to rescue Turkey from economic collapse, restoring this critical area as a bastion of freedom. It helped to maintain Western Europe as a center of free--rather than communist--power and production. The importance of these victories is incalculable; every one of our citizens is today the stronger, the more prosperous, the more secure, thanks to mutual security.

In Asia, under SEATO and other security treaties, a million soldiers stand as a bulwark of liberty--sustained, again, by mutual security.

As I speak tonight our economic and military help gives support to the military might of 42 other nations, which stand poised in freedom's cause. For this they--and we--give heartfelt thanks to mutual security.

On five continents our economic and technical programs help struggling millions better their production and living standards. Only recently I looked into the faces of these many people. I have seen the desperate need of these people; I have felt their spirit. Most of all, I have witnessed their abiding faith in the greatness and goodness of America, and their love and respect for this land of the free. By helping to make their lives more meaningful and more rewarding, we have helped to keep bright their love of liberty and their determination to reject the soulless forces of communist materialism.

Moreover, America's efforts to help others have evoked a heartening response from other advanced industrial nations. In recent years they have doubled their direct aid to the less developed countries. In addition, in the new International Development Association other countries will put up three dollars for every two dollars put up by the United States. The very moment when other countries are recognizing their responsibilities is no time for us to walk away from our own.

That such a program--its record shining with accomplishment, and its continuance solemnly pledged by both of our political parties--should now face a crippling cutback seems incredibly irresponsible. To me it is almost inconceivable.

Let America speak, and this will not be done.

Thus far I have mentioned past achievements. But a great deal more cries out for attention.

Half a world away from us, for example, a great democracy, dedicated to peace, struggles with almost insuperable problems to demonstrate that Asians do not have to sacrifice freedom as payment for economic advance.

To the South our sister Republics need help to unlock the storehouses of their great wealth.

In Africa a seething continent is trying to telescope a thousand years of development into a few decades.

Around the world almost two billion people are living in a ferment of privation, misery, resentment and frustrated hope. They are imbued with an unshakable, even fanatical, determination to break through the spiritual and cultural stagnation imposed upon them by grinding poverty.

Mutual security has done much to help. The hope, confidence and energetic effort so inspired are slowly making progress in creating conditions in which prosperity, security and peace in freedom can flourish. But for lack of understanding the program has been steadily weakened. while the need has grown more obvious and critical. Only the conscience and the down-to-earth common sense of all Americans, informed and aroused, can meet the need.

Facing us is a test of our resolve to make our government do the task it has to do to protect the safety of the American people.

The amount I have asked the Congress to provide for mutual security is the minimum required to meet the basic necessities of sheer defense and to keep alight a glimmer of hope in hundreds of millions of people arrayed with us on the side of freedom.

From all these facts we see that the free world needs America!

Just as importantly, America needs the world.

This means far more to us than soldiers and tanks and ships and missiles essential though these are.

Important it is that our allies contribute 5 million soldiers, 30,000 airplanes and 9,200 combatant ships to the common defense of freedom. But our involvement with our neighbors is far more basic than this.

Foreign trade is an example. It is, for America, a $30 billion a year business. To this trade four and a half million of our people owe their jobs with other nations.

For all of us there is great meaning in this: we export, on the average, a third of our cotton crop, just under a third of our wheat, and a fourth of our tractor production.

But this is only a part of our dependence on foreign trade.

The health of our economy depends upon materials owned by others. Manganese, chrome, tin, natural rubber, nickel are examples. As our economy grows, we depend increasingly upon others for such materials. Eight years ago we imported only about a twentieth of our iron ore. Today we have to import over a third of it.

Yes, America needs the world!

And this we must never forget: these needs are more than military and economic. They are technical, cultural and spiritual as well.

Great ideas originating with other peoples have vastly enriched our land.

Fellow Americans--even if we wanted to, we could not shut out the free world. We cannot escape its troubles.

We cannot turn our backs on its hopes. We are an inseparable part of the free world neighborhood.

We must hold to these truths:

If nations friendly to us are weakened and imperiled, so are we.

If other friendly nations are strong and free, our own strength and freedom are more secure.

If other free nations prosper, so do we.

In these truths we see the fallacy of adding measurably to our own massive and adequate armaments at the expense of allied strength which is in many instances better located strategically than ours can ever be. No less dangerous is the annual argument that America should stint on strengthening the free world because this would give us more luxury in a comfortable isolation here at home.

This is sheer deadliness--a counsel of defeat and complacency. Logically carried out, it could end only in a militarized America. To the extent that this concept is indulged, it gravely menaces the people of the United States.

We can, here at home, arm to the teeth, and yet go down in total defeat if we let the rest of the world be swallowed up by an atheistic imperialism. By abandonment of struggling millions to lives of hopeless desperation, rich America might, for a time, live more extravagantly. But not for long! For a just peace, dependable security and real progress were never bought by destructive weapons and hard-hearted selfishness, but rather by education, by training, by constructive works--by cooperation.

Only by thinking of ourselves, and truly conducting ourselves, as brothers under God with those who, with us, want to live and grow in freedom, can we hope to solve problems in which failure will mean disaster for much of humanity. Victory in this effort will mean a shoulder-to-shoulder march to greater security, greater prosperity, and greater happiness for all. There, in those few words, is the very heart of mutual security.

So tonight, I restate to you this pledge of the Executive Branch of your government.

I pledge a continuing and energetic support of the principle and programs of mutual security.

And I call upon the leadership, and the rank and file, of both political parties, as well as upon all other sons and daughters of America, to see that those parties hold true to their pledges to give this program their support.

Of this I am certain. The path for America must be one of cooperation-cooperation among ourselves, and with our friends abroad who are dedicated to human dignity and from whom we draw strength as we impart of our own strength to them.

Together we shall confidently carry the burdens and sacrifices of sustaining security against any imperialistic design--as together we continue the search for peace, a search in which we shall persevere without tiring or ceasing until victory, at last, shall belong to all the earth.

Thank you, and good night.