Address at the 39th Annual Convention of the National Association of Broadcasters.

Governor Collins, Bishop Hannan, ladies and gentlemen:

We have with us today the Nation's number one television performer, who I think on last Friday morning secured the largest rating of any morning show in recent history. [Laughter]

I must say, I think all of us as citizens of the free world are extremely proud not only of Commander Shepard, but also of Mrs. Shepard--and perhaps with the Vice President they would come forward. [Loud and prolonged applause]

Commander Shepard: How do you get them to stop? We only have time for a few words here, because I understand we have a rather busy day ahead of us. I just want to say, thank you very much for such a warm welcome.

THE PRESIDENT: I must say I think the presence of Commander Shepard and also Mrs. Shepard who I think is--I must say, when I saw her on television, I had great satisfaction as a fellow citizen. I must say we are delighted to have them all. It's a great source of satisfaction and pride to us.

I said this morning, when I read off the names of some of the other people who have been involved in this flight--Mr. Webb, who is head of NASA, and Dr. Dryden, and all the rest--I said that they were names which were rather unknown. If this flight had not been successful, however, they would have been among the best known names in the United States. So that even I, who had nothing to do with the flight, would have become very much identified with it.

So that I do express my commendation to Commander Shepard and also his fellow astronauts who all involved themselves in the hazards and the discipline of the work, but also those who were involved with the program. Because this is a free society, and because we therefore take our chances out in the open, of success or failure, all those who were part of the program, who were involved in the decisions which made the program possible, who were involved in the very public decision which made the very public flight possible on Friday morning, were also in hazard. And while their task did not in any manner approach that of the Commander, nevertheless it is a very real one, and it is the kind of risk which members of a free society must take.

There had been before the flight, as you know, a good many members of our community who felt that we should not take that chance. But I see no way out of it. I don't see how it's possible for us to keep these matters private, unless we decide on the highest national level that all matters which are risky, which carry with them the hazard of defeat, which could be detrimental to our society--that none of them will be printed in the paper or carried on radio and television.

The essence of free communication must be that our failures as well as our successes will be broadcast around the world. And therefore we take double pride in our successes.

I am delighted that there are members here of your profession who are not citizens of this country but who come from our hemisphere. I hope that they understand that we share a fraternal feeling with them, that we are engaged in a common effort to maintain freedom here in this hemisphere, and to assist freedom throughout the world.

And it has been our fortune to be placed in positions of responsibility--all of us--at a time when freedom is under its greatest attack.

I know that to those who live in some parts of this country and some parts of the world, that the discipline of the totalitarian system has some attraction. I called attention at my press conference more than a week ago to a comment made by a student in Paris, an African student, after the extraordinary flight of Major Gagarin, in which the student said, "The Russians don't talk about things, they do them, and then we hear about them."

It is difficult for me to believe that any young man or woman, or any citizen who understands the real meaning of freedom; who recognizes that freedom is at issue around the globe, could possibly hold that view.

I feel, as a believer in freedom, as well as President of the United States, that we want a world in which the good and the bad, successes or failures, the aspirations of people, their desires, their disagreements, their dissent, their agreements, whether they serve the interest of the state or not, should be made public, should be part of the general understanding of all people.

And that is why I was particularly anxious to come here today. There is no means of communication as significant as that in which you are involved: to hear, to see, to listen.

And you have the opportunity to play a significant role in the defense of freedom all around the globe.

Our adversaries in this struggle against freedom--and they are not national adversaries, we have no national disagreements, what is involved is the great struggle for freedom, and our adversaries in that struggle possess many advantages. Their forces press down upon us, on the borders of the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Western Europe. They use the secrecy of the totalitarian state and the discipline to mask the effective use of guerrilla forces secretly undermining independent states, and to hide a wide international network of agents and activities which threaten the fabric of democratic government everywhere in the world. And their single-minded effort to destroy freedom is strengthened by the discipline, the secrecy, and the swiftness with which an efficient despotism can move. In addition, the ability of a totalitarian state to mobilize all of its resources for the service of the state, whatever the human cost, has great attraction for those who live on the marginal edge of existence, fired with a strong feeling of ancient wrongs and grievances, a feeling which is tirelessly exploited by our adversaries-the people who live on an income of sixty or seventy or eighty dollars a year--the example of the Soviet Union which in the short space of forty years has transformed itself from being among the most backward countries of Europe to being a leader in space, has powerful attraction.

Once a state succumbs, however, to this attraction, to the lure of communism, to the lure of totalitarianism--even for a moment-resistance is then crushed, opposition is destroyed, and despotic power is maintained even when finally the people may realize they have been cruelly misled--and the steady stream of refugees out of Viet-Minh in the north, out of Eastern Germany, out of Cuba, all indicate the real nature of their society once it has assumed control.

On this path thus far there has been no turning back. There can be no doubt, therefore, that this determined and powerful system will subject us to many tests of nerve and will in the coming years--in Berlin, in Asia, in the Middle East, in this hemisphere. We will face challenge after challenge, as the communists armed with all the resources and advantage of the police state attempt to shift the balance of power in their direction.

But despite this, I do not believe that the tide of history is on the side of despotism. I do not believe that the tide of history necessarily is on either side. It is only what we decide ourselves we will do-which direction we will turn the tide of history--that we can be successful.

For we bring to the battle our own resources, the particular advantages of a free society--advantages which our adversaries cannot match, advantages which if vigorously used offer hope for the ultimate triumph of freedom.

On our side is the simple and all-important fact that men want to be free, and nations want to be their own masters. It is this fact that helps to explain why no nation in the past decade--with the possible exception of Cuba, where a social revolution was betrayed, and where the story is not yet finally ended--has fallen under communist rule without being subdued by armed force.

It is this fact that explains the courageous revolution against hopeless odds in Poland, and East Germany, and Hungary, and Tibet--revolutions that would have succeeded if alien armies had not been present to put them down.

It is this fact that explains why the poverty-stricken nations of this hemisphere and Africa, filled with discontent in some cases, and social tensions, bearing the memory of past wrongs, have still not succumbed to the lure of communism.

And it is this fact that is man's best hope. For our nation is on the side of man's desire to be free, and the desire of nations to be independent. And thus we are allied, if we are true to ourselves and true to our destiny, with the strongest force in the world today.

The great inner resource of freedom, the resource which has kept the world's oldest democracy continually young and vital, the resource which has always brought us our greatest exploits in time of our greatest need, is the very fact of the open society.

Thus, if we are once again to preserve our civilization, it will be because of our freedom, and not in spite of it. That is why I am here with you today. For the flow of ideas, the capacity to make informed choices, the ability to criticize, all the assumptions upon which political democracy rests, depend largely upon communication. And you are the guardians of the most powerful and effective means of communication ever designed.

In the rest of the world this power can be used to describe the true nature of the struggle, and to give a true and responsible picture of a free society. And in addition, broadcasting has new and untried possibilities for education, for helping to end illiteracy, which holds back so much of the world and which denies access to the information so vital to a free and informed choice. The full development of broadcasting as an instrument of education is one of the most significant challenges which confronts your industry. And here in our own country this power can be used, as it is being used, to tell our people of the perils and the challenges and the opportunities that we face-of the effort and painful choices which the coming years will demand. For the history of this nation is a tribute to the ability of an informed citizenry to make the right choices in response to danger, and if you play your part, if the immense powers of broadcasting are used to illuminate the new and subtle problems which our nation faces--if your strength is used to reinforce the great strengths which freedom brings, then I am confident that our people and our nation, and all other people and all other nations will again rise to the great challenges of the sixties.

No man can hope to prophesy with precision the outcome of the great struggle in which our generation is now engaged. Yet we do know that the cause of human freedom has been threatened on many occasions since the system of free choice and democracy was developed in sunlit Greece more than twenty-four hundred years ago. And yet from each threat and indeed from each defeat, as well as from each success, it has ultimately emerged unconquered.

That is why in the face of an ominous future we can share that faith which Winston Churchill expressed more than a half-century ago, "Humanity will not be cast down."

We are going along, along the same high road, and already behind the distant mountains the sun can be seen--and will be seen again.

That is your opportunity--and that is a responsibility which all of us who are citizens of the free world must once again meet.