Proclamation 3978—Pan American Day and Pan American Week, 1970

On April 14, the republics of the Western Hemisphere will mark the 80th anniversary of the inter-American system, the world's oldest regional grouping of nations. Today the Organization of American States, like its predecessors in former years, is working to create that spirit of mutual understanding in our Hemisphere which alone can preserve the peace and improve the life of its people.

Through the Organization of American States and its predecessors, the nations of our Hemisphere have learned a great deal about each other in these eight decades. Our cooperation with one another has increased—but so have the demands which history places on our shoulders. The 1970s must therefore be a decade in which we achieve an increasingly vigorous, mature and balanced partnership, one which allows us to seek ever greater adventures and to realize even greater goals.

Now, Therefore, I, Richard Nixon, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim Tuesday, April 14, as Pan American Day, and the week beginning April 12 and ending April 18 as Pan American Week; and I call upon the Governors of the fifty States of the Union, the Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the officials of all other areas under the flag of the United States to issue similar proclamations.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this tenth day of April, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred seventy, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred ninety-fourth.

RICHARD NIXON