Proclamation 4046—Pan American Day and Pan American Week, 1971

April 14 marks the eighty-first anniversary of the founding of the world's oldest regional grouping of nations, the inter-American system now called the Organization of American States.

The name of the system has changed over the years, but its objectives have not. It was Simon Bolivar's dream of 150 years ago—that the freedom of the New World would be the hope of the universe—which inspired the creation of the inter-American system. And it is that aspiration which still unites the peoples of the Western Hemisphere in the structure of peace and the pursuit of progress, transcending our diversity of languages and cultures.

The United States, as the oldest republic in the Americas and a founding member of the inter-American system, has long been pledged to lend its full weight to the work of realizing Bolivar's dream. I have renewed that pledge for the Seventies, with special emphasis on equal partnership and full participation for all the New World nations.

The Organization of American States has long outlived the farsighted men who laid the foundations of hemispheric cooperation eight decades ago. It has gained steadily in stature as a force for a better life in the Americas. With our support it can continue to meet the challenges of the present and enlarge the opportunities of the future.

Now, Therefore, I, Richard Nixon, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim Wednesday, April 14, 1971, as Pan American Day, and the week beginning April 11 and ending April 17 as Pan American Week; and I call upon the Governors of the fifty States and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Commissioner of the District of Columbia, and appropriate 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 twelfth day of April, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred seventy-one, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred ninety-fifth.

RICHARD NIXON