Proclamation 4366—Pan American Day and Pan American Week

Each year, we and other members of the Organization of American States celebrate our shared origins and the close ties that continue to flourish among us. To do this, we commemorate a significant event in the diplomatic history of the Western Hemisphere-the founding, late in the last century, of the International Union of the American Republics. This year marks the 85th anniversary of the establishment of that first inter-governmental regional organization and forerunner of the Organization of American States.

From its earliest days, the organization has taken for its two major objectives the maintenance of peace and the promotion of economic, social and cultural development in the Americas. The strength and longevity of inter-American cooperation in furtherance of these goals derives from its tested ability to evolve and reconstitute itself to meet new realities and new challenges over the years.

In the Americas, we have come to recognize the fresh challenge presented by a new interdependence, which is global as well as hemispheric, linking developed with less developed countries both in and beyond the hemisphere. We sense the opportunity for effective inter-American cooperation to advance our traditional goals of peace and progress for our hemisphere while strengthening the global cooperation decreed by our world.

Now, Therefore, I, Gerald R. Ford, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim Monday, April 14, 1975, as Pan American Day, and the week beginning April 13, 1975, as Pan American Week, and I call upon the Governors of the fifty States, the Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, 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 eleventh day of April, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and seventy-five, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred ninety-ninth.

GERALD R. FORD