Remarks at a Ceremony Commemorating Poland's National and Christian Millennium

Senator Muskie, Members of the Cabinet, Members of the Congress, distinguished guests and friends:

Senator Muskie, I enjoyed hearing so much what you had to say, and I am deeply honored by this gesture of the Polish-American Committee.

I am well aware of the historical significance of this beautiful work of art. For hundreds of years the Black Madonna has brought strength to the brave citizens of Poland. It has been a symbol both of greatness and of hope.

As much as I treasure the gift, I feel that others will treasure it with me. So I am asking Archbishop Krol to put it on permanent display at the Catholic Church in Panna Maria, Texas, the first Polish church in the United States.

I accept it with great gratitude and with much pleasure because--I might add incidentally, and it hasn't always been incidentally-those who attend that church and I have always had something in common every election year.

So I accept it with this pledge: that as long as I am allowed to serve as your President I will never cease to work for closer ties, for closer friendship, and for closer cooperation between the United States of America and Poland.

Today as we meet here at the 1,000th anniversary of Polish Christianity and nationhood, it is also the 175th anniversary of a document that holds a place of honor among the noble statements of human rights, the Polish Constitution of 1791.

All men who revere liberty acknowledge their indebtedness to those landmarks in the struggle for individual freedom.

And that is why I have asked you to come here to the Rose Garden today.

Life has never been easy for the people of Poland. Time and again she has endured the unwelcome intrusion of her larger and her more powerful neighbors.

Time and again she has endured suffering and sacrifice, only to recover and to rebuild.

In all of this, her proud and resourceful people left an indelible mark on Western civilization.

We, in America, owe a very special debt to Poland. For almost two centuries ago her sons joined our own Revolution and Polish patriots fought under the American flag.

Nor can we forget the millions of Polish immigrants whose personal faith and whose tenacious labor helped to tame this continent. Our national heritage is rich with the gifts of Polish people.

Our debt and our long ties with the people of Poland give us a very special interest in their problems and in their future.

Twice in this century Poland has been devastated by war, yet her people have remained loyal to the ancient faith and to the human values that it represents. Even as we meet here today, they are meeting by the hundreds of thousands at the historic monastery of Jasna Gora. Led by a great Polish cardinal, they are offering prayers of hope and thanksgiving which reflect their enduring belief in God and in their national destiny.

In Poland, and in other countries in Eastern Europe, new ideas are winning friends. Windows are opening to the world--only slightly in many places, but they are opening.

And despite the severe limitations on its national freedom, limitations that prevent many Polish-Americans from celebrating this day on Polish soil, the ancient spirit of Poland is not dead. Her people still yearn for a lively future in Europe and among the community of nations.

We see this, for one thing, in economic policy.

Poland, and some of her neighbors in Eastern Europe, are sensing the vigor of individual enterprise. Men are coming to understand that decentralized decision-making is proving more efficient than highly centralized state control.

Profits are coming to be understood as a better measure of productivity and personal incentive as a better spur to effective action on behalf of the national economy.

How hopeful these signs are, we cannot yet say.

I will be meeting with our distinguished Ambassador very shortly and we will be reviewing all the problems and concerns in that part of the world. There is no greater American today, no one performing a more valuable service than our own distinguished Ambassador John Gronouski, who is returning home.

We can only trust that they foreshadow a new reliance upon, if not a new understanding of, the individual as the most important element of society.

If they reflect a willingness to respond to reality, if they signal a readiness to sift ideas for their own worth rather than to dismiss them as politically impure, if they reflect a gradual rebirth of reason and open discourse among men, then seeds exist for genuine confidence that things, indeed, may yet change.

For this reason, it is not vain, on this day of great memories, for us to also think of great dreams and to speak of great hopes.

Chief among them is the future of Europe. So vast are the resources of that continent, so important its policies to the rest of the world, so vital its prosperity to the entire world economy that Americans ignore the future of Europe only at the expense of peace and progress on both continents.

Men and nations must labor long to bring to reality a Europe free of artificial political barriers that block the free movement of people, of ideas, and of commerce; a Europe that is secured by international inspected arms control arrangements that remove the age-old fears of East and West alike; a Europe of interdependent friends in which the strength of each adds to the strength of all; a Europe in which the people of every nation know again the responsibilities and the rewards of free political choices.

Not because we have treasure to gain or territory that we desire to acquire, but because we have common roots and common interests, the United States of America today seeks to help build that kind of Europe.

It was in that spirit that the Marshall plan was offered 19 years ago and it is still the spirit of American policy.

Our guiding principles are these:

First, our alliance with Western Europe, we believe, is in the common interest of all who seek peace. It is a charter for changing needs and not a relic of past requirements.

It was and it continues to be a basis for security, solidarity, and advance in Europe. It remains our conviction that an integrated Atlantic defense is the first necessity and not the last result of the building of unity in Western Europe, for expanding partnership across the Atlantic, and for reconciling differences with the East.

As we revise the structure of NATO to meet today's realities, we must make sure that these forward-looking purposes are served and are served well.

Second, we believe that the drive for unity in Western Europe is not only desirable but we believe it is necessary. Every lesson of the past and every prospect for the future argue that the nations of Western Europe can only fulfill their proper role in the world community if increasingly they act together. From this base of collaboration, fruitful ties to the East can best be built.

Third, we will encourage every constructive enrichment of the human, cultural, and commercial ties between Eastern Europe and the West.

Fourth, we will continue to seek ways to improve relations between the people of Germany and their fellow Europeans to the east, and to move towards a peaceful settlement of the division of Germany on the principle of self-determination.

Fifth, we welcome growing participation by the nations of Eastern Europe in common efforts to accelerate economic growth in the developing areas of the world and to share in the worldwide war on poverty, hunger, and disease among the peoples of the world.

It was almost 2 years ago at the George Marshall Memorial Library in nearby Lexington, Virginia, when I said that we must continue to build bridges across the gulf which has separated us from Eastern Europe, Since that time, we have taken limited steps forward along what will no doubt be a very long road.

In Poland alone, we have dedicated an American-financed children's research hospital in Krakow, increased support for CARE, Church World Services, and American Relief for Poland in their food and medical programs for hospitals and needy individuals. We have reached an understanding between our National Academy of Science and the Polish Academy of Science on an important exchange program similar to the one that we have reached with Rumania, Yugoslavia, and the Soviet Union.

We have invited Poland to cooperate in our satellite program.

We have increased by 44 percent in the second half of 1965 the number of Polish visitors who come to the United States for academic, scientific, and technical purposes. We have increased by more than $200,000 the sale in Poland of American books, newspapers, plays, motion pictures, and television programs. Our International Media Guarantee program with Poland is the largest in the world.

These have all been taken under the direction of one of our greatest Americans, as I mentioned a few moments ago, who will report back to the President and the Cabinet in the next few days--John Gronouski.

These are small steps. But, as Cicero once said, "The beginnings of all things are small." From these, we will take other steps to help revive the intellectual, the commercial, and the cultural currents which once crisscrossed Europe, from London to Budapest, from Warsaw to Paris, from Frankfurt to Krakow, from Prague to Brussels.

As one additional step, and as I pledged in my State of the Union Message, I am today instructing the Secretary of State, Mr. Dean Rusk, to send to the Congress legislation making it possible to expand trade between the United States of America and Eastern Europe. The intimate engagement of peaceful trade, over a period of time, can influence Eastern European societies to develop along paths that are favorable to world peace.

After years of careful study, the time has now come, I think, for us to act, and act we should and act we must.

With these steps, we can help gradually to create a community of interest, a community of trust, and a community of effort. Thus will the tide of human hope rise again.

It is a good occasion that has brought us together here today.

In issuing this proclamation, I am asking all of the American people to join in the observance of historic events which have inspired man's long walk on this earth.

May we draw new resolve, even now, from the Polish Millennium and Constitution Day.

Thank you, my friends, for coming here.