Remarks in Independence, Mo., at a Ceremony in Connection With the Establishment of the Harry S. Truman Center for the Advancement of Peace

President Truman, Mrs. Truman, Mr. Chief Justice, Senator Symington, Senator Long, Members of the Missouri delegation in the Congress of the United States, Senator Anderson, Congressman Boggs, ladies and gentlemen:

I come back to Independence to be with one of the world's most persistent searchers for peace in the world. It is quite fitting that this day is set aside for the announcement of the Harry S. Truman Center for the Advancement of Peace in the world.

I first want to congratulate the men here today whose generous public spirit is making this Center possible.

I take my text from the words which President Truman spoke just 17 years ago in his inaugural address of January 20, 1949.

"We must embark," he said, "on a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and the growth of underdeveloped areas in the world ."

This was, as we know now, point 4. It was a bold and vital idea then, and it is just as bold and just as much alive as we meet here this afternoon.

The initial point 4 program of technical assistance was enacted in 1949 and has continued from that day to this. Congress after Congress has continued to appropriate to that program--with growing confidence-sums which now, I believe, add up to more than $3 billion. American experts have traveled the globe to every continent, bringing their skills to the worldwide war against ignorance, and against hunger, and against disease.

And to measure the success of this effort we have only to ask: What would the world be like today if President Truman had not launched this program?

In this year 1966, I am proposing, on behalf of our Nation, a major new effort in this same field that he began so long ago, and I am proud to add to the point 4 of President Truman, the fourth principle of this year's State of the Union speech: "to help improve the life of man."

How will we help improve the life of man?

First, we propose a radical increase in our response to the needs of international education. There can be no decent life for any man or any people without education.

The International Education Act of 1966 will help build partnerships between American and foreign schools. It will recruit teachers for overseas work. It will make possible long-term commitments by American universities toward solving the problems of international education.

It will launch a series of projects to attack illiteracy and to find new ways to teach basic skills. It will begin to provide for an Exchange Peace Corps to bring able young people from other countries to live and work here with us.

Second, we are going to enlarge our work for world health. And the twin of the International Education Act will be the International Health Act of 1966.

And with that act we will strike at disease by establishing an international medical mission in our Public Health Service.

We plan to triple our effort to train medical manpower in the developing countries.

We plan to double the size of our nutrition program for mothers and for children. We plan to increase by 80 million those who will receive adequate diets.

We plan to set targets and to develop programs so in the next decade we can completely wipe out smallpox in the entire world. We can eliminate malaria in this hemisphere and large parts of Africa and Asia. We can end yellow fever in this hemisphere, and we can find new controls for cholera, rabies, and other epidemic diseases.

Third, we will launch a major new attack on worldwide hunger. We will present this year a new food aid program, designed around the principle of intense cooperation with those in all hungry countries who are ready to help themselves. We will direct our assistance program toward a cooperative effort to increase agricultural production. We will ask the countries which we help to make the necessary land reforms--to modernize marketing and distribution--to invest greater energy and resources in their own food production.

And in return, we will triple our assistance to investments in the powerful weapons of modern agriculture--from fertilizer to machinery we will direct the efforts of our agricultural scientists to the special problems of the developing countries--to the development of new foods and concentrates. We will call for an international effort, including institutions like the World Bank, to expand the world's supply of fertilizer.

Fourth, we will increase our efforts in the great field of human population. The hungry world cannot be fed until and unless the growth in its resources and the growth in its population come into balance. Each man and woman--and each nation--must make decisions of conscience and policy in the face of this great problem. But the position of the United States of America is clear. We will give our help and our support to nations which make their own decision to insure an effective balance between the numbers of their people and the food they have to eat. And we will push forward the frontiers of research in this important field.

Fifth, the underlying principle of all of our work with other nations will always be the principle of cooperation. We will work with those who are willing to work with us for their own progress, in the spirit of peace and in the spirit of understanding.

And while we work for peaceful progress, we will maintain our strength against aggression. Nothing is more false than the timid complaint that we cannot defend ourselves against the aggressor and at the same time make progress in the works of peace. A celebration which unites the United States is a fit time to reaffirm that energy in the defense of freedom and that energy and progress in the building of a free society and it should be the common objective of any free people, large or small.

Now this is the central necessity today of the brave people with whom we are associated in South Vietnam. lust this week, the Prime Minister of Vietnam has pledged his country to this necessity. He has spoken for progress in rural education, in housing, in land reform, and above all, of the need for progress in social revolution and in the building of democracy--by constitutional process and by free elections. All this he has said in the shadow of continuing aggression from the North. In all this he will have the full support of the United States of America.

And so, President Truman, as we dedicate today in your honor the Harry S. Truman Center for the Advancement of Peace, we recall the vision that you gave us to follow when you gave your farewell address, and I quote:

"I have a deep and abiding faith in the destiny of free men. With patience and courage we shall some day move on to a new era--a wonderful golden age--an age when we can use the peaceful tools that science has forged for us to do away with poverty and human misery everywhere on earth."

That is still our goal, President Truman. And now we are today redoubling our efforts to achieve it.

Today I informed President Truman of our worldwide efforts to move the violence of Southeast Asia to the table of peaceful discussions. I received a report this morning before I left Washington from Secretary Rusk and Ambassador Harriman on their recent travels. I shall be meeting with the Secretary and the Ambassador again later this afternoon. Both the Secretary and the Ambassador told me that in all the capitals they visited--and Ambassador Harriman went to almost a dozen--government leaders recognized the United States' genuine desire for peace in the world.

And of this one thing I am sure, the door of peace must be kept wide open for all who wish to avoid the scourge of war. But the door of aggression must be closed and bolted if man himself is to survive.

It is tragic that in the 1960's there are still those who would engulf their neighbors by force, still those who require that vast resources be used to guard the peace rather than to bring all the people in the world the wonders that are really within their grasp.

The central purpose of the American people is a peace which permits all men to remain free. But we must do more. We must work, and we must build upon the solid foundations, as the Chief Justice said, of law among nations. And this is America's determination, and this is America's commitment.

Now let me leave this one last thought with you. I think every schoolboy knows that peace is not unilateral--it takes more than one to sign an agreement. And it seems clear to all that what is holding up peace in the world today is not the United States of America. What is holding back the peace is the mistaken view on the part of the aggressors that we are going to give up our principles, that we may yield to pressure, or abandon our allies, or finally get tired and get out. On the day that others decide to substitute reason for terror, when they will use the pen instead of the hand grenade, when they will replace rational logic for inflammatory invective, then on that very day, the journey toward peace can really begin.

If the aggressors are ready for peace, if they are ready for a return to a decent respect for their neighbors, ready to understand where their hopeful future really lies, let them come to the meeting place and we will meet them there.

Here in the presence today of the great man who was the 33d President of the United States, who labored so long and so valiantly to bring serenity to a troubled world, the 36th President of the United States speaks with the voice of 190 million Americans: We want a peace with honor and with justice that will endure!

Now, President Truman, there is one more bit of business that I would like to take care of so long as I have come out here to Independence. I was here not long ago in connection with a little project that you inaugurated two decades ago, but when the fellows last night in the Social Security office learned that I was coming out here again to see you and Mrs. Truman today, they asked me to bring along your new Medicare card.

And it is now my great pleasure to present here, in the presence of these distinguished friends of yours, and many of the young men of yesteryear who fought these battles with you, to bring Card No. 1 for you, and Card No. 2 for Mrs. Truman.

They told me, President Truman, that if you wished to get the voluntary medical insurance that you will have to sign this application form, and they asked me to sign as your witness. So you are getting special treatment since cards won't go out to the other folks until the end of this month. But we wanted you to know, and we wanted the entire world to know that we haven't forgotten who is the real daddy of Medicare. And because of the fight that you started many years ago, 19 million Americans will be eligible to receive new hope and new security when the program begins on July 5, and 19 million Americans have another reason, another cause to bless Harry S. Truman.

Again, I want to thank all of you who made this great day possible.