Statement by the President on the Advisory Board on International Development.

I AM gratified that the new Advisory Board on International Development is today beginning to carry out the significant duties assigned it under the Act for International Development. That act, which authorized the point 4 program, provided for the establishment of this Board representing the public, with particular reference to business, labor, agriculture, public health, education, and voluntary agencies. By advising with the Government officials responsible for the point 4 program, this Board will be a vital force in giving the program the perspective it requires to accomplish its purpose.

Since the launching of the point 4 program, the outbreak of overt aggression in Korea has compelled all free Nations to speed up every effort to strengthen the free world against the dangers which confront it. Mr. Gordon Gray and his staff recently completed a study of our foreign economic policies and programs, including the serious problems raised by the aggression in Korea. One of the major conclusions of the Gray Report is that this aggression has underlined the importance of the whole point 4 concept. In view of this finding, I recently stated that the first task of this Advisory Board would be to consider the kind of program advisable for the United States to undertake in this field.

The encouragement of economic and social progress in the underdeveloped areas is one of the most important problems facing the free world. This is particularly true in those countries of Asia where the Communist menace is so great. There is a direct relationship between strengthening underdeveloped areas and strengthening the free peoples of the entire world. Two-thirds of the world's people live in these areas. They suffer from hunger, disease, ignorance, and poverty. These people have already determined that there shall be change, come what may. The real question now is what direction that change shall take--whether it will blindly sweep aside many of the values that free people have learned to cherish, or whether it will contribute toward a more peaceful, prosperous world.

We in the United States cannot decide that question; it can be decided only by the people of the underdeveloped areas themselves. But I believe that we can offer them a helping hand out of the morass of misery from which they are struggling to escape, and we can also indicate the path which others have followed toward freedom, dignity, and abundance. We can do this at relatively small cost to ourselves, and in the long run with substantial and continuing benefit both to ourselves and to the entire free world.