Proclamation 3641—Pan American Day and Pan American Week, 1965

Whereas April 14, 1965, will mark the seventy-fifth anniversary of the inter-American system freely established by the American Republics and known as the Organization of American States; and

Whereas the United States and the other American Republics have been neighbors for almost two hundred years, and are equal partners and sovereign states within the inter-American system; and

Whereas, for decades, differences among members have been settled at conference tables, thus giving proof of the effectiveness of the inter-American system; and

Whereas the peoples of the United States consider themselves partners of the peoples of Latin America, sharing with them not only a common continent but a mutual and abiding aspiration for the achievement of a good and full life for every citizen of the Americas; and

Whereas the nations of the Hemisphere are embarked, through the Alliance for Progress, in a relentless pursuit of a better life and a quest for the social justice and human rights to which all the peoples of the Hemisphere are entitled:

Now, Therefore, I, Lyndon B. Johnson, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim Wednesday, April 14, 1965, as Pan American Day, and the week beginning April 18 and ending April 24 as Pan American Week; and I call upon the Governors of the fifty States of the Union, the Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and appropriate officials of all other areas under the United States flag to issue similar proclamations.

The citizens of the free and independent republics of the Hemisphere are a great society of nations, built on ideals of freedom and a tradition of cooperation and friendship. They are united in a mutual effort to root out the ills and injustices that mar our progress, and to enrich and elevate the lives of all our citizens. The inter-American system is the cornerstone of this edifice; I urge all my fellow countrymen individually, and collectively through interested organizations, to reaffirm their faith in the Organization of American States on the occasion of its seventy-fifth anniversary.

I call upon this Nation to rededicate itself during this period to the ideals of the inter-American system as embodied in the Charter of the Organization of American States, and to the goals of economic and social progress of the Charter of Punta del Este which are so firmly based on our common belief in the dignity of men and on our faith in freedom.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States of America to be affixed.

DONE at the City of Washington this first day of March in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty-five, and of, the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and eighty-ninth.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON

By the President:

DEAN RUSK,

Secretary of State.