If we are to succeed in having rational discussion, we must do it without epithets and name-calling by either side, without sloganeering and conscious misrepresentation of facts by either side. The quest for truth requires adherence to its principles by all who compete for its mantle.
In the United Nations we are striving to establish a rule of law instead of a rule of force. In that forum and elsewhere around the world our deeds will speak for us.
That which unites us is, must be, stronger than that which divides us. We can concentrate on what unites us, and secure the future for all of our children; or we can concentrate on what divides us, and fail our duty through argument and resentment and waste.
Thomas Jefferson once said that he cared not who made a country’s laws, so long as he could write its newspapers.
I have a deep awareness of the role that the press plays in our society. I firmly believe that freedom of information is one of the most important weapons we have in the great struggle for freedom now going on around the world.
We cannot protect only our friends from nuclear attack—or allow nations with whom we are otherwise friendly to threaten others with nuclear weapons. We must stand against nuclear aggression—period.
We were the first to discover and use the atom’s secrets; our nuclear capability is still the most powerful among the nations of the earth.
The need to halt the spread of nuclear weapons must be a central priority of American policy. Of all our major interests, this now deserves and demands the greatest effort.
Only if we ourselves lessen the role and importance of nuclear weapons can we expect other, weaker nations to do the same; and only if nuclear weapons do become less important can we hope, in the long run, that others, no matter what treaties we reach, will refrain from making or acquiring them.
The job of providing constructive and challenging opportunities for young people throughout the nation is every citizen’s business.
We are finding that it is not enough to say that justice should be done—or even to pass laws commanding that justice be done. Laws and speeches do not build scho
It is for us now, in New York and Alabama and all over the nation, to create new kinds of systems, for education and health, and work and housing; systems which will bring one fifth of America, for the first time, into the 20th century, into a society which creates and opens new opportunities even…
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