Many years ago, Albert Einstein addressed the students of this institute. “It is not enough,” he said, “that you should understand about applied science in order that your work may increase man’s blessings.” And he added, “Concern for man himself and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavors, concern for the great unsolved problems of the organization of labor and the distribution of goods—in order that the creations of our mind shall be a blessing and not a curse to mankind. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.”
Thus I come to talk to you, not as scientists, but as citizens, some of the best-educated, most rational, and most creative citizens of our country. Accordingly, you have a larger responsibility to apply the fruits of your education, your reason, and your creativity to the future of society, as well as the future of science.
There can be no greater concern for each of us as citizens, than how wisely and how honorably our nation discharges its responsibilities of preserving peace and promoting freedom. And the first obligation, if we are to preserve an opening to the future, is to make sure that there will be a future at all.
The leaders of the world face no greater task than that of avoiding nuclear war. While preserving the cause of freedom, we must seek abolition of war through programs of general and complete disarmament. The Test Ban Treaty of 1963 represents a significant beginning in this immense undertaking.
We cannot pretend that such beginnings signal a millennium or armistice in the Cold War. They are modest steps. But they are steps forward, steps toward the ultimate goal of effective and reliable international controls over the destructive power of nations. Until such a goal can be achieved, however, we have no other choice than to ensure that we can defend our country and help other people who are willing to work for their independence…
The United States must continue to expand its efforts to reach the peoples of other nations—particularly young people in the rapidly developing southern continents.
Governments may come and go, but in the long run the future will be determined by the needs and aspirations of these young people…
Over the years, an understanding of what America really stands for is going to count far more than missiles, aircraft carriers, and supersonic bombers. The big changes of the future will result from this understanding—or lack of it.
We have made some progress in reaching the people of both countries…but the critical moves—the moves that will determine our success—are the kinds of political choices this country makes picking its friends abroad—and its enemies.
Far too often, for narrow tactical reasons, this country has associated itself with tyrannical and unpopulate regimes that had no following and no future. Over the past twenty years, we have paid dearly because of support given to colonial rulers, cruel dictators, or ruling cliques void of social concern. This was one of President Kennedy’s gravest concerns…
Ultimately, Communism must be defeated by progressive political programs which wipe out poverty, misery, and discontent on which it thrives. For that reason, progresive political programs are the best way to erode the Communist presence in Latin America, to turn back the Communist thrust in Southeast Asia, and to insure the stability of the new African nations and preserve stability in the world…
To say the future will be different from the present is, to scientists, hopelessly self-evident. I observe regretfully that in politics, however, it can be heresy. It can be denounced as radicalism or branded as subversion. There are people in every time and every land who want to stop history in its tracks. They fear the future, mistrust the present, and invoke the security of a comfortable past which, in fact, never existed…
The danger of such views is not that they will take control of the American government. In time, the consensus of good sense which characterizes our political system will digest and discard frozen views and impossible programs. But there is a short-term danger from such voices…
The answer to these voices cannot simply be reason, for they speak irrationally. The answer cannot come merely from government, no matter how conscientious or judicious. The answer must come from within the American democracy. It must come from an informed, rational consensus which can recognize futile fervor and simple solutions for what they are—and reject them quickly.