A “Peace Race” Proposal for Nuclear Disarmament

JOHN F. KENNEDY, Address to the United Nations General Assembly (1961)

When President Kennedy addressed the United Nations in September 1961, the prospects for peace seemed elusive and remote. An ill-fated U.S.-supported invasion at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba dealt Kennedy a humiliating foreign policy blow just three months into his term. In August, the Soviet-backed East German government erected the Berlin Wall. Shadowing these crises was a civil war in the Asian nation of Laos, which triggered American and Soviet responses, another in a series of proxy wars between the two superpowers. Kennedy’s assessment of the grave threats to world peace included his bold proposal for the complete disarmament of nuclear weapons.

Today, every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be habitable. Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or by madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us.

Men no longer debate whether armaments are a symptom or a cause of tension. The mere existence of modern weapons — ten million times more powerful than anything the world has ever seen, and only minutes away from any target on Earth — is a source of horror, and discord and distrust.…

For 15 years this organization has sought the reduction and destruction of arms. Now that goal is no longer a dream — it is a practical matter of life or death. The risks inherent in disarmament pale in comparison to the risks inherent in an unlimited arms race.

It is in this spirit that the recent Belgrade Conference — recognizing that this is no longer a Soviet problem or an American problem, but a human problem — endorsed a program of “general, complete and strictly an internationally controlled disarmament.” It is in this same spirit that we in the United States have labored this year, with a new urgency, and with a new, now-statutory agency fully endorsed by the Congress, to find an approach to disarmament which would be so far-reaching yet realistic, so mutually balanced and beneficial, that it could be accepted by every nation. And it is in this spirit that we have presented with the agreement of the Soviet Union — under the label both nations now accept of “general and complete disarmament” — a new statement of newly-agreed principles for negotiation.

But we are well aware that all issues of principle are not settled — and that principles alone are not enough. It is therefore our intention to challenge the Soviet Union, not to an arms race, but to a peace race — to advance together step by step, stage by stage, until general and complete disarmament has been achieved. We invite them now to go beyond agreement in principle to reach agreement on actual plans.

The program to be presented to this assembly — for general and complete disarmament under effective international control — moves to bridge the gap between those who insist on a gradual approach and those who talk only of the final and total achievement. It would create machinery to keep the peace as it destroys the machines of war. It would proceed through balanced and safeguarded stages designed to give no state a military advantage over another. It would place the final responsibility for verification and control where it belongs — not with the big powers alone, not with one’s adversary or one’s self — but in an international organization within the framework of the United Nations. It would assure that indispensable condition of disarmament — true inspection — and apply it in stages proportionate to the stage of disarmament. It would cover delivery systems as well as weapons. It would ultimately halt their production as well as their testing, their transfer as well as their possession. It would achieve, under the eye of an international disarmament organization, a steady reduction in forces, both nuclear and conventional, until it has abolished all armies and all weapons except those needed for internal order and a new United Nations Peace Force. And it starts that process now, today, even as the talks begin.…

Such a plan would not bring a world free from conflict or greed — but it would bring a world free from the terrors of mass destruction. It would not usher in the era of the super state — but it would usher in an era in which no state could annihilate or be annihilated by another.

In 1945, this Nation proposed the Baruch Plan to internationalize the atom before other nations even possessed the bomb or demilitarized their troops. We proposed with our allies the Disarmament Plan of 1951 while still at war in Korea. And we make our proposals today, while building up our defenses over Berlin, not because we are inconsistent or insincere or intimidated, but because we know the rights of free men will prevail — because while we are compelled against our will to rearm, we look confidently beyond Berlin to the kind of disarmed world we all prefer.…

The logical place to begin is a treaty assuring the end of nuclear tests of all kinds, in every environment, under workable controls. The United States and the United Kingdom have proposed such a treaty that is both reasonable, effective and ready for signature. We are still prepared to sign that treaty today.

We also proposed a mutual ban on atmospheric testing, without inspection or controls, in order to save the human race from the poison of radioactive fall-out. We regret that that offer was not accepted.…

But to halt the spread of these terrible weapons, to halt the contamination of the air, to halt the spiraling nuclear arms race, we remain ready to seek new avenues of agreement, our new Disarmament Program thus includes the following proposals:

— First, signing the Test-Ban Treaty by all Nations. This can be done now. Test ban negotiations need not and should not await general disarmament.

— Second, stopping the production of fissionable materials for use in weapons, and preventing their transfer to any nation now lacking in nuclear weapons.

— Third, prohibiting the transfer of control over nuclear weapons to states that do not own them.

— Fourth, keeping nuclear weapons from seeding new battlegrounds in outer space.

— Fifth, gradually destroying existing nuclear weapons and converting their materials to peaceful uses; and

— Finally, halting the unlimited testing and production of strategic nuclear delivery vehicles, and gradually destroying them as well.…

As we extend the rule of law on earth, so must we also extend it to man’s new domain: outer space.

All of us salute the brave cosmonauts of the Soviet Union. The new horizons of outer space must not be driven by the old bitter concepts of imperialism and sovereign claims. The cold reaches of the universe must not become the new arena of an even colder war.

To this end, we shall urge proposals extending the United Nations Charter to the limits of man’s exploration in the Universe, reserving outer space for peaceful use, prohibiting weapons of mass destruction in space or on celestial bodies, and opening the mysteries and benefits of space to every nation. We shall further propose cooperative efforts between all nations in weather prediction and eventually in weather control. We shall propose, finally, a global system of communications satellites linking the whole world in telegraph and telephone and radio and television. The day need not be far away when such a system will televise the proceedings of this body to every corner of the world for the benefit of peace.…

My Country favors a world of free and equal states. We agree with those who say that colonialism is a key issue in this Assembly.…

But colonialism in its harshest forms is not only the exploitation of new nations by old, of dark skins by light — or the subjugation of the poor by the rich. My Nation was once a colony — and we know what colonialism means; the exploitation and subjugation of the weak by the powerful, of the many by the few, of the governed who have given no consent to be governed, whatever their continent, their class or their color.

And that is why there is no ignoring the fact that the tide of self-determination has not reached the communist empire where a population far larger than that officially termed “dependent” lives under governments installed by foreign troops instead of free institutions — under a system which knows only one party and one belief — which suppresses free debate, and free elections, and free newspapers, and free books and free trade unions — and which builds a wall to keep truth a stranger and its own citizens prisoners. Let us debate colonialism in full — and apply the principle of free choice and the practice of free plebiscites in every corner of the globe.

Finally, as President of the United States, I consider it my duty to report to this Assembly on two threats to the peace which are not on your crowded agenda, but which causes us, and most of you, the deepest concern.

The first threat on which I wish to report is widely misunderstood: the smoldering coals of war in Southeast Asia. South Vietnam is already under attack — sometimes by a single assassin, sometimes by a band of guerrillas, recently by full battalions. The peaceful borders of Burma, Cambodia and India have been repeatedly violated. And the peaceful people of Laos are in danger of losing the independence they gained not so long ago.

No one can call these “wars of liberation.” For these are free countries living under governments. Nor are these aggressions any less real because men are knifed in their homes and not shot in the fields of battle.

The very simple question confronting the world community is whether measures can be devised to protect the small and weak from such tactics. For if they are successful in Laos and South Vietnam, the gates will be opened wide.…

Secondly, I wish to report to you on the crisis over Germany and Berlin. … Established international rights are being threatened with unilateral usurpation. Peaceful circulation has been interrupted by barbed wire and concrete blocks.…

If there is a dangerous crisis in Berlin — and there is — it is because of threats against the vital interests and the deep commitments of the Western Powers, and the freedom of West Berlin. We cannot yield these interests. We cannot fail these commitments. We cannot surrender the freedom of these people for whom we are responsible. A “peace treaty” which carried with it the provisions which destroy the peace would be a fraud. A “free city” which was not genuinely free would suffocate freedom and would be an infamy.…

Terror is not a new weapon. Throughout history it has been used by those who could not prevail, either by persuasion or example. But inevitably they fall — either because men are not afraid to die for a life worth living — or because the terrorists themselves came to realize that free men can not be frightened by threats, and that aggression would meet its own response. And it is in the light of that history that every nation today should know, be he friend or foe, that the United States has both the will and the weapons to join free men in standing up to their responsibilities.

But I come here today to look across this world of threats to the world of peace. In that search we cannot expect any final triumph — for new problems will always arise. We cannot expect that all nations will adopt like systems — for conformity is the jailor of freedom, and the enemy of growth. Nor can we expect to reach our goal by contrivance, by fiat or even by the wishes of all.

But however close we sometimes seem to that dark and final abyss, let no man of peace and freedom despair. For he does not stand alone. If we all can persevere — if we can in every land and office look beyond our own shores and ambitions — then surely the age will dawn in which the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved.

Ladies and gentlemen of this assembly — the decision is ours. Never have the nations of the world had so much to lose — or so much to gain. Together we shall save our planet — or together we shall perish in its flames. Save it we can — and save it we must — and then shall we earn the eternal thanks of mankind and, as peace makers, the eternal blessing of God.

John F. Kennedy, “Address to the United Nations General Assembly, September 25, 1961,” papers of John F. Kennedy: President’s Office Files, January 20, 1961 to November 22, 1963, ARC Identifier 193907, National Archives.

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