Of all tasks of government the most basic is to protect its citizens against violence.

Local defense will always be important. But there is no local defense which alone will contain the mighty land power of the Communist world. Local defense must be reinforced by the further deterrent of massive retaliatory power.

We walked to the brink and we looked it in the face.

The United Nations represents not a final stage in the development of world order, but only a primitive stage. Therefore its primary task is to create the conditions which will make possible a more highly developed organization.

I hope the day will never come when the American nation will be the champion of the status quo. Once that happens, we shall have forfeited, and rightly forfeited, the support of the unsatisfied, of those who are the victims of inevitable imperfections, of those who, young in years or spirit, believe that they can make a better world and of those who dream dreams and want to make their dreams to come true.

Mankind will never win lasting peace so long as men use their full resources only in tasks of war. While we are yet at peace, let us mobilize the potentialities, particularly the moral and spiritual potentialities, which we usually reserve for war.

Of all tasks of government the most basic is to protect its citizens against violence.