THE PRESIDENCY: State of the Union

Seven years ago I entered my present office with one long-held resolve overriding all others. I was then, and remain now, determined that the U.S. shall become an ever more potent resource for the cause of peace—realizing that peace cannot be for ourselves alone but for peoples everywhere.

Around President Eisenhower as he thus began his eighth State of the Union message sat members of the U.S. Congress, the diplomatic corps including Soviet Ambassador Mikhail Menshikov, the nine Supreme Court justices, the Cabinet (minus vacationing Secretary of State Christian Herter), and galleries packed with hushed spectators, including Mamie Eisenhower and Son Major John. And as the President spoke on for 46 minutes, his voice clear, his demeanor serious, he cast such far-ranging topics as missile power, foreign aid, inflation, steel strike, civil rights and rule of law into that single theme of searching for peace in freedom. Said Ike: "This determination is shared by the entire Congress—indeed, by all Americans."

Seeking Peace Abroad. The prospect of world peace is made up of three basic elements, said the President. These are 1) possession by the U.S. and U.S.S.R. of "unbelievably destructive weapons" with which "mutual annihilation becomes a possibility," 2) recent Soviet "deportment" that suggests tension lessening but that"remains to be tested by actions," and 3) vast new technological gains that offer mankind the "capacity to make poverty and human misery obsolete." Said Ike: "We must strive to break the calamitous cycle of frustrations and crises which, if unchecked, could spiral into nuclear disaster—the ultimate insanity." U.S. courses of action:

NEGOTIATE WITH THE KREMLIN. "We cannot expect sudden and revolutionary results. But we must find some place to begin." The U.S. wants therefore to 1) widen people-to-people exchanges; 2) press the talks with the U.S.S.R. at Geneva, resuming this week, on the nuclear test deadlock; 3) stress disarmament negotiations even though the Soviets "have not made clear the plans they may have, if any, for mutual inspection and verification—the essential condition for an extensive measure of disarmament."

BROADEN FOREIGN AID. "All people of the free world have a great stake in the progress in freedom of the uncommitted and newly emerging nations." And the U.S.'s partners in Western Europe and Japan, newly prosperous, should now participate actively, increasingly and especially with private capital to help the new nations. "The immediate need for this kind of cooperation is underscored by the strain in our international balance of payments [that in 1959] approached $4 billion."