Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
I do not need to outline here the dreary record of Soviet obstruction and
veto and the unceasing efforts of the Soviet representatives to sabotage
the United Nations. It is important, however, to distinguish clearly
between the principle of collective security embodied in the Charter and
the mechanisms of the United Nations to give that principle effect. We must
frankly recognize that the Soviet Union has been able, in certain
instances, to stall the machinery of collective security. Yet it has not
been able to impair the principle of collective security. The free nations
of the world have retained their allegiance to that idea. They have found
the means to act despite the Soviet veto, both through the United Nations
itself and through the application of this principle in regional and other
security arrangements that are fully in harmony with the Charter and give
expression to its purposes.
The free world refused to resign itself to collective suicide merely
because of the technicality of a Soviet veto.
The principle of collective measures to forestall aggression has found
expression in the Treaty of Rio de Janeiro, the North Atlantic Treaty, now
extended to include Greece and Turkey, and the several treaties we have
concluded to reinforce security in the Pacific area.
But the free nations have not this time fallen prey to the dangerous
illusion that treaties alone will stop an aggressor. By a series of
vigorous actions, as varied as the nature of the threat, the free nations
have successfully thwarted aggression or the threat of aggression in many
different parts of the world.
Our country has led or supported these collective measures. The aid we have
given to people determined to act in defense of their freedom has often
spelled the difference between success and failure.
We all know what we have done, and I shall not review in detail the steps
we have taken. Each major step was a milepost in the developing unity,
strength and resolute will of the free nations.
The first was the determined and successful effort made through the United
Nations to safeguard the integrity and independence of Iran in 1945 and
1946.
Next was our aid and support to embattled Greece, which enabled her to
defeat the forces threatening her national independence.
In Turkey, cooperative action resulted in building up a bulwark of military
strength for an area vital to the defenses of the entire free world.
In 1949, we began furnishing military aid to our partners in the North
Atlantic Community and to a number of other free countries.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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