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BUT let me say we hold firmly to a vital paradox and to a fixed purpose: We maintain strength only in order some day to yield it—in league with all other nations. We shall go on working ceaselessly for the sure and safe accord that alone will make this possible. For we seek, above all else, to lift from the backs of men and all nations their terrible burden of armaments.
Finally, ever constant in the principles by which we live, we sense a special concern for the fate and fortune of those 700 million people in 18 nations who have won full independence since World War II. We know and respect both their national pride and their economic need. Here we speak from the heart of our heritage. We, too, were born at a time when the tide of tyranny running high threatened to sweep the earth. We prevailed and they shall prevail.
For the everlasting promise of our own Declaration of Independence was what Lincoln declared it to be: liberty not alone to the people of this country, but hope for the world for all future time.
These, then, are America's greater purposes.
They spring from our final faith in freedom.