DEPOSITED BY THE NITED STATES OF AMERICA

APR 13 '45

The Moscow Conference

MR. PRESIDENT, MR. SPEAKER:

I appreciate deeply the high compliment of being invited to meet with you today. But I appreciate even more the fact that by your invitation you have emphasized your profound interest in the principles and policies for which the Moscow Conference stood and in the progress made by the participating governments in carrying them forward.

In the minds of all of us here present and of the millions of Americans all over the country and at battle-stations across the seas, there is and there can be at this moment but one consuming thought-to defeat the enemy as speedily as possible. We have reached a stage in the war in which the United Nations are on the offensive in every part of the world. Our enemies are suffering defeat after defeat. The time will come when their desperate movement to destroy the world will be utterly crushed. But there are in store for us still enormous hardships and vast sacrifices. The attainment of victory will be hastened only in proportion as all of us, in this country and in all the United Nations, continue to exert all possible effort to press home our advantage without the slightest relaxation or deviation.

The glorious successes which have already attended our arms and the confidence which we all feel today in assured, though still immensely difficult, victory would have been impossible if this country, and Great Britain, and the Soviet Union, and China, and the other victims of aggression had not each risen as a unit in defense of its liberty and independence. They would have been equally impossible if all these nations had not come together in a brotherhood of self-preservation.

While we are thus engaged in the task of winning the war, all of us are acutely conscious of the fact that the fruits of our victory can easily be lost unless there is among us wholehearted acceptance of those basic principles and policies which will render impossible a repetition of our present tragedy, and unless there is promptly created machinery of action necessary, to carry out these principles and policies. The Moscow Conference is believed to have been an important step in the direction both of shortening the war and of making provision for the future.

The convocation of the Conference was the result of a profound conviction on the part of President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill, and Marshal Stalin that, at this stage of the war, frank and friendly exchanges of views between responsible representatives of their three Governments on problems of post-war, as well as war, collaboration were a matter of great urgency. Up to that time, such exchanges of views had taken place on several occasions between our Government and that of Great Britain. But the exigencies of war had been obstacles to the participation of the Soviet Government in such exchanges to the same extent. With the acceleration of the tempo of war against Germany, the necessity became daily more and more apparent for more far-reaching discussions and decisions by the three Governments than had occurred theretofore.

I went to Moscow, by direction of President Roosevelt, to discuss with the representatives of Great Britain and the Soviet Union some basic problems of international relations in the light of principles to which our country, under the President's leadership, has come to give wide-spread adherence. It has never been my fortune to attend an international conference at which there was greater determination on the part of all the participants to move forward in a spirit of mutual understanding and confidence.

The Conference met against the background of a rapidly changing military situation. From the east and from the south, the Nazi armies were being steadily hammered back into narrower and narrower confines. From the west, the Allied air forces were relentlessly and systematically destroying the nerve centers of German industrial and military power.

Formidable as the war task still is, it has been increasingly clear that the time is nearing when more and more of the territory held by the enemy will be wrested from his grasp, and when Germany and its remaining satellites will. have to go the way of Fascist Italy. In these circumstances, new problems arise which require concerted action by the Allies, to hasten the end of the war, to plan for its immediate aftermath, and to lay the foundation for the post-war world. Our discussions in Moscow were concerned with many of these problems. Important agreements were reached, but there were no secret agreements, and none was suggested.

Of the military discussions which took place it can be stated that they were in the direction of facilitating closer cooperation between the three countries in the prosecution of the war against the common enemy. I am glad to say that there is now in Moscow a highly competent United States Military Mission, headed by Maj. Gen. John R. Deane.

The attention of the Conference was centered upon the task of making sure that the nations. upon whose armed forces and civilian efforts rests the main responsibility for defeating the enemy will, along with other peacefully minded nations, continue to perform their full part in solving the numerous and vexatioús problems of the future. From the outset, the dominant thought at the Conference was that, after the attainment of victory, cooperation among peace-loving nations in support of certain paramount mutual interests will be almost

as compelling in importance and necessity as it is today in support of the war effort.

At the end of the war, each of the United Nations and each of the nations associated with them will have the same common interest in national security, in world order under law, in peace, in the full promotion of the political, economic, and social welfare of their respective peoples in the principles and spirit of the Atlantic Charter and the Declaration by United Nations. The future of these indispensable common interests depends absolutely upon international cooperation. Hence, each nation's own primary interest requires it to cooperate with the others.

These considerations led the Moscow Conference to adopt the four-nation declaration with which you are all familiar. I should like to comment briefly on its main provisions.

In that document, it was jointly declared by the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and China "That their united action, pledged for the prosecution of the war against their respective enemies, will be continued for the organization and maintenance of peace and security."

To this end, the four Governments declared that they "recognize the necessity of establishing at the earliest practicable date a general international organization, based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all peace-loving states, and open to membership by all such states, large and small". I should like to lay particular stress on this provision of the declaration. The principle of sovereign equality of all peace-loving states, irrespective of size and strength, as partners in a future system of general security will be the foundation stone upon which the future international organization will be constructed.

The adoption of this principle was particularly welcome to us. Nowhere has the conception of sovereign equality been applied more widely in recent years than in the American

family of nations, whose contribution to the common effort in wartime will now be followed by representation in building the institutions of peace.

The four Governments further agreed that, pending the inauguration in this manner of a permanent system of general security, "they will consult with one another and as occasion requires with other members of the United Nations with a view to joint action on behalf of the community of nations" whenever such action may be necessary for the purpose of maintaining international peace and security.

Finally, as an important self-denying ordinance, they declared "That after the termination of hostilities they will not employ their military forces within the territories of other states except for the purposes envisaged in this declaration and after joint consultation."

Through this declaration, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, the United States, and China have laid the foundation for cooperative effort in the post-war world toward enabling all peace-loving nations, large and small, to live in peace and security, to preserve the liberties and rights of civilized existence, and to enjoy expanded opportunities and facilities for economic, social, and spiritual progress. No other important nations anywhere have more in common in the present war or in the peace that is to follow victory over the Axis powers. No one, no two of them can be most effective without the others, in war or in peace.

Each of them had, in the past, relied in varying degrees upon policies of detachment and aloofness. In Moscow, their four Governments pledged themselves to carry forward to its fullest development a broad and progressive program of international cooperation. This action was of world-wide importance.

As the provisions of the four-nation declaration are carried into effect, there will no longer be need for spheres of influence, for alliances, for balance of power, or any other of the special