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War & Peacemaking
Address by President Dwight D. Eisenhower,
delivered before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April
16,1953.
In this spring of 1953 the free world weighs one question above all others: the chance for a just peace for all peoples. To weigh this chance is to summon instantly to mind another recent
moment of great decision. It came with that yet more hopeful spring of
1945, bright with the promise of victory and of freedom. The hope of
all just men in that moment too was a just and lasting peace. The 8 years that have passed have seen that hope waver, grow dim, and
almost die. And the shadow of fear again has darkly lengthened across
the world. Today the hope of free men remains stubborn and brave, but it is
sternly disciplined by experience. It shuns not only all crude counsel
of despair but also the self-deceit of easy illusion. It weighs the
chance for peace with sure, clear knowledge of what happened to the
vain hope of 1945.