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.

The Soviet Union’s threats against Germany and Japan, its neighbors to the West and to the East, have been successfully withstood.  Free Germany is on its way to becoming a member of the peaceful community of nations, and a partner in the common defense.  The Soviet effort to capture Berlin by blockade was thwarted by the courageous Allied airlift.  An independent and democratic Japan has been brought back into the community of free nations.