Last November, Prime Minister Attlee, Prime Minister MacKenzie King, and I announced our proposal that a commission be established within the framework of the United Nations to explore the problems of effective international control of atomic energy.

The Soviet Union, France, and China have joined us in the purpose of introducing in the General Assembly a resolution for the establishment of such a commission.  Our earnest wish is that the work of this commission go forward carefully and thoroughly, but with the greatest dispatch.  I have great hope for the development of mutually effective safeguards which will permit the fullest international control of this new atomic force.

I believe it possible that effective means can be developed through the United Nations Organization to prohibit, outlaw, and prevent the use of atomic energy for destructive purposes.

The power which the United States demonstrated during the war is the fact that underlies every phase of our relations with other countries.  We cannot escape the responsibility which it thrusts upon us.  What we think, plan, say, and do is of profound significance to the future of every corner of the world.

The great and dominant objective of United States foreign policy is to build and preserve a just peace.  The peace we seek is not peace for twenty years.  It is permanent peace.  At a time when massive changes are occurring with lightning speed throughout the world, it is often difficult to perceive how this central objective is best served in one isolated complex situation or another.  Despite this very real difficulty, there are certain basic propositions to which the United States adheres and to which we shall continue to adhere.

One proposition is that lasting peace requires genuine understanding and active cooperation among the most powerful nations.  Another is that even the support of the strongest nations cannot guarantee a peace unless it is infused with the quality of justice for all nations.

On October 27, 1945, I made, in New York City, the following public statement of my understanding of the fundamental foreign policy of the United States.  I believe that policy to be in accord with the opinion of the Congress and of the people of the United States.  I believe that that policy carries out our fundamental objectives.

1.  We seek no territorial expansion or selfish advantage.  We have no plans for aggression against any other state, large or small.  We have no objective which need clash with the peaceful aims of any other nation.

2.  We believe in the eventual return of sovereign rights and self-government to all peoples who have been deprived of them by force.

3.  We shall approve no territorial changes in any friendly part of the world unless they accord with the freely expressed wishes of the people concerned.

4.  We believe that all peoples who are prepared for self-government should be permitted to choose their own form of government by their own freely expressed choice, without interference from any foreign source.  That is true in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, as well as in the Western Hemisphere.