So far, now, I’ve concentrated mainly on the problems posed by the future.  But in almost every home and workplace in America, we’re already witnessing reason for great hope—­the first flowering of the manmade miracles of high technology, a field pioneered and still led by our country.

To many of us now, computers, silicon chips, data processing, cybernetics, and all the other innovations of the dawning high technology age are as mystifying as the workings of the combustion engine must have been when that first Model T rattled down Main Street, U.S.A.  But as surely as America’s pioneer spirit made us the industrial giant of the 20th century, the same pioneer spirit today is opening up on another vast front of opportunity, the frontier of high technology.

In conquering the frontier we cannot write off our traditional industries, but we must develop the skills and industries that will make us a pioneer of tomorrow.  This administration is committed to keeping America the technological leader of the world now and into the 21st century.

But let us turn briefly to the international arena.  America’s leadership in the world came to us because of our own strength and because of the values which guide us as a society:  free elections, a free press, freedom of religious choice, free trade unions, and above all, freedom for the individual and rejection of the arbitrary power of the state.  These values are the bedrock of our strength.  They unite us in a stewardship of peace and freedom with our allies and friends in NATO, in Asia, in Latin America, and elsewhere.  They are also the values which in the recent past some among us had begun to doubt and view with a cynical eye.

Fortunately, we and our allies have rediscovered the strength of our common democratic values, and we’re applying them as a cornerstone of a comprehensive strategy for peace with freedom.  In London last year, I announced the commitment of the United States to developing the infrastructure of democracy throughout the world.  We intend to pursue this democratic initiative vigorously.  The future belongs not to governments and ideologies which oppress their peoples, but to democratic systems of self-government which encourage individual initiative and guarantee personal freedom.

But our strategy for peace with freedom must also be based on strength—­economic strength and military strength.  A strong American economy is essential to the well-being and security of our friends and allies.  The restoration of a strong, healthy American economy has been and remains one of the central pillars of our foreign policy.  The progress I’ve been able to report to you tonight will, I know, be as warmly welcomed by the rest of the world as it is by the American people.

We must also recognize that our own economic well-being is inextricably linked to the world economy.  We export over 20 percent of our industrial production, and 40 percent of our farmland produces for export.  We will continue to work closely with the industrialized democracies of Europe and Japan and with the International Monetary Fund to ensure it has adequate resources to help bring the world economy back to strong, noninflationary growth.