President, the war in Algeria confronts the United States with its most critical diplomatic impasse since the crisis in Indochina – and yet we have not only failed to meet the problem forthrightly and effectively, we have refused to even recognize that it is our problem at all. I shall speak this afternoon of our failures and of our future in Algeria and North Africa – and I shall speak of Poland in a later address to this body. But again, one, above all the rest, is critically outstanding today – Algeria. There are many cases of the clash between independence and imperialism in the Western World that demand our attention. For that reason, within 2 weeks I hope to speak upon an issue which I think stands above all the others namely, the country of Poland. The Secretary of State, in his morning news conference, speaking on this subject, suggested that, if people want to do something about the examples of colonialism, they should consider such examples as Soviet-ruled Lithuania and the satellite countries of Czechoslovakia, Poland, and others. One, above all the rest, is critically outstanding today – Poland. There are many cases of the clash between independence and imperialism in the Soviet world that demand our attention. My intention is to talk not of general principles, but of specific cases – to propose not partisan criticisms but what I hope will be constructive solutions.

I propose, therefore, as the Senate and the Nation prepare to commemorate the 181st anniversary of man's noblest expression against political repression, to begin a two-part series of speeches, examining America's role in the continuing struggles for independence that strain today against the forces of imperialism within both the Soviet and Western worlds. I am concerned today that we are failing to meet the challenge of imperialism – on both counts – and thus failing in our responsibilities to the free world. If we fail to meet the challenge of either Soviet or Western imperialism, then no amount of foreign aid, no aggrandizement of armaments, no new pacts or doctrines or high-level conferences can prevent further setbacks to our course and to our security. On this test more than any other, this Nation shall be critically judged by the uncommitted millions in Asia and Africa, and anxiously watched by the still hopeful lovers of freedom behind the Iron Curtain. Thus the single most important test of American foreign policy today is how we meet the challenge of imperialism, what we do to further man's desire to be free. The great enemy of that tremendous force of freedom is called, for want of a more precise term, imperialism – and today that means Soviet imperialism and, whether we like it or not, and though they are not to be equated, Western imperialism. President, the most powerful single force in the world today is neither communism nor capitalism, neither the H-bomb nor the guided missile – it is man's eternal desire to be free and independent.

Imperialism 2 diplomatic vctory