speech on effects of war

• World War II

‘A Date Which Will Live in Infamy.’ Read President Roosevelt’s Pearl Harbor Address

P resident Franklin Roosevelt called the unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor a “date which will live in infamy,” in a famous address to the nation delivered after Japan’s deadly strike against U.S. naval and military forces in Hawaii. He also asked Congress to declare war.

As the nation reflects on the anniversary of the surprise attack that led America to join World War II, here is the transcript of President Roosevelt’s speech, which he delivered in Washington, D.C. on Dec. 8, 1941—one day after the assault:

“Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the Senate, and of the House of Representatives: Yesterday, December 7th, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. And while this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack. It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time, the Japanese government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace. The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu. Yesterday, the Japanese government also launched an attack against Malaya. Last night, Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong. Last night, Japanese forces attacked Guam. Last night, Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands. Last night, the Japanese attacked Wake Island. And this morning, the Japanese attacked Midway Island. Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation. As Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense. But always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory. I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us. Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger. With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph—so help us God. I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire.”

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Wars and violent conflicts

• In-depth articles

Effects of war

There are no real victors in wars as all parties involved have to suffer the consequences with often high numbers of casualties on both sides. Rather than dealing with the consequences resulting from a war and its end, this text will look into its direct effects on people, politics, the economy and the environment.

Victims of war

World War I (1914–1918) resulted in 17 to 20 million deaths. The number of victims of World War II (1939–1945) is estimated at between 50 and 56 million (some sources even mention 80 million). Even if the end of World War II marks an end to the killing of such a scale, and no other war since then has led to so much destruction, around 800,000 people have still died in violent conflicts between 1989 and 2010 since the end of the Cold War (UCDP Battle-Related Deaths Dataset v.5-2010).

The real number of victims of a war can only be estimated. It depends, for instance, on whether ‘victims’ are only defined as those who died as a direct result of armed violence. This would mean disregarding those who, during a war, died from exposure, epidemics or as a result of (sexual) violence and hunger. It also disregards those who have died years later from wounds or illnesses sustained in the war—such as the radiation victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

One look at the consequences of the US intervention in Vietnam and Cambodia (1965–1975) provides a clearer picture of this problem. The number of deaths in the Vietnam War is estimated at three million. Since its end, the Vietnamese government claims that more than 42,000 people have died from deadly accidents caused by old ammunition. In the war against the North Vietnamese troops, US armed forces used 15 million tons of bombs and explosives of which 800,000 tons still pollute 20 per cent of the country. A similar scenario exists in Cambodia. According to UNICEF, between four and six million landmines still lurk near paths, on fields and near schools or wells in the villages. It is mostly the civilian population that suffers—every third landmine victim is a child. According to the Landmine Monitor 2009, at least 19,505 people were killed and 44,024 wounded between 1979 and the end of 2009.

“The war will never be over, never, as long as somewhere a wound it had inflicted is still bleeding,” Heinrich Böll, German Nobel Prize winner for literature, characterised the long-term effects of wars. War-wounded—be they soldiers or civilians—often suffer from the physical injuries for decades. Often, they have to learn to live with mutilations, having been blinded or deafened.

The psychological effects, too, have an impact on the everyday lives of the survivors. Fear and insecurity resulting from daily experiences of war—whether as perpetrators or victims—leave traces. Late symptoms can be post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety. These consequences affect civilians and soldiers alike.

Another consequence of war is the transformation of national citizens into refugees. According to the United Nations, at the time of writing there are 15 million refugees worldwide who have had to leave their home due to conflicts or persecution. Three-quarters live in developing countries. The war has taken away their home and their livelihoods, often long-term. Hunger, malnutrition, illnesses and diseases directly threaten the refugees and their children. The situation of refugees becomes all the more difficult when international attention and support dwindles while there is still no end to their legal, economic and social state of limbo and no durable solution in sight. Notably, when refugees have to live in larger “camps”, various different security risks arise both for the refugees and their environment that can lead to new violent conflicts.

Politics and the economy

The most far-reaching political effect of a war is the fact that it can annihilate state and community. During a war, citizens’ freedoms are curtailed. Under a state of emergency or martial law, freedom of speech and freedom of choice as well as activities by political and other societal groups are often considerably restricted. Both internally and externally, images of the enemy are created. Distrust grows between citizens with different opinions , while relations with opposing or ‘enemy’ states are destroyed and poisoned for years.

“This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children,” lamented Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States and Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces during World War II. According to the internationally renowned NGOs Oxfam International, Saferworld, and International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA), the following are also amongst the costs of war:

• Increased military expenditures that other sectors of the economy are lacking;
• Destruction of livelihoods and infrastructure (e.g. water supply and transportation system);
• Limitations regarding economic activities through insecurities, limited mobility and the allocation of civil labour to the military as well as flight of capital.
• Macroeconomic effects such as inflation, limitations regarding savings, investments and exports as well as increased debt.
• Loss of development aid;
• Transfer of assets to the illegal economy.

The conquest of foreign territories and the forced re-distribution of land, means of production and labour that go along with it also have economic consequences.

Environment

In 2001 the United Nations declared 6 November of each year as the “International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflicts.” Then-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan wanted to raise awareness of the devastating ecological and long-term environmental side effects of wars that is just as damaging to humankind as direct violence. Damage caused by oil, chemicals, landmines or unexploded ordnance often takes a long time before it is repaired; the pollution of water, air and soil threatens the livelihoods of many people and causes entire populations to flee.

New technologies, too, such as depleted uranium munitions, threaten the environment. The smallest amounts of radioactive uranium can cause cancer or damage kidneys and other organs. This brings us to a second aspect of the effects of war on the environment. Besides “immediate” side effects, natural resources are sometimes destroyed for tactical reasons. Known examples are the bombardment of oil production facilities in the Gulf wars to damage the economy, the deliberate mining of pastures to rob the enemy of its basic food supply or the use of chemical warfare agents such as Agent Orange that was used by the United States in the Vietnam War as a defoliant and to destroy crop plants. “At times, natural resources are deliberately destroyed as a tactic. But more often than not, the environment is simply another innocent victim caught in the crossfire. The poor, as usual, suffer disproportionately, as they rely most heavily on the environment not only for food but also for medicine, livelihoods, and materials for shelters and homes“, warned Kofi Annan of the environmental effects of war.

Sources and further information:

• Institut für Friedenspädagogik Tübingen e.V. (German)
• Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor
• Oxfam - Africa's Missing Billions: International arms flows and the cost of conflict
• Universität Gießen - Folgen von Krieg (German)
• UNRIC (Vereinte Nationen: Regionales Informationszentrum der UNO)
• Uppsala University Department of Peace and Conflict Research

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World history

Course: world history   >   unit 6.

• Blockades, u-boats and sinking of the Lusitania
• Zimmermann Telegram
• United States enters World War I

Wilson's war message to Congress -- April 2, 1917

• 1917 speech by Senator George Norris in opposition to American entry
• WWI Blockades and America

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Winston churchill’s iron curtain speech—march 5, 1946.

Churchill’s famed “Iron Curtain” speech ushered in the Cold War and made the term a household phrase.

Top image courtesy of America’s National Churchill Museum.

The dying embers of World War II still cast a shadow long over the postwar world when Winston Churchill arrived in the small Midwestern town of Fulton, Missouri in the spring of 1946. Westminster College seemed an unlikely place for the former British Prime Minister to deliver a speech of global importance. President Harry Truman penned a note at the bottom of the college’s invitation: “This is a wonderful school in my home state. If you come, I will introduce you. Hope you can do it.”

Winston Churchill stands with US President Harry S Truman at Westminster College where Churchill gave his now famous speech. Image courtesy of America’s National Churchill Museum.

Churchill, who had won the war in Europe, only to lose in the British general election in July 1945, eagerly accepted the invitation to appear on the same platform with the President of the United States.

Churchill knew that while the world looked forward to putting the horrors of war behind, events at the beginning of 1946 portended an even darker future ahead. In the wake of the Allied victory, the Soviet Union had begun shaping Eastern Europe in their image, bringing the governments of many nations into line with Moscow. On February 9, Premier Joseph Stalin gave a speech in which he declared that war between the East and West was inevitable. On February 22, the American Ambassador to Moscow, George F. Kennan, sent the famous “Long Telegram” warning of the Soviet Union’s perpetual hostility towards the West.

Then, on March 5, 1946, at Westminster College in Fulton, Churchill’s famous words “From Stettin in the Baltic, to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent,” ushered in the Cold War and framed the geo-political landscape for the next 50 years. The former Prime Minister, with President Truman at his side, articulated the threat that the Soviet Union and communism posed to peace and stability in the post-war world. Invoking the spirit of the Atlantic Charter he called for a strengthening of Anglo-American ties and for the United Nations to become a peace-promoting world organization that would succeed where its predecessor the League of Nations had failed.

The historic Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Aldermanbury, originally located in London. The church was moved to the Westminster College campus in the mid-1960s. Image courtesy of America’s National Churchill Museum.

A statue of Churchill stands outside of the historic church on the Westminster College campus, home to America’s National Churchill Museum. Image courtesy of America’s National Churchill Museum.

“ The Sinews of Peace ,” the title Churchill himself gave his address, endures today as one of the statesman’s most significant speeches. It not only made the term “iron curtain” a household phrase, but it coined the term “special relationship,” describing enduring alliance between the United States and Great Britain. It is a speech that offered a blueprint for the west to ultimately wage—and win—the Cold War.

This article is part of a series commemorating the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II made possible by the Department of Defense.

Meet the Authors

The author is Stephen Rogers, Westminster College, with input from Timothy Riley, Sandra L, and Monroe E Trout, Director and Chief Curator at America’s National Churchill Museum.

Great Responsibilities and New Global Power

With the rapid rise in power and influence after World War II, the United States had to take on new responsibilities, signaling the beginning of the "American era."

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This column is the third of three D-Day columns written by war correspondent Ernie Pyle describing the Allied invasion of Normandy. 

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The Friendly Invasion

Often referred to as the “Friendly Invasion”, the mixing of Yanks with British subjects often made for a clash of cultures.

Planning for D-Day: Preparing Operation Overlord

Despite their early agreement on a strategy focused on defeating “Germany First,” the US and British Allies engaged in a lengthy and divisive debate over how exactly to conduct this strategy before they finally settled on a plan for Operation Overlord, the D-Day invasion of Normandy.

'The Horrible Waste of War' The Wreckage after D-Day

This column is the second of three D-Day columns written by war correspondent Ernie Pyle describing the Allied invasion of Normandy. 

Gold, Juno, and Sword Beaches on D-Day

The British landing area lay between Port-en-Bessin and Ouistreham where they would link up with 6th British Airborne Division along the Orne River, after their landing to protect the eastern flank of the Allied lodgment.  

If the US and its western Allies wanted to win this war as rapidly as possible, they couldn’t sit around and wait: not for a naval blockade, or for strategic bombing to work, or for the Soviets.

The Battle Beyond the Normandy Beaches

Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower knew that success on the beaches would require support beyond the beaches to prevent the arrival of German reinforcements.

World War I: 100 Years Later

A Smithsonian magazine special report

How Woodrow Wilson’s War Speech to Congress Changed Him – and the Nation

In 70 days in 1917, President Wilson converted from peace advocate to war president

Erick Trickey

A group of activists calling themselves the Emergency Peace Federation visited White House on February 28, 1917, to plead with their longtime ally, President Woodrow Wilson. Think of his predecessors George Washington and John Adams, they told him. Surely Wilson could find a way to protect American shipping without joining Europe’s war. 

If they had met with him four months earlier, they would have encountered a different man. He had run on peace, after all, winning re-election in November 1916 on the slogan “He kept us out of war.” Most Americans had little interest in sending soldiers into the stalemated slaughter that had ravaged the landscapes of Belgium and France since 1914. Wilson, a careful, deliberative former professor, had even tried to convince England and Germany to end World War I through diplomacy throughout 1916. On January 22, speaking before the U.S. Senate, he had proposed a negotiated settlement to the European war, a “ peace without victory .”

What the peace delegation didn’t fully realize was that Wilson, caught in a series of events, was turning from a peace proponent to a wartime president. And that agonizing shift, which took place over just 70 days in 1917, would transform the United States from an isolated, neutral nation to a world power.

“The President’s mood was stern,” recalled Federation member and renowned social worker Jane Addams, “far from the scholar’s detachment.” Earlier that month, Germany had adopted unrestricted submarine warfare: Its U-boats would attack any ship approaching Britain, France, and Italy, including neutral American ships. The peace delegation hoped to bolster Wilson’s diplomatic instincts and to press him to respond without joining the war. William I. Hull, a former student of Wilson’s and a Quaker pacifist, tried to convince Wilson that he, like the presidents who came before him, could protect American shipping through negotiation.

But when Hull suggested that Wilson try to appeal directly to the German people, not their government, Wilson stopped him.

“Dr. Hull,” Wilson said, “if you knew what I know at the present moment, and what you will see reported in tomorrow morning’s newspapers, you would not ask me to attempt further peaceful dealings with the Germans.”

Then Wilson told his visitors about the Zimmermann Telegram.

“U.S. BARES WAR PLOT,” read the Chicago Tribune ’s headline the next day, March 1, 1917. “GERMANY SEEKS AN ALLIANCE AGAINST US; ASKS JAPAN AND MEXICO TO JOIN HER,” announced the New York Times . German foreign minister Arthur Zimmermann’s decoded telegram , which Wilson’s administration had leaked to the Associated Press, instructed the German ambassador in Mexico to propose an alliance. If the U.S. declared war over Germany’s unrestricted submarine warfare, Zimmermann offered to “make war together” with Mexico in exchange for “generous financial support and an understanding on our part that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona” (ceded under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the Mexican-American War nearly 70 years earlier ).

Until the dual shocks of unrestricted submarine warfare and the Zimmermann Telegram, Wilson had truly intended to keep the United States out of World War I. But just 70 days later, on April 2, 1917, he asked Congress to declare war on Germany. Wilson’s agonized decision over that period permanently changed America’s relationship with the world: He forsook George Washington's 124-year precedent of American neutrality in European wars. His idealistic justifications for that decision helped launch a century of American military alliances and interventions around the globe.

In his January speech, Wilson had laid out the idealistic international principles that would later guide him after the war. Permanent peace, he argued, required governments built on the consent of the governed, freedom of the seas, arms control and an international League of Peace (which later became the League of Nations). He argued that both sides in the war—the Allies, including England and France, and the Central Powers, including Germany—should accept what he called a “peace without victory.” The alternative, he argued, was a temporary “peace forced upon the loser, a victor’s terms imposed upon the vanquished.” That, Wilson warned, would leave “a sting, a resentment, a bitter memory” and build the peace on “quicksand.”

But nine days later, at 4 p.m. on January 31, the German ambassador in Washington informed the U.S. State Department that his nation would begin unrestricted submarine warfare—which threatened American commerce and lives on the Atlantic Ocean—at midnight. “The President was sad and depressed,” wrote Wilson’s adviser Edward House in his diary the next day. “[He] said he felt as if the world had suddenly reversed itself; that after going from east to west, it had begun to go from west to east and that he could not get his balance.”

Wilson cut off diplomatic relations with Germany, but refused to believe war was inevitable. “We do not desire any hostile conflict with the Imperial German Government,” he told Congress on February 3. “We are the sincere friends of the German people and earnestly desire to remain at peace with the Government which speaks for them. We shall not believe that they are hostile to us unless and until we are obliged to believe it.”

Though most Americans weren’t eager to fight, Wilson’s critics raged at his inaction. “I don’t believe Wilson will go to war unless Germany literally kicks him into it,” former President Theodore Roosevelt, who had failed in his bid to re-take the White House in 1912, wrote to U.S. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge.

Then, on February 23, came the “kick.” That day, the British government delivered a copy of the Zimmermann Telegram to Walter Hines Pace, the American ambassador in London. It was the espionage coup of the war. Britain’s office of naval intelligence had intercepted and partially decoded it in January, and a British spy’s contact in a Mexican telegraph office had stolen another copy on February 10. Pace stayed up all night drafting a message to Wilson about the telegram and its origins. When Zimmermann’s message arrived from London at the State Department in D.C. on Saturday night, February 24, Acting Secretary of State Frank L. Polk took it directly to the White House. Wilson, Polk recalled later, showed “much indignation.”

Four days later, when Wilson met with the peace activists, he revealed that his thoughts about how to bring about a lasting peace had changed. He told them, according to Addams’ recollection in her memoir, that “as head of a nation participating in the war, the President of the United States would have a seat at the Peace Table, but that if he remains the representative of a neutral country he could at best only ‘call through a crack in the door.’”

The telegram inflamed American public opinion and turned the nation toward war. Yet even then, the deliberative Wilson was not quite ready. His second inaugural address , delivered March 5, asked Americans to abandon isolationism. “We are provincials no longer,” he declared. “The tragic events of the 30 months of vital turmoil through which we have just passed have made us citizens of the world. There can be no turning back. Our own fortunes as a nation are involved whether we would have it so or not.” Today, Wilson’s address reads like a prelude to war—but at the time, pacifists like Addams heard it as a continuation of his focus on diplomacy.

When Wilson met with his cabinet on March 20, he was still undecided. But two events the previous week added to his calculus. German U-boats had sunk three American ships, killing 15 people. And the ongoing turmoil in Russia had forced Nicholas II to abdicate the throne , ending 300 years of Romanov rule. The czar’s abdication had ceded power to a short-lived provisional government created by the Russian legislature. That meant that all of the Allied nations in World War I were now democracies fighting a German-led coalition of autocratic monarchies .

The cabinet unanimously recommended war. Wilson left without announcing his plans. “President was solemn, very sad!” wrote Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels in his diary.

Wilson likely made his decision that night. On March 21, he set a date with Congress for a special session on April 2 on “grave matters of national policy.” Alone, Wilson wrote his speech by hand and by typewriter.

According to a story that appears in many Wilson biographies, the president invited his friend Frank Cobb, editor of the New York World, to the White House on the night before his speech. Wilson revealed his anguish to his friend. He’d tried every alternative to war, he said, and he feared Americans would forsake tolerance and freedom in wartime. In words that echoed his speech to the Senate, Wilson said he still feared that a military victory would prove hollow over time.

“Germany would be beaten and so badly beaten that there would be a dictated peace, a victorious peace,” Wilson said, according to Cobb. “At the end of the war there will be no bystanders with sufficient power to influence the terms. There won’t be any peace standards left to work with.” Even then, Wilson said, “If there is any alternative, for God’s sake, let’s take it!” (Cobb’s account, given to two fellow journalists and published after his death in 1924, is so dramatic that some historians think it’s not authentic. Other historians find it credible .)

On April 2, when Wilson came to the podium at the Capitol, no one but House and perhaps Wilson’s wife, Edith, knew what he would say. He asked Congress to “declare the recent course of the Imperial German Government to be in fact nothing less than war against the government and people of the United States,” and to “formally accept the status of belligerent.” He recounted Germany’s submarine attacks and called the Zimmermann Telegram evidence of “hostile purpose.” He also declared the German government a “natural foe of liberty.” His speech’s most famous phrase would resound through the next century, through American military victories and quagmires alike: “The world must be made safe for democracy.”

Cheers resounded through the House chamber. Later that week, Congress declared war, with 373-50 votes in the House and an 82-6 margin in the Senate.

But after the speech, back at the White House, Wilson was melancholy. “My message today was a message of death for our young men,” Wilson said—and then broke into tears. “How strange it seems to applaud that.” (His secretary, Joseph Tumulty, recorded the president’s words in his 1921 memoir. But as with Cobb’s dramatic anecdote, there is doubt among historians about the story’s veracity.)

All in all, 116,516 Americans died in World War I among about nine million deaths worldwide. (More would die from the flu epidemic of 1918 and pneumonia than on the battlefield.) Wilson’s own administration struck blows against freedom and tolerance during the war, imprisoning anti-war activists such as socialist Eugene Debs . And at the Versailles conference of 1919, Wilson became one of the victors dictating peace terms to Germany. His earlier fears that such a peace would not last eerily foreshadowed the conflicts that eventually erupted into another world war.

Wilson’s high-minded argument that the U.S. should fight World War I to defend democracy has been debated ever since. A different president might have justified the war on simple grounds of self-defense, while diehard isolationists would have kept America neutral by cutting its commercial ties to Great Britain. Instead, Wilson’s sweeping doctrines promised that the United States would promote stability and freedom across the world. Those ideas have defined American diplomacy and war for the last 100 years, from World War II and NATO to Vietnam and the Middle East. A century later, we’re still living in Woodrow Wilson’s world. 

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Erick Trickey | | READ MORE

Erick Trickey is a writer in Boston, covering politics, history, cities, arts, and science. He has written for POLITICO Magazine, Next City, the Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, and Cleveland Magazine

Prologue Magazine

FDR’s “Day of Infamy” Speech

Crafting a call to arms.

Winter 2001, Vol. 33, No. 4 | Our Heritage in Documents

The USS Arizona seen burning after the attack by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the morning of December 7, 1941. It was 1 p.m. in Washington. (Franklin D. Roosevelt Library)

View in National Archives Catalog

In the early afternoon of December 7, 1941, Franklin D. Roosevelt was just finishing lunch in his oval study on the second floor of the White House, preparing to work on his stamp album, when his telephone rang.

The White House operator announced that Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox was on the line and insisted on talking with him. Roosevelt took the call.

The Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, just before 8 a.m. Hawaii time, Secretary Knox told the President. Harry Hopkins, a top aide who was with Roosevelt at the time, could not believe the report. But Roosevelt did. "It was just the kind of unexpected thing the Japanese would do. At the very time they were discussing peace in the Pacific, they were plotting to overthrow it," he said. 1

For the rest of that afternoon, sixty years ago, Roosevelt and his advisers were busy at the White House receiving fragmentary reports about the damage to U.S. installations, ships, and planes in Hawaii. Security was increased around the White House, and plans for a bomb shelter for the President underneath the nearby Treasury Department building were under way. Across the nation, news of the attack spread by radio and word of mouth, and Americans began thinking about what life in a nation at war was going to be like.

A First Draft

Roosevelt decided to go before Congress the next day to report on the attack and ask for a declaration of war. In early evening, he called in his secretary, Grace Tully. "Sit down, Grace," he said. "I'm going before Congress tomorrow, and I'd like to dictate my message. It will be short." 2

Short it was. But it was to become one of the most famous speeches of the twentieth century, giving birth to one of the most famous phrases of the century.

"Yesterday, December seventh, 1941, a date which will live in world history," he began as Tully took down the words, "the United States was simultaneously and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan." 3

Biographer Nathan Miller recalls: "He inhaled deeply on his cigarette, blew out the smoke, and began dictating in the same calm tone he used to deal with his mail. He enunciated the words incisively and slowly, carefully specifying each punctuation mark and new paragraph. Running little more than five hundred words, the message was dictated without hesitation or second thoughts." 4

Tully typed up what Roosevelt had dictated, and the President went to work on this first draft by hand.

Making Changes

Franklin Roosevelt's changes to the first draft of his speech are clearly visible on "Draft No. 1." In the opening sentence, he changed "world history" to "infamy" and "simultaneously" to "suddenly." At one point, he considered putting the words "without warning" at the end of the sentence but later crossed them out. (Franklin D. Roosevelt Library)

On draft No. 1, Roosevelt changed "a date which will live in world history" to "a date which will live in infamy," providing the speech its most famous phrase and giving birth to the term, "day of infamy," which December 7, 1941, is often called.

A few words later, he changed his report that the United States of America was "simultaneously and deliberately attacked" to "suddenly and deliberately attacked." At the end of the first sentence, he wrote the words, "without warning," but later crossed them out.

Thus that first historic sentence—the one that is usually quoted from the speech—was born: "Yesterday, December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by the naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan."

There were other changes in that first draft also. At one point, Roosevelt noted that the distance from Japan to Hawaii meant that the attack must have been planned "many days ago." He changed that to "many days or even weeks ago." Historians now know that the Japanese had considered a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor for many years.

Drafts No. 1 and the third draft have Roosevelt's handwriting all over them, but there are none of his marks on the second draft, which makes only one change from the first draft-that of the famous first sentence.

Apparently Roosevelt took back his marked-up first draft and made more revisions, which became the third draft. Writes Halford R. Ryan: "It [a second draft] contains his emendations from draft one. Curiously, however, he did not make changes on draft two but went back to draft one and made corrections on it. That is, draft one has words on it that are not in draft two but are in draft three: therefore, draft three is actually a compilation of changes on draft one." 5

Getting Updates

Roosevelt updated the speech too, as reports of Japanese actions arrived at the White House, adding lines to note Japanese attacks on Guam and the Philippine Islands. He also added a sentence near the end of the text: "No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people will in their righteous might win through to absolute victory." In other revisions, the President added further sentences to note Japanese attacks on Hong Kong, Malaya, Wake Island, and Midway Island.

Two of Roosevelt's speechwriters, Samuel I. Rosenman and Robert Sherwood, were in New York City on December 7 and did not participate in drafting the speech; the President handled this one mostly by himself. During the editing of the various drafts, Roosevelt rejected a longer version by Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles, which reviewed the events leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor. 6

However, Hopkins had a few minor word changes and one significant addition (which he labeled "Deity")—the next to the last paragraph, which read: "With confidence in our armed forces, with faith in our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph so help us God." At some point, it was expanded to "With confidence in our armed forces—with the unbounding determination of our people—we will gain the inevitable triumph—so help us God." Along with the first sentence, it became one of the most often heard quotes from the speech. 7

Usually a Long Process

President Roosevelt delivers the "Day of Infamy" speech to a joint session of Congress on December 8, 1941. Behind him are Vice President Henry Wallace (left) and Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn. To the right, in uniform in front of Rayburn, is Roosevelt's son James, who escorted his father to the Capitol. (Franklin D. Roosevelt Library)

Rosenman, Sherwood, and Hopkins were usually involved in drafting major speeches, along with others in the government, depending on the subject. Usually, a speech took from three to ten days to prepare, far longer than the December 8 speech. But Rosenman insisted that all the speeches eventually were Roosevelt's. "The speeches as finally delivered were his-and his alone-no matter who the collaborators were. He had gone over every point, every word, time and again. He had studied, reviewed, and read aloud each draft, and had changed it again and again, either in his own handwriting, by dictating inserts, or making deletions. Because of the many hours he spent in its preparation, by the time he delivered a speech he knew it almost by heart." 8

Rosenman also wrote: "The remarkable thing is that on one of the busiest and most turbulent days of his life, he was able to spend so much time and give so much thought to his speech." 9

Roosevelt's speech amounted to a call to arms for a national audience that would suddenly need to shift to a war footing that meant wage and price controls; shortages of food, fuel, and other strategic materials; and, of course, the induction into the armed forces of their sons, husbands, fathers, and sweethearts.

Changes During Delivery

The next day, at 12:30 p.m., in the House of Representatives, Roosevelt delivered his six-minute address to a joint session of Congress and a nationwide radio audience. He was interrupted several times by applause and departed only a few times from the wording on the final draft of the speech, which included four minor handwritten changes. One of them qualifies the sentence "In addition American ships have been torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu." Roosevelt used the term "reported torpedoed."

When Roosevelt delivered the speech, most of his on-the-spot changes involved word order. But many people had never heard of Oahu, the Hawaiian island on which Pearl Harbor and Honolulu are located, so it became "the American island of Oahu" to establish the fact that America had been attacked. And the sentence "Very many American lives have been lost" became "I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost." In fact, 2,403 Americans died in the attack.

A Lost Copy?

UPDATE 12-2-2016: Since this article was written, an investigation by the Roosevelt Library and the Center for Legislative Archives in 2014 confirmed that the “reading copy” remains a missing document. Neither the House copy nor the Senate copy, both doubled-spaced typewritten, is the “reading copy” that President Roosevelt used while speaking, the investigation concluded.

The “reading copy,” typed triple-spaced and in a loose-leaf binder, has not been seen since James Roosevelt brought it back to the White House after the speech on December 8, 1941, and placed it atop a coat rack.

Usually, when addressing Congress, Roosevelt brought back to the White House the "reading copy" of the speech he had just given. But on this occasion, he did not have it when he returned to the White House. A search of his coat, and that of his son James, who had escorted his father, was made. He even wrote to James, asking about it.

"I have had a howl go up from the Library at Hyde Park and from Grace here that you have taken away with you the war Message to Congress," FDR wrote his oldest son. "As a matter of fact, it probably ought to be in the Government permanently because they have everything else and this particular one is just about the equal in importance to the First Inaugural Address." 10

But James Roosevelt didn't have it either, and it was thought to be "lost"-for forty-three years. In 1984, an archivist at the National Archives and Records Administration discovered the copy in the records of the Senate, which had been sent to the National Archives Building. Roosevelt apparently had left the copy on the lectern after he finished speaking to the joint session or handed it to a clerk. In any event, a Senate clerk wrote "Dec 8, 1941, Read in joint session" on the back and filed it away with Senate records.

Today, NARA's Center for Legislative Archives at the National Archives Building holds both the Senate reading copy (Record Group 46) and another copy, virtually identical to the Senate copy but typed separately, in the House records (Record Group 233). The final "as given" version, with changes made by the President during delivery, is held by the Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, New York.

Before December 8 was over, Congress sent Roosevelt his declaration of war against Japan. But Roosevelt was careful to limit his comments in the December 8 speech and in a radio "fireside chat" a few days later to Japan, for Germany and Italy were not officially at war with the United States. That changed on December 11, when Germany and Italy declared war on the United States, which quickly declared war on Germany and Italy.

The Prologue staff expresses its thanks to Alycia Vivona of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library for her kind help in providing documents and background material for this article. Our thanks also go to Raymond Teichman of the Roosevelt Library and Rod Ross of the Center for Legislative Archives.

1. Nathan Miller, FDR: An Intimate History (1983), p. 477.

2. Ibid., p. 479.

3. Text of draft No. 1 of speech, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library. All of the drafts of the speech are in the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, NY, except the copy from which Roosevelt read on December 8, 1941. It is in the Center for Legislative Archives at the National Archives Building in Washington, DC .

4. Miller, FDR: An Intimate History , p. 479.

5. Halford R. Ryan, Franklin D. Roosevelt's Rhetorical Presidency (1988), p. 152.

6. Grace Tully, FDR, My Boss (1949), p. 256.

7. Harry L. Hopkins, memorandum, Dec. 8, 1941, Papers of Harry L. Hopkins, FDR Library

8. Samuel I. Rosenman,  Working With Roosevelt,  (1952) p. 11.

9. Ibid., p. 307.

10. FDR to James Roosevelt, Dec. 23, 1941, President's Personal Files 1820, FDR Library.

To find out more. . .

• Visit the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library
• A plan for teaching about the speech: www.archives.gov/digital_classroom/lessons/day_of_infamy/day_of_infamy.html (links to digital images of the first draft of the speech, with the President's handwritten changes, as well as links to audio recordings of the address).
• American Originals : background on the Pearl Harbor attack and the Day of Infamy speech.

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How Reagan’s ‘Tear Down This Wall’ Speech Marked a Cold War Turning Point

By: Sarah Pruitt

Updated: June 9, 2023 | Original: May 1, 2018

On June 12, 1987, President Ronald Reagan stood just 100 yards away from the concrete barrier dividing East and West Berlin and uttered some of the most unforgettable words of his presidency: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

By the time Reagan traveled to Berlin, Germany, to commemorate the 750th anniversary of the city’s founding, the Berlin Wall had divided the city in half for nearly 26 years. Built, and officially closed on August 12, 1961, to prevent disaffected East Germans from fleeing the relative deprivations of life in their country for greater freedom and opportunity in the West, the wall was more than just a physical barrier. It also stood as a vivid symbol of the battle between communism and democracy that divided Berlin, Germany and the entire European continent during the Cold War .

Why Was the Berlin Wall Built?

The wall’s origins traced back to the years after World War II , when the Soviet Union and its Western allies carved Germany into two zones of influence that would become two separate countries, respectively: the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). Located deep within Soviet-controlled East Germany, the capital city of Berlin was also split in two. 

Over the next decade or so, some 2.5 million East Germans—including many skilled workers, intellectuals and professionals—used the capital as the primary route to flee the country, especially after the border between East and West Germany was officially sealed in 1952.

Seeking to stop this mass exodus, the East German government closed off passage between the two Berlins during the night of August 12, 1961. What began as a barbed wire fence, policed by armed guards, was soon fortified with concrete and guard towers, completely encircling West Berlin and separating Berliners on both sides from their families, jobs and the lives they had known before. Over the next 28 years, thousands of people would risk their lives to escape East Germany over the Berlin Wall, and some 140 were killed in the attempt .

Reagan’s 'Tear Down this Wall' Speech Initially Met Criticism

Despite its later fame, Reagan’s speech initially received relatively little media coverage, and few accolades, at the time. Western pundits viewed it as misguided idealism on Reagan’s part, while the Soviet news agency Tass called it “openly provocative” and “war-mongering.” And Gorbachev himself told an American audience years later : “[W]e really were not impressed. We knew that Mr. Reagan’s original profession was actor.” (Gorbachev added that Reagan had been “courageously cooperative,” and a great partner and president.)

According to the former Reagan speechwriter Peter Robinson, who drafted the speech, even Reagan’s advisers in the State Department and National Security Council strongly objected, claiming that such a direct challenge would damage the relationship with the new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The two nations had been moving closer to peace and even disarmament, especially after a productive summit between Reagan and Gorbachev in Reykjavik in October 1986.

Despite this, the Berlin Wall—that heavily fortified symbol of Cold War divisions—seemed as solid as ever.

On June 12, 1987, standing on the West German side of the Berlin Wall, with the iconic Brandenburg Gate at his back, Reagan declared: “General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate.” Reagan then waited for the applause to die down before continuing. “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

Reagan’s tactics were a departure from his three immediate predecessors, Presidents Richard Nixon , Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter , who all focused on a policy of détente with the Soviet Union, playing down Cold War tensions and trying to foster a peaceful coexistence between the two nations. Reagan dismissed détente as a “one-way street that the Soviet Union has used to pursue its own aims.”

When Did the Berlin Wall Fall?

On November 9, 1989, the Cold War officially began to thaw when Egon Krenz, the head of East Germany’s Communist Party , announce d that citizens could now cross into West Germany freely. That night, thousands of East and West Germans headed to the Berlin Wall to celebrate, many armed with hammers, chisels and other tools. Over the next few weeks, the wall would be nearly completely dismantled. After talks over the next year, East and West Germany officially reunited on October 3, 1990.

This was a result of many changes over the course of two years. Gorbachev’s reforms within the Soviet Union gave Eastern Bloc nations more freedom to determine their own government and access to the West. Protests within East Germany gained strength, and after Hungary and Czechoslovakia opened their borders, East Germans began defecting en masse.

The Lasting Legacy of Reagan’s Speech

The “Tear Down This Wall” speech didn’t mark the end of Reagan’s attempts to work with Gorbachev on improving relations between the two rival nations: He would join the Soviet leader in a series of summit meetings through the end of his presidency in early 1989, even signing a major arms control agreement, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

In the aftermath of the Berlin Wall’s fall, many began to reevaluate Reagan’s earlier speech, viewing it as a harbinger of the changes that were then taking place in Eastern Europe. In the United States, Reagan’s challenge to Gorbachev has been celebrated as a triumphant moment in his foreign policy, and as Time magazine later put it , “the four most famous words of Ronald Reagan’s presidency.”

In the end, Gorbachev’s reforms, and the resulting protest movements put pressure on the East German government to open barriers to the West.  Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 for his work in ending the Cold War, including the fall of the Berlin Wall.

While Gorbachev's role in thawing the Cold War was clear, Reagan's words became memorable. As Douglas Brinkley, professor of history at Rice University, told CBS News in 2012, Reagan’s speech is “seen as a turning point in the Cold War” because it “bolstered the morale of the pro-democracy movement in East Germany.” Yet the greatest impact of the speech may have been the role it played in the creation of Reagan’s enduring legacy as president, and in solidifying his legendary status among his supporters as the “great communicator.”

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The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW Washington, DC 20500

Remarks by President   Biden on the End of the War in   Afghanistan

State Dining Room

3:28 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT:  Last night in Kabul, the United States ended 20 years of war in Afghanistan — the longest war in American history. 

We completed one of the biggest airlifts in history, with more than 120,000 people evacuated to safety.  That number is more than double what most experts thought were possible.  No nation — no nation has ever done anything like it in all of history.  Only the United States had the capacity and the will and the ability to do it, and we did it today.

The extraordinary success of this mission was due to the incredible skill, bravery, and selfless courage of the United States military and our diplomats and intelligence professionals. 

For weeks, they risked their lives to get American citizens, Afghans who helped us, citizens of our Allies and partners, and others onboard planes and out of the country.  And they did it facing a crush of enormous crowds seeking to leave the country.  And they did it knowing ISIS-K terrorists — sworn enemies of the Taliban — were lurking in the midst of those crowds. 

And still, the men and women of the United States military, our diplomatic corps, and intelligence professionals did their job and did it well, risking their lives not for professional gains but to serve others; not in a mission of war but in a mission of mercy.  Twenty servicemembers were wounded in the service of this mission.  Thirteen heroes gave their lives.

I was just at Dover Air Force Base for the dignified transfer.  We owe them and their families a debt of gratitude we can never repay but we should never, ever, ever forget.

In April, I made the decision to end this war.  As part of that decision, we set the date of August 31st for American troops to withdraw.  The assumption was that more than 300,000 Afghan National Security Forces that we had trained over the past two decades and equipped would be a strong adversary in their civil wars with the Taliban.

That assumption — that the Afghan government would be able to hold on for a period of time beyond military drawdown — turned out not to be accurate.

But I still instructed our national security team to prepare for every eventuality — even that one.  And that’s what we did. 

So, we were ready when the Afghan Security Forces — after two decades of fighting for their country and losing thousands of their own — did not hold on as long as anyone expected. 

We were ready when they and the people of Afghanistan watched their own government collapse and their president flee amid the corruption and malfeasance, handing over the country to their enemy, the Taliban, and significantly increasing the risk to U.S. personnel and our Allies.

As a result, to safely extract American citizens before August 31st — as well as embassy personnel, Allies and partners, and those Afghans who had worked with us and fought alongside of us for 20 years — I had authorized 6,000 troops — American troops — to Kabul to help secure the airport.

As General McKenzie said, this is the way the mission was designed.  It was designed to operate under severe stress and attack.  And that’s what it did.

Since March, we reached out 19 times to Americans in Afghanistan, with multiple warnings and offers to help them leave Afghanistan — all the way back as far as March.  After we started the evacuation 17 days ago, we did initial outreach and analysis and identified around 5,000 Americans who had decided earlier to stay in Afghanistan but now wanted to leave.

Our Operation Allied Rescue [Allies Refuge] ended up getting more than 5,500 Americans out.  We got out thousands of citizens and diplomats from those countries that went into Afghanistan with us to get bin Laden.  We got out locally employed staff of the United States Embassy and their families, totaling roughly 2,500 people.  We got thousands of Afghan translators and interpreters and others, who supported the United States, out as well.

Now we believe that about 100 to 200 Americans remain in Afghanistan with some intention to leave.  Most of those who remain are dual citizens, long-time residents who had earlier decided to stay because of their family roots in Afghanistan.

The bottom line: Ninety [Ninety-eight] percent of Americans in Afghanistan who wanted to leave were able to leave.

And for those remaining Americans, there is no deadline.  We remain committed to get them out if they want to come out.  Secretary of State Blinken is leading the continued diplomatic efforts to ensure a safe passage for any American, Afghan partner, or foreign national who wants to leave Afghanistan.

In fact, just yesterday, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution that sent a clear message about what the international community expects the Taliban to deliver on moving forward, notably freedom of travel, freedom to leave.  And together, we are joined by over 100 countries that are determined to make sure the Taliban upholds those commitments.

It will include ongoing efforts in Afghanistan to reopen the airport, as well as overland routes, allowing for continued departure to those who want to leave and delivery of humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan.

The Taliban has made public commitments, broadcast on television and radio across Afghanistan, on safe passage for anyone wanting to leave, including those who worked alongside Americans.  We don’t take them by their word alone but by their actions, and we have leverage to make sure those commitments are met.

Let me be clear: Leaving August the 31st is not due to an arbitrary deadline; it was designed to save American lives.

My predecessor, the former President, signed an agreement with the Taliban to remove U.S. troops by May the 1st, just months after I was inaugurated.  It included no requirement that the Taliban work out a cooperative governing arrangement with the Afghan government, but it did authorize the release of 5,000 prisoners last year, including some of the Taliban’s top war commanders, among those who just took control of Afghanistan.

And by the time I came to office, the Taliban was in its strongest military position since 2001, controlling or contesting nearly half of the country.

The previous administration’s agreement said that if we stuck to the May 1st deadline that they had signed on to leave by, the Taliban wouldn’t attack any American forces, but if we stayed, all bets were off.

So we were left with a simple decision: Either follow through on the commitment made by the last administration and leave Afghanistan, or say we weren’t leaving and commit another tens of thousands more troops going back to war.

That was the choice — the real choice — between leaving or escalating.

I was not going to extend this forever war, and I was not extending a forever exit.  The decision to end the military airlift operations at Kabul airport was based on the unanimous recommendation of my civilian and military advisors — the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and all the service chiefs, and the commanders in the field.

Their recommendation was that the safest way to secure the passage of the remaining Americans and others out of the country was not to continue with 6,000 troops on the ground in harm’s way in Kabul, but rather to get them out through non-military means.

In the 17 days that we operated in Kabul after the Taliban seized power, we engaged in an around-the-clock effort to provide every American the opportunity to leave.  Our State Department was working 24/7 contacting and talking, and in some cases, walking Americans into the airport. 

Again, more than 5,500 Americans were airlifted out.  And for those who remain, we will make arrangements to get them out if they so choose.

As for the Afghans, we and our partners have airlifted 100,000 of them.  No country in history has done more to airlift out the residents of another country than we have done.  We will continue to work to help more people leave the country who are at risk.  And we’re far from done.

For now, I urge all Americans to join me in grateful prayer for our troops and diplomats and intelligence officers who carried out this mission of mercy in Kabul and at tremendous risk with such unparalleled results: an airma- — an airlift that evacuated tens of thousands to a network of volunteers and veterans who helped identifies [identify] those needing evacuation, guide them to the airport, and provided them for their support along the way.

We’re going to continue to need their help.  We need your help.  And I’m looking forward to meeting with you. 

And to everyone who is now offering or who will offer to welcome Afghan allies to their homes around the world, including in America: We thank you.

I take responsibility for the decision.  Now, some say we should have started mass evacuations sooner and “Couldn’t this have be done — have been done in a more orderly manner?”  I respectfully disagree.

Imagine if we had begun evacuations in June or July, bringing in thousands of American troops and evacuating more than 120,000 people in the middle of a civil war.  There still would have been a rush to the airport, a breakdown in confidence and control of the government, and it still would have been a very difficult and dangerous mission.

The bottom line is: There is no evacuatio- — evacuation from the end of a war that you can run without the kinds of complexities, challenges, and threats we faced.  None.

There are those who would say we should have stayed indefinitely for years on end.  They ask, “Why don’t we just keep doing what we were doing?  Why did we have to change anything?” 

The fact is: Everything had changed.  My predecessor had made a deal with the Taliban.  When I came into office, we faced a deadline — May 1.  The Taliban onslaught was coming.

We faced one of two choices: Follow the agreement of the previous administration and extend it to have — or extend to more time for people to get out; or send in thousands of more troops and escalate the war.

To those asking for a third decade of war in Afghanistan, I ask: What is the vital national interest?  In my view, we only have one: to make sure Afghanistan can never be used again to launch an attack on our homeland.

Remember why we went to Afghanistan in the first place?  Because we were attacked by Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda on September 11th, 2001, and they were based in Afghanistan.

We delivered justice to bin Laden on May 2nd, 2011 — over a decade ago.  Al Qaeda was decimated.

I respectfully suggest you ask yourself this question: If we had been attacked on September 11, 2001, from Yemen instead of Afghanistan, would we have ever gone to war in Afghanistan — even though the Taliban controlled Afghanistan in 2001?  I believe the honest answer is “no.”  That’s because we had no vital national interest in Afghanistan other than to prevent an attack on America’s homeland and their fr- — our friends.  And that’s true today.

We succeeded in what we set out to do in Afghanistan over a decade ago.  Then we stayed for another decade.  It was time to end this war. 

This is a new world.  The terror threat has metastasized across the world, well beyond Afghanistan.  We face threats from al-Shabaab in Somalia; al Qaeda affiliates in Syria and the Arabian Peninsula; and ISIS attempting to create a caliphate in Syria and Iraq, and establishing affiliates across Africa and Asia.  The fundamental obligation of a President, in my opinion, is to defend and protect America — not against threats of 2001, but against the threats of 2021 and tomorrow.  That is the guiding principle behind my decisions about Afghanistan.  I simply do not believe that the safety and security of America is enhanced by continuing to deploy thousands of American troops and spending billions of dollars a year in Afghanistan.  But I also know that the threat from terrorism continues in its pernicious and evil nature.  But it’s changed, expanded to other countries.  Our strategy has to change too. We will maintain the fight against terrorism in Afghanistan and other countries.  We just don’t need to fight a ground war to do it.  We have what’s called over-the-horizon capabilities, which means we can strike terrorists and targets without American boots on the ground — or very few, if needed. We’ve shown that capacity just in the last week.  We struck ISIS-K remotely, days after they murdered 13 of our servicemembers and dozens of innocent Afghans. 

And to ISIS-K: We are not done with you yet.  As Commander-in-Chief, I firmly believe the best path to guard our safety and our security lies in a tough, unforgiving, targeted, precise strategy that goes after terror where it is today, not where it was two decades ago.  That’s what’s in our national interest.  And here’s a critical thing to understand: The world is changing.  We’re engaged in a serious competition with China.  We’re dealing with the challenges on multiple fronts with Russia.  We’re confronted with cyberattacks and nuclear proliferation.  We have to shore up America’s competitive[ness] to meet these new challenges in the competition for the 21st century.  And we can do both: fight terrorism and take on new threats that are here now and will continue to be here in the future.  And there’s nothing China or Russia would rather have, would want more in this competition than the United States to be bogged down another decade in Afghanistan. As we turn the page on the foreign policy that has guided our nat- — our nation the last two decades, we’ve got to learn from our mistakes. To me, there are two that are paramount.  First, we must set missions with clear, achievable goals — not ones we’ll never reach.  And second, we must stay clearly focused on the fundamental national security interest of the United States of America. This decision about Afghanistan is not just about Afghanistan.  It’s about ending an era of major military operations to remake other countries.  We saw a mission of counterterrorism in Afghanistan — getting the terrorists and stopping attacks — morph into a counterinsurgency, nation building — trying to create a democratic, cohesive, and unified Afghanistan -– something that has never been done over the many centuries of Afghans’ [Afghanistan’s] history.  Moving on from that mindset and those kind of large-scale troop deployments will make us stronger and more effective and safer at home. 

And for anyone who gets the wrong idea, let me say it clearly.  To those who wish America harm, to those that engage in terrorism against us and our allies, know this: The United States will never rest.  We will not forgive.  We will not forget.  We will hunt you down to the ends of the Earth, and we will — you will pay the ultimate price.

And let me be clear: We will continue to support the Afghan people through diplomacy, international influence, and humanitarian aid.  We’ll continue to push for regional diplomacy and engagement to prevent violence and instability.  We’ll continue to speak out for basic rights of the Afghan people, especially women and girls, as we speak out for women and girls all around the globe.  And I’ve been clear that human rights will be the center of our foreign policy. 

But the way to do that is not through endless military deployments, but through diplomacy, economic tools, and rallying the rest of the world for support.

My fellow Americans, the war in Afghanistan is now over.  I’m the fourth President who has faced the issue of whether and when to end this war.  When I was running for President, I made a commitment to the American people that I would end this war.  And today, I’ve honored that commitment.  It was time to be honest with the American people again.  We no longer had a clear purpose in an open-ended mission in Afghanistan. 

After 20 years of war in Afghanistan, I refused to send another generation of America’s sons and daughters to fight a war that should have ended long ago. 

After more than $2 trillion spent in Afghanistan — a cost that researchers at Brown University estimated would be over $300 million a day for 20 years in Afghanistan — for two decades — yes, the American people should hear this: $300 million a day for two decades.

If you take the number of $1 trillion, as many say, that’s still $150 million a day for two decades.  And what have we lost as a consequence in terms of opportunities?  I refused to continue in a war that was no longer in the service of the vital national interest of our people. 

And most of all, after 800,000 Americans serving in Afghanistan — I’ve traveled that whole country — brave and honorable service; after 20,744 American servicemen and women injured, and the loss of 2,461 American personnel, including 13 lives lost just this week, I refused to open another decade of warfare in Afghanistan. 

We’ve been a nation too long at war.  If you’re 20 years old today, you have never known an America at peace. 

So, when I hear that we could’ve, should’ve continued the so-called low-grade effort in Afghanistan, at low risk to our service members, at low cost, I don’t think enough people understand how much we have asked of the 1 percent of this country who put that uniform on, who are willing to put their lives on the line in defense of our nation. 

Maybe it’s because my deceased son, Beau, served in Iraq for a full year, before that.  Well, maybe it’s because of what I’ve seen over the years as senator, vice president, and president traveling these countries.

A lot of our veterans and their families have gone through hell — deployment after deployment, months and years away from their families; missed birthdays, anniversaries; empty chairs at holidays; financial struggles; divorces; loss of limbs; traumatic brain injury; posttraumatic stress. 

We see it in the struggles many have when they come home.  We see it in the strain on their families and caregivers.  We see it in the strain of their families when they’re not there.  We see it in the grief borne by their survivors.  The cost of war they will carry with them their whole lives.

Most tragically, we see it in the shocking and stunning statistic that should give pause to anyone who thinks war can ever be low-grade, low-risk, or low-cost: 18 veterans, on average, who die by suicide every single day in America — not in a far-off place, but right here in America. 

There’s nothing low-grade or low-risk or low-cost about any war.  It’s time to end the war in Afghanistan. 

As we close 20 years of war and strife and pain and sacrifice, it’s time to look to the future, not the past — to a future that’s safer, to a future that’s more secure, to a future that honors those who served and all those who gave what President Lincoln called their “last full measure of devotion.”

I give you my word: With all of my heart, I believe this is the right decision, a wise decision, and the best decision for America.

Thank you.  Thank you.  And may God bless you all.  And may God protect our troops.

3:54 P.M. EDT

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On some positions a coward has asked the question is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question is it right? And there come a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right. [Applause]

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Richard Nixon

Address to the nation on the war in vietnam.

Good evening, my fellow Americans:

Tonight I want to talk to you on a subject of deep concern to all Americans and to many people in all parts of the world-the war in Vietnam.

I believe that one of the reasons for the deep division about Vietnam is that many Americans have lost confidence in what their Government has told them about our policy. The American people cannot and should not be asked to support a policy which involves the overriding issues of war and peace unless they know the truth about that policy.

Tonight, therefore, I would like to answer some of the questions that I know are on the minds of many of you listening to me.

How and why did America get involved in Vietnam in the first place?

How has this administration changed the policy of the previous administration?

What has really happened in the negotiations in Paris and on the battlefront in Vietnam?

What choices do we have if we are to end the war?

What are the prospects for peace? Now, let me begin by describing the situation I found when I was inaugurated on January 20.

--The war had been going on for 4 years.

--31,000 Americans had been killed in action.

--The training program for the South Vietnamese was behind schedule.

--540,000 Americans were in Vietnam with no plans to reduce the number.

--No progress had been made at the negotiations in Paris and the United States had not put forth a comprehensive peace proposal.

--The war was causing deep division at home and criticism from many of our friends as well as our enemies abroad.

In view of these circumstances there were some who urged that I end the war at once by ordering the immediate withdrawal of all American forces.

From a political standpoint this would have been a popular and easy course to follow. After all, we became involved in the war while my predecessor was in office. I could blame the defeat which would be the result of my action on him and come out as the peacemaker. Some put it to me quite bluntly: This was the only way to avoid allowing Johnson's war to become Nixon's war.

But I had a greater obligation than to think only of the years of my administration and of the next election. I had to think of the effect of my decision on the next generation and on the future of peace and freedom in America and in the world.

Let us all understand that the question before us is not whether some Americans are for peace and some Americans are against peace. The question at issue is not whether Johnson's war becomes Nixon's war.

The great question is: How can we win America's peace?

Well, let us turn now to the fundamental issue. Why and how did the United States become involved in Vietnam in the first place?

Fifteen years ago North Vietnam, with the logistical support of Communist China and the Soviet Union, launched a campaign to impose a Communist government on South Vietnam by instigating and supporting a revolution.

In response to the request of the Government of South Vietnam, President Eisenhower sent economic aid and military equipment to assist the people of South Vietnam in their efforts to prevent a Communist takeover. Seven years ago, President Kennedy sent 16,000 military personnel to Vietnam as combat advisers. Four years ago, President Johnson sent American combat forces to South Vietnam.

Now, many believe that President Johnson's decision to send American combat forces to South Vietnam was wrong. And many others--I among them--have been strongly critical of the way the war has been conducted.

But the question facing us today is: Now that we are in the war, what is the best way to end it?

In January I could only conclude that the precipitate withdrawal of American forces from Vietnam would be a disaster not only for South Vietnam but for the United States and for the cause of peace.

For the South Vietnamese, our precipitate withdrawal would inevitably allow the Communists to repeat the massacres which followed their takeover in the North 15 years before.

--They then murdered more than 50,000 people and hundreds of thousands more died in slave labor camps.

--We saw a prelude of what would happen in South Vietnam when the Communists entered the city of Hue last year. During their brief rule there, there was a bloody reign of terror in which 3,000 civilians were clubbed, shot to death, and buried in mass graves.

--With the sudden collapse of our support, these atrocities of Hue would become the nightmare of the entire nation--and particularly for the million and a half Catholic refugees who fled to South Vietnam when the

Communists took over in the North. For the United States, this first defeat in our Nation's history would result in a collapse of confidence in American leadership, not only in Asia but throughout the world.

Three American Presidents have recognized the great stakes involved in Vietnam and understood what had to be done.

In 1963, President Kennedy, with his characteristic eloquence and clarity, said: "we want to see a stable government there, carrying on a struggle to maintain its national independence.

"We believe strongly in that. We are not going to withdraw from that effort. In my opinion, for us to withdraw from that effort would mean a collapse not only of South Viet-Nam, but Southeast Asia. So we are going to stay there."

President Eisenhower and President Johnson expressed the same conclusion during their terms of office.

For the future of peace, precipitate withdrawal would thus be a disaster of immense magnitude.

--A nation cannot remain great if it betrays its allies and lets down its friends.

--Our defeat and humiliation in South Vietnam without question would promote recklessness in the councils of those great powers who have not yet abandoned their goals of world conquest.

--This would spark violence wherever our commitments help maintain the peace--in the Middle East, in Berlin, eventually even in the Western Hemisphere.

Ultimately, this would cost more lives. It would not bring peace; it would bring more war.

For these reasons, I rejected the recommendation that I should end the war by immediately withdrawing all of our forces. I chose instead to change American policy on both the negotiating front and battlefront.

In order to end a war fought on many fronts, I initiated a pursuit for peace on many fronts.

In a television speech on May 14, in a speech before the United Nations, and on a number of other occasions I set forth our peace proposals in great detail.

--We have offered the complete withdrawal of all outside forces within 1 year.

--We have proposed a cease-fire under international supervision.

--We have offered free elections under international supervision with the Communists participating in the organization and conduct of the elections as an organized political force. And the Saigon Government has pledged to accept the result of the elections.

We have not put forth our proposals on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. We have indicated that we are willing to discuss the proposals that have been put forth by the other side. We have declared that anything is negotiable except the right of the people of South Vietnam to determine their own future. At the Paris peace conference, Ambassador Lodge has demonstrated our flexibility and good faith in 40 public meetings.

Hanoi has refused even to discuss our proposals. They demand our unconditional acceptance of their terms, which are that we withdraw all American forces immediately and unconditionally and that we overthrow the Government of South Vietnam as we leave.

We have not limited our peace initiatives to public forums and public statements. I recognized, in January, that a long and bitter war like this usually cannot be settled in a public forum. That is why in addition to the public statements and negotiations I have explored every possible private avenue that might lead to a settlement.

Tonight I am taking the unprecedented step of disclosing to you some of our other initiatives for peace--initiatives we undertook privately and secretly because we thought we thereby might open a door which publicly would be closed.

I did not wait for my inauguration to begin my quest for peace.

--Soon after my election, through an individual who is directly in contact on a personal basis with the leaders of North Vietnam, I made two private offers for a rapid, comprehensive settlement. Hanoi's replies called in effect for our surrender before negotiations.

--Since the Soviet Union furnishes most of the military equipment for North Vietnam, Secretary of State Rogers, my Assistant for National Security Affairs, Dr. Kissinger, Ambassador Lodge, and I, personally, have met on a number of occasions with representatives of the Soviet Government to enlist their assistance in getting meaningful negotiations started. In addition, we have had extended discussions directed toward that same end with representatives of other governments which have diplomatic relations with North Vietnam. None of these initiatives have to date produced results.

--In mid-July, I became convinced that it was necessary to make a major move to break the deadlock in the Paris talks. I spoke directly in this office, where I am now sitting, with an individual who had known Ho Chi Minh [President, Democratic Republic of Vietnam] on a personal basis for 25 years. Through him I sent a letter to Ho Chi Minh. I did this outside of the usual diplomatic channels with the hope that with the necessity of making statements for propaganda removed, there might be constructive progress toward bringing the war to an end. Let me read from that letter to you now.

"Dear Mr. President:

"I realize that it is difficult to communicate meaningfully across the gulf of four years of war. But precisely because of this gulf, I wanted to take this opportunity to reaffirm in all solemnity my desire to work for a just peace. I deeply believe that the war in Vietnam has gone on too long and delay in bringing it to an end can benefit no one--least of all the people of Vietnam ....

"The time has come to move forward at the conference table toward an early resolution of this tragic war. You will find us forthcoming and open-minded in a common effort to bring the blessings of peace to the brave people of Vietnam. Let history record that at this critical juncture, both sides turned their face toward peace rather than toward conflict and war."

I received Ho Chi Minh's reply on August 30, 3 days before his death. It simply reiterated the public position North Vietnam had taken at Paris and flatly rejected my initiative.

The full text of both letters is being released to the press.

--In addition to the public meetings that I have referred to, Ambassador Lodge has met with Vietnam's chief negotiator in Paris in 11 private sessions.

--We have taken other significant initiatives which must remain secret to keep open some channels of communication which may still prove to be productive. But the effect of all the public, private, and secret negotiations which have been undertaken since the bombing halt a year ago and since this administration came into office on January 20, can be summed up in one sentence: No progress whatever has been made except agreement on the shape of the bargaining table. Well now, who is at fault?

It has become clear that the obstacle in negotiating an end to the war is not the President of the United States. It is not the South Vietnamese Government.

The obstacle is the other side's absolute refusal to show the least willingness to join us in seeking a just peace. And it will not do so while it is convinced that all it has to do is to wait for our next concession, and our next concession after that one, until it gets everything it wants.

There can now be no longer any question that progress in negotiation depends only on Hanoi's deciding to negotiate, to negotiate seriously.

I realize that this report on our efforts on the diplomatic front is discouraging to the American people, but the American people are entitled to know the truth-the bad news as well as the good news-where the lives of our young men are involved.

Now let me turn, however, to a more encouraging report on another front.

At the time we launched our search for peace I recognized we might not succeed in bringing an end to the war through negotiation. I, therefore, put into effect another plan to bring peace--a plan which will bring the war to an end regardless of what happens on the negotiating front.

It is in line with a major shift in U.S. foreign policy which I described in my press conference at Guam on July 25. Let me briefly explain what has been described as the Nixon Doctrine--a policy which not only will help end the war in Vietnam, but which is an essential element of our program to prevent future Vietnams.

We Americans are a do-it-yourself people. We are an impatient people. Instead of teaching someone else to do a job, we like to do it ourselves. And this trait has been carried over into our foreign policy.

In Korea and again in Vietnam, the United States furnished most of the money, most of the arms, and most of the men to help the people of those countries defend their freedom against Communist aggression.

Before any American troops were committed to Vietnam, a leader of another Asian country expressed this opinion to me when I was traveling in Asia as a private citizen. He said: "When you are trying to assist another nation defend its freedom, U.S. policy should be to help them fight the war but not to fight the war for them."

Well, in accordance with this wise counsel, I laid down in Guam three principles as guidelines for future American policy toward Asia:

--First, the United States will keep all of its treaty commitments.

--Second, we shall provide a shield if a nuclear power threatens the freedom of a nation allied with us or of a nation whose survival we consider vital to our security.

--Third, in cases involving other types of aggression, we shall furnish military and economic assistance when requested in accordance with our treaty commitments. But we shall look to the nation directly threatened to assume the primary responsibility of providing the manpower for its defense.

After I announced this policy, I found that the leaders of the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, South Korea, and other nations which might be threatened by Communist aggression, welcomed this new direction in American foreign policy.

The defense of freedom is everybody's business--not just America's business. And it is particularly the responsibility of the people whose freedom is threatened. In the previous administration, we Americanized the war in Vietnam. In this administration, we are Vietnamizing the search for peace.

The policy of the previous administration not only resulted in our assuming the primary responsibility for fighting the war, but even more significantly did not adequately stress the goal of strengthening the South Vietnamese so that they could defend themselves when we left.

The Vietnamization plan was launched following Secretary Laird's visit to Vietnam in March. Under the plan, I ordered first a substantial increase in the training and equipment of South Vietnamese forces.

In July, on my visit to Vietnam, I changed General Abrams' orders so that they were consistent with the objectives of our new policies. Under the new orders, the primary mission of our troops is to enable the South Vietnamese forces to assume the full responsibility for the security of South Vietnam.

Our air operations have been reduced by over 20 percent.

And now we have begun to see the results of this long overdue change in American policy in Vietnam.

--After 5 years of Americans going into Vietnam, we are finally bringing American men home. By December 15, over 60,000 men will have been withdrawn from South Vietnam including 20 percent of all of our combat forces.

--The South Vietnamese have continued to gain in strength. As a result they have been able to take over combat responsibilities from our American troops.

Two other significant developments have occurred since this administration took office.

--Enemy infiltration, infiltration which is essential if they are to launch a major attack, over the last 3 months is less than 20 percent of what it was over the same period last year.

--Most important--United States casualties have declined during the last 2 months to the lowest point in 3 years.

Let me now turn to our program for the future.

We have adopted a plan which we have worked out in cooperation with the South Vietnamese for the complete withdrawal of all U.S. combat ground forces, and their replacement by South Vietnamese forces on an orderly scheduled timetable. This withdrawal will be made from strength and not from weakness. As South Vietnamese forces become stronger, the rate of American withdrawal can become greater.

I have not and do not intend to announce the timetable for our program. And there are obvious reasons for this decision which I am sure you will understand. As I have indicated on several occasions, the rate of withdrawal will depend on developments on three fronts.

One of these is the progress which can be or might be made in the Paris talks. An announcement of a fixed timetable for our withdrawal would completely remove any incentive for the enemy to negotiate an agreement. They would simply wait until our forces had withdrawn and then move in.

The other two factors on which we will base our withdrawal decisions are the level of enemy activity and the progress of the training programs of the South Vietnamese forces. And I am glad to be able to report tonight progress on both of these fronts has been greater than we anticipated when we started the program in June for withdrawal. As a result, our timetable for withdrawal is more optimistic now than when we made our first estimates in June. Now, this clearly demonstrates why it is not wise to be frozen in on a fixed timetable.

We must retain the flexibility to base each withdrawal decision on the situation as it is at that time rather than on estimates that are no longer valid.

Along with this optimistic estimate, I must--in all candor--leave one note of caution.

If the level of enemy activity significantly increases we might have to adjust our timetable accordingly.

However, I want the record to be completely clear on one point.

At the time of the bombing halt just a year ago, there was some confusion as to whether there was an understanding on the part of the enemy that if we stopped the bombing of North Vietnam they would stop the shelling of cities in South Vietnam. I want to be sure that there is no misunderstanding on the part of the enemy with regard to our withdrawal program.

We have noted the reduced level of infiltration, the reduction of our casualties, and are basing our withdrawal decisions partially on those factors.

If the level of infiltration or our casualties increase while we are trying to scale down the fighting, it will be the result of a conscious decision by the enemy.

Hanoi could make no greater mistake than to assume that an increase in violence will be to its advantage. If I conclude that increased enemy action jeopardizes our remaining forces in Vietnam, I shall not hesitate to take strong and effective measures to deal with that situation.

This is not a threat. This is a statement of policy, which as Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces, I am making in meeting my responsibility for the protection of American fighting men wherever they may be.

My fellow Americans, I am sure you can recognize from what I have said that we really only have two choices open to us if we want to end this war.

--I can order an immediate, precipitate withdrawal of all Americans from Vietnam without regard to the effects of that action.

--Or we can persist in our search for a just peace through a negotiated settlement if possible, or through continued implementation of our plan for Vietnamization if necessary--a plan in which we will withdraw all of our forces from Vietnam on a schedule in accordance with our program, as the South Vietnamese become strong enough to defend their own freedom. I have chosen this second course. It is not the easy way. It is the right way.

It is a plan which will end the war and serve the cause of peace--not just in Vietnam but in the Pacific and in the world.

In speaking of the consequences of a precipitate withdrawal, I mentioned that our allies would lose confidence in America.

Far more dangerous, we would lose confidence in ourselves. Oh, the immediate reaction would be a sense of relief that our men were coming home. But as we saw the consequences of what we had done, inevitable remorse and divisive recrimination would scar our spirit as a people.

We have faced other crises in our history and have become stronger by rejecting the easy way out and taking the right way in meeting our challenges. Our greatness as a nation has been our capacity to do what had to be done when we knew our course was right.

I recognize that some of my fellow citizens disagree with the plan for peace I have chosen. Honest and patriotic Americans have reached different conclusions as to how peace should be achieved.

In San Francisco a few weeks ago, I saw demonstrators. carrying signs reading: "Lose in Vietnam, bring the boys home."

Well, one of the strengths of our free society is that any American has a right to reach that conclusion and to advocate that point of view. But as President of the United States, I would be untrue to my oath of office if I allowed the policy of this Nation to be dictated by the minority who hold that point of view and who try to impose it on the Nation by mounting demonstrations in the street.

For almost 200 years, the policy of this Nation has been made under our Constitution by those leaders in the Congress and the White House elected by all of the people. If a vocal minority, however fervent its cause, prevails over reason and the will of the majority, this Nation has no future as a free society.

And now I would like to address a word, if I may, to the young people of this Nation who are particularly concerned, and I understand why they are concerned, about this war.

I respect your idealism.

I share your concern for peace. I want peace as much as you do. There are powerful personal reasons I want to end this war. This week I will have to sign 83 letters to mothers, fathers, wives, and loved ones of men who have given their lives for America in Vietnam. It is very little satisfaction to me that this is only one-third as many letters as I signed the first week in office. There is nothing I want more than to see the day come when I do not have to write any of those letters.

--I want to end the war to save the lives of those brave young men in Vietnam.

--But I want to end it in a way which will increase the chance that their younger brothers and their sons will not have to fight in some future Vietnam someplace in the world.

--And I want to end the war for another reason. I want to end it so that the energy and dedication of you, our young people, now too often directed into bitter hatred against those responsible for the war, can be turned to the great challenges of peace, a better life for all Americans, a better life for all people on this earth.

I have chosen a plan for peace. I believe it will succeed.

If it does succeed, what the critics say now won't matter. If it does not succeed, anything I say then won't matter.

I know it may not be fashionable to speak of patriotism or national destiny these days. But I feel it is appropriate to do so on this occasion

Two hundred years ago this Nation was weak and poor. But even then, America was the hope of millions in the world. Today we have become the strongest and richest nation in the world. And the Wheel of destiny has turned so that any hope the world has for the survival of peace and freedom will be determined by whether the American people have the moral stamina and the courage to meet the challenge of free world leadership.

Let historians not record that when America was the most powerful nation in the world we passed on the other side of the road and allowed the last hopes for peace and freedom of millions of people to be suffocated by the forces of totalitarianism.

And so tonight--to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans--I ask for your support.

I pledged in my campaign for the Presidency to end the war in a way that we could win the peace. I have initiated a plan of action which will enable me to keep that pledge.

The more support I can have from the American people, the sooner that pledge can be redeemed; for the more divided we are at home, the less likely the enemy is to negotiate at Paris.

Let us be united for peace. Let us also be united against defeat. Because let us understand: North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that.

Fifty years ago, in this room and at this very desk, 1 President Woodrow Wilson spoke words which caught the imagination of a war-weary world. He said: "This is the war to end war." His dream for peace after World War I was shattered on the hard realities of great power politics and Woodrow Wilson died a broken man.

1 Later research indicated that the desk had not been President Woodrow Wilson's as had long been assumed but was used by Vice President Henry Wilson during President Grant's administration.

Tonight I do not tell you that the war in Vietnam is the war to end wars. But I do say this: I have initiated a plan which will end this war in a way that will bring us closer to that great goal to which Woodrow Wilson and every American President in our history has been dedicated--the goal of a just and lasting peace.

As President I hold the responsibility for choosing the best path to that goal and then leading the Nation along it.

I pledge to you tonight that I shall meet this responsibility with all of the strength and wisdom I can command in accordance with your hopes, mindful of your concerns, sustained by your prayers.

Thank you and goodnight.

Note: The President spoke at 9:32 p.m. in his office at the White House. The address was broadcast on radio and television.

On November 3, 1969, the White House Press Office released an advance text of the address.

Richard Nixon, Address to the Nation on the War in Vietnam Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/240027

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1 War, Discourse, and Peace

• Published: July 2013
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This chapter provides an introduction to the volume’s themes and contents as they relate to discourses of war and peace. In particular, the chapter outlines an anthropological perspective on war, arguing against the notion that war is an inevitable part of the human condition. It critically assesses the implications of established war discourses and suggests new ways of thinking about peace. To work toward peace, the chapter argues, requires understanding the conditions that make war possible in our current world, including the way discourse operates to construct cultural understandings and to perpetuate ideological frameworks that reproduce the culture of war. It is through the disruption of taken-for-granted representations of the social world that discourse scholars can contribute to this endeavor.

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World War I Changed America and Transformed Its Role in International Relations

So why don't we pay more attention to it.

—Library of Congress

The entry of the United States into World War I changed the course of the war, and the war, in turn, changed America. Yet World War I receives short shrift in the American consciousness. 

Recruiting poster for the U.S. Army by Herbert Paus.

Detail of a recruiting poster for YWCA by Ernest Hamlin Baker.

The American Expeditionary Forces arrived in Europe in 1917 and helped turn the tide in favor of Britain and France, leading to an Allied victory over Germany and Austria in November 1918. By the time of the armistice, more than four million Americans had served in the armed forces and 116,708 had lost their lives. The war shaped the writings of Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos. It helped forge the military careers of Dwight D. Eisenhower, George S. Patton, and George C. Marshall. On the home front, millions of women went to work, replacing the men who had shipped off to war, while others knitted socks and made bandages. For African-American soldiers, the war opened up a world not bound by America’s formal and informal racial codes. 

And we are still grappling with one of the major legacies of World War I: the debate over America’s role in the world. For three years, the United States walked the tightrope of neutrality as President Woodrow Wilson opted to keep the country out of the bloodbath consuming Europe. Even as Germany’s campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic put American sailors and ships in jeopardy, the United States remained aloof. But after the Zimmermann telegram revealed Germany’s plans to recruit Mexico to attack the United States if it did not remain neutral, Americans were ready to fight. 

In April 1917, President Wilson stood before Congress and said, “The world must be made safe for democracy.” With those words, he asked for a declaration of war, which Congress gave with gusto. For the first time in its history, the United States joined a coalition to fight a war not on its own soil or of its own making, setting a precedent that would be invoked repeatedly over the next century. 

“For most Americans, going to war in 1917 was about removing the German threat to the U.S. homeland,” says Michael S. Neiberg, professor of history at the U.S. Army War College. “But after the war, Wilson developed a much more expansive vision to redeem the sin of war through the founding of a new world order, which created controversy and bitterness in the United States.”

The burden of sending men off to die weighed on Wilson’s conscience. It was one reason why he proposed the creation of the League of Nations, an international body based on collective security. But joining the League required the United States to sacrifice a measure of sovereignty. When judged against the butcher’s bill of this war, Wilson thought it was a small price to pay. Others, like Wilson’s longtime nemesis Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, believed that the United States should be free to pursue its own interests and not be beholden to an international body. America hadn’t fought a war only to relinquish its newfound stature as a military power. 

As soldiers returned home and the victory parades faded, the fight over the League of Nations turned bitter. The sense of accomplishment quickly evaporated. “Then came the Depression (a direct result of the war) and another global crisis,” says Neiberg. “All of that made memory of World War I a difficult thing for Americans to engage with after about 1930.” 

Even as the world has changed, the positions staked out by Wilson and Lodge have not evolved much over the past one hundred years. When new storm clouds gathered in Europe during the 1930s, Lodge’s argument was repurposed by isolationists as “America First,” a phrase that has come back into vogue as yet another example of the war’s enduring influence. “The war touched everything around the globe. Our entire world was shaped by it, even if we do not always make the connections,” Neiberg says. 

Historian and writer A. Scott Berg emphatically agrees. “I think World War I is the most underrecognized significant event of the last several centuries. The stories from this global drama—and its larger-than-life characters—are truly the stuff of Greek tragedy and are of Biblical  proportion; and modern America’s very identity was forged during this war.”

A biographer of Wilson and Charles Lindbergh, Berg has now cast his eye as an editor across the rich corpus of contemporaneous writing to produce  World War I and America , a nearly one-thousand-page book of letters, speeches, diary entries, newspaper reports, and personal accounts. This new volume from Library of America starts with the  New York Times  story of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in July 1914 and concludes with an excerpt from John Dos Passos’s novel  1919 . In between, the voices of soldiers, politicians, nurses, diplomats, journalists, suffragettes, and intellectuals ask questions that are still with us. 

“What is America’s role in the world? Are our claims to moral leadership abroad undercut by racial injustice at home? What do we owe those who serve in our wars?” asks Max Rudin, Library of America’s publisher. With 2017 marking the one-hundredth anniversary of America's entry into the war, the moment seemed ripe to revisit a conflict whose ghosts still haunt the nation. “It offered an opportunity to raise awareness about a generation of American writers that cries out to be better known,” says Rudin. 

The volume shows off familiar names in surprising places. Nellie Bly and Edith Wharton report from the front lines. Henry Morgenthau Sr., the ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, files increasingly terrifying reports on the Armenian genocide. As Teddy Roosevelt leads the fight for American intervention, Jane Addams and Emma Goldman question the aims of the war. Writing from Italy, Ernest Hemingway complains to his family about being wounded. While Wilson and Lodge fight over American sovereignty, Ezra Pound expresses his disillusionment and grief in verse. 

We also meet Floyd Gibbons, a  Chicago Tribune  crime reporter. Before the war he covered plenty of shootings, but “I could never learn from the victims what the precise feeling was as the piece of lead struck.” He found out in June 1918 at Belleau Wood when a German bullet found him—“the lighted end of a cigarette touched me in the fleshy part of my upper left arm.” A second bullet also found his shoulder, spawning a large burning sensation. “And then the third one struck me. . . . It sounded to me like some one had dropped a glass bottle into a porcelain bathtub. A barrel of whitewash tipped over and it seemed that everything in the world turned white.” The third bullet had found his left eye. 

Stepping into an operating theater with Mary Borden, the Chicago heiress who established hospitals in France and Belgium, the smell of blood and death almost leaps off the page. “We send our men up the broken road between bushes of barbed wire and they come back to us, one by one, two by two in ambulances, lying on stretchers. They lie on their backs on the stretchers and are pulled out of the ambulances as loaves of bread are pulled out of the oven.” As a wounded soldier is laid out, “we conspire against his right to die. We experiment with his bones, his muscles, his sinews, his blood. We dig into the yawning mouths of his wounds. Helpless openings, they let us into the secret places of his body.”

When the American Expeditionary Forces shipped off to Europe, so too did approximately 16,500 women. They worked as clerks, telephone operators, and nurses; they also ran canteens that served meals to soldiers and offered a respite from battle. “These women often had complex motivations, such as a desire for adventure or professional advancement, and often witnessed more carnage than male soldiers, creating unacknowledged problems with PTSD when they returned home,” says Jennifer Keene, professor of history at Chapman University.

Of course, most women experienced the war stateside, where they tended victory gardens and worked to produce healthy meals from meager rations. They volunteered for the Red Cross and participated in Liberty Loan drives. As Willa Cather learned when she decamped from New York to Red Cloud, Nebraska, in the summer of 1918, the war could be consuming. “In New York the war was one of many subjects people talked about; but in Omaha, Lincoln, in my own town, and the other towns along the Republican Valley, and over in the north of Kansas, there was nothing but the war.” 

In the Library of America volume, W. E. B. Du Bois, who, in the wake of Booker T. Washington’s death, assumed the mantle of spokesman for the black community, provides another take. From the beginning, Du Bois saw the war as grounded in the colonial rivalries and aspirations of the European belligerents. 

Chad Williams, associate professor of African and Afro-American Studies at Brandeis University, says Du Bois was ahead of his time. “His writings also vividly illuminated the tensions between the professed democratic aims of the Allies—and the United States in particular—and the harsh realities of white supremacy, domestically and globally, for black people. Du Bois hoped that by supporting the American war effort and encouraging African-American patriotism, this tension could be reconciled. He was ultimately—and tragically—wrong.” 

Along with Du Bois’s commentary, there are reports on the race riots in East St. Louis and Houston in 1917. Such incidents prompted James Weldon Johnson to cast aside sentimentality and answer the question, “Why should a Negro fight?”

“America is the American Negro’s country,” he wrote. “He has been here three hundred years; that is, about two hundred years longer than most of the white people.” 

The U.S. Army shunted African-American soldiers into segregated units and issued them shovels more often than rifles. Some, however, fought alongside the French as equals, prompting questions about their treatment by their own country. African-American soldiers came home as citizens of the world with questions about their place in American society. “Understanding how the war impacted black people and the importance of this legacy is endlessly fascinating and, given our current times, extremely relevant,” says Williams.

To accompany its World War I volume, Library of America has launched a nationwide program, featuring scholars, to foster discussion about the war and its legacy. One hundred twenty organizations, from libraries to historical societies, are hosting events that involve veterans, their families, and their communities.

“There are veterans of recent conflicts in every community in America for whom the experiences and issues raised by World War I are very immediate,” says Rudin. “We all have something to learn from that.”

“Every war is distinct, and yet every war has almost eerie commonalities with wars past,” says Phil Klay, author of  Redeployment , a collection of short stories about his service in Iraq that won the National Book Award. “I don’t think veterans have a unique authority in these discussions, but our personal experiences do inevitably infuse our reading. In my case, I find myself relentlessly drawn to pull lessons for the future from these readings, as the moral stakes of war have a visceral feel for me.” 

For community programs, Library of America developed a slimmer version of its volume, World War I and America, while adding introductory essays and discussion questions. Keene, Neiberg, and Williams, along with Edward Lengel, served as editors. “There is truly not one part of the nation that was untouched by the war,” says Williams. “This project has the potential to remind people of its far-reaching significance and perhaps uncover new stories about the American experience in the war that we have not yet heard.”

Berg echoes the sentiment. “I hope audiences will appreciate the presence of World War I in our lives today—whether it is our economy, race relations, women’s rights, xenophobia, free speech, or the foundation of American foreign policy for the last one hundred years: They all have their roots in World War I.”

Meredith Hindley is a senior writer for Humanities .

Funding information

Library of America received $500,000  from NEH for nationwide library programs, a traveling exhibition, a website, and a publication of an anthology exploring how World War I reshaped American lives. For more information about the project, visit ww1america.org

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Wars cause widespread pollution and environmental damage − here’s how to address it in peace accords

Assistant Professor of Environment, Peace, and Global Affairs at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies in the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame

Professor of the Practice in International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame

Disclosure statement

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

University of Notre Dame provides funding as a member of The Conversation US.

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As wars grind on in Ukraine and Gaza , another location ravaged by conflict is taking steps to implement a historic peace agreement. From the mid-1960s through 2016, Colombia was torn by conflict between the government, leftist guerrilla movements and right-wing paramilitary groups. Now the government and rebels are working to carry out a sweeping accord that addresses many critical sectors, including environmental damages and restoration.

University of Notre Dame researchers Richard Marcantonio and Josefina Echavarria Alvarez study peace and conflict issues, including their effects on the environment. They currently are advising negotiations between the Colombian government and several rebel factions over wartime damage to soil, water and other natural resources. They explain that while Colombia’s transition from war to peace has been difficult, the accord offers a model for addressing the ravages of war in places such as Gaza and Ukraine.

Is it common for peace settlements to address environmental harm?

Few agreements include environmental provisions, and even fewer see them carried out, even though research shows that many drivers of conflict can be directly or indirectly related to the environment .

We work with a research program at the University of Notre Dame called the Peace Accords Matrix , which monitors the implementation of comprehensive peace accords in 34 countries worldwide. Only 10 of the accords have natural resource management provisions agreements, and these typically have not triggered major steps to protect the environment.

How is the Colombia accord different?

Colombia’s is seen as the most comprehensive peace accord that has been signed to date. It considers issues ranging from security to social justice and political participation, in great detail.

The accord acknowledges that a peaceful postwar society requires not only respect for human rights but also “protection of the environment, respect for nature and its renewable and nonrenewable resources and biodiversity .” More than 20% of the commitments in the agreement have an environmental connection.

They fall into four main categories:

– Adapting and responding to climate change

– Preserving natural resources and habitats

– Protecting environmental health through measures such as access to clean water

– Process issues, such as ensuring that communities can participate in decisions about rural programs and resource management

There also are gaps. For example, many protected areas have been deforested for ranching and coca production in the postaccord period. And there are no provisions addressing toxic pollution, an issue other agreements also neglect .

Often there are power vacuums during transitions between war and peace , when government agencies are working to reestablish their operations. Natural resources and environmental health need protection during these phases.

In Sierra Leone, for example, resource extraction by foreign companies drastically ramped up immediately after the Lome Peace Agreement eventually ended that nation’s civil war in 2002. Companies exploited a lack of governance and support in the rural areas and often mined metals illegally or hazardously without any regulatory oversight. Today these areas still struggle with mining impacts, including contaminated drinking water and fish , the primary protein source in the area.

What is the environmental toll of war in Ukraine?

The damage is vast: There’s air, water and soil contamination, deforestation and enormous quantities of waste, including ruined buildings, burned-out cars and thousands of tons of destroyed military equipment. Russia’s destruction of the Kakhovka Dam flooded villages, destroyed crops and wrecked irrigation systems.

The cost estimates are staggering. A joint commission of the World Bank, the government of Ukraine and other institutions currently estimate direct damages at roughly US$152 billion .

In addition, cleaning up sites, rebuilding infrastructure and other repairs could cost more than $486 billion over the next decade, as of late 2023. That figure rises every day that the war continues .

There’s broad interest in a green and sustainable reconstruction that would include steps like using sustainable building materials and powering the electricity grid with renewable energy. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been adamant that Russia must pay for the damage it has caused. It’s still unclear how this would work, although some U.S. and European lawmakers support seizing frozen Russian assets held in Western banks to help cover the cost.

There is a legal basis for holding Russia accountable. In 2022, the U.N. General Assembly adopted a set of principles for protecting the environment during armed conflicts . Among other existing statutes, they draw on a protocol to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 that prohibits using “methods or means of warfare which are intended, or may be expected, to cause widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment .”

There has been only modest discussion so far of how to integrate these principles into a formal peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia. But a working group that included Ukrainian and European Union officials and former leaders from Sweden, Finland, Ireland and Brazil has recommended a framework for addressing environmental damage and holding perpetrators accountable .

What environmental impacts are known or asserted in Gaza?

Environmental damage in Gaza also is devastating . The U.N. estimated in early 2024 that over 100,000 cubic meters (26 million gallons) of untreated sewage and wastewater were flowing daily onto land or into the Mediterranean Sea .

Gaza’s drinking water system was insufficient before the war and has been further weakened by military strikes . On average, Gazans now have access to about 3 liters of water per person per day – less than 1 gallon.

Thousands of buildings have been destroyed, spreading hazardous materials such as asbestos . Every bomb that’s dropped disperses toxic materials that will persist in the soil unless it’s remediated. Simultaneous environmental and infrastructure impacts, such as water and power shortages, are contributing to larger crises , such as the collapse of Gaza’s health care system, that will have long-lasting human costs.

How can future peace accords address these impacts?

Integrating the environment into peace accords isn’t easy. Resources such as energy, clean soil and water are vital for life, which is precisely why military forces may seek to control or destroy them . This is happening in both Ukraine and Gaza .

Peace negotiators tend to focus on social, political and economic issues, rather than environmental reparations. But leaving environmental damage unresolved until after a peace accord is signed keeps people who have been displaced and marginalized by conflict in precarious positions .

It may even cause fighting to resume. According to the U.N. Environment Program, at least 40% of all wars within states in the past 60 years have had a link to natural resources. In those cases, fighting was twice as likely to resume within five years after conflict ended .

We see some lessons for future negotiations.

First, it’s important for accords to recognize environmental harm as one of war’s main consequences and to acknowledge that a healthy environment is essential for sustainable livelihoods and peace.

Second, connecting environmental provisions with other issues, such as rural reform and political participation, can create better, more sustainable and equal conditions for reestablishing democracy. The Colombia accords are an example.

Third, it is important to clearly define goals, such as what infrastructure and institutions need to be rebuilt, who is in charge of getting those tasks done, and the timetable for doing it. This can help ensure that environmental restoration doesn’t become a secondary goal.

Fourth, the international community has an important role to play in monitoring and verifying environmental restoration and providing financial and technical support. Foreign donors have already pledged $66 billion for rebuilding Ukraine and have said that they will require grantees to follow strict environmental standards in order to receive financing.

Reconstructing nations and simultaneously regenerating communities and ecosystems after wars is a daunting mission, but it’s also an opportunity to build something better . We see Ukraine and Gaza as potential test cases for addressing war’s toll on the environment and creating a more sustainable future.

• International law
• Environment
• Reparations
• Peace accord
• Colombia peace agreement
• Russia-Ukraine
• Environmental harms
• Kakhovka dam
• Israel-Hamas conflict

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The Russian invasion of Ukraine has caused catastrophic loss of life , widespread displacement , and a growing global food crisis . 

The conflict has also extensively harmed Ukraine’s natural environment , highlighting the many ways in which war devastates biodiversity and contributes to the climate crisis. 

Advocates and organizers within Ukraine have documented hundreds of environmental crimes that together, they argue, warrant the charge of ecocide by international courts. These crimes include attacks on industrial facilities that contaminate groundwater supplies and airways and the deliberate bombing of wildlife refuges and other important ecosystems.

With each additional day of warfare, Ukraine’s ability to recover its vibrant society and environment wanes, and its capacity for transitioning to an economy that excludes fossil fuels shrinks. 

In recent years, a growing narrative has argued that the climate crisis is a national security threat  that demands military investments. But while a deteriorating environment does, in fact, threaten people, few things fuel the crisis quite like war, which props up the global fossil fuel industry by locking in oil, gas, and coal demand, according to the Conflict and Environment Observatory (CEOBS).  

War also inevitably entails destruction, resulting in widespread toxic substances, dead wildlife, and an atmosphere choked with fumes. 

3 Key Facts About How War Impacts the Climate Crisis and the Environment

• Militaries consume enormous amounts of fossil fuels, which contributes directly to global warming. If the US military were a country, for example, it would have the 47th highest emissions total worldwide. 
• Bombings and other methods of modern warfare directly harm wildlife and biodiversity. The collateral damage of conflict can kill up to 90% of large animals in an area. 
• Pollution from war contaminates bodies of water, soil, and air, making areas unsafe for people to inhabit. 

Warfare Releases Greenhouse Gas Emissions

The world’s militaries account for an estimated 6% of all greenhouse gas emissions, and many governments don’t even report data on emissions from military activities, according to the Guardian . 

“Those that do often report partial figures,” Dr. Stuart Parkinson, executive director of the Scientists for Global Responsibility, told the Guardian. “So figures for military aircraft could be hidden under ‘aviation,’ military tech industry under ‘industry,’ military bases under ‘public buildings,’ etc. Indeed, it’s not just the public who are unaware, the policymakers are also unaware, and even the researchers.”

Even in peacetime, militaries consume extreme amounts of dirty energy. The US Department of Defense’s 566,000 buildings, for example, account for 40% of its fossil fuel use . These include training facilities, dormitories, manufacturing plants, and other buildings on the department’s nearly 800 bases worldwide . In countries like Switzerland and the United Kingdom, defense ministries similarly consume the most fossil fuels among government agencies. Other countries with massive militaries like China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Israel do not report their emissions totals , but the pattern is expected to be the same.  

As countries worldwide give more money to their militaries , fossil fuel use rises both with and without conflict. And while simply maintaining a military contributes to climate change, active warfare maximizes this potential. 

The US and allied forces, for example, have fired more than 337,000 bombs and missiles on other countries over the past 20 years, according to Salon. The jets carrying those weapons  can burn through 4.28 gallons of gasoline per mile , with each detonation releasing additional greenhouse gas emissions, and destroying natural carbon sinks like soil, vegetation, and trees. 

The US’ broader “War on Terror” has released 1.2 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, according to  the Watson Institute  at Brown University, which has more of a warming effect on the planet than the annual emissions of 257 million cars. 

If the US military were itself a country, it would have the 47th highest emissions total worldwide , greater than the countries of Denmark, Sweden, and Portugal overall. 

War Causes Pollution

The environmental impact of war is far more immediate than greenhouse gases warming the atmosphere.

Pollution, in particular, is immediately felt by people stuck in conflict zones who have to contend with unsafe air, water, and soil.

People in Afghanistan, in addition to the nonstop pollution caused by bombs, have been exposed to open-air burn pits used by the army to dispose of waste. The resulting fumes from these pits have led to increases in cancer rates for both veterans and locals. 

Waste management in general tends to collapse during conflict , and it's not uncommon for households to burn household trash and dump human waste in bodies of water and unlined holes.

All of the tanks and heavy vehicles driving around in conflicts kick up abrasive particles, while discarded ammunition leaks uranium into water systems, according to CEOBS .

The vacuums of power created by war can lead to illegal competition over natural resources, according to the United Nations , with examples including illegal logging, the intentional setting of forest fires to clear land, and the extraction of precious minerals using highly toxic methods. 

In Colombia, rebel groups have engaged in illegal mining that filled bodies of water with mercury . 

In the Vietnam War, the US army took a “scorched-earth” form of chemical warfare that destroyed landscapes with substances like “Agent Orange” that still impact people to this day .  

Warfare in urban areas, like what’s happening in Ukraine right now, causes extensive damage to buildings, roads, and infrastructure, which can fill the air with debris and rubble , making it much harder to breathe. 

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has also featured attacks on facilities that process dangerous chemicals such as ammonia, which has threatened the safety of nearby communities. 

In Yemen, Saudi Arabia has continuously bombed infrastructure like desalination plants, dams, and reservoirs , depriving communities of easy access to water. 

Marine ecosystems are not shielded from this pollution. In fact, warships release extreme amounts of waste into bodies of water , degrading marine habitats and coastlines. 

Even during peacetime, military testing exercises and manufacturing leads to widespread pollution. The world’s militaries occupy around 1% to 6% of all land, according to CEOBS . On these lands, they face little environmental regulation and experiment with chemicals that are banned in many places. 

War Destroys Wildlife and Biodiversity

It’s never been calculated how much wildlife is lost to war — the animals killed, the plant life incinerated, the endless biodiversity erased. 

But some of the approximations are mind-blowing. The number of large animals present in an area can decline by up to 90% during human conflict, and even a single year of warfare causes long-term wildlife loss, according to a study published in Nature .  

Another study found that the Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique lost 95% of its biodiversity after a long civil war. 

During the Vietnam War, more than 5 million acres of forest and 500,000 acres of farmland were destroyed. Lush marshlands in Iraq were reduced to 10% of their historic size after former President Saddam Hussein ordered major rivers stopped to squash an uprising. Afghanistan has lost nearly 95% of its forest cover in recent decades. 

And years after a war, landmines can continue to explode and kill wildlife . 

Conservationists have grown increasingly vocal in their opposition to war to prevent the demise of ecosystems that are essential to our collective well-being, whether it’s forests, grasslands, or bodies of water. Other advocates of peace note that environmental destruction becomes fuel for more war, as it deprives people and community of essential resources and ways of life. 

The climate crisis itself has been labeled a threat to global security, but ending war and securing peace is the surest way to protect both ourselves and the planet.  

What Can Global Citizens Do to Help?

Global Citizens can call on their governments to pursue peace and the end of conflicts worldwide by addressing root causes, while also taking steps to rapidly phase out fossil fuels and support a just transition that focuses more on people’s well-being than violence. 

You can take action with us here and demand climate action now.

Global Citizen Explains

Defend the Planet

How War Impacts Climate Change and the Environment

April 6, 2022

At revered Black school, Biden leans into faith and tells grads he hears voices of dissent

ATLANTA – President Joe Biden on Sunday warned graduates at one of the country's most revered African American academic institutions of "extremist forces aligned against the meaning and message of Morehouse" College in a commencement address that sought to lay out the stakes of the 2024 election.

"Graduates, this is what we're up against," Biden said during a 27-minute speech that leaned heavily into themes of faith and democracy in an appeal to Black voters. "They peddle a fiction, a character about what being a man is about − tough talk, abusing power, bigotry. Their idea of being a man is toxic."

"But that's not you. It's not us," he said.

Biden's remarks to the 414 graduates at Morehouse , an all-male historically Black college in Atlanta, came as he is struggling to unite Black voters , particularly Black men, around his candidacy. Many Morehouse students and faculty criticized Biden's participation when it was announced because of his support for Israel's war in Gaza.

"In a democracy, we debate dissent about America's role in the world. I want to say this very clearly: I support peaceful, nonviolent protest," Biden said on Sunday in response to the complaints. "Your voices should be heard. I promise you, I hear them."

Prep for the polls: See who is running for president and compare where they stand on key issues in our Voter Guide

No major disruptions, but peaceful protests target Biden

Although there were no major disruptions during Biden's speech, a few students walked out when Biden received an honorary Morehouse degree. More than a dozen graduates and at least three faculty members wore keffiyehs, while one student entered the ceremony draped in a Palestinian flag.

As Biden delivered his address, at least one female faculty member stood in the opposite direction, her fist raised, in a sign of protest.

Biden, wearing a maroon gown at the outdoor ceremony, said his administration is "working around the clock for more than just one cease-fire," but also to "bring the region together." He reiterated his support for a two-state solution in which Israelis and Palestinians live in peace.

"This is one of the hardest, most complicated problems in the world. There's nothing easy about it," Biden said. "I know it angers and frustrates many of you, including my family, but most of all, I know it breaks your heart. It breaks mine as well."

Biden added that leadership is about "fighting through the most intractable problems" to "find a solution by doing what you believe is right, even when it's hard and lonely."

About a mile away, pro-Palestinian protesters held a rally organized under the banner of "Say No to Genocide Joe Speaking at Morehouse." Morehouse's valedictorian also raised Israel's war in Gaza during his remarks before Biden took the lectern.

"It is my stance as a Morehouse man – nay as a human being – to call for an immediate and the permanent cease-fire in the Gaza Strip," graduating senior DeAngelo Jeremiah Fletcher said, with Biden sitting just steps behind him. Biden applauded in response.

Biden touts record with Black voters

Polling shows Biden is vastly underperforming his 2020 performance among Black voters, a reliably Democratic constituency, as some drift to Donald Trump, the former president and presumptive Republican nominee.

A New York Times/Siena College poll of six battleground states, including Georgia, found Biden has support from 60% of Black voters and Trump, while Trump is backed by 20% of Black voters. Biden won Black voters in the 2020 election by a 87%-12% margin, according to exit polls.

Ahead of Biden's arrival, Anwar Karim, a sophomore studying film at Morehouse and a member of Atlanta University Center Students for Justice in Palestine, told USA TODAY he was disappointed in his school’s choice of commencement speaker. He also decried Morehouse’s decision to award Biden an honorary degree, which is typically awarded to the school’s commencement speaker after a faculty vote.

“Morehouse College is dedicated to producing men of consequence who lead lives of service and leadership, and I just have to beg the question, when it comes to Biden, what is an example of his leadership?” Karim said Friday.

Biden commits to showing 'democracy is still the way'

In his speech, Biden touted his presidency as one that has delivered to Black Americans, pointing to efforts to invest in Black families and communities, cut child poverty, expand work opportunities, reduce prescription drug prices and cut student loan debt. He called out the "poison of white supremacy" and "systemic racism."

He said he is committed to "show that democracy, democracy, democracy is still the way," even in the face of inequality for Black Americans.

"What is democracy if Black men are being killed in the street? What is democracy if the trail of broken promises still leave Black communities behind?" Biden said. "What is democracy if you have to be ten times better than anyone else to get a fair shot? Most of all, what does it mean, as you've heard before, to be a Black man who loves his country even if it doesn't love him back in equal measure?"

Biden railed against new voting restrictions in Georgia and the "constant attacks on Black election workers." He also said those who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 "are called patriots by some," a clear reference to Trump.

“Not in my house," Biden said.

In the days leading up to his Morehouse visit, the White House focused on Black outreach. Biden met on Thursday with plaintiffs of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision, on the 70th anniversary of the dismantling of the "separate but equal" precedent. On Friday, Biden met with leaders of the "Divine Nine" HBCU sororities and fraternities.

More: In a nod to history, Biden meets with Brown v. Board of Education families

In Atlanta on Saturday, Biden spoke to Morehouse alumni and others at a campaign event at Mary Mac's Tea Room. "The fact is, this election, lots at stake, lots at stake. It's not about me. It's about the alternative as well," Biden said. "My opponent's not a good loser, but he is a loser."

Introducing Biden, Morehouse President David Thomas said, "No administration in history, since the inception of historically Black colleges and universities, has invested more in our institutions than the Biden administration."

"And if you look at his policies, it is very clear that those investments are not charity," Thomas said.

Biden, 81, closed his remarks with a reference to his age, a liability that has hung over his reelection. When he started his political career, Biden said he was told he was "too young." Now he hears he's "too old."

"Whether you're young or old, I know what endures: The strength and wisdom of faith endures. And my challenge to you is to still keep the faith as long as you can," Biden said. "Together we're capable of building a democracy worthy of our dreams."

• International

Israel's war in Gaza

Deadly storms sweep central US

May 20, 2024 Israel-Hamas war

By Chris Lau, Ivana Kottasová, Tara John, Sana Noor Haq and Amir Vera, Elise Hammond and Kathleen Magramo, CNN

Our live coverage of Israel's war in Gaza has moved here .

Nearly 570 tons of aid delivered across temporary pier to Gaza, US Central Command says

Nearly 570 metric tons of humanitarian aid has been delivered across the temporary pier to Gaza so far, according to the US Central Command.

The aid will be distributed by humanitarian partners,  CENTCOM said in a statement.  

“The United States, United Kingdom, UAE, European Union, and many other partners have donated this humanitarian assistance,” the statemeant said.

The pier was anchored to a beach in Gaza last week to funnel aid from various countries into the enclave, with most border crossings closed and a catastrophic humanitarian disaster unfolding inside.

France supports ICC decision to seek arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister and Hamas leaders

From CNN’s Xiaofei Xu

France broke away from its Western allies and expressed support for the International Criminal Court (ICC) after the court announced its decision to seek arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar.

“Regarding Israel, it will be up to the court's Pre-Trial Chamber to decide whether to issue these warrants, after examining the evidence put forward by the Prosecutor to support his accusations,” the French foreign ministry said in a statement issued late Monday. It added: “France supports the International Criminal Court, its independence, and the fight against impunity in all situations.”

Paris also said it has been warning “for many months” the need for strict compliance with international humanitarian laws and “in particular of the unacceptable level of civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip and the lack of humanitarian access,” the statement said.

The statement marks a major split between France's position and that of its Western allies, notably the United States, where President Joe Biden called the decision “ outrageous .”

France has been one of the few Western countries willing to take a tougher stance on Israel, including criticizing America’s decision to veto ceasefire resolutions in the UN Security Council early on and calling for an immediate ceasefire.

US blasts request by international court for arrest warrants for top Israeli officials. Here's the latest

From CNN staff

US President Joe Biden on Monday rejected the  International Criminal Court's arrest warrant requests  for Israeli leaders amid the ongoing war against Hamas.  

The ICC's request targets top Israeli officials and Hamas leaders.

“There is no equivalence between Israel and Hamas,” Biden said. “It's clear Israel wants to do all it can to ensure civilian protection. Let me be clear, what’s happening is not genocide.” 

The ICC's prosecutor Karim Khan rejected accusations by Israel and some of its allies questioning its independence, saying the request "is not a witch hunt, this is not some kind of emotional reaction to noise. It's a forensic process."

Here are some reactions to the arrest request:

• Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: "The prosecutor’s absurd charges against me and Israel’s defense minister are merely an attempt to deny Israel the basic right of self-defense. And I assure you of one thing: This attempt will utterly fail."
• Hamas also denounced the request , saying it “strongly condemns the attempts of the ICC Prosecutor to equate victims with aggressors by issuing arrest warrants against a number of Palestinian resistance leaders without legal basis.”
• The United Kingdom and Italy criticized the ICC's decision, while the Human Rights Watch (HRW) and a group of international legal experts supported the request.
• In the United States, US House Speaker Mike Johnson confirmed  House Republican leaders are looking at sanctions in response to the ICC's decision and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the court "succeeded only in discrediting itself."

Here are more headlines from the region:

• Iran elections: Iran's presidential elections will take place June 28 following the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and his foreign minister in a helicopter crash.
• Palestinian displacement: More than 900,000 people, or about 40% of Gaza's population, have been displaced in the past two weeks as Israeli bombardment continues across much of the enclave, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.
• Top US official wraps up trip to Mideast: National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on Monday wrapped up his visit to the Middle East during which he met with Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid and members of the war cabinet, including Yoav Gallant and Benny Gantz.
• Israeli bombardment leaves 12 dead: At least 12 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli military bombardment of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, according to local health officials. Residents and rescue workers said about 10 other people were trapped under the rubble of buildings that were flattened in the attack.

Biden rejects ICC arrest warrant request for Israeli leaders

From CNN's Sam Fossum

US President Joe Biden offered a full-throated rejection of the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant requests for Israeli leaders amid the ongoing war against Hamas.  

“Let me be clear, we reject the ICC’s application for arrest warrants,” Biden said at an event in the Rose Garden celebrating Jewish American Heritage Month.   “There is no equivalence between Israel and Hamas,” Biden said. “It's clear Israel wants to do all it can to ensure civilian protection. Let me be clear, what’s happening is not genocide.” 

Biden also acknowledged “the trauma” of October 7 and reiterated his “ironclad” commitment to Israel’s safety and security. And he promised not to rest until the hostages being held by Hamas are released.

The president also pledged his commitment to a two-state solution.

Biden and his top officials have said the creation of a Palestinian state with guarantees for Israel’s security is the only way to bring peace and stability to the Middle East.

Italian foreign minister calls court's move to seek arrest warrants for Israeli officials unacceptable

From CNN's AnneClaire Stapleton

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said it's "unacceptable" that the International Criminal Court moved to seek arrest warrants for Israeli officials , including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and senior Hamas officials on the charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity over the war in Gaza.

"It seems unacceptable to me that a government legitimately elected by the people in a democratic way is equated with a terrorist organization which is the cause of everything that is happening," Tajani said in an interview with Italian broadcaster Rete 4.

At least 12 dead in Israeli bombardment of Beit Lahia in northern Gaza, health officials say 

From CNN’s Abdel Qadder Al-Sabbah, Sarah El Sirgany and Sana Noor Haq 

At least 12 Palestinians were killed Monday in an Israeli military bombardment of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, according to local health officials.

The strikes also injured 10 people, a spokesperson at the local Kamal Adwan Hospital told CNN. Residents and rescue workers say about 10 other people were trapped under the rubble of buildings that were flattened in the attack.

CNN video of the aftermath shows the concrete skeleton of destroyed buildings, with entire walls ripped through on several floors. Stone slabs and metal rods spill from the roof of the building as Palestinian men, women and children crowd near the site. Some hold their heads in their hands, while others search the debris for survivors. 

Ambulances from the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) could be seen slowly moving along demolished roads, in footage filmed for CNN. Rescue workers and citizens dug through smashed pieces of broken concrete. In one scene, emergency crews resorted to using a rope to pull up the body of a woman wrapped in a blanket. 

Israel’s military campaign in Gaza since the Hamas-led October 7 attacks has drained critical supplies and destroyed main highways. Fares Afana, the ambulance and emergency director for northern Gaza told CNN that emergency operations are “very difficult due to dwindling equipment.” 

One man who spoke to CNN from the scene said there were children trapped under the destroyed home of the Kahlout family. 

In recent days, the Israeli military has intensified attacks on several locations saying its soldiers "eliminated more than 200 terrorists, destroyed terrorist infrastructure and destroyed underground tunnels both from the ground and from the air" in northern Gaza.  

Author Salman Rushdie warns of Hamas-run "Taliban-like" Palestinian state

From CNN's Mia Alberti

Author Salman Rushdie believes that Hamas would take charge of a Palestinian state if one was to be formed now.

"I've been in favor of a separate Palestinian state most of my life. Since the 1980s. But if there was a Palestinian state now, it would be run by Hamas and we would have a Taliban-like state. A satellite state of Iran," he told public German broadcaster RBB24 this month.

"Is that what the progressive movements of the Western left want to create?" Rushdie said in an interview regarding the recent students protests in the US.

Rushdie said that "any normal person" would be shocked by the number of "innocent deaths" in Gaza, but he argued that pro-Palestinian demonstrators are failing to call out Hamas' actions.

"I think the demonstrators could also mention Hamas. Because it all started with them. And Hamas is a terrorist organization. And it's strange that a young progressive student organization supports a fascist terrorist group, because they do that in a way," he said.

The author, who has been targeted for his writing multiple times, also says that calls for a free Palestine become "problematic... when it descends into anti-Semitism and sometimes even support for Hamas."

McConnell: "The ICC has succeeded only in discrediting itself"

From CNN's Kristin Wilson and Morgan Rimmer

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says “the ICC has succeeded only in discrediting itself” by seeking an arrest warrant for Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu.

“Since the immediate aftermath of October 7, Israel and allies and Jewish people around the world have faced pernicious efforts to equate a sovereign nation's self-defense with barbaric acts of terrorism,” he said in Monday’s floor remarks.

“But today, the most noxious attempt at moral equivalence comes from unelected international bureaucrats brandishing a contrived and perverted authority.”

“In the same breath, the self-aggrandizing prosecutor of the International Criminal Court applied for arrest warrants for both Hamas chief terrorists and Israel’s duly elected prime minister. It’s a damning development, but not for the supposed subjects of the applications.

McConnell also addressed the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash over the weekend.

“The untimely death of the president of Iran does not change the underlying threats this regime poses to its own citizens the region and to the free world,” he said.

“I'd also like to extend my condolences to Iran's neighbors who still live under the constant threat of a regime that practices what it preaches. Death to Israel, death to America, war on international commerce, and chaos across the Middle East.

Meanwhile, other senior GOP senators running for leader also condemned the ICC's move regarding an arrest warrant for Netanyahu.

Senate Minority Whip John Thune, who is running to replace McConnell as GOP leader next Congress,  tweeted  that the move was “as unjustifiable as it is shameful."

Sen. John Cornyn, who is also running, condemned the ICC’s decision in his own  post  on X, calling it "illegitimate and unsubstantiated."

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Jerry Seinfeld’s Speech Was the Real News

Why did the media focus less on his words and more on the 30 protesters who didn’t hear them?

Listen to this article

Produced by ElevenLabs and News Over Audio (NOA) using AI narration.

On Sunday at Duke University, the comedian Jerry Seinfeld delivered a commencement address that was, bizarrely, overshadowed in the media by a tiny, nondisruptive protest.

Seinfeld gave a compliment and a warning to his Gen Z audience.

First came the compliment. “I totally admire the ambitions of your generation to create a more just and inclusive society,” he said. “I think it is also wonderful that you care so much about not hurting other people’s feelings in the million and one ways we all do that.”

Then came the warning. “What I need to tell you as a comedian: Do not lose your sense of humor. You can have no idea at this point in your life how much you are going to need it to get through. Not enough of life makes sense for you to be able to survive it without humor.”

Seinfeld went on to defend “the slightly uncomfortable feeling of awkward humor,” arguing that it is “not something you need to fix,” because even as Gen Z improves the world, it will remain “a pretty insane mess.” Humor, he said, is “the most survival-essential quality you will ever have or need to navigate through the human experience.”

Tyler Austin Harper: America’s colleges are reaping what they sowed

All of that is newsworthy. Seinfeld is a perceptive observer of life and an undeniable expert on comedy. Plus, as he told the graduates, “I am 70. I am done. You are just starting. I only want to help you.” If he is convinced that humor is a crucial salve—“the most important thing I am confident that I know about life”—those of us who’ll never enjoy his success or wealth had really better keep laughing.

Yet coverage of the commencement treated something just before his speech as more newsworthy: As the Associated Press reported, roughly 30 student protesters walked out of the graduation ceremony as Seinfeld was introduced. They represented a tiny fraction of the 7,000 students present.

Media outlets covered the Duke graduation with headlines like these: “As Seinfeld Receives Honorary Degree at Duke, Students Walk Out in Protest” ( The New York Times ); “Duke Students Walk Out to Protest Jerry Seinfeld’s Commencement Speech in Latest Grad Disruption” ( USA Today ); “Duke Students Walk Out of Jerry Seinfeld’s Commencement Speech Amid Wave of Graduation Antiwar Protests” (NBC News); “Jerry Seinfeld’s Speech at Duke Commencement Prompts Walkout Protesting His Support for Israel” (Reuters); “Duke University Students Walk Out on Jerry Seinfeld’s Commencement Speech, Chant ‘Free Palestine’” (Fox News); “Watch: Anti-Israel Students Walk Out of Duke University Commencement to Protest Jerry Seinfeld” ( Breitbart News ).

Why was that the focus? The war in Gaza is, of course, more newsworthy than any commencement and has been covered extensively. Many protests about the war are newsworthy, too.

Read: This is helicopter protesting

But the airing of grievances at Duke was not notable for the number of people who participated, or for any insight offered on Gaza, or for even a remote prospect of affecting the conflict. To the credit of the students who walked out, it didn’t even disrupt the speech. So it was suspect, I think, to treat the protest as more important than the event that the activists sought to leverage for attention. A protest in and of itself does not confer importance.

Journalists often fail to distinguish between substantively newsworthy protests and mere deployment of the protest mode—a bias that activists have learned to exploit. Social media is optimized to signal-boost conflict more than attempts at distilling wisdom. And too many Americans revel in rather than resist conflicts.

The result at Duke: Coverage of a newsworthy speech was informed, more than any other factor, by the subset of the audience that did not hear it. At least, in the midst of a tragic war abroad and a vexing culture war at home, we can shake our heads and laugh about that absurdity.

Help inform the discussion

Presidential Speeches

April 2, 1917: address to congress requesting a declaration of war against germany, about this speech.

Woodrow Wilson

April 02, 1917

President Woodrow Wilson outlines his reasons for asking Congress for a declaration of war against Germany. He points to the German use of submarine warfare as a major factor in his decision to go to war against Germany. The President argues that the United States needs to wage war to make the world safe for democracy. Congress approves Wilson's request and declares war against Germany on April 6, 1917, bringing the United States into World War I.

I have called the Congress into extraordinary session because there are serious, very serious, choices of policy to be made, and made immediately, which it was neither right nor constitutionally permissible that I should assume the responsibility of making. On the 3rd of February last, I officially laid before you the extraordinary announcement of the Imperial German government that on and after the 1st day of February it was its purpose to put aside all restraints of law or of humanity and use its submarines to sink every vessel that sought to approach either the ports of Great Britain and Ireland or the western coasts of Europe or any of the ports controlled by the enemies of Germany within the Mediterranean.

That had seemed to be the object of the German submarine warfare earlier in the war, but since April of last year the Imperial government had somewhat restrained the commanders of its undersea craft in conformity with its promise then given to us that passenger boats should not be sunk and that due warning would be given to all other vessels which its submarines might seek to destroy, when no resistance was offered or escape attempted, and care taken that their crews were given at least a fair chance to save their lives in their open boats. The precautions taken were meager and haphazard enough, as was proved in distressing instance after instance in the progress of the cruel and unmanly business, but a certain degree of restraint was observed.

The new policy has swept every restriction aside. Vessels of every kind, whatever their flag, their character, their cargo, their destination, their errand, have been ruthlessly sent to the bottom without warning and without thought of help or mercy for those on board, the vessels of friendly neutrals along with those of belligerents. Even hospital ships and ships carrying relief to the sorely bereaved and stricken people of Belgium, though the latter were provided with safe conduct through the proscribed areas by the German government itself and were distinguished by unmistakable marks of identity, have been sunk with the same reckless lack of compassion or of principle.

I was for a little while unable to believe that such things would in fact be done by any government that had hitherto subscribed to the humane practices of civilized nations. International law had its origin in the attempt to set up some law which would be respected and observed upon the seas, where no nation had right of dominion and where lay the free highways of the world. By painful stage after stage has that law been built up, with meager enough results, indeed, after all was accomplished that could be accomplished, but always with a clear view, at least, of what the heart and conscience of mankind demanded.

This minimum of right the German government has swept aside under the plea of retaliation and necessity and because it had no weapons which it could use at sea except these which it is impossible to employ as it is employing them without throwing to the winds all scruples of humanity or of respect for the understandings that were supposed to underlie the intercourse of the world. I am not now thinking of the loss of property involved, immense and serious as that is, but only of the wanton and wholesale destruction of the lives of noncombatants, men, women, and children, engaged in pursuits which have always, even in the darkest periods of modern history, been deemed innocent and legitimate. Property can be paid for; the lives of peaceful and innocent people cannot be.

The present German submarine warfare against commerce is a warfare against mankind. It is a war against all nations. American ships have been sunk, American lives taken in ways which it has stirred us very deeply to learn of; but the ships and people of other neutral and friendly nations have been sunk and overwhelmed in the waters in the same way. There has been no discrimination. The challenge is to all mankind.

Each nation must decide for itself how it will meet it. The choice we make for ourselves must be made with a moderation of counsel and a temperateness of judgment befitting our character and our motives as a nation. We must put excited feeling away. Our motive will not be revenge or the victorious assertion of the physical might of the nation, but only the vindication of right, of human right, of which we are only a single champion.

When I addressed the Congress on the 26th of February last, I thought that it would suffice to assert our neutral rights with arms, our right to use the seas against unlawful interference, our right to keep our people safe against unlawful violence. But armed neutrality, it now appears, is impracticable. Because submarines are in effect outlaws when used as the German submarines have been used against merchant shipping, it is impossible to defend ships against their attacks as the law of nations has assumed that merchantmen would defend themselves against privateers or cruisers, visible craft giving chase upon the open sea.

It is common prudence in such circumstances, grim necessity indeed, to endeavor to destroy them before they have shown their own intention. They must be dealt with upon sight, if dealt with at all. The German government denies the right of neutrals to use arms at all within the areas of the sea which it has proscribed, even in the defense of rights which no modern publicist has ever before questioned their right to defend. The intimation is conveyed that the armed guards which we have placed on our merchant ships will be treated as beyond the pale of law and subject to be dealt with as pirates would be.

Armed neutrality is ineffectual enough at best; in such circumstances and in the face of such pretensions it is worse than ineffectual: it is likely only to produce what it was meant to prevent; it is practically certain to draw us into the war without either the rights or the effectiveness of belligerents. There is one choice we cannot make, we are incapable of making: we will not choose the path of submission and suffer the most sacred rights of our nation and our people to be ignored or violated. The wrongs against which we now array ourselves are no common wrongs; they cut to the very roots of human life.

With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I advise that the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial German government to be in fact nothing less than war against the government and people of the United States; that it formally accept the status of belligerent which has thus been thrust upon it; and that it take immediate steps, not only to put the country in a more thorough state of defense but also to exert all its power and employ all its resources to bring the government of the German Empire to terms and end the war.

What this will involve is clear. It will involve the utmost practicable cooperation in counsel and action with the governments now at war with Germany and, as incident to that. the extension to those governments of the most liberal financial credits, in order that our resources may so far as possible be added to theirs. It will involve the organization and mobilization of all the material resources of the country to supply the materials of war and serve the incidental needs of the nation in the most abundant and yet the most economical and efficient way possible. It will involve the immediate full equipment of the Navy in all respects but particularly in supplying it with the best means of dealing with the enemy's submarines. It will involve the immediate addition to the armed forces of the United States already provided for by law in case of war at least 500,000 men, who should, in my opinion, be chosen upon the principle of universal liability to service, and also the authorization of subsequent additional increments of equal force so soon as they may be needed and can be handled in training.

It will involve also, of course, the granting of adequate credits to the government, sustained, I hope, so far as they can equitably be sustained by the present generation, by well-conceived taxation. I say sustained so far as may be equitable by taxation because it seems to me that it would be most unwise to base the credits which will now be necessary entirely on money borrowed. It is our duty, I most respectfully urge, to protect our people so far as we may against the very serious hardships and evils which would be likely to arise out of the inflation which would be produced by vast loans.

In carrying out the measures by which these things are to be accomplished, we should keep constantly in mind the wisdom of interfering as little as possible in our own preparation and in the equipment of our own military forces with the duty-for it will be a very practical duty-of supplying the nations already at war with Germany with the materials which they can obtain only from us or by our assistance. They are in the field and we should help them in every way to be effective there.

I shall take the liberty of suggesting, through the several executive departments of the government, for the consideration of your committees, measures for the accomplishment of the several objects I have mentioned. I hope that it will be your pleasure to deal with them as having been framed after very careful thought by the branch of the government upon which the responsibility of conducting the war and safeguarding the nation will most directly fall.

While we do these things, these deeply momentous things, let us be very clear, and make very clear to all the world, what our motives and our objects are. My own thought has not been driven from its habitual and normal course by the unhappy events of the last two months, and I do not believe that the thought of the nation has been altered or clouded by them. I have exactly the same things in mind now that I had in mind when I addressed the Senate on the 22nd of January last; the same that I had in mind when I addressed the Congress on the 3rd of February and on the 26th of February.

Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and autocratic power and to set up among the really free and self-governed peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of action as will henceforth ensure the observance of those principles. Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the world is involved and the freedom of its peoples, and the menace to that peace and freedom lies in the existence of autocratic governments backed by organized force which is controlled wholly by their will, not by the will of their people. We have seen the last of neutrality in such circumstances. We are at the beginning of an age in which it will be insisted that the same standards of conduct and of responsibility for wrong done shall be observed among nations and their governments that are observed among the individual citizens of civilized states.

We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling toward them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse that their government acted in entering this war. It was not with their previous knowledge or approval. It was a war determined upon as wars used to be determined upon in the old, unhappy days when peoples were nowhere consulted by their rulers and wars were provoked and waged in the interest of dynasties or of little groups of ambitious men who were accustomed to use their fellowmen as pawns and tools.

Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbor states with spies or set the course of intrigue to bring about some critical posture of affairs which will give them an opportunity to strike and make conquest. Such designs can be successfully worked out only under cover and where no one has the right to ask questions. Cunningly contrived plans of deception or aggression, carried, it may be, from generation to generation, can be worked out and kept from the light only within the privacy of courts or behind the carefully guarded confidences of a narrow and privileged class. They are happily impossible where public opinion commands and insists upon full information concerning all the nation's affairs.

A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic government could be trusted to keep faith within it or observe its covenants. It must be a league of honor, a partnership of opinion. Intrigue would eat its vitals away; the plottings of inner circles who could plan what they would and render account to no one would be a corruption seated at its very heart. Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honor steady to a common end and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interest of their own.

Does not every American feel that assurance has been added to our hope for the future peace of the world by the wonderful and heartening things that have been happening within the last few weeks in Russia? Russia was known by those who knew it best to have been always in fact democratic at heart, in all the vital habits of her thought, in all the intimate relationships of her people that spoke their natural instinct, their habitual attitude toward life. The autocracy that crowned the summit of her political structure, long as it had stood and terrible as was the reality of its power, was not in fact Russian in origin, character, or purpose; and now it has been shaken off and the great, generous Russian people have been added in all their naive majesty and might to the forces that are fighting for freedom in the world, for justice, and for peace. Here is a fit partner for a League of Honor.

One of the things that has served to convince us that the Prussian autocracy was not and could never be our friend is that from the very outset of the present war it has filled our unsuspecting communities and even our offices of government with spies and set criminal intrigues everywhere afoot against our national unity of counsel, our peace within and without, our industries and our commerce. Indeed, it is now evident that its spies were here even before the war began; and it is unhappily not a matter of conjecture but a fact proved in our courts of justice that the intrigues which have more than once come perilously near to disturbing the peace and dislocating the industries of the country have been carried on at the instigation, with the support, and even under the personal direction of official agents of the Imperial government accredited to the government of the United States.

Even in checking these things and trying to extirpate them, we have sought to put the most generous interpretation possible upon them because we knew that their source lay, not in any hostile feeling or purpose of the German people toward us (who were no doubt as ignorant of them as we ourselves were) but only in the selfish designs of a government that did what it pleased and told its people nothing. But they have played their part in serving to convince us at last that that government entertains no real friendship for us and means to act against our peace and security at its convenience. That it means to stir up enemies against us at our very doors the intercepted note to the German minister at Mexico City is eloquent evidence.

We are accepting this challenge of hostile purpose because we know that in such a government, following such methods, we can never have a friend; and that in the presence of its organized power, always lying in wait to accomplish we know not what purpose, there can be no assured security for the democratic governments of the world. We are now about to accept gauge of battle with this natural foe to liberty and shall, if necessary, spend the whole force of the nation to check and nullify its pretensions and its power. We are glad, now that we see the facts with no veil of false pretense about them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples, the German peoples included: for the rights of nations great and small and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience.

The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them.

Just because we fight without rancor and without selfish object, seeking nothing for ourselves but what we shall wish to share with all free peoples, we shall, I feel confident, conduct our operations as belligerents without passion and ourselves observe with proud punctilio the principles of right and of fair play we profess to be fighting for.

I have said nothing of the governments allied with the Imperial government of Germany because they have not made war upon us or challenged us to defend our right and our honor. The Austro-Hungarian government has, indeed, avowed its unqualified endorsement and acceptance of the reckless and lawless submarine warfare adopted now without disguise by the Imperial German government, and it has therefore not been possible for this government to receive Count Tarnowski, the ambassador recently accredited to this government by the Imperial and Royal government of Austria-Hungary; but that government has not actually engaged in warfare against citizens of the United States on the seas, and I take the liberty, for the present at least, of postponing a discussion of our relations with the authorities at Vienna. We enter this war only where we are clearly forced into it because there are no other means of defending our rights.

It will be all the easier for us to conduct ourselves as belligerents in a high spirit of right and fairness because we act without animus, not in enmity toward a people or with the desire to bring any injury or disadvantage upon them, but only in armed opposition to an irresponsible government which has thrown aside all considerations of humanity and of right and is running amuck. We are, let me say again, the sincere friends of the German people, and shall desire nothing so much as the early reestablishment of intimate relations of mutual advantage between us-however hard it may be for them, for the time being, to believe that this is spoken from our hearts.

We have borne with their present government through all these bitter months because of that friendship-exercising a patience and forbearance which would otherwise have been impossible. We shall, happily, still have an opportunity to prove that friendship in our daily attitude and actions toward the millions of men and women of German birth and native sympathy who live among us and share our life, and we shall be proud to prove it toward all who are in fact loyal to their neighbors and to the government in the hour of test. They are, most of them, as true and loyal Americans as if they had never known any other fealty or allegiance. They will be prompt to stand with us in rebuking and restraining the few who may be of a different mind and purpose. If there should be disloyalty, it will be dealt with with a firm hand of stern repression; but, if it lifts its head at all, it will lift it only here and there and without countenance except from a lawless and malignant few.

It is a distressing and oppressive duty, gentlemen of the Congress, which I have performed in thus addressing you. There are, it may be, many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts-for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.

To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other.

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Middle East crisis — explained

The conflict between Israel and Palestinians — and other groups in the Middle East — goes back decades. These stories provide context for current developments and the history that led up to them.

In Knesset speech, GOP's Elise Stefanik calls for unrestricted U.S. war aid to Israel

Republican Conference Chair Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., questions Columbia University president Nemat Shafik during a House committee hearing on antisemitism in higher education last month. Mariam Zuhaib/AP hide caption

Republican Conference Chair Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., questions Columbia University president Nemat Shafik during a House committee hearing on antisemitism in higher education last month.

One of the Republican Party's leaders in the U.S. House, Representative Elise Stefanik, addressed a caucus of Israel's parliament on Sunday, where she called for full military aid to support the war against Hamas in Gaza.

Stefanik, who represents a conservative district in northern New York, said the U.S. should supply "the state of Israel with what it needs, when it needs it, without conditions to achieve total victory in the face of evil."

Writing on social media, Stefanik framed the speech as a rebuke to President Joe Biden, who curbed delivery of some weapons to Israel amid growing concern over the humanitarian crisis and civilian deaths in Gaza.

Speaking with CNN earlier this month, Biden said he would withhold bombs and artillery shells if Israel escalated fighting in Rafah, a city in Gaza where large numbers of Palestinian refugees have gathered.

"If they go into Rafah, I'm not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities," Biden said .

The Biden administration withheld a shipment of 2,000 pound bombs to Israel, but later announced plans to move forward with $1 billion in military aid .

In her speech , Stefanik who serves as House Republican conference chair, blasted the idea of any restrictions that might hamper the fight against Hamas.

"Total victory starts, but only starts, with wiping those responsible for October 7th off the face of the earth," Stefanik said.

Hamas launched an attack inside Israel on Oct. 7 that killed roughly 1,200 people, according to the Israeli government .

In the months since, Israel's military has waged a military campaign inside Gaza that has left more than 35,000 people dead , including many civilians, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.

The violence in Gaza has sparked international condemnation of Israel and spurred a protest movement on college campuses inside the U.S.

Stefanik blasts "moral rot" at U.S. universities

Stefanik spoke before a caucus of the Knesset focused on concerns about antisemitism on university campuses around the world.

In recent months, Stefanik has taken an increasingly prominent role during House committee hearings focused on concerns about alleged antisemitism at U.S. colleges.

Facing pressure from politicians, college campuses across the U.S. have used police to break up pro-Palestinian protests. Students, including some Jewish activists, have been rallying to force their universities into divesting from Israel or companies that are profiting from the war.

During her speech in Tel Aviv, Stefanik accused pro-Palestinian activists of "calling for intifada and genocide" against Jews.

"Those views, though given airtime by some radical Democrat members of Congress, those views do not reflect the views of the American people," Stefanik said.

Stefanik said her efforts to oust top university officials in the U.S., whom she accused of tolerating antisemitism, will continue.

Some critics have accused Republicans of leveraging legitimate fears about antisemitism to attack progressive ideas and liberal leaders.

"When loud voices are trying to exploit concerns around antisemitism to advance this broader reactionary, extremist agenda, we need to understand what's happening there," said Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, in an interview with NPR last month .

Spitalnick, speaking prior to Stefanik's address to the Knesset, told NPR she believes Jews are rightfully concerned about antisemitism.

But she fears partisan criticism of campus protesters is being used more broadly to delegitimize diversity programs and could lead to the defunding of liberal institutions.

Debate in the U.S. over antisemitism and support for the war in Gaza comes at a moment when Israeli politicians are divided over how to pursue the fight against Hamas.

A centrist member of Israel's war cabinet, Benny Gantz, has said he will leave the coalition government unless Prime Minister Benjamin Netanhahu develops a concrete plan for the future of Palestinians in Gaza.

"We need a strategic reversal," Gantz said in a televised speech on Saturday, describing the current situation as a "moment of truth" for Israel.

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Stefanik to Denounce Biden, and Praise Trump, in Speech to Israeli Lawmakers

The New York congresswoman will become the highest-ranking House Republican to speak at Israel’s Parliament since the Oct. 7 attacks, in a move meant to capitalize on Democratic divisions.

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By Michael C. Bender and Annie Karni

• Published May 18, 2024 Updated May 20, 2024

May 19 update: Representative Elise Stefanik addressed some Israeli lawmakers at Parliament.

Representative Elise Stefanik of New York will be the highest-ranking House Republican to address lawmakers at Israel’s Parliament since the Oct. 7 terrorist attack with a speech on Sunday that is expected to deliver a forceful rebuke of President Biden and his fellow Democrats while presenting her party as the true allies of the Jewish state.

Ms. Stefanik’s speech comes as the Biden White House is urging Israel to end the war in Gaza, and it builds on the Republican political strategy to capitalize on Democratic divisions over Israel’s response to the terrorist attacks.

That strategy, which has played out in Congress for the past six months, has included a largely symbolic House vote on Thursday aimed at rebuking Mr. Biden for pausing an arms shipment to Israel and compelling his administration to deliver those weapons quickly.

Mr. Biden recently put a hold on military aid out of concern that Israel would use the weapons on Rafah, a crowded city in southern Gaza. The administration has also told Congress that it plans to sell more than $1 billion in new weapons to Israel.

“I have been clear at home, and I will be clear here,” Ms. Stefanik is expected to say in her speech, according to a prepared version of her remarks reviewed by The New York Times. “There is no excuse for an American president to block aid to Israel.”

Her remarks also appear designed to curry favor with former President Donald J. Trump, who has mentioned Ms. Stefanik, a former George W. Bush White House aide and staunch defender of Mr. Trump, as a potential vice-presidential candidate.

While a time-honored adage of American politics has held that partisanship ends at the water’s edge , Ms. Stefanik’s remarks may help strengthen her bona fides with the former president by paying little mind to the principle and decorum behind that unwritten rule.

Ms. Stefanik has positioned herself as one of Mr. Trump’s most loyal defenders in Congress, a role she first staked out during his first impeachment in 2019. Her prepared remarks for Sunday mention Mr. Trump by name three times while highlighting several of his administration’s accomplishments, including a package of Middle East deals known as the Abraham Accords and moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

“We must not let the extremism in elite corners conceal the deep, abiding love for Israel among the American people,” Ms. Stefanik plans to say. “Americans feel a strong connection to your people. They have opened their hearts to you in this dark hour.”

In addition to her remarks at Jerusalem Hall in the Knesset, Ms. Stefanik will meet with Israeli officials, visit religious sites and tour locations targeted in the Oct. 7 attacks.

Ms. Stefanik has played a high-profile role in the congressional investigations into antisemitism on college campuses. Her questioning of the Harvard and University of Pennsylvania presidents ultimately led to their resignations, delivering to Ms. Stefanik her biggest star turn this Congress.

An earlier version of this article referred imprecisely to Representative Elise Stefanik’s planned speech in Israel. She did not ultimately speak to the country’s Parliament; she spoke to a group of Israeli lawmakers at the Parliament building. 

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Michael C. Bender is a Times political correspondent covering Donald J. Trump, the Make America Great Again movement and other federal and state elections. More about Michael C. Bender

Annie Karni is a congressional correspondent for The Times. She writes features and profiles, with a recent focus on House Republican leadership. More about Annie Karni

Biden highlights US commitment to Israel, Ukraine in West Point Speech

W EST POINT (Reuters) -  President Joe Biden  emphasized the critical role of U.S. support to allies around the world including  Israel ,  Ukraine  and the Indo-Pacific in a speech on Saturday at the commencement for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York.

The speech before 1,036 graduating U.S. Army cadets is part of a push by Biden to highlight the administration's efforts to support active and retired military personnel. These include a bipartisan law he signed two years ago to help veterans who have been exposed to burn pits or other poisons obtain easier access to healthcare.

Biden described American soldiers as "working around the clock" to support Ukraine in its effort to repel a two-year long Russian invasion, but repeated his commitment to keeping them off the front lines.

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"We are standing strong with Ukraine and we will stand with them," Biden told the crowd to a round of applause.

More: For a moment, George Floyd's murder changed everything. Those days are gone.

He also highlighted the U.S. role in repelling Iranian missile attacks against Israel and support for allies in the Indo-Pacific against  increasing Chinese militarism  in the region.

"Thanks to the U.S. Armed Forces, we're doing what only America can do as the indispensable nation, the world's only superpower," Biden said.

The president is scheduled to participate in Memorial Day services at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia on Monday. A week later, he will travel to Normandy, France, to participate in ceremonies marking the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.

Biden is expected to give a major speech about the heroism of Allied forces in World War Two and the continuing threats to democracy today.

As vice president, he twice addressed a graduating class of cadets at the academy about 40 miles (64 km) north of New York City, but this was the first time as president.

Donald Trump , Biden's Republican challenger in  the 2024 election , was the last president to speak at a West Point commencement, in 2020.

College campuses nationwide have erupted in sometimes-violent protests over Biden's support for Israel's war against Hamas following the militant group's Oct. 7 attack. Students have used commencement speeches at universities such as  Harvard ,  Duke  and  Yale  to protest Biden's actions.

Earlier this month, the Democratic president gave the  commencement speech  at Morehouse College, a historically Black men's college, where protests were sparse.

The military academy was founded in 1802 by President Thomas Jefferson to train Army officers and has produced some of the United States' greatest generals, including two who went on to become president.

Trump has seen some of his support from the military community erode.

In 2016, he won 60% of voters who said at the time that they served in the military, according to exit polls conducted by NBC News. That figure dropped to 54% in 2020, according to NBC News.

In 2020, Biden won 44% of voters who said they served in the military, according to the data.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden highlights US commitment to Israel, Ukraine in West Point Speech