In the face of some of the appalling problems confronting the world today there seems little need to argue for international team-work in their solution. To say that the victors in the late war need still to cooperate, each with all the others, is to state a truism rather than a proposition. Suspicion, hunger, privation, fear of disease and fear of death dwell in great sections of the earth, and unless international cooperation meets this challenge with firmness, forbearance and wisdom, resulting chaos could well become another Vesuvius, with civilization the Pompeii.

One example of a definite world problem exists today in Germany. Here allies are attempting, in concert, to carry out policies stated by our governmental heads at Potsdam. Subject only to limitations in speed imposed by the size of the task, by destroyed records and conflicting testimony, we are eliminating from the economic, governmental and educational life of the German people, every man that was actively associated with the Nazi party or its affiliates. Punishment decreed by proper courts will be promptly carried into effect.

We are making certain that Germany cannot, within the foreseeable future, again plunge the world into conflict. Her great war plants have been and are being dismantled, to be disposed of as dictated by our governments. Germany’s war staffs have been dissipated. Her industry is rigidly controlled.

We have been straining every resource to care for and rehabilitate hundreds of thousands of displaced persons whose only crime was that they crossed the purposes of a megalomaniac. We are demanding that the principal burden fall on the German population, which is basically responsible for their plight. With sympathy and forbearance we are trying to give these unfortunate victims a decent current life while policies are worked out, on higher levels, that will permit them to make for themselves permanent places in civilized society gain a position of respect in a democratic world, and that any resort to force will always result in the loss of all that their labor, thought and effort have brought into being for their own benefit.

How long this occupational process must go on is something for governments to decide, but naturally, we hope that the military phase of directing civil activities will soon pass. No matter how wise, humane, firm and understanding soldiers may be, the future task here - at least its constructive features - is, under American concepts of government, a civilian rather than a military function. Everything we do is based upon this conviction, and every feature of our control organization is so designed as to facilitate transfer from military to civilian authority whenever decision to that effect can appropriately be taken. In the meantime, the American Army here is sending veterans home at unprecedented speed.

As we strive toward these objectives there is constant consultation with our allies concerning method and procedure. Though each member of the Control Council is naturally called upon to uphold firmly the views and interests of his own country, in all negotiations there has been friendliness, understanding and consideration in solving problems that fall within the limits of our own responsibilities.

In a project of this kind, where positive action depends upon unanimous agreement between four independent representatives, we cannot expect the same type of decisive and speedy efficiency that is a characteristic of a successful military command. But we should have faith and patience to believe that, in broader perspective, every foot of progress based upon Allied cooperation and the growth of mutual confidence is worth a yard of advance in temporary or local affairs, achieved without regard for the views of co-partners.

In the field of global cooperation world leaders have responsibilities and problems that make our local ones in Germany seem small by comparison. Of these the greatest is preservation of peace. Though men have long known that the one thing more destructive than victorious war is a lost one, yet too often they have blinded themselves to the possibility of war in the background when plausible argument has held before their eyes a glittering picture of immediate gain. World leaders have been making measurable strides in producing agreements and machinery to maintain order and eliminate piracy in international relationships. Those leaders deserve and need our earnest support and our continuing interest in the intricate problems they must solve; they need to know that we will strive as earnestly to preserve peace as to win a war.

Back of any system of justice is always demanded the power to enforce legal and just decisions. The necessary power can be provided for international peace machinery only by the strength of those that are determined to make the system work. Reasonable readiness to apply military force against deliberate violence remains a necessity.

We have just entered the atomic age, as in the first World War we had only just well entered the age of Air. The exact influence of this newest discovery of science upon the pattern of military forces cannot yet be foreseen with certainty. But no matter what the nature of these forces, we simply cannot afford extravagance. The premiums for safety insurance must be paid, but they should be accurately gauged to our needs.

Efficiency in war demands complete national coordination. The several organisms to achieve over-all coordination necessarily head up into our President, the executive upon whose shoulders must always fall the heavy burden of guiding the nation at war. The fighting services are but the cutting edge of the whole machine that he must gear to the requirements of the battlefield. That cutting edge must be efficient and, in spite of its many-sided character, this means it should be a single whole. Without this permanent unification we cannot escape duplications and needless expense, and this applies in peace, as well as, even more dramatically, in war. No matter what atomic mysteries still lie ahead, it is axiomatic that so long as warfare involves the elements of land, sea and air, the closest possible articulation of our national fighting forces will promote efficiency and save money.

As has been so clearly demonstrated at least twice within our lifetime, modern war is an all-inclusive business. It is no longer a thing apart from the core of a nation’s life, a mere contest between professional warriors.

It involves every last shred of moral and physical power that the nation can bring to bear. In our present state of development, any country, no matter how wealthy, that faces the possibility of war with nothing but professional forces upon which to depend, will either bankrupt itself in the effort to sustain respectable strength, or will be so pitifully weak that the people can experience no sense of security behind it. Moreover, if a nation persists in this error, a predatory power will feel freer to leap to sudden attack with less fear of the consequences. In the training of our healthy manpower, as an obligation to the nation and to the individual himself, is to be found the most efficient, economical and democratic method of equalizing the burden of providing security and of standing before the world as a nation ready to defend democracy. And if any man fears that such training glorifies or promotes militarism - let him sample the mass opinion of our returning veterans. I assure you they want no more war!

Thus we may be strong, within the means we can afford: and the words of the strong are weighty in the councils of peace. With confidence in ourselves, with consideration for the viewpoints of others, with readiness to seek acceptable solutions in those cases where our interests conflict with others, we can cooperate in the concrete problems, of which the German is only one, and we will be a vast influence in support of international law and order.

More specifically, we will be helping to lift from the hearts and minds of our own children that age old curse, the fear of war!