FDR

The unconditional surrender of the armies of our enemies is the first and necessary step--but the first step only.

We have seen already, in areas liberated from the Nazi and the Fascist tyranny, what problems peace will bring.

And we delude ourselves if we attempt to believe wishfully that all these problems can be solved overnight.

But the continuance and assurance of a living peace must, in the long run, be the work of the people themselves.

The nearer we come to vanquishing our enemies the more we inevitably become conscious of differences among the victors.

International cooperation on which enduring peace must be based is not a one-way street.

Nations like individuals do not always see alike or think alike, and international cooperation and progress are not helped by any Nation assuming that it has a monopoly of wisdom or of virtue.

We cannot deny that power is a factor in world politics any more than we can deny its existence as a factor in national politics.

But in a democratic world, as in a democratic Nation, power must be linked with responsibility, and obliged to defend and justify itself within the framework of the general good.

Perfectionism, no less than isolationism or imperialism or power politics, may obstruct the paths to international peace.

Let us not forget that the retreat to isolationism a quarter of a century ago was started not by a direct attack against international cooperation but against the alleged imperfections of the peace.

In our disillusionment after the last war we preferred international anarchy to international cooperation with Nations which did not see and think exactly as we did.

We gave up the hope of gradually achieving a better peace because we had not the courage to fulfill our responsibilities in an admittedly imperfect world.

We must not let that happen again, or we shall follow the same tragic road again--the road to a third world war.

But it is a good and a useful thing-- it is an essential thing--to have principles toward which we can aim.

And we shall not hesitate to use our influence--and to use it now--to secure so far as is humanly possible the fulfillment of the principles of the Atlantic Charter.

But we must not this time lose the hope of establishing an international order which will be capable of maintaining peace and realizing through the years more perfect justice between Nations.

To do this we must be on our guard not to exploit and exaggerate the differences between us and our allies, particularly with reference to the peoples who have been liberated from Fascist tyranny.

But those situations are not as easy or as simple to deal with as some spokesmen, whose sincerity I do not question, would have us believe.

We have obligations, not necessarily legal, to the exiled Governments, to the underground leaders, and to our major allies who came much nearer the shadows than we did.

We and our allies have declared that it is our purpose to respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live and to see sovereign rights and self-government restored to those who have been forcibly…

But with internal dissension, with many citizens of liberated countries still prisoners of war or forced to labor in Germany, it is difficult to guess the kind of self-government the people really want.

It is only too easy for all of us to rationalize what we want to believe, and to consider those leaders we like responsible and those we dislike irresponsible.

And our task is not helped by stubborn partisanship, however understandable on the part of opposed internal factions.

It is our purpose to help the peace-loving peoples of Europe to live together as good neighbors, to recognize their common interests and not to nurse their traditional grievances against one another.