September 19, 1961 - President John F. Kennedy's Welcoming Remarks to President Prado of Peru

Описание: President John F. Kennedy speaks at the arrival ceremony of President Dr. Manuel Prado Ugarteche of Peru at the reviewing platform at the Military Air Transport Service Terminal, Washington National Airport, Arlington County, Virginia.
On platform are: (L-R) Luis Alvarado Garrido, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Peru; President Prado; Under Secretary of State Chester Bowles; Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Lyman Lemnitzer; President Kennedy; United States Ambassador to Peru James Loeb (mostly hidden behind President Kennedy); Ambassador to the United States from Peru Fernando Berckemeyer; United States Chief of Protocol Angier Biddle Duke; President of the Board of Commissioners of the District of Columbia Walter Tobriner. Standing in audience behind platform: First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy; First Lady Clorinda Málaga de Prado of Peru (holding flowers); Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, Robert Woodward (partially hidden); Virginia Rusk (wearing gray suit), wife of Secretary of State, Dean Rusk.

President and Senora Prado:

I want to express my great pleasure on behalf of the people of the United States in welcoming you here.

History has a strange rhythm. History does repeat itself, even if sometimes in a slightly different form. And it is a striking fact that in 1942 President Prado was one of the first, if not the first, of the democratically elected leaders of the Latin American Republics to visit the United States on an official visit.

The United States was then engaged in war, and yet President Roosevelt wanted President Prado of Peru to come to our country in order to express our appreciation and esteem for him for the leadership which he had taken in this hemisphere in the fight against the Axis.

His strong support in many public forums, his willingness to commit his country to this great struggle, all of these facts are remembered now, as in 1961, nearly 20 years later, President Prado of Peru comes again to the United States on an official visit.

The Presidents are different. The times have changed. The adversaries take a different form. But I believe in a very real sense that both Peru and the United States, still standing shoulder to shoulder, fight for the same things, and that is: a world at peace, a world of law, a world which permits us to develop in our respective countries a better life for our people, which uses the advantages of science to build life instead of to destroy it.

President Prado is the first leader of a Latin American Republic to come to this country in this new administration. The good-neighbor policy has passed into history. We have sought to replace it by a partnership, North and South, an alliance for the progress of our people.

We in this country esteem our friends. We have a long memory, Mr. President. And therefore, standing as I do where 20 years ago my distinguished predecessor stood, I extend to you a warm personal welcome, and I hope in extending this welcome to you that the people of your country will realize that we hold them in the strongest bonds of friendship.