A 53 DOCUMENTS DOCUMENT DIVISION DEPARTMENT OF STATE PUBLICATION 1853 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents ANGOLA STATEMENT BY SECRETARY OF STATE CORDELL HULL [Release to the press for publication January 2, 1943, 9 p.m.] We are issuing today a publication entitled "Peace and War", prepared in the Department of State. It is an introduction to a collection of documents concerning the foreign relations of the United States during the fateful decade 1931-1941. This book and the collection of documents which is in the process of publication present a record of policies and acts by which the United States sought to promote conditions of peace and world order and to meet the world-wide dangers resulting from Japanese, German, and Italian aggression as those dangers arose. That record shows, I think, that throughout this period our Government consistently advocated, practiced, and urged upon other countries principles of international conduct on the basis of which the nations of the world could attain security, confidence, and progress. Much was accomplished in the face of immense difficulties. It is for the establishment of those principles that we and our associates are fighting today. I am convinced that, had those principles been adopted and applied by the nations of the world, all legitimate grievances and controversies between nations could have been satisfactorily adjusted by peaceful processes and without resort to force. We and all mankind would have been spared the horrors of this world-enveloping war thrust upon us by the criminal ambitions of the leaders of Japan, Germany, and Italy, who-intent upon conquest-rejected all principles of law, justice, fair-dealing, and peaceful negotiation and resorted to the sword. In making this information more fully available to the people of the United States, we earnestly hope that a study of it will help our citizens to a clearer understanding of the problems and tasks which have confronted us, of those which confront us now, and of those which will confront us in the crucial days ahead. There will be confident hope for the future provided our people and other peoples hold fast to the eternal principles of law, justice, fairdealing, and morality which we have constantly proclaimed and sought to apply, and which must underlie any practicable program of peaceful international collaboration for the good of all. Our people and the peoples of the United Nations will need to have in the future, as they have today, a unity of purpose and a willingness to make appropriate and indispensable contributions toward the achievement of military victory and toward the establishment and maintenance of a peace that will endure. With unity of purpose and common effort, there can be achieved a peace that will open to all mankind greater opportunity than has ever before existed for welfare and progress in every avenue of human endeavor. M181500 FOREWORD The text which follows is an introduction to a collection of documents concerning the foreign relations of the United States during the years 1931-1941, especially the policies and acts of the United States toward promoting conditions of peace and world order and toward meeting the world-wide dangers resulting from Japanese, German, and Italian aggression. The introduction is now made available as a separate print. The documents, to which references are made in the text, are in the process of publication and will be made available soon. IV Page 1 4 Secretary Hull's Conversation With the German Ambassador. Consul General Messersmith's Report From Berlin President Roosevelt's Address December 28, 1933 Acting Commercial Attaché Miller's Report on the Nazis |