Time’s 40th Anniversary Party: A WORLD TRANSFORMED

Ankara, Teheran, Karachi, New Delhi, Belgrade—these were the way-stops of Secretary of State Dean Rusk in the ten days prior to TIME’S anniversary dinner. He was the only man in a white dinner jacket—because that’s what he had along for appearances in India; he stepped to the dais without a word on paper and spoke eloquently of the explosion of states, ideas and problems in the 40 years since the birth of TIME. Excerpts:

MY admission ticket was a cover story written just before I became Secretary of State, and in those good old days, TIME said some very nice things about me. We are members, I suppose, of a special order of cover-story victims, and all of us share the experience of having been fully exposed. But we have our Knights Commanders, the Men of the Year; we have our Grand Knight Commander, the Man of the Half-Century —the incomparable Winston Churchill—so this is a proud order. It is a great privilege for me to bring congratulations to Harry Luce and to his associates on this 4Oth occasion of the birth of TIME. An idea has become a vital and throbbing institution, with a special relationship to its readers. TIME has always informed them. It has on occasion inspired them. It has frequently amused them. It has sometimes irritated and angered them. But it has never bored them. It set out 40 years ago to talk about what the news means—not in some disembodied spirit, not claiming to have some special revelation, but stepping forth frankly and boldly to tell its readers what the publishers and the editors of this great publication themselves believed. Hiding behind no one else, taking their own responsibility, living with the results. It has become a rather important international institution. I suppose TIME holds the record for having been banned from more countries than any other publication of general circulation. I would suppose that in these past 40 years, that is something of a medal of merit. Of course, the thin skin of the U.S. Government, toughened by the First Amendment, has never allowed that question to arise in this country. But on more than one occasion, we in the Department of State have been asked by diplomats from this or that country, was TIME speaking for the Government of the U.S., and we regularly say no, brother, it was only speaking to you just as it speaks to us.

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Forty years is a long time. A world transformed—this world of Harry Luce and TIME—the world of every citizen. In 1923, relations with only 50 countries. In 1923, still possible for a Secretary of State to say goodbye to an Ambassador in full confidence he would not hear from him for at least six months. Forty years in which great explosions have taken place. The explosion of states, now 112 of them, 33 of whom have planned elections and changes of government in this calendar year, and five of whom have already enjoyed unscheduled changes in government in this calendar year. An explosion of aspiration, a rather recent discovery on the part of ordinary men and women in all parts of the earth; the discovery that disease and ignorance and misery are not there by the hand of Providence, but are something which men can do something about. An explosion of communications, which has transformed modern life. Communications today put a special emphasis on what happens next, for an able and sophisticated and competitive press today knows that what happens today is no longer news—it is what is going to happen tomorrow that is the object of interest and concern. Although this is the cause for concern and anxiety to those of us who are called upon to be prophets, nevertheless, there is something realistic about it, because the pace of events is moving so fast that unless we can find some way to keep our sights on tomorrow, we cannot expect to be in touch with today.

I have known Harry Luce in many different ways, as an individual, as a publisher. There are two ideas to which I know he is deeply attached, which seem to me to be central in our relations with other countries. The first is the notion of law—the law which does not enslave but liberates; the law which makes it possible to predict how we shall act; the law which makes it possible for us to pursue our eccentric orbits with a minimum of collision. The second is the underlying and fundamental difference between a world of coercion and a world of freedom. What is American foreign policy? You go home, think deeply about what this country is all about, and you will have the essence of it in your hand. The simple notion that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. Health, rather than sickness; knowledge, rather than ignorance; relief from the terror that strikes at midnight; ability to move with family and friends in confidence. These simple ideas are what foreign policy is all about, what the thousand cables a day coming into and going out of the Department of State all mean. These are the simple notions which move us forward, and these are the notions that are deeply rooted in the very nature of man, and these are the notions which link us with people in all parts of the earth, and these are the notions which mean that the world of free men is the world of tomorrow. This great course of history is moving toward freedom today, as it has been before, and when we consult America at its best, and our democratic allies at their best, and discover what we are really all about, we can walk the world in confidence and in courage because that is the world which will surely prevail.