In saying this, I do not mean to conjure up some grand utopian scheme of world government. The political differences are too great, the economic interests too divergent to make such visions realistic. Instead, it seems wiser to begin by making more determined efforts to build durable forms of cooperation for particular problems, however, where there are strong mutual interests in doing so. Such structures have served us well in the past. In the field armaments, the nonproliferation treaty has held the rate of nuclear diffusion to one-third the level that President Kennedy predicted in 1961. In commerce, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade has helped to slow the growth of protectionism. In banking, cooperation has worked to contain the threat of massive defaults and to manage the vast shifts of wealth brought on by the OPEC cartel. New opportunites for progress may exist in areas as disparate as protecting the ozone layer, stabilizing exchange rates, establishing rules for capital movements and trade, limiting nuclear weapons, or even the use of peace-keeping forces. Further possibilities will doubtless appear with increasing frequency over your lifetime.

There are also many ways in which we can work to encourage cooperation, and institutions like Notre Dame and Harvard will clearly have a role to play. Whatever our competitive problems may be in automobiles or silicon chips, American universities are now preeminent in the world and will undoubtedly remain so for a generation or more. In country after country, old educational traditions are changing and the United States is becoming the country of choice for able students wishing to study abroad. In these circumstances, we have an unprecedented chance to attract the future leaders from most nations of the world to study with us, live with us, and come to know our people and our culture. Of course, not every foreign student will emerge from this experience loving America or agreeing with all its policies. But the knowledge such students acquire of our language and culture and the personal ties they make will help to increase understanding and eventually improve the climate for cooperation.

Do unto Other Countries...

There are other ways as well to build an atmosphere of trust that can nurture new forms of cooperation. If we are to capitalize on these possibilities, however, we will have to try harder to apply in our international dealings the lessons we already appreciate in dealing with one another. In our personal and professional lives, we know that we cannot build trust by heaping abuse on those we do not like, by sowing confusion with campaigns of disinformation, by ignoring agreements that prove inconvenient, by conducting secret operations that violate every moral standard we profess. Yet all of these tactics have become all too familiar in the conduct of foreign policy. While international relations and human relations are not the same, it is surely time to ask whether we have not become too impressed with the short-term gains to be derived from these questionable methods and too insensitive to the damage they do to the credibility and trust we will need in order to work more effectively with other nations.

Finally, as our economic and military might continue to decline relative to other countries of the world, we will be unable to depend so heavily on the force of arms and will have to rely much more on the power of ideas and ideals to achieve our objectives. To exert such influence, it will not be enough to work implacably against Russian expansion, however dangerous the Soviet threat doubtless continues to be. We will also need to demonstrate more powerfully just what we are for, not only by rhetoric but by acting responsibly abroad and building a more just, humane society at home. In particular, as we strive to become more competitive overseas, we must remember that we cannot demonstrate the strength and vitality merely by producing better automobiles and supercomputers. If we mean to live up to our ideals and set an example that others will wish to follow, we must also be competitive with the most advanced nations in combating such social afflictions as poverty, homelessness, infant mortality, adult illiteracy, and violent crime.

By this time, some of you may be wondering just what all this has to do with you and your future lives. Much more than you might think.

To begin with, our successes and failures in coming to terms with a world we can neither dominate nor escape will probably do more than anything else to affect your peace of mind, your standard of living, even your survival. You have every reason to be concerned.

You also have a stake in the effort to cooperate more effectively with other nations, for this is not a job that you can safely leave for others to perform. On the contrary, it needs the continuing participation of many people exactly like yourselves. We will certainly need able public servants and politicians and diplomats to help guide our relations with other countries and build the trust and mutual respect required to make cooperation possible. But we must have much more than this.

We will need lawyers to help craft procedures--public and private--to settle disputes and facilitate discussion across national borders.

We will need business executives working with their counterparts overseas to fashion ways of bringing more stability to international trade and investment.

We will need journalists to help the public appreciate our role in the world and increase their knowledge of world affairs.

We will need scholars to help us gain greater knowledge of the foreign cultures and traditions with which we must increasingly interact.

Above all, we will need the support of an informed, tough-minded citizenry. Such citizens are our best defense against shortsighted desires to withdraw from world affairs. They are our sturdiest bulwark against the dangerous illusion that Americans are possessed of superior virtue while those who oppose us are unworthy and evil. They are our greatest hope for achieving the breadth of mind to understand the feelings of other peoples and the reasons that lead them to contrary points of view. Above all, informed and active citizens will always be our strongest safeguard against public figures who would drive us into ill-considered foreign adventures by rhetoric, half-truths, and artful propaganda.

As Voltaire once said: "Those who can make us believe absurdities can make us commit atrocities." In foreign affairs, the risk of being misled and manipulated grows especially severe, since foreign affairs are so often conducted in secrecy and have to do with people and events so far removed from our normal lives and everyday experience. Who can possibly overcome such barriers if not alert, educated citizens such as yourselves?

In your years at Notre Dame, the university hastried to prepare you for these responsibilities byoffering courses on foregin languages and othercultures, by surrounding you with classmates formother lands, by providing fellowships and programsto study abroad. All these activities andopportunities have been conceived, at least inpart, to enlarge your tolerance for culturaldiversity, to awaken your interest in foreignlands, to broaden your perspective to include theentire world as your frame of reference.

But no university can force you to put theseattitudes to work, or make you believe that yourparticipation truly matters, or convince you thatyou are not another inconsequential cog in a vastmachine but someone who must participate fully inhelping to shape America's role in the world.These are convictions that each of you must findwithin yourself. As we celebrate your departurefor the world outside, I hope that you wil profitfrom the example of Ted Hesburgh, profit fromNotre Dame's traditional concern for humanevalues, profit from the commitment many of youhave already shown to serving the community aroundyou and begin to take initiative andresponsibility on a larger international stage. Toparaphrase Martin Luther King: "In a world facingthe revolt of ragged and hungry masses; in a worldtorn between the tensions of East and West, whiteand colored, individualists and collectivists; ina world whose cultural and spiritual power lags sofar behind our technological capabilities that welive each day on the verge of nuclearannihilation; in this world, [non-violentinternational cooperation] is no longer an optionfor intellectual analysis, it is an imperative foraction.