An Annotated version of Annan's Speech at the Truman Library

Independence, Missouri, 11 December 2006 - An annotated version of the Secretary-General's (more properly known as an un-indicted co-conspirator) address at the Truman Presidential Museum and Library.
Thank you very much, Senator [Hagel] for that wonderful introduction. It is an honor to be introduced by such a distinguished legislator for whom I have always had a great deal of respect. I am especially respectful of any member of the Senate who does not like the same people that I do not like. And thanks to you, Mr. Devine, and all your staff, and to the wonderful UNA chapter of Kansas City, for all you have done to make this occasion possible. I realize that when I was appointed I was the "reform" candidate. But of course the only reforms enacted in my administration were the manifold bribery scandals from all sources - Benon Sevan - took $160,000, my chief of staff wisely tried to destroy the documents. Me and my deputy, knew about the scandal but failed to report it as required under the UN Charter. Money laundering during my administration came to new heights. Vladimir Kuznetsov lifted more than a million bucks and our peacekeeping operations mismanaged in the range of $300 million.

It is a pleasure, and a privilege, to be here in Missouri. It's almost a homecoming for me, as you heard from the Senator. Nearly half a century ago I was a student about 400 miles north of here, in Minnesota. (Nebraska, Minnesota, Missouri – they are all a part of that vast middle of the country that the people on the coasts just mush together) I arrived there straight from Africa – and I can tell you, Minnesota soon taught me the value of a thick overcoat, a warm scarf and even the weird looking ear-muffs – that's to an African eye!

When you leave one home for another, there are always lessons to be learnt. And I have had more to learn when I moved on from Minnesota to the United Nations – the indispensable common house of the entire human family, (Of course, in my definition of family, some are more equal than others.) which has been my main home over the last 44 years. Today I want to talk to you particularly about five lessons I have learnt in the last ten years, during which I have had the difficult but exhilarating (and financially rewarding) job as Secretary-General.

I think it's especially fitting that I do that here in the house that honors the legacy of Harry S Truman. If FDR was the architect of the United Nations, then President Truman was the master-builder, and the faithful champion of the Organization in its early years, when it had to face quite different problems from the ones FDR had expected. Truman's name will always and forever be associated with the memory of far-sighted American leadership in a great global endeavor. And you will see that every one of my five lessons brings me to the conclusion that such leadership is no less sorely needed now than it was sixty years ago.

My first lesson is that, in today's world, the security of every one of us is linked to that of everyone else. (Is this where we link hands and sing Kumbaya? The UN was conceived as a way for nations to work together on common problems. At times it has been successful in resolving conflicts between nations. But the operating unit in the entity is not people but nations. That is a fundamental concept which Mr. Annan seems to forget.)

That was already true in Truman's time. The man who in 1945 gave the order for nuclear weapons to be used – for the first time, and let us hope the only, time in history – understood that security for some could never again come or be achieved at the price of insecurity for others. (The example is an excellent one – Truman acted in behalf of the interests of the United States in dropping the bombs to end WWII. Most histories do not suggest that he spent a lot of time consulting with even members of the allies on this important decision. ) Remember that I helped to try to stop interventions in Iraq as early as 1998. Yeah, Saadam was killing his own people at the rate of 36,000 per year, but what of that? Saadam was no worse than the regime in Khartoum. He was determined, as he had told the founding conference of the United Nations in San Francisco, to “prevent, if human mind, heart, and hope can prevent it, the repetition of the disaster [meaning the world war] from which the entire world will suffer for years to come.” He believed strongly that henceforth security must be collective and indivisible. That was why, for instance, he insisted, when faced with aggression by North Korea against the South in 1950, on bringing the issue to the United Nations and placing US troops under the UN flag, at the head of a multinational force. (Of course I am free to forget when the body acted 18 times to stop the atrocities of Saadam.)

But how much more true it is in our open world today: a world where deadly weapons can be obtained not only by rogue states but by extremist groups; a world where SARS, or avian flu, can be carried across oceans, let alone national borders, in a matter of hours; a world where failed states in the heart of Asia or Africa can become havens for terrorists; a world where we can have a Human Rights Commission in the UN where the major players are the most extreme violators of human rights; a world where even the climate is changing in ways that will affect the lives of everyone on the planet.I'll go ahead pressing for lunacies like the Kyoto treaty because I know the rich countries can pay for it. Did I tell you I saw Al Gore's movie 18 times - it sort of conforms to my forgetting the 18 resolutions.

Against such threats as these, no nation can make itself secure by seeking supremacy over all others. We all share responsibility for each other's security, and only by working to make each other secure can we hope to achieve lasting security for ourselves. There is this nasty thing of the organizational structure of the UN. As the body was established it was founded on the principle that some nations are more equal than others. That is why there is a security council.

And I would add that this responsibility is not simply a matter of states being ready to come to each other's aid when attacked – important though that is. It also includes our shared responsibility to protect populations from genocide (I guess the Kurds in Iraq do not count), war crimes(I guess Saadam’s role in the first Iraq conflict should be ignored.) , ethnic cleansing (You should forget the record here. When the UN did not act as in Kosovo - lives seem to have been saved, when they did they mostly were not. I have forestalled interventions in the obscenities of Sudan because my pals in Khratoum don't want people looking over their shoulders- that is only for regimes I do not like.) and crimes against humanity – a responsibility solemnly accepted by all nations (There is that term – nations, not peoples. Although KA does not really believe that all nations are equal here – he must be the arbiter of when we stick up for these principles.) at last year's UN world summit. (Of course it is OK to have tin horn dictators from Iran and Venezuela come and insult the US to their heart’s delight.) That means that respect for national sovereignty can no longer be used as a shield by governments intent on massacring their own people ((But again we’ll just ignore that in Iraq, earlier or now.), or as an excuse for the rest of us to do nothing when heinous crimes are committed. (heinous crimes are defined by me not the body of nations)

But, as Truman said, “If we should pay mere lip service to inspiring ideals(as I have for honor or financial responsibility) , and later do violence to simple justice, we would draw down upon us the bitter wrath of generations yet unborn.” And when I look at the murder, rape and starvation to which the people of Darfur are being subjected, I fear that we have not got far beyond “lip service”. The lesson here is that high-sounding doctrines like the “responsibility to protect” will remain pure rhetoric unless and until those with the power to intervene effectively – by exerting political, economic or, in the last resort, military muscle – are prepared to take the lead. (But then I have ignored this doctrine for most of my term as SG preferring to run up costs and help my buddies get some boodle from UN activities.)

And I believe we have a responsibility not only to our contemporaries but also to future generations – a responsibility to preserve resources that belong to them as well as to us, and without which none of us can survive. That means we must do much more, and urgently, to prevent or slow down climate change. (I saw Al Gore's movie eighteen times and believed it. But then I know he is the guy who invented the internet too. ) Every day that we do nothing, or too little, imposes higher costs on our children and our children's children. (I am the guy who is supposed to impose costs but this delay in working on global warming prevents me from getting some of the spondoodle that comes from UN activities. Me and my son are no longer raking off our percentages from the oil for food program.) Of course, it reminds me of an African proverb – the earth is not ours but something we hold in trust for future generations. I hope my generation will be worthy of that trust.

My second lesson is that we are not only all responsible for each other's security. We are also, in some measure, responsible for each other's welfare. Global solidarity is both necessary and possible.(Of course, Israel does not count here. I've said nothing about the efforts of the Iranian leadership to deny the holocaust.)

It is necessary because without a measure of solidarity no society can be truly stable, and no one's prosperity truly secure. That applies to national societies – as all the great industrial democracies learned in the 20th century – but it also applies to the increasingly integrated global market economy that we live in today. It is not realistic to think that some people can go on deriving great benefits from globalization while billions of their fellow human beings are left in abject poverty(Surely I do not want to be in abject poverty, that is why I figured out how to take something off the top.) , or even thrown into it. We have to give our fellow citizens, not only within each nation but in the global community, at least a chance to share in our prosperity. (Of course I will ignore the value of markets in assuring development - doesn't allow me as big a chance to scrape it off the top. The ability of individuals to be able to determine their own destinies is, in the end a positive value. So what have you done to increase the opportunities for markets in the world? The best systems are ones which taxingenuity and success and allow me a piece of the pie.)

That is why, five years ago, the UN Millennium Summit adopted a set of goals – the “Millennium Development Goals” – to be reached by 2015: goals such as reducing by fifty percent the proportion of people in the world who don't have clean water to drink; making sure all girls and boys receive at least primary education; slashing infant and maternal mortality; and stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS. (Again I will ignore the evidence– encouraging vigorous markets increases individual welfare and allows people to spend money on things beyond subsistence.)

Much of that can only be done by governments and people in the poor countries themselves. But richer countries, too, have a vital role to play. (And of course all of it should be funded through the UN so I can take my share.) Here too, Harry Truman proved himself a pioneer, proposing in his 1949 inaugural address a program of what came to be known as development assistance. And our success in mobilizing donor countries to support the Millennium Development Goals, through debt relief and increased foreign aid, convinces me that global solidarity is not only necessary but possible.

Of course, foreign aid by itself is not enough. (No we also have to pay outrageous salaries to people like me.) Today, we realize that market access, fair terms of trade, and a non-discriminatory financial system are equally vital to the chances of poor countries. (But that does not mean I do not think I could regulate all that better.) Even in the next few weeks and months, you Americans can make a crucial difference to many millions of people, if you are prepared to save the Doha Round of trade negotiations. You can do that by putting your broader national interest above that of some powerful sectional lobbies, while challenging Europe and the large developing countries to do the same.

My third lesson is that both security and development ultimately depend on respect for human rights and the rule of law. (But again the rule of law is a more limited focus than you traditionally see. We don't care about enforcing the resolutions passed by the UN, except the ones I care about. Also we are not bothered when one country like Iran challenges the very existence of another country like Israel. Those kinds of things are not included in the rule of law.)

Although increasingly interdependent, our world continues to be divided – not only by economic differences, but also by religion and culture. That is not in itself a problem. (Unless of course you are a Christian in parts of Africa or Jewish and in the Middle East.) Throughout history human life has been enriched by diversity, and different communities have learnt from each other. But if our different communities are to live together in peace we must stress also what unites us: our common humanity, and our shared belief that human dignity and rights should be protected by law. (Law is an interesting concept to use here, it is based on a shared culture and some fundamental common understandings of how things work together. But then as I said earlier, I beleive that the rule of law needs an arbiter like me.)

That is vital for development, too. Both foreign investors and a country's own citizens are more likely to engage in productive activity when their basic rights are protected and they can be confident of fair treatment under the law. (But of course we did not want to move too quickly in Iraq where human rights was not a concept accepted by Saadam.) And policies that genuinely favor economic development are much more likely to be adopted if the people most in need of development can make their voice heard. (But that principle did not apply to Iraq under Saadam.)

In short, human rights and the rule of law are vital to global security and prosperity. As Truman said, “We must, once and for all, prove by our acts conclusively that Right Has Might.” That's why this country has historically been in the vanguard of the global human rights movement. But that lead can only be maintained if America remains true to its principles, including in the struggle against terrorism. When it appears to abandon its own ideals and objectives, its friends abroad are naturally troubled and confused. (The Geneva Convention makes a clear distinction between forces fighting for a country and those who are not. The rights extend only to those who are fighting for a country. But in my conception of the rule of law, that principle does not apply. Nations when I say it, people at other times - that is my principle.)

And states need to play by the rules towards each other, as well as towards their own citizens. (But we will ignore the inconvenient truths when it suits us.) That can sometimes be inconvenient, but ultimately what matters is not inconvenience. It is doing the right thing. (That clearly does not apply in KAs notion when the UN passes 18 resolutions compelling actions by one of its members.) No state can make its own actions legitimate in the eyes of others.(Unless of course I say it is OK.) When power, especially military force, is used, the world (read the people who agree with me not those silly fool countries who worked with the US in Iraq. Oh, I forgot, those are not nations.) will consider it legitimate only when convinced that it is being used for the right purpose – for broadly shared aims – in accordance with broadly accepted norms. (But of course we will look the other way when our peacekeepers bring mayhem to the country they are supposedly assisting.)

No community anywhere suffers from too much rule of law; many do suffer from too little – and the international community is among them. (Law comes from shared values. Does the suppression of women’s rights rise to a standard in all countries?) This we must change.

The US has given the world an example of a democracy in which everyone, including the most powerful, is subject to legal restraint. Its current moment of world supremacy gives it a priceless opportunity to entrench the same principles at the global level. As Harry Truman said, "We all have to recognize, no matter how great our strength, that we must deny ourselves the license to do always as we please."

My fourth lesson – closely related to the last one – is that governments must be accountable for their actions in the international arena, as well as in the domestic one. (In my conception, all nations should submit to our form of law, but some like Iran and Iraq under Saadam will be treated differently than others. My principle of law is like what WC Fields once said - don't do as I tell you, do as I tell you.)

Today the actions of one state can often have a decisive effect on the lives of people in other states. So does it not owe some account to those other states and their citizens, as well as to its own? I believe it does.

As things stand, accountability between states is highly skewed. Poor and weak countries are easily held to account, because they need foreign assistance. (Wouldn’t it be useful to cite specific examples here?) But large and powerful states, whose actions have the greatest impact on others, can be constrained only by their own people, working through their domestic institutions. (Or by the UN failing to act.)

That gives the people and institutions of such powerful states a special responsibility to take account of global views and interests, as well as national ones. (Ignoring Iran and a host of other countries.) And today they need to take into account also the views of what, in UN jargon, we call “non-state actors”. I mean commercial corporations, charities and pressure groups, labor unions, philanthropic foundations, universities and think tanks and terrorists when it suits our broader purposes – all the myriad forms in which people come together voluntarily to think about, or try to change, the world.

None of these should be allowed to substitute itself for the state, or for the democratic process by which citizens choose their governments and decide policy. But they all have the capacity to influence political processes, on the international as well as the national level. States that try to ignore this are hiding their heads in the sand. (Is this the place to insert all of the nations in the UN who ignore the democratic processes?)

The fact is that states can no longer – if they ever could – confront global challenges alone. Increasingly, we need to enlist the help of these other actors, both in working out global strategies and in putting those strategies into action once agreed. It has been one of my guiding principles as Secretary-General to get them to help achieve UN aims and to line my own pockets whenever I can – for instance through the Global Compact with international business, which I initiated in 1999, or in the worldwide fight against polio, which I hope is now in its final chapter, thanks to a wonderful partnership between the UN family, the US Centers for Disease Control and – crucially – Rotary International.

So that is four lessons. Let me briefly remind you of them:

First, we are all responsible for each other's security.

Second, we can and must give everyone the chance to benefit from global prosperity.

Third, both security and prosperity depend on human rights and the rule of law.

Fourth, states must be accountable to each other, and to a broad range of non-state actors, in their international conduct.

My fifth and final lesson derives inescapably from those other four. We can only do all these things by working together through a multilateral system, and by making the best possible use of the unique instrument bequeathed to us by Harry Truman and his contemporaries, namely the United Nations. (Multilateral means one thing for KA and quite another for others. Multilateral should mean at times inside the UN but when it proves itself incapable, multilateral may mean some actions take place outside the UN.)

In fact, it is only through multilateral institutions that states can hold each other to account. And that makes it very important to organize those institutions in a fair and democratic way, giving the poor and the weak some influence over the actions of the rich and the strong. (I guess the question here is what does the word “some” mean here.)

That applies particularly to the international financial institutions, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Developing countries should have a stronger voice in these bodies, whose decisions can have almost a life-or-death impact on their fate. And it also applies to the UN Security Council, whose membership still reflects the reality of 1945, not of today's world. (There is a good question whether the IMF and WB serve the interests of development, but that is a topic to be addressed in another venue or post.)

That's why I have continued to press for Security Council reform. But reform involves two separate issues. One is that new members should be added, on a permanent or long-term basis, to give greater representation to parts of the world which have limited voice today. (Does that also mean dropping some permanent members from the SC when it is demonstrated that they are no longer deserving of permanent status?) The other, perhaps even more important, is that all Council members, and especially the major powers who are permanent members, must accept the special responsibility that comes with their privilege. The Security Council is not just another stage on which to act out national interests. It is the management committee, if you will, of our fledgling collective security system. (The original idea of the SC was something more and less than a management committee. It was clearly designed for the permanent members to have the opportunity to stop something which was clearly not in their interest. KA is right here that this is a special responsibility, but the characterization as a management committee is much too limited.)

As President Truman said, “the responsibility of the great states is to serve and not dominate the peoples of the world." He showed what can be done and what can be achieved when the US assumes that responsibility. And still today, none of our global institutions can accomplish much when the US remains aloof. But when it is fully engaged, the sky is the limit. (But that involvement has to be both ways. The US cannot afford to allow the UN to selectively intervene when it thinks it should but to ignore vital US interests at its will.)

These five lessons can be summed up as five principles, which I believe are essential for the future conduct of international relations: collective responsibility, global solidarity, the rule of law, mutual accountability, and multilateralism. Let me leave them with you, in solemn trust, as I hand over to a new Secretary-General in three weeks' time. (I am still trying to figure out in those last three weeks whether I can get any more boodle out of this job.)

My friends, we have achieved much since 1945, when the United Nations was established. But much remains to be done to put those five principles into practice.

Standing here, I am reminded of Winston Churchill's last visit to the White House, just before Truman left office in 1953. Churchill recalled their only previous meeting, at the Potsdam conference in 1945. “I must confess, sir,” he said boldly, “I held you in very low regard then. I loathed your taking the place of Franklin Roosevelt.” Then he paused for a moment, and continued: “I misjudged you badly. Since that time, you more than any other man, have saved Western civilization.”

My friends, our challenge today is not to save Western civilization – or Eastern, for that matter. All civilization is at stake, and we can save it only if all peoples join together in the task. The principle here should be to allow civilizations to continue. The respect for “law” is a complex thing. If the terrorists do not respect institutions in the west, how should the body of nations, or one nation respond?)

You Americans did so much, in the last century, to build an effective multilateral system, with the United Nations at its heart. Do you need it less today, and does it need you less, than 60 years ago?

Surely not. (I am not sure I would answer as quickly. The concept of working together is a good one. But when the major body that is supposed to promote that is so taken over by tinpots and demagogues and when its administration is more concerned about compensation than principle, then maybe it is time to either revise the body or abandon it.) More than ever today Americans, like the rest of humanity, need a functioning global system through which the world's peoples can face global challenges together. And in order to function more effectively, the system still cries out for far-sighted American leadership, in the Truman tradition. But also for the principled leadership of many of my predecessors.

I hope and pray that the American leaders of today, and tomorrow, will provide it. I hope and pray that the successor to Mr. Annan will be a bit less inclined to follow his predecessor’s ways.

Thank you very much.

One other comments bears making. The multilateral diplomacy that evolved after the Second World War was reflective of the times. It should be clear that with changes in international affairs that it might be timlely to think more creatively about what the system in this era should look like.

When the UN was created it looked back to the League of Nations but it also looked at the current conditions on which to build the system. But that system was built in an era where a substantial percentage of the peoples in the world were under some level of colonial authority and where an increasing percentage of people were subject to communist rule. In this era those conditions no longer obtain. Over the last six decades people have collectively thrown off the colonial yoke and communism has failed. The new nations that evolved are different from those that convened to think about the formation of the UN. Not only are some of the original superpowers less super, but the challenges we face go back before the formation of the nation state.

Annan, as might be expected, thinks in a linear fashion. He extends the current system beyond any sense of reason. But as we saw in the formation of the UN after WWII, linear thinking will not serve us. Perhaps Mr. Annan's successor will be able to move the organization in a direction that has more relationship to the world we live in today. I am constantly annoyed at the moral hectoring that this international hack tries to foist upon us but that does not mitigate my understanding that the world community needs to think creatively about how to accomplish things in a collective way. Annan's five principles are mostly hackneyed restatements of what his leadership has brought the UN to, but that does not mean that we should not continue to work on our joint interests.