For the first time in nearly eleven years, distinguished Diplomat Sumner Welles spoke last week as a private citizen. His words were historic.

Freed from the strait jacket of State Department caution--he was fired as Under Secretary two months ago in a clash of personality and policy with rock-ribbed Secretary Cordell Hull--Sumner Welles could speak his full mind on the problem of U.S. foreign policy.

TIME herewith presents a digest of his remarkable speech, made in Manhattan's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel at the 28th anniversary luncheon of the Foreign Policy Association. Sumner Welles chose first to urge, upon the Administration which had found him expendable, the need for haste and boldness. Said he:

The U.S. Must Have Leadership. "There was never a period in the history of this country of ours when it was more essential that the people of the United States understand fully all of the implications in the problems in foreign relations with which their Government is confronted.

"Unless they obtain that understanding, how can they intelligently determine for themselves what this country should strive in its own interest to see achieved after the war is won? How can they decide what responsibilities this country should assume, likewise in its own interest, in the years that lie ahead after victory?

"I for one cannot subscribe to the philosophy which some maintain that a policy cannot be initiated until after the people themselves have brought pressure to bear for its adoption.

". . . Surely the time has come when in the interest of the people of the United States themselves they should ... be told what our major objectives are and what it is proposed this country must undertake to do. ...

"The people of this country look to [the President] once more for that inspired leadership of which he is so supremely capable. . . ."

What, then, should be the goal of U.S. foreign policy? What should the nation's leaders, in & out of the Administration, be striving toward? Said Sumner Welles:

The U.S. Must Have Peace. "The irreducible minimum of what should be obtained by the United States as the outcome of the victory . . . must be the practical certainty that in the world of the future the United States will be secure--safe from the threat of successful attack by any power, or by any combination of powers . . . and enabled, by reason of peace, prosperity and social stability in the rest of the world, to develop its own natural resources and its trade in such a manner as to make possible that advance in social conditions and that rise in living standards which the majority of our people seek. . . ."

But achieving this goal, on which all men of good will could agree, would take some doing. How could the U.S., desiring peace, insure it? Said Sumner Welles:

The Peace Must Be Enforced. "The eternal and perpetual interests of the United States can never be safeguarded unless the United States participates with the other nations of the earth in creating [a] free world organized under law, and made safe by armed might when necessary against lawbreakers. . . . "Unless the British, Soviet, Chinese and United States Governments arrive jointly at a clear-cut and specific agreement in the near future upon certain basic principles, the hope of the creation of a stable world in the postwar years must necessarily be all but illusory.

"What are the alternatives? There are but two. . . . Either widespread, sporadic and interminable chaos and anarchy, or a precarious and temporary system of balance of power, with resultant armament expansion, and a policy of rank imperialism on the part of all the major powers, including the United States, which will pave the way ... for new and still more devastating wars."

But what kind of agreement can the Big Four make? What must they agree on if the peace is to be kept? Said Welles:

The United Nations Must Unite. The Big Four can and must agree:

> "That they will jointly undertake the task of keeping the peace of the world in the postwar period . . . and that they will presently define the nature and method of provision of the armed contribution which each under its own authority will make available for this common undertaking.*

> "That they will . . . provide for progressive reduction of armaments."

> "Upon a common policy of realistic justice . . . towards conquered Axis powers. ..."

> "Not to take independent action which affects the sovereign rights of any other nation save with the concurrence of the other three powers."

> "To . . . the establishment of a Universal World Organization in which, when it is ultimately established, the proposed agreement between them would be merged. ... If a four-power agreement . . . [were] to be all that this country envisaged . . . such an accord would necessarily tend to stimulate the assumption by the four powers of the rights and prerogatives of world dictators. It would be suspect in the minds of all of the lesser powers as an instrument in derogation of their own sovereignty. ..."

But merely admitting all nations to the organization for peace would not be enough. Needed in addition, Sumner Welles argued, was a firm foundation on two moral principles. Said he:

The New World Must Be Just. At least two moral principles must be established for all time:

"The first ... is that it should be the inalienable right of all peoples to enjoy the freedoms of religion, of speech and of information. . . .

"The second great principle likewise involves the question of human freedom. . . .

"We all of us recognize that it will take many generations for some backward peoples to be prepared for autonomy and self-government. But I am persuaded that any International Organization should establish the basic principle that no nation has the inherent and unlimited right to govern subject peoples; that all nations which possess jurisdiction over other peoples must recognize that such control is to be exercised primarily for the purpose of preparing these alien races to undertake the responsibilities of self-government as soon as they are capable. ..."

But time was growing short, and the U.S. was still timid. Said Sumner Welles, in peroration:

The U.S. Must Act. "We have heard it said in recent months that we should presently refrain from declaring what our desires and aspirations are ... and that we should rather wait . . . until we have been told what other powers seek.

"And I sometimes ask myself, 'What is this country of ours?' 'Are we a puny or a senile nation?' 'Are we so impotent, and have we played so inferior a part in the present struggle, that we must still our own voice until we are told what other powers seek?'

"I believe in national modesty. I do not believe in a national inferiority complex. ... I submit that we possess not only the right but the duty to declare to the United Nations and to the world at large what we believe should be the foundations upon which the world of the future should be constructed, and what we are prepared to contribute to that end. . . .

"We have lived and we are living in a rotten world. . Only by handling the old structure roughly, only by conquering our inertia, only by daring to venture on new ways, can we hope to see a better day."

* Implied in Sumner Welles's statement was a new concept of the international police force--as a joint, mutually agreeable military operation rather than as an independent military force which conceivably, as critics have pointed out, could some day use U.S. pilots to bomb Detroit.

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