§ We have met together as trusted friends of many years who have come to head the Governments of our respective countries. These two countries have close and historicties, just as each has intimate and unbreakable ties with other free countries.
§ Recognising that only in the establishment of a just peace can the deepest aspirations of free peoples be realised, the guiding purpose of our deliberations has been the determination of how best to utilise the moral, intellectual and material strength of our two nations in the performance of our full share of those tasks that will more surely and promptly bring about conditions in which peace can prosper. One of these tasks is to provide adequate security for the Free World.
§ The free nations possess vast assets, both material and moral. These in the aggregate are far greater than those of the Communist World. We do not ignore the fact that the Soviet rulers can achieve formidable material accomplishments by concentrating upon selected developments and scientific applications, and by yoking their people to this effort. Despotisms have often been able to produce spectacular monuments. But the price has been heavy. For all peoples yearn for intellectual and economic freedom, the more so if from their bondage they see others manifest the glory of freedom. Even despots are forced to permit freedom to grow by an evolutionary process, or in time there will be violent revolution. This principle is in-exorable in its operation. Already it has begun to be noticeable even within the Soviet orbit. If the free nations are steadfast and if they utilise their resources in harmonious co-operation, the totalitarian menace that now confronts them will in good time recede.
§ In order, however, that freedom may be secure and show its good fruits, it is necessary first that the collective military strength of the free nations should be adequate to meet the threat against them. At the same time the aggregate of the Free World's military expenditure must be kept within limits 547 compatible with individual freedom. Otherwise we risk losing the very liberties which we seek to defend.
§ These ideas have been the central theme of our conversations which in part were participated in by M. Spaak, the Secretary-General of N.A.T.O.
§ In application of these ideas and as an example which we believe can and should spread among the nations of the Free World, we reached the following understanding—