In his address at the Commencement Exercises of the University, May 22, 1977, President Carter outlined the principles and goals on which the foreign policy of the United States Government understands itself to be based. Given the nature of the topic, the editors of The Review judged that it would be a service to our readers to print it here. The text is complete except for the opening remarks directed to the immediate audience.

No principle commands wider support in political science today than the one which holds that the political scientist's primary task is the construction of theory. Political scientists with little else in common can usually agree on the possibility and desirability of political theory, even though they may disagree vigorously about its nature, source and content. This broad agreement tends to obscure something fundamental, namely, that the very idea of a theory of politics is something peculiar, indeed, something radically problematical. Political life has its own priorities and its own distinctive concerns, and these seem to be at odds with the priorities and concerns of theoretical speculation. The questions that confront the citizen seem to be very different from those that perplex the theorist. A story about the philosopher Anaxagoras serves to illustrate this divergence of the political and theoretical lives as well as the tension between them. It is reported that Anaxagoras took no interest in civic affairs and was blamed for his negligence. When someone asked him whether or not he cared about his country, he replied: “I will have great concern for my country after I have explained the heavens”.

In June, 1945, America's Communists replaced their leader, Earl Browder, who had sought an East-West détente instead of the Cold War. Eight months later they expelled him from the movement altogether, although he had spent twenty-four years in its service. Since 1934, when he had gained undisputed control, he had dominated the Communist party of the United States (CPUSA) “as no one had done before or could do afterward.” Under him it had taken advantage of the Great Depression to achieve a degree of respectability previously unknown. It even enjoyed “a measure of prestige in at least some sections of society.” Probably the best-organized political party to the left of the New Deal, during the thirties it also became the largest Marxian group by outdistancing the socialists. The CPUSA grew in number from 7,000 in 1930 to about 100,000 during the Second World War, with influence ranging far beyond its membership rolls. In contrast to its success under Browder, after his ouster it receded rapidly into political oblivion.

A signal danger in thinking about politics in terms of some larger philosophical conception—whether of history, anthropology, ontology, and so on—is that one may fail to attain practical concreteness. Marx thought he had overcome this problem when he conceived his own project as a dialectical unity of theory and practice. Yet, as is widely recognized, Marx's own elucidations of his project's core focus, the transition from capitalism to socialism, are difficult to grasp unambiguously as a concrete political program. The twentieth century has borne witness to this both as the collective tragedy of Stalinist totalitarianism and as the inability to theorize a coherent and politically viable Marxist humanism.

It is said by some observers of politics and foreign policy that morality has nothing to do with the vital issues of national and international politics. Experienced practitioners note that seldom if ever are moral issues invoked in serious policy discussions; politics and foreign policy are a practical art in which interest and power prevail. Others take issue with this view claiming that from its history America has derived a high responsibility unique among states to stand for certain moral ends and purposes. From its history it has been a nation set apart; its place in the world is dependent on faithfulness to its founding creed embodied in the Declaration of Independence and other statements down to the Atlantic Charter.