Diplomacy in the Nuclear Age

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Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957, Lester B. Pearson here speaks of the problems and hazards that face diplomats and diplomacy today. Pearson urges that heads of state and foreign ministers reduce their individual diplomacy. He asks that the ambassador be accorded once more a station of responsibility and authority. Speaking of another new factor in diplomacy today, the United Nations, the author describes the many real advances made in international cooperation and toward international authority.

The best protection against war, according to Pearson, is to keep on negotiating, both to take advantage of such opportunities for agreement as may come up, and also actively to create new opportunities. The negotiations themselves should be kept inconspicuous, but the results must always be public. We must strive to perform positive actions to make peace endure, and perhaps it will be enduring. Included in this volume is the text of the author’s speech accepting the Nobel Prize for Peace.