The First Earth Run, commemorating 1986 as the International Year of Peace and UNICEF’s 40th anniversary, is a compelling global initiative for peace that will touch the lives of people throughout the world and inspire enthusiastic participation. Carrying the torch of peace around the world is stunning in both its rich symbolism and utter simplicity. Because of this, it has the strength to evoke a powerful response and inspire mature reflection about the future. Everyone can play a part in some way and benefit the children of the world.

The United States of America is honored to serve as one of the host nations for this historic journey, which involves millions of people united in their resolve to make the world a place of friendship and freedom for the family of humankind. The collaboration among nations will be a dramatic statement of global cooperation that will improve harmony and constructive discussion among nations.

I urge my fellow world leaders to lend their voices in support, so that the humanitarian objectives this event espouses may meet with universal acceptance. Clearly, you and your colleagues at the First Earth Run have the experience and professionalism to carry out this ambitious undertaking. Your partnership with UNICEF under the able leadership of Jim Grant offers you a vast international network.

I extend personal congratulations and best wishes to the organizers of the First Earth Run, to those in the private sector who are lending it their support, to the international community, to the multitude of participating volunteer groups and to each person who will hold the torch aloft and move it closer to the finish line.

Distinguished Guests, Ladies, Gentlemen and Children:

Let me first of all thank you, my dear young friend, for those inspiring words. It gives me great pleasure to welcome all of you to United Nations Headquarters for the events that will mark this International Day of Peace.

Let me also say how satisfying it is to see so many children in the embrace of the United Nations at the precise moment when delegates to the General Assembly are gathering in the building just behind me for discussions that may well shape the future which your generation is to inherit.

We are here together to launch the First Earth Run. This remarkable event will bring together people all over the world in an outpouring of support for peace - peace for ourselves and also for our children.

There could be no more appropriate location for this impressive ceremony, which will send a torch of hope, a symbol of cooperation, to all peoples.

The peace we seek means more than the absence of war. It must entail a life of dignity for all. We simply cannot expect true peace to reign for as long as people in huge numbers continue to starve, to go homeless or to be subjected to repression.

Through UNICEF, the United Nations system is working to assure a better future for the world's children. In particular, it is striving to eradicate the principal life-taking viral diseases by the year 1990. This is a stupendous task requiring immense resources. Only a body that enjoys the widest support across ideological, cultural and economic boundaries could possibly hope to achieve it. UNICEF is such a body and we are proud of the job it is doing. But we need further support if our goal is to be attained.

Therefore, to all those people in the towns and cities through which the flame will pass over the remaining months of the International Year of Peace: Please come out and support UNICEF. Show the world that the United Nations is a real force for good. Demonstrate your commitment to all our children ... to peace in our time and in theirs.

Today, a great journey begins. A journey of hope; a journey of commitment; a journey of action. A journey around the world, linking neighbor with neighbor, and nation with nation.

Today a torch leaves this center of the world’s hopes for a different future for its children. That torch, carried along its journey by citizens of each country, carries itself their message: “Give the world a chance. Children need peace”.

For UNICEF, this great journey offers the possibility of involving tens of millions of people in the Child Survival and Development Revolution - the very real capacity of the world to, in just a few short years and at very low cost, reduce by half the current daily toll of 40,000 needless child deaths – the only war we want.

For the leaders of the world’s nations, the First Earth Run offers the opportunity to visibly reaffirm their commitment to the peaceful resolution of conflicts and the welfare of children. Indeed, just as the torch will draw its flame from the traditions of an ancient culture – the Native American Indians who created the flame this morning, the Earth Run evokes another Indian tradition – that of tribal leaders passing the peace pipe around their circle, affirming their own pledge to peace.

And for the people of the world, the First Earth Run offers an opportunity to collectively express their most fervent prayer – indeed, their demand – for a more peaceful, healthier world for their children. And it is in that expression that we invest our trust ... for in the long record of history, virtually every great change in the world’s course – every great force for good – has originated among common citizens who said: “This is what we want; this is what we expect of our leaders”.