Michael Rennie

Klaatu: I am leaving soon, and you will forgive me if I speak bluntly. The universe grows smaller every day, and the threat of aggression by any group, anywhere, can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all, or no one is secure. Now, this does not mean giving up any freedom, except the freedom to act irresponsibly. Your ancestors knew this when they made laws to govern themselves and hired policemen to enforce them. We, of the other planets, have long accepted this principle. We have an organization for the mutual protection of all planets and for the complete elimination of aggression. The test of any such higher authority is, of course, the police force that supports it. For our policemen, we created a race of robots. Their function is to patrol the planets in spaceships like this one and preserve the peace. In matters of aggression, we have given them absolute power over us. This power cannot be revoked. At the first sign of violence, they act automatically against the aggressor. The penalty for provoking their action is too terrible to risk. The result is, we live in peace, without arms or armies, secure in the knowledge that we are free from aggression and war. Free to pursue more... profitable enterprises. Now, we do not pretend to have achieved perfection, but we do have a system, and it works. I came here to give you these facts. It is no concern of ours how you run your own planet, but if you threaten to extend your violence, this Earth of yours will be reduced to a burned-out cinder. Your choice is simple: join us and live in peace, or pursue your present course and face obliteration. We shall be waiting for your answer. The decision rests with you.

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Klaatu: [after reading the Gettysburg Address at the Lincoln Memorial] Those are great words.
Klaatu: [turns to look at the statue of Lincoln] He must have been a great man.
Bobby Benson: Well sure.
Klaatu: [walking out of the memorial, then turning to look at Lincoln again] That's the kind of man I would like to talk to.

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[last lines]
Narrator: During that last short ride, what may Rommel's thoughts have been? Were they bitter, that he had learned too slowly and struck too late? Or did they go back to the desert, where his military genuis had first electrified the world? First at Mechili, then Tobruk, yes and even El Alamein. In any case, his life and fate may have been summed up, ironically enough, in the words of Nazi Germany's sternest enemy, the Honorable Winston Churchill.
Churchill: His ardor, and daring, inflicted grevious disasters upon us. But he deserves the salute, which I made him, in the House of Commons, in January, 1942. He also deserves our respect, because, although a loyal German soldier, he came to hate Hitler, and all his works, and took part in the conspiracy to rescue Germany, by disgracing the maniac and tyrant. For this, he paid the forfeit of his life. In the somber wars of modern democracy, there is little place for chivalry.

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