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President[ Lyndon B. Johnson

         Date[ January 10, 1967

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, distinguished Members of the Congress:

I share with all of you the grief that you feel at the death today of one

of the most beloved, respected, and effective Members of this body, the

distinguished Representative from Rhode Island, Mr. Fogarty.

I have come here tonight to report to you that this is a time of testing

for our Nation.

At home, the question is whether we will continue working for better

opportunities for all Americans, when most Americans are already living

better than any people in history.

Abroad, the question is whether we have the staying power to fight a very

costly war, when the objective is limited and the danger to us is seemingly

remote.

So our test is not whether we shrink from our country's cause when the

dangers to us are obvious and dose at hand, but, rather, whether we carry

on when they seem obscure and distant--and some think that it is safe to

lay down our burdens.

I have come tonight to ask this Congress and this Nation to resolve that

issue: to meet our commitments at home and abroad--to continue to build a

better America--and to reaffirm this Nation's allegiance to freedom.

As President Abraham Lincoln said, "We must ask where we are, and whither

we are tending." I.

The last 3 years bear witness to our determination to make this a better

country.

We have struck down legal barriers to equality.

We have improved the education of 7 million deprived children and this year

alone we have enabled almost 1 million students to go to college.

We have brought medical care to older people who were unable to afford it.

Three and one-half million Americans have already received treatment under

Medicare since July.

We have built a strong economy that has put almost 3 million more Americans

on the payrolls in the last year alone.

We have included more than 9 million new workers under a higher minimum

wage.

We have launched new training programs to provide job skills for almost 1

million Americans.

We have helped more than a thousand local communities to attack poverty in

the neighborhoods of the poor. We have set out to rebuild our cities on a

scale that has never been attempted before. We have begun to rescue our

waters from the menace of pollution and to restore the beauty of our land

and our countryside, our cities and our towns.

We have given 1 million young Americans a chance to earn through the

Neighborhood Youth Corps--or through Head Start, a chance to learn.

So together we have tried to meet the needs of our people. And, we have

succeeded in creating a better life for the many as well as the few. Now we

must answer whether our gains shall be the foundations of further progress,

or whether they shall be only monuments to what might have been--abandoned

now by a people who lacked the will to see their great work through.

I believe that our people do not want to quit--though the task is great,

the work hard, often frustrating, and success is a matter not of days or

months, but of years--and sometimes it may be even decades. II.

I have come here tonight to discuss with you five ways of carrying forward

the progress of these last 3 years. These five ways concern programs,

partnerships, priorities, prosperity, and peace.

First, programs. We must see to it, I think, that these new programs that

we have passed work effectively and are administered in the best possible

way.

Three years ago we set out to create these new instruments of social

progress. This required trial and error--and it has produced both. But as

we learn, through success and failure, we are changing our strategy and we

are trying to improve our tactics. In the long run, these starts--some

rewarding, others inadequate and disappointing--are crucial to SUCCESS.

One example is the struggle to make life better for the less fortunate

among us.

On a similar occasion, at this rostrum in 1949, I heard a great American

President, Harry S. Truman, declare this: "The American people have decided

that poverty is just as wasteful and just as unnecessary as preventable

disease."

Many listened to President Truman that day here in this Chamber, but few

understood what was required and did anything about it. The executive

branch and the Congress waited 15 long years before ever taking any action

on that challenge, as it did on many other challenges that great President

presented. And when, 3 years ago, you here in the Congress joined with me

in a declaration of war on poverty, then I warned, "It will not be a short

or easy struggle--no single weapon... will suffice--but we shall not rest

until that war is won."

And I have come here to renew that pledge tonight.

I recommend that we intensify our efforts to give the poor a chance to

enjoy and to join in this Nation's progress.

I shall propose certain administrative changes suggested by the

Congress--as well as some that we have learned from our own trial and

error.

I shall urge special methods and special funds to reach the hundreds of

thousands of Americans that are now trapped in the ghettos of our big

cities and, through Head Start, to try to reach out to our very young,

little children. The chance to learn is their brightest hope and must

command our full determination. For learning brings skills; and skills

bring jobs; and jobs bring responsibility and dignity, as well as taxes.

This war--like the war in Vietnam--is not a simple one. There is no single

battle-line which you can plot each day on a chart. The enemy is not easy to

perceive, or to isolate, or to destroy. There are mistakes and there are

setbacks. But we are moving, and our direction is forward.

This is true with other programs that are making and breaking new ground.

Some do not yet have the capacity to absorb well or wisely all the money

that could be put into them. Administrative skills and trained manpower are

just as vital to their success as dollars. And I believe those skills will

come. But it will take time and patience and hard work. Success cannot be

forced at a single stroke. So we must continue to strengthen the

administration of every program if that success is to come--as we know it

must.

We have done much in the space of 2 short years, working together.

I have recommended, and you, the Congress, have approved, 10 different

reorganization plans, combining and consolidating many bureaus of this

Government, and creating two entirely new Cabinet departments.

I have come tonight to propose that we establish a new department--a

Department of Business and Labor.

By combining the Department of Commerce with the Department of Labor and

other related agencies, I think we can create a more economical, efficient,

and streamlined instrument that will better serve a growing nation.

This is our goal throughout the entire Federal Government. Every program

will be thoroughly evaluated. Grant-in-aid programs will be improved and

simplified as desired by many of our local administrators and our

Governors.

Where there have been mistakes, we will try very hard to correct them.

Where there has been progress, we will try to build upon it.

Our second objective is partnership--to create an effective partnership at

all levels of government. And I should treasure nothing more than to have

that partnership begin between the executive and the Congress.

The 88th and the 89th Congresses passed more social and economic

legislation than any two single Congresses in American history. Most of you

who were Members of those Congresses voted to pass most of those measures.

But your efforts will come to nothing unless it reaches the people.

Federal energy is essential. But it is not enough. Only a total working

partnership among Federal, State, and local governments can succeed. The

test of that partnership will be the concern of each public organization,

each private institution, and each responsible citizen.

Each State, county, and city needs to examine its capacity for government

in today's world, as we are examining ours in the executive department, and

as I see you are examining yours. Some will need to reorganize and reshape

their methods of administration--as we are doing. Others will need to revise

their constitutions and their laws to bring them up to date--as we are

doing. Above all, I think we must work together and find ways in which the

multitudes of small jurisdictions can be brought together more

efficiently.

During the past 3 years we have returned to State and local governments

about $40 billion in grants-in-aid. This year alone, 70 percent of our

Federal expenditures for domestic programs will be distributed through the

State and local governments. With Federal assistance, State and local

governments by 1970 will be spending close to $110 billion annually. These

enormous sums must be used wisely, honestly, and effectively. We intend to

work closely with the States and the localities to do exactly that.

Our third objective is priorities, to move ahead on the priorities that we

have established within the resources that are available.

I wish, of course, that we could do all that should be done--and that we

could do it now. But the Nation has many commitments and responsibilities

which make heavy demands upon our total resources. No administration would

more eagerly utilize for these programs all the resources they require than

the administration that started them.

So let us resolve, now, to do all that we can, with what we have--knowing

that it is far, far more than we have ever done before, and far, far less

than our problems will ultimately require.

Let us create new opportunities for our children and our young Americans

who need special help.

We should strengthen the Head Start program, begin it for children 3 years

old, and maintain its educational momentum by following through in the

early years.

We should try new methods of child development and care from the earliest

years, before it is too late to correct.

And I will propose these measures to the 90th Congress.

Let us insure that older Americans, and neglected Americans, share in their

Nation's progress.

We should raise social security payments by an overall average of 20

percent. That will add $4 billion 100 million to social security payments

in the first year. I will recommend that each of the 23 million Americans

now receiving payments get an increase of at least 15 percent.

I will ask that you raise the minimum payments by 59 percent--from $44 to

$70 a month, and to guarantee a minimum benefit of $100 a month for those

with a total of 25 years of coverage. We must raise the limits that retired

workers can earn without losing social security income.

We must eliminate by law unjust discrimination in employment because of

age.

We should embark upon a major effort to provide self-help assistance to the

forgotten in our midst--the American Indians and the migratory farm

workers. And we should reach with the hand of understanding to help those

who live in rural poverty.

And I will propose these measures to the 90th Congress.

So let us keep on improving the quality of life and enlarging the meaning

of justice for all of our fellow Americans.

We should transform our decaying slums into places of decency through the

landmark Model Cities program. I intend to seek for this effort, this year,

the full amount that you in Congress authorized last year.

We should call upon the genius of private industry and the most advanced

technology to help rebuild our great cities.

We should vastly expand the fight for dean air with a total attack on

pollution at its sources, and--because air, like water, does not respect

manmade boundaries--we should set up "regional airsheds" throughout this

great land.

We should continue to carry to every corner of the Nation our campaign for

a beautiful America--to dean up our towns, to make them more beautiful, our

cities, our countryside, by creating more parks, and more seashores, and

more open spaces for our children to play in, and for the generations that

come after us to enjoy.

We should continue to seek equality and justice for each citizen--before a

jury, in seeking a job, in exercising his civil rights. We should find a

solution to fair housing, so that every American, regardless of color, has

a decent home of his choice.

We should modernize our Selective Service System. The National Commission

on Selective Service will shortly submit its report. I will send you new

recommendations to meet our military manpower needs. But let us resolve

that this is to be the Congress that made our draft laws as fair and as

effective as possible.

We should protect what Justice Brandeis called the "right most valued by

civilized men"--the right to privacy. We should outlaw all

wiretapping--public and private--wherever and whenever it occurs, except

when the security of this Nation itself is at stake--and only then with the

strictest governmental safeguards. And we should exercise the full reach of

our constitutional powers to outlaw electronic "bugging" and "snooping."

I hope this Congress will try to help me do more for the consumer. We

should demand that the cost of credit be clearly and honestly expressed

where average citizens can understand it. We should immediately take steps

to prevent massive power failures, to safeguard the home against hazardous

household products, and to assure safety in the pipelines that carry

natural gas across our Nation.

We should extend Medicare benefits that are now denied to 1,300,000

permanently and totally disabled Americans under 65 years of age.

We should improve the process of democracy by passing our election reform

and financing proposals, by tightening our laws regulating lobbying, and by

restoring a reasonable franchise to Americans who move their residences.

We should develop educational television into a vital public resource to

enrich our homes, educate our families, and to provide assistance in our

classrooms. We should insist that the public interest be fully served

through the public's airwaves.

And I will propose these measures to the 90th Congress.

Now we come to a question that weighs very heavily on all our minds--on

yours and mine. This Nation must make an all-out effort to combat crime.

The 89th Congress gave us a new start in the attack on crime by passing the

Law Enforcement Assistance Act that I recommended. We appointed the

National Crime Commission to study crime in America and to recommend the

best ways to carry that attack forward.

And while we do not have all the answers, on the basis of its preliminary

recommendations we are ready to move.

This is not a war that Washington alone can win. The idea of a national

police force is repugnant to the American people. Crime must be rooted out

in local communities by local authorities. Our policemen must be better

trained, must be better paid, and must be better supported by the local

citizens that they try to serve and to protect.

The National Government can and expects to help.

And so I will recommend to the 90th Congress the Safe Streets and Crime

Control Act of 1967. It will enable us to assist those States and cities

that try to make their streets and homes safer, their police forces better,

their corrections systems more effective, and their courts more efficient.

When the Congress approves, the Federal Government will be able to provide

a substantial percentage of the cost:

--90 percent of the cost of developing the State and local plans, master

plans, to combat crime in their area;

--60 percent of the cost of training new tactical units, developing instant

communications and special alarm systems, and introducing the latest

equipment and techniques so that they can become weapons in the war on

crime;

--50 percent of the cost of building crime laboratories and police

academy-type centers so that our citizens can be protected by the best

trained and served by the best equipped police to be found anywhere. We

will also recommend new methods to prevent juvenile delinquents from

becoming adult delinquents. We will seek new partnerships with States and

cities in order to deal with this hideous narcotics problem. And we will

recommend strict controls on the sale of firearms.

At the heart of this attack on crime must be the conviction that a free

America--as Abraham Lincoln once said--must "let reverence for the

laws . . . become the political religion of the Nation."

Our country's laws must be respected. Order must be maintained. And I will

support--with all the constitutional powers the President possesses--our

Nation's law enforcement officials in their attempt to control the crime

and the violence that tear the fabric of our communities.

Many of these priority proposals will be built on foundations that have

already been laid. Some will necessarily be small at first, but "every

beginning is a consequence." If we postpone this urgent work now, it will

simply have to be done later, and later we will pay a much higher price.

Our fourth objective is prosperity, to keep our economy moving ahead,

moving ahead steadily and safely.

We have now enjoyed 6 years of unprecedented and rewarding prosperity. Last

year, in 1966:

--Wages were the highest in history--and the unemployment rate, announced

yesterday, reached the lowest point in 13 years;

--Total after-tax income of American families rose nearly 5 percent;

--Corporate profits after taxes rose a little more than 5 percent;

--Our gross national product advanced 5.5 percent, to about $740 billion;

--Income per farm went up 6 percent.

Now we have been greatly concerned because consumer prices rose 4.5 percent

over the 18 months since we decided to send troops to Vietnam. This was

more than we had expected--and the Government tried to do everything that

we knew how to do to hold it down. Yet we were not as successful as we

wished to be. In the 18 months after we entered World War II, prices rose

not 4.5 percent, but 13.5 percent. In the first 18 months after Korea,

after the conflict broke out there, prices rose not 4.5 percent, but 11

percent. During those two periods we had OPA price control that the

Congress gave us and War Labor Board wage controls.

Since Vietnam we have not asked for those controls and we have tried to

avoid imposing them. We believe that we have done better, but we make no

pretense of having been successful or doing as well as we wished.

Our greatest disappointment in the economy during 1966 was the excessive

rise in interest rates and the tightening of credit. They imposed very

severe and very unfair burdens on our home buyers and on our home builders,

and all those associated with the home industry.

Last January, and again last September, I recommended fiscal and moderate

tax measures to try to restrain the unbalanced pace of economic expansion.

Legislatively and administratively we took several billions out of the

economy. With these measures, in both instances, the Congress approved most

of the recommendations rather promptly.

As 1966 ended, price stability was seemingly being restored. Wholesale

prices are lower tonight than they were in August. So are retail food

prices. Monetary conditions are also easing. Most interest rates have

retreated from their earlier peaks. More money now seems to be available.

Given the cooperation of the Federal Reserve System, which I so earnestly

seek, I am confident that this movement can continue. I pledge the American

people that I will do everything in a President's power to lower interest

rates and to ease money in this country. The Federal Home Loan Bank Board

tomorrow morning will announce that it will make immediately available to

savings and loan associations an additional $1 billion, and will lower from

6 percent to 5 3/4 percent the interest rate charged on those loans.

We shall continue on a sensible course of fiscal and budgetary policy that

we believe will keep our economy growing without new inflationary spirals;

that will finance responsibly the needs of our men in Vietnam and the

progress of our people at home; that will support a significant improvement

in our export surplus, and will press forward toward easier credit and

toward lower interest rates.

I recommend to the Congress a surcharge of 6 percent on both corporate and

individual income taxes--to last for 2 years or for so long as the unusual

expenditures associated with our efforts in Vietnam continue. I will

promptly recommend an earlier termination date if a reduction in these

expenditures permits it. This surcharge will raise revenues by some $4.5

billion in the first year. For example, a person whose tax payment, the tax

he owes, is $1,000, will pay, under this proposal, an extra $60 over the

12-month period, or $5 a month. The overwhelming majority of Americans who

pay taxes today are below that figure and they will pay substantially less

than $5 a month. Married couples with two children, with incomes up to

$5,000 per year, will be exempt from this tax--as will single people with

an income of up to $1,900 a year.

Now if Americans today still paid the income and excise tax rates in effect

when I came into the Presidency, in the year 1964, their annual taxes would

have been over $20 billion more than at present tax rates. So this proposal

is that while we have this problem and this emergency in Vietnam, while we

are trying to meet the needs of our people at home, your Government asks

for slightly more than one-fourth of that tax cut each year in order to try

to hold our budget deficit in fiscal 1968 within prudent limits and to give

our country and to give our fighting men the help they need in this hour of

trial.

For fiscal 1967, we estimate the budget expenditures to be $126.7 billion

and revenues of $117 billion. That will leave us a deficit this year of

$9.7 billion.

For fiscal 1968, we estimate budget expenditures of $135 billion. And with

the tax measures recommended, and a continuing strong economy, we estimate

revenues will be $126.9 billion. The deficit then will be $8.1 billion.

I will very soon forward all of my recommendations to the Congress. Yours

is the responsibility to discuss and to debate them--to approve or modify or

reject them.

I welcome your views, as I have welcomed working with you for 30 years as a

colleague and as Vice President and President.

I should like to say to the Members of the opposition--whose numbers, if I

am not mistaken, seem to have increased somewhat--that the genius of the

American political system has always been best expressed through creative

debate that offers choices and reasonable alternatives. Throughout our

history, great Republicans and Democrats have seemed to understand this. So

let there be light and reason in our relations. That is the way to a

responsible session and a responsive government.

Let us be remembered as a President and a Congress who tried to improve the

quality of life for every American--not just the rich, not just the poor,

but every man, woman, and child in this great Nation of ours.

We all go to school--to good schools or bad schools. We all take air into

our lungs--clean air or polluted air. We all drink water--pure water or

polluted water. We all face sickness someday, and some more often than we

wish, and old age as well. We all have a stake in this Great Society--in

its economic growth, in reduction of civil strife--a great stake in good

government.

We just must not arrest the pace of progress we have established in this

country in these years. Our children's children will pay the price if we

are not wise enough, and courageous enough, and determined enough to stand

up and meet the Nation's needs as well as we can in the time allotted us.

III.

Abroad, as at home, there is also risk in change. But abroad, as at home,

there is a greater risk in standing still. No part of our foreign policy is

so sacred that it ever remains beyond review. We shall be flexible where

conditions in the world change--and where man's efforts can change them for

the better.

We are in the midst of a great transition--a transition from narrow

nationalism to international partnership; from the harsh spirit of the cold

war to the hopeful spirit of common humanity on a troubled and a threatened

planet.

In Latin America, the American chiefs of state will be meeting very shortly

to give our hemispheric policies new direction.

We have come a long way in this hemisphere since the inter-American effort

in economic and social development was launched by the conference at Bogota

in 1960 under the leadership of President Eisenhower. The Alliance for

Progress moved dramatically forward under President Kennedy. There is new

confidence that the voice of the people is being heard; that the dignity of

the individual is stronger than ever in this hemisphere, and we are facing

up to and meeting many of the hemispheric problems together. In this

hemisphere that reform under democracy can be made to happen--because it

has happened. So together, I think, we must now move to strike down the

barriers to full cooperation among the American nations, and to free the

energies and the resources of two great continents on behalf of all of our

citizens.

Africa stands at an earlier stage of development than Latin America. It has

yet to develop the transportation, communications, agriculture, and, above

all, the trained men and women without which growth is impossible. There,

too, the job will best be done if the nations and peoples of Africa

cooperate on a regional basis. More and more our programs for Africa are

going to be directed toward self-help.

The future of Africa is shadowed by unsolved racial conflicts. Our policy

will continue to reflect our basic commitments as a people to support those

who are prepared to work towards cooperation and harmony between races, and

to help those who demand change but reject the fool's gold of violence.

In the Middle East the spirit of good will toward all, unfortunately, has

not yet taken hold. An already tortured peace seems to be constantly

threatened. We shall try to use our influence to increase the possibilities

of improved relations among the nations of that region. We are working hard

at that task.

In the great subcontinent of South Asia live more than a sixth of the

earth's population. Over the years we--and others--have invested very

heavily in capital and food for the economic development of India and

Pakistan.

We are not prepared to see our assistance wasted, however, in conflict. It

must strengthen their capacity to help themselves. It must help these two

nations--both our friends--to overcome poverty, to emerge as self-reliant

leaders, and find terms for reconciliation and cooperation.

In Western Europe we shall maintain in NATO an integrated common defense.

But we also look forward to the time when greater security can be achieved

through measures of arms control and disarmament, and through other forms

of practical agreement.

We are shaping a new future of enlarged partnership in nuclear affairs, in

economic and technical cooperation, in trade negotiations, in political

consultation, and in working together with the governments and peoples of

Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

The emerging spirit of confidence is precisely what we hoped to achieve

when we went to work a generation ago to put our shoulder to the wheel and

try to help rebuild Europe. We faced new challenges and opportunities then

and there--and we faced also some dangers. But I believe that the peoples

on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as both sides of this Chamber,

wanted to face them together.

Our relations with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe are also in

transition. We have avoided both the acts and the rhetoric of the cold war.

When we have differed with the Soviet Union, or other nations, for that

matter, I have tried to differ quietly and with courtesy, and without

venom.

Our objective is not to continue the cold war, but to end it.

We have reached an agreement at the United Nations on the peaceful uses of

outer space.

We have agreed to open direct air flights with the Soviet Union.

We have removed more than 400 nonstrategic items from export control.

We are determined that the Export-Import Bank can allow commercial credits

to Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia, as well as to Romania and

Yugoslavia.

We have entered into a cultural agreement with the Soviet Union for another

2 years.

We have agreed with Bulgaria and Hungary to upgrade our legations to

embassies.

We have started discussions with international agencies on ways of

increasing contacts with Eastern European countries.

This administration has taken these steps even as duty compelled us to

fulfill and execute alliances and treaty obligations throughout the world

that were entered into before I became President.

So tonight I now ask and urge this Congress to help our foreign and our

commercial trade policies by passing an East-West trade bill and by

approving our consular convention with the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union has in the past year increased its long-range missile

capabilities. It has begun to place near Moscow a limited antimissile

defense. My first responsibility to our people is to assure that no nation

can ever find it rational to launch a nuclear attack or to use its nuclear

power as a credible threat against us or against our allies.

I would emphasize that that is why an important link between Russia and the

United States is in our common interest, in arms control and in

disarmament. We have the solemn duty to slow down the arms race between us,

if that is at all possible, in both conventional and nuclear weapons and

defenses. I thought we were making some progress in that direction the

first few months I was in office. I realize that any additional race would

impose on our peoples, and on all mankind, for that matter, an additional

waste of resources with no gain in security to either side.

I expect in the days ahead to closely consult and seek the advice of the

Congress about the possibilities of international agreements bearing

directly upon this problem.

Next to the pursuit of peace, the really greatest challenge to the human

family is the race between food supply and population increase. That race

tonight is being lost.

The time for rhetoric has clearly passed. The time for concerted action is

here and we must get on with the job.

We believe that three principles must prevail if our policy is to succeed:

First, the developing nations must give highest priority to food

production, including the use of technology and the capital of private

enterprise.

Second, nations with food deficits must put more of their resources into

voluntary family planning programs.

And third, the developed nations must all assist other nations to avoid

starvation in the short run and to move rapidly towards the ability to feed

themselves.

Every member of the world community now bears a direct responsibility to

help bring our most basic human account into balance. IV.

I come now finally to Southeast Asia--and to Vietnam in particular. Soon I

will submit to the Congress a detailed report on that situation. Tonight I

want to just review the essential points as briefly as I can.

We are in Vietnam because the United States of America and our allies are

committed by the SEATO Treaty to "act to meet the common danger" of

aggression in Southeast Asia.

We are in Vietnam because an international agreement signed by the United

States, North Vietnam, and others in 1962 is being systematically violated

by the Communists. That violation threatens the independence of all the

small nations in Southeast Asia, and threatens the peace of the entire

region and perhaps the world.

We are there because the people of South Vietnam have as much right to

remain non-Communist--if that is what they choose--as North Vietnam has to

remain Communist.

We are there because the Congress has pledged by solemn vote to take all

necessary measures to prevent further aggression.

No better words could describe our present course than those once spoken by

the great Thomas Jefferson:

"It is the melancholy law of human societies to be compelled sometimes to

choose a great evil in order to ward off a greater."

We have chosen to fight a limited war in Vietnam in an attempt to prevent a

larger war--a war almost certain to follow, I believe, if the Communists

succeed in overrunning and taking over South Vietnam by aggression and by

force. I believe, and I am supported by some authority, that if they are

not checked now the world can expect to pay a greater price to check them

later.

That is what our statesmen said when they debated this treaty, and that is

why it was ratified 82 to 1 by the Senate many years ago.

You will remember that we stood in Western Europe 20 years ago. Is there

anyone in this Chamber tonight who doubts that the course of freedom was

not changed for the better because of the courage of that stand?

Sixteen years ago we and others stopped another kind of aggression--this

time it was in Korea. Imagine how different Asia might be today if we had

failed to act when the Communist army of North Korea marched south. The

Asia of tomorrow will be far different because we have said in Vietnam, as

we said 16 years ago in Korea: "This far and no further."

I think I reveal no secret when I tell you that we are dealing with a

stubborn adversary who is committed to the use of force and terror to

settle political questions.

I wish I could report to you that the conflict is almost over. This I

cannot do. We face more cost, more loss, and more agony. For the end is not

yet. I cannot promise you that it will come this year--or come next year.

Our adversary still believes, I think, tonight, that he can go on fighting

longer than we can, and longer than we and our allies will be prepared to

stand up and resist.

Our men in that area--there are nearly 500,000 now--have borne well "the

burden and the heat of the day." Their efforts have deprived the Communist

enemy of the victory that he sought and that he expected a year ago. We

have steadily frustrated his main forces. General Westmoreland reports that

the enemy can no longer succeed on the battlefield.

So I must say to you that our pressure must be sustained--and will be

sustained--until he realizes that the war he started is costing him more

than he can ever gain.

I know of no strategy more likely to attain that end than the strategy of

"accumulating slowly, but inexorably, every kind of material resource"--of

"laboriously teaching troops the very elements of their trade." That, and

patience--and I mean a great deal of patience.

Our South Vietnamese allies are also being tested tonight. Because they

must provide real security to the people living in the countryside. And

this means reducing the terrorism and the armed attacks which kidnaped and

killed 26,900 civilians in the last 32 months, to levels where they can be

successfully controlled by the regular South Vietnamese security forces. It

means bringing to the villagers an effective civilian government that they

can respect, and that they can rely upon and that they can participate in,

and that they can have a personal stake in. We hope that government is now

beginning to emerge.

While I cannot report the desired progress in the pacification effort, the

very distinguished and able Ambassador, Henry Cabot Lodge, reports that

South Vietnam is turning to this task with a new sense of urgency. We can

help, but only they can win this part of the war. Their task is to build

and protect a new life in each rural province.

One result of our stand in Vietnam is already clear.

It is this: The peoples of Asia now know that the door to independence is

not going to be slammed shut. They know that it is possible for them to

choose their own national destinies--without coercion.

The performance of our men in Vietnam--backed by the American people--has

created a feeling of confidence and unity among the independent nations of

Asia and the Pacific. I saw it in their faces in the 19 days that I spent

in their homes and in their countries. Fear of external Communist conquest

in many Asian nations is already subsiding--and with this, the spirit of

hope is rising. For the first time in history, a common outlook and common

institutions are already emerging.

This forward movement is rooted in the ambitions and the interests of Asian

nations themselves. It was precisely this movement that we hoped to

accelerate when I spoke at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore in April 1965, and I

pledged "a much more massive effort to improve the life of man" in that

part of the world, in the hope that we could take some of the funds that we

were spending on bullets and bombs and spend it on schools and production.

Twenty months later our efforts have produced a new reality: The doors of

the billion dollar Asian Development Bank that I recommended to the

Congress, and you endorsed almost unanimously, I am proud to tell you are

already open. Asians are engaged tonight in regional efforts in a dozen new

directions. Their hopes are high. Their faith is strong. Their confidence

is deep.

And even as the war continues, we shall play our part in carrying forward

this constructive historic development. As recommended by the Eugene Black

mission, and if other nations will join us, I will seek a special

authorization from the Congress of $200 million for East Asian regional

programs.

We are eager to turn our resources to peace. Our efforts in behalf of

humanity I think need not be restricted by any parallel or by any boundary

line. The moment that peace comes, as I pledged in Baltimore, I will ask

the Congress for funds to join in an international program of

reconstruction and development for all the people of Vietnam--and their

deserving neighbors who wish our help.

We shall continue to hope for a reconciliation between the people of

Mainland China and the world community--including working together in all

the tasks of arms control, security, and progress on which the fate of the

Chinese people, like their fellow men elsewhere, depends.

We would be the first to welcome a China which decided to respect her

neighbors' rights. We would be the first to applaud her were she to apply

her great energies and intelligence to improving the welfare of her people.

And we have no intention of trying to deny her legitimate needs for

security and friendly relations with her neighboring countries.

Our hope that all of this will someday happen rests on the conviction that

we, the American people and our allies, will and are going to see Vietnam

through to an honorable peace.

We will support all appropriate initiatives by the United Nations, and

others, which can bring the several parties together for unconditional

discussions of peace--anywhere, any time. And we will continue to take

every possible initiative ourselves to constantly probe for peace.

Until such efforts succeed, or until the infiltration ceases, or until the

conflict subsides, I think the course of wisdom for this country is that we

just must firmly pursue our present course. We will stand firm in Vietnam.

I think you know that our fighting men there tonight bear the heaviest

burden of all. With their lives they serve their Nation. We must give them

nothing less than our full support--and we have given them that--nothing

less than the determination that Americans have always given their fighting

men. Whatever our sacrifice here, even if it is more than $5 a month, it is

small compared to their own.

How long it will take I cannot prophesy. I only know that the will of the

American people, I think, is tonight being tested.

Whether we can fight a war of limited objectives over a period of time, and

keep alive the hope of independence and stability for people other than

ourselves; whether we can continue to act with restraint when the

temptation to "get it over with" is inviting but dangerous; whether we can

accept the necessity of choosing "a great evil in order to ward off a

greater"; whether we can do these without arousing the hatreds and the

passions that are ordinarily loosed in time of war--on all these questions

so much turns.

The answers will determine not only where we are, but "whither we are

tending."

A time of testing--yes. And a time of transition. The transition is

sometimes slow; sometimes unpopular; almost always very painful; and often

quite dangerous.

But we have lived with danger for a long time before, and we shall live

with it for a long time yet to come. We know that "man is born unto

trouble." We also know that this Nation was not forged and did not survive

and grow and prosper without a great deal of sacrifice from a great many

men.

For all the disorders that we must deal with, and all the frustrations that

concern us, and all the anxieties that we are called upon to resolve, for

all the issues we must face with the agony that attends them, let us

remember that "those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like

men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it."

But let us also count not only our burdens but our blessings--for they are

many.

And let us give thanks to the One who governs us all.

Let us draw encouragement from the signs of hope--for they, too, are many.

Let us remember that we have been tested before and America has never been

found wanting.

So with your understanding, I would hope your confidence, and your support,

we are going to persist--and we are going to succeed.

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