State of the Union AddressesJohnson, Lyndon B. (Lyndon Baines)
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State of the Union Addresses
Johnson, Lyndon B. (Lyndon Baines)
Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
Able and experienced spokesmen have visited, in behalf of America, more
than 40 countries. We have talked to more than a hundred governments, all
113 that we have relations with, and some that we don't. We have talked to
the United Nations and we have called upon all of its members to make any
contribution that they can toward helping obtain peace.
In public statements and in private communications, to adversaries and to
friends, in Rome and Warsaw, in Paris and Tokyo, in Africa and throughout
this hemisphere, America has made her position abundantly clear.
We seek neither territory nor bases, economic domination or military
alliance in Vietnam. We fight for the principle of self-determination--that
the people of South Vietnam should be able to choose their own course,
choose it in free elections without violence, without terror, and without
fear.
The people of all Vietnam should make a free decision on the great question
of reunification.
This is all we want for South Vietnam. It is all the people of South
Vietnam want. And if there is a single nation on this earth that desires
less than this for its own people, then let its voice be heard.
We have also made it clear--from Hanoi to New York--that there are no
arbitrary limits to our search for peace. We stand by the Geneva Agreements
of 1954 and 1962. We will meet at any conference table, we will discuss any
proposals--four points or fourteen or forty--and we will consider the views
of any group. We will work for a cease-fire now or once discussions have
begun. We will respond if others reduce their use of force, and we will
withdraw our soldiers once South Vietnam is securely guaranteed the right
to shape its own future.
We have said all this, and we have asked--and hoped--and we have waited for
a response.
So far we have received no response to prove either success or failure.
We have carried our quest for peace to many nations and peoples because we
share this planet with others whose future, in large measure, is tied to
our own action, and whose counsel is necessary to our own hopes.
We have found understanding and support. And we know they wait with us
tonight for some response that could lead to peace.
I wish tonight that I could give you a blueprint for the course of this
conflict over the coming months, but we just cannot know what the future
may require. We may have to face long, hard combat or a long, hard
conference, or even both at once.
Until peace comes, or if it does not come, our course is clear. We will act
as we must to help protect the independence of the valiant people of South
Vietnam. We will strive to limit the conflict, for we wish neither
increased destruction nor do we want to invite increased danger.
But we will give our fighting men what they must have: every gun, and every
dollar, and every decision--whatever the cost or whatever the challenge.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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