Remarks on Arrival in California.

WE WANT to thank all of you for coming out and giving us such a wonderful welcome here at home in California.

As we went down the bench here to meet a few of you--and I only wish time permitted meeting everybody who is here--the question that was asked most often was, "How are the astronauts?"

I can only tell you that going from Washington first to Houston and then to Hawaii and meeting the astronauts when they returned to the United States was one of the most memorable events of our lives, as well as, I am sure, of all of you who had the opportunity to witness it.

When you ask how they are, I can tell you that physically they look as if they had just been on--well, I was going to say on the way from San Clemente to Los Angeles, but that is a pretty hard ride-but when they came off the plane it was obvious that their spirit was high.

It was also quite clear that these men who had suffered such a great ordeal and confronted such a tremendous problem had come through with the great American ability to surmount a difficulty--to surmount it and come out stronger as a result of it.

I just want to say this: That as I met them I felt enormously proud of this country, proud that this Nation produces men like that, men who despite the mechanical backing that they had, and all the scientific genius that made their flight possible, who, when that mechanical material no longer came through for them, that they responded with the individual capacity that they had within them.

I also would like to point out as I did when I was in Houston yesterday, and as they themselves said, as Captain Lovell said when I presented the Medal of Freedom to him, that it would not have been possible for them to return to earth had it not been for the fact that there in Houston and at tracking stations around the world, there were hundreds, yes, thousands of people on the ground who did the planning and who helped make the decisions that brought them back.

This was truly a great team effort. It was a great triumph for the spirit of America. It made you realize why this is a really great country. I am very proud to have been there to give your greetings to them, and I can tell you that they send their very best to you, as I return to California.

Thank you.