Mr. Prime Minister, you do this land and this house great honor by your visit. Mrs. Johnson and I welcome you, Lady Douglas-Home, the foreign Secretary, Mrs. Butler, and other members of your party to the United States and to the White House.
This visit only continues a tradition that is both spacious and warm. Meetings between American Presidents and British Prime Ministers were first firmly established by our great President, franklin Roosevelt, and your legendary Prime Minister--and now our fellow American--Sir Winston Churchill.
No matter the political complexion of our two governments, this tradition has remained happily unbroken for more than a quarter of a century.
During these years we have had our differences, but these differences have passed away. They have passed away because of a very special reason: There is between our two countries the invisible chords of a mingled respect and understanding and affection, much as two brothers who may differ but whose ties are too strong to ever break.
So we meet today as Presidents and Prime Ministers of our two countries--as they have always met with friendship and high resolve to face our common problems and to try to settle them for the common good. Together our nations are secure. They are strong enough to win any fight, and we hope they are wise enough to prevent one. Together we search for tolerance, we search for hope, we search for peace.
In that spirit and with that aim, Mr. Prime Minister, we welcome you. We welcome you to this house and to this land, and may God bless our work together.
Note: The President spoke at 10:40 a.m. on the North Portico at the White House where the Prime Minister was given a formal welcome with full military honors. The Prime Minister responded as follows:
Mr. President, I would like to thank you very much for the warmth of your welcome to my wife and myself and to the foreign Secretary and Mrs. Butler, and to say how much we are looking forward to our exchange of views with you.
We are engaged, as you have so clearly and graphically put it, in the pursuits of peace and much of our talks will undoubtedly be concerned with how we can improve the situation in a difficult and dangerous world. And we in Britain are particularly conscious now of its difficulties and its dangers because we are engaged, as you know, far afield in trying to help to maintain stability and order which is, I know, your concern, too, as a great power.
Since, as you say, this is one of a sequence of meetings which have always been of great benefit to our two countries, I would like you to know that my firm desire is to keep as close as we can to the United States as partners and as allies and as two countries upon which the peace of the world may well depend.
So, sir, I would like once more to thank you. We are going to enjoy ourselves in Washington, and we brought the sun with us and that may be a good omen.
I would once more only say that anything that I can do in our talks and my government can do to help to keep the relations between Britain and the United States close and harmonious will be done with the full support of all of our countrymen.
Thank you very much.
Lyndon B. Johnson, Remarks of Welcome at the White House to Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/239900
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