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Statement by the President Upon Appointing a Committee To Review the Closing of Veterans Hospitals.

April 03, 1965

CONTROVERSY has developed over our decision to close several veterans hospitals and domiciliaries. We made that decision because, in the opinion of the experts who advise us on this program, these facilities are not in a position to offer the best care to American veterans.

I believe the American people expect this administration to be prudent, fair, and responsible in carrying out the programs Congress has enacted for their benefit. Where there is inefficiency, they believe it should be eliminated. Where a facility no longer serves the purpose for which we built it, our people want it closed, or used for another purpose, but we must be sure our facts are right.

We have tried to follow this plan in all our programs, foreign and domestic.

But we do not pretend to divine wisdom. We may have erred in the past and we may err in the future.

We must be certain no veteran who needs medical attention is deprived of it by unwise action.

We are not closing down the veterans hospital program--far from it. We are asking Congress to appropriate this year almost $100 million to build new veterans hospital facilities. We are expanding and enriching our medical system for veterans and we are constantly striving to make our hospitals the equal of private treatment anywhere.

But controversy continues over a few of the facilities designated for closing. Hearings in the Congress have produced conflicting statements of fact. This week I have personally been reading the reports of these hearings very carefully, and I must say they have raised some doubts in my mind about some facilities included in the original order.

The facts are in dispute on some hospitals. Much of the testimony is contradictory. There is considerable reason to believe that further examination and study are necessary before a final decision is implemented.

It may be that some of these hospitals are not, in fact, outmoded, and that they can continue to serve veterans as efficiently as our standards require. It may be that the need for some of them, as well as the need for some of the other facilities affected by the original decision, is greater than our experts understood.

Consequently, I am asking a committee of distinguished Americans to examine the evidence presented by all parties and report back to me by June 1 on the merits of continuing these facilities in full operation or closing them.

The Committee will be composed of:

--E. Barrett Prettyman, chairman, retired former Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

--Senator Russell Long of Louisiana, majority whip and Member of the Senate Finance Committee.

--Representative Olin Teague of Texas, Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs.

--Representative E. Ross Adair of Indiana, ranking Republican Member of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs.

--John S. Gleason, Jr., former Administrator of the Veterans Administration.

--Gen. Alfred Gruenther, former president of the American Red Cross.

--Dr. Paul Dudley White of Boston, Mass.

--J. William Harwick, one of the outstanding medical administrators in the Nation, and member and secretary of the board of governors of the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.

As soon as the committee reports, I will promptly act on its recommendations.

Our purpose must be, and is, to receive full value from all that we support and to serve with compassion and the best medical science we can obtain, the veterans of our ways.

Note: On April 13 the White House announced that the Special Committee on Veterans Facilities had held an organizational and planning meeting on April 12 and had scheduled a conference for early May to evaluate their initial findings for the report to the President.

The release also announced that Dr. Dana W. Atchley, one of the country's outstanding physicians, and Dr. Russell Nelson, president and administrator of Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Md., had been added to the Committee. Dr. Paul Dudley White, who had earlier indicated his willingness to serve on the Committee, the release explained, found that prior commitments would make it impossible for him to give the Committee's work the attention that it deserved.

Lyndon B. Johnson, Statement by the President Upon Appointing a Committee To Review the Closing of Veterans Hospitals. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/241969

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