Remarks Upon Announcing Appointments in the Peace Corps and in the Department of Housing and Urban Development

Ladies and gentlemen:

At my request, Mr. Sargent Shriver has directed the Peace Corps while heading the war on poverty. Few men in the life of our Nation have ever held such broad responsibilities at the same time, and few have discharged them as well.

Mr. Shriver has waged peace abroad and waged war on poverty at home, and he has done both with rare energy and with rare ability.

The Peace Corps has grown from 8,000 to 14,000, and the war on poverty has touched the lives of more than 2 million of our fellow Americans.

Now today, I am asking Mr. Shriver to give full time to the war on poverty. We are going to enlarge that war, as you will observe in the Budget that will go to the Congress in a few days, and we are going to prosecute it with all the vigor and determination at our command.

Mr. Shriver will be working double time now as he has been for 2 years, but it will be on one rather than on two different jobs. To direct the Peace Corps, I have selected one of my most trusted advisers and one of our most talented young men, the Assistant Secretary of State, Mr. Jack Vaughn.

Mr. Vaughn served as Associate Director of the Peace Corps, before I drafted him to be our Ambassador to Panama. He has been for almost the last year in one of our most distinguished and most difficult jobs, Assistant Secretary for Latin America. I have personally asked him to take over the Peace Corps, to return, in fact, to his first love, after talking about it at length with Mr. Shriver.

Secretary Vaughn will bring to the Peace Corps a compassion and understanding for the world that will serve him and this fine organization well.

Last Thursday, you will recall, I nominated Mr. Robert Weaver and Mr. Robert Wood to be the Secretary and the Under Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. I deeply appreciate the swift action by the Senate in confirming these outstanding Americans unanimously this afternoon.

Today I wish to announce my intention to nominate very shortly Professor Charles Haar of the Harvard Law School as Assistant Secretary for Metropolitan Planning and Development, and Mr. Philip Brownstein, presently Commissioner of the Federal Housing Administration, to be the Assistant Secretary for Mortgage Finance.

I am also approving the appointment of Mr. William B. Ross, one of the outstanding management experts in the Bureau of the Budget, as Deputy Under Secretary for Planning, Programs, and Evaluation.

Each of these men working with Mr. Weaver and Mr. Wood will, I believe, form a first-rate team that will take on the great challenges that lie ahead to build and to reinvigorate our urban areas. These men are equal to the task.

Mr. Brownstein is no stranger either to the housing field or to Mr. Weaver. He is a distinguished lawyer and administrator, and he has been serving as Federal Housing Commissioner since 1963.

Professor Haar is generally regarded as the Nation's leading expert in land-use planning. He has been one of the architects of our natural beauty and urban development program, and has written a number of important books, including "Land Planning Law in a Free Society," "Federal Credit and Private Housing," and "Law and Land."

Finally, Mr. William Ross, a graduate of Indiana University and Princeton University, is a career Government employee who brings his years of experience as a management expert in the Bureau of the Budget to the important management job of Deputy Under Secretary.

Mr. Moyers will, while I am conferring with the leadership, make available to you biographical sketches of each of these men.