Remarks at a Navy League Luncheon, Manchester, New Hampshire.

Governor King, whom all of us greatly respect as one of the ablest Governors in our country; Tom McIntyre, my friend of many years in the Senate, who is making his mark as a fine leader in that great body and who brings great credit to the State of New Hampshire; our good friend, Congressman Ollie Hunt; Mayor Vallee; Mr. Rhodes; Governor Chafee; Governor Volpe; Governor John Reed of Maine; Governor Hoff of Vermont; Senator Aiken of Vermont; Senator and Mrs. Prouty of Vermont; Senator and Mrs. Mansfield, the distinguished Majority Leader from Montana; Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine; Senator Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island; Representative Stafford of Vermont; Representative Hathaway of Maine; Representative Tupper of Maine; and a great Mayor and longtime personal friend--and I think one of the greatest public servants in this country-Bernie Boutin of the Small Business Administration; ladies and gentlemen:

I see in the audience my old friend of many years. I am so happy that he could be here today when I could visit his home State. My friend, the former Secretary of the Navy, John Sullivan.

I would like to share some of my thoughts with you today on Vietnam--a subject that is never far from my mind and I know never far from yours, in these critical times, either.

At this luncheon today we have, as a guest of the Navy League, a First Lieutenant John Kapranopoulos, wounded in three separate actions during 10 months that he spent in Vietnam. He carries the scars of battle because of his desire to preserve freedom for that little country and to preserve liberty in the world.

While we gather here in the peaceful Merrimack Valley, 300,000 men like John are today braving conflict out in Southeast Asia, 10,000 miles from here. I think it is only right that we constantly ask ourselves the question: Why? Why are they there?

I have gone into almost every State in this Union--I have held more than 70 press conferences in my 1,000 days in office--I have been on television some 40 times--trying to answer that question. The answer is not simple, for there are times when the war there seems like a thousand contradictions. But I think most Americans want to know why Vietnam is important.

I think they know that communism must be halted in Vietnam as it was halted in Western Europe, and in Greece and Turkey, and Korea, and the Caribbean, if it is determined to swallow up free peoples and spread its influence in that area, trying to take freedom away from people who do want to select their own leaders for themselves.

I think that our people know that if aggression succeeds there, when it has failed in other places in the world, a harsh blow would be dealt to the security of other free nations in Asia and perhaps a blow to the peace in the entire world.

Few people realize that world peace has reached voting age. It has been 21 years now since that day on the U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay when World War II came to an end. Perhaps it reflects poorly on our world that men must fight limited wars in order to keep from fighting larger wars; but that may be the condition that exists today.

I said here in Manchester 2 years ago that we must stand firm when the vital interests of freedom are under attack. I said we must use our power, our overwhelming power, always with judgment and restraint.

We are trying to follow that policy in Vietnam because we know that the restrained use of power has for more than 21 years prevented the wholesale destruction that the world faced in 1914 and faced again in 1939.

Every war, large or small, is brutal and is ugly and claims its toll in lives and in fortunes. And we can pray that one day even "limited war" will be an archaic term. But until communism finally abandons aggression, until it is willing to let the rest of the world live in peace without invading them, until then we must be prepared to deal with them and to resist that aggression.

Our hope is that the North Vietnamese will soon realize that they cannot succeed in taking over South Vietnam and they will turn to the task of helping their own people and building their own nation, in which event we will turn our energies in that area of the world to helping the people of that undeveloped section to become strong in body and in mind. In that work of peaceful building, they will all find the United States of America as willing to help as they found us determined to resist aggression.

Our quarrel is not with the people of North Vietnam.

Our resistance is against those in power in Hanoi who seek to conquer the South. We are more than eager to let North Vietnam live in peace if it will only let South Vietnam do the same. Both publicly and privately we have let the leaders of the North know, as clearly as we can express ourselves, that if they will stop sending troops into South Vietnam, we will immediately stop bombing military targets in their country.

Our objective is to let the people of South Vietnam decide what kind of government and what kind of country they want. They cannot do this while armed troops from North Vietnam are waging war against their people and against their villages.

There are people who think that the conflict in Vietnam is just an American war. Nothing could be farther from the fact. You realize this, I think, when you consider the effort that this small, torn country is making at this moment.

South Vietnam is 50,000 square miles smaller than New England; its population is about the same as New York's. But the per capita income of New England is more than 25 times the per capita income of South Vietnam.

Yet the people of South Vietnam have sustained a bitter and a violent struggle against an enemy within and without for many, many years--their army has suffered more than 40,000 killed in action since 1960, and more than three times that many wounded. And even in the midst of war, South Vietnam is still trying to hold elections, still trying to move toward a government to be chosen by their people. This is not an easy task, and it will not happen overnight, but let us not forget that we are trying. And let us not forget that we hope it is happening in September.

The Communists do not want--now that they see these elections are being held--they do not want the people to express themselves and they do not want to see an election succeed. So what are they doing?

As we meet here this hour, they are stepping up their well-planned war against innocent people. We can expect more intimidation and we can expect more terror as the September election draws near.

I hope the leaders who help to mold public sentiment in this country and I hope the press media will see that these activities are put in a goldfish bowl so that all of our people can observe the tactics that they resort to--in assassinations, in terror, in infiltrations, in the massacres--in order to keep people from having a chance to vote in an election.

We can also expect elections to be held and we can expect the Vietnamese to continue to put down foundations of self-government.

To give them time to build is one reason that we are all there. For there are times when the strong must provide a shield for those on whom the Communists prey. We have provided that shield in other countries. We are providing it there. And this is such a time.

We are there for another reason, too, and that is because the United States must stand behind its word, even when conditions have added to the cost of honoring a pledge that was given a decade ago.

I do not have to remind you that our pledge was in fact given by treaty to uphold the security of Southeast Asia. Now that security is in jeopardy because people are trying to use force to take over South Vietnam. When adversity comes is no time to back down on our commitment, if we expect our friends around the world to have faith in our word.

I wish that I could tell you today that the end is in sight. To do so would be folly, for only the Communists would gain from such fiction. This week one of our leading networks and one of our large newspapers in New York reported that the Johnson administration now believes the war will be over by a certain year.

I wish this were true. I even wish I had the information that that newspaper and that network had. But I do not know one responsible official in Washington who can name the day or the month or the year when the Communists will end the fighting or when they will permit a peaceful settlement.

I think all of you know how hard I tried in two pauses. I think all of you know how hard the other leaders of our Government, in the executive branch, in the State Department, in the United Nations, in the Senate, tried.

We went to more than 40 countries with Ambassador Goldberg and Ambassador Harriman as our spokesmen, Secretary Rusk and Mr. Bundy and Secretary Mann, saying to those people that if you will come to a conference table we are ready to sit down and talk instead of fight. Our planes were grounded. Our men were told to sit there and conduct no further raids until they received further orders.

And for more than 39 days, while we pleaded with 40 countries--every place we went we received favorable response except from the two countries that could do something about it, North Vietnam and Red China.

So it may be one month, or it may be one year, or it may be several years. No one knows but the men in Hanoi. They hold the passkey to stopping the fighting. They hold the passkey to the room where the peace talks can take place. Only they can decide when the objective that they seek is no longer worth the cost that it carries.

Until that time comes, until peace comes, our course is clear. We will keep our commitments. We will carry on with our determination. We will do what we must do to help protect South Vietnam and to help maintain the stability of Asia.

We are ready and anxious and willing. And we will continue to do everything that we can do to limit this conflict, for we have no desire to do anything more than is absolutely necessary to protect South Vietnam.

Our policy is not, will not, and has not been ever to destroy the people of North Vietnam, their country, or their government. Our policy is not to go to war with any other nation. Our policy is to stop the Communists from trying to force their will on the South. It is--as I said before--to provide a shield behind which the free nations of Asia can build the kind of societies that they choose, without interference from any other power.

Let me say also that the hand of the United States can be as open and as generous in peace as it is clenched and firm in conflict. To those who oppose us, I want to repeat what we have said so often to other nations in the world, to our leaders here at home: that we seek neither territory nor bases, we seek neither economic domination nor military alliance in Vietnam. We seek for the people of Vietnam, North and South, only what they want for themselves.

It must be clear, especially to those in the South who worked with the Communists to seize control by force, that their choice no longer includes a military takeover. They must know now that North Vietnam cannot really succeed in this takeover and in their desire to have conquest of South Vietnam. So let all of those who are tired of war and death and suffering know that they have nothing whatever to gain by continuing their support of the Communist cause in South Vietnam.

Wherever they may live, whatever they may say, wherever they may work, let them know that we are tired of war, that we are tired of death and suffering, and that they have absolutely nothing to gain by continuing to give support or aid or comfort to those bent on conquest.

Our task in this country, in the meantime, is to try to unite our people, to ask them to carry on until the Communists grow weary and until they are willing to turn from the use of force. When that day comes, our men can then come home and the people of Vietnam can go on with the work of building their country themselves.

Until that day comes, America is going to persist. We must persist. Persist we will.

And I hope that I will have the undivided allegiance and the support and the assistance of all of you as I have had it from this young lieutenant who has been out there doing our job for us.

Thank you very much.