Remarks Recorded for Broadcast to the American People Following the Manila Conference.

My fellow Americans:

I am speaking to you this morning from Manila only a few hours after my trip to Vietnam.

I went there to visit our men at our base on Cam Ranh Bay. Many of them only recently had come from the battlefield. Some were in field dress, carrying their packs and rifles.

All of them were inspiring. You knew that courage was no stranger to these men. And as I decorated five of them for extraordinary bravery in battle, I realized over again how very much we owe these men. How many times we have called on young men like these to serve their country, and not once--not once--have they failed us.

Those men have pledged their lives.

I pledged--in return, and on your behalf, for I was there as your representative--I pledged that we will not fail them.

The struggle in Vietnam becomes very real when you stand among men who have tasted its agony and experienced its horror. No commander in chief could meet face to face with these soldiers without asking himself: What is it they are doing here? What does it mean--the sacrifice and valor of the very young and the very best?

As I passed among their ranks, I thought of all the battlefields in this century where Americans that we love have fought: Belleau Wood and the Argonne, the Solomons and Bastogne, the Pusan perimeter and the 38th parallel in Korea.

They fought--and tens of thousands of them died--for the same cause that brought the men I saw at Cam Ranh Bay to a place called South Vietnam.

They are there to keep aggression from succeeding.

They are there to stop one nation from taking over another nation by force.

They are there to help people who do not want to have an ideology pushed down their throats and imposed upon them.

They are there because somewhere, and at some place, the free nations of the world must say again to the militant disciples of Asian communism: This far and no further. The time is now, and the place is Vietnam.

And the men I saw this week at Cam Ranh Bay know--as their buddies throughout Vietnam know--that they are in the front line of a contest that is as far reaching and as vital as any we have ever waged. We are not alone there.

Five other nations of the Pacific and Asian regions have joined with the United States to help the Republic of South Vietnam turn back the terrorist and defeat the aggressor. Other nations are helping us to provide food and medicine and other resources for a people who have already suffered too long and too much.

Seven of the allied nations met here in Manila this week to take stock of where we are and where we want to go. As I talked with the leaders of South Vietnam and the Republic of Korea, of the Philippines, Thailand, Australia, and New Zealand--I was struck by how the fortunes of freedom have brought together these nations of such diverse backgrounds.

We have different histories. Our economies have reached different stages of development. We speak different languages. We worship at different altars. The color of our skin is not the same.

But what emerged from Manila was not a testament to those differences. It was a witness of our unity. What brought us to Manila is this fact: We all have a stake in peace and freedom and order in Asia and in the Pacific.

We know that we can have peace, that order is possible, and that freedom can be assured--only if we unite and work together. We know that in division is weakness--and in weakness, danger.

And so we came here to Manila to meet. That was to me the most encouraging development of all--that we could meet, as friends, as partners, as equals.

We declared here in Manila these goals of freedom for Vietnam, and for all of Asia and the Pacific:

--First, to be free from aggression.

--Second, to conquer hunger, illiteracy, and disease.

--Third, to build a region of security, order, and progress.

--Fourth, to seek reconciliation and peace throughout the area.

Seven nations at Manila committed themselves to these goals. For us, they are not mere rhetoric to be stored in the dustbins of diplomatic history. We will seek all of them, and we hope we will achieve all of them. We made no new treaties; we entered into no new agreements.

No, this was not rhetoric at all. These goals are what led us to send our men to Vietnam, to begin with. And when I looked into their faces at Cam Ranh Bay, yesterday, I knew that what we had done in Manila was for real. What we did--if we keep faith with ourselves--will make it impossible for those men and their allies to sacrifice in vain.

For there can be no sense in fighting and suffering if our purpose is unclear and if we are unsure of what we hope to achieve.

At Manila, we spelled it out for all the world to see. And let me repeat it--again and again. We seek:

--To be free from aggression.

--To conquer hunger, illiteracy, and disease.

--To build a region of security, order, and progress.

--To seek reconciliation and peace throughout the area.

To those goals we have committed the lives of our men and the wealth of our nations.

But we did more at Manila.

We saw much progress toward attaining these goals in Vietnam.

We received an eloquent and encouraging report from General Westmoreland.

We saw that our military shield is now strong enough to prevent the aggressor from succeeding.

We saw that the South Vietnam Government, assisted by our Nation and others, is improving the lives of its people. There is a long way yet to go, but we are determined to get on with it.

We saw that democracy is gaining in Vietnam. The constitution should be adopted before its deadline of next March. Elections are then scheduled to follow within 6 months to form a representative government.

We saw that the South Vietnamese will try to include in their national life various views and various groups. The Government will offer them amnesty if they will lay down their weapons. It will allow them to move to the North, if they desire it; or to give their skills and energies to building the South.

So we committed ourselves once again to the Geneva Convention. We urged that the seriously sick and wounded prisoners of war be returned to their homes. We offered to discuss the immediate exchange of prisoners.

Most urgently, we asked ourselves--what are the real chances for peace?

The people of Vietnam--many of whom have known a lifetime of strife and terror, of hunger and injustice--long for an end to the fighting that does not require their submission to terror.

Each of the nations meeting at Manila has now expressed its willingness to seek an honorable peace. None of our nations has insisted on the unconditional surrender of the forces opposing us, or on terms which those forces could reasonably find dishonorable.

We agreed at Manila that our own forces will be withdrawn from South Vietnam as the forces sent down from the North are also withdrawn and as violence disappears. And we made it clear that this could be accomplished from our side in not more than 6 months after the conditions we set out were met--and perhaps even sooner.

This was, I think, a very important step forward. Our intentions are in writing now for all the world to see. Those who have doubted them can continue to doubt only to hide their unwillingness to seek peace. For we mean what we say: When the aggression from the North has ceased, we do not want and we do not intend to remain in South Vietnam.

Her people want to get on with the job of building a new South Vietnam, free from the interference of any foreign nation. And that, too, is our goal.

Until then we must continue to resist the aggression that threatens South Vietnam. We do so not only because that aggression must fail. We do so because we believe that the Communists will unbolt the door to peace only when they are convinced their military campaign cannot succeed.

We want to end this war today--we want to end it this hour. But as it was said at the Conference in Manila, we have followed every hint, we have made every gesture; now, with the specific spelling out of our position on withdrawal of forces, the ball is in the other court.

In Vietnam yesterday I thought of the great potential for peace at Cam Ranh Bay. It is a magnificent harbor that we are helping to build there. How wonderful it will be when ships docking there carry the commerce of peace--instead of the implements of war.

Yet so long as men try to take by violence what is not theirs by right, they must be resisted--and Cam Ranh Bay must continue to supply the men I saw today with the weapons they need to resist it.

I thank God for the courage of these men. I thank God for the unity of the free nations which are standing up to terror. And I pray to God that our adversary may soon decide that he cannot succeed in what he is attempting and that he will then renounce the use of force in Vietnam. Then--and only then--we can get on full-time with the job that we are so anxious to do.

In all of this I ask for the understanding, the support, and the prayers of our countrymen.

Thank you.