IT HAD BEEN our hope that the truce periods connected with Christmas, New Year, and Tet might lead to some abatement of hostilities and to moves toward peace.
Unfortunately the only response we had from the Hanoi government was to use the periods for major resupply efforts of their troops in South Vietnam.
Despite our efforts and those of third parties, no other response has yet come from Hanoi. Under these circumstances, in fairness to our own troops and those of our allies, we had no alternative but to resume full scale hostilities after the cease-fire.
But the door to peace is and will remain open and we are prepared at any time to go more than halfway to meet any equitable overture from the other side.
Note: The statement was read by George E. Christian, Special Assistant to the President, at his news conference at 4:15 p.m. on Monday, February 13, 1967, at the White House. It was not made public in the form of a White House press release.
Lyndon B. Johnson, Statement by the President on the Resumption of Bombing in North Vietnam. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/238223