The President's Remarks at a News Briefing by Ambassador Eugenie Anderson on Civil Programs in Vietnam
This is a rush day for us. As you would expect, the father of the bride is quite nervous.
Mrs. Anderson is one of the three women whom I asked to go to Vietnam. I asked them to spend whatever time they could spend there, see whatever they could see there, and to record the observations and any suggestions or helpful hints--from a sideline objective viewpoint--that would be helpful to us.
Mrs. Anna Lord Strauss, Mrs. Anderson, and Mrs. [Norman] Chandler of the Los Angeles Times family, were the three women who went there and spent roughly 10 days reviewing the constructive and reconstructive program that is going on.
I didn't send them to advise General Westmoreland or submit any military strategy recommendations. But I did ask them to go and see what parts of the country they could; how the people were living; what we were doing with our refugee problem, our pacification program, all our programs in those areas.
Mrs. Anderson, as you know, and Mrs. Strauss, and Mrs. Chandler are all experienced women in their respective fields, all of which requires good reporting.
I stressed that I could get subjective reporting free; what I want is objective reporting. They are trying to do that. She is making suggestions to the various people out there--Ambassador Komer and Ambassador Bunker and his group.
She is back here now and seeing the people here who have charge of looking into these things she is talking about.
She can talk to you about any of the details. I would say that she has reviewed with me the quality of our personnel, civilian and military.
She observed the attitude and morale of our troops as she could see and hear it; the constructive programs that are taking place with which she has been identified in the United Nations and as an Ambassador to the Scandinavian countries, and the general constructive and reconstructive effort that we are making there.
We used to say we have the military here and the civilian here and we are going to try to do both of them together.
Well, she has been looking at the other side of it. She has seen some very heartening things and also some problems. I guess we always have some of those.
That is all I want to say.
Note: The President spoke at 1:05 p.m. in his office at the White House. During his remarks he referred to Gen. William C. Westmoreland, Commander, United States Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, Robert W. Komer, Special Assistant to the President for Peaceful Reconstruction in Vietnam, and Ellsworth Bunker, U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Vietnam.
Following his remarks Ambassador Anderson replied to questions from the press and summarized the 10-day inspection tour made by herself and her colleagues. The survey included visits to self-help projects directed by Vietnamese students in the refugee-crowded 8th District of Saigon; to the Revolutionary Development Training Center at Vung Tau near Saigon; and to Revolutionary Development Centers, returnee reception centers, and pacified villages in Tay Ninh Province near the Cambodian border, in Danang and Hue, in the Montagnard area of the Central Highlands near Da Lat, and in the Mekong Delta to the south.
Mrs. Anderson was currently serving as United States Representative on the Trusteeship Council of the United Nations. The full text of her remarks is printed in the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (vol. 3, p. 1673).
As printed above, this item follows the text released by the White House Press Office.
Lyndon B. Johnson, The President's Remarks at a News Briefing by Ambassador Eugenie Anderson on Civil Programs in Vietnam Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/238038
