Remarks at a Farewell Ceremony at the Pentagon Honoring Secretary McNamara.

Secretary McNamara, Secretary Nitze, General Wheeler, members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and armed services, ladies and gentlemen:

I don't have a speech to make here today. I just thought that I would come over and join with all of you and with all of Bob McNamara's fellow workers in saying goodby to him.

I have heard this place here at the Pentagon referred to as the "Puzzle Palace." Bob McNamara may be the only man who ever found the solution to the puzzle and he is taking it with him. But whatever it is called, it is one of the most important buildings on this earth.

I am sorry that this is so, but until men and nations are content to leave one another in peace it will be so.

That makes you people very important people. A great deal depends on the quality of your performance, on your character, on your intelligence, on your patriotism, on your pride in your own service, and on your ability to rise above narrow service rivalries.

Bob McNamara's career is just about the textbook example of the modern public servant. But I suspect there are many others out there before me now in uniform and in civilian clothes, high ranking and not so high ranking, who also qualify as modern public servants.

I want to say to each of you that your country is grateful to you for the quality of the work that you do on behalf of all of us, as your country is grateful to this good man, Bob McNamara, to whom we have come here today to say goodby and farewell.