Remarks at Greensboro, North Carolina

On behalf of Mrs. Nixon and myself, I want to express to all of you our really grateful appreciation for what is without question the greatest welcome we have ever received in North Carolina, and we have had some great ones.

We have appreciated the support we have had in the past. We remember how critical North Carolina was to our success in 1968. Based upon what I see today, we are going to repeat in North Carolina in '72, and even more.

May I say, too, that I am particularly interested to note what a beautiful day this is. Two or three days ago I was talking to Billy Graham on the phone, and he said, "If the weather is good, give me the credit." So, in any event, this is a magnificent day, and you have helped, of course, to make it even a better day because of your presence here.

On this occasion, I want to pay my respects, if I could, first to a man who is retiring from the Congress of the United States, a great servant of this State and of this Nation and a very close, personal friend of mine, Charlie Jonas. In paying my respects to him, I also want to indicate my complete support for all of those running for the Congress of the United States who have already been introduced. It is a great team. We would like them there in the Congress of the United States, and we will appreciate your support for them.

I also want to thank Roy Acuff ¹ for entertaining you before we got here. He said to me as I came on the stage, he said, "I think you are going to do all right in North Carolina," and he says, "I can promise you Tennessee." So there are two States we have, in any event.

Now to your candidate, our candidate for Governor, Jim Holshouser. He is a man I have known personally, have worked with over many, many years. He is one of those very well organized, dedicated men who has all of the attributes which would make him a fine chief executive of this State. I look forward to the opportunity of working with him in those next 4 years, when he is the Governor, and when, I trust, I am still in Washington, D.C.

On this occasion, too, I want to speak of another old friend. As a matter of fact, the friendship goes back even further than the one with Jim Holshouser, because at the time that we met, Jim Holshouser was perhaps too young to be in politics. I remember 21 years ago when I was a junior Senator from the State of California, and some way or other, when they allocated the office space, they put my office between two Senators from North Carolina. Clyde Hoey was on the one side and Willis Smith was on the other. They were fine men. They were great Democrats. But I found that I voted as they did because we were putting America above party, those two Senators from North Carolina.

A very young man--he was young to me at that time--Jesse Helms, came in one day to see me. He was the administrative assistant for Willis Smith. He brought with him a young man in a wheelchair, a very promising athlete who had been struck down by the polio epidemic of that year, as you remember, 1951.

I met him. We had our picture taken. I understand that Bucky Branham is still in that wheelchair, but he still is one who, with Jesse Helms, has that zest for life and has not given up because of adversity.

Ever since that time I have watched Jesse Helms. I have known his intelligence, his compassion, his dedication. I will simply state my position in a word: I know your interest, of course, always in the top of the ticket, but remember, to do the job we need Members of the Senate, Members of the House, who will support what we are trying to do at the top of the ticket.

In that connection, North Carolina needs Jesse Helms in the United States Senate. The United States--the Nation needs Jesse Helms in the United States Senate. I need him and I will deeply appreciate your support for this fine man in the United States Senate.

I have been quite interested, too, in some of the signs around here. I see one over there, "Spiro Is Our Hero." As we enter the closing days of this campaign, I would like to say a word about my running mate. I have often indicated my admiration for him and my respect, but I have noted that in recent days that the organized attempts to make him blow his cool, perhaps attempts to disrupt meetings on a scale unprecedented in American politics, have even gotten more, but let me say the test of a man is not when things go easy, but when they are trying to make it hard for you.

I simply want to say that I think all Americans are very proud that in spite of the disruption, in spite of the organized heckling, the Vice President of the United States has kept his cool, his dignity, and has come through it as the splendid man that he is.

Now I am going to suggest, so that we can give equal time here at this meeting, that our friends in the three television networks over here, ABC, CBS, NBC, who will have this on the program tonight, that they now turn their cameras to the few hundred that are over here. Let them see the kind of people that are supporting our opponents over here.

Now in the name of equal time and in the objectivity which I know all fair newsmen in North Carolina stand for, turn to the thousands over here and let's hear and see the kind of people that are supporting us.

As you know, I was very proud to have lived 3 years among you here in the Tar Heel State. It seems hard to realize that it was 35 years ago. Many of my friends, the best friends that I have, are from North Carolina. I learned to know them when I was at Duke University at law school.

Incidentally, when I was at Duke, I learned to respect all the fine schools in this country, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Wake Forest, Davidson--all of them.

But when I was in law school, having come from California and never been in the South before, I saw the South as it was then. I saw that the South was divided from the North. I saw, too, that the State of North Carolina was a heavily Democratic State where Republicans had no chance, usually, to win. It was a one party State.

I was thinking as the airplane came up today and I saw this enormous crowd, how things have changed. They have changed for the better. They have changed not in a partisan sense, but now we find--and this is the significant thing that I wish to emphasize to this great audience--that this country is no longer, on the great issues, divided in a regional sense.

On the great issues, it is not divided in a partisan sense. When it comes to keeping America strong, when it comes to peace with honor, we are not Democrats or Republicans or Southerners or Northerners-we are Americans. That is the way the people of North Carolina feel.

That is why in this State which, according to registration, is far more Democratic than Republican, we have support that crosses the party line. Because whether it is here in North Carolina or whether it was in Rhode Island where we were last night or whether it was in Oklahoma City where we were at 2 o'clock yesterday afternoon or whether it was in Illinois where we were at noon yesterday, you can go to the East, to the North, to the South, or the Far West where we will be this afternoon in California, and you will find that Americans are joining together in a new American majority standing for issues that are above party and above regional differences.

One of the issues that joins us together is the desire, a desire that is heartfelt throughout all of this country, for peace with honor for America and the world.

As you know, we have made a major breakthrough in the negotiations which can lead to that peace with honor. In making that breakthrough I want to point out that we have reached agreement on the three fundamental principles that I laid down on May 8 when, as you recall, I ordered the bombing of North Vietnam and the mining of Haiphong.

Those three conditions on which we have reached agreement are these: one, all of our prisoners of war and those who are missing in action, all of our prisoners of war will be returned, those missing in action will be accounted for; two, we have reached agreement that there should be a cease-fire, not only in South Vietnam but in Cambodia and Laos, all over Southeast Asia; and third, we have reached agreement on the fundamental point that the people of South Vietnam should have the right to determine their own future without having a Communist government or a coalition government imposed upon them against their will.

There are some details that are still to be negotiated. We are going to negotiate them. I want to tell you why. Because in reaching an agreement like this we want to be sure that it is not just a case of peace now but peace in the years ahead. We want peace that will last and we want to be sure that as far as the details are concerned, all of the misunderstandings are removed now.

Let me take you back 4 years. You remember the bombing halt in 1968. You remember it was entered into with the very best of intentions by those who made it. But you remember also that it did not lead to peace; it simply led to a continuation of the war. There was a misunderstanding. What we are doing is insisting on continuing the negotiation on which we have basic agreement on the major principles that I have mentioned, but continue it until the details are worked out.

We are confident we can achieve that goal, but it will be a goal that we then can be proud to say is peace with honor, not peace with surrender, a peace that will last for the United States and for the world.

In that connection, the day before yesterday the mayor of Erie, Pennsylvania, a Democrat, came in to see me. He indicated his support of our ticket in his State. His wife was with him. His wife's brother had been killed in Vietnam 4 days after the bombing halt. She showed me his picture, a fine young man, a major in the United States Army. She told me about him. She said that she had received a letter from him just before his death. That letter indicated at that point support for what I was trying to advocate at that time in the campaign.

Then she said to me, "Mr. President, we all want peace, but above everything else, we want a real peace. We want a peace that will last. We want peace with honor. We want to be sure that he died, and others died, for a cause that will serve this country and serve it well."

Let me tell you: We are keeping that pledge to those who gave their lives so that America could survive as a country of peace. There is one other thought that occurred to me as she was talking to me. I think of the fact that during this very long and difficult war, a war which began 5 years before I ever came to office, but during the whole course of this long and difficult war, over 2½ million young Americans, when they had to make a decision, chose to serve their country in Vietnam, and they deserve our respect and our honor for having made that choice.

Some of those 2½ million, many of them, gave their lives for their choice, as did the brother of the wife of the mayor of Erie, Pennsylvania. A few hundred chose to desert America. I say they must pay the penalty for their choice. When this war is over, there will be no amnesty for draft dodgers or deserters. So I say to you, I gave you three of the major issues in this campaign: We stand for peace with honor versus peace with surrender. We stand for a strong America versus a weak America. We stand for no amnesty for draft dodgers and deserters. This is what we believe Americans stand for across this Nation.

But beyond this, we must also realize that what we are trying to build is not simply the end of a war, but a new kind of life here in the United States. I see all of the wonderful young people that are here, the Grimsley High School Band and the others. I think of your future. We want you to grow up in a world of peace, but we also want it to be a world in which we can have what we have not had since President Eisenhower was President, and that means progress with full employment but without war and without inflation. We are moving toward that, and we ask for your help to give us the chance to continue to find that kind of prosperity for America.

We also want progress. That means better schools, better housing, opportunity, opportunity for every young American, whatever his background, to go to the top with the ceiling unlimited. All of these things we stand for. All of these things we have made great progress in. And we believe in justice, and when we speak of justice, I say that I am proud of the men I have appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States, and we are going to appoint other men who will stand for the forces of law and order and justice, because it is time that we strengthened the peace forces as against the criminal forces in the United States of America.

Now, if I could take you a bit further beyond simply these material things I have been talking about, beyond ending a war and bringing the peace that we all want, beyond the prosperity without war and without inflation, the progress in all these other areas which we, as Americans want, let me tell you that the future is bright for America. It is bright because the world is different. We, you, all of us, have helped to change it in these last 4 years, and particularly in this last year.

The People's Republic of China, where one-fourth of all the people in the world live, is now no longer isolated from us. That means that 20 years from now, when a billion people will be living there, they will not have to be our enemies. They can be our friends. That means a good and better life for young people in America.

We have negotiated with the Soviet Union to limit arms in the nuclear field and in many other fields. That means that despite the differences we have and will continue to have in philosophy, that we will talk about differences rather than fight about them.

Finally, it means that having opened up this great world, that the young people here--young as I was, and younger, when I was here in North Carolina as a student 35 years ago--can look forward to an open world where there can be communications between people even though there are differences between governments, where there can be peace in the world and progress such as we have never had in the whole history of mankind.

But it all depends, my friends, on you, because we must continue. We have started the negotiations with the Soviet Union. They must continue. We have started the opening to the PRC. We must continue. We are moving toward the prosperity that we all want, but we need to continue.

What we need from you and what we ask from you is your consideration of what we have presented here today. It is the clearest choice that we have had in this century. On that choice, I believe that the people of North Carolina, whether they are Republicans or Democrats, will say that America wants peace with honor, not surrender; America wants a strong defense, not a second-rate defense; and America will continue on a course, a course which will lead us into a new situation in the world, in which the people of the world, and particularly the younger generations, can grow up without the fear of war hanging over them.

I say to you finally, as I speak here, I feel very close to you, to the people in this State, for the reasons that I have mentioned. I feel, for that reason, a particular responsibility to you. I just want to say that in these next 4 years, I will dedicate myself to doing the things that I have talked about, but above all, I will never forget the faces that I have seen here, the wonderful people of North Carolina. We won't let you down.