Remarks at a Luncheon Given in Honor of President Lopez Mateos

Mr. President, Senora, President o/the Permanent Commission o/the Congress, the President o/the Supreme Court, the foreign Minister, ladies and gentlemen:

I want to express our very warm appreciation to you for your presence here today. First, I would like to express our thanks to the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra, who are giving up their summer by spending their tour in Mexico. Those kinds of sacrifices should be appreciated. Do you want to stand up and we will applaud.

We want to thank you very much.

First, I want to say that I have been speaking through some extraordinary, in fact, both my wife and myself have been speaking through some very gifted interpreters in the last 24 hours to the people of this city and country, and we want to express ourselves more directly to them. After some debate and protest, it was decided that I would not make the speech in Spanish, but, instead, that Mrs. Kennedy would say a few words in behalf of both of us.

So, ladies and gentlemen, Senora Kennedy.

[Mrs. Kennedy responded, speaking briefly in Spanish. The President then resumed speaking.]

Ladies and gentlemen, if anyone wishes that speech to be translated, they should call Ambassador Mann on the phone on Monday morning, and he will give the whole thing.

I want to express our very warm thanks to all of you and through you to the people of Mexico. I had not realized how radical was the Mexican Revolution until I heard its slogan, which was "Universal Suffrage, No Re-election."

We have a good deal in common, but I am glad to say not everything.

I also realize that there are many who feel that state visits are really in a sense parades, and the people are there, and the noise, and the parade passes, and then there is wind and dust and confetti, and days go on as they were before. But I am not sure that is altogether true.

This visit, it seems to me, has had three very definite results. In the first place, it has given me a chance to meet your distinguished President, and, therefore, in the future, on those matters which concern our countries-and there must be many, because we have great interests in common, and we have a common concern for the welfare of this hemisphere--it will be so much easier for us to work together for the common cause. And, therefore, for that reason alone this visit has been most rewarding to us in the United States, and I hope to Mexico.

The second great advantage is that it has turned the attention of the United States Government, all of us, the Secretary of State, Senator Mansfield, the Majority Leader, those of us who work with a good many matters which pour across any President's desk or any political leader's desk--it has turned the attention of the United States Government, this visit, 'very directly to those matters which are of mutual concern to Mexico and the United States. So that I regard this visit as most useful and fruitful for that reason alone. We are far more conscious than we have been in the past of the necessity of maintaining those relations which really make, in a very true sense, good neighbors, and I think that this has been most educational for us, and I hope in that sense also useful to the Government of Mexico.

And third and last, both my wife and 1, and I think all members of the Government and all those Americans who came with us, go back with an extraordinary sense not only of the warmth and friendship of the people of this city and country but also the vitality and life and vigor and sense of hope and sense of future which marks so much the American people and, I believe, the people of Mexico. This is really the most important quality of all, a sense not of resignation but a sense of participation in the great movements of history of this country. And it is that impression that I will carry with me, not only as long as I am President but also always of this city and country. Muy muchas gracias, amigos.

I ask all of you to join in drinking with me to the very good life of the people of Mexico, and the very good health of the President of Mexico and his charming wife.

Mr. President, Senora.