Letter to the Postmaster General on Accelerated Mail Delivery for Servicemen in Vietnam and the Pacific Area.
Dear Mr. Postmaster General:
I approve your recommendation to accelerate delivery of first-class mail to and from our servicemen in Vietnam and the Pacific.
I request that you make the new program effective immediately.
This faster mail service--speeding delivery time from one to four days--will be welcomed by the thousands of our countrymen halfway across the world and by their families and friends at home. Mail is the vital link that bridges vast distances, bringing warmth and news and, most important, easing the pain of separation. To have mail delivered sooner is to bring home that much closer.
As I have said many times before, I am determined that our troops in Vietnam shall have all the guns, planes and equipment they need. And I am determined to do all we can to support their high morale. That is why we have been unremitting in our search to bring to our men the very best in mail and other services. The new program I approved today is another key step forward and I ask you to continue your efforts to take every possible action to improve mail delivery to and from Vietnam.
Sincerely,
LYNDON B. JOHNSON
[The Honorable Lawrence F. O'Brien, The Postmaster General, Washington, D.C.]
Note: The President's letter was made public as part of a White House release announcing that all first-class mail to and from members of the Armed Forces serving in the Pacific area would be domestically transported by air or the fastest possible means. The release noted that under the new program a mother in New York who wished to send a letter to her son in Vietnam would have the letter carried by air within the United States to a west coast terminal point even though she paid only the first-class (5 cents) rate. From the west coast point the letter would be sent by air to Vietnam.
The Postmaster General's letter making the recommendation, also released by the White House on January 29, is printed in the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (vol. a, p. 146).
Lyndon B. Johnson, Letter to the Postmaster General on Accelerated Mail Delivery for Servicemen in Vietnam and the Pacific Area. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/239277