Recorded Remarks in Support of the Foreign Aid Bill.

My fellow Americans:

There are villages in this world where children die each day of diseases long conquered by science. There are streets in countless cities where families huddle against famine. This is the 20th century, yet millions in our world still live in the dark ages of ignorance and despair.

These cruelties are blights on the conscience of man. They are also the angry seeds of conflicts and wars among nations.

For 20 years, 11 different Congresses have honored America's moral and material commitment to end these human tragedies and to avert the world calamity they contain.

We have helped others to help themselves. We have been moved by our compassion and our national interest--for we have come to recognize that our own security and happiness are inseparable from those of our neighbors on this small planet.

Now the Congress is about to decide this week whether we should continue on that enlightened course for another year.

How in the name of common sense can we refuse?

I have requested the lowest foreign aid budget in our national history because of other critical needs at home and abroad. But economy still does not satisfy some people. Some of them suggest that we put foreign aid in limbo for a year--as if a moratorium could be placed on man's daily struggle for life. Others want to cripple the aid programs by cutting them below the absolute minimum amount set by the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

I think either course invites great danger. Both are gambles with history. It is unmerciful to condemn millions to wretchedness. And we should never jeopardize our own security and the orderly progression of our own world.

So I call upon the Congress to spare us this ordeal. I ask, in the name of all of the American people, that our commitments be kept, that our foreign policy interests be protected, that we continue to show our good sense and our good purpose to our world by reaching out our hand again to those who need it so desperately.

To do less would be to undo or endanger the patient work of many for 20 years. It is the work of peace. It is the work that protects your own national interest. If we truly want to protect that national interest, then we must ask the Congress to strengthen every hand that is joined in building it.