Remarks on Arrival in New Delhi, India

Mr. President, Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen:

It is a very great honor for me to return to India for the third time and to extend to all of the people of India from all of the people of the United States our warm good wishes. As I return, Mr. President, I, too, have the regret that you alluded to in your remarks, that my visit is so short.

A friend asked me, when he learned of this trip, how I could possibly know India in one day, and my response is: It would be impossible to know a country as populous, with such a diverse history, tradition, culture, going back through the generations, the centuries--it would be impossible to know such a country in a week, a month, a year, or a lifetime. But as far as this day is concerned, I believe it will serve one purpose to which we are all deeply devoted.

It was just 16 years ago that I was privileged as Vice President of the United States to visit India and to be received then by Prime Minister Nehru.¹ I asked him what he believed was the greatest need for India and her neighbors in Asia. He responded: What we need above everything else is a generation of uninterrupted peace.

That was true then. It is even more true now. We did not succeed over these past 16 years in beginning that generation of uninterrupted peace and our major goal will be to try to succeed now in the dream that he had then--a generation of peace for India, for Asia, for the world.

Also, as I come here, Mr. President, I am keenly aware of the fact that the people of this great nation desire to choose their own way to progress. I respect that, as do all Americans. I would say that we want to work with you to the extent that you feel we can and should, for the goals that you believe are best for India, and not for the goals that we may think are best for India; provided, of course, always that we bear in mind those principles in which we both believe--peace for the world, independence for all nations, progress, justice, and freedom for all people in those nations.

Mr. President, you have referred very generously to the fact that three very brave Americans landed on the moon. We are very proud, of course, of that achievement, but proud not in any simply nationalistic sense, but because we believe this was a venture in which all mankind was represented by those three brave men.

I want to say now that as we begin our new administration in Washington that our goal--and I know the goal of all the American people is simply this: We want our generation to be remembered as the one in which man first set foot on the moon, and as the one in which for the first time in the 20th century we had uninterrupted peace, with justice and freedom for man on earth.

Mr. President, I am sure that the meetings that I will have with the Prime Minister and members of the government will serve that great goal in which I know the people of India and the people of the United States are as one. Thank you.