Remarks at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Congressional Banquet.

Commander Soden, Congressman Mahon, all of the distinguished guests here at the two head tables and all of the distinguished guests in the audience:

I am very grateful to you, Commander, for being spoken of so eloquently and so generously and also grateful to receive this medallion which commemorates this organization's 75th anniversary, and I think that this is an occasion to perhaps pay a tribute to the VFW.

I have done it before, but I would like to do it especially because this is not only the Diamond Jubilee year for the VFW as an organization, this is the Silver Anniversary of this annual dinner for the Members of the Congress, the House and the Senate.

As you have already noted, I am a lifetime member of the VFW. I have been a member for 27 years, so I know the organization well. And I believe I can safely say that I have addressed more dinners, conventions--State and national-of the VFW than perhaps any public figure in America today, and I am proud to have had that opportunity.

I know this organization in public life as Vice President for 8 years and also as President for 5 years. I also have known it in private life. But there is one thing I particularly want to emphasize in terms of what this organization means to anyone who serves in the highest office of this land. It is very simply this: The VFW is an organization that when the hard decisions are made by a President of the United States, you can always count on this organization to stand above partisan interest and for the national interest. That is the VFW.

And in that long and difficult war to which you have referred, when at times there were even hundreds of thousands of people who were marching around and on the White House--as I have often recalled, I didn't have to call the commander of the VFW, the national commander to ask for his support, he called me, and that is the way the VFW is when this country needs support.

It seems to me very appropriate, therefore, that the award, your annual award to the Member of Congress, should go to George Mahon of Texas. I would like to refer to him tonight in tandem with the man who was to receive it last year, who did receive it, but who could not be here for reasons that we are aware, and let us say that we are all thankful that John Stennis is back in the job as chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

I have had the privilege of knowing both of these statesmen for 27 years. George Mahon has served for 40 years at the end of this year in the House of Representatives. As you can see, he married a woman much younger than himself.

But one thing that George Mahon and John Stennis have in common is this: They are both very loyal members of their party, but I can assure you that when the strength of America is involved, when the honor of America is involved, when respect for America is involved and a President of the United States, be he Republican or Democrat, has to make a decision involving the strength or the honor or respect for America, these men always put America first and party second. That is the kind of men we have in your two honorees.

And so, I therefore am proud to be here as your guest, but also proud to be here to join you in honoring them. Since you have remarked about the progress that has been made toward peace, I would like to say just a word--without impinging upon Congressman Mahon's time, because we will want to hear, of course, from him primarily--about where we stand and what we have to do if we are going to achieve our goal of a generation of peace and, we would trust, much longer than a generation of peace.

We have ended America's longest and most difficult war, as you have pointed out. We have assisted in bringing about a time of peace in the Mideast with the possibility of building a more permanent peace in that troubled area of the world where, incidentally, the hatreds go back more than 50 years, they go back 1,000 years.

We also have begun a new relationship with those who lead one-fourth of all the people who live on the face of this Earth. We have also begun a different relationship with those who lead the Soviet Union, who have been in constant confrontation with the United States since the end of World War II.

And when we think of these things, sometimes it is very tempting to say the United States has carried such great burdens in World War I, World War II, then Korea almost by ourselves, in Vietnam by ourselves, and in all of these four wars fought in this century, we fought them, we lost our young men, we paid out great sums of money, we received nothing in return insofar as territory or conquest was concerned.

We helped rebuild not only the lands of our allies but those of our enemies, until now, they are competitors in the free world. All this we did, and there are those who would suggest, now that we have peace in Vietnam, a new relationship with the Soviet Union and a new relationship with the PRC and the beginning of, possibly, peace in the Mideast, why can't the United States turn only to its problems at home--or primarily to them--and away from these great world responsibilities that we have carried.

It is very tempting to suggest that because there are so many things we would like to use, money that we could cut from our defense budget, here at home--but let me talk very directly to that point, to an audience that I know needs no persuasion on it but it needs--all of us need to be reminded of why.

We need to be reminded of what peace is in today's world. Sometimes we conclude that once you get peace, that is it, and then we just relax. But in the kind of a world in which we live, with great, powerful nations with totally different systems of governments and different interests, peace is never something that is achieved once and for all and then can be taken for granted. Peace is a continuing process, and the key to whether that process will work is in the hands of the United States of America.

I want to say to you, my friends of the VFW and all others listening, that the cause of peace is in good hands, good hands because, while we are the most powerful and the richest country in the world, we have no designs on any other country, no other country fears that we are going to use our power to take away their freedom. They know that we will only use it to help them defend freedom. No other country fears that we will break the peace; we will only use it if it was in order to help deter war and keep the peace.

But the key to the United States to be able to play the role of peacemaker in the world lies in strength. Military strength is part of it, the strength of our will is part of it. The respect that we have as a nation is part of it, respect for ourselves and respect of other nations that we gain by how we conduct ourselves in the world.

But in terms of peace in the years ahead, we must remember that--as distinguished before World War I, when we could look across the ocean and look at other nations, then the British and the French, who were powerful and could carry the burden until we came in, and in the World War II when we could look to other nations, then again the British and the French before they were taken over, and let them hold until we came in--today the world has changed. And whether we like it or not--and many Americans perhaps do not like it--we do not like the burden, because we would like to get it lifted from us. But this is the fact of international life.

There is no other nation in the free world that has the strength, that has the respect to help keep the peace and play the great role, an honored role of peacemaker in the world, whether it is in the Mideast or any other part of the world.

Let me put it quite directly: When we talk about budgets, on which Chairman Mahon is one of the premier experts, not only in the United States and the world, I am not suggesting that they are sacrosanct. But I do know this: that in terms of the defense budget of the United States, it is essential that at this particular time when we finally have achieved peace, that the United States keep the strength that we need to keep the peace.

It is particularly essential that we not listen to those who say that we should unilaterally reduce our forces when others who are equally strong do not reduce theirs. Only when others mutually agree to reduce theirs do we reduce ours. Putting it quite bluntly, let us be sure that the United States never in this time becomes the second strongest nation in the world.

And in using that term, it is not said in any sense of jingoism, but only because that is the key to peace, the strength of America properly used, as it has been used in this century, for that great cause.

Could I now say a word to these 53 winners. I know there was only one tonight, Mr. Russo from California,¹ but let me say that I consider all 53 to be winners. You won in your own States or territories, as the case might be. You have come here to Washington, and although you may not have been first today, remember, you can lose one time and win the next. I know; I'm an expert on that.

¹Steven B. Russo, of Santa Clara, Calif., was first-place winner in the VFW's "Voice of Democracy" oratorical contest on the theme, "My Responsibility as a Citizen."

So, keep trying, keep working, and we all know that we need each and every one of you, each of the young men and young women here. We need you in American public life, and the fact that you are starting so young, with so much idealism at this period, speaks well for the future of our country.

Sometimes you may hear it said that this is rather a poor time for someone to be young in America because of all the burdens that we have, some of which I have referred to, at home and abroad. But don't you believe it. The fact that America does have this burden--the fact that America does have in this burden the opportunity to help build what the world has not had in this century, a generation of peace for ourselves and for 3 billion people, this makes this a great time to be living in America, to be young.

Our heritage, the one that we want to pass on to you, is a generation of peace. And I can assure each and every one of you that in the 3 years that I have in this office remaining, that one goal will be mine above every one else, and that goal is to help build a peaceful world, one which you can inherit and which you then can build on and pass on to the next generation. And we can achieve that goal, I can assure you. We can achieve it with the support of great patriots like Congressman George Mahon, Senator John Stennis, and the others gathered up here. And we can achieve it with the support of patriotic organizations like the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

But above all, we shall achieve it because the American people, even at a time that we are almost coo years old, has still not forgotten that when we were very young and very weak and very poor, we meant something to the rest of the world that could not be measured in terms of strength or wealth. America had a meaning far beyond itself, and those who founded this country knew it.

Today we still have that same meaning. And at a time that we have become rich and that we have become strong, let us be worthy of the spirit of those who founded this country. If we are worthy of that spirit, the next 200 years can be greater than the first 200.

Thank you.