The most important battle

Title

Language

English

Source

Panorama Volume XVII (Issue No.7) July 1965

Year

1965

Subject

Presidents -- United States – Messages

Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Political aspects

International mediation

Presidents of the United States

Johnson, Lyndon B. (Lyndon Baines), 1908-1973

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Abstract

The President of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson, delivered the address reproduced herd below on May 13, 1965.

Fulltext

■ The President of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson, delivered the address reproduced herd below on May 13, 1965. THE MOST IMPORTANT BATTLE The war in Viet-Nam has many faces. There is the face of armed conflict — of ter ror and gunfire — of bomb heavy planes and campaignweary soldiers. In this con flict our only object is to prove that force will meet force — that armed conquest is futile, and that aggression is not only wrong, but it just will not work. And the communists in Viet-Nam are slowly begin ning to realize what they once scorned to believe that we combine unlimited patience, with unlimited re-» sources in pursuit of an un wavering purpose. We will not abandon our commitment to South VietNam. The second face of war in Viet-Nam is the quest for a political solution — the face of diplomacy and politics — of the ambitions and the in terests of other nations. We know, as our adversaries should also know that there is no purely military solu tion in sight for either side. We are ready for uncondi tional discussions. Most of the non-communist nations of the world favor such un conditional discussions. And it would clearly be in the in terest of North Viet-Nam to now come to the conference table. For them the conti nuation of war, without talks, means only damage without conquest. Communist China apparently desires the war to continue whatever the cost to their allies. Their target is not merely South Viet-Nam; it is Asia. Their objective is not the fulfill ment of Vietnamese national ism. It is to erode and to discredit America’s ability to help prevent Chinese domi nation over all of Asia. In this domination they shall never succeed. And I am continuing and I am increasing the search 10 Panorama for every possible path to peace. The third face of war in Viet-Nam is, at once, the most tragic and most hope ful. It is the face of human need . It is the untended sick, the hungry family and the illiterate child. It is men and women, many without shelter, with rags for cloth ing, struggling for survival in a very rich and a very fer tile land. It is the most important battle of all in which we are engaged. For a nation cannot be built by armed power or by political agreement. It will rest on the expectation by individual men and women that their future will be bet ter than their past. It is not enough to just fight against something. Peo ple must fight for something, and the people of South VietNam must know that after the long, brutal journey through the dark tunnel of conflict there breaks the light of a happier day. And only if this is so, can they be expected to sustain the enduring will for continued strife. Only in this way can long-Tun stability and peace come to their land. And there is another, more profound reason. In VietNam, communism seeks to really impose its will by force' of arms. But we would be deeply mistaken to think that this was the only weapon. Here, as other places in the world, they speak to restless people — people rising to shatter the old ways which have imprisoned hope — peo ple fiercely and justly reach ing for the material fruits from the tree of modern knowledge. It is this desire, and not simply lust for conquest, which moves many of the in dividual fighting men that we must now, sadly, call the enemy. It is, therefore, our task to show that freedom from the control of other nations of fers the surest road to pro gress, that history and expe rience testify to this truth. But it is not enough to call upon reason or point to examples. We must show it through action and we must show it through accomplish ment, and even were there no war — either hot or cold — we would always be active in humanity’s search for pro gress. This task is command July 1965 11 ed to us by the moral values of our civilization, and it rests on the inescapable na ture of the world that we have now entered. For in that world, as long as we can foresee, every threat to man’s welfare will be a threat to the welfare of our own peo ple. Those who live in the emerging community of na tions will ignore the perils of their neighbors at the risk of their own prospects. This is true not only for Viet-Nam but for every part of the developing world. This is why, on your behalf, I recently proposed a massive, cooperative development ef fort for all of Southeast Asia. I named the respected leader, Eugene Black, as my personal representative to inaugurate our' participation in these programs. Since that time rapid pro gress has been made, I am glad to report. Mr. Black has met with the top officials of the United Nations on several occasions. He has talked to other interested parties. He has found increasing enthu siasm. The United Nations is already setting up new mechanisms to help carry for ward the work of develop ment. In addition, the United States is now prepared to par ticipate in, and to support, an Asian development bank, to carry out and help finance the economic progress in that area of the world, and the development that we desire to see in that area of the world. So this morning I call on every other industrialized na tion, including the Soviet Union, to help create a bet ter life for all of the people of Southeast Asia. Surely, the works of peace can bring men together in a common effort to abandon forever the works of war. But, as South Viet-Nam is the central place of conflict, it is also a principal focus of our work to increase the well being of people. It is in that effort in South Viet-Nam which I think we are too little informed and which I want to relate to you this morning. We began in 1954 when Viet-Nam became indepen dent, before the war between the north and the south. Since that time we have spent more than $2,000 million in 12 Panorama economic help for the 16 mil lion people of South VietNam. And despite the ra vages of war we have made steady, continuing gains. We have concentrated on food, and health, and education, and housing, and industry. Like most developing coun tries, South Viet-Nam’s eco nomy rest on agriculture. Unlike many, it has large un crowded areas of very rich and very fertile land. Be cause of this, it is one of the great rice bowls of the entire world. With our help, since 1954, South Viet-Nam has al ready doubled its rice pro duction, providing food for the people, as well as provid ing a vital export for that nation. We have put our Ameri can1 farm know-how to work on other crops. This year, for instance, several hundred million cuttings of a new va riety of sweet potato, that promises a six-fold increase in yield, will be distributed to these Vietnamese farmers. Corn output should rise from 25,000 tons in 1962 to 100,000 tons by 1966. Pig pro duction has more than dou bled since 1955. Many ani mal diseases have been eli minated entirely. Disease and epidemic brood over every Vietnamese village, In a country of more than 16 million people with a life expectancy of only 35 years, there are only 200 civilian doctors,. If the Vietnamese had doctors in the same ra tio as the United States has doctors, they would have not the 200 that they do have, but they would have more than 5,000 doctors. We have helped vaccinate, already, over seven million people against cholera, and millions more against other diseases. Hundreds of thou sands of Vietnamese can now receive treatment in the more than 12,000 hamlet health stations that America has built and has stocked. New clinics and surgical suites are scattered throughout that en tire country; and the medical school that we are now help ing to build will graduate as many doctors in a single year as now serve the entire popu lation of South Viet-Nam. Education is the keystone of future development in Viet-Nam. It takes a trained people to man the factories, to conduct the administra July 1965 13 tion, and to form the human foundation for an advancing nation. More than a quar ter million young Vietnamese can now learn in more than 4,000 classrooms — that Am erica has helped to build in the last two years; and 2,000 more schools are going to be built by us in the next 12 months. The number of stu dents in vocational schools has gone up four times. En rollment was 300,000 in 1955, when we first entered there and started helping with our program. Today it is more than 1,500,000. The eight million textbooks that we have supplied to Vietnamese children will rise to more than 15 million by 1967. Agriculture is the founda tion. Health, education and housing are the urgent human needs. But industrial development is the great pathway to their future. When Vietnam was divid ed, most of the industry was in the north. The south was barren of manufacturing and the foundations for industry. Today, more than 700 new or rehabilitated factories — textile mills and cement plants, electronics and plas tics — are changing the en tire face of that nation. New roads and communications, railroad equipment and elec tric generators, are a spread ing base in which this new industry can, and is, grow ing. All this progress goes on, and it is going to continue to go on, under circumstances of staggering adversity. Communist terrorists have made aid programs that we administer a very special tar get of their attack. They fear them. We know they must fear them, because agri cultural stations are being destroyed and medical centers are being burned. More than 100 Vietnamese malaria fight ers are dead. Our own aid officials have been wounded and kidnapped. These are not just the accidents of war. They are a part of a delibe rate campaign — in the words of the communists — "to cut the fingers off the hands of the government.” We intend to continue, and we intend to increase, our help to Viet-Nam. Nor can anyone doubt the determination of the South Vietnamese themselves. They have lost more than 12,000 of their men since I became 14 PANORAMA your President a little over a year ago. But progress does not come from investment alone, or plans on a desk, or even the directives and the orders that we approve here in Washing ton. it takes men. Men must take the seed to the farmer. Men must teach the use of fer tilizer. Men must help in har vest. Men must build the schools, and men must ins truct the students. Men must carry medicine into the jun gle and treat the sick, and shel ter the homeless. And men — brave, tireless, filled with love for their fellows — are doing this today. They are doing it through the long, hot, danger-filled Vietnamese days and the sultry nights. The fullest glory must go, also, to those South Vietnames'e that are laboring and dying for their own people and their own nation. In hospitals and schools, along the rice fields and the roads, they continue to labor, never knowing when death or ter ror may strike. How incredible it is that there are a few who still say that the South Vietnamese do not want to continue the struggle. They are sacrifi cing and they are dying by the thousands. Their patient valor in the heavy presence of personal, physical danger should be a helpful lesson to those of us who, here in America, only have to read about it, or hear about it on the television or radio. We have our own heroes who labor at the works of peace in the midst of war. They toil unarmed and out of uniform. They know the humanity of their concern does not exempt them from the horrors of conflict, yet they go on from day to day. They bring food to the hun gry over there. They supply the sick with necessary medi cine. They help the farmer with his crops, families to find clean water, villages to receive the healing miracles of electricity. These are the Americans who have joined our aid program, and we wel come others to their ranks. For most Americans, this is an easy war. Men fight and men suffer and men die, as they always do in war. But the lives of most of us, at least those of us in this room and those listening to me this morning, are untrou July 1965 15 bled. Prosperity rises, abun dance increases, the nation flourishes. I will report to the Cabi net when I leave this room that we are in the 51st month of continued prosperity — the longest peacetime prosperity for America since our country was founded. Yet our entire future is at stake. What a difference it would make if we could only call upon a small fraction of our unmatched private resources — businesses and unions, agri cultural groups and builders — if we could call them to the task of peaceful progress in Viet-Nam. With such a spirit of patriotic sacrifice we might well strike an irresistible blow for freedom there and for freedom throughout the world. I, therefore, hope that every person Within the sound of my voice in this country this morning will look for ways — and those citizens of other nations who believe in hu manity as we do, I hope that they will find ways to help progress in South Viet-Nam. This, then is, the third face of our struggle in VietNam. It was there — the il literate, the hungry, the sick — before this war began. It will be there when peace comes to us — and so will we. Not with soldiers and planes, not with bombs and bullets but with all the won drous weapons of peace in 20th century. And then, perhaps, to gether, all of the people of the world can share that gra cious task with all the peo ple of Viet-Nam, north and south alike. 16 PANORAMA

Media