The Eye April 1968 Page 3

Excerpts from a Press Conference statement by the President, the White House, Juy 28, 1965:

"Not long ago I received a letter from a woman in the Midwest. She wrote:

Dear Mr. President: In my humble way I am writing to you about the crisis in Vietnam. I have a son who is now in Vietnam. My husband served in World War II. (Then) our country was at war, but now, this time, it is just something that I don't understand, Why?"

Why must young Americans--born into a land exultant with hope and golden with promises--toil and suffer and sometimes die in such a remote and distant place?

The answer, like war itself, is not an easy one. But it echoes clearly from the painful lessons of half a century. Three times in my lifetime, in two world wars and in Korea, Americans have gone to far lands to fight for freedom. We have learned at a terrible and brutal cost that retreat does not bring safety and weakness does not bring peace.

It is this lesson that has brought us to Vietnam. This is a different kind of war. There are no marching armies or solemn declarations. Some citizens of South Vietnam, at times with understandable grievances, have joined in the attack on their own goverment. But we must not let this mask the central fact that this is really war. It is guided by North Vietnam and spurred by Communist China. Its goal is to conquer the South, to defeat American power, and to extend the Asiatic domain of Communism.

And there are great stakes in the balance.

Most of the non-Communist nations of Asia cannot, by themselves and alone, resist the growing might an grasping ambition of Asian Communism. Our power, therefore, is a vital shield. If we are driven from the field of Vietnam, then no nation can ever again have the same confidence in American promise, or in American protection. In each land the forces of independance would be considerably weakened. And an Asia so threatened by Communist domination would imperil the security of the United States itself.

We did not choose to be the guardians at the gate, but there is no one else.

Nor would surrender in Vietnam bring peace. We learned from Hitler at Munich that success only feeds the appetite of aggression. The battle would be renewed in one country and then another, bringing with it perhaps even larger and crueler conflict.

Moreover, we are in Vietnam to fulfill one of the most solmn pledges of the American Nation. Three Presidents--President Eisenhouwer, President Kennedy, and your present President--over 11 years, have promised to help defend this small and valiant nation.

Strengthened by that promise, the people of South Vietnam have fought for many long years. Thousands of them have died. Thousands more have been crippled and scarred by war. We cannot now dishonor our work or abandon our commitment or leave those who believed us and trusted us to the terror and repression and murder that would follow.

This, then, my fellow Americans, is why we are in Vietnam"

From "Why Vietnam" printed by
U.S. Government Printing Off.