PM Transcripts

PRESIDENT JOHNSON'S VISIT TO AUSTRALIA 1966
Hol tFaIifba. mx Airport, Canberra, A. C. T. OCTOBER, 1966
Mr. President and Mrs. Johnson, Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen:
Well, it has really happened! We have been waiting for a long
time for the President to come to visit us. We have been hoping that he
would come to visit us and now, as a product of this great conference which
is to be held in Manila, we have him here in Australia with us.
Mr. President, this is not only a notable visit. It is an historic
visit because you are the first President in his period of office ever to visit
this country indeed the only one and it is historic because you are on your
way to what we believe will be a conference directed to our hopes of peace and
a better future and, we believe, fruitful in the results that it will produce.
Although the air of Canberra is chill and brisk, as it so often
is, our welcome is warm and tremendously sincere, and you will find that
warmth of welcome wherever you move around Australia or wherever
Australians are to be found. Those unfortunate enou~ gh to be unable to see
you in the cities, will follow your movements with close interest and attention
as you move into the cities of Australia and on your journey north.
It is, of course, not surprising that there should be a warm
welcome in Australia for an American President, because indeed there is a
welcome In Australia for any of the citizens of your great country. We
Australians have always found it easy to be on terms of close friendship with
you. We have reason to appreciate what the United States has meant to this
country, and in our time of greatest peril we recall with gratitude the
contribution you -made to the security of this nation. And so the American
people stand warm and high in the hearts of the Australian people.
But we welcome you not merely as the leader of this great people,
Indeed the leader of the free world in these difficult times, but we welcome
you and Mrs. Johnson as two warm likeable human be-ings whom we have come
to admire and respect, and I am sure that as we in Australia get to know you
better as we hope to do in these days of your visit, there will be established
between you and the Australian people a lingering bond of affection which will
persist down through the years.
Now, Sir, I am not proposing to offer you on this occasion a
spate of Parliamentary oratory. You will be subjected to quite a barrage when
you lunch with us tomorrow. But I do want you and Mrs. Johnson to know,
and through you, the American people, whose friendship we value so much,
that this visit has been welcomed tremendously by the people of Australia.
We hope that you will find in the visit interest and enjoyment with us, and you
will go away feeling not only a better knowledge and even deeper appreciation
of the Australian people and what they mean, but that you will treasure through
your lives the memories of this, the first Presidential visit to this country.
Finally, there is the circumstance that you, Mr. President in
your period of office have revealed a close and deep awareness of the problems
of Asia, and in particular of South-East Asia, and this is something which we
appreciate tremendously. We think it means much for the peace and progress
of the world as a whole, and your positive contributions to the aspirations you
hold could be a landmark in the history of the world. We wish you well, and
success in the endeavours you will bring to these great objectives.
Mr. President and Mrs. Johnson Welcome to Australia: