V-IS04T-THE U. S. 1968
WASHINGTON
EXCHANGE OF REMARKS BETWEEN PRESIDENT
JOHNSON AND THE PRIME MINISTER, MR. JOHN
GORTON IN THE EAST ROOM OF THE WHITE HOUSE
JU16 27 MAY 1968
THE PRESIDENT
Mr. Prime Minister and Mrs. Gorton, Secretary and Mrs. Rusk,
Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen:-
Mr. Prime Minister, it is a very great pleasure for Mrs.
Johnson and I to welcome you and your most charming wife to our country.
We have very little to offer in the way of surprises. Mrs. Gorton is a
native of New England. We have some New England weather for her this
morning. But she already knows all of our secrets anyway. Even if she
did not, you, yourself, Mr; Prime Minister, are the Prime Minister of
Australia and the Australians and the Americans have so much in common
that we seem to understand each other almost on sight anyway.
Our people have been moulded by the same forces. Both
of our continents are vast. Both of our histories are young. Both of our
Governments are free. All of our people were drawn from many lands.
We both enjoy an abundance which, for most of the world, is yet just a
dream. We share a common vision. We see a world where might
does not make right. We strive for a world where nations can live together
in peace and freedom under the rule of law. We have been fighting for this
dream for a long time now. Twenty-five years ago we fought side by side
from the Middle East to the South Pacific. Today we are fighting side by
side in the rice fields in Vietnam.
I do not know how close we may be to success in our
common and our historic cause. But I do know that you, Mr. Prime
Minister, come here at a moment of very historic importance. Cur
American aim is now, as it has been from the beginning, to achieve
peace with honour, a peace which will permit the people of Asia and the
South Pacific to work out their own destiny in their own way. We have
never sought anything else, and we will not accept anything else. I
believe that Australia shares that aim, and I look forward with a great
deal of anticipation to our conversations about this and about many
other common concerns. Mr. Prime Minister, you and your countrymen are always
welcome in Washington. I think you will soon find that although you are
half a world away from Australia, you are still very much at home.
Thank you very much. / 2
PRIME MINISTER
Mr. President, Mrs. Johnson, Secretary Rusk and Mrs. Rusk, Distinguished
Guests:-Thank you, Mr. President, on behalf of all Australians, for
the honour which, through me, you do my country. We value this the more
since it comes from a power which is not only great, but which, since the
end of the last world war, has assumed all the burdens and responsibilities
of being great. You helped reconstruct Europe. In large measure, you
financed the constructive work of the United Nations. You have without
stint given blood and treasure to protect small nations from subjugation
by force or by threat. And you seek to raise the living standards of people
in every corner of the world. For this your country has received scant
thanks yet at one time, through sole possession of atomic power, you
could have imposed your will upon the world and did not. You could have
chosen to conquer, but chose to set free. You could have looked inward,
but instead you chose to look out. If the United Nations has not bro ught
that end to war which its founders sought, if the world is still torn by
strife as it is, that is the fault of others, not of yours.
You have assumed, Sir, as I said, many burdens, and today
one dominates our minds, Even as we stand here, out men fight in Vietnam~ r
together, as they fought in other wars, to protect smiall nnrinnn from
overthrow by force of Governrnenrs elered by rhe people. Even as we
stand here, diplomats in Paris seek to discover whether there is hope of
ending that fighting and securing a peace just, lasting and honourable
giving to the people of South Vietnam a chance thernselves . to choose
their future path without fear or threat.
You, Mr. President, bore the lonely weight of decision to
continue to resist force with force. You, Mr. President, by your recent
gesture, brought the North Vietnamese to talk. You, Mr. President,-
relinquished chance of further office to give those talks such chance lof
success as they may have. And for that we admire and salute you. * It is
that struggle which engrosses us today, but when it is decided, that
solution will be one step only in the solution of other problems to which
men and nations are born, which have arisen in the past, which exist now,
and which will arise in the future in a world in transition.
So the Revolutionary War decided whether America would
or would not be independent. The War between the States decided whether
the union would continue or fragment. The Second World War decided
whether the world would be subject to fascist tyranny. just as those
decisions engrossed the hearts and consciences of those then living, and
decided a particular matter but did not provide solutions for future confli zt
or for progress, so will the outcome of the war in Vietnam decide that
matter but not those questions for decision arising in the years ahead.
As Australians see it, those problems, although worldwide,
are likely to be most acute in Asia. We see there an area which needs
an economic and technical base such as Europe already has. We see there
an area where development and progress are essential if the peoples of
those divergent nations are to support and defend something dynamic and
developing not something stagnant. We see there an area crying for
technical skills, a more experienced administration, a more equitable
sharing of an increasing incom-e and we see there an area subject, above
/ 3
3.
all, to the threat of subversion, terrorism, and aggression. In some
way, Sir, because of internal division, parts of Asia are reminiscent of
the Balkans before World War I and in some ways they may pose the
same dangers, dangers aggravated by the eagerness of agitators to exploit
divisions. Perhaps, Mr. President, though I don't think so, we
Australians see this out of perspective because it is here that we,
contiguous to Asia part of the South East Asian region live and breathe
and have our present and our future. It is here that we feel that we can
best contribute to stability and to progress and to preserving its political
freedom which seeks economic freedom as its concomitant. It is here
that we can play our part. But we cannot effectively play it alone. As
for ourselves we are not a great power, thou~ gh we are destined so to
be. In our nation are new frontiers and boundless opportunities for those
who will risk in order to win; for those who will work in order to build;
for those who will endure initial hardship to gain distant goals. We shall
grow in numbers and in industrial power, and further develop the use of
our natural resources, and in growing, Mr. President, will grapple with
existing problems and prepare for those which wait in the corridors of
the future. But for the present, we, who for two centuries were shielded
by the British Navy, have as our major shield the ANZUS pact, and behind
that, and because of that, we can the sooner grow to that stature we shall
reach, we shall the sooner reach a po sition to repulse * any attack the futur e
may hold from any quarter, and by any means. We can the sooner grow
in capacity to offer more economic and technical assistance to the
Governments and peoples of our region. I do not mean that we do not now
play our part in defence, as we do in aid, or in seeking to foster trade
which may be more important than aid. But I do mean that becausc of your
assistance, because of the ANZUS Treaty and what it implies, we cant
divert to building a future strength, resources which would otherwise: be
now diverted to defence, to the future detriment of defence, and to thp
future diminution of our ability to render as much help in the region as
we would wish. This is to us the virtue of the ANZUS pact. And allied
to it is the sure knowledge that you while providing that shield recognize
that behind it we, as we build our country, are free to make and will make
our own foreign policy decisions subject only to our treaty obligations.
Sir, I have not been here before in my present off ice, yet
I f eel I come not as a stranger. On too many fields of battle we have
stood together fighting for the concept of freedom, fighting against
aggression. On too many occasions we have co-operated in the economic
plans to help the worldrs underprivileged advance their standards of living.
There is too much common heritage of a system under which Government
is chosen by a majority, dismissed by a majority, protect minority rights,
yet refuse to be coerced by organized minority demonstrations. There are
too many bonds for any Australian Prime Minister even to feel that here he
is a stranger. And so as in the past, so may it be in the future. Looking
down the vista of the years, I hope that you in your greatness now, and we
in our present strength and our greatness to come, will together give
protection, stability, advancement, encouragement, will help to foster,
along with and depending on the people who live in that region a new
world in Asia to redress the balance of the old. If this can be done, if
we can do this together successfully, the price to be now paid will, in the
future, be thought by humanity small.
Thank you, Sir.