VISIT TO, THE U. S. 1968
WASHINGTCN
EXCHA-NGE CF TCASTS BETWEEN PRESIDENT JOHNSON
AND PRIME MINISTER GORTON IN STATE DINING ROOM
OF WH-ITlE HOUSE 27 MAY 1968
THE PRESID~ ENT
Mr. Prime Minister, Mrs. Go: 2-ton, Secretary and Mrs. Katzenbach,
Ambassador and Mrs. Wailer, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and
Gentlemen: Mr. Prime Minister, I have a confession to make tonight...
I have been talking quite privately to your wife. I hope and I believe this
was not a violation of protocol. But I needed advice. Two years ago,
your predecessor--our late and beloved friend, Harold Holt--made a
promise to me. During our visit prior to the Manila Conference, in the
cool of the evening over a mint julep, he very generously said that if
things ever went wrong here in the United States, I would always have
a political future in Australia. Mr. Prime Minister, I have been somewhat
curious to know whether that might still be true.
Bettina, as you know, Mr. Prime Minister, is a daughter
of New England. She said, " Mr. President, you will always be welcome.
But Australians are a lot like you Texans--you are never as bad as they
say you are when they're mad and you are never as good as they say
you are when they love you. Mr. Frime Minister, let me assure you
tonight that I do not intend-I may reassess that a little later-I do not
intend to stand for office in Canberra. This is a considerable sacrifice,
since I can truthfully say there is no place outside my own native land
where I really feel more at home.
Mr. Prime Minister and Mrs. Gorton, I hope that you will
feel equally at home here in America and I hope that you will come to
visit us often. Lady Bird and I are pleased and honoured that we should
have this opportunity to be the first to welcome you to our country as Prime
Minister. The friendship that joins our two countries is a vital force
in the struggle to transform the world's hopes into tomorrow's realities.
It is a partnership which grows stronger and deeper with the passage of
time. It extends from trade and mutual defence to man's newest frontierthe
exploration of outer space. Right now that partnership is being tested--
tested in the hardest way that the ties between nations can be tested, and
that is by the commitment of our men to combat. Tonight we are in a
decisive phase of the struggle for peace and order in South East Asia.
Talks have begun, but the other side is forcing the pace of battle; it is
pouring men and supplies into South Vietnam at an unprecedented rate.
Let me tell you this
-in Paris we shall remain patient but firm in the quest for an
honourable peace. Ambassador Vance will be here in the morning
to report to me and the security council, and to report to you,
Mr. Prime Minister, on the developments there. / 2
-In Vietnam tonight your men and ours--and the gallant South
Vietnamese, the South Koreans and the Thais who have fought
so long for the right of self -determination--and all of our allieswill
turn back this offensive.
-In time;--and I pray it may be soon--the other side will turn
from fantasy to reality; from violence to genuine peacemaking.
I know there are some in Asia and elsewhere who are
wondering tonight whether the United States will maintain its commitments
in Asia; who are wondering tonight whether the strains of this struggle
will lead us to withdraw and leave two-thirds of humanity to its fate
without American assistance or American support. As you so well know,
Mr. Prime Minister, with your years in political life, I cannot speak for
my successor, but I can speak for myself, and the answer is no; we will
not withdraw until there is an honourable peace. I do not think that my
country will permit us to do otherwise.
If you look back over the years since 1941, you will see
how steady the performance of the American nation has been. We must
put aside the Senate speeches that have been made and the debates that
have gone on and you will see that from one Administration to anotherfrom
Republican to Democrat--the United States of America and its
people has steadily understood its interests in Asia and has acted on them.
I deeply believe that this will be true in the future as it has in the past.
All the energy and influence that I can command will be in that direction.
I think, Mr. Prime Minister, it will be true for a very simple reason:
every year that passes brings us closer to Asia and brings us closer
really to the other regions of the world; closer in terms of military
technology; closer in terms of communications; closer in economic ties;
and closer in terms of simple human friendships.
If I may depart, Mr. Prime Minister, I think you will be
interested to know that this afternoon I saw a report that on the list of
choices for R and R--rest and recreation--in Vietnam, Australia was the
first choice of the American fighting man. I think you will also be pleased
to know that of the thousands who have gone there, who have been taken into
your homes, and they have been entertained as if they were their own sons,
that so far as we have been able to ascertain, there has not been one, single
misunderstanding or violation of your hospitality or your courtesy--and
that is saying something of Vietnam fighting men who are on rest and
recreation in Australia. In the years ahead, we hope that the new Asia that is being
born will be increasingly organized to shape its own destiny. It should be
able to do more for itself and rely less on the United States. But I have no
doubt that there will be no return here to isolation. I have no doubt that
America will remain the partner of Australia, and I have no doubt that
Australia will continue to give leadership to the new Asia and the free
Asia as far ahead as any of us can see. One of the comforting and pleasirg
developments of the last few years has been to see the leadership that the
Government of Australia has given to this huge population that makes up
two-thirds of the world; that this little country, through its leaders, has
gone out and met with them, visited with them, exchanged views with them,
and let them know that we are one and that we are trying to build toward a
better day where we can fight the enemies of hunger, disease and poverty
that are rampant in that area. / 3
3.
Mr. Prime Minister, your presence tonight is proof that
this partnership is still vital and still growing. We are so pleased that
you could bring your Maine lady with you and join us on the boat last
night and that we could find all the differences that we had and solve most
of them before the dinner tonight. We think this visit of yours, so soon
after you have taken over the responsibilities of the Prime Ministership,
will be of great help to us and will endear you to this country.
Mr. Prime Minister, we hope that your visit here--and
you will be visiting other parts of our country--will give you an insight
into the affection that the American people hold for the Australian people.
In sunshine and in sorrow, we have stood side by side. Alt hough Ed and
Ann Clark found it so pleasant out there that they dared not take more
than two years of it we are sending you some other Texans who we hope
will be representative of this country and be concerned with the future of
Australia. The young Ambassador said to me, Mr. Prime Minister,
when I talked to him about two or three countries, " Why are we so high
on Australia?" I said, " If I could be Ambassador--and I am not sure I
can under the next Administration-if I could be, the one country that I
would want to be Ambassador to is Australia. That is when he made
his choice. That is when he decided he wanted to go to Australia.
So, Mr. Prime Minister, we welcome you and your party.
We know that our talks will be fruitful. We assure you of our continuing
co-operation and friendship. We now ask you to join us in a toast to the
great lady who symbolizes our common heritage.. Her Majesty, The
Queen. PRIME MINISTER
Mr. President, Mrs. Johnson, Members of the Diplomatic Corps.,
Distinguished Guests:-I must first of all thank you, Sir, for extending such a..
warm welcome to myself and to my Maine lady--that is spelled with an
You know, Sir, you have spoken tonight of a number of matters
which beset us today. But in doing so, you have mentioned other matters
which beset us in the past and which you will remember because you came
to Australia at the time when these things were threatening then.
You went on missions over Papua and New Guinea in the
defence of Australia at the time these things were threatening. I flew
at that stage in company with pilots of the United States Air Force who
had come to see what was threatening then did not prevail--and it did not
prevail. These difficulties, these problems, are borne on me tonight
more than they ever have been before, because I stand here in a historic
residence and my mind goes back to the time when, for example, one
former President sat here and mourned the loss of more Americans in
conflict than have been lost in all the wars since between 1860 and 1865,
and exercised will and exercised judgment in order to see that a nation
due to become great did become great, and did not become split. I can
imagine well--because you showed me today upstairs, the room in which
this great man slept--what those five years or six years, however long
it was that man sat there, beset not only by an enemy across the potomacand
I am bound to say that I speak as a convinced confederate; at least
/ 4
I
I would have been then--but not only by an enemy across the potomac, but
by the cooperheads inside the union, by the riots taking place in New York
so that regiments had to be brought back from the army of the potomac
to put it down by the vilification and attacks of Horace Greeley and the
newspapers--and newspapers are now much the same as they were then--
and through it all, because the end was an end that was good, he saw
that whatever was required to be done was done, and it was. If it had not
so been done, then there would not now be a United States of America.
Things don't change that much. I know that at one subsequent
stage, part of the house in which I stand apparently inadvertently caught
fire. But that has, of course, nothing to do with Australia, Sir. I dare
say that people responsible for it eventually finished up in Botany Bay as
transportees. I don't think that I should, on this occasion--which is a
happy and a festive occasion--for too long talk about matters that are too
serioust I tried this morning to set forth what Australians think about
what you are doing in the United States. When you speak of leadership
that we give, we give that leadership, if we do, and we try to because we
are protected and shielded by a gr. eater power. We will give greater
leadership in the future because we will have in the past been protected
and shielded by a greater power. * rhe coat of arms of my own country,
Sir, is borne on one side by a kangnroo and on the other by an emu.
Ileither one of these creatures, so tile botanists tell me, is physically
able to move backwards; they can only move forward. We will and we
have. There is little time for figures to be presented to a meeting
such as this, but at least in the last decade one can say that the grosE
national product of my country has doubled at an average rate of five and
a half per cent; that the expenditure on foreign aid has doubled; that the
expenditure on defence has trebled; that our population has increased by
one third. But that is all in the past. I remember, Sir, if I may translate
it a little later into idiom, something which struck my mind when I was
young. All of the past is prelude, which means " You ain't seen nothing
yet". But still we, like you, do have to contribute more than we
would wish to to the protection of other peoples against attack, to the
building up of a region which you could have said, which was once said
by a British Prime Minister, was a faraway region of which we know
nothing, but which, as far as we are concerned, is a close region of which
we know much. We have to contribute to that because unless it happens,
unless the people living there have a greater chance to improve their
living standards to be able to live a reasonable and decent life, then in
the future there is little hope for a reduction in that money necessary,
but in one sense wasted for defence.
So, we have to do it, and you make it possible for us to do
it. But if this is achieved, if it is possible to beat the swords into plowshares,
if it is possible to translate the aircraft into factories, if it is possible to
take people out of uniform to be productive, then we can see in that area of
the world something growing, something growing not only for their own
benefit, but for our own because we will sell them things, for your own,
because you will sell them things, for our own, because we will buy from
them that which they peculiarly can produce. And we may-who knows,
becaus~ e man is born to travel as the sparks fly upward--but we may achieve
an era nearer to a time when men can live in peace, when men can live in
peace throughout the world, when these great political schisms which, for
so long as I can remember, have torn the world to pieces may become
muted and instead of people saying... " I will run through facism all the
people of the world" or " I will run through communism all the people in
the world", we may have instead a brotherhood of men. Who knows?
I don't, but I am sure that what you are doing and what we are trying to
help you do in a minor way is the only method by which this shining goal
might eventually be achieved.
Sc I do not, as I say, wish tonight to make too serious a
speech, but I would like to repeat a tribute that I made this morning, and
that is..... that the power inside this country, utilized as it is being
utilized by this country, is to me the only sure--not sure--the only
hopeful beacon, not only for this country, or for mine, but for the
peoples generally of the world. Well, the " Maine Lady" of whom you
spoke, long ago said to me something which she said I was to remember
on any occasion when I spoke to a gathering of people. It is a little
quatrain. It " I love the finished speaker, I really truly do. I
don't mean one who is polished, I just mean one who is through".
Mr. President, though I could for an hour go on expressing
the same feelings that you have expressed, I think it is unnecessary
because I think between friends short exchanges are understood and
detailed explanations are not required.
Therefore, I am through.