We are there because we have a promise to keep. Why are these realities our concern? Why are we in South Viet-Nam ? The contest in Viet-Nam is part of a wider pattern of aggressive purposes. It is a nation which is helping the forces of violence in almost every continent. This is a regime which has destroyed freedom in Tibet, which has attacked India, and has been condemned by the United Nations for aggression in Korea. The rulers in Hanoi are urged on by Peking. Over this war-and all Asia-is another reality: the deepening shadow of Communist China. The confused nature of this conflict cannot mask the fact that it is the new face of an old enemy. Large-scale raids are conducted on towns, and terror strikes in the heart of cities. And help less villages are ravaged by sneak attacks. Women and children are strangled in the night because their men are loyal to their government. Simple farmers are the targets of assassination and kidnapping. This support is the heartbeat of the war.Īnd it is a war of unparalleled brutality. But trained men and supplies, orders and arms, flow in a constant stream from north to south. Of course, some of the people of South Viet-Nam are participating in attack on their own government. The first reality is that North Viet-Nam has attacked the independent nation of South Viet-Nam. The world as it is in Asia is not a serene or peaceful place. But we must deal with the world as it is, if it is ever to be as we wish. Yet the infirmities of man are such that force must often precede reason, and the waste of war, the works of peace. This kind of world will never be built by bombs or bullets. And only in such a world will our own freedom be finally secure. We fight because we must fight if we are to live in a world where every country can shape its own destiny. Why must this Nation hazard its ease, and its interest, and its power for the sake of a people so far away? And some 400 young men, born into an America that is bursting with opportunity and promise, have ended their lives on Viet-Nam's steaming soil. The war is dirty and brutal and difficult. We have no territory there, nor do we seek any. Viet-Nam is far away from this quiet campus. It is the principle for which our sons fight tonight in the jungles of Viet-Nam. This is the principle for which our ancestors fought in the valleys of Pennsylvania. Tonight Americans and Asians are dying for a world where each people may choose its own path to change. I have come here to review once again with my own people the views of the American Government. reply are printed in the Department of State Bulletin (vol. We are joining those 17 countries 1 and stating our American policy tonight which we believe will contribute toward peace in this area of the world.ġThe text of the reply to the 17-nation declaration of March 15 was released by the White House on April 8, 1965. Last week 17 nations sent their views to some two dozen countries having an interest in southeast Asia. Garland, Senator Brewster, Senator Tydings, Members of the congressional delegation, members of the faculty of Johns Hopkins, student body, my fellow Americans
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