The Press Conference

In Washington, the hardest thing for anyone to keep is a secret. Yet even though he discussed Viet Nam with scores of important Americans, both in and out of Government, President Johnson managed to keep his decisions secret until the very last.

His press conference was scheduled for 12:30. At that time, some 200 newsmen were awaiting his presence in the East Room of the White House. Already set up was what the journalists have dubbed the "people eater"--a television camera, set almost eye-to-nose in front of the President, with teleprompting devices attached. Above the President's head was an umbrellalike aluminum reflector into which the flood lights were focused. The idea was to protect the President's eyes, and to help erase the worry lines from his face. As it turned out, he looked fine.

At 12:33, Lady Bird walking a respectful three paces behind him, the President entered the room.

He started out by quoting a letter from a Midwestern woman who wanted to know why her son was fighting in Viet Nam. Johnson's answer: "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 a brutal cost that retreat does not bring safety, and weakness does not bring peace. And it is this lesson that has brought us to Viet Nam."

"Great Stakes." There were, he noted, "great stakes in the balance. Most of the non-Communist nations of Asia cannot, by themselves and alone, resist the growing might and the grasping ambition of Asian Communism. Our power therefore is a very vital shield. If we are driven from the field in Viet Nam, then no nation can ever again have the same confidence in American promise or in American protection."

Continued Johnson: "We are in Viet Nam to fulfill one of the most solemn pledges of the American nation. Three Presidents--President Eisenhower, President Kennedy and your present President--over eleven years have committed themselves and have promised to help defend this small and valiant nation. Strengthened by that promise, the people of South Viet Nam have fought for many long years. Thousands of them have died. Thousands more have been crippled and scarred by war. And we just cannot now dishonor our word, or abandon our commitment, or leave those who believed us and who trusted us to the terror and repression and murder that would follow."

"Painful Duty." The President spoke in tones of personal pain. "I do not find it easy," he said, "to send the flower of our youth, our finest young men, into battle. I have spoken to you today of the divisions and the forces and the battalions and the units, but I know them all, every one. I have seen them in a thousand streets of a hundred towns in every state in this Union--working and laughing and building and filled with hope and life. And I think I know, too, how their mothers weep and how their families sorrow. And this is the most agonizing and the most painful duty of your President." But, he added, "I also know, as a realistic public servant, that as long as there are men who hate and destroy we must have the courage to resist or we'll see it all--all that we have built, all that we hope to build, all of our dreams for freedom--all will be swept away on the flood of conquest. So, too, this shall not happen. We will stand in Viet Nam."

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