 My fellow Americans, not long ago I received a letter from a woman in the Midwest. She wrote, Dear Mr. President, in my humble way I am writing to you about the crisis in Vietnam. I have a son who is now in Vietnam. My husband served in World War II. Our country was at war. Now, this time, it's just something that I don't understand. Why? Why, Vietnam? Why, Vietnam? Why, Vietnam? Why, Vietnam? Munich, 1938. German Chancellor Adolf Hitler arrives for a conference to be held here with British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. This meeting will long be remembered, for it opens the door to the dreams of dictatorship. We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German naval agreement as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again. Peace in our time, a shortcut to disaster, but even then this was no new lesson. It had stared us in the face with Mussolini in Ethiopia. Ethiopia's emperor, Haile Selassie, made his protest to the League of Nations, but nothing was done. We'd also seen the Anschluss in Austria, then in 1950. Aggression was again unleashed, this time across the 38th parallel in Korea, but free men had begun to learn the lesson and something was done. The lesson had been learned and President Johnson had phrased its meaning well. Aggression unchallenged is aggression unleashed. Why must young Americans, born into a land exultant with hope and with golden promise, toil and suffer and sometimes die in such a remote and distant place? The answer, like the war itself, is not an easy one, but it echoes clearly from the painful lessons of half a century. 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 Vietnam. For the background to our involvement in Vietnam, we must go back to a shell-created place called Dien Bien Phu, supplied only by air, completely surrounded by the opposing Vietnamese. French troops are fighting the last battle of a long war over what had been called French Indochina. It's a strange three-cornered struggle, non-communist Vietnamese fighting communist Vietnamese and some of both fighting the French. By 1954, the inevitability of French defeat has become clear. Hanoi in 1954 reflects the ravages of long and bitter warfare, but for now the fighting is over, the French are leaving. The red star flies over Hanoi as the communist forces move in. After a conference in Geneva, an agreement has been reached. It divides Vietnam into north and south, turns over the north to the communists and marks the end of French colonial rule. The agreement also provides the machinery for bringing true peace to Vietnam if the communists act in good faith. This is a bright victory for the communist world and there are smiles, but not on the faces of the more than one million Vietnamese who desert their homes and flee southward rather than live under a communist regime. From then to now, the basic story of United States' help to Vietnam is simple. The communists have steadily increased their pressure on South Vietnam. South Vietnam has asked for greater support to resist that pressure and has received it. So increasing communist aggression has called forth increases in the scope of the United States' counteraction, but United States policy has remained the same. We are committed to helping a free people defend their sovereignty. Let us trace the history of that commitment. In 1954, Vietnam is divided at the 17th parallel, as Korea was divided at the 38th. She faces the future with an imaginary line running from border to border, symbolizing a separation which is far from imaginary. In the north, Ho Chi Minh, communist leader of North Vietnam, plays the kindly smiling grandfather. But behind the smile is a mind which is planning a reign of terror in South Vietnam, in which children and adults alike will be the victims. In South Vietnam, peace brings a fresh beginning. The people set about building new homes, new hopes. Free elections are held in the South alone when it becomes clear that the communist regime in the north has no intention of permitting genuinely free elections in its half of the country. Also in 1954, President Eisenhower pledges economic aid to assist the government of Vietnam in developing and maintaining a strong, viable state capable of resisting attempted subversion and aggression through military means. The reforms redistribute farmlands in the south so that farmers own their fields and reap for themselves the fruit of their toil. With American economic aid, the south begins to prosper and the hopes of the people are for peace. These hopes, shared by so many in Southeast Asia, are reinforced in Manila when in 1955 the United States and others signed the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty, forming CETO and guaranteeing the mutual security of Southeast Asia from armed aggression. But even as the people of the south build, North Vietnam is creating in their villages political action centers with trained agitators infiltrated from the north, often in the guise of refugees. The Communist plan also includes acts of terror and subversion to disrupt the legitimate government. If the south cannot be brought under Hanoi's control by less forceful means, a new phase of the Communist plan is ready to go into action. Open guerrilla warfare, furtive and remorseless, aimed at destroying the government and subjugating the people, it is called by Hanoi a war of liberation. It does not seem so to the hundreds of anti-communist leaders, teachers and their wives and children who are visited in the night by Viet Cong persuasion squads. This is the prize the communists are after, South Vietnam, rich in rice, and standing at the gateway to the rice-rich nations of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Burma and East Pakistan. And the Asian communists have said, a grain of rice is worth a drop of blood. There are also natural resources, coal, phosphate, zinc, tin, manganese, the raw materials on which to base industrialization or feed a war machine. Natural rubber, South Vietnam has this too, and the latex processing facilities which make of raw rubber, the vitally important material it is in today's world. This then is another aspect of the South Vietnam, which the North cupits, a nation moving toward greater industrialization, a rich prize indeed in the eyes of communist strategists. At Gettysburg College in 1959, President Eisenhower clearly recognizes the danger. We have learned too that the cost of defending freedom, of defending America must be paid in many forms and in many places. They are assessed in all parts of the world, in Berlin, in Vietnam, in the Middle East, here at home. Unassisted, Vietnam cannot, at this time, produce and support the military formations essential to it, military, as well as economic help is currently needed in Vietnam. By 1960, every area of life in the South has become a combat zone. This is a different kind of war. There are no marching armies or solemn declarations, but this is really war. It is guided by North Vietnam and it is spurred by communist China. Its goal is to conquer the South and to extend the Asiatic dominion of communism and there are great stakes in the balance. No people see this more clearly than the embattled, hard-pressed Vietnamese. By 1961, they send out an urgent call for help. The answer to that call is prompt in arriving. America promises substantial military and technical aid, machines and equipment to resist aggression and the trained men to teach Vietnamese fighting forces how to put them into effective use. The American advisors are specialists, highly trained and motivated, often able to speak to trainees in their own language. Instructors and advisors willing and able to teach, find men whose freedom is at stake, eager and quick to learn. At this time, however, the Americans in Vietnam are there only as advisors. There are no United States combat units as such. The advisors' primary job is to train and encourage the South Vietnamese fighting men they have come to respect and admire. This guerrilla warfare is the latest tactic in the global communist plan. Korea showed that the free world would meet and stop conventional invasion and communists' efforts to dominate newly emerging nations through trade, aid and political subversion had little success. Now a new kind of politically camouflaged invasion must be faced, the so-called People's War of Liberation. As months go by, the communists lose a lot of men, but there are many more in the North who will be sent South to replace them, and others can be kidnapped and forced to serve. Meantime, in addition to training Vietnamese fighting men, American advisor teams are working constantly to help relieve the human suffering of remote villages. Under pressure of growing communist aggression, the flow of American equipment and advisors is increased. It is the only means of meeting the rising tide of infiltration and attack from the North, especially since aggressive guerrillas with no citizenry to protect can tie up forces ten times their own number. Their equipment and mobility are used to full advantage to carry the fight to the enemy, swiftly, wherever his presence becomes known. The Vietnamese soldier is quick to grasp the techniques involved in copter-borne counteraction to guerrilla raids on country villages, and he uses his new knowledge well. Even with superior equipment, however, this is a difficult war to prosecute. There are no front lines here. The war is everywhere against an enemy that has seldom clearly seen. In these scenes of casualty evacuation, the enemy is not far away, certainly within shouting distance. The enemy is not seen, but American and Vietnamese fighting men bear on their bodies the painful evidence that he is still here, still determined, still deadly. Throughout this time, the combat capability of South Vietnam's military forces is growing. American advisors work to bring the level of training and combat readiness of these forces as high as possible. But as North Vietnam continues to send in fresh cadres, there is a growing need in South Vietnam for fighting men. The losses suffered by the South in combat are cruelly heavy for a nation whose population is no larger than that of New York State. The fact is, in proportion to population, South Vietnam's losses in combat are 10 times as great as those suffered by the United States in Korea, greater even than our total losses in World War II. Then in August of 1964, the communists again enlarge the scope of the conflict. Renewed hostile actions against United States ships on the high seas and the Gulf of Tonkin have today required me to order the military forces of the United States to take action in reply. That reply is being given as I speak to you tonight. Air action is now in execution against certain supporting facilities in North Vietnam which have been used in these hostile operations. Never until now have American men and machines struck directly at communist North Vietnam. Later in August, Secretary of Defense McNamara sets the record straight. We wish to emphasize we seek no wider war. Our response will depend upon the action of the aggressors, in this case the North Vietnamese. The key to the situation remains the cessation of infiltration from the North into the South. We seek no wider war. But we find ample evidence that there is no remaining on the part of the North. In this one-captured shipment of Viet Cong arms, there are a million rounds of small arms ammunition, 3,500 rifles, submachine guns, and some 4,000 anti-tank and mortar rounds. And there's no doubt about the source. The Chinese markings are unmistakable. In meeting the aggression so clearly evidenced here, we have sent strength to meet force. But we have also repeatedly sent word that we are willing to talk, as Secretary of State Dean Rusk makes plain. Our war aim in South Vietnam is peace. President Johnson has directed me to do everything possible to bring this matter from the battlefield to the conference table. And so we've been utilizing all of the existing and available political machinery for that purpose. We've attempted to use the machinery of the Geneva Conferences of 1954 and 1962. Last year we brought the Vietnam problem before the Security Council of the United Nations at the time of the Gulf of Tan Ken Affair. But Hanoi refused an invitation to come to the Security Council to talk about it. But a single Secretary General of the United Nations, Utat, considered a peace mission himself to bring about peace. But Hanoi and Paping, I told him not to come. Britain has made many efforts to find a path to a settlement. First by working toward a new conference in Geneva and then by a visit of one of their senior statesmen, Mr. Patrick Gordon Walker. But the effort for a Geneva conference has thus far been blocked. And Mr. Gordon Walker was told that he should stay away from Hanoi and Paping The Commonwealth attempted to send a Committee of the Commonwealth to various capitals to explore the possibilities of peace. We welcomed that initiative, but Hanoi and Paping told them not to come. We've made a number of efforts on our own, both publicly and privately. President Johnson and Baltimore, for example, offered unconditional discussion with the government's concerned. But Hanoi and Paping call this offer a hoax. Seventeen non-aligned nations publicly appealed for a peaceful solution by negotiations without preconditions. We welcomed this proposal, but it was rejected by Hanoi and Paping. The distinguished President of India made a constructive suggestion that there be an end of hostilities and an Afro-Asian police force established in Vietnam. To us, this proposal was full of interest and hope. But by Hanoi and Red Shiny, it was rejected as a betrayal. So all of these abrupt and violent rejections of peaceful settlement are just what they appear to be. Clear proof that Hanoi is not yet prepared for discussions, unless it be accepted in advance that South Vietnam be subjected to communist domination. And so the record seems very clear to us. Hanoi is presently resisting the road to peace. Paping, even more so. The declared doctrine and purpose of the Chinese communists remain clear. The domination of all of Southeast Asia. And indeed, if we listen to what they're saying to us, the domination of the great world beyond. The United States will continue to make every effort toward reasonable negotiation, and there can be no doubt as to our intention. We do not seek the destruction of any government. Nor do we covet a foot of any territory. But we insist, and we will always insist, that the people of South Vietnam shall have the right of choice, the right to shape their own destiny in free elections in the South, or throughout all of Vietnam, under international supervision. And they shall not have any government imposed upon them by force and terror, so long as we can prevent it. We do not want an expanding struggle with consequences that no one can foresee. Nor will we bluster, or bully, or flaunt our power. But we will not surrender. And we will not retreat. The answer to American offers to move from the battlefield to the conference table continues to come in the form of high explosives, aimed at American air bases and other troop installations in the South, including the barracks of American servicemen. But in this war against people, the high explosives are not only aimed at men who bear arms. The American embassy in Saigon itself becomes a grim battleground scene as Viet Cong terrorists single it out for a bomb attack. It is all part of the carefully planned and continuing campaign of terror against both American and South Vietnamese civilians. Increasingly now, Americans are functioning directly in the fight for freedom in this far, foreign corner of the earth. The risks are real, just as the stakes for which they are taken are real. But Americans risk and sometimes give all that they have half a world away from home because they know that once again half a world away has become our front door. If freedom is to survive in any American hometown, it must be preserved in such places as South Vietnam. And as President Johnson has pointed out, it is up to us. Most of the non-communist nations of Asia cannot by themselves and alone resist the growing might and the grasping ambition of Asian communism. Because this is true and because we are a nation which honors its commitments and are people committed to our honor, we intend to convince the communists that we cannot be defeated by force of arms or by superior power. I have asked the commanding general, General Westmoreland, what more he needs to meet this mounting aggression? He has told me. And we will meet his needs. For the first time, combat units of the United States Marine Corps arrive in Vietnam, joining other Marines already there. It is the first time that Marines in full combat gear have hit the beach in an active combat zone since Korea. Army combat units also arrive, and the message of their presence on Vietnamese soil is plain. Whatever the present or future needs of the fight for freedom in Vietnam, they will be met. American forces in Vietnam know that the communist so-called war of liberation is no less a form of aggression than was the conventional attack in Korea. And they know that this new form of aggression must be defeated and proven unprofitable. Or the communists will be encouraged to try it elsewhere with greater confidence and resources. So the war goes on. Clearly it is the communists who have made that choice. And as always, the innocent suffer. For the children of Vietnam and of all Southeast Asia, the future is in the balance. If they are to realize their heritage as free men tomorrow, there are for us today hard realities to be faced. I do not find it easy to send the flower of our youth, our finest young men, into battle. I have seen them in a thousand streets of 100 towns and every state in this union working and laughing and building and filled with hope and life. But as long as there are men who hate and destroy, we must have the courage to resist. We did not choose to be the guardians of the gate, but there is no one else. Now I would surrender in Vietnam, bring peace, because we learned from Hitler at Munich that success only feeds the appetite of aggression. Moreover, we are in Vietnam to fulfill one of the most solemn pledges of the American nation, three presidents, President Eisenhower, President Kennedy, and your president president. Over 11 years have committed themselves and have promised to help defend this small and valiant nation. Strengthened by that promise, the people of South Vietnam 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 commitments or leave those who believed us and who trusted us to the terror and repression and murder that would follow. This then, my fellow Americans, is why we're in Vietnam.