 On Thursday, August the 3rd, presidential troubleshooter Cyrus Vance and General John Throckmorton arrived at the White House to report on conditions in the city of Detroit. As of 12 noon on the previous day, the responsibility for law and order in the city had been returned to state authorities. There had been little in America's recent past to prepare her for the nightmarish war that hit her city streets during the summer of 1967. It had come with a sudden reality, crackling out of the overheated ghettos of New York and Detroit. And it had spread in a strange convulsive pattern through large and small communities, from Providence to Wichita. One thing should be absolutely clear. This matter is far, far too important for politics. It goes to the health and the safety of all American citizens, Republicans and Democrats. It goes to the proper responsibility of officials in both of our parties. It goes to the heart of our society in a time of swift change and of great stress. Gentlemen, for the last hour, almost an hour and a half, I have met with Secretary Vance and General Throckmorton, two of our most... Throughout a long hot summer, torn with racial violence, the man most heavily burdened with a quest for solutions played a deliberate calm. He knew that there were no sudden or sure answers. The slums were too large and the plight of the Negro too complex for any hasty economic cures. Hopefully, his newly appointed riot commission would accurately profile the causes and effects of the riots and provide some long-range answers. Meanwhile, the immediate task of the administration was to keep federal help to the cities at a constant level, while moderating any future violence with a mixture of firmness and restraint. Tragically enough, the administration's ghetto programs had been severely curtailed in Congress during the year. The congressional knife had cut deeply into the Model Cities bill, rent subsidies, school aid, rat control, and the teachers' core appropriation. The $2 billion anti-poverty package was in trouble. So was the administration's anti-crime bill. To President Johnson and the members of his cabinet, the prevention of crime and chaos in the streets was of prime importance. But so were other programs. Programs that could offer slum residents jobs, educational opportunities, and adequate housing. Programs that in themselves were major keys to some of the underlying causes of unrest in the cities. In early August, with defense and domestic spending higher than his January estimates for fiscal 1968, President Johnson sent a new budget message to Congress. Then he called in the press for a rapid-fire chalk talk. He had asked for a new tax package that would impose, at least through 1969, a 10% surcharge on all corporate and individual income taxes. Along with some borrowing and belt tightening and other fiscal measures, he hoped that the surcharge would put a sizable dent into the large probable deficit. Without the surcharge, this deficit would cause a spiral of ruinous inflation, brutally higher interest rates and tight money, and an unjust distribution of the cost of supporting the men in Vietnam. The war itself was now exceeding its earlier cost estimates. After listening to the recommendations of Secretary McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General Westmoreland, President Johnson had decided to authorize an increase of 45,000 men to be sent to Vietnam, bringing the total of United States troops there to 525,000. And so, in August of 1967, contemporary American life entered a new phase of crisis, a crisis of national purpose that linked the problems of the city streets to the war in Vietnam, and both to the state of the economy. The President's position was clear. There were times in a nation's life when its armies had to be equipped and fielded, and the nation's business still had to go on. This was such a time. It was a time of change. Every day, old institutions, values, and beliefs were crumbling. Swift and transforming change had not only become an accepted experience of modern life, but also the source of an American dilemma. We had become the first generation to know with certainty that life would be different for our children, and even for ourselves in just a few years' time. On the morning of the 4th, President Johnson talked further about the commitment to change with the young delegates from the girls' nation. So I would ask you today to make the same commitment that generations of American women have made before you. The commitment to teaching, the commitment to healing, the commitment to inspiring a change in our country, where it is desperately needed. We must ever just become satisfied with the status quo. Later that same day, Presidential Assistant Cliff Alexander was sworn in as the new chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. This commission, like the Civil Rights Act that created it, had been bred for change. Its mission? To bring employment opportunities within the reach of every American citizen. I do not believe there's anyone in the United States. That is better qualified to achieve that goal for this government. And Cliff Alexander, he knows what prejudice is. He has endured it himself. And he has fought with it with every resource at his command. And if I have anything to do about it in this country, we are all going to be equal in seeking a job. Over the years, poverty has given growth to a vast and overlapping complex of federal programs and agencies. All of them trying to help the poor. In mid-August, Secretary Gardner of Health Education and Welfare would make a dramatic change. He would consolidate five major welfare agencies under one office. Its new title? The Social and Rehabilitation Service. Its new director? Government veteran Mary Elizabeth Schweitzer. To at least one person in Washington, the problems of poverty, urban reorganization and beautification are all interconnected. And if, in the process of even the smallest change, some of the sheer ugliness of the ghetto disappears, then America is moving toward a new expression. During the month of August, Project Trailblazer would inaugurate a weekly wage program for groups of youngsters working on beautification projects in the Anacostia and Northeastern sections of the city of Washington. Made possible by a grant from Lawrence Rockefeller, a member of Mrs. Johnson's beautification committee, its beginnings were modest. But hopefully, other men and women in other cities would attempt to imitate it. Late in 1965, President Johnson had ordered a study of the alternatives to home rule in the District of Columbia. The task had gone to the Bureau of the Budget, which, after study, had recommended that the three-man Board of City Commissioners be replaced by a single executive and bipartisan city council. On August 9, after nearly 100 years of refusing to give the D.C. area a voice of its own, the House of Representatives voted to accept the administration's reorganization plan. Within hours, the presidential search for a good executive to fill the new post of District Commissioner was underway. I look forward with great pleasure to exchanging views and ideas with you. I hope that our talks together will reinforce the already great confidence and cooperation that exists between the American people and the German people. We are so glad that you're here. We hope that you will enjoy your stay. Mr. President, Mr. Johnson, my Damen and Herren. Ladies and gentlemen, Mrs. Kiesinger and I, Vice Chancellor Brandt and my associates are most cordially grateful to you, Mr. President, for the solemn and warm reception you have been extending to us in this historic place, the official residence of the President of the United States of America. I come here as the head of government of a country, a friend and ally of the United States of America. Our talks will certainly deal with problems of interest to our two countries, but they will certainly also touch upon those great questions of peace, security and justice in the world. In this way, you have pointed that out already, Mr. President, we are going to continue the talks we had in Bonn earlier this year when you came over, and I may say that the German people were very grateful to you, Mr. President, for this gesture, to participate in the funeral of Konrad Adenauer. On August 15th, President Johnson welcomed Chancellor Kiesinger of West Germany to Washington. In two days of private talks, they would delve into a portfolio of international problems. One of the most important was the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty under discussion at Geneva by United States and Soviet spokesman. But at the heart of their discussions was another more pressing problem, the strength of American and German forces in Western Europe. It had been initially reported by the press in Bonn that Chancellor Kiesinger had proposed a 60,000-man reduction in West Germany's regular army, a plan that would have considerably altered the German role in the NATO alliance. As it turned out, this report was unfounded, and he cuts in troop strength that would not exceed a 15 to 19,000-man limit and would be compensated for by substantial increases in West Germany's ready reserve force. We discussed the deployment of troops and the strength of the commitments of each of our nations. We both agreed that we wanted to see that that strength remained unimpaired and we were both very anxious to maintain those strengths. In the years following the end of World War II, America's role in West Germany had undergone many changes, from conqueror to occupying power, to ally and partner, each position in turn having its own brand of individual problems. I read in American papers that I am sort of a Chancellor who wants to make a more independent policy and I want to make an independent policy. I want it very strongly indeed, but independence doesn't mean that we leave the path of close cooperation and friendship with the United States. Despite many rumors, this government is firmly decided to preserve and strengthen NATO, not only the alliance, but the military integrated system of NATO. Mr. President, I am looking forward to our further discussions and I am quite convinced that this visit will strengthen the bonds of friendship and cooperation between us and all countries. I think the goals that we all seek together are quite clear and there's little difference about them. We all want a world at peace. We all want freedom for all men to better the quality of their lives. Charting the paths to those goals is really going to be exacting and require the very best that's in all of us. In mid-August, after still another arduous presidential review of the war in Vietnam and its prospects for peace, United States Navy and Air Force jets struck hard at one of North Vietnam's untouched sanctuaries, the 30 mile buffer zone along the Chinese frontier. For more than a year, the zone's rail and highway systems had been an integral part of the supply pipeline for Vietnam to the war zone itself. As a logistics complex, it had been instrumental in the shipment of thousands of tons of ammunition and weapons. Despite these military considerations, President Johnson knew that the mere proximity of the bombing mission to the Chinese border was certain to cause a barrage of complaints about the conduct of the war. Coupled with this was the sudden and disturbing decision by a group of congressmen to voice doubts about the honesty of the September elections in South Vietnam. So on August 18th, he called for a televised press conference. Our policy in Vietnam is the same. We are there to deter aggression. We are there to permit to the people of South Vietnam to determine for themselves who their leaders should be and what kind of a government they should have. It is remarkable that a young country, fighting a tough war on its own soil has moved so far, so fast, toward a representative government. I have participated in a good many, and I've never known one, where there weren't some who questioned the efficiency of the election or the accuracy of the election or the wisdom of the voters' expressions. We do that in this country, and you will expect more of it, that is really having its first overall national election under wartime conditions. We hope that whoever wins, a civilian or military leader, will work together and they will cooperate in the essential work that's ahead of them. But on Tuesday of this week, its lead editorial calls your permission to bomb within 10 miles of China a dangerous escalation of the bombing which could lead to war with China. What would your council be to this implied anxiety? First, I would like to make it clear that these airstrikes are not intended as any threat to communist China and they do not, in fact, pose any threat to that country. We believe that Peking knows that the United States does not seek to widen the war in Vietnam. The evidence has been quite clear, we think, that the strikes were made against major military staging areas. In answering still another question on the war in Vietnam, President Johnson described the step-by-step negotiations that had eventually led to the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. He reminded his audience and critics that because of an amendment within the resolution itself, Congress had always had the option of withdrawing its delegated authority. The remedy is there if we have acted unwisely or improperly. It's going to be tougher as it gets along. The longer these are fighting last, the more sacrifices required and men and materiel, the more difficult it's going to be. But I don't believe we're acting beyond our constitutional responsibility. On August 23rd, responding to an invitation from the South Vietnamese government, President Johnson selected a team of 20 prominent Americans who would travel to South Vietnam to observe the closing days of the election campaign and the elections themselves. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge was selected to serve as the group's organizer, coordinator, and escort officer. On the 28th, one day after the president's 59th birthday, the list of observers had grown to 25 and included three senators, three governors, and one archbishop. At the age of 59, he remained the superb political technician, a man charged with physical energy, a man with a string of legislative and executive achievements that had long ago put most of his senators in the shade. His 59th summer had been a rough one, a crucible of a kind that few other presidents had ever been through. While more and more people saw the war in Vietnam as the key to his most compelling problems, those who were close to him knew that the accomplishments of his administration did not begin or end with Vietnam. In August as in July, his administration continued to act as a major force for peace in the Middle East. On the European agenda, the problems of expanded trade with Eastern Europe and an atmosphere of relaxed relations with the Soviet Union continued to be sought after objectives. On August 27th, his country would play an instrumental role in the negotiations leading to the reform of the international monetary system. In Vietnam, there was reason for optimism. Our military effort was still on schedule. The Communist attempt to isolate Saigon and undermine it politically had been a complete failure. So had their efforts to bisect the country at its waist around Route 19. And their third and most ambitious effort to take the northernmost provinces by storm had been blocked. Realistically, it had become a war that Hanoi could no longer hope to win with military force. In August, one of the men who had helped his country realize the subjective was Marine Sergeant Jimmy Howard, the 17th recipient of the Medal of Honor since America's entry into the Vietnam conflict. Domestically, all of his programs and policies still converged on a common set of aims. Whether marshaling forces to fight the problems of mental retardation or signing a readjustment act to the Vietnam GI Bill, he and the members of his administration still sought to provide a living place which would liberate, rather than constrict, the human spirit, giving each American during a time of swift progress and change the opportunity to use his talents, the opportunity to share in one of history's most successful enterprises, the United States of America. One thing should be absolutely clear. This matter is far, far too important for politics. It goes to the health and the safety of all American citizens. It goes to the proper responsibility of officials in both of our parties. It goes to the heart of our society in a time of swift change and of great stress.