 The following is a pre-recorded paid political broadcast sponsored by the Democratic National Committee on behalf of President Johnson's candidacy for the office of President. Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States. My fellow Americans, your choice in this election may be the most important that you will ever make. It is not only a choice between candidates or between parties. It is for almost the first time in any national election a decision about the basic principles of American life. It is a decision which can affect not only you and your children, but the future of every country on earth and the fate of mankind itself. Let me tell you what it means to sit in my office knowing each and every day that I command the atomic power of the United States. Atomic weapons are not simply bigger and more powerful than other weapons. From the American Revolution until now about 526,000 Americans have died in battle. A single atomic bomb can kill more than that in a few minutes. A full-scale atomic war would destroy more than 300 million people around the world. Our great cities would be in ashes. Our industry destroyed. Our dreams vanished. Every man who has come to this office has felt the burden of this great power. Everyone has reached the same conclusion. President Truman said such a war is not a possible policy for rational men. President Eisenhower said in a nuclear war there can be no victory, only losers. President Kennedy said total war makes no sense. Each of them has used this power with responsibility and care. Each has tried to seek agreements which would lessen world tensions. America's strength is not the issue. We are the strongest nation on earth. America's courage is not the issue. The Soviet Union recognized this when they withdrew their missiles from Cuba. The communists in Asia learned this when they attacked our destroyers near Vietnam. The issue is whether we will use this power with restraint. It is whether we will continue the long, hard, painstaking effort to seek agreements such as the Test Band Treaty, which are the only sure foundation for lasting peace. Our great nuclear power must not be placed in the hands of those who might use it impulsively or carelessly. Peace cannot be left to those who will not guard atomic weapons as a special responsibility. The world's hope for peace does not belong in the keeping of those who have no faith in the possibility of lasting agreements. This is our central concern. It is also the concern of a watching and a worried world. No one wants war, but we will not have peace just because we desire it. There is only one real road to peace, and that is to work at it step by step, year by year, never to become reckless, never to become weary of the long journey. That is the course that we have followed for 19 danger-filled years since World War II. And that is the course that I will continue to follow. Ladies and gentlemen, you have just heard a message from the President of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson.