 In some fields, we have made great progress, education, health, housing, and the conservation of our resources that belong to all the people. In some respects, we've had many disappointments. But in the last few years in this house, in this office, we have had a chance to impress upon the people of this nation those simple convictions that brought us to this town and that kept me here for almost four decades. Today, there is more education available to our children from head start to adult education. There are more than a million additional students in college this year because of a higher education program enacted the last few years. Today our young people and our old people, too, have better health care than they've ever had before, more than 20 million are served by Medicare and their sons and daughters no longer have to fear for the medical treatment of their parents when they reach the twilight of their lives. In the field of housing, we have continued each year to increase the new starts in this land and the housing bill passed this year will result in the ultimate expenditure of almost a trillion dollars for homes. And to recognize that these things have actually come to pass, education, health, conservation, housing, gives us a great deal of satisfaction. But there are disappointments, too. We're involved in a struggle in Southeast Asia where more than half a million of our men are tied down to protect our commitment, to preserve our integrity, to guarantee our security. We want peace so much we're working at it diligently and earnestly, but it is an elusive thing and we have been unable to find the formula that would give us peace with honor in that area of the world and stop the killing, although we will continue to search for the very last moment when we leave this office. I think that's the biggest disappointment we've had. We're proud of the fact that when President Kennedy was elected president in 1960 and I was on that ticket that just a short time before, Castroism threatened this hemisphere and it had taken over Cuba 90 miles from our shores. Laos was a very disturbed and distressed area of the world. The developments in Africa and the Congo was aflame and threatened to spread to other African nations. The Berlin situation was extremely disturbing and had a very dangerous point that could easily bring on World War III, but through long and persistent and dedicated efforts of diplomats and military people, we have avoided a crisis in Berlin. We have worked out an arrangement that prevented Laos from being taken over by the communist leadership of Southeast Asia. We have protected the people of South Vietnam from communist rule. We have not yielded a foot of soil anywhere in the world to communist domination. They have suffered severe reverses in various parts of the world. Most people thought when we came into office in 1961 that it was just a matter of time until India and Pakistan would have grave problems with Chinese and that under their systems they would be unable to hold up and stand up to that situation. A great many people predicted that the Soviet economy would be dynamic and our own would get sluggish and just the reverse has happened. So as we look back on the last eight years and we see that the communists have not advanced in this hemisphere, they have lost great ground in Indonesia and Malaysia and other parts of Southeast Asia. They no longer confront us with the ultimatums that we had in Berlin and the extreme dangers. They have made threats and advances in the Middle East, but we have not succumbed to them. And we have much to be thankful for in that respect, although we're quite disappointed that we do not have peace in Vietnam itself. And we're disappointed that while we move 7 million people above the poverty line that there are still some 26 million people in this country whose families have an income of less than $3,000 per year. And there's still many dropouts in school. There's still many ghetto areas where the underprivileged don't have a fair chance. And we wish that we could have corrected all of that in the time allotted us. I guess I would say that we're pleased at what we've been able to do and sorry that we haven't been able to do more in the time we had. I remember a story that they told about Prime Minister Churchill toward the end of World War II days when a little lady in her temperance group called upon him and said, Mr. Prime Minister, we want to protest your drinking habits. We are informed that if all the brandy that you've drunk during this war could be poured in this room, it would come up to fill half the room. And the Prime Minister looked at the floor and then he looked at the ceiling and he glumly commented, my dear little lady, so little have I done so much I have yet to do. And I guess I feel that way as I leave this office, 40 years of opportunity and so little have I done so much do I have yet to do. But we do know that we have taken steps that had to be taken. We've marched down a road that had to be marched. We have raised the level of our attention in the field that are most important to our future as a nation, education of our people, the health of our citizens, the beauty of our land, and above all peace in the world. And in the days ahead, we must concentrate on how we can learn to live together with the other three billion people in the world without war. We must learn and help them learn how they can produce the food that the increased population will require in the years ahead. We must be challenged to face up to the population problem that confronts the world because we must not face a time when we have more people to feed than we have food to feed them. And I just wish that I could be coming back to Washington at the age that I came almost 40 years ago, but I can't. And as I leave it, I will leave with the satisfaction of having done many of the things that I came here to do, but the disappointment that there's still much yet to do. We have so much to be thankful for. I just came back from the hospital where I saw Linda and her little girl. They are both cheerful and radiate great happiness. They're in good health. They have excellent care. The greatest treasure I have is my family. The greatest pleasure I get comes from them. And they're the pride of my life. And now to have a little girl adjoin it, my thoughts went back to 24 years ago when I went to a hospital room and saw another beautiful lady with a little pink baby. And that was Linda's mother. And the baby was Linda. And it made me realize how time had passed. Of course, I wish that Captain Rob could have been there to enjoy the arrival of his firstborn as I was able to enjoy the arrival of my firstborn. But he's way of protecting us all. And we were lucky enough to get him word of his, both of his baby in a matter of minutes. I remember when I was in New Guinea in World War II, I saw a young aviator who was doing some of the work, type of work that Captain Rob is doing now. And I asked him if I could do anything for him. When I got back home and he said yes, find out whatever happened to my baby. It was due to be born about three weeks ago and I've had no word. And the first thing I did when I got back to the States was to inquire about his baby. And although his wife had cabled him and although she had written him several times, it was not easy to get messages through to New Guinea in those days. And he had never heard about his baby. I asked General Marshall to send this message through military means, which he did. And in a matter of a few hours, I had confirmation that the young air captain had learned that he had a baby boy three weeks old. It just took a few minutes for Captain Rob to learn that last night. But it was a great event in our lives as was the arrival of our first grandchild, Patrick Linden. I took Patrick Linden out there with me this morning to see his little cousin. He peered through the glass door as the little girl cried in the arms of her nurse. He had a very inquisitive look on his face and seemed to be asking himself this question, what does this mean to me and do I have to divide now with you? Well, of course he does. But we hope that that division will still leave enough love and care and companionship for both of them. And that's what Miss Johnson and I won't most after 40 years. A chance to sleep with each other and live with our family and spend our waking moments together instead of with the night reading and with the files and with the crisis decisions. Of course, we'll always be available to do anything, any time that we can to serve this country that has given us so much. But we thought last year and we announced this year that the time had come to have someone else look at these problems, try to ascertain what challenges face them and what answers they could provide to those challenges. New answers we have given ours. It's important to reflect and look back and see what has been done because there's no better way to judge the future than by the past. But the important thing that faces our country now is for a new president to look at these new challenges and find new answers. Find a means of communicating with our young and providing leadership and inspiration for them so that they will realize that we do care. Find a way to help a better understanding come to our races so that we can live together in peace and harmony and equality with justice to all. See how we can build an impregnable defense of our freedom without endangering it by getting caught in devastating and nuclear war. All these problems are just too big for any man, but the president must try to be tall enough to measure up to them. And I have no doubt but in every crisis this nation has ever faced, we can produce the man that's equal to the crisis. We have the greatest system of government that human ingenuity has ever devised. And in the days ahead we're going to protect and preserve that system so that we can not only continue to have happiness and prosperity and security here at home, but we love it so much that we want everybody in the world to have a little bit of it. And we want to be generous enough and Christian enough and understanding enough to see that happiness and that prosperity and that freedom, that liberty spread to every corner of this flow. And if we have been able to contribute anything to this end, our work of four decades will not have been in vain. The man who sits in this chair sits in the chair that's been occupied by less than 40 men in the long history of this great republic. He is selected by the will and by the votes of a majority of the citizens of this republic. He must execute the philosophy and the policies of the people of this nation, regardless of his own personal feelings from time. He is the executor of the will of the people of this nation, and he carries upon his shoulders day and night a burden that always seems, at least to him, too much to carry only for him to carry. No president ever came to this office on a platform of doing what was wrong. Most of us have made some decisions that were wrong, and as we leave office, in a good many instances, most of the people seem to feel that most of the things we've done have been wrong. But every man who's ever occupied this office or sat at this desk or reclined in this chair has been dedicated to doing what he believed was for the best interest of the people of this country. I am utterly convinced that when any man takes the oath of office as president, he is determined to do what is right as God gives him the wisdom to know the right. As I repeat, no man ever ran for president on a platform of doing what's wrong. And if he does what's wrong, it's just because he doesn't know any better. And the president and the office and the institution usually have more information and more counsel and more knowledge, more of the problems of the country than any single office has or any single individual has. And if there's anything to the old saying that a man's judgment is no better than his information, then president's judgments should be good because the people of the land have provided him with the best information that is obtainable. Most people come into the office with great dreams and they leave it with many satisfactions and some disappointments and always some of their dreams have not come true. And I'm no exception, but I'm so grateful and so proud that I've had my chance. And as to how successful we've been in doing the greatest good for the greatest number, the people themselves and their posterity must ultimately decide. I have the satisfaction, my family has the satisfaction that we gave it all we had and we think we provided some of the answers to the needs of our time. This couch here at the end of what we call the West Hall is really the center of the family's living room. This is where the family is brought together when we can get together. This is where I start the congressional briefings of the leadership when the Congress is in session. This is where we meet and assemble with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense at the regular Tuesday luncheons. And the men come and take their places at the chairs and we sit here and review the agenda before we go into the dining room for our lunch. This is where I come in the evening while I'm waiting to have dinner put on the table. And if there's any of the family that hadn't gone to bed or even if they have gone to bed they put on a robe and come here and we spend some time together. I get great strength and comfort from my family. They give me a lot of happiness and we enjoy being together although we're not together very much. But when we are together it's mostly here in the family living room. We have direct lines to the principal assistants and departments that connect you to this telephone. We have the USIA programs that go all over the world that are available by mashing this button. Here's the schedule of the statements that go out over the voice of America each day. Here's where we start our days and end our evenings. And when we have a state dinner and the music is stopped and the folks are filing out we usually collect here with a few of our very special friends to have a cup of coffee before we call it quits for the day. This is a spot that we will always remember with the most pleasant recollections. I don't guess there's any job in the world that could truly be called a 24 hour job. But I expect the presidency comes here approaching a 24 hour job than any other one. That is that you spend a good many hours in your office in the cabinet room in the rose garden attending public events. But really I expect most of the president's day of the 24 hours in the day and night is spent really here in his bedroom. I awaken here every morning at six thirty and immediately begin to review the intelligence reports from the hundred and thirty odd countries in the world and the cables that have come in overnight and the reports from the commanders in the field on the engagements of our troops. I look at the losses that we've suffered and the developments that have taken place during the night. The last thing I do before I go to sleep is to finish the night reading. I usually get here from the office about eleven in the evening, have a bite to dinner and then I get in the bed and read for about two to three hours, sometimes till two, sometimes till three in the morning. And I complete the night reading. The night reading is material that comes from the twelve cabinet offices, from the fifty odd independent agencies of government, from your correspondence all over the world and in this country. And we have a provision made on each document that says approve or disapprove or call me. And I act on more than a hundred of them almost every night. Some nights when I'm very tired I just junk it all and let it go over to the next day. But I have to give them my nap the next day if I do so I can't get too far behind. About eight o'clock in the morning my principal assistants come here and I have read the intelligence reports, reviewed the morning papers and then I go over with them the problems that they have, the requests that they need to have answered, the schedule they need to have approved for the day, the appointment less and so on and so forth. And I rarely leave the bedroom before ten o'clock. So the place where you are supposed to come to leave your cares and to rest your bones, your bedroom is really a work room too for the president. I feel a great sentiment for these furnishings. I've lived with them five years now. I'm looking forward though to the day when I can close this door and go back to my people, to my own home on the banks of the Perdon Alice instead of the people's home here on the banks of the Potomac. When I can sleep in a bed with my wife and have my grandchildren play around on it instead of going to bed with my night reading and waking up with my intelligence reports.