 On Sunday evening, March 31st, President Lyndon Johnson delivered a radio and television address to the American people. The early substance of his speech concerned the bombing of North Vietnam. Tonight, I renew the offer I made last August to stop the bombardment of North Vietnam. We ask that talks begin promptly, that they be serious talks on the substance of peace. Tonight, I have ordered our aircraft and our naval vessels to make no attacks on North Vietnam, except in the area north of the demilitarized zone where the continuing enemy buildup directly threatens allied forward positions. And so with the decision about the bombing made public, the President turned his attention to domestic affairs. Almost casually, he set the stage for one of the most startling and unexpected announcements ever made by an American President. With America's sons in the field far away, with America's future under challenge right here at home, with our hopes and the world's hopes for peace and the balance every day, I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes, or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office, the presidency of your country. Accordingly, I shall not see and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your President, but let men everywhere know, however, that a strong and a confident and a vigilant America stands ready tonight to seek an honorable peace and stands ready tonight to defend an honored cause, whatever the price, whatever the burden, whatever the sacrifice that duty may require. Thank you for listening. Good night and God bless all of you. Moments later, President Johnson held a press conference in the yellow oval room. How did he feel now that he had made the announcement? Good considering all that he had gone through during the past 24 hours. Now, all of his energies and efforts could be directed toward a peaceful settlement of the war in Vietnam. The following morning, while a stunned world was still measuring the seismic impact of his decision, the President flew to Chicago to address the National Association of Broadcasters. Mayor Richard Daley was on hand to meet him at O'Hare Airport. One of my aides said this morning, said things are really getting confused around Washington, Mr. President. And I said, how's that? Said, it looks to me like that you're going to their own convention in Chicago. Although he would speak with humor and poignancy about his decision of the night before and his own shortcomings as a communicator, the major theme of his speech was national unity. Sometimes I have been called a seeker of consensus. More often that has been criticism of my actions instead of praise of them. But I have never denied it because to heal and to bell support, to hold people together is something I think that is worthy. And I believe it is a noble task. And so on the afternoon of the first day in April, President Johnson found himself freed of his political restraints. Hopefully his gesture of March 31st had cleared the way for a change in the course of the war in Vietnam. On April 3rd, some 60 hours after the President's Sunday evening address, Radio Hanoi issued a 1,000-word broadcast of its own. It was confident, boastful, and bristling with the usual hard-line cliches. But buried in the rhetoric was one significant paragraph. And that paragraph electrified the free world and gave the United States its first real diplomatic breakthrough of the war. Hanoi, it said, was ready to meet with United States representatives to discuss the cessation of U.S. bombing raids and all other acts of war. Perhaps the sudden willingness of the North Vietnamese to talk was a tactical maneuver, a probe costing them nothing. Perhaps it was a test of settlement terms or simply a counter-move to avoid losing a propaganda round. Whatever it was, the potential for ending the long diplomatic stalemate was suddenly there. After an intensive round of consultations with some of his closest advisors, President Johnson made a prompt and affirmative reply. Accordingly, we will establish contact with the representatives of North Vietnam. Consultations with the government of South Vietnam and our other allies are now taking place. Despite the crucial mid-morning activity surrounding the Hanoi broadcast, President Johnson took time to honor a prior request by Senator Robert Kennedy that the two men meet to discuss problems of national unity. This meeting, the last that they would ever hold, took an hour. Among the items discussed was the Hanoi proposal. Two months and three days later, while seeking the nomination of his party for the presidency, Senator Kennedy would die at the hands of an assassin in the city of Los Angeles. Following the meeting with Senator Kennedy, President Johnson held a second hour-long session in the cabinet room. This one with Vice President Hubert Humphrey, just back from a diplomatic mission to Mexico City. On Saturday, April 27th, the Vice President would join Senators Kennedy and McCarthy as a declared candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. On Thursday, April 4th, President Johnson and his daughter Lucy flew to New York City to witness installation of the most reverent Terence J. Cook as the new Archbishop of St. Patrick's Cathedral. Two hours later, with his helicopter warmed up and waiting for the takeoff to Kennedy International, the President decided on a second stop. Within minutes, his motorcade was moving through Manhattan's crowded east side toward the U.N. Plaza and a 70-minute meeting with U.N. Secretary General, U-Ton. Secretary U-Ton expressed hope that the pending diplomatic contacts would constitute a positive first step toward ending National Airport and headed for home. By morning, the big jet would be on the first leg of the President's trip to Hawaii. But then, at 8.05 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, the country was stunned by the tragic news out of Memphis, Tennessee. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Negro apostle of nonviolence, had been shot and killed by an assassin. Throughout the evening and into the following two days and nights, a shockwave of looting and arson would sweep through a number of cities and towns from coast to coast, including Washington, D.C. In the immediate aftermath of Dr. King's death, President Johnson canceled his trip to Hawaii and spoke to the American people on radio and television, asking them to reject the kind of blind violence that had caused the Negro leader's death. On the following morning, he met with a large group of prominent and influential Americans, black and white, to see what to be done about stemming the apparent tide of violence in the cities. Among those attending the conference were Mayor Walter Washington of the District of Columbia, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, Vice President Humphrey, Senate Democratic Leader Mike Mansfield, the Reverend Walter Fauntroy of Washington's Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Whitney Young, Director of the National Urban League, Speaker of the House John McCormick, Roy Wilkins, the Executive Director of the NAACP, and Bayard Rustin, Chief Planner of the 1963 March on Washington. There had been few weeks like it in American history. A president had stepped out of the political arena in an election year. Then came the hope and elation over the promise of a new peace offensive. And now, just as suddenly, a great Negro leader was dead, and there was sorrow and despair over the burning and looting in the streets. Once again, the heart of America is heavy for a tragedy that denies the very meaning of our land. The life of a man who symbolized the freedom and faith of America has been taken. But it is the fiber and the fabric of the republic that's being tested. And no words of mine can fill the void of the eloquent voice that has been staled. But this I do believe deeply. The dream of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has not died with him. Men who are white, men who are black must and will now join together, as never in the past, to let all the forces of divisiveness know that America shall not be ruled by the bullet, but only by the ballot of free and of just men. By Friday evening, the first of over 11,000 regular army and National Guard troops that would occupy the capital city until mid-month had taken up positions in and around the riot area. Perhaps the country's viewpoint on the fires and rioting was most eloquently expressed by Mrs. Johnson during her five-day tour through the state of Texas with 38 European journalists. The journalists were from 13 different European countries and had been invited to this country as part of a Discover America tour. Our visitors have come at a time of anguish and turmoil in our country. They saw our frictions laid bare, but I believe that they have also seen that the crashing headlines which shook us as much as they did the world are not all the story of this country. They do not blot out the progress that has been made across this great democracy. Behind the smoke of our troubled cities, there is a great wide land of strength and confidence and warmth. Our tears for our country's troubles are deep, but deeper still is our confidence in the future and our ability to meet and master man's basic problems, how to live in peace. On Saturday the 6th, General William Westmoreland, commander of the U.S. forces in Southeast Asia, arrived at the White House for two days of talks with President Johnson. On their agenda were discussions on the progress of the war in South Vietnam. The selection of military advisors to accompany the American delegation to the talks with the North Vietnamese. And the appointment of his successor after General Westmoreland assumed his new position as Army Chief of Staff. By far the most significant news out of Vietnam during the general stay was the word about Operation Pegasus. As suddenly as it had begun, the siege of Que Son was over. On April 5th, the combined drive by U.S. and South Vietnamese forces had cleared Highway 9 and opened the major ground supply route to the embattled Marines, who had held it for over 76 days. On Monday of the following week, President Johnson received an official message from Hanoi, repeating in formal terms its previous statement agreeing to meet with American diplomatic representatives. Coincidentally, the President had already made arrangements for an evening flight to Camp David, where he planned to conduct a broad review of the war in Vietnam. Early the following morning, Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker arrived from South Vietnam. He had been joined on the last leg of his journey to Camp David by Secretary of State Rusk, Secretary of Defense Clifford and General Earl Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In an original reply to the Hanoi broadcast, President Johnson had proposed Geneva as a meeting site for the negotiating teams and stated that Ambassador Abril Harriman was immediately available as the U.S. representative for initial contacts. The agreement to meet could develop into a settlement, but the chance also carried with it a risk that couldn't be ignored. If the talks failed to bring an acceptable accommodation, the war could rage even more fiercely than before. So the immediate problem for the United States and its allies was to be sure that the site for talks was mutually acceptable to both sides and that we were dealing from a position of strength. President Johnson asked Ambassador Bunker for his personal evaluation of the progress of the war in Vietnam. When it was psychological and political success abroad, it certainly was a resounding military defeat for them in Vietnam. The Vietnamese forces, for example, many of them were only at half strength. They inflicted very heavy casualties and drove the communists from every city in the country. The government did not collapse but turned to with great will and determination. The armed forces did not defect. The people after the initial shock emerged strengthened in their anger and their hatred for communists and their determination to resist. On Wednesday, April 10, President and Mrs. Johnson welcomed Chancellor and Mrs. Joseph Klaus of Austria to Washington. And Mrs. Klaus, we welcome you to the beautiful Washington Spring, Mr. Chancellor, at a time of turbulence and hope in our nation. As it is for us here in America, so it is around the world, there is turbulence today in America and in Eastern Europe and in Southeast Asia. And there is hope as well in all of those places. So our aim at this season is to sift the hope from the turbulence so hope may grow unfettered. Mr. Chancellor, the experience of your nation tells us that it can. You give us additional cause to believe that hope can coexist with turbulence and that freedom and order will in time prevail. We expect this spring day in Washington that this will happen in our country, in America, and that it will happen in Southeast Asia and will happen wherever man of good will earnestly seek and pursue peace and equity and justice for all. Even while President Johnson talked to Chancellor Klaus about America's responsibility in a time of crisis and challenge, word came from Capitol Hill that Congress had passed and sent to the White House the Civil Rights Act of 1968. Included in the measure was a landmark open housing bill which, when fully effective, would bid discrimination in approximately 80% of all housing offered for rent or for sale in the United States. I do not exaggerate when I say that the proudest moments of my presidency have been times such as this. When I have signed into law the promises of a century. I shall never forget that it is more than 100 years ago when Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. But it was a proclamation. It was not a fact. In the Civil Rights Act of 1964, we affirm through law that men equal under God are also equal when they seek a job, when they go to get a meal in a restaurant, or when they seek lodging for the night in any state in the union. And now the Negro families no longer suffer the humiliation of being turned away because of their race. In the Civil Rights Act of 1965, we affirm through law for every citizen in this land the most basic right of democracy, the right of a citizen to vote an election in his country. In five states where the act had its greater impact, Negro voter registration has already more than doubled. Now with this bill, the voice of justice speaks again. It proclaims that fair housing for all human beings who live in this country is now a part of the American way of life. We all know that the roots of injustice run deep. But violence cannot redress a solitary wrong or remedy a single unfairness. And we just must put our shoulders together and put a stop to both. The time is here. Action must be now. At mid-month, from all outward appearances, the city of Washington was returning to normal. Despite many problems, she seemed determined to weather the remaining days of April with a remarkable voice. On Saturday the 13th, President and Mrs. Johnson were at home in Texas for the Easter weekend. At that moment, all the meetings and affairs of state were lost in a pleasant two-day montage of open fields, Texas sunshine, family and friends. As the smallest member of the Johnson family, little Lynn Nugent soon found out that Easter Sunday meant funny rabbits, other children, a short but abortive walk with his grandmother, and a horseback ride, courtesy of his constant companion, the President of the United States. On April 15, at 9.20 a.m., President Johnson left Bergstrom Air Force Base for Honolulu, Hawaii. Among those accompanying him were William Bundy, Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs, Residential Troubleshooter Cyrus Vance, U.S. Protocol Chief, Andrew Biddleduke, General Earl G. Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Special Assistant Walt Rostow, Ambassador Winthrop Brown, former U.S. Ambassador to Korea. During the two weeks following the President's speech of March 31, the administration had officially proposed five neutral sites for possible peace talks. Switzerland, Vientiane, Rangoon, Jakarta, and New Delhi. Hanoi had rejected them all, insisting instead that the United States choose either Phnom Penh or Warsaw. Coupled with this was the matter of reassuring allies like President Chung Hee Park that the United States intended to remain steadfast in its commitments in Asia. The Presidential Party arrived at Honolulu's International Airport just after 1 p.m. local time. Among those on hand to meet the President were Governor John Burns and Pacific Commander Admiral Grant Sharp, Jr. The Pacific go back a long way, at least a century and a quarter to the time when we became involved in China and then a little later in Japan. But it is only in the past 27 years that we have learned that the destiny of the United States is once and for all, bound up with the fate of the peoples of Asia and the Pacific. I deeply believe that this nation will continue to play its part in helping to protect and to develop the new Asia. I deeply believe that my successor, whoever he may be, will act in ways that will reflect America's abiding interest in Asia's freedom and in Asia's security. On Wednesday the 14th, President Johnson and South Korean President Chung Hee Park met at the oceanfront estate of the late industrialist Henry J. Kaiser. Their one-day meeting had a packed agenda which ranged from the war in Vietnam to the North Korean seizure of the USS Pueblo during the month of January. The days when Americans could say that Asians are not our kind of people. People who love peace and freedom, whatever their color or their religion or their national origin, are our kind of people. We wish to see Asia like Europe, take an increasing responsibility for shaping its own destiny, and we intend and we mean to help it do so. America will remain the friend and the ally and the partner of Europe, but America will also remain the friend and the ally and the partner of free men in Asia. And this is my faith. This is my belief. This is my judgment. On Thursday morning, April 18th, President Johnson landed at California's March Air Force Base for a conference on Asian affairs with former President Eisenhower. After the meeting between President Johnson and General Eisenhower ended, the administration announced that it had prepared a list of 10 more possible sites for diplomatic contacts with North Vietnam. Six in Asia and four in Europe. It was time for the Communists to give a prompt and serious answer to the question of meeting sites. The journey to Hawaii ended where it had begun, at the LBJ Ranch in Texas. With his announcement on the night of March 31st, it seemed inevitable that friends and critics alike would take a searching second look at the man in the White House. But because of the momentous happenings during the month of April, few would have the opportunity to study the events behind the major headlines, events that would clearly reflect many of the accomplishments, hopes, and aspirations of the Johnson presidency. On the night of the 24th, President Johnson arrived at Chicago's Conrad Hilton Hotel to address a rally of Cook County Democrats. Their reception for him was spontaneous and deeply felt. No man could serve where I have served now for more than four years and five long months without sensing that we are once again in a new time. There are young men and women wondering if there's a place for them in a world that they did not make. There are mothers and fathers who despise war as their children despise it. But the story of our land, the United States of America, is not a dismal story of wrongs without end. Here in America, as nowhere else since time began, we are striving eagerly to let the sunlight shine upon all of our people because that is what America is all about. Step by step, year by year, we're moving out to the darkness and out of the shadows, out into a new day of light and justice for all of our people. In 1937, President Johnson was a young congressman representing the 10th congressional district in the state of Texas. During that year, Washington had only 60 foreign missions doing business in the nation's capital. In April of 1968, during the annual diplomatic reception, the number had grown to 117. Testimony not only to the speed of the jet age, but to a country's willingness to assume global responsibility. During a time of explosive change, under Mrs. Johnson's leadership, private donors had given nearly $3 million to make Washington a more pleasant and livable place. As a rallying cry, her efforts to help the District of Columbia had had a profound influence on planners and conservationists across the country. On April 17th, she invited the 200 private donors and the members of her committee for a more beautiful capital to a White House luncheon and city tour. One of the guest speakers and one of Mrs. Johnson's staunchest allies in city beautification work was Mayor Walter Washington. Her heritage as First Lady and not in beautification per se, it's in communication. It's in the hope and the desire to identify a human being with his environment. And this is really the heart of the turbulence and turmoil we're going through now. The extent to which people have been alienated, alienated from participation, alienated from the American dream, and I would like to think the days ahead are great days. I think this is significant for us, that if we touched one child alone in this great effort, I think it's important. On April 22nd, President Johnson signed a bill which gave the citizens of the District of Columbia the right to elect their own school board. Overall, it had been a momentous year for the District. We have installed a mayor and city council in the city hall. The new government is responding to the needs and the hopes of the people in day-to-day operations and in crisis as well. With this legislation, we will restore another basic right of popular government, the right of people to help shape the education of their children. Washington should become, in every sense, a model city. It must be a place where democracy is enshrined not only in monuments, but in the lives of its people. The people must be given the right to elect their own representatives in the Congress. The people must be given the most basic right of all, home rule. And someday, they will be. Of that, I am sure. As expected, April would have its moments of nostalgia. On the 18th, Mrs. Johnson celebrated the White House acquisition of a portrait of Mrs. Bess Truman. At the First Lady's side was Mrs. Margaret Truman Daniel, in the room a host of old friends from the Truman administration. Another satisfying moment for the Johnsons during the month of April was the swearing-in ceremony for the new Postmaster General, Marvin Watson. He has served here in the White House for more than three years. I have found him always cool in crisis, and we have had enough of them for me to test him. Marvin, we all miss you. We believe that our loss here will be the Post Office Department's gain. The presence of these people here is a sufficient testimony to your fairness and to your service, and to the high esteem in which you're held in the government, particularly the executive and congressional branches. This is a happy moment for me, too, because I know and trust Marvin and his family, and I believe in them. I wanted to ask all of you guests if you won't come to the next garden, the Jackman Kennedy Garden, where you'll all have an opportunity to visit with Marvin and Marion and their family and have some refreshments. On the 26th, President Johnson met with the Board of Trustees from the new Urban Institute, a private non-profit corporation. The Institute was chartered at the President's request to launch a free and searching inquiry into the problems of decay and growth in the American city. On the international calendar, President Johnson asked Congress to approve a far-reaching plan to reform world finance. He called for the creation of a new form of international currency, special drawing rights or paper gold, to relieve drains on the U.S. gold supply and thus strengthen its position in world trade. Just as the Bretton Woods Agreement of 1944 prepared us for the post-World War II era of trade, this new step looked forward to the decades of the 1970s and 1980s. The decisions that we must make this year are among the most vitally important decisions that Americans have ever been called upon to make. Perhaps more than at any time in all of your past, we shall be choosing our future and we shall be choosing the future of our children. The test of our compassion will continue long after the ordeal of our great cities. The trial of our course and our wisdom will continue far beyond the terrible ordeal of Vietnam. Our politics today has changed and it's changing. Our issues are new. Our styles are new. Our slogans are new and all of this is good. For it reflects and it serves the changes that are being brought by America's own advances in the world. But the purpose of our politics has not changed and it must not change. For that purpose is to serve the unity of all of our people all the time.