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Greater Erie Manufacturers Association and Chamber of Commerce, Erie, PA, May 9, 1972
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The original documents are located in Box D32, folder "Greater Erie Manufacturers
Association and Chamber of Commerce, Erie, PA, May 9, 1972" of the Ford Congressional
Papers: Press Secretary and Speech File at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
Copyright Notice
The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of
photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. The Council donated to the United
States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections.
Works prepared by U.S. Government employees as part of their official duties are in the public
domain. The copyrights to materials written by other individuals or organizations are presumed to
remain with them. If you think any of the information displayed in the PDF is subject to a valid
copyright claim, please contact the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
ERIE, PA., UNEMPLOYMENT FIGURES
EMPLOYMENT ROSE BY 2,000, SEASONALLY ADJUSTED, BETWEEN DEC.,
1971, AND MARCH, 1972, AN INCREASE OF 7.6 PER CENT AND THE
SHARPEST 3-MONTH GAIN SINCE THE FIRST QUARTER OF 1970.
SPITE THIS, THE ERIE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE REMAINED AT 5.2 PER
CENT, SEASONALLY ADJUSTED, DURING THE FIRST QUARTER, DUE TO
A SHARP RISE IN THE LABOR FORCE OF 2,800 (AN INCREASE AT AN
ANNUAL RATE OF 10.3 PER CENT).
SEASONALLY ADJUSTED,
ERIE'S LABOR FORCE STOOD AT 116,100
IN MARCH, AND HAS GROWN STEADILY SINCE NOVEMBER OF LAST YEAR.
YR. TO YR. COMPARISON OF UNEMPLOYMENT STATISTICS (MARCH, EA.YR)
(THESE FIGURES NOT SEASONALLY ADJUSTED)
WORK FORCE EMPLOYMENT UNEMPLOYMENT
1969
109,100
107,900
3,500--3.2%
1970
112,200
108,200
4,000--3.6%
1971
113,800
107,700
6,100--5.4%
Digitized from Box D32 of The Ford Congressional Papers: Press Secretary and Speech File at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
Distribution: 20 Copies u/ Ford
M Office Copy
AN ADDRESS BY REP. GERALD R. FORD, R-MICH.
REPUBLICAN LEADER, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
BEFORE THE GREATER ERIE (PA.) MANUFACTURERS ASSOCIATION
AND CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
ZEM ZEM MOSQUE
6:30 P.M. TUESDAY, MAY 9, 1972
FOR RELEASE AT 6:30 P.M. TUESDAY
We have moved one-third of the way through an exceptionally promising year
in the history of this great country of ours.
It is an exceptionally promising year because we are experiencing a turn-
around in world relations unmatched in this century--the end of the Cold War as it
has been waged for the past 25 years.
It is an exceptionally promising year because the United States has launched
bold, unilateral initiatives to make American goods more competitive in world
markets and our President has made bold, courageous moves to stimulate and stabilize
our economy.
One of our foremost concerns today is the health of the U.S. economy. I
would like to give you a progress report on the economy tonight in the light of
the Administration's New Economic Policy. I will also touch on foreign affairs
and the Administration's efforts to usher in a new era of peace.
Our New Economic Policy, as you know, is aimed at redressing our balance of
trade, increasing U.S. industrial productivity, competing effectively abroad,
attaining full employment, and controlling inflation.
Two other aims should be paramount at this time keeping our defenses secure
and improving the quality of life for all of our citizens.
Since January 1969 the President has been guiding our country through a
series of historic transitions:
From an era of confrontation to an era of negotiation.
From arms competition toward arms limitation.
From the draft to an all-volunteer service.
From a Federal budget dominated by defense expenditures to one dominated
by Human Resource Programs.
From war to peace.
From a wartime economy to a peacetime economy.
The dislocations and problems we have encountered in shifting from a wartime
to a peacetime economy have been most severe. The President has brought nearly
(more)
-2-
500,000 troops home from Vietnam and has sharply cut our armed forces and defense
purchases. As this winding down occurred, more than 2 million men and women were
released from defense and defense-related jobs.
Few Americans realize that by this June 30 the size of our armed forces
will have been trimmed to 2,391,000, 73,000 less than the lowest figure for the
past two decades and 1.1 million below the Vietnam War high registered in the
previous Administration.
At the same time, the number of civilian employes in the Defense Department
will have been cut back to 1,041,000, the lowest since 1965 and a drop of more than
300,000 from the Vietnam high.
Despite the tremendous problems engendered by the transition from a
peacetime to a wartime economy--a transition complicated by the urgent necessity
to fight a near-runaway inflation--America's business system was not floundering
on the rocks last August 15 or any time earlier. The Administration's New Economic
Policy was not a bailout for business.
The program was made necessary by four problems: The rate of inflation was
not coming down fast enough; the rate of unemployment was too high, due in large
part to reductions in military forces and defense contracting; international trade
and fiscal problems were putting serious pressures on the strength of the dollar;
and large segments of the public had been talked into a lack of confidence in
America's future.
The crisis in confidence was really more severe than any crisis in the
economy.
The success we have had to date with the New Economic Policy is repairing
the damage in public confidence despite continuing political attacks on the
President.
The economy is expanding vigorously. Most of the key monthly indicators
are pointing upward. The 5.3 per cent annual growth rate for "real" Gross National
Product in the first quarter of this year is a good showing in anybody's book.
More encouraging than anything else is the fact that consumer confidence is
quickening. There was a 2.5 per cent spurt in retail sales in March, and this is
giving the general business upswing a much more solid look.
Employment soared in March to record heights. After adjustments for seasonal
factors, the number of jobholders topped 81 million as employment rose by 618,000.
(more)
-3-
That was the largest absolute advance since April of 1960. But while the economy
produced the largest one-month increase in employment in over 10 years, the labor
force expanded even more sharply. The increase in the labor force-the largest
such increase in 25 years--prevented the jobless rate from falling.
I predict that the unusual growth in the labor force will taper off and
employment will continue to make marked gains. The result will be to push
unemployment down toward the 5 per cent mark by the end of this year.
The Administration's fiscal policies will produce an increase of $100 billion
in GNP over last year. This will bring the unemployment rate down. Efforts to
improve America's competitive position in world markets will increase our sales
abroad and generate more jobs here at home.
In addition to pursuing stimulative fiscal policies, the Administration is
also carrying out numerous programs which provide direct employment. Jobs have
been found for more than 270,000 Vietnam-era veterans. The Administration's public
employment program has created 145,000 new jobs. And nearly 1,100,000
Federally-supported job opportunities will be offered American youth this summer--
89,000 more than last year.
Every week the pulse of the economy is beating faster. The recovery now has
some bounce to it. Manufacturers' sales jumped ahead early in the first quarter of
this year. The output of steel, building products, furniture and appliances has
also moved higher. Machine tools have scored a 27 per cent year-to-year gain in
orders in just the first two months of this year. Overall, industrial production
has risen at an annual rate of more than 8 per cent since last November. Capital
spending rose in the fourth quarter of 1971 and also in the first quarter of this
year.
All the numbers add up to a definite upswing, and, very importantly,
consumers suddenly feel a lot better about business and employment conditions.
That is why retail sales are picking up after months of almost no movement.
On inflation, the March figures give us tangible evidence of progress
toward our goal of reducing the inflation rate to 2 to 3 per cent by year's end.
According to the Consumer Price Index, we stopped inflation cold during the month
of March. Seasonally adjusted, the increase was actually zero. While one month
does not an annual rate make, I can only conclude that the fight against inflation
is succeeding.
(more)
-4-
During the four months since the freeze ended in November, the Consumer
Price Index and each of its major components except food have risen at a slower
rate than in the six months before the stabilization program began. In the seven
months since the program was initiated, the CPI has risen at a yearly rate of
2.8 per cent, compared with 4.1 per cent in the six months preceding the freeze.
As a result of the restraint on prices, the increase in the Consumer Price
Index was held to 3.4 per cent for all of 1971. That compares with a 5.5 per cent
rise in 1970 and 6.1 per cent in 1969. On the basis of these facts, I would say
the rate of inflation is being pushed in the right direction--downward.
The critics who declare that the price stabilization machinery has gone
haywire because of the temporary post-freeze bulge are like a scorekeeper who
declares that a professional golfer is out of the running because he goes one over
par on the first hole. He is overlooking the fact that a good golfer is likely to
pick up a birdie or two along the way to make up for his one excess.
The charge that wages are being held down while prices are rocketing out of
control is simply not true. George Meany is employing the big lie technique, making
a false statement and repeating it again and again.
Real wages measure whether labor is better off than it has been. And the
facts are that real earnings for workers from 1970 to the present showed a
6 per cent gain, while workers registered no gain in real earnings from 1966 to
1970. In the last quarter of 1971, real earnings rose 5 per cent. In all of 1971,
average weekly earnings increased 7.1 per cent, more than twice the 3.4 per cent
increase in consumer prices.
As you know, corporate profits are not directly under control of the economic
stabilization program although profit margins are.
Some people have complained because corporate profits rose about 16 per cent
in 1971 and are expected to rise about as much, or slightly more, in 1972.
Nevertheless, corporate profits will still be relatively low in 1972 and will be
only 17.5 per cent higher than in 1966, six years ago. By contrast, total personal
income in 1972 will be nearly 60 per cent greater than in 1966. And, similarly,
average hourly earnings of all private non-agricultural workers in 1972 will be
more than 40 per cent higher than in 1966.
Even a substantial increase in corporate profits this year will leave them
low by historical standards and low relative to personal and wage income. Every
(more)
-5-
American who understands the importance of profits in our free enterprise system
should be concerned about this, because profits are the key to more jobs, greater
productivity and the competitiveness of American industry in the world economy.
Profit is the name of the game in a free enterprise system. Our system
grows in size and in strength as profits grow. Those who would put a freeze on
profits would kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. To penalize industry
through a freeze on profits would be robbing it of its life's blood.
Let me interject this word of caution, however. Those firms which are
exceeding profit margins established under our stabilization program would do well
to trim their prices voluntarily. Government action forcing price cuts should not
be necessary.
Summing up, I believe there are five actions which must be taken if we are
to achieve a stable economy. We should apply wage and price controls equitably,
relax economic controls once inflation has been curbed, hold down Federal
expenditures, reduce barriers to free international trade, and increase our efforts
to smooth the transition from a wartime to a peacetime economy.
Let me say a special word about foreign trade. Our trade balance has
deteriorated, falling by $4.7 billion from the 1970 level to a deficit of $2 billion.
This is the first U.S. trade deficit in the 20th century.
We have already served notice that we will make a strong push to open a new
multilateral round of trade negotiations directed especially at the elimination
of nontariff barriers. The European Economic Community and Japan now appear
receptive to participating in such negotiations in 1973. There must be a concerted
multi-national effort to reduce existing nontariff barriers and to guard against
the erecting of new ones.
Again on the positive side, currency revaluation and the changes in exchange
rates have made the United States more competitive in world markets. The
Administration believes these changes will result in the creation of 500,000 to
750,000 new jobs when the impact is fully felt. The monetary realignment agreed
upon last December has permitted elimination of many of the exchange control
barriers that were in the process of being erected.
To sum up, this Administration is steadily moving this country toward real
prosperity, not the false prosperity generated by war--the false prosperity that
creates a defense plant boom and puts hundreds of thousands of young men into
uniform.
(more)
-6-
And just as the Administration is building a genuine prosperity, so we are
also seeking a generation of peace in world affairs.
President Nixon has brought a new quality of realism to American foreign
policy. We have agreed to accept Mainland China as a sovereign nation. We have
ushered in an era of negotiation in place of confrontation. And we have initiated
the Nixon Doctrine of helping those friendly nations willing to help themselves.
Last year alone, we reached a number of significant agreements with the
Soviet Union:
*
We broke the deadlock in the arms limitation talks and agreed on a
framework for progress. Now there is a strong possibility that
President Nixon will be signing a strategic arms limitation agree-
ment when he goes to Moscow on May 22.
*
We reached an agreement on Berlin, reducing at long last the danger
of a direct confrontation there between the superpowers.
*
We signed a treaty banning weapons of mass destruction from the
seabeds, and agreed on the draft of another treaty to remove the
threat of germ warfare.
*
We agreed on a more reliable "hot line" with Moscow.
We have not reached the promised land in our discussions with the Russians
and the Chinese, but for the first time in a generation we have the opportunity
to build a lasting structure of peace.
In the Middle East the President wants to see the cease-fire which he
initiated in 1970 become a permanent peace. We are continuing to work on that
problem.
We are ending the cold war but the hot war in Vietnam has become hotter.
As you know, the President has made every effort to negotiate a settlement
with Hanoi, including proposals offered by war critics. Twelve times his personal
emissary flew to Paris to conduct secret negotiations. A whole year ago the
President offered the enemy a full withdrawal of American troops from South Vietnam
in exchange for a cease-fire and our prisoners of war. But the North Vietnamese
insisted on a full political settlement, and in the hope that the secret
negotiations might succeed, the President remained silent while many in the
Congress attacked him for not doing what he had, in fact, already done.
The charge that President Nixon is seeking a military victory in Vietnam
and not peace is an out-and-out lie. The President responded with air and sea
counterattacks to the North Vietnamese invasion of South Vietnam because he had no
other choice short of abandonment of South Vietnam. He also had a duty as
(more)
-7-
commander-in-chief to protect the 60,000 U.S. troops still in South Vietnam, a
number that will diminish to 49,000 by July 1.
Now the President is seeking to end the war by choking off the enemy's
sources of supply. This is the only way left to stop the fighting, since the
other side simply sneers at our efforts to negotiate a settlement. There is risk
involved in this course of action but I feel great confidence in the President.
I feel sure he has fully weighed all of the factors involved.
One of the aims of the North Vietnamese offensive is to demoralize the
American people--to persuade them to declare the war lost and to demand an
unconditional pullout of American forces. But a recent poll conducted by the
Opinion Research Corp. of Princeton, N.J., shows that 7 out of 10 Americans support
the President's use of U.S. air and sea power against North Vietnamese military
targets as long as the invasion continues.
Abandonment of our ally is not the road to peace in Vietnam and the world.
Surrender in Vietnam is not the road to a lasting peace.
This is a time when we must all stand up for America. We cannot retreat
from Vietnam like a beaten dog with his tail between his legs. The President was
forced to choose between decisive action aimed at depriving the enemy of the
supplies he needed to continue his invasion or the possibility of a Dunkirk-like
evacuation of the remaining 60,000 Americans in Vietnam.
The President's decision will not sit well with those who cry "Peace now"
or those who would abandon South Vietnam to a Communist takeover by force. But we
must continue to assert world leadership in the face of neo-isolationism,
well-meaning but misguided pacifism, and radically organized protest movements
which tend to benefit the other side.
We must put the nation on a new course, take her in directions that point
toward a new era of greatness for the American people.
We must lay a foundation for prosperity without war and we must build a
new strategy for peace.
Our goals are clear. Our purpose is strong. With the help of the American
people, we cannot fail.
# # #
20 capies u/ th Fonly
a Office Copy
AN ADDRESS BY REP. GERALD R. FORD, R-MICH.
REPUBLICAN LEADER, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
BEFORE THE GREATER ERIE (PA.) MANUFACTURERS ASSOCIATION
AND CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
ZEM ZEM MOSQUE
6:30 P.M. TUESDAY, MAY 9, 1972
FOR RELEASE AT 6:30 P.M. TUESDAY
We have moved one-third of the way through an exceptionally promising year
in the history of this great country of ours.
It is an exceptionally promising year because we are experiencing a turn-
around in world relations unmatched in this century--the end of the Cold War as it
has been waged for the past 25 years.
It is an exceptionally promising year because the United States has launched
bold, unilateral initiatives to make American goods more competitive in world
markets and our President has made bold, courageous moves to stimulate and stabilize
our economy.
One of our foremost concerns today is the health of the U.S. economy. I
would like to give you a progress report on the economy tonight in the light of
the Administration's New Economic Policy. I will also touch on foreign affairs
and the Administration's efforts to usher in a new era of peace.
Our New Economic Policy, as you know, is aimed at redressing our balance of
trade, increasing U.S. industrial productivity, competing effectively abroad,
attaining full employment, and controlling inflation.
Two other aims should be paramount at this time -keeping our defenses secure
and improving the quality of life for all of our citizens.
Since January 1969 the President has been guiding our country through a
series of historic transitions:
From an era of confrontation to an era of negotiation.
From arms competition toward arms limitation.
From the draft to an all-volunteer service.
From a Federal budget dominated by defense expenditures to one dominated
by Human Resource Programs.
From war to peace.
From a wartime economy to a peacetime economy.
The dislocations and problems we have encountered in shifting from a wartime
to a peacetime economy have been most severe. The President has brought nearly
(more)
-2-
500,000 troops home from Vietnam and has sharply cut our armed forces and defense
purchases. As this winding down occurred, more than 2 million men and women were
released from defense and defense-related jobs.
Few Americans realize that by this June 30 the size of our armed forces
will have been trimmed to 2,391,000, 73,000 less than the lowest figure for the
past two decades and 1.1 million below the Vietnam War high registered in the
previous Administration.
At the same time, the number of civilian employes in the Defense Department
will have been cut back to 1,041,000, the lowest since 1965 and a drop of more than
300,000 from the Vietnam high.
Despite the tremendous problems engendered by the transition from a
peacetime to a wartime economy--a transition complicated by the urgent necessity
to fight a near-runaway inflation--America's business system was not floundering
on the rocks last August 15 or any time earlier. The Administration's New Economic
Policy was not a bailout for business.
The program was made necessary by four problems: The rate of inflation was
not coming down fast enough; the rate of unemployment was too high, due in large
part to reductions in military forces and defense contracting; international trade
and fiscal problems were putting serious pressures on the strength of the dollar;
and large segments of the public had been talked into a lack of confidence in
America's future.
The crisis in confidence was really more severe than any crisis in the
economy.
The success we have had to date with the New Economic Policy is repairing
the damage in public confidence despite continuing political attacks on the
President.
The economy is expanding vigorously. Most of the key monthly indicators
are pointing upward. The 5.3 per cent annual growth rate for "real" Gross National
Product in the first quarter of this year is a good showing in anybody's book.
More encouraging than anything else is the fact that consumer confidence is
quickening. There was a 2.5 per cent spurt in retail sales in March, and this is
giving the general business upswing a much more solid look.
Employment soared in March to record heights. After adjustments for seasonal
factors, the number of jobholders topped 81 million as employment rose by 618,000.
(more)
-3--
That was the largest absolute advance since April of 1960. But while the economy
produced the largest one-month increase in employment in over 10 years, the labor
force expanded even more sharply. The increase in the labor force-the largest
such increase in 25 years--prevented the jobless rate from falling.
I predict that the unusual growth in the labor force will taper off and
employment will continue to make marked gains. The result will be to push
unemployment down toward the 5 per cent mark by the end of this year.
The Administration's fiscal policies will produce an increase of $100 billion
in GNP over last year. This will bring the unemployment rate down. Efforts to
improve America's competitive position in world markets will increase our sales
abroad and generate more jobs here at home.
In addition to pursuing stimulative fiscal policies, the Administration is
also carrying out numerous programs which provide direct employment. Jobs have
been found for more than 270,000 Vietnam-era veterans. The Administration's public
employment program has created 145,000 new jobs. And nearly 1,100,000
Federally-supported job opportunities will be offered American youth this summer--
89,000 more than last year.
Every week the pulse of the economy is beating faster. The recovery now has
some bounce to it. Manufacturers' sales jumped ahead early in the first quarter of
this year. The output of steel, building products, furniture and appliances has
also moved higher. Machine tools have scored a 27 per cent year-to-year gain in
orders in just the first two months of this year. Overall, industrial production
has risen at an annual rate of more than 8 per cent since last November. Capital
spending rose in the fourth quarter of 1971 and also in the first quarter of this
year.
All the numbers add up to a definite upswing, and, very importantly,
consumers suddenly feel a lot better about business and employment conditions.
That is why retail sales are picking up after months of almost no movement.
On inflation, the March figures give us tangible evidence of progress
toward our goal of reducing the inflation rate to 2 to 3 per cent by year's end.
According to the Consumer Price Index, we stopped inflation cold during the month
of March. Seasonally adjusted, the increase was actually zero. While one month
does not an annual rate make, I can only conclude that the fight against inflation
is succeeding.
(more)
-4-
During the four months since the freeze ended in November, the Consumer
Price Index and each of its major components except food have risen at a slower
rate than in the six months before the stabilization program began. In the seven
months since the program was initiated, the CPI has risen at a yearly rate of
2.8 per cent, compared with 4.1 per cent in the six months preceding the freeze.
As a result of the restraint on prices, the increase in the Consumer Price
Index was held to 3.4 per cent for all of 1971. That compares with a 5.5 per cent
rise in 1970 and 6.1 per cent in 1969. On the basis of these facts, I would say
the rate of inflation is being pushed in the right direction--downward.
The critics who declare that the price stabilization machinery has gone
haywire because of the temporary post-freeze bulge are like a scorekeeper who
declares that a professional golfer is out of the running because he goes one over
par on the first hole. He is overlooking the fact that a good golfer is likely to
pick up a birdie or two along the way to make up for his one excess.
The charge that wages are being held down while prices are rocketing out of
control is simply not true. George Meany is employing the big lie technique, making
a false statement and repeating it again and again.
Real wages measure whether labor is better off than it has been. And the
facts are that real earnings for workers from 1970 to the present showed a
6 per cent gain, while workers registered no gain in real earnings from 1966 to
1970. In the last quarter of 1971, real earnings rose 5 per cent. In all of 1971,
average weekly earnings increased 7.1 per cent, more than twice the 3.4 per cent
increase in consumer prices.
As you know, corporate profits are not directly under control of the economic
stabilization program although profit margins are.
Some people have complained because corporate profits rose about 16 per cent
in 1971 and are expected to rise about as much, or slightly more, in 1972.
Nevertheless, corporate profits will still be relatively low in 1972 and will be
only 17.5 per cent higher than in 1966, six years ago. By contrast, total personal
income in 1972 will be nearly 60 per cent greater than in 1966. And, similarly,
average hourly earnings of all private non-agricultural workers in 1972 will be
more than 40 per cent higher than in 1966.
Even a substantial increase in corporate profits this year will leave them
low by historical standards and low relative to personal and wage income. Every
(more)
-5--
American who understands the importance of profits in our free enterprise system
should be concerned about this, because profits are the key to more jobs, greater
productivity and the competitiveness of American industry in the world economy.
Profit is the name of the game in a free enterprise system. Our system
grows in size and in strength as profits grow. Those who would put a freeze on
profits would kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. To penalize industry
through a freeze on profits would be robbing it of its life's blood.
Let me interject this word of caution, however. Those firms which are
exceeding profit margins established under our stabilization program would do well
to trim their prices voluntarily. Government action forcing price cuts should not
be necessary.
Summing up, I believe there are five actions which must be taken if we are
to achieve a stable economy. We should apply wage and price controls equitably,
relax economic controls once inflation has been curbed, hold down Federal
expenditures, reduce barriers to free international trade, and increase our efforts
to smooth the transition from a wartime to a peacetime economy.
Let me say a special word about foreign trade. Our trade balance has
deteriorated, falling by $4.7 billion from the 1970 level to a deficit of $2 billion.
This is the first U.S. trade deficit in the 20th century.
We have already served notice that we will make a strong push to open a new
multilateral round of trade negotiations directed especially at the elimination
of nontariff barriers. The European Economic Community and Japan now appear
receptive to participating in such negotiations in 1973. There must be a concerted
multi-national effort to reduce existing nontariff barriers and to guard against
the erecting of new ones.
Again on the positive side, currency revaluation and the changes in exchange
rates have made the United States more competitive in world markets. The
Administration believes these changes will result in the creation of 500,000 to
750,000 new jobs when the impact is fully felt. The monetary realignment agreed
upon last December has permitted elimination of many of the exchange control
barriers that were in the process of being erected.
To sum up, this Administration is steadily moving this country toward real
prosperity, not the false prosperity generated by war--the false prosperity that
creates a defense plant boom and puts hundreds of thousands of young men into
uniform.
(more)
-6-
And just as the Administration is building a genuine prosperity, so we are
also seeking a generation of peace in world affairs.
President Nixon has brought a new quality of realism to American foreign
policy. We have agreed to accept Mainland China as a sovereign nation. We have
ushered in an era of negotiation in place of confrontation. And we have initiated
the Nixon Doctrine of helping those friendly nations willing to help themselves.
Last year alone, we reached a number of significant agreements with the
Soviet Union:
*
We broke the deadlock in the arms limitation talks and agreed on a
framework for progress. Now there is a strong possibility that
President Nixon will be signing a strategic arms limitation agree-
ment when he goes to Moscow on May 22.
*
We reached an agreement on Berlin, reducing at long last the danger
of a direct confrontation there between the superpowers.
*
We signed a treaty banning weapons of mass destruction from the
seabeds, and agreed on the draft of another treaty to remove the
threat of germ warfare.
*
We agreed on a more reliable "hot line" with Moscow.
We have not reached the promised land in our discussions with the Russians
and the Chinese, but for the first time in a generation we have the opportunity
to build a lasting structure of peace.
In the Middle East the President wants to see the cease-fire which he
initiated in 1970 become a permanent peace. We are continuing to work on that
problem.
We are ending the cold war but the hot war in Vietnam has become hotter.
As you know, the President has made every effort to negotiate a settlement
with Hanoi, including proposals offered by war critics. Twelve times his personal
emissary flew to Paris to conduct secret negotiations. A whole year ago the
President offered the enemy a full withdrawal of American troops from South Vietnam
in exchange for a cease-fire and our prisoners of war. But the North Vietnamese
insisted on a full political settlement, and in the hope that the secret
negotiations might succeed, the President remained silent while many in the
Congress attacked him for not doing what he had, in fact, already done.
The charge that President Nixon is seeking a military victory in Vietnam
and not peace is an out-and-out lie. The President responded with air and sea
counterattacks to the North Vietnamese invasion of South Vietnam because he had no
other choice short of abandonment of South Vietnam. He also had a duty as
(more)
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commander-in-chief to protect the 60,000 U.S. troops still in South Vietnam, a
number that will diminish to 49,000 by July 1.
Now the President is seeking to end the war by choking off the enemy's
sources of supply. This is the only way left to stop the fighting, since the
other side simply sneers at our efforts to negotiate a settlement. There is risk
involved in this course of action but I feel great confidence in the President.
I feel sure he has fully weighed all of the factors involved.
One of the aims of the North Vietnamese offensive is to demoralize the
American people--to persuade them to declare the war lost and to demand an
unconditional pullout of American forces. But a recent poll conducted by the
Opinion Research Corp. of Princeton, N.J., shows that 7 out of 10 Americans support
the President's use of U.S. air and sea power against North Vietnamese military
targets as long as the invasion continues.
Abandonment of our ally is not the road to peace in Vietnam and the world.
Surrender in Vietnam is not the road to a lasting peace.
This is a time when we must all stand up for America. We cannot retreat
from Vietnam like a beaten dog with his tail between his legs. The President was
forced to choose between decisive action aimed at depriving the enemy of the
supplies he needed to continue his invasion or the possibility of a Dunkirk-like
evacuation of the remaining 60,000 Americans in Vietnam.
The President's decision will not sit well with those who cry "Peace now"
or those who would abandon South Vietnam to a Communist takeover by force. But we
must continue to assert world leadership in the face of neo-isolationism,
well-meaning but misguided pacifism, and radically organized protest movements
which tend to benefit the other side.
We must put the nation on a new course, take her in directions that point
toward a new era of greatness for the American people.
We must lay a foundation for prosperity without war and we must build a
new strategy for peace.
Our goals are clear. Our purpose is strong. With the help of the American
people, we cannot fail.
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