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Text of Remarks by the President to Be Delivered at a Forum at Tyler Junior College, Tyler, Texas [Ford Speech or Statement]
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7343734
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Text of Remarks by the President to Be Delivered at a Forum at Tyler Junior College, Tyler, Texas [Ford Speech or Statement]
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1976-04-28
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EMBARG ED FOR RELEASE UNTIL
Digitized from Box 25 of the White House Press Releases
7:00 a. EDT (6:00 m. CDT)
at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
April 28, 1976
Office of the White House Press Secretary
(Tyler, Texas)
THE WHITE HOUSE
TEXT OF REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
TO BE DELIVERED AT A FORUM
AT TYLER JUNIOR COLLEGE
TYLER, TEXAS
APRIL 28, 1976
I'm glad to be here today at Tyler for several reasons: First, it was just
great to see your famous Apache Belles and marching band in action. Second,
it's an honor to be a guest at this outstanding Junior College, one of the
biggest and best in the country. Finally, one of the primary responsibilities
of this institution of learning and all others is to provide its students with
facts. Facts and expertise that will prepare you for the decision-making
that every job, career or profession calls for.
The President of the United States must also deal in facts -- and today, I
want to share some of those facts with you, so that you can intelligently reach
your own conclusions on a matter of supreme importance to our United States.
Somewhere between the snows of New Hampshire and the sunny climes down
in Florida, the focus of this year's Republican campaign for the Presidency
began to shift away from the growing strength and prosperity of the American
economy to a new and more complex issue: the strength of America's
military forces.
Now, I've been down the campaign trail before and I know there's a reason
why a challenger will try to shift his attack. It's called second place. It
makes you try harder -- and swing wilder, too.
Having failed on the economic issue, the central thrust of my opponent's
new strategy is to claim that the United States has become inferior to the
Sovi et Union, especially in military strength. He glibly quotes statistics
without any in-depth understanding of them. His answer to this alleged
inferiority, apparently, is to change our force structure so that it matches
the soviets -- ship for ship, weapon for weapon, man for man -- rather than
looking at overall capabilities.
First let'me say that the issue is not our military capabilities today -- they
are adequate to any challenge -- let there be no doubt about it. By the
testimony of all who know, and I've spent much of my life dealing with defense
matters, by the testimony of Secretaries of Defense past and present, Deputy
Secretary Bill Clements, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, our
military forces are capable of fulfilling their assigned missions.
The important issue is not today, but tomorrow. That's why I've been
working with the Congress and the country to adopt a defense budget for the
United States which will provide for our national security in the years ahead.
But let us look a moment at this question of whether, as my opponent implies,
we should try to re-shape our Armed Forces so that they mirror those of
the Soviet Union. What steps would we have to take in order to be exactly
like them?
The answers, I think, show a great deal about how superficial his charges are.
In order to parallel soviet forces, we would have to begin by mothballing
the 13 aircraft carriers that now sail the seas flying the American flag. Our
huge nuclear aircraft carriers like the ENTERPRISE, the NIMITZ and the
FORRESTAL, have no soviet counterparts. Over one-half the Russian navy
consists of small patrol craft, minesweepers and other small vessels. So to
match the Soviet Union as my opponent seems to suggest, we would have to reti
our own larger more sophisticated ships with their awesome firepower, and
replace them with many, many more patrol craft, minesweepers and the like.
- 2 -
No one would truly believe that this would be a sane defense policy to protect
America and defend our freedoms in the world?
Look at our Air Force and ask what it would be like to make it exactly like the
Soviet Air Force. Vie would have to begin by grounding most of our B-52
bombers and calling off the progress we are making in developing a new,
more capable B-1 bomber. Or think of our Marines, those valiant men
who have won so many famous battles for us in the past. To parallel the
Soviets we would have to jettison the Marine Corps because the Russians have
nothing comparable in either quality or dedication.
Now, obviously my opponent isn't foolish enough to seriously suggest that we
should do away with our carriers, our B-52's or our Marine Corps. The
significant point to be made, however, is that simplistic and superficial
charges based on limited information and experience, could lead to irresponsible
and fundamentally harmful policy decisions.
Let's take one of his favorite charges--that the Soviets have twice as many
men in uniform as we do. Presumably that means he wants to double the
number of men and women we have in uniform from 2. 1 million to more than
4 million. Obviously that would require us to reimpose the draft to obtain
sufficient manpower.
In turn, more than 2 million of our young people now in school or working would
have to go into the Armed Forces, probably most of them under Selective Service.
We would have to divert billions of dollars now being spent for sophisticated new
weapons systems for the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines to pay the added
manpower costs. Money that should be spent on the new B-1 Bomber, or the
development of a new ballistic missile, or expanding our fleet would be wasted
on maintaining personnel levels that would add little to our overall military
capabilities.
No reputable military expert I know has suggested such a course of action.
Such a policy, if you can call it that, would undermine rather than strengthen
our defenses.
Let's look at the manpower question another way. The United States today has
some 3 million farm workers. The Soviet Union has 39 million farm workers.
Does that mean that we have to increase the number of our farmers by 36
million in order to be equal to the Soviet Union? Of course not.
Our American farmers--equipped with the best technology in the world, relying
upon the free market and their own ingenuity--feed 7 times more people than
their Soviet counterparts year-in, year-out.
Indeed, American farmers even help to feed the Soviet people. The bottom line
is this: it isn't always the number of men that count, but the quality--and as
far. as I'm concerned, the men and women of the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force,
and Marines are the best in the world, bar none.
Obviously, we S hould exercise great caution before heeding the words of a man
who obviously has no experience and little understanding of the complexity of
national defense matters. Superficial arguments based on incomplete knowledge
are fundamentally harmful rather than helpful.
I believe that a man who is campaigning for the highest office in the land must
be willing to talk seriously about his policies and the consequences of his policies.
When it comes to the life and death decisions of our national security, the deci-
sions made must be the right ones. There are no retakes in the Oval Office.
Glibness is not good enough; superficiality is not good enough. Every serious
candidate for the Presidency must be equal to the burdens and the responsibi-
lities of the Presidency.
(MORE)
- 3 -
Sometimes when I hear the critics complaining about American defense policy
and American foreign policy--always complaining but never offering any pro-
grams of their own--I am reminded of one of the finest Texans I ever had the
privilege to know in the Congress. Sam Rayburn served 50 years in Washington
with over 3, 000 Congressmen and Senators and 8 different Presidents. At the
end of a long day, after he had worked hard to make a better life for America,
when he heard from the chronic complainers, he loved to recall what his father
once told him: "Any donkey can kick a barn down, but it takes an awful good
carpenter to build one up. "
Now as far as the national security policies of the United State are concerned,
I am convinced that the American people would rather have a President who is
constructively seeking to build the foundations of lasting security than someone
who spends most of his time trying to kick them down.
It is irresponsible and a disservice to the American people to lead them to
believe that we are inferior when we are not, that our military strength is
insufficient when it is not, or that there are pat answers and simple solutions
to the complex issues of national security. when there are none.
This country must have a President who can do more than scratch the surface
of complicated problems. It is not enough to ask questions. It is not enough
to offer criticism. It is the obligation of every candidate for the Presidency of
the United States to offer alternatives, to deal in specifics, to provide some
answers to the questions he raises.
If a candidate fails in that responsibility, he has failed to satisfy a most
fundamental requirement of a political campaign and of political leadership
in this country: he has failed to level with the American people.
You must demand more than that of Presidential candidates. The elections of
1976 are much too important for you to make your decisions on the basis of
less-than-complete knowledge. My record is clear. I have served as your
President for more than 21 months, and during that period I have recommended
the two largest military budgets in our nation's history; they were needed to
see that our military capabilities continue to be strong in the years ahead as
they must be if we are to find the peace and security we all seek.
A budget must also be based on facts and hard realities. One fact is that in
recent years, the Soviet Union has been spending more and more for armaments--
while successive American military budgets have been cut back by the Congress.
It is a trend that cannot, must not, and will not continue. My budget for fiscal
year 1977 both reverses this trend and makes very sure that our American
fighting forces will continue to be unsurpassed by any nation on earth. It is a
fact--and in this real world, a very comforting fact.
Today America is a nation at peace, a nation with new confidence in itself and
its future, a nation that stands tall and proud and free as it enters its third
century.
If this is your idea of what America should be, I ask for your support this
Saturday, next November, and in the challenging years ahead.
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