Proclamation 3642—Cancer Control Month, 1965

Whereas the health of the American people is essential to our national strength and well-being; and

Whereas a Presidential Commission on Heart Disease, Cancer, and Stroke has given intensive study to the problem of the control of these diseases; and

Whereas the Congress now has under consideration a broad program of research and demonstration aimed at combating cancer and other such major diseases, through the strengthening of all of our medical resources; and

Whereas the encouraging progress already made against leukemia and other forms of cancer deserves official recognition, and the scientists, physicians, and official and voluntary agencies devoted to the control of malignant disease in all its forms merit grateful commendation; and

Whereas the Congress, by House Joint Resolution 468, approved March 28, 1938 (52 Stat. 148), requested the President to issue annually a proclamation setting apart the month of April as Cancer Control Month:

Now, Therefore, I, Lyndon B. Johnson, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim the month of April 1965 as Cancer Control Month; and I invite the Governors of the States, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and other areas subject to the jurisdiction of the United States to issue similar proclamations.

I also ask the medical and allied health professions, the communications industries, and all other interested persons and groups to unite during the appointed month in public reaffirmation of this Nation's efforts to control cancer.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States of America to be acted.

DONE at the City of Washington this fourth day of March in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty-five, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and eighty-ninth.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON

By the President:

DEAN RUSK,

Secretary of State.