Remarks on Arrival at Canton, Ohio

I JUST WANTED to take this opportunity to express my very grateful appreciation to all of you from the Canton and the Akron area for this wonderfully warm welcome.

And to all of us who are here, as you see, I have a wonderfully distinguished welcoming committee: the mayors of both Canton and Akron,¹ the Governor of the State, Governor Gilligan, Senator Saxbe, and Congressman Bow from Canton, Let's give them a hand.

¹ Stanley A. Cmich of Canton and John S. Ballard of Akron.

I thought you would be interested to know that I have a rather special feeling in my heart for Ohio generally, because, of course, as you know, my father was born here.

Also, it happens that the most indispensable person on any man's staff, including the President of the United States, is his secretary,. And my secretary comes from Sebring, Ohio. So, thank you for Rose Mary Woods. I am telling you, if all the girls in Ohio have her ability and her loyalty, this is going to certainly be a place where everything is going to come up roses--I suppose Rose Bowl, I should say.

The other thing I would like to say is that we have brought with us on the Presidential plane today a native of Canton, Ohio, John Scali. You may remember, he was the commentator with ABC, and now on the White House Staff.

He told me an interesting thing as we came in, as the plane came in. I am sort of a football fan. That is one of the reasons I wanted to come out here to the Hall of Fame. Consequently, he said that he had gone to high school, to the Canton-McKinley High School. Then he went on to tell me that when he was at Canton-McKinley they used to beat Massilion. Then I asked Congressman Bow whether I should mention that. He said, "Oh, no, Massillon is only 8 miles away so they might be here, too."

Oh, here is John Scali; here is Canton's own who is now on the White House Staff.

Just let me say one final word before we have to go downtown for a visit to the Hall of Fame and then to the dinner to pay our tribute to the very great stars who are being initiated into the Hall of Fame, including, of course, the man who is perhaps best known in this century in American football, Vince Lombardi, who is being put in the Hall of Fame posthumously.

I would like to say that at this very moment there are three very brave, courageous Americans on the moon. Before we left Washington, I got the report. Some of you may have come to the airport before you got it. They landed safely. It was a perfect landing. Tomorrow you, of course, will be able to see them on television. Since Ohio--and Ohio seems to be doing everything--produced, of course, many in this field of astronauts, I thought that report was one that you would want.

Let me say this thing with regard to what they see as they look down. I am sure as they see the earth it will look like a very peaceful and a very quiet place. As I come to Ohio again, and I have been here many, many times--perhaps to this State more than any other except my own State of California--I can assure you that the greatest goal we have, all of us, whether we are Republicans or Democrats in Washington, is to bring peace to this world. We are bringing that peace through ending the war that we are in, in a way that will contribute to a lasting peace.

I am going to try to contribute to that peace--not just for our generation but for these young people in that band, and the rest, for your generation--by a journey to Mainland China, so that in the future the 800 million people who live-and that is one-fourth of all the people in the world--who live there, will not live in isolation from the rest of the world. This is truly one world, and we must know all the people in the world. That is, of course, the reason for that journey.

So, with that, let me say, we thank you very much for coming out, for giving us such a warm welcome. I just wish I could shake hands with everybody here and sign all those autographs. Incidentally, if you want an autograph, just send me a letter and I will see that you get one.

Thank you very much.