Remarks at a Meeting With Representatives of Veterans Organizations

Ladies and gentlemen:

This house is your house.

As you entered, no one asked your politics. While you are here, no one will seek your vote. You have been invited, not as voters, nor as veterans, but as Americans. For, whatever the season, the work of our country must go on.

At this moment in your country's life, our success is very great. Our system is strong. Our ramparts are manned. Our people are prospering in lives of peace. The promise for America has never been so bright.

That bright promise must never be dimmed, either from without or from within. And that is your duty, as well as mine.

You have been defenders of America. Today, you are its leaders. Your hands, as well as mine, hold the flame.

Since 1776, 32 million Americans have been called to bear arms. Of every ten who have worn our uniform, seven are living today. Our veterans, and their families, represent 40 percent of our American population now.

Three centuries ago at Plymouth Rock the Pilgrim Fathers ordained that those disabled in the community's defense should receive the community's care. From that day to this we have kept a special trust with those who have borne the battle, and their widows and their orphans.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the finest such program of all--the World War II GI bill. Some condemned that bill as the work of a welfare state. But we honor it today as a pride of our free land. The educations that GI bill provided, the homes it built, the new starts it gave have all increased America's strength.

No man could serve here without being grateful to you and your organizations for your constructive support of our veterans programs. I am sure you will agree with me, we can all be grateful together for the service being provided by Administrator Gleason and the Veterans Administration.

But I have not asked you here to discuss these concerns. Our first duty to the 21 million veterans living now, and the 1 million who have died in our wars, is to keep America strong and to keep America at peace.

I am proud to be able to say to you that in all the history of man, no nation has ever been so strong in arms as your Nation today.

The hour of peril for freedom has not passed. It will not pass in your lifetime or mine. In days to come the dangers will be grave, and those dangers may multiply. Our duty is to be prepared--and we are prepared today.

For a world of infinite threats, we are prepared for flexible response.

America has muscle, but we are not muscle-bound.

Your Nation has:

--1,100 long-range bombers, 500 always in the air or on 15-minute alert.

--800 intercontinental missiles, sheltered underground, ready to fire in minutes.

--16 nuclear submarines with 256 Polaris missiles, sheltered underseas, ready to fire in minutes.

--Around the world, we have a variety of tactical nuclear weapons ready, should the Commander in Chief authorize their use.

No other nation has more than a fraction of this force.

Our aim is to defend freedom with the most rational and appropriate force. Let no one doubt that we would use our full force if necessary. But let no one think that this is all the force we have and that we are straitjacketed in it.

Nuclear arms alone are not enough.

The most significant advances of our defense in the past 4 years have been those made to give us selective power to respond to different threats--on!and, in the jungles, on the sea, and in the air.

Our Army has grown from 11 divisions to 16.

Special forces to help other nations maintain their freedom have increased by 800 percent.

The Marines are stronger by 15,000 men.

Our tactical air forces have 79 fighter squadrons rather than 55.

Our Navy--already the greatest in the world--has been increased in both strength and readiness.

Our preparedness has only one purpose. That purpose is peace--peace for ourselves, peace for the world. Since last November, I have lived every waking hour mindful that a nuclear war would mean in 1 hour an American death toll equal to 300 World War II's. For your children and mine, too much is at stake for the passions of partisanship to divert America from the pursuit of peace.

We have peace. We must keep it.

But let none misunderstand us or misrepresent us. The American people are in this peace to win it for freedom, for justice, and for the dignity of man.

If victory is to be ours, we shall need more than the strength of arms alone; we shall need the strength of our heads, our hearts, and the finest values of our homes.

What America is to be will not be decided in this house, or on the Hill where Congress meets. America's fate rests with you, and leaders like you, all across this shining land. That is why I ask you here.

Liberty is precious. Peace is our prize. But our unity is priceless beyond compare. America's leaders at every level must work every day to preserve and perfect the unity of our society.

We stand against communism, we stand for freedom, only when we stand together as one nation and one people. America knows no higher patriotism than the works of unity and no more sinister subversion than the works of division.

At this hour, the generation of your brothers and sons walks the ramparts of freedom from the Bering Straits to the Brandenburg Gate. But there are vigils you and I must forever keep in the streets of home.

It is important that men in other lands understand America. It is always of first importance that all in our own land understand America, too. Wherever we live, responsible men and women must go to the heart of the challenge, for there the decision lies.

As individuals and through our organizations, we must work in our streets and in our slums, among our young and among our poor. There is work for us to do in all the places bypassed by our prosperity, in all the corners untouched by our compassion.

Our society was built on respect for law and order and we mean to maintain that. But our society was built also on respect for rights and dignity and we mean to strengthen them.

The kind of nation we are to have tomorrow will be the sum of the kind of communities we build today. The quality of our communities will not be determined by the work of remote governments but by the work of responsible citizens who live there.

This is the challenge to all who are looked to as leaders. This is the duty to which your country calls each of you today.

I know your President will always have your prayers, whoever he may be.

I want you to know that this President wants your help, welcomes your strength, and seeks to work with you in all that will unify this blessed land.