Remarks to the Members of a Delegation of Industrial Research Leaders Upon Their Return From the Soviet Union.

Dr. Hornig, gentlemen:

I am very happy to have heard your impressions of Soviet science and technology, based on your 2-week visit to Soviet Russia. I am especially grateful to you men from industry who gave so much of your time to make this trip and to prepare for it and present your conclusions. This is another fine example of the willingness of American businessmen and scientists to give of themselves for the public good.

I am especially glad that you got to meet so many people in Russia and had such lengthy conversations with them. It is important for us to know the people and to understand as much as we can about their economic development. It is good to hear that the people you met in the research laboratories, factories, and schools throughout the country showed such a lively interest in America and wanted to enter into contact with Americans by visits and correspondence. I was especially interested to hear that this was as true of people out in the middle of Siberia as it was in Moscow and Leningrad.

Visits like yours help us to get to know the Russian people better, to know their country and see their accomplishments and problems at first hand. We are hoping to cooperate with them in water desalting and perhaps other specific fields of technology that benefit mankind. I hope there will be more trips like yours, in both directions, and I am asking all agencies of the Government on our side to make sure that we're going as far as we can to extend this hand of peaceful contact to the Soviet people, without in any way endangering our security.