Mr. Prime Minister, Mrs. Barrow, Secretary and Mrs. Rusk, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen:
Mr. Prime Minister, it is a very great pleasure for us to welcome you and your lovely wife to the White House.
For those in our audience who are not well acquainted with Prime Minister Barrow, let me assure you that he is a very remarkable leader of a remarkable people--a lawyer, statesman, economist, and even a pilot. I assume, Mr. Prime Minister, that when the first three skills fail you, you can always get away from it all with the fourth.
Though Barbados is the newest independent nation in the Western Hemisphere, its people have practiced parliamentary democracy now for more than 300 years. Their House of Assembly was established in 1639 and it is the third oldest continuing legislative body in this hemisphere.
When I was in El Salvador in July, meeting with the Presidents of the Central American nations, I reaffirmed our belief that no country is so large or so rich that it cannot benefit from its neighbors.
Barbados is taking an active part in building a regional partnership with the other countries of the Caribbean.
--A regional bank, so long a dream, is close to becoming a reality.
--In April of this year, a Regional Development Agency was inaugurated for Barbados and for the seven neighboring islands.
--And Prime Minister Barrow helped form the Caribbean free trade area. Like the Central American and the Andean groups, the Caribbean Islands are now taking their place in an historic march toward regional economic integration.
Mr. Prime Minister, I look forward to meeting with you and renewing the close friendship that our countries have enjoyed. Ambassador Mann has told me of your cordiality and cooperation with him and we are very grateful.
Again we say welcome to the White House.
Note: The President spoke at 11:42 a.m. on the South Lawn at the White House where Prime Minister Errol W. Barrow of Barbados was given a formal welcome with full military honors. In his opening words he also referred to Secretary of State and Mrs. Dean Rusk. During his remarks the President referred to Fredric R. Mann, United States Ambassador to Barbados.
The Prime Minister responded as follows:
Mr. President, on behalf of my wife and myself and members of my staff and the people of Barbados, I should like to say how deeply honored we are that you, without doubt the busiest man in the world, should have time to invite the head of a government of one of the smallest independent countries in the Western Hemisphere to your great Capital, which has been so appropriately named after the first great President of the United States.
I should like to say that in accepting your kind invitation, I thought it was only fitting and proper that the head of the government of the only country which the first President of the United States visited outside of the North American mainland, when over 200 years ago young George Washington spent 4 or 5 months in our salubrious climate, should return the compliment. But I hope, sir, that when you have laid down the honors of office, that we will not be saying that George Washington was the only president of the United States to visit Barbados.
It is time that we had another person who had occupied this high office visiting our country. After your long and strenuous term I shall formalize what I am doing informally in public today and invite you to come and emulate the example set by your great predecessor.
Again, Mr. President, we are not unmindful of that great honor and I look forward to very cordial discussions with you on a variety of topics, as I look forward to the continued cordial relations between our two countries. I thank you.
Lyndon B. Johnson, Remarks of Welcome at the White House to Prime Minister Barrow of Barbados Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/237511
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