Remarks Televised to the National Convention of the Air Force Association Meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Good evening, Governor Foss, Secretary Zuckert, Senator Cannon, and all who are attending the 16th Annual Convention of the Air Force Association:

I'm sure that your discussions this year will be as beneficial to your country as your discussions and services have been in the past. It's very appropriate that I should speak to you through the medium of spaceborne communications. My voice and image are coming to you via Telstar, our American communications satellite, almost as easily as I might have talked with you on the phone a year or two ago.

I commend the Air Force Association for selecting as Aerospace Men of the Year Dr. John R. Pierce and Mr. Alton C. Dickieson of the Bell Laboratories for their leading roles in the development of this outstanding symbol of America's space achievements. I am happy to note that you have selected my good friend, Howard Cannon, as your convention chairman. I want to commend all of those of you who have devoted so much of your lives to the service of your country. The Air Force has played a significant part in World War I, a great role in the Second World War and in Korea, and today, even though we are at peace, we are heavily engaged in many parts of the world and the Air Force once more is rendering its services as the shield of the United States and the cause of freedom. The planes which stand on a 15-minute alert at the SAC bases around our country and around the world protect the freedom of countries thousands of miles from the United States.

The Air Force has a great role to play in the future in the struggle against insurrection and guerrilla war, in the maintenance of our strategic force and strength, in the increasing responsibilities and burdens which will be placed upon the Air Force in the field of space, to make sure that space is maintained for peaceful purposes and that no nation secure a position in space which can threaten the security of the United States and the free world.

We count on the Air Force today and in the future as we have in the past, and we count on you who serve the Air Force and our country in peace and in war.

Gentlemen, I congratulate you, and ask of you the same kind of dedicated service in the future that we have had from you in the past.