Remarks on Arrival at Kalispell, Montana.

I WANTED to take this opportunity, as we arrive here, to say just a few words of greeting to all of you because it will not be possible for me to do what both Mrs. Nixon and I would particularly like to do, and that is to greet every one of you personally.

In coming before you, I first want you to know that because this platform is so small, we could only get the men on the platform. Women's Lib, please don't give us any trouble.

I am very proud to be here in Montana, and I will introduce these people. You know them all so well, but I think you all want to welcome your people from Montana, as they are here.

Mike Mansfield, the Majority Leader of the Senate.

Of course, the Governor of the State of Montana. Governor.

And the Congressman from this district, Dick Shoup.

The Congressman from the other district in Montana, Congressman Melcher.

Now, all of you will have noted that this is a totally bipartisan group. [Laughter] And that is the spirit in which this visit has been arranged.

I want to say first that I have many pleasant memories of visits to this State. I have been to a number of cities. I recall visits to Butte and Billings and to Great Falls and to Bozeman and also, of course, to the State capital, to Helena. I am very proud that this is the first time I have had a chance to visit Montana as President of the United States.

I am also equally proud that Mike Mansfield arranged that this is the first time I have had any chance ever to come to Kalispell in this area. I am glad to be here in this beautiful part of the country.

Now, as you have probably noted, the Majority Leader of the Senate and the President of the United States have regular meetings, usually at breakfast, in addition to the meetings that we have in the Cabinet Room, concerning legislation. I am sure that many of you wonder what those meetings concern. Well, obviously they concern the affairs of state. They naturally involve matters on which we sometimes disagree, disagree not as partisans, but disagree because there are areas where different people, working toward the same goal, might want to take different roads. But I think you will all be glad to know that there is one subject on which we have no disagreement whatever. That is on the beauty of the Big Sky Country.

I want to say something about your representatives, both the Republican as well as the two Democrats, in the Congress of the United States from Montana. Many people ,who come to Washington-they get Potomac fever, and that means they really get so taken with Washington they. forget the folks back home. I have never yet met a Senator or a Congressman from Montana who didn't love Montana most of all, and that is true of yours, I can assure you.

I think I can tell you why. There is a story--I don't know whether it is true or not; I couldn't believe it when I saw it in my notes, and I was not able to check it with Mike or Dick or Congressman Melcher on the way put--there is a story about a big wind that came up in Helena, the State capital, so big, as a matter of fact, that it turned the Goddess of Liberty statue around so that it was facing away from the city.

There were those, not from Montana, of course, and not from Helena, who said that what really was happening was that the Goddess of Liberty was turning her back on the city. I don't think that was the case. I think what the Goddess of Liberty was really doing was turning out so that she could really see this beautiful country.

This is a beautiful country, and you can be very proud to live in it. And as I speak of this country, I think it is particularly appropriate that it is the Big Sky Country. It is an open country. There is still lots of ground out here, lots of beautiful territory for people to see, for people to visit, for people to live in.

That brings me to a point on which here is total agreement among all of us on this platform, although we might have different ways to achieve that goal. We want an open country, we want open cities, and we also want an open world.

At the present time we are ending the longest war in the history of the United States. We are also trying to build--and we are having success in building--a new structure of peace, one which will provide not just peace for a year, for the next election, or for the next 5 years, but provide for something we have not had for this whole century: a whole generation of peace. I think that is what Americans want most of all.

When I noticed the high school students were here, the various bands that have been playing, when I see so many young people, and when I see your parents, I know that is what you want.

As you know, from here we are going on to Portland and then up to Alaska to welcome the Emperor of Japan. Later, I will have the opportunity to visit Mainland China, the People's Republic of China. Let me just tell you what these visits have to do with this generation of peace. Very simply this: They are not going to solve all differences between nations, particularly with regard to those great differences that exist between the Government of the United States and the Government of the People's Republic of China, with which we do not have diplomatic relations at this time. But they do mean this: They do mean that a step has been taken toward a goal.

When nations have differences, they can either talk about them and negotiate about them or they can fight about them. If 10 to 15 years from now the People's Republic of China is still isolated from the rest of the world, and particularly with no communication with the United States of America, there is a great danger that due to that isolation we might end in finding that our differences were ones that we could not talk about, and we might end up fighting about.

I believe we have got to avoid that. I believe the time to start avoiding that is now, to make this an open world in which we negotiate rather than confront those who differ with us around the world.

In that goal, let me say we have bipartisan support. I think we have the support of all generations.

There is one other thing I would like to say before we have a chance to meet some of you. As we build this generation of peace, we also want a new prosperity that is based not on war, but on peace, in which production for peace provides the jobs that Americans need. This is something we all want. It is something that we can build. It is something that this State can contribute to and that all of you can contribute to.

Finally, let me say that in this Nation in these years ahead we want this Nation to continue to have not only those areas that can produce, as the great agricultural area of Montana produces, for making this the best fed, the best dressed nation in the world but also the beauty of this country, which this State has in such remarkable degrees.

One final story to illustrate it: A couple of months ago, among the many visitors that stream through the Oval Office of the White House, was a tremendously interesting group of teenagers from the State of Washington. They had ridden bicycles clear across the country. They called themselves Cyclemates.

As they rode across the country they stopped at various places. It, of course took them weeks to arrive in Washington. I asked them this question: I said, "Now, you tell me you have been to the parks, you have been to all the States, what was the most beautiful place you saw?"

And they said, "Glacier Park, of all the the places in the United States." Not only did they like that place but they also liked the people.

So, I say, as we meet you here, and with this little California rain falling right now, that I am glad to be here. Mrs. Nixon is glad to be here to receive such a warm welcome.

We hope that this will always be the Big Sky Country and that people who come across it will always say, "This is a beautiful place to visit."

Thank you very much.