Johnson’s Speech at Johns Hopkins University
April 7, 1965
My Fellow Americans: Last week 17 nations sent their views to some dozen countries having interest in Southeast Asia. We are joining these 17 countries in stating our American policy, which we believe will contribute toward peace in this area. Tonight I want to review once again with my own people the views of your Government. Tonight Americans and Asians are dying for a world where each people may choose its own path to change. This is the principle for which our ancestors fought in the valleys of Pennsylvania. It is the principle for which our sons fight in the jungles of Vietnam.
Vietnam is far from this quiet campus. We have no territory there, nor do we seek any. The war is dirty and brutal and difficult. And some 400 young men, born into an America bursting with opportunity and promise, have ended their lives on Vietnam’s steaming soil.
Why must we take this painful road? Why must this nation hazard its ease, its interest and its power for the sake of a people so far away?…
Why are we in South Vietnarn? We are there because we have a promise to keep. Since 1954 every American President has offered support to the people of SouthVietnam. We have helped to build and we have helped to defend. Thus, over many years, we have made a national pledge to help South Vietnam defend its independence. I intend to keep our promise. To dishonor that pledge, to abandon this small and brave nation to its enemy – and the terror that must follow – would be an unforgivable wrong.
We are also there to strengthen world order. Around the globe, from Berlin to Thailand, are people whose well-being rests, in part, on the belief that they can count on us if they are attacked. To leave Vietnam to its fate would shake the confidence of all these people in the value of American commitment. The result would be an increased unrest and instability, or even war.
We are also there because there are great stakes in the balance. Let no one think that reheat from Vietnam would bring an end to conflict. The battle would be renewed in one country and then another. The central lesson of our time is that the appetite of aggression is never satisfied. To withdraw from one battlefield means only to prepare for the next. We must say in Southeast Asia – as we did in Europe – in the words of the Bible: “Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further….
Our objective is the independence of South Vietnam, and its freedom from attack. We want nothing for ourselves – only that the people of South Vietnam be allowed to guide their own country in their own way. We will do everything necessary to reach that objective. And we will do only what is necessary….
We will not be defeated. We will not grow tired. We will not withdraw, either openly or under the cloak of a meaningless agreement….