LBJ: We Will Stay in Vietnam

Apr. 17, 1965 - President Johnson today rejected appeals that U.S. bombing of North Vietnam be suspended as a means of enhancing the prospects for peace negotiations. He reiterated, however, that he was willing to begin “unconditional discussions” immediately.

He also warned the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong, who have continued the guerrilla warfare in South Vietnam in the face of more than two months of U.S. air strikes on the North, that “there is no human power capable of forcing us from Vietnam.”

The President summoned reporters to the LBJ Ranch on a warm, sunny day and read his statement from the porch of his stone ranch house. No questions were permitted.

He said that infiltration of South Vietnam by the North Vietnamese continued, as did “terror” and “death in the night.”“And we must also continue,” he said strongly, in an evident allusion to the U.S. bombing of the North.

The President appeared to be addressing his words not only to Hanoi and Peking and to other world capitals but also to Americans critical of U.S. policy in Vietnam. He must have been aware that end-the-war demonstrations were under way in Washington. He said:“I understand the feelings of those who regret that we must undertake air attacks. I share those feelings, but the compassion of this country and the world must go to the men and women and children who are killed and crippled by the Viet Cong every day in South Vietnam.”

He said the “outrage” of world conscience should be directed at Viet Cong terrorists who “explode their bombs in cities and villages, ripping the bodies of the helpless.”

In Washington, Secretary of State Dean Rusk ruled out any pause in the bombing of North Vietnam on the ground that such a step “would only encourage the aggressor and dishearten our friends who bear the brunt of the battle.”

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