1975-President Ford announces the end of U.S. involvement in Vietnam (Video)



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  • - [Broadcast Commentator] The President of the United States.
  • [band music]
  • - [Announcer] Ladies and gentlemen,
  • the President of the United States
  • and Dr. Herbert E. Longenecker.
  • [audience applause]
  • - [Broadcast Commentator] [inaudible]
  • --the President of the United States but by mistake introduced
  • the President of Tulane University.
  • [audience applause]
  • He must have been very nervous.
  • There’s President Ford making his way up to the podium
  • on the speaker's platform.
  • [band music]
  • Everybody getting a good laugh out of that faux pas.
  • [audience applause]
  • It'll go down as one of the famous slips of the tongue.
  • President Ford.
  • [band music]
  • [audience applause]
  • President Gerald Ford getting a standing ovation
  • from the students, faculty, and alumnus here.
  • At Tulane gymnasium, about 9000 strong.
  • [audience applause]
  • Some people in the audience are waving American flags.
  • [applause winding down]
  • Now they're settling down.
  • Program is about to begin.
  • Let's go back up to the speaker's platform.
  • - [Herbert] Ladies and gentlemen
  • will you rise once again,
  • please, and join in singing the national anthem led
  • by Marilyn Thomas Bernard,
  • a graduate of Newcomb College, and now an instructor
  • at Xavier University.
  • - [Marilyn singing “The Star-Spangled Banner”]
  • ♪ Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light, ♪
  • ♪ What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming? ♪
  • ♪ Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight, ♪
  • ♪ O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming? ♪
  • ♪ And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air, ♪
  • ♪ Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. ♪
  • ♪ Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave, ♪
  • ♪ O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave? ♪
  • [audience applause]
  • - [Herbert] Mr. President,
  • members of the Platform Party,
  • members of the Congress of the United States,
  • and particularly the representatives
  • of the First, Second, and Third Congressional Districts,
  • each of whom is a graduate of this university.
  • [audience applause]
  • Lieutenant Governor Fitzmorris and other
  • distinguished officials of Louisiana.
  • Members of the Consular Corps.
  • Ladies and gentlemen,
  • Tulane's honored position among America's
  • leading universities is evidenced this evening
  • by the presence of the President of the United States.
  • [audience applause]
  • Seven years ago,
  • President Ford participated here
  • in one of the first Direction programs.
  • Mr. President,
  • you will be interested, I believe, to know that
  • this student-organized and student-managed program
  • has continued at Tulane as one of the most outstanding
  • collegiate forums in the United States.
  • [audience applause]
  • And I believe that applause as an expression
  • of the student feeling for your participation
  • in that early forum, which has been followed by more successes.
  • [audience applause]
  • Tonight, we welcome Gerald Ford
  • once again as the guest of Tulane University.
  • Ladies and gentlemen,
  • the President of the United States.
  • [audience applause]
  • - [clears throat]
  • Mr. President,
  • President Hurley,
  • Senator Johnston,
  • my good friends from the House of Representatives,
  • Eddie Hebert, Dave Treen, Lindy Boggs,
  • Lieutenant Governor Fitzmorris, students,
  • faculty, alumni, and guests of Tulane University.
  • It’s really a great privilege and a very high honor
  • to have an opportunity of participating
  • again in a student activity at Tulane University,
  • and for this opportunity, I thank you very, very much.
  • [audience applause]
  • Each time that I've been privileged to visit Tulane,
  • I have come away newly impressed with the intense application
  • of the student body to the great issues of our time,
  • and I am pleased tonight to observe
  • that your interest hasn't changed one bit.
  • As we came into the building tonight,
  • I passed a student who looked up from his book
  • and said--
  • [audience laughs]
  • As I said, he looked up from his book
  • and said,
  • “A journey of a thousand miles begins, but with a single step.”
  • [audience laughs]
  • To indicate my interest in him, I asked,
  • “Are you trying to figure out
  • how to get to your goal in life?”
  • He said, “No,
  • “I'm trying to figure out how to get to the Superdome
  • in September.”
  • [audience laughs, cheers]
  • Well, I don't think there's any doubt
  • in my mind that all of you will get to the Superdome.
  • [audience laughs]
  • And, of course,
  • I hope it’s to see the Green Wave
  • have their very best season on the gridiron.
  • [audience applause]
  • I have sort of a feeling that you wouldn't mind making
  • this another year in which you put the Tigers
  • in your tank.
  • [audience cheers]
  • When I had the privilege
  • of speaking here in 1968 at your Directions ‘68 forum,
  • I had no idea that my own career
  • and our entire nation would move so soon in another direction.
  • And I say again, I'm extremely proud to be invited back.
  • I'm impressed,
  • as I undoubtedly said before,
  • but I would reiterate it tonight,
  • by Tulane's unique distinction
  • as one of the only American universities
  • to be converted from state sponsorship to private status.
  • And I'm also impressed by the Tulane graduates
  • who serve in the United States Congress, Bennett Johnston,
  • Lindy Boggs, Dave Treen.
  • [audience applause]
  • Eddie Hebert, when I asked him the question
  • whether he was or not, and he said
  • he got a special degree-- drop out ‘28.
  • [audience laughs]
  • But I think the fact
  • that you have these three outstanding graduates
  • testifies to the academic excellence and the inspiration
  • of this historic university rooted in the past,
  • with its eyes on the future.
  • Just as Tulane has made a great transition
  • from the past to the future,
  • so has New Orleans, the legendary city,
  • that has made such a unique contribution
  • to our great America.
  • New Orleans is more,
  • as I see it, than weathered bricks and cast iron balconies.
  • It's a state of mind, a melting pot
  • that represents the very, very
  • best of America's evolution,
  • and the example of retention
  • of a very special culture
  • and a progressive environment of modern change.
  • On January 8th, 1815,
  • a monumental American victory
  • was achieved here-- The battle of New Orleans.
  • Louisiana had been a state
  • for less than three years,
  • but outnumbered Americans innovated,
  • outnumbered Americans used the tactics of the frontier,
  • to defeat a veteran British force
  • trained in the strategy of the Napoleonic wars.
  • We, as a nation, had suffered humiliation
  • and a measure of defeat in the War of 1812.
  • Our national capital in Washington had been
  • captured and burned.
  • So the illustrious victory
  • in the Battle of New Orleans was a powerful restorative
  • to our national pride.
  • Yet, the victory at New Orleans
  • actually took place two weeks
  • after the signing of the Armistice in Europe.
  • Thousands died although a peace had been negotiated.
  • The combatants had not gotten the word,
  • yet the epic struggle
  • nevertheless restored America's pride.
  • Today,
  • America can regain the sense of pride
  • that existed before Vietnam,
  • but it cannot be achieved
  • by refighting a war that is finished
  • as far as America is concerned.
  • [audience applause]
  • As I see it, the time has come
  • to look forward to an agenda for the future, to unify,
  • to bind up the nations wounds, and to restore its health
  • and its optimistic self-confidence.
  • In New Orleans,
  • a great battle was fought after a war was over.
  • In New Orleans tonight,
  • we can begin a great national reconciliation.
  • The first engagement must be with the problems of today,
  • but just as importantly,
  • the problems of the future.
  • That is why I think it is so appropriate
  • that I find myself tonight at a university
  • which addresses itself to preparing young people
  • for the challenge of tomorrow.
  • I ask
  • that we stop
  • refighting the battles and the recriminations of the past.
  • I ask that we look now
  • at what is right with America,
  • at our possibilities and our potentialities
  • for change and growth, and achievement and sharing.
  • I ask that we accept
  • the responsibility of leadership
  • as a good neighbor to all peoples and an enemy of none.
  • I ask that we strive to become,
  • in the finest American tradition,
  • something more tomorrow
  • than we are today.
  • [audience applause]
  • Instead of my addressing the image of America,
  • I prefer to consider the reality of America.
  • It is true that we have launched our Bicentennial celebration
  • without having achieved human perfection,
  • but we have attained
  • a very remarkable, self-governed society
  • that possesses the flexibility and the dynamism
  • to grow and undertake
  • an entirely new agenda,
  • an agenda for America's third century.
  • So, I ask you to join me in helping to write that agenda.
  • I am as determined
  • as a president can be to seek
  • national rediscovery of the belief in ourselves
  • that characterized the most creative periods
  • in our nation's history.
  • The greatest challenge of creativity,
  • as I see it, lies ahead.
  • We, of course,
  • are saddened indeed by the events in Indochina,
  • but these events,
  • tragic as they are,
  • portend neither the end of the world,
  • nor of America's leadership in the world.
  • How so?
  • [audience applause]
  • Let me put it this way, if I might.
  • Some tend to feel
  • that if we do not succeed in everything everywhere,
  • then we have succeeded in nothing anywhere.
  • I reject categorically such polarized thinking.
  • We can, and we should help others to help themselves,
  • but the fate
  • of responsible men and women everywhere in the final decision
  • rests in their own hands, not in ours.
  • [audience applause]
  • America's future depends upon Americans,
  • especially your generation,
  • which is now equipping itself to assume the challenges
  • of the future, to help write the agenda for America.
  • Earlier today, in this great community,
  • I spoke about the need to maintain our defenses.
  • Tonight,
  • I would like to talk about another kind of strength,
  • the true source of American power that transcends
  • all of the deterrent powers for peace of our armed forces.
  • I am speaking here
  • of our belief in ourselves
  • and our belief in our nation.
  • Abraham Lincoln asked,
  • in his own words, and I quote,
  • “What constitutes the bulwark
  • of our own liberty and independence?”
  • And he answered,
  • “It is not our frowning battlements,
  • “or bristling seacoasts, our Army, or our Navy.
  • “Our defense is in the spirit
  • “which has prized liberty as the heritage of all men,
  • in all lands everywhere.”
  • It is in this spirit
  • that we must now move beyond the discords of the past decade.
  • It is in this spirit that I ask you to join me
  • in writing an agenda for the future.
  • I welcome your invitation,
  • particularly tonight, because I know it is at Tulane
  • and other centers of thought throughout our great country
  • that much consideration is being given
  • to the kind of future Americans want,
  • and just as importantly, will work for.
  • Each of you are preparing yourselves for the future,
  • and I am deeply interested in your preparations
  • and your opinions and your goals.
  • However, tonight, with your indulgence,
  • let me share with you my own views.
  • I envision
  • a creative program that goes as far as our courage
  • and our capacities can take us, both at home and abroad.
  • My goal is for a cooperative world at peace,
  • using its resources to build,
  • not to destroy.
  • [audience applause]
  • As President, I am determined to offer leadership
  • to overcome our current economic problems.
  • My goal is for jobs for all who want to work,
  • and economic opportunity for all who want to achieve.
  • I am determined to seek self-sufficiency
  • in energy as an urgent national priority.
  • My goal is to make America independent
  • of foreign energy sources by 1985.
  • [audience applause]
  • Of course, I will pursue interdependence
  • with other nations
  • and a reformed international economic system.
  • My goal is for a world
  • in which consuming and producing
  • nations achieve a working balance.
  • I will address the humanitarian issues of hunger
  • and famine, of health and of healing.
  • My goal is to achieve or to assure basic needs
  • and an effective system to achieve this result.
  • I recognize the need for technology that enriches life
  • while preserving our natural environment.
  • My goal is to stimulate productivity,
  • but use technology to redeem,
  • not to destroy our environment.
  • [audience applause]
  • I will strive
  • for new cooperation rather than conflict
  • in the peaceful exploration of our oceans
  • and our space.
  • My goal
  • is to use resources for peaceful progress,
  • rather than war and destruction.
  • [audience applause]
  • Let America symbolize humanity's
  • struggle to conquer nature and master technology.
  • The time has now come
  • for our government to facilitate the individual's
  • control over his or her future
  • and of the future of America.
  • [audience applause]
  • But the future
  • requires more than Americans
  • congratulating themselves on how much we know
  • and how many products that we can produce.
  • It requires new knowledge to meet new problems.
  • We must not only be motivated to build a better America,
  • we must know how to do it.
  • If we really want a humane America that will, for instance,
  • contribute to the alleviation of world's hunger,
  • we must realize that good intentions
  • do not feed people.
  • Some problems,
  • as anyone who served in the Congress knows, are complex.
  • There are no easy answers.
  • Willpower alone does not grow food.
  • We thought,
  • in a well-intentioned past, that we could export
  • our technology lock, stock, and barrel
  • to developing nations.
  • We did it with the best of intentions,
  • but we are now learning
  • that a strain of rice that grows in one place
  • will not grow in another;
  • that factories that produce at 100% in one nation produce
  • less than half as much in a society
  • where temperament and work habits
  • are somewhat different.
  • Yet, the world economy has become interdependent.
  • Not only food technology, but money management,
  • natural resources and energy, research and development.
  • All kinds of this group require
  • an organized world society
  • that makes the maximum effective use of the world's resources.
  • I want to tell the world:
  • let's grow food together,
  • but let's also learn more
  • about nutrition, about weather forecasting, about irrigation,
  • about the many other specialties involved in helping people
  • to help themselves.
  • [audience applause]
  • We must learn more about people,
  • about the development of communities, architecture,
  • engineering, education, motivation, productivity,
  • public health and medicine, arts and sciences, political, legal,
  • and social organization.
  • All of these specialties and many, many more are required
  • if young people like you
  • are to help this nation develop an agenda
  • for our future, your future, our country's future.
  • I challenge, for example, the medical students
  • in this audience to put on their agenda
  • the achievement of a cure for cancer.
  • I challenge the engineers in this audience
  • to devise new techniques for developing cheap,
  • clean, and plentiful energy
  • and as a byproduct, to control floods.
  • I challenge the law students in this audience to find ways
  • to speed the administration of equal justice
  • and make good citizens out of convicted criminals.
  • I challenge education,
  • those of you as education majors,
  • to do real teaching
  • for real life.
  • I challenge the art majors in this audience
  • to compose the great American symphony,
  • to write the great American novel,
  • and to enrich and inspire our daily lives.
  • America's leadership is essential.
  • America's resources are vast.
  • America's opportunities are unprecedented.
  • As we strive together to perfect a new agenda,
  • I put high on the list of important points
  • the maintenance of alliances and partnerships
  • with other people and other nations.
  • These do provide a basis of shared values, even...
  • as we stand up with determination for what
  • we believe.
  • This, of course, requires a continuing
  • commitment to peace and a determination
  • to use our good offices wherever possible
  • to promote better relations between
  • nations of this world.
  • The new agenda,
  • that which is developed by you and by us,
  • must place a high priority
  • on the need to stop the spread of nuclear weapons
  • and to work for the mutual reduction
  • in strategic arms and control of other weapons.
  • And I must say parenthetically,
  • the successful negotiations at Vladivostok,
  • in my opinion, are just a beginning.
  • Your generation of Americans is uniquely endowed
  • by history to give new meaning
  • to the pride and spirit of America.
  • The magnetism
  • of an American society, confident of its own strength,
  • will attract the good will and the esteem of all people,
  • wherever they might be in this globe in which we live.
  • And it will enhance our own perception of ourselves
  • and our pride in being an American.
  • We can. We can, and I say
  • with emphasis, write a new agenda
  • for our future.
  • I am glad that Tulane University and other great American
  • educational institutions are reaching out
  • to others in programs
  • to work with developing nations,
  • and I look forward, with confidence,
  • to your participation in every aspect
  • of America's future,
  • and I urge
  • Americans of all ages
  • to unite in this Bicentennial year,
  • to take responsibilities for themselves,
  • as our ancestors did.
  • Let us resolve tonight to rediscover
  • the old virtues of confidence and self-reliance and capability
  • that characterized our forefathers two centuries ago.
  • I pledge, as I know you do,
  • each one of us, to do our part.
  • Let the beacon light of the past shine forth from historic
  • New Orleans, and from Tulane University,
  • and from every other corner of this land
  • to illuminate a boundless future
  • for all Americans and a peace for all mankind.
  • Thank you very much.
  • [audience applause]
  • - [Herbert] Mr. President.
  • [audience applause]
  • President Ford, I know that
  • reaction from this great audience tonight
  • bespeaks the warmth in which you've been received here,
  • and the appreciation that all of us have
  • for making this a third
  • address that you've given in New Orleans today.
  • We are most appreciative of your visit.
  • [audience applause]
  • [Herbert] Ladies and gentlemen,
  • the president has had a long day in New Orleans.
  • His plane is going to leave very shortly to
  • take him back to Washington.
  • There are some members
  • of the platform party who will be going with him
  • and I'll ask them to join us as we now leave this platform.
  • And well, I'll ask you, please, to remain seated
  • until the president's party has left the area completely.
  • I call upon Dean Gordon, Dean of the College of Arts
  • and Sciences, to give you a signal
  • when it will be appropriate [audience laughs]
  • for you to leave this hall.
  • Thank you all for coming.
  • [audience applause]
  • - [Broadcast Commentator] President Ford
  • and some of the Louisiana
  • congressional delegation, now leaving the gymnasium at
  • Tulane University after addressing 9000 students.
  • [audience applause]
  • Mr. Ford talked about an agenda for the future,
  • an agenda to unify, to bind up the nation's wounds,
  • and to restore it to health
  • and optimistic self-confidence,
  • but perhaps the most frenzied applause came
  • when the president said that cannot be achieved by refighting
  • a war that is finished as far as America is concerned.