KDKA-TV Interview, March 22, 1968
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WBZ • WBz.TV BOSTON WINS NEW YORK KYW· KYW·TV PHILADELPH IA WJHV BALTIMORE KDKA- KDKA·TV PIITSBURGH REC lVEO GROUP WOWO FT WAYNE WIND CHICAGO ,,~ KPIX SAN FRANCISCO KDKA-TV 2 .. ,. KFWB LOS ANGELES ONE GATEWAY CENTER PITISBURGH PENNSYLVANIA 15222 391 -3000 WESTINGHOUSE BROADCASTING COMPANY INC March 25.,1968 ..~...:. o;:. ~ SID ENT Mr. Norman Sherman Press Secretary Office of Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey Washington., D. C. Dear Mr. Sherman: Per your conversations with John Reilly, our program manager., I am enclosing six copies -- the full transcript of "Pennsylvania News Conference" --which was aired Sunday., March 24.,1968 at 1:00 p.m. We were most happy to serve as host for Vice President Humphrey for a segment of his stay in Pittsburgh. r~ David H. Baum Public Relations Director cc: John Reilly t ,(p,f'; ~YLVANIA NEWS CONFERENCE 4- -~-~ .. ·it Humphrey ~ There are two great desires of the American people, Peace in the world and peace in our cities and both of these desires require a great deal of sacrifice on our part . You can interpret these to b e national security and national development. The President of the United States i s the number one p e ace officer of this government~ peace at home and peace abroad . His desire is peace with justice. He is the peace candidate at home and in the world. o o o o o o o o o o o o music o o o o o o o o " Burns ~ Our guest on Pennsylvani a News Conference today is the Honorable Hubert H. Humphrey. The reporters here today with me are Marie Torre~ KDKA=TV and Mark Forrest ~ KYW~ TV ~ Philadelphia. We begin the questioning with Mark Forrest. Mr Forrest : Mark Forrest : Mr. Vice President } would you advise the democrats who believe the President of the United States to be the number one peace candidate~ to register their support by writing his . name in presidential pri maries ? Humphrey ~ Well~ wherever there are presidential primaries and wherever there is a slate of delegates pledged to the president, I would hope that there would be active support whether that is by a write-in as it had to be in New Hampshire or whether it was on the basis of the listing of the delegates being under President Johnson's name where you have your voting machines or where you can just mark your 11 X11 • Whatever way you can r e gister your support for President Johnson~ I want to encourage. Page 2 Pennsylvania News Conference Forrest ~ Sir, specifically here in Pennsylvania, the only candidate on the ballot is Sen. Eugene McCarthy. Now if the supporters of President Johnson wanted to register their support here, they'd have to do it on a write-in basis. So far the organization here in Pittsburgh and in Philadelphia and statewide feels that they have not had any definite indication of interest on the part of the Whitehouse for mounting such a write- in drive. Would you now say, Sir, that you would like to see that kind of a write- in drive? Humphrey ~ Well, I understand that the state committee of the democratic party here has endorsed Pre sident Johnson and his candidacy. I am not fully familiar with all the intricate details of each state's primary election laws. As a matter of fact, if there is any one thing that is needed in this country, its uni- formity under primary election laws because every state is a separate drama onto its self with a new list of characters a nd rules and regulations. I don't think that I would be v ery helpful here by indicating to you what ought to be the preference. May I suggest that you consult with your own state election authorities and our own democratic leaders. Torre ~ Mr. Vice President, I heard you say that you liked being Vice President. Humphrey : Yes. Torre ~ Is it possible though that because of the split in the democratic party right now and if President Johnson should decide to run again, that he would seek a new Vice President in the name of political expediency? Page 3 Pennsylvania News Conference Humphrey: Well~ I suppose all things a re possible ~ but I don't expect them to be very probable. The President is not prone to lend himself to that kind of political expediency. I can't pre- diet what the future will be. There is only one thing I can tell you. I will try to d o as good a job as my talents permit me to during my encumbancy as Vice President. I will leave my political fate up to the responsible leaders of the Democratic Party that come to the convention in Chicago in August. I hope that I may be privileged to be the nominee of this party for the office of Vice President. I hope that I can do a good enough job to reassure the President of the United States of my usefulness to him as a Vice President and as a running mate . That's the best that one can do and until then ~ may I say ~ I 1 11 do the level best that I am capable of doing and always be happy that I have had the privilege of serving in this high office ~ whatever the future may hold. So I'm rather confident about the future and let me say ~ very pleased about the past. Torre : It would be nice though to have some inside reaction that is, President Johnson's personal reaction to Kennedy-McCarthy. Humphrey ~ Well~ let me say that I have a pretty good idea of the President's inside reaction as towards Hubert Humphrey~ and I sort of stay on that wave length. Burns : Mr. Vice President , I would like to switch it to the war in Vietnam. Humphrey ~ Yes~ Sir. Page 4 Pennsylvania News Conference Burns ~ As we sit here today~ more than 20 ~ 000 Americans have been killed in Vietnam. Humphrey ~ Yes~ Sir. Burns ~ Our total casualties exceed those of Korea. What do you see as the answer. Now you have stated in Pitt s burgh ~ that the administration is going to take another deep look~ looking for possible ways of peace. As we sit h e re today and your the Vice President, what is the possible answer to Vietnam? Humphrey ~ Well~ let's say a word first about the casualties and particularly the fatalities. The r eal tragic loss of this war are not our material resources. We are a very rich nation. Even though the war has been costly ~ the real tragi c irreplaceable loss is the loss of life. And might I say that no person feels more keenly this loss of life except the loved ones themselves~ the families~ then the President of the United States and even the Vice President. We have to make these decision~ The President makes these decisions of sending men into combat. This is a terrible burden. On the matter of the casualties~ I thing every parent would be interested to know that the medical care this time in this struggle is the best that the world has ever known. Of the casualties, over 50 pe rcent of them are never even hospitalized. They are minor casualties that are treated as an out ~ patient and the men go right back to combat. Less than 5 percent of all of the casualties have •••• well only about 5 percent of them have been severe~ let's put it that way. Most of the men~ over 85 percent, do return to their units. The capacity of our military now to pick a man up that has been .injured in battle and to get Page 5 Pennsylvania News Conference him to a hospital and to p r oper medical care ~nothing short of phenomenal ~ at the most 30 minutes, and therefore lives are being saved by the thousands wh ere they would have been lost for example in the wa r in Korea~ or in World War II. This at least is a little on the bri ght side and should be somewhat consoling to those who read that their son may have been injured. Now the constant question that anyone must as k is how much of a price must we pay or can we afford to pay and I 1 ve said it quite candidly to you that the price in material goods is not the main burden even though that is costly. The price is in lives~ and what is that price bei ng paid for? It's being paid for what we believe is our own nati onal security. We sincerely belie ve, now somebody may be able to contest this belief, but we sincerely believe and when I say we ~ the President and h is advisors and not just in the government but many outside of the gove rn~ent ~ b elieve that the national security of the United States is involved in this struggle. Why ? Because if Southeast Asia were to be over run by communist forces, the delicate balance of power in the world today which does preserve the peace as best as it can~ does preserve the power relationships between the communist world and the free world. That balance would be very seriously altered. We also believe that the lessons of history teach us that aggression unchecked is aggression unleas hed. That aggression that goes unpunished b ecomes a very bad habit and lends itself to more aggression.That the aggressors appetite has no way of being satisfied.