Many of you share the burden of this knowledge tonight with me. But there is a difference. For finally I must be the one to order our guns to fire, a… - Lyndon B. Johnson

For tonight, as so many nights before, young Americans struggle and young Americans die in a distant land. Tonight, as so many nights before, the American Nation is asked to sacrifice the blood of its children and the fruits of its labor for the love of its freedom. How many times—in my lifetime and in yours—have the American people gathered, as they do now, to hear their President tell them of conflict and tell them of danger? Each time they have answered. They have answered with all the effort that the security and the freedom of this nation required. And they do again tonight in Vietnam. Not too many years ago Vietnam was a peaceful, if troubled, land. In the North was an independent Communist government. In the South a people struggled to build a nation, with the friendly help of the United States. There were some in South Vietnam who wished to force Communist rule on their own people. But their progress was slight. Their hope of success was dim. Then, little more than six years ago, North Vietnam decided on conquest. And from that day to this, soldiers and supplies have moved from North to South in a swelling stream that is swallowing the remnants of revolution in aggression. As the assault mounted, our choice gradually became clear. We could leave, abandoning South Vietnam to its attackers and to certain conquest, or we could stay and fight beside the people of South Vietnam. We stayed. And we will stay until aggression has stopped.

Our military forces must be so organized and directed that they can be used in a measured, controlled, and deliberate way as a versatile instrument to support our foreign policy. Military and civilian leaders alike are unanimous in their conviction that our armed might is and always must be so controlled as to permit measured response in whatever crises may confront us. We have made dramatic improvements in our ability to communicate with and command our forces, both at the national level and at the level of the theatre commanders. We have established a National Military Command System, with the most advanced electronic and communications equipment, to gather and present the military information necessary for top level management of crises and to assure the continuity of control through all levels of command. Its survival under attack is insured by a system of airborne, shipborne and other command posts, and a variety of alternative protected communications. We have developed and procured the Post Attack Command Control System of the Strategic Air Command, to assure continued control of our strategic forces following a nuclear attack. We have installed new safety procedures and systems designed to guarantee that our nuclear weapons are not used except at the direction of the highest national authority. This year we are requesting funds to extend similar improvements in the survivability and effectiveness of our command and control to other commands in our overseas theatres.

The important thing is to end a conflict that has brought burdens to both our peoples, and above all to the people of South Viet-Nam. If you have any thoughts about the actions I propose , it would be most important that I receive them as soon as possible.