JOHNSON OFF TO GUAM

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31323, 20 March 1967, Page 13

JOHNSON OFF TO GUAM

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) WASHINGTON, March 19. President Johnson flew to Guam last night to hold a strategy conference on the Vietnam war.

Before leaving, he described the United States involvement in the South-east Asia fighting as “a painful course that we pursue to keep hope alive in that land where our commitment is tested.” “But pursue it we must,” he said. He made the brief remarks about the war in a toast given at a formal dinner for United States state governors after a day-long conference with them' on Federal-State relations. Mr Johnson’s Presidential jet airliner took off from nearby Dulles International Airport, Virginia, for the 18-hour, 8000-mile flight to Guam. The President was accompanied by the Secretary of State, Mr Dean Rusk, the Secretary of Defence, Mr Robert McNamara, and other officials.

The retiring American Ambassador to South Vietnam, Mr Henry Cabot Lodge, said before leaving South Vietnam for the conference that it would be an opportunity for stocktaking of all United States programmes in Vietnam. He was accompanied by General William Westmoreland, the commander of the United States forces in Vietnam. Mr Lodge’s successor, Mr Ellsworth Blinker, has already arrived in Guam. “We have reached the stage now where the important thing is not so much adding new programmes but perfecting the ones we have,” Mr Lodge said. The United States and South Vietnam, he said, were faced with a war of overt aggression, a clandestine war, and a political and economic war. “All these subjects will be discussed in Guam,” Mr Lodge said.