Our South Vietnamese allies are also being tested tonight.  Because they must provide real security to the people living in the countryside.  And this means reducing the terrorism and the armed attacks which kidnaped and killed 26,900 civilians in the last 32 months, to levels where they can be successfully controlled by the regular South Vietnamese security forces.  It means bringing to the villagers an effective civilian government that they can respect, and that they can rely upon and that they can participate in, and that they can have a personal stake in.  We hope that government is now beginning to emerge.

While I cannot report the desired progress in the pacification effort, the very distinguished and able Ambassador, Henry Cabot Lodge, reports that South Vietnam is turning to this task with a new sense of urgency.  We can help, but only they can win this part of the war.  Their task is to build and protect a new life in each rural province.

One result of our stand in Vietnam is already clear.

It is this:  The peoples of Asia now know that the door to independence is not going to be slammed shut.  They know that it is possible for them to choose their own national destinies—­without coercion.

The performance of our men in Vietnam—­backed by the American people—­has created a feeling of confidence and unity among the independent nations of Asia and the Pacific.  I saw it in their faces in the 19 days that I spent in their homes and in their countries.  Fear of external Communist conquest in many Asian nations is already subsiding—­and with this, the spirit of hope is rising.  For the first time in history, a common outlook and common institutions are already emerging.

This forward movement is rooted in the ambitions and the interests of Asian nations themselves.  It was precisely this movement that we hoped to accelerate when I spoke at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore in April 1965, and I pledged “a much more massive effort to improve the life of man” in that part of the world, in the hope that we could take some of the funds that we were spending on bullets and bombs and spend it on schools and production.

Twenty months later our efforts have produced a new reality:  The doors of the billion dollar Asian Development Bank that I recommended to the Congress, and you endorsed almost unanimously, I am proud to tell you are already open.  Asians are engaged tonight in regional efforts in a dozen new directions.  Their hopes are high.  Their faith is strong.  Their confidence is deep.

And even as the war continues, we shall play our part in carrying forward this constructive historic development.  As recommended by the Eugene Black mission, and if other nations will join us, I will seek a special authorization from the Congress of $200 million for East Asian regional programs.

We are eager to turn our resources to peace.  Our efforts in behalf of humanity I think need not be restricted by any parallel or by any boundary line.  The moment that peace comes, as I pledged in Baltimore, I will ask the Congress for funds to join in an international program of reconstruction and development for all the people of Vietnam—­and their deserving neighbors who wish our help.