FOR I
ШЕИ
I ATE RELEASE
NOVEMBER 26, 1963
OFFICE OF THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY
THE WHITE HOUSE
EXCHANGE OF REMARKS BETWEEN
PRFSIDENT LYNDON B. JOHNSON AND
HON, ALBERTO LLERAS CAMARGO
FORMER PRESIDENT OF COLOMBIA
IN THE FISH ROOM
PRESIDENT JOHNSON: I have asked you to come here
today because this Is, in a very spec i al sense, a family
gathering, for nothing in President Kennedy's public career
meant more to him than the ties which united this country
and yours.
A little less than three years ago, here in the
White House, in this very room, President Kennedy met with
you, the representatives of all the countries of Latin
America. In the first full-scale foreign policy address
of his Administration, he called for an Alliance for Pro¬
gress among the nations of the Americas. Today among you
in this same room I reaffirm that Alliance, and pledge all
the energies of my government to our common goals. I know
from personal experience that the future of this Hemisphere,
the relations between the United States and Latin America,
must be among the highest concerns of my government. It
is to these principles that we have dedicated ourselves.
I reaffirm the pledge, therefore, which President
Kennedy made last week to improve and strengthen the role
of the United States in the Alliance for Progress for Latin
America. We all know that there have been problems within
the Alliance for Progress, but the accomplishments of the
past three years have proven the soundness of the principles.
The accomplishments of the years to come will vindicate our
faith in the capacity of free men to meet the new challenges
sf our new day. So it was in the spirit of the principles
that we have worked out together that President Kennedy
launched the Alliance for Progress in this room, and in¬
spired by his memory, and in that same spirit, we will
carry cn the job, Let the Alliance be his living memorial.
MR. LLERAS CAMARGO: I am Alberto Lleras Camargo,
from Colombia. I came here Saturday in the delegation to
the funeral of President Kennedy from my country. On behalf
of the delegations that were meeting with the President of
the United States, I answered to the President on his very
memorable speech. I said that it was very difficult to speak
on behalf of so many important countries cf the world; that
it is a task that no one can achieve, but that I understood
very well and I can interpret very well the sentiments of
all of Latin America and of our
со
ntries in general, of
our governments, saying to the President that we appreciated
very much that one of his first communications with the
public opinion of this country and of the world over was
dedicated in the same manner in which President Kennedy
indicated his at the beginning of his Administration, to
that part of the world, Latin America, that has started with
the late President a great movement in its development.
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