July 2, 1966

AFTER THE STUDY has been completed, my advisers and I will weigh its recommendations very carefully in light of our military requirements and the impact on our young people and their families. We will then offer to the American people that course of action which we believe to be best designed to protect the Nation's freedom with the least and most equitable burden on our society.

NOTE: The President's statement accompanied the issuance of Executive Order 11289 "National Advisory Commission on Selective Service," dated July 2, 1966 (2 Weekly Comp. Pres. Docs., p. 894; 31 F.R. 9265; 3 CFR, 1966 Comp., p. 131).

The order directed the Commission to "consider the past, present and prospective functioning of selective service and other systems of national service" in the light of such factors as (1) fairness to all citizens, (2) military manpower requirements, (3) the objective of minimizing uncertainty and interference with individual careers and education, (4) social, economic, and employment conditions and goals, and (5) budgetary and administrative considerations.

The Commission was also directed to make recommendations on such matters as (1) methods of classification and selection of registrants, (2) qualifications for military service, (3) grounds for deferment and for exemption, (4) procedures for appeal and protection of individual rights, and (5) organization and administration of the selective service system at the national, State and local levels.

The Executive order authorized the Commission to evaluate other proposals related to selective service "including proposals for national service." The Commission's final report was to be submitted on or about January 1, 1967. The report is entitled "In Pursuit of Equity: Who Serves When Not All

Serve" (Government Printing Office, 1967, 219 pp.).

The President's statement was read by Bill D. Moyers, Special Assistant to the President, at his news conference at 10 a.m. on Saturday, July 2, 1966, at San Antonio, Texas. It was not made public in the form of a White House press release.

On the same day, the White House made public the names of the following members of the Commission: Burke Marshall, vice president and general counsel, IBM, Armonk, N.Y., Chairman; Kingman Brewster, Jr., president, Yale University; Thomas S. Gates, Jr., chairman of the board and chief executive officer, Morgan Guaranty Trust Co., New York, N.Y.; Mrs. Oveta Culp Hobby, president and editor, Houston Post; Mrs. Anna Rosenberg Hoffman, public and industrial relations consultant, New York, N.Y.; Paul J. Jennings, president, International Union of Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers, AFLCIO, New York, N.Y.; John A. McCone, investment banker and corporate director, San Marino, Calif.; James Henry McCrocklin, president, Southwest Texas State College, San Marcos, Texas; Rev. John Courtney Murray, Jesuit priest, professor and author, Woodstock, Md.; Jeanne L. Noble, associate professor, Center for Human Relations Studies, New York University; George E. Reedy, Jr., vice president, Struthers-Wells Co., New York, N.Y.; David Monroe Shoup, director, U.S. Life Insurance Co., Arlington, Va.; Fiorinda R. Simeone, professor of surgery, Western Reserve University, Ohio; James A. Suffridge, international president, Retail Clerks International Association, Washington, D.C.; Frank Stanley Szymanski, judge of the probate court in Detroit, Mich.; Luther L. Terry, vice president, University of Pennsylvania; Warren G. Woodward, vice president of American Airlines, Los Angeles, Calif.; Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., project director, Voter Education Project, Southern Regional Council, Inc., Atlanta, Ga.; Daniel M. Luevano, director, Western Region, Office of Economic Opportunity, Los Angeles, Calif.; and John H. Johnson, president, Johnson Publishing Co., Chicago, Ill. (Ebony, Hue, Jet), and trustee, Tuskegee Institute.

THE MEASURE I sign today, S. 1160, revises section 3 of the Administrative Procedure Act to provide guidelines for the public availability of the records of Federal departments and agencies.

This legislation springs from one of our most essential principles: A democracy works best when the people have all the information that the security of the Nation permits. No one should be able to pull curtains of secrecy around decisions which can be revealed without injury to the public interest.

At the same time, the welfare of the Nation or the rights of individuals may require that some documents not be made available. As long as threats to peace exist, for example, there must be military secrets. A citizen must be able in confidence to complain to his Government and to provide information, just as he is—and should be-free to confide in the press without fear of reprisal or of being required to reveal or discuss his

sources.

Fairness to individuals also requires that information accumulated in personnel files be protected from disclosure. Officials within Government must be able to communicate with one another fully and frankly without publicity. They cannot operate effectively if required to disclose information. prematurely or to make public investigative files and internal instructions that guide them in arriving at their decisions.

I know that the sponsors of this bill recog

nize these important interests and intend to provide for both the need of the public for access to information and the need of Government to protect certain categories of information. Both are vital to the welfare of our people. Moreover, this bill in no way impairs the President's power under our Constitution to provide for confidentiality when the national interest so requires. There are some who have expressed concern that the language of this bill will be construed in such a way as to impair Government operations. I do not share this

concern.

I have always believed that freedom of information is so vital that only the national security, not the desire of public officials or private citizens, should determine when it must be restricted.

I am hopeful that the needs I have mentioned can be served by a constructive approach to the wording and spirit and legislative history of this measure. I am instructing every official in this administration to cooperate to this end and to make information available to the full extent consistent with individual privacy and with the national interest.

I signed this measure with a deep sense of pride that the United States is an open society in which the people's right to know is cherished and guarded.

NOTE: As enacted, S. 1160 is Public Law 89-487 (80 Stat. 250).

The statement was released at San Antonio, Texas.

Development. July 4, 1966

HEALTH SURVEYS indicate that many children in our Nation have serious physical handicaps. Over 400,000 children have epilepsy, over 500,000 have a hearing loss, nearly 3 million have speech defects, and 10 million have eye conditions requiring specialist care.

Other children will join the ranks of the I million school dropouts each year or become juvenile delinquents. Many other children have special health, education, and welfare needs.

There are more than 50 different programs in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare which relate to the needs and problems of handicapped youth.

In order to better develop more comprehensive health and education programs for

children, I have directed the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare to establish a special task force on handicapped children and child development. This group will review all existing programs and recommend to the Secretary, for my consideration, legislation for the next Congress.

There has been very little attempt to detect and correct problems that might cause children to fail in later life. If the resources of the school and the community can be brought to bear on these problems before they become damaging, the child and the Nation will be greatly benefited. We must expand our national resources to help the handicapped and to prevent "failures" among our children.

NOTE: The statement was released at San Antonio, Texas.

FIFTY YEARS AGO a landmark piece of social legislation was enacted: the Federal Employees Compensation Act of 1916. Today I am happy to sign the Federal Employees Compensation Act Amendments of 1966, which modernize and strengthen this historic measure.

These amendments, the most significant improvement in the law in nearly 20 years, will provide expanded benefits for Federal employees who are disabled in the line of duty.

This law represents important progress in our national effort to provide working Americans and their families better protection against the economic hardship which

accompanies work injuries and fatalities.

I am proud that the Federal Government is taking this forward step on behalf of its own employees, but the great majority of the Nation's workers are not covered by this law. They are covered instead by 50 State workmen's compensation laws. Many of these were modeled upon the original Federal Employees Compensation Act-but they have fallen behind.

As I sign this act, I strongly urge each State, in the light of these new Federal amendments, to examine its workmen's compensation law and act to assure that workers disabled by work injuries are properly compensated for the loss of their

earnings.

We want not only the best system to compensate our Federal employees injured on duty-we want an adequate system for all

American workers.

NOTE: As enacted, the Federal Employees Compensation Act Amendments of 1966 is Public Law 89488 (80 Stat. 252).

The statement was released at San Antonio, Texas.

Dear Mr. Secretary:

I am pleased today to be able to announce that your Department is awarding contracts for the operation of educational laboratories, a major new kind of institution to demonstrate and bring to the Nation's schools the best that we know in education. I am grateful to you for your efforts to implement this program inasmuch as these laboratories were a key element of the Administration's education proposals to the Congress last year.

I hope you will continue to press forward with the development of these laboratories to assist in improving our school systems. We simply cannot allow the school children of this country to find their education frustrating, unrelated to life, or inadequate to their needs in our increasingly complex world.

The laboratories should be large and significant enterprises, equal in size and scope to the major tasks they seek to accomplish. They ought to be conceived as comparable in their way to the large-scale laboratories of the Defense or Atomic Energy establishments. Nothing less will do. Their missions are equally important.

I share with you the great hopes for these laboratories. But it is a crucial question how they are to be transformed from a grand concept to a vital, practical force for change in the educational system. It is important, in this regard, that we continue to seek the advice of experts, both within and outside

the Government, on the goals, priorities and accomplishments of these enterprises. I look to these laboratories:

-To stress putting into practice what we already know. The increase of knowledge through research must proceed at a rapid pace. But we have an even greater obligation to overcome the lag between discovery and use, and to convert the results of years of research into application in the classroom. This process will be speeded by establishment of extensive experimental schools and pilot projects showing educational innovation in real situations that can be seen and understood by administrators, teachers, and school boards.

-To deal with the highest priority common problems of education with which every community struggles and in doing so to contribute to a general elevation of the quality of education everywhere. Each laboratory, with unique talents, resources, and focal points, should, therefore, be broadly concerned with education in the whole Nation.

-To involve outstanding scholars, experts, and artists in the development of new educational programs so as to assure that better methods of instruction

are accompanied by improved content. -To be a part of community life, drawing

out public support and involvement in

innovation in education and calling on the resources of the community and industry for planning and operation. -To build links with other Federal programs so that every approach to educational improvement is explored and enhanced. Thus the laboratories should be related to the supplementary centers provided for in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, to the teacher training programs of the Office of Education and the National Science

Foundation, to appropriate activities of the Office of Economic Opportunity and the National Institutes of Health. I congratulate you and those who helped you develop the concept of these laboratories and request that you give continuing attention to their effective development. Sincerely,

LYNDON B. JOHNSON

[Honorable John W. Gardner, Secretary of Health,
Education, and Welfare, Washington, D.C.]
NOTE: The text of the letter was released at San
Antonio, Texas.

July 5, 1966

THE PRESIDENT. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen:

REPORT ON ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL PROGRESS IN VIETNAM

[1.] Governor John Reed of Maine, who is Chairman of the National Governors' Conference, has requested that I send a team of U.S. officials to brief the Governors on current developments in Vietnam. He sent me a wire last evening to which I have already responded.

I am asking Ambassador Averell Harriman, Gen. Andy Goodpaster of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Mr. Walt Rostow of the White House to go to Los Angeles for that purpose. They will stop here Wednesday for an overnight stay before going to Los Angeles.

I also asked General Goodpaster to talk to President Eisenhower and to give him a full report on current developments in Vietnam. He has just informed me that he has done that this afternoon.

I am asking this team to report in detail

to the Governors on the progress that is being made to achieve a better life among the South Vietnamese people. I consider this "other war" as crucial to the future of South Vietnam and Southeast Asia as the military struggle.

Already American assistance has added some 600,000 acres of irrigated land to the agriculture of South Vietnam. It has vastly increased crop yields in that country.

Under new land reform measures, a half million acres of land are being sold now to small farmers on easy terms. Another 700,000 acres of State-owned land will soon be distributed, I am told, to landless refugees from areas that have been controlled by the Vietcong.

Fish production has been more than doubled in the past 5 years.

Almost 13,000 village health stations have been established and stocked with medicine from the United States.

We are helping to build a medical school which will graduate as many doctors every year as now serve the entire civilian population of that area of 14 million people.