As Thomas Jefferson said: "The flames kindled on the 4th of July 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume those engines, and all who work them."

The commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the American Revolution is, therefore, of interest and concern, not only to Americans, but to men everywhere.

Last March I requested that the Congress adopt a resolution establishing an American Revolution Bicentennial Commission to begin at once planning the observance of the 200th anniversary of our national independence. The Congress has now enthusiastically honored that request.

In my request to the Congress last March, I said some things that are especially pertinent today:

"Ours was a true revolution of liberty. It was not a revolution of tyranny. It was not a revolution of aggression. It was a revolution for the greatest cause in the affairs of man-freedom and human dignity.

"The impact of the American Revolution on the rest of the world was electric. This small, struggling Nation became the rallying point for friends of freedom throughout Western civilization.

"To these shores came great men like Lafayette, Von Steuben, Kosciuszko, and Pulaski. It was Pulaski himself who said, 'Wherever on the globe men are fighting for

liberty, it is as if it were our own affair.'

"Those words have special significance for our own generation. Today, the Vietnamese people are fighting for their freedom in South Vietnam. We are carrying forward our great heritage by helping to sustain their efforts."

With this bill we are setting in motion much more than a celebration. The American Revolution Bicentennial Commission will:

-Recall to Americans and to the world the majestic significance of the Revolution; -Provide a creative and helping hand to State, local, and private groups in their commemorations;

-Plan for celebrations at the national level;

-Increase our knowledge and appreciation of the American Revolution in our schools, universities, and general public thinking.

The American Revolution Bicentennial Commission will be composed of Members of Congress and the executive branch and of distinguished private citizens to be appointed by the President. They will give assurance that the American Revolution and the ideas for which it stands will be commemorated with all the dignity and spirit which the occasion deserves.

NOTE: As enacted, the joint resolution establishing the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission (S.J. Res. 162), approved July 4, 1966, is Public Law 89-491 (80 Stat. 259).

The statement was released at San Antonio, Texas.

Ceremony. July 12, 1966

Secretary Vance, Secretaries of the Services, members of the Joint Chiefs, and ladies and gentlemen of the Department of Defense: I am delighted to accept once again your

invitation to come across the river today to attend this ceremony. And once again, as your President, I am both impressed and proud of what all of you have accomplished

in the cost reduction program. In government, as elsewhere, it is much easier to spend money than it is to save it. But it is even harder to spend less and to get more results.

That is exactly what you in the Department of Defense have accomplished. In doing so, you have been in the frontlines of a battle which I began at the start of this administration.

I then pledged that we would wage a relentless war on waste and inefficiency throughout the entire Federal Government. I made that pledge because I have never believed that government, by nature, is inefficient. I believe that the kind of democratic Federal system that we have in this country should be and can be the most efficient of all.

What makes any government efficient is the assumption of personal responsibility by the people who serve it. People accept that responsibility when they have both freedom and incentive to do so. And it is precisely in our form of government that they have maximum freedom and maximum incentive.

The people of America are citizens of the greatest democratic republic in the history. of the world. Therefore, they are entitled to the best and the most efficient government that competent, dedicated people can give them:

-A government that is flexible and imaginative and restlessly discontent with its deficiencies.

-A government which insists on believ

ing that a better way can be found to do almost anything.

-A government that respects tradition but

is not afraid to question it. -A government that provides incentive, that promotes initiative, and that always is open, receptive, and welcomes innovations.

That is the kind of creative government our people demand. We mean to have that kind of government in this administration.

Nowhere is more progress toward that goal being made than here in the Department of Defense. I have spent 35 years in this city. I don't think that at any time in those 35 years have I ever seen any department carried on with the good management, with the good judgment, and with the good results that obtain here in the Department of Defense under your present Secretary, Under Secretary, Assistant Secretaries, the Secretaries of the Services, the Joint Chiefs, and every man and woman, boy and girl, in uniform and out.

The record that you have achieved in your part of the Government's cost reduction program, in my judgment, is without equal. Every department of this Government today is attempting to imitate and to emulate what you have done. It is a record that you and your family can be very proud of.

If I would leave no other thought with you this morning than this one, I would say that every person within the sound of my voice, and every employee of the Defense Department, in uniform and out, civilian or military, can take great pride in saying, “I was a part of the Department of Defense in the 1960's." That is a record that you can point to with pride, and that your children and grandchildren will take great pride in.

Secretary McNamara reported to me at the ranch earlier last week that through your determined efficiency, the ideas and the recommendations and the work of every person in this Department, you have obtained savings of $42 billion that are actually realized in the fiscal year 1966. Without those ideas and without those recommendations, this Government might well have spent that extra $42 billion.

This is not only $400 million more than your goal, than had been expected, but it occurred at the very same time that you were building up a military force of some 350,000 in Southeast Asia, 10,000 miles away from here, and providing them with all the massive support and materiel that they have required.

You have achieved this magnificent record despite the fact, Secretary McNamara informs me, that some 40 percent of the cost savings originally claimed every year are rejected for one reason or another and are not included in the final figures.

I

So we are being conservative when we say that this new, streamlined Defense Department has saved the taxpayers some $11 billion since I became President, and $14 billion since Secretary McNamara took over this Department some 5 years ago.

That should be a source of the greatest pride to every man and woman, in or out of uniform, who has helped to make this possible.

But even that is not the full measure of your achievement. Most significant of all is that with your help we are accomplishing our great task in Southeast Asia.

Up to now, we have been able to do it without imposing wartime controls on our economy, on our wages, on our prices, or on our nonmilitary production.

Up to now we have done it without calling up the Reserve forces. Yet we must remember that in order to put a smaller force in combat during the first year of the Korean war, it was necessary to mobilize more than 600,000 men from our Reserve units. We must also remember, as of now, that we have done all of these things without imposing wartime tax burdens.

During some of this period we have even effected, earlier in the period, substantial tax reductions. At the same time, we have held

defense expenditures in fiscal 1966, this year just ended July 1st, as a percentage of the gross national product at a lower level than during 15 out of the past 16 years.

I hope that I am reasonably accurate when I tell you that the budget deficit that we predicted in January of this year-that we are hopeful when we get the final figures the middle of the month, that our deficit will be less than half of what we thought it would be.

That comes about as a result of tenacious, dogged, determined, intelligent thinking upon the part of every person in all the departments.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, I think this is an achievement of superb proportions. It is very unusual for any President or for any administration to ever be able to have less deficit than they predicted they would have. Yet, because of your cost consciousness and because of your rigid determination to eliminate waste, each of our deficits for the past 3 years has been less than we told the Congress they would be when we sent our message to the Congress.

I attribute that result largely to the examples set by the Department of Defense of the United States of America. I thank each of you for it.

It is very hard for us, as individuals who are grappling with our own personal family finances, to really realize how significant a sum of money $42 billion of cost reduction savings actually are. But I would like to give you just two or three illustrations.

Of the some 120 nations in the world today, there are 95 countries whose individual gross national product is less than the $42 billion you saved. Their whole production, their whole gross national product, in 95 countries is less than the amount you have saved this year in the Pentagon.

There are 22 countries, on one continent

alone, whose combined gross national product, all of their earnings of all 22 countries of one whole continent, is less than the amount that you are being recognized for having saved this year in the Department of Defense.

I have pledged as your Commander in Chief-that there is not a single dollar and not a single item of equipment which our fighting forces require that they will not

receive.

We are not gambling with the security of this Nation just because we have a cost reduction program-not gambling, but strengthening the security, in my judgment.

And I am determined, as your President, to bring the administrative practices of the entire Federal Government to the same hard, lean, and alert effectiveness that we expect and that we have received from our Armed Forces.

As you know, I think, we have instructed every Cabinet officer to institute a program similar to yours. I have asked them all, and I have asked each individual man and woman in the Federal Government to help us in this fight for better management. No one has responded to that request with more zeal or more effectiveness than your own Secretary, Robert McNamara, and his able Deputy, Cyrus Vance. They not only responded, but they set new standards.

Never in the history of this country or any country has national defense been in more competent and dedicated hands. I am proud to have these men in this administration.

I am proud of General Wheeler. I am proud of his colleagues on the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

I am proud of each of the Service Secretaries and their assistants, and of all of those who have worked to make this record

possible.

I know that you are proud to serve in this critical Department which is managed and administered so well.

So all of you this morning, the Joint Chiefs, Bob McNamara, Cy Vance, the individuals that we have come here to honor, represent to me a new spirit of creative management in the Government and in the country.

You are men and women who have saved your Nation certain costs. But more than that, you are men and women who have made it your personal responsibility to contribute to better management of the Nation's resources. That is what cost reduction really

means.

It is not just saving money. It is creating more resources, resources which can be used to build a better and a more decent, more developed, more just, and more rational world.

Finally, now, we want to honor specific individuals for specific ideas and specific accomplishments. In honoring them, we must constantly bear in mind that they are symbolic. They are symbolic of judgment. They are symbolic of frugality. They are symbolic of a dedicated person who has been flexible enough while always expressing their convictions to be a part of a team that is the envy, I think, of every other department in the Federal Government. Thank

you very much.

NOTE: The President spoke at 11:55 a.m. on the south concourse at the Pentagon. In his opening words he referred to Cyrus R. Vance, Deputy Secretary of Defense.

At the ceremony 17 civilian and uniformed employees of the Defense Department were presented cost reduction awards in recognition of their part in cutting $4.5 billion from the Defense budget during the previous year.