US Presidency
1967

About 70 percent of all the citizens who might have voted in South Vietnam registered in the election, and 60 percent of them voted. The 20 percent or so of the population now under Vietcong control must live under a one man one vote constitutional system if there is to be peace. President Thieu has said that the South Vietnamese Government is not prepared to recognize the NLF as a government, and it knows well that NLF's control is by Hanoi. And so do we. But he also has said that he is prepared for informal talks with members of the NLF, and that these could bring good results. I think that is a statesmanlike position. And I hope the other side will respond. That is why or statement in early December said we believe that the South Vietnamese must work out their own future, acting through electoral processes of the kind carried forward in the last 2 years. The political future of South Vietnam, Mr. Scherer, must be worked out in South Vietnam by the people of South Vietnam.