John Fitzgerald Kennedy

We are opposed to tyranny of any kind.

And I hope in this way to give some slight indication of how grateful I am to all of you for making us feel so much at home.

So I come here today to express our warm feeling of friendship, with great sincerity, to the people of this country.

President Kennedy pledged all possible United States support and assistance to enable Venezuela to implement its development program on schedule, complementing Venezuelan efforts to this end.

I return tonight to the United States, and I do not want to leave without saying to the people of Colombia that my wife and I have received the most heart-warming welcome that we have ever received.

So, Mr. President, I don't think that we will travel any place where our welcome will be more heart-warming, and where we will leave with greater appreciation.

When they see you they see the United States.

I therefore want to express my appreciation to all of you for your generosity in permitting us to be here today in Techo.

I want to express my great appreciation to you and to the people of this country for their generous welcome to my wife and to myself.

I think this visit--I hope--has pleased our friends--confounded our enemies; and I think that it has brought our two countries, whose fate has been so interwoven from our earliest days, closer together.

President Kennedy and President Betancourt joined in expressing their hope that this statement made today in the birth place of Simon Bolivar will be received by the peoples of this continent as a message of faith and optimism.

We believe in freedom--in the United States and in Colombia.

This is what we want for the people of my country--and this is what we want for the people of this hemisphere.

No real progress is possible unless the benefits of increased prosperity are shared by the people themselves.

The people of my country are committed to the progress of your people and this hemisphere.

Liberty and economic progress go hand in hand, provided the people and the government together are committed to progress for the people.

I'm more than happy to come to your country on my first visit as President of the United States, to one of our sister Republics in this hemisphere.

We will be, in the 1960's, more than good neighbors.

The United States and Venezuela are bound together.

Mr. President, Mrs. Kennedy and I are delighted to be your guests and we are proud to be here among your people.

One of the first goals of the new spirit of this hemisphere must be the elimination of tyranny from the north to the south.

And I am also proud to be the first President of the United States to visit this country.

I want to express the thanks of all of us to you--you welcomed our Peace Corps representatives and gave them training which I think has contributed to their success.

And I'm particularly appreciative and glad that I've been welcomed by you, Governor.

We are confident that the Vietnamese people will preserve their independence and gain the peace and prosperity for which they have sought so hard and so long.