While the road to that peace is long and hard, and full of traps and pitfalls, there is no reason not to take each step that we can safely take.

Tonight, tomorrow, and all the rest of the time, let us work for it.

We must be--however happy we are at home, we must look abroad.

We consider this very valuable in the United States because of historic reasons.

So the more that can be done to expose the American people to the very long and justly celebrated cultural tradition of Japan, the richer we will become.

If we could increase our exports by 10 percent, we would have solved our balance of payments problem.

So I appreciate your coming here, and I think it is appropriate that this trip have a send-off here from the White House and the Capital, because you are going not only on your own business, but on the Nation's business.

We have a good many things in our country that are worth retaining.

I think it is most important that we also look west across the Pacific, which can be a bridge rather than a barrier, and, particularly, that we look to the very vital, vigorous, progressive nation of Japan.

So we are glad to welcome you and to express appreciation to you on behalf of the country for your work in preserving these houses.

This is a matter of the greatest national significance to us.

This is a new stream for us, and therefore it will invigorate our people.

Every dollar we can earn, that you can make, will go to increasing the security of our country.

I am glad to welcome the citizens of Illinois, as well as the businessmen, as well as the financiers.

This is part of the arrangement which was agreed to about 2 years ago with your distinguished Prime Minister, that the United States and Japan would attempt to come to much more intimate understandings in the economic, scientific, and…

So if you can find new markets, if you can persuade others to come to the United States--we lose in our balance of payments every year $1,800 million on tourists alone; if we could get as many people to come here and spend the same money…

I am glad you are going to the South and then to the West.

This is a difficult and dangerous world in which we live.

Nature has been very good to us--to live in peace here and to live in a world of diversity, a world of free, sovereign, and independent countries, all of whom are able to go about developing a more fruitful life for their own people, that…

We are very glad to have you here, Mr. President, so that you can see something of the United States.

You will be welcome all over the country, and I hope that your visit here increases the ties of interest and friendship between our two peoples.

Because of our respect for this accomplishment, our appreciation for the very valiant struggle of your own people for a period of 20 years, and because we like to have people come to the United States--who perhaps have read about us--and…

Mr. President, it is a source of great satisfaction to all of us to welcome you to the United States and to welcome your wife, the Foreign Minister, members of your government.

So, Mr. President, you are welcome here.

You have had an extraordinary career in war and in peace, and while there are differences in viewpoint which separate our governments, nevertheless, this administration and my two predecessors, President Eisenhower and President Truman…