In these days of emotional tension when the problems of the world are gigantic in extent and chaotic in detail, there is no greater need than for sober-thinking, healthy debate, creative dissent and enlightened discussion...
I would like to speak to you candidly and forthrightly this afternoon about our present involvement in Vietnam.  I have chosen as a subject, "The Casulaties of the War in Vietnam."  We are all aware of the nighmarish physical casualties.  We see them in our living rooms in all of their tragic dimensions on television screens, and we read about them on our subway and bus rides in daily newspaper accounts.  We see the rice fields  of a small Asian country being trampled at will and burned at whim: we see grief-stricken mothers with crying babies clutched in their arms as they watch their little huts burst forth into flames; we see the fields and valleys of battle being painted with humankind's blood; we see the broken bodies left prostrate in countless fields; we see young men being sent home half-men--physically handicapped and mentally deranged.  Most tragic of all is the casualty list among children.  Some one million Vietnamese children have been casualties of this brutal war.  A war in which children are incinerated by napalm, in which American soldiers die in mounting numbers while other American soldiers, according to press accounts, in unrestrained hatred shoot the wounded enemy as they lie on the ground, is a war that mutilates the conscience.  These casualties are enough to cause all men to rise up with righteous indignation and oppose the very nature of this war...