Remarks to Visiting Members of the Mexican Congress.
May 14, 1962


WE WANT to express our welcome to all of you here to the White House, and to tell you how much I appreciate your coming up
here. As a member of the American Congress for 14 years, I feel always sympathy for my brother parliamentarians.
     Mrs. Kennedy and I are looking forward very much to our visit to Mexico at the end of June. When we were married we went there for 2 weeks, to Acapulco. And I hope that before you leave the White House that you will come into the Fish Room and see the 10-foot fish which is my only claim to any distinction as a fisherman, which was caught off the Mexican coast.
     So we want you to know that you're among friends, and we're delighted to have you here.
     I can think of nothing more useful than an exchange such as this, between your delegates and ours, and we hope that our visit down there will be another mark of our great interest in the friendly relations between Mexico and the United States.
     This hemisphere must be a source of strength to ourselves, and also, I hope, inspiration to countries around the world, of how people can live together in amity and friendship over a long period of time.
     So I think that in these relations between Mexico and the United States, which should be constantly worked on and not merely be permitted to be assumed, I think this sets a very good precedent for our relations with countries around the world where they may not be so happy.
     So we're glad to have you here.


NOTE: The President spoke at noon in the Rose Garden at the White House. The Mexican Congressmen were in Washington attending the second annual meeting of the United States-Mexican Parliamentary Group. Senator Manuel Moreno Sánchez, President of the Grand Committee of the Mexican Senate, and José López Bermudez, a member of the Chamber of Deputies, served as co-chairmen of the Mexican delegation. The U.S. delegation was headed by Senator John J. Sparkman of Alabama and Representative J. T. Rutherford of Texas.