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Mary LaskerMary Lasker
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facilities and out-patient clinics. In other words, a whole new vast program has been promulgated by Kennedy as a result. Now, it is partly related to his interest in mental retardation, but they've extended it to the whole field of mental illness. So that this survey which cost one million 250 thousand dollars and which, in addition, money was raised from voluntary agencies and indeed from the Lasker Foundation, in order to do it, which I thought was an unconscionable amount of money to do any survey with. It sounded, to me, absolutely ridiculous to spend that much money to just collate a lot of facts, because they didn't do any original work that I know of; you know, they really just made inquiries everywhere and collated the information. It was enormously expensive, but it is the foundation for this new effort, and in the budget this year President Kennedy has asked for an enormous amount of additional funds: 45 million dollars for the budget of the National Mental Health Institute, which is the biggest increase that any President has ever put on that.

Q:

How much did the Lasker Foundation put into this survey?

Lasker:

Only $5,000, but I thought it was ludicrous that we had to put in anything at all.

Q:

Mrs. Lasker, the Hill-Burton bill for construction, were you instrumental in the early stages of that bill? I mean, did





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