Part: 12         Session: 123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536         Page 409410411412413414415416417418419420421422423424425426427428429430431432433434435436437438 of 1143

some reason or another, the President was convinced that more funds were not needed for medical research and training. I feared this was, however, the McGeorge Bundy-George Packer-Barry influence, as Harvard has tried to raise 58 million for its medical school but they also get 10 million dollars of Federal funds annually for research and are always complaining about them, although no one is forcing them to apply for these funds. They were always sneering at Federal funds but taking 10 million; acting as though they don't need it, but no one is forcing them to take it. In any case, they'd been very difficult and ambivalent and not helping us with the President. No one in medicine seems to understand the total light of the people of the United States and throughout the world, or how much could be done if everyone worked to get more laboratory and clinical answers in cancer, heart diseases, mental illness and a whole series of other causes of death and disability.

As I left the Oval Room with the President, I met Schlesinger, McGeorge Bundy and Ted Sorenson waiting for him as I came out. I saw the marble bust of George Washington I had given to the White House collection on the first floor, by the main door to the Red Room. It is of the Houdon School. It isn't a masterpiece but it's better than the painted bronze head they had there before.

Jackie Kennedy's ideas to improve the White House have been extremely popular and they're only beginning to show, or they were as of the summer of '61.