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Mary LaskerMary Lasker
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Mrs. Ives and Stevenson. I think Marietta and Barbara Ward were great friends and admirers of Stevenson, then, as they are now.

Later, in December of '55, Bill Blair and Stevenson came to New York and they dined with me here, and then we all went to the theater, I think to see “Damn Yankee.” I was also trying to interest Bill Blair in medical research and he was really quite resistant and disinterested at that time. Stevenson never understood the critical importance of medical research to the average life of man or to the general well being of the population or to the economic well being, and doesn't now, to this day; he still thinks it's a fixation or a whim of mine, and he laughs, and said, “Poor Johnson,” when I told him that I'd just been to see Johnson about medical research.

Bill Blair became very sympathetic as time went on.

Q:

What led him to. . .

Lasker:

Well, he did a little work for our Foundation after the '56 campaign, and he went to see some mental hospitals and saw some investigators, and as he actually took time and heard a little more about it, he became more sympathetic.

Q:

In a way, then, exposure to it is the problem.

Lasker:

Yes, yes.

I remember that in the early part of '56 I wanted to





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