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Well, it was very informally done, but actually both in the Senate and House committees they paid a great deal of attention to calling witnesses that we suggested for hearings. And as they paid attention to the witnesses we suggested, we met with the witnesses or the organizations they represented and suggested what we thought would be reasonable increases for cancer, heart, mental illness, and all the different Institutes of Health.

When you say “we,” you mean you and...

I mean, really me in my office, and we would get the cooperation of various doctors, like Farber, who really agreed with us, and they were willing to go as far as it was politically expedient. Sometimes Farber would suggest a larger amount of money than I would first suggest, but I was happy that he would suggest more. It was actually an informal arrangement between us, and Mike Gorman would make suggestions in the mental health field.

But produce more effective witnesses before these committees.

Oh, yes, because we were sure that the people who would appear would be briefed and would be for substantial amounts of money, otherwise there would have been no witnesses at all or else a routine witness from an organization who would have suggested a small amount of money more than what was already being spent, and then we never would have gotten these great increases