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Mary LaskerMary Lasker
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because he understood the water problems in Texas as a rancher. And he said he would introduce a bill which would enlarge the scope of this Office of Saline Water, and would we prepare it?

Now, this was in the spring or summer of '59, and David and Bo Jones did a good deal of work on informing themselves on what was needed in legislation, and in March of 1960 they put in Johnson's hands information needed as the basis for legislation for additional efforts in research in saline water and a speech supporting it. Lloyd said in a report to me, dated April 12, 1960:

“I've been in touch with Jerry Siegel in Johnson's office in the weeks since, and his unvarying reply until the end of last week has been that the Senator has been tied up with civil rights legislation. Siegel has not even been able to bring the matter to his attention. Now, with civil rights out of the way we find that Siegel has gone away, probably for all of this week, and we sent desalinization material to the Senator with a positive recommendation and that no reply has been forthcoming. I raise the question of how long are we going to wait for the Senator to move and whether or not we should consider direct approach to Johnson or interesting some other Senator or Senators in sponsoring the legislation.”

Well, I went to see him about the legislation about May or June of '60, and he introduced the bill, and he said that he'd have to talk to Anderson because he was an expert on desalinization. But Anderson should introduce the bill with him, and Anderson did, because he was the man who had done the





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