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gave at the White House for business leaders in October of '63. The business leaders of course were hostile to Kennedy because they felt that he wasn't friendly to business because of his attitude toward the steel strike, and it was quite difficult to get 60 people to lunch. I think about 150 had to be invited before we got 60 acceptances, but those 60 acceptances paid off in corporation gifts; and the total business gifts so far since the beginning of '63 have been around $3 million.

Of course we thought in '63 that we had unlimited time and that with the help of the President, who had promised to give a dinner for leading industrialists who were the heads of big foundations or who were known to be very rich, that he and Jackie Kennedy would give a lovely dinner at the white House for maybe 50 couples or maybe 30 couples and that a large amount of money would be raised that way. Well, as you know, his death prevented all that, and we were on the horns of a terrible dilemma. Of course we thought at once of what could be done as his memorial. Both I thought and then Lem Billings thought that the cultural center should be called the Kennedy Center for the Performing arts and that this should be his Washington memorial. I went to Washington and dined with President and Mrs. Johnson the night before