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Mary LaskerMary Lasker
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Part:         Session:         Page of 999

Landers, whose real name is Eppi Lederer, had --

Q:

-- she's the one who writes in the newspapers?

Lasker:

Ann Landers, yes -- had run a column suggesting to people that they should do self breast examination, and that the Cancer Society had received as a result of this solumn requests for 250,000 copies of a pamphlet. Well, I knew Ann Landers. I'd only met her once but I thought she was very bright and I liked her, so I telephoned to her and I told hereabout the trouble we were in, and I thought that unless we had a massive letter writing campaign directed to the Senators, that we wouldn't get the bill out of committee. She looked at the bill and she read all the background facts about cancer, and she wrote a magnificent column which resulted in Senator Cranston getting, as he testified to, 60,000 letters.

Q:

That's the way to light fires.

Lasker:

60,000 letters. Percy, who's a Christian Scientist and not even on the committee, got 28,000. Adlai Stevenson III said he got 20,000. People in smaller states gotless, but Mr. Nelson said he got 60,000 letters.

Q:

It depends on the metropolitan newspapers that carry her column.

Lasker:

Yes. She had 740 newspapers. In any case, she certainly delivered to the Senate between 500,000 and a million letters.

Q:

That was a brain wave on your part.





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