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Mary LaskerMary Lasker
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you really care too much to do any such thing.”

He said, “Oh yes, I'm going to do it.”

I said, “Well, in addition to that, you don't have the votes, because they're counted; you can't do it on the House side, you haven't got the votes to veto it. ”

He said, “Well, that may be, but I can withhold the money.” And he can indeed withhold the money, and he may well. You know, they may just not pay it out. And that is really terribly irritating. He can do that. It's very hard to get him to pay it out, you know. So we'll see what he actually does.

Q:

What's his real objection to it?

Lasker:

Oh, it's just too much money, when he has to spend so much money in Vietnam.

I did go, within three days , to Washington. I did bring him a memo, telling him to call the heads of the Institutes. Believe it or not, he did read the memo. He did tell Mr. Douglas that he wanted to see them. He did make a statement, practically identical with my memo, to a press conference before he saw them, stating that he would see them, and that he wanted to ask what was being done to expedite lowering the death rate and the disability rate of the people of the United States, and saying that he felt that this was one of the most important things that he could do.

Now, you have the rough story there, which would be good





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