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Transcripts: Senator John F. Kennedy and Vice President Nixon, First Joint Radio Television Broadcast, September 26, 1960 8:30-9:30 p.m. (CDT), CBS Chicago. 67 pages. [Other Document], 9/26/1960
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Transcripts: Senator John F. Kennedy and Vice President Nixon, First Joint Radio Television Broadcast, September 26, 1960 8:30-9:30 p.m. (CDT), CBS Chicago. 67 pages. [Other Document], 9/26/1960
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46
23
09/26/1960
Other Document
Transcripts: Senator John F. Kennedy and
Vice President Nixon, First Joint Radio
Television Broadcast, September 26, 1960
8:30-9:30 p.m. (CDT), CBS Chicago. 67
pages.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Page 1 of 1
file
from:
CBS NEWS
485 Madison Avenue, New York 22, N. Y.
TRANSCRIPT
Senator John F. Kennedy
and
Vice President Richard M. Nixon
FIRST JOINT RADIO TELEVISION BROADCAST
September 26, 1960 8:30-9:30 p.m. (CDT)
CBS-CHICAGO
NOTE TO EDITORS: This transcript is provided for your
information and convenience. It is possible that cor-
rections will be made when the text is checked against
the tape after the program.
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MR. SMITH: Good evening.
The television and radio stations of the United
States and their affiliated stations are proud to pro-
vide facilities for a discussion of issues in the current
political campaign by the two major candidates for the
presidency.
The candidates need no introduction. The
Republican candidate, Vice President Richard M. Nixon,
and the Democratic candidate, Senator John F. Kennedy.
According to rules set by the candidates them-
selves, each man sha11 make an opening statement of ap-
proximately eight minutes duration and a closing state-
ment of approximately three minutes duration.
In between the candidates will answer or com-
ment upon answers to questions put by a pane1 of corres-
pondents.
In this, the first discussion in a series of
four joint appearances, the subject matter, it has been
agreed, will be restricted to internal or domestic
American matters.
Now for the first opening statement by Senator
John F. Kennedy.
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MR. KENNEDY: Mr. Smith, Mr. Nixon.
In the election of 1860, Abraham Linco1n said
the question was whether this nation could exist half
slave or half free.
In the election of 1960, and in the world
around us, the qustion is whether the world will exist
half slave or half free, whether it will move in the
direction of freedom, in the direction of the road that
we are taking or whether it will move in the direction
of slavery.
I think it will depend in great measure on
what we do here in the United States, on the kind of
society that we build, on the kind of strength that we
maintain.
We discuss tonight domestic issues, but I
would not want there to be any implication given
that this does not involve directly our struggle with
Mr. Khrushchev for survival.
Mr. Khrushchev is in New York and he maintains
the Communist offensive throughout the world because
of the productive power of the Soviet Union.
The Chinese Communists have always had a
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1arge population but they are important and dangerous
now because they are mounting a major effort within
their own country, the kind of country we have here,
the kind of society we have, the kind of strength we
build in the United States will be the defense of free-
dom.
If we do well here, if we meet our obliga-
tions, if we are moving ahead, but I think freedom will
be secure around the world.
If we fail, then freedom fails.
Therefore, I think the question before the
American people is are we doing as much as we can do?
Are we as strong as we should be?
Are we as strong as we must be?
If we are going to maintain our independence,
and if we are going to maintain and hold out the hand
of friendship to those who 1ook to us for assistance,
to those who 1ook to us for survival, I should make it
very clear that I do not think that we are doing
enough.
I am not satisfied as an American with the
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progress we are making.
This is a great country, but I think it could
be a greater country, and this is a powerful country
but I think it could be a more powerful country.
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I am not satisfied to have 50 percent of our
steel mill capacity unused.
I am not satisfied when the United States had
last year the lowest rate of economic growth of any
major industrialized society in the world because
economic growth means strength and vitality.
It means we are able to sustain our defenses.
It means we are able to meet our commitments
abroad.
I am not satisfied when we have over nine
billion dollars' worth of food, some of it rotting even
though there is a hungry world and even though four
millions Americans wait every month for a food package
from the Government which averages five cents a day per
individual.
I saw cases in West Virginia here in the
United States where children took home part of their
school lunch in order to feed their families, because
I don't think we are meeting our obligations toward
these Americans.
I am not satisfied when the Soviet Union is
turning out twice as many
scientists and engineers
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as we are.
I am not satisfied when many of our teachers
are inadequately paid or when our children go to school
in part-time shifts. I think we should have an
educational system second to none.
I am not satisfied when I see men like Jimmy
Hoffa in charge of the largest union in the United States
still free.
I am not satisfied when we are failing to
develop the natural resources of the United States to the
fullest. Here in the United States, which developed
the Tennessee Valley, and which built the Grand Coulee
and other dams in the Northwest United States, at the
present rate of hydro power production, and that is the
hallmark of an industrialized society, the Soviet Union
by 1975 will be producing more power than we are.
These are all thethings I think in this country
that can make our society strong or can mean that it
stands still.
I am not satisfied until every American enjoys
his full constitutional rights. If a Negro baby is born,
and this is true also of Puerto Ricans and Mexicans in
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some of our cities, he has about one half as much chance
to get through high school as a white baby. He has one
third as much chance to get through college as a white
student. He has about a third as much chance to be a
professional man, and about half as much chance to own
a house. He has about four times as much chance that he
will be out of work in his life as the white baby. I
think we can do better. I don't want the talents of any
American to go to waste.
I know that there are those who say we want to
turn everything over to the Government. I don't at all.
I want individuals to meet their responsibilities and
I want the states to meet their responsibilities. But
I think there is also a national responsibility.
The argument has been used against every piece
of social legislation in the last twenty-five years,
The people of the United States individually could not
have developed the Tennessee Valley. Collectively, they
could have.
A cotton farmer in Georgia or a peanut farmer
or a dairy farmer in Wisconsin or Minnesota, he cannot
protect himself against the forces of supply and demand
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in the marketplace, but working together in effective
governmental programs, he can do SO.
Seventeen million Americans who live over
65 on an average Social Security check of about seventy-
eight dollars a month, they are not able to sustain
themselves individually, but they can sustain themselves
through the Social Security system.
I don't believe in big government, but I
believe in effective governmental action, and I think
that's the only way that the United States is going to
maintain its freedom, it is the only way we are going to
move ahead. I think we can do a better job. I think we
are going to have to do a better job if we are going to
meet the responsibilities which time and events have
placed upon us.
We cannot turn the job over to anyone else.
If the United States fails, then the whole cause of
freedom fails, and I think it depends in great measure
on what we do here in this country.
The reason Franklin Roosevelt was a good
neighbor in Latin America was because he was a good
neighbor in the United States, because he felt that
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the American society was moving ahead. I want us to
recapture that image. I want people in Latin America
and Africa and Asia to start to look to America to see
how we are doing things, to wonder what the President of
the United States is doing, and not to look at
Khrushchev or look at the Chinese Communists. That is
the obligation on our generation.
In 1933 Franklin Roosevelt said in his
inaugurating address that this generation of Americans
has a rendezvous with destiny. I think our generation
of Americans has the same rendezvous. The question now
is, can freedom be maintained under the most severe
attack it has ever known. I think it can be, and I
think in the final analysis it depends upon what we do
here. I think it is time America started moving again.
MR. SMITH: And now the opening statement by Vice
President Richard M. Nixon.
MR. NIXON: Mr. Smith, Senator Kennedy:
The things that Senator Kennedy has said, many
of us can agree with. There is no question but we cannot
discuss our internal affairs in the United States without
recognizing that they have a tremendous bearing on our
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international position. There is no question but that
this nation cannot stand still, because we are in a deadly
competition, a competition not only with the men in the
Kremlin but the men in Peking. We are ahead in this
competition, as Senator Kennedy, I think, has implied.
But when you are in a race, the only way to stay ahead
is to move ahead, and I subscribe completely to the spirit
that Senator Kennedy has expressed tonight, the spirit that
the United States should move ahead.
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Where then do we disagree?
I think we disagree on the implication of his
remarks tonight and on the statements that he has made
on many occasions during his campaign to the effect
that the United States has been standing still.
We heard tonight, for example, the statement
made that our growth and national product 1ast year was
the lowest of any industrial nation in the world.
Now, last year, of course, was 1958. That
happened to be a recession year, butwhen we 1ook at the
GNP of this year of recovery, we find that it is six
and nine-tenths percent and one of the highest in the
world today. More about that later.
Looking then to this problem of how the
United States should move ahead and where the United
States is moving.
I think it is well that we take the advice of
a very famous campaigner, "Let us 1ook at the record. "
Is the United States standing still?
Is it true that this administration, as
Senator Kennedy has charged, has been an administra-
tion of retreat, of defeat, of stagnation?
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Is it true that as far as this country is
concerned in the field of electric power, and all of
the fields that he has mentioned, that we have not
been moving ahead?
Well, we have a comparison that we can make.
We have the record of the Truman Administration of
seven and a half years, and the seven and a half years
of the Eisenhower Administration.
When we compare these two records in the
areas that Senator Kennedy has discussed tonight, I
think we find that America. has been moving ahead.
Let us take schools. We have built more
schools in these last seven and a half years than we
built in the previous seven and a half, for that mat-
ter in the previous twenty years.
Let us take hydroelectric power. We have
developed more hydroelectric power in these seven and
a half years than was developed in any previous admin-
istration in history.
Let us take hospitals. We find that more
have been built in this administration than in the
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previous administration. The same is true of highways.
Let's put it in terms that all of us can un-
derstand.
We often hear gross national product dis-
cussed, and in that respect may I say say that when we
compare the gross in this administration with that of
the previous administration, that then there was a
tota1 growth of eleven percent over seven years, and
in this administration there has been a tota1 growth
of nineteen percent over seven years.
That shows that there has been more growth
in this administration than in its predecessor, but
let's not put it there. Let's put it in terms of
the average family.
What has happened to you?
We find that your wages have gone up five
times as much in the Eisenhower Administration as they
did in the Truman Administration.
What about the prices you pay?
We find that the prices you pay went up five
times as much in the Truman Administration as they did
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in the Eisenhower Administration.
What is the net result of this?
This means that the average family income
went up fifteen percent in the Eisenhower years as
against two percent in the Truman years.
Now, this is not standing still, but as good
as this record is may I emphasize it isn't enough.
A record is never something to stand on, it
is something to build on and in building on that rec-
ord I believe that we have the secret for progress.
We know the way to progress and I think
first of all our own record proves that we know the
way.
Senator Kennedy has suggested that he be-
11eves that he knows the way.
I respect the sincerity with which he makes
that suggestion, but on the other hand when we 1ook
at the various programs that he offers, they do not
seem to be new. They seem to be simply retreads of
the programs of the Truman Administration which pre-
ceded him and I would suggest that during the course
of the evening he might indicate those areas in which
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his programs are new, where they will mean more pro-
gress than we had then.
What kind of programs are we for?
We are for programs that will expand edu-
cational opportunities, that will give to all
Americans their equa1 chance for education, for all
of the things which are necessary and dear to the
hearts of our people.
We are for programs in addition which will
see that our medical care for the aged is much better
handled than it is at the present time.
Here again may I indicate that Senator
Kennedy and I are not in disagreement as to the aims.
We both want to help the old people. We want to see
that they do have adequate medical care but the ques-
tion is the means.
I think that the means that I advocate will
reach that goal better than the means that he advocates.
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I could give better examples but for whatever
it is, whether it is in the field of housing or health
or medical or schools or the development of electric
power, we have programs which we believe will move
America, move her forward and build on the wonderful
record that we have made over these past seven and a
half years.
Now, when we look at these programs might I
suggest that in evaluating them we often have a tendency
to say that the test of a program is how much you are
spending. I will concede that in all of the areas to
which I have referred, Senator Kennedy would have the
federal government spend more than I would have it
spend.
I costed out the cost of the Democratic
platform and it runs a minimum of $13.2 billion a year
,more than we are presently spending to a maximum of $18
billion a year more than we are presently spending.
Now, the Republican platform will cost more, too.
It will cost a minimum of $4 billion a year more and a
maximum of $4.9 billion a year more than we are presently
spending.
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Now, does this mean that this program is
better than ours?
Not at all, because it isn't a question of
how much the federal government spends. It isn't a
question of which government does the most. It is
a question of which administration does the right
things, and in our case I do believe that our programs
will stimulate the creative energies of 180 million
true Americans.
I believe the programs that Senator Kennedy
advocates will have a tendency to stifle those creative
energies.
I believe, in other words, that his programs
would lead to the stagnation of the motive power that
we need in this country to get progress.
The point that I would like to make is this:
Senator Kennedy has suggested in his speechs
that we lack compassion for the poor, for the old, and
for others that are unfortunate.
Let us understand throughout this campaign
that his motives and mine are sincere. I know what
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it means to be poor. I know what it means to see
people who are unemployed.
I know Senator Kennedy feels as deeply about
these problems as I do, but our disagreement is not
about the goals for America but only about the means
to reach these goals.
Thank you.
MR. SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Nixon.
That completes the opening statements, and
now the candidates will answer questions or comments
from one another or answer questions put by the
correspondents.
I will now introduce the correspondents.
MR. VANOCUR: I am Sander Vanocur, NBC News.
MR. WARREN: I am Charles Warren, Mutual News.
MR. NOVINS: I am Stewart Novins of CBS News.
MR. FLEMING: I am Bob Fleming of ABC News.
MR. SMITH: The first question to Senator Kennedy
comes from Mr. Fleming.
MR. FLEMING: Senator, the Vice President in his
campaign said that you are naive and at times immature.
He raises the question of leadership.
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On this issue would you please state why
you think that the people should vote for you?
MR. KENNEDY: The Vice President and I came to
the Congress together in 1946.
We both served on the Labor Committee. I
have been there now for fourteen years, the same period
of time he has, so that our experience in government is
comparable.
Secondly, I think the question is "What are
the programs that we advocate?"
What is the party record that we lead?
I come out of the Democratic party which
in this century produced Woodrow Wilson, Franklin
Roosevelt and Harry Truman and which supported and
sustained these programs which I have discussed tonight.
Mr. Nixon comes out of the Republican party.
He was nominated by it, and it is a fact that
through most of these last twenty-five years the
Republican leadership has posed federal aid for education,
medical care for the aged, and development of the
Tennessee Valley Authority, development of our national
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resources.
I think Mr. Nixon is an effective leader
of his party. I hope he would grant me the same.
The question before us is which point of
view and which party do we want to lead the United
States.
MR. SMITH: Mr. Nixon, would you like to comment
on that statement?
MR. NIXON: I have no comment.
MR. SMITH: The next question comes from Mr. Novins.
MR. NOVINS: Mr. Vice President, your campaign
stresses the view of your eight-year experience and the
question arises as to whether that experience was as an
observer or as a participant or initiator of policy
making.
Would you tell us, please, specifically what
major policies you have made in the last eight years
that have been adopted by the administration.
MR. NIXON: It would be rather difficult to cover
them in two and a half minutes.
I would suggest that these proposals could
be mentioned.
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First, after each of my foreign trips, I
have made recommendations that have been adopted.
For example, after my first trip abroad, I
strongly recommended that we increase our exchange
programs particularly as they related to exchange
of persons, of leaders in the labor field and in the
information field.
After my trip to South America, I made
recommendations that a separate inter-American lending
agency be set up which the South American nations would
like much better than to participate in the lending
agencies which treated all of the countries of the
world the same.
I have made other recommendations after
each of the other trips.
For example, after my trip abroad to Hungary,
I made some recommendations with regard to the Hungarian
refugee situation which were adopted not only by the
President but some of them were enacted into law by the
Congress.
Within the administration as the Chairman of
President's Committee Stability and Economic Growth, I
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have had the opportunity to make recommendations which
have been adopted within the administration and which
I think have been reasonably effective.
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I know Senator Kennedy suggested in his speech
at Cleveland yesterday that that Committee had not been
particularly effective. I would only suggest that while
we do not take the credit for it, I would not presume to,
but since that Committee has been formed the price line
has been held very well within the United States.
MR. SMITH: Senator Kennedy.
MR. KENNEDY: Well, I would say in the latter, and
that's what I found somewhat unsatisfactory about the
figures, Mr. Nixon, that you used in your previous speech,
when you talk about the Truman administration, Mr. Truman
came to office in 1944, and at the end of the war, and
the difficulties that were facing the United States
during that period of transition, 1946, when price
controls were lifted, it is rather difficult to take
those figures and compare them to the last eight years.
,I prefer to look at the overall picture, the twenty years
of the Democratic administration and eight years of the
Republicans, to show an overall period of growth.
In regard to price stability, I am not aware
that that Committee did produce recommendations that
ever were before the Congress from the point of view of
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legislation in regard to controling prices, in regard to
the exchange of students of labor unions. I am Chairman
of the Subcommittee on African Affairs, and I think one
of the unfortunate phases of our policy toward that
country was the minute number of changes we had. I
think it is true of Latin America also. We did come
forward with something for the students of the Congo,
over 300, which was all the federal government had done
for all of Africa for the previous year.
So I don't think we have moved, at least in
those two areas, with sufficient vigor.
MR. SMITH: Next question to Senator Kennedy from
Mr. Warren.
MR. WARREN: Senator Kennedy, during your brief
speech a few minutes ago, you mentioned farm surpluses.
I would like to ask this: It is a fact, I think, that
presidential candidates traditionally make promises to the
farmer. Lots of people, I don't think, understand when
the farmers are paid for not producing certain crops, or
paid if they overproduce, for that matter.
Senator Kennedy, why can't the farmer operate
like the businessman who operates a factory? If an auto
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company overproduces a certain model car, Uncle Sam
doesn't step in and buy the surplus. Why the constant
feeling that the farmer should have aid?
MR. KENNEDY: Because I think if the federal govern-
ment moved out of the program and withdrew its support,
then I think you would have complete economic chaos.
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The farmer plants in the spring and harvests in the
fall. There are hundreds of thousands of them. They
are not able to control their market very well. They
bring their crops in or 1ivestock in, many of them,
about the same time. They have only a few purchasers
that buy their milk or hogs, a few 1arge companies, in
many cases, and, therefore, the farmer is not in a
position to bargain very effectively in the market-
place.
I think the experience of the '20'shas shown
what a free market can do to agriculture, and if the
agricultura1 economy collapses, the economy of the
United States will, sooner or later, co11apse.
The farmers are the No. 1 market for the
automobile industry. The automobile industry is the
No. 1 market for the stee1 industry. If the farmers'
economy continues to decline as sharply as in recent
years, I think you would have a recession in the rest
of the country.
So, I think the case for the government
intervention is a good one.
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Secondly, my objection to farm policy is
there are no effective contro1s to bring supply and
demand into better balance. The dropping of the
support price in order to 1imit production has not
worked, and we now have the highest surpluses, nine
billion dollars worth, we have had a higher tax 1oad
from the Treasury for the farmer in the last few
years with the lowest farm income in many years. I
think this farm policy has failed. In my judgment,
the only policy that will work will be for effec-
tive supply and demand to be in balance, and that can
only be done through governmental action.
I, therefore, suggest that in those basic
commodities which are supported but the federal
government, after endorsement by the farmers in that
commodity, attempt to bring supply and demand into
balance, attempt effective production controls so
that he won't have that five or six percent surplus
which breaks the price fifteen or twenty percent.
I think Mr. Benson's program has failed,
and I must say, after reading the Vice President's
speech before the farmers, as he read mine, I don't
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believe it is very much different from Mr. Benson's.
I don't think it provides effective governmental con-
trols. I think there the supports are tied to the
market price and have been for the last three years,
which was Mr. Benson's theory. I don't believe it
is a sharp enough breach with the past to give us any
hope for the future.
MR. SMITH: Mr. Nixon, comment.
MR. NIXON: I, of course, disagree with Senator
Kennedy insofar as his suggestion as to what should
be done on the farm program.
He has made the suggestion that what we need
is to move in the direction of more governmental con-
trols, a suggestion that would also mean raising
prices that the consumers pay for products and im-
posing upon the farmers controls on acreage even far
more than they have today.
I think this is the wrong direction. I
don't think this has worked in the past. I do not
think it will work in the future.
The program that I have advocated is one
which departs from the present program that we have
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in this respect:
It recognizes that the government has a
responsibility to get the farmer out of the trouble he
presently he is in because the government got him into
it and that is the fundamenta1 reason why we can't 1et
the farmer go by himself at the present time. The far-
mer produced these surpluses because the government
asked him to, through legislation, during the war.
Now that we have these surpluses, it is our
responsibility to indemnify the farmer during that period
that we get rid of the surpluses. Until we get the sur-
pluses off the farmer's back, however, we should have a
program such as I announced which will see that farm
income holds up. But I would propose holding that in-
come up not through a type of program that Senator
Kennedy has suggested that would raise prices but one
that would indemnify the farmer, pay the farmer in kind
for the products which are in surplus.
:
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MR. SMITH: The next question to Vice President Nixon.
from Mr. Vanocur.
MR. VANOCUR: Mr. Vice President, since the question
of executive leadership is a very important campaign
issue, I would like to follow Mr. Novins' question.
Now, Republican campaign slogans, you will see
them on signs around the country, as we did last week,
say that it is experience that counts, and that over a
picture of you, implying that you have had more govern-
mental, executive decision-making experience than your
opponent.
Now, in his news conference on August 24,
President Eisenhower was asked to give one example of
a major idea of yours that he adopted. His reply was,
and I am quoting:
"If you give me a week, I might think of one.
'I don't remember."
Now, that was a month ago, sir, and the
President hasn't brought it up since, and I am wondering,
sir, if you can clarify if it is correct, which is
correct, the one put out by Republican campaign leaders
or the one by President Eisenhower.
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MR. NIXON: Well, I would suggest, if you know the
President, that that was probably a facetious remark.
I would also suggest that insofar as the statement is
concerned, that I think it would be improper for the
President of the United States to disclose the instances
in which members of his official family had made
recommendations as I have made them through the years
to him, which he has accepted or rejected.
The President has always maintained, and very
properly so, that he is entitled to get what advice he
wants from the Cabinet and from his other advisers
without disclosing that to anybody, including, as a
matter of fact, the Congress.
Now, I can only say this: Through the years
I have sat in the National Security Council, I have
been in the Cabinet, I have met with the legislative
:
leaders, I have met with the President when he made the
great decisions with regard to Lebanon, Quemoy, Matsu,
other matters.
The President has asked for my advice, I have
given it; sometimes my advice has been taken, sometimes
it has not. I do not say that I have made the decisions,
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and I would say that no president should ever allow any-
body else to make the major decisions. The President
only makes the decisions. All that his advisers do is
to give counsel when he asks for it. As far as what
experience counts and whether that is experience that
counts, that isn't for me to say.
I can only say that my experience is there for
the people to consider, Senator Kennedy's is there for
the people to consider.
As he pointed out, we came to the Congress in
the same year; his experience has been different from mine,
m ine has been in the executive branch, his has been in
the legislative branch.
I would say that the people now have the
opportunity to evaluate his against mine, and I think
both he and I are going to abide by whatever the people
:
decide.
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MR. SMITH: Senator Kennedy.
MR. KENNEDY: Well, I will just say that the
question is of experience and the question also is
what our judgment is of the future and what our
goals are for the United States and what ability we
have to implement those goals.
Abraham Linco1n came to the presidency in
1860 after a rather little known session in the House
of Representatives and after being defeated for the
Senate in 1858, and he was a distinguished president.
There is no certain road to the presidency. There
are no guarantees that if you take one road or
another that you will be a successful president.
I have been in the Congress for fourteen
years. I have voted in the last eight years, and
the Vice President was presiding over the Senate
:
and meeting his other responsibilities, I have met
decisions over 800 times on matters which affect not
only the domestic security of the United States, but
as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The question really is which candidate and
which party can meet the problems that the United
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States is going to face in the '60's.
MR. SMITH: The next question to Senator Kennedy
from Stuart Novins.
MR. NOVINS: In connection with the problems of
the future that you speak of and the program you
enunciated earlier in your direct talk, you ca11 for
expanding some of the welfare programs, for schools,
for teacher salaries, for medical care, and so on,
but you also ca11 for reducing the federal budget,
and I am wondering now, if you are president in
January, how you would go about paying the bill for
all this --
MR. KENNEDY: I did not advocate reducing the
federal debt, because I don't think you are going to
be able to reduce the federal debt very much in 1961,
'62 or '63.
I think we have heavy obligations which af-
fect our security that we are going to have to meet,
and, therefore, I have never suggested that we should
be ab1e to retire the debt substantially or even at all
in 1961 or '62.
MR. NOVINS: I think you suggested reducing the
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interest rate would help.
MR. KENNEDY: No, no.
In my opinion, the hard money, tight money
fiscal policy of this administration has contributed
to the s1owdown in our economy which helped bring
the recession of '54 which made the recession of '58
rather intense, and which has slowed somewhat our
economic activity in 1960.
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What I have talked about, however, the kind of
programs that I talk about, in my judgment, are fiscally
sound. Medical care for the aged, I would put under
Social Security. The Vice President and I disagree on
this. The program, the Javits-Nixon or Nixon-Javits
program, would have cost, if fully used, six hundred
million dollars by the Government every year and six
hundred million dollars by the states.
The program which I advocated, which failed by
five votes in the Senate, would have put medical care
for the aged in the Social Security and paid for through
the Social Security system and tax.
Secondly, I support federal aid to education
and teachers' salaries. I think that is a good invest-
ment. I think we are going to have to do it. And I
think that to heap the burden further on the property tax,
which is already strained in many of our communities, will
insure, in my opinion, that many of our children will not
be adequately educated and many of our teachers not
adequately compensated.
There is no greater return to an economy or
society than an educational system second to none.
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On the question of development of natural
resources, I would suggest a pay as you go in the sense
they would be balanced and the power revenues would bring
back sufficient money to finance the projects, the same
as the Tennessee Valley Authority.
I believe in the balanced budget, and the only
conditions I would unbalance it would be for a. national
emergency or a steady recession.
Mr. Nixon and Mr. Rockefeller in their meeting
said a five percent economic growth would bring by 1962
ten billion dollars extra in tax revenues. Whatever is
brought in I think we can finance essential programs
within a balanced budget if business remains orderly.
MR. SMITH: Mr. Nixon, your comment.
MR. NIXON: I think what Mr. Novins was referring to
was not one of Senator Kennedy's speeches but to the
Democratic platform, which did mention cutting the debt.
I think it should be mentioned that it is not
possible under the Democratic program either to cut the
national debt or to reduce taxes. As a matter of fact,
it will be necessary to raise taxes.
Senator Kennedy points out that as far as his
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one proposal is concerned, the one for medical care for
the aged, that that would be financed out of Social
Security. That, however, is raising taxes for those who
pay Social Security.
He points out that he would make pay as you go
be the basis for our natural resources development,
where our natural resources development, which I also
support, incidentally, whenever you appropriate money for
one of these projects, you have to pay now and
appropriate the money now, and while they do eventually
pay out, it doesn't mean the government doesn't have to
put out the money this year.
So I would say in all these proposals Senator
Kennedy has made, they will result in one of two things:
Either he has to raise taxes or unbalance the budget.
If he unbalances the budget, that means you have
:
inflation, and that will be, of course, a very cruel
blow to the very older people we have been talking about.
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As far as aid for school construction is
concerned, I favor that, as Senator Kennedy said in
January of this year when he said he favored that
rather than aid to teachers' salaries. I favor that
because I believe that is the best way to aid our
schools without running any risk whatever of the
federal government telling our teachers what to
teach.
MR. SMITH: The next question to Vice President
Nixon from Mr. Warren.
MR. WARREN: Mr. Vice President, you mentioned
schools. It was just yesterday, I think, you asked for
a crash program to raise education standards, and this
evening you talked about advances in education.
Mr. Vice President, you said, it was back in
1957, that salaries paid to school teachers were nothing
short of a national disgrace. Higher salaries for
teachers you added, were important, and if the situation
wasn't corrected, it would lead to a national disaster.
Yet you refused to vote in the Senate in
order to break a tie vote when that single vote, if it
had been yes, would have granted salary increases to
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teachers.
MR. NIXON: I am awfully glad you got that
question to me, because I got into it in my last
question and wasn't able to complete my argument on
it.
I think the reason I voted against having
the federal government pay teachers' salaries was
probably the very reason that concerned Senator
Kennedy when, in January of this year, in his kick-
off press conference he said that he favored aid for
school construction, but at that time did not feel
that there should be aid for teachers' salaries. At
least, that's the way I read his remarks.
Now, why should there be any question about
the federal government aiding teachers' salaries?
Why did Senator Kennedy take that position then? Why
do I take it now? We both took it then and I take it
now for this reason:
We want higher teachers' salaries, we need
higher teachers' salaries, but we also want our
education to be free of federal control.
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When the federal government gets the power
to pay teachers, inevitably, in my opinion, it will
acquire the power to set standards and tell the
teachers what to teach. I think this would be bad for
the country, I think it would be bad for the teaching
profession.
There is another point that should be made.
I favor higher salaries for teachers, but, as Senator
Kennedy has said in January of this year in this same
press conference, the way that you get higher salaries
for teachers is to support school construction, which
means that all the local school districts in the
various states then have money which is freed to
raise the standards for teachers' salaries.
I should also point out this: Once you put
the responsibility on the federal government for paying
a portion of teachers' salaries, your local communities
and your states are not going to meet the responsibility
as much as they should. I believe, in other words, that
we have seen the local communities and the states
assuming more of that responsibility. Teachers' salaries
have, fortunately, gone up fifty percent in the last
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eight years, as against only a thirty-four percent
rise for other salaries. This is not sufficient.
It should be more. But I do not believe that the way
to get more salaries for teachers is to have the
federal government get in with a massive program.
My objection here is not the cost in
dollars. My objection here is the potential cost in
controls and eventually in freedom for the American
people by giving the federal government power over
education, and that is the greatest power a government
can have.
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MR. SMITH: Senator Kennedy's comment.
MR. KENNEDY: When the Vice President quotes me
in January 1960, I do not believe the federa1
government should pay directly teachers' salaries
but that was not the issue before the Senate in
February.
The issue before the Senate was that the
money would be given to the state, the state then
could determine whether the money would be spent
for school construction or teachers' salaries.
On that question the Vice President and
I disagreed. I voted in favor of that proposa1 and
supported it strongly because I think that that pro-
vided assistance to our teachers for their salaries
without any chance of federal control and it is on
that vote that Mr. Nixon and I disagreed and his
tie vote defeated -- his breaking the tie defeated
the proposa1.
I don't wan't the federal government pay-
ing teachers' salaries directly but if the money
will go to the states and the states can then de-
termine whether it should go for school construction
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or for teachers' salaries.
In my opinion you protect the local author-
ity of the school boards and the school committees.
Therefore, I think that was a strong proposal and that
is why I supported it and I regret that it did not
pass.
Secondly, statements were made that the
Democratic platform cost a good deal of money and that
I am in favor of unbalancing the budget.
That is wholly wrong and wholly in error and
it is a fact that in the last eight years the Demo-
cratic Congress has reduced the request of the appro-
priation by over ten billion dollars.
That is not my view and I think it ought to
be stated very clearly on the record.
My view is that you can do these programs
and they can be carefully drawn within a balanced
budget if our economy is moving ahead.
MR. SMITH: The next question to Senator Kennedy
from Mr. Vanocur.
MR. VANOCUR: Senator, you have been promising
the voters that if you are elected president you
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will try and push through Congress bi11s on medica1 aid
to the aged, comprehensive minimum hourly wage bill,
federal aid to education.
Now, in the August post-convention session
of the Congress when you at least held it a possi-
bility that you could one day be president and when
you had overwhe1ming majorities, especially in the
Senate, you could not get action on these bills.
Now, how do you feel that you will be able
to get them in January?
MR. KENNEDY: Let's take the bill --
MR. VANOCUR: When you weren't able to get them
in August.
MR. KENNEDY: If I may take the bills.
We had passed in the Senate a bill to pro-
vide a dollar and twenty-five cent minimum wage. It
failed because the House did not pass it and the
House failed by eleven votes, and I might say that
two-thirds of the Republicans in the house voted
against a dollar and a quarter minimum wage, and a
majority of the Democrats sustained it. Nearly two-
thirds of them voted for the dollar and a quarter.
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We were threatened by a veto if we passed
a dollar and a quarter.
It is extremely difficult, with the great
power that the President has, to pass any bill that
the President is opposed to.
A11 the President needs to sustain his veto,
to veto any bill, is one-third plus one in either the
House or the Senate.
Secondly, we passed a federa1 aid to educa-
tion bill in the Senate. It failed to come to the
floor of the House of Representatives. It was killed
in the Rules Committee and it is a fact in the August
session that the four members of the Rules Committee,
who are Republicans, joining with two Democrats,
voted against sending of the aid to education bill to
the floor of the House.
Four Democrats voted for it. Every Repub-
1ican on the Rules Committee voted against sending
that bill to be considered by the members of the
House of Representatives.
Thirdly, on medical care for aged, this is
the same fight that has been going on for twenty-five
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years in the Social Security.
We wanted to tie it to the Social Security.
We offered an amendment to do so and forty-four Demo-
crats voted for it and one Republican voted for it
and we were informed at the time it came to a vote
that if it was adopted the President of the United
States would veto it.
In my judgment, na : vigorous Democratic
president supported by a Democratic majority in the
House and Senate can win the support for these pro-
grams, but if you send a Republican president and a
Democratic majority and the threat of a veto hangs
over the Congress, in my judgment you will continue
what happened in the August session which is a clash
of parties and inaction.
MR. SMITH: Mr. Nixon, comment.
MR. NIXON: Well, obviously my views are a
little different.
First of all, I don't see how it is pos-
sible for one-third of a body, such as the Republicans
have in the House and Senate, to stop two-thirds if the
two-thirds are adequately 1ed.
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I would say, too, when Senator Kennedy refers
to the action of the House Rules Committee, that there
are eight Democrats on that committee and four Repub-
licans. It would seem to me, again, it is very diffi-
cult to blame the four Republicans for the eight Demo-
crats not getting something through that particular
committee.
I would say further that to blame the Presi-
dent and his veto power for the inability of the
Senator and his colleagues to get action in this
special session misses the mark.
When the President exercises his veto power
he has to have the people behind him, not just a
third of the Congress because let's consider it:
If a majority of the members of the Congress
felt that these particular proposa1s were good issues,
the majority of those who were Democratic, why didn't
they pass them and send them to the President and get
a veto and have an issue?
The reason why these particular bills in
these various fields mentioned were not passed was
not because the President was against them, it was
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because the people were against them. It was because
they were too extreme, and I am convinced that the
alternate proposa1s that I have, that the Republicans
have in the field of health, in the field of educa-
tion and in the field of welfare, because they are
not extreme, because they will accomplish the end
without too great cost in dollars and freedom, but
they could get through the next Congress.
MR.
SMITH: The next question to Vice President
Nixon from Mr. Fleming.
MR. FLEMING: Mr. Vice President, do I take it,
then, you believe you could work better with Demo-
cratic majorities in the House and Senate than
Senator Kennedy could work with Democratic major-
ities in the House and Senate?
MR. NIXON: I would say this:
That we expect to pick up some seats in
both the House and Senate.
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We would hope to control the House, to get a
majority in the House in this election. We cannot, of
course, control the Senate.
I would say that a president would be able to
lead, a president would be able to get his program through
to the effect that he has the support of the country, the
support of the people.
Sometimes we get the opinion that in getting
programs through the House or the Senate it is purely a
question of legislative finagling and all of that sort of
thing.
It isn't really that. Whenever a majority of
a people are for a program, the House and Senate respond
to it and whether this House and Senate in the next
session is Democratic or Republican, if the country will
have voted for the candidate for the presidency and for
the proposals that he has made, I believe that you will
find that the president, if it were a Republican, as it
would be in my case, would be able to get his program
through that Congress.
Now I also say that as far as Senator Kennedy's
proposals are concerned, that again the question is not
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simply one of a presidential veto stopping the programs.
He must always remember that a president can't stop
anything unless he has the people behind him, and the
reason President Eisenhower's veto has been sustained,
the reason the Congress does not send up bills to him
which they think would be vetoed is because the people
and the Congress, the majority of them, know the
country is behind the President.
MR. SMITH: Senator Kennedy.
MR. KENNEDY: Well, now, let's look at these bills
that the Vice President suggests were too extreme.
One was a bill for a dollar and twenty-five
cents an hour for anyone who works in a store or company
that has a million dollars a year business. I don't
think that is extreme at all, yet nearly two thirds or
: three fourths of the Republicans in the House of
Representatives voted against that proposal.
Secondly, there was the federal aid to education.
Because of the defeat of the teachers' salaries, it was
not a bill that met, in my opinion, the need. The fact
of the matter is it was a bill that was less than you
recommended, Mr. Nixon, this morning oin your proposal.
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It was not an extreme bill, and yet we could
not get one Republican to join; at least, I think, four
of the eight Democrats voted to send it to the floor of
the House but not one Republican, and they joined with
those Democrats who are opposed to it.
I don't say the Democrats are united in their
support of the program, but I do say a majority are and
I say a majority of the Republicans are opposed to it.
The third is medical care to the aged, which
is tied to Social Security, which is financed out of
Social Security funds, does not put a deficit on the
treasury.
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The proposa1 advanced by you and by Mr.
Javits would have cost 600 millions of dollars. Mr.
Rockefeller : rejected it in New York, he said he
didn't agree with the financing at all.
So these are three programs which are
quite moderate. I think it shows the difference be-
tween the two parties.
One party is ready to move in these pro-
grams and the other party gives them lip service.
MR. SMITH: Mr. Warren's question for Senator
Kennedy.
MR. WARREN: Senator Kennedy, on another sub-
ject.
Communism is so often described as an
ideology or belief which exists somewhere other than
:
in the United States.
Just how serious a threat to our national
security are these Communists' subversive activi-
ties in the United States today?
MR. KENNEDY: Well, I think they are very ser-
ious. It is a matter we should continue to give
great care and attention to.
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We should support the laws which the United
States has passed in order to protect us from those
who would destroy us from within.
We should sustain the Department of Justice
in its efforts in the FBI and we should be continually
alert.
I think if the United States is maintaining
a strong society here in the United States, I think
we can meet any internal threat. The major threat is
externaland will continue.
MR. SMITH: Mr. Nixon, comments.
MR. NIXON: I agree with Senator Kennedy's ap-
praisal generally in this respect.
The question of Communists within the
United States has been one that has worried us in the
: past. It is one that will continue to be a problem
for years to come.
We have to remember that the cold war that
Mr. Khrushchev is waging and his colleagues are waging
is waged all over the world and it is waged right here
in the United States.
That is why we have to continue to be alert.
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It is also essential inbeing alert that we
be fair because by being fair we uphold the very free-
doms that the Communists would destroy.
We uphold the standards of conduct which
they would never follow and in this connection I think
that we must 1ook to the future having in mind the
fact that we fight communism at home not only by our
laws to deal with Communists, the few who do become
Communists and the few that do become fellow travelers,
but we also fight communism at home by moving against
those various injustices which exist in our society,
which the Communists feed upon, and in that connec-
tion I again would say that while Senator Kennedy
would say we are for the status quo, I do believe
that he would agree that I am just as sincere in be-
:
lieving that my proposa1s for federal aid to education,
my proposa1s for health care are just as sincerely held
as his.
The question again is not one of goals.
We are for those goals. It is for those means.
MR. SMITH: Mr. Vanocur's question for Vice
President Nixon.
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MR. VANOCUR: Mr. Vice President, in one of your
earlier statements you said we have moved ahead, we have
built more schools, we have built more hospitals.
Now, sir, isn't it true that the building
of more schools is a local matter for financing?
Were you claiming that the Eisenhower
administration was responsible for the building of these
schools or is it the local school districts that
provide for them?
MR. NIXON: Not at all. As a matter of fact, your
question brings out a point that I'm very glad to make.
Too often in opposing whether we are moving ahead or not
we think only of what the federal government is doing.
Now, that isn't the test of whether America
moves. The test of whether America moves is whether the
federal government plus the state government plus the
local government plus the biggest segment of all,
individual enterprise, moves.
We have, for example, a gross national product
of approximately five hundred billion dollars. Roughly
one hundred billion dollars to one hundred and a quarter
billion dollars of that is the result of government
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activity. Four hundred billion, approximately, is the
result of what individuals do.
Now the reason that the Eisenhower adminis-
tration has moved, the reason why we have had the
funds, for example, locally to build the schools and
the hospitals and the highways, to make the progress
that we have, is because this administration has
encouraged individual enterprise and it has resulted in
the greatest expansion of the private sector of the
economy ever witnessed in an eight-year period, and
that is growth. That is the growth that we are looking
for. It is the growth that this administration has
supported and that its policies have stimulated.
MR. SMITH: Senator Kennedy.
MR. KENNEDY: I must say that I think that the
reason that the schools have been constructed is because
the local school districts have increased property taxes
to a tremendously high figure, in my opinion in fact
almost to a point of almost diminishing returns, in order
to sustain the schools.
Secondly, I think we have a rich country and
I think we have a powerful country. I think what we have
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to do, however, is to have the President and the leader-
ship set before our country exactly what we must do in
the next decade if we are going to maintain our security
in education, in economic growth, in development of
natural resources.
The Soviet Union is making great gains. It isn't
enough to compare what might have been done eight years
ago or ten years ago or fifteen years ago or twenty years
ago.
I want to compare what we are doing with what
our adversaries are doing, so that by the year 1970
the United States is ahead in education, in health, in
building, in homes, in economic strength.
I think that is the big assignment, the big
task, the big function of the federal government.
:
MR. SMITH: Can I have the summation time?
We have completed our questions and comments.
In just a moment we will have the summation time.
A VOICE: They will be allowed three minutes and
twenty seconds for the summation by each candidate.
MR. SMITH: Three minutes and twenty seconds for
each candidate. Vice President Nixon, will you make the
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first summation?
MR. NIXON: Thank you, Mr. Smith.
Senator Kennedy:
First of all I think it is well to put in
perspective where we really do stand in regard to the
Soviet Union in this whole matter of growth.
The Soviet Union has been moving faster
than we have but the reason for that is obvious. They
start from a much lower base.
Although they have been moving faster in
growth than we have, we find for example today that
their total gross national product is only 44 percent
of our total gross national product, that is the same
percentage that it was twenty years ago and as far as
the absolute is concerned, we find that the United
States is even further ahead than it was twenty years
: ago.
Is this any reason for complacency?
Not at all, because they are determined men,
they are fanatical men and we have to get the very most
out of our economy.
I agree with Senator Kennedy completely on
that score.
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Where we disagree is in the means that we
would use to get the most out of our economy.
I respectfully submit that Senator Kennedy
too often would rely too much on the federal government
on what it would do to solve our problems, to stimulate
growth.
I believe when we examine the Democratic
platform, when we examine the proposals that he has
discussed tonight, when we compare them with the
proposals that I have made, that these proposals that
he makes would not result in greater growth of this
country than would be the case if we followed the
programs that I have advocated.
There are many of the points that he has
made that I would like to comment upon, the one in
the field of health is worth mentioning.
Our health program, the one that Senator
Javis and other Republican Senators as well as I
supported, is one that provides for all people over
sixty-five who want health insurance, the opportunity
to have it if they want it. It provides a choice of
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having either government insurance or private
insurance, but it compels nobody to have insurance
who does not want it.
His program under social security would
require everybody who had social security to take
the government health insurance whether he wanted it
or not and it wouldnot cover several million people
who are not covered by social security at all.
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Here is one place that I think our program
does a better job than his.
The other point that I would make is this:
This downgrading of how much things cost, I think
many of our people will understand better when they
look at what happened when during the Truman Admin-
istration the government was spending more than it
took in.
We found savings over a lifetime eaten up
by inflation. We found the people who could least
afford it, people on retired incomes, people on fixed
incomes, we found them unable to meet bills at the
end of the month.
It is essentia1 that a man who is presi-
dent of this country, certainly stand for every pro-
gram that will mean growth, and I stand for programs
that mean growth and progress.
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But it is also essential that he not allow a
dollar spent that could be better spent by the people
themselves.
MR. SMITH: Senator Kennedy.
MR. KENNEDY: The point was made by Mr. Nixon that
the Soviet production is only forty-four percent of ours.
I must say that forty-four percent in the Soviet Union
is causing us a good deal of trouble tonight. I want to
make sure that it stays in that relationship. I don't
want to see the day when it is sixty percent of ours and
seventy-five percent of ours and ninety percent of ours,
with all the force and power it could bring to bear in
order to cause our destruction.
Secondly, the Vice President mentioned medical
care for the aged. Our program was an amendment to the
Kerr bill, and the Kerr bill provided assistance to all
those who were not on Social Security. I think it is a
very clear contrast.
In 1935 when the Social Security Act was
written, 94 out of 95 Republicans voted against it.
Mr. Landon ran in 1936 to repeal it.
In August of 1960 when we tried to get it again,
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this time for medical care, we received the support of
one Republican in the Senate on this occasion.
Thirdly, I think the question before the
American people is, as they look at this country, and as
they look at the world around them, the goals are the
same for all Americans but the means are at question,
the means are at issue.
If you feel that everything that is being done
now is satisfactory, that the relative power and prestige
and strength of the United States is increasing in
relation to that of the Communists, that we are gaining
more security, that we are achieving everything as a
nation that we should achieve, that we are achieving a
better life for our citizens and greater strength, then
I agree and I think you should vote for Mr. Nixon.
But if you feel that we have to move again in
the sixties, that the function of the President is to set
before the people the unfinished business of our society,
as Franklin Roosevelt did in the thirties, the agenda for
our people, what we must do as a society to meet our
needs in this country and protect our security and help
the cause of freedom -- as I said at the beginning, the
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question before us all that faces all Republicans and all
Democrats is, can freedom in the next generation conquer
or are the Communists going to be successful? That's the
great issue.
If we meet our responsibilities, I think freedom
will conquer. If we fail to move ahead, if we fail to
develop sufficient military and economic and social
strength here in this country, then I think that the tide
could begin to run against us, and I don't want historians
ten years from now to say, these were the years that the
tide ran out for the United States. I want them to say,
these were the years when the tide came in, these were the
years when the United States started to move again. That's
the question before the American people, and only you can
decide what you want, what you want this country to be,
what you want it to do with the future.
I think we are ready to move. And it is to that
great task, if we are successful, that we will address
ourselves.
MR. SMITH: Thank you very much, gentlemen.
This hour has gone by all too quickly. Thank
you for permitting us to present the next President of
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the United States on this unique program.
I have been asked by the candidates to thank
the American networks and the affiliated stations for
providing time and facilities for this joint appearance.
Other debates in this series will be announced
later and will be on different subjects.
This is Howard K. Smith. Good night from
Chicago.
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