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on today's report from Washington, Senator Smathers discusses domestic and foreign problems of interest to the people of Florida and the nation. Now here is the first question. Well, senators matters. Uh, you've been appointed as one of the conferees on this tax measure, which will be settled between the House and Senate members, not just what is your job as a contrary?

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Well, the conference is made up of the senior members on the Finance Committee and the senior members on the Ways and Means Committee of the House, and we try to resolve the differences between the bill, which was passed by the House and the bill, which was passed by the Senate.

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So they're roughly there are five of us from the Senate, and they'll be there, seven of them from the house. So we sit around and try to work out what amounts to a compromise bill. You've had several meetings now, Has there been any progress made? Yes, we've made a great deal of progress.

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We have not yet had a vote, but we have been through about five, about 200 pages of the bill. We have agreed on five major amendments, and I believe that just as soon as the Lincoln Day recesses are over with you, we're going to be able to come out with the bill.

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I don't see any great difficulty, and I believe that we will have a tax cut very short. What will that mean to me? As an ordinary taxpayers, it will mean that you'll have a roughly a 20% reduction in your individual taxes. It means that small, small corporations, instead of paying 30% will pay 22% in the balance of corporations that are being 52% will pay 50 next year and then 48 the year following.

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Well, I get an immediate benefits starting in March, say, when the president signs a bill. If there's withholding on your salary now, instead of withholding at 18% withholding will only be 14%. So you will immediately. Within a week after the bill is signed, you will immediately begin to get some benefit.

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Sounds good for business in Florida. Now. The civil rights bill passed the house and we'll come to the Senate. Are you able to put that off until this tax measure is settled? Well, we hope so. because obviously, if we get involved in the civil rights fight before we finish the tax bill, why we'll probably never.

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The tax bill will be delayed in the economy needs the $11 billion in it to which the tax bill will provide. So we're hopeful that we will not start the civil rights bill until we have completed the conference report on the tax bill. The time this civil rights bill is repugnant to many people in the South and some in the North.

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How are you going to vote when it reaches this counts as a package. I'm going to be against it totally. I think it goes too far. In many respects, I could support the voting rights section. There's some other sections in the bill which are not too repugnant to me, but overall, this is the furthest extension of federal authority on the part of the attorney general of the United States that we have ever had in our history.

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And I don't believe it will settle the problem that exists between the races. I've said many times we have 600 pages of laws already on the books with respect to civil rights, we can put another 600 on there. But until people want a change in their minds and their hearts with respect to how they're going to live with each other, these laws are meaningless.

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One final question on that. What about the great powers given to the attorney general and the Equal Accommodation section? Well, I think that again, that's a bad section. It authorizes the attorney General when there is a complaint made in the attorney general. What happens is that the attorney general, which means all the power of the government, gets in on the side of the complainant and against the owner of hotel or a motel or a restaurant or a store or whatever it might be.

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And they take him into federal court and try him. And of course, it can be a rather severe punishment. And so, with all the power of the federal government behind him, I think it's sort of an unfair, unequal contest, and we're going to try to limit that power in the Senate.

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What about this Cuban situation? Now this water cut off, presumably that is not a dangerous thing, as we're told. No, we have plenty of water, Guantanamo Bay And of course, in addition to that, we can we can bring in water by ship. However, as far as I'm concerned, I've issued some statements and I really believe that the time has come for us to say that Britain has just entered into a big deal with Castro and Cuba in Sweden.

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It's entered into another deal for parts of Canada. I think the time has come at least where we ought to be able to say We're going to release now you're going against our foreign policy So we're going to release the Cuban exiles and whatever, uh, they want to do with respect to stopping this kind of traffic and trade, why we're forum.

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Because, after all, Castro is our enemy. Castro is are the Cubans enemy, and we don't appreciate the fact that our allies are doing business with them. Thank you very much, Senator George Smathers. But that cigarette you down to the that Wilbur Mail that I got my first.

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We'll settle this matter again on this Cuban situation. A lot of our so called experts are indicating that the Air Force warned some time ago we ought to give up Guantanamo that it's obsolete. With all the missiles we have now, we don't need it. I think first, I don't agree with him.

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I think it's a mistake for us to begin to or to get to the position where we have all of our eggs in one basket and the missile basket, so to speak, because the fact of the matter is the missiles are so terribly destructive. But when we examine our own consciences, we know we're not going to start any kind of a war like that.

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I wonder when how we're going to do all this. We've got to be almost hit first before we strike back. This seems to be something that we have grown up with now. Therefore, I think we should maintain these bases. I think we should maintain adequate conventional forces, for example, if we if it ever came and, uh, the opportunity ever arises where we could go into Cuba because of an uprising within Cuba, we need a base.

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We need the Marines. We need the army in order to run what would amount to a limited war and then to have a sort of military security there. After You can't just put a missile up and say, Now, look, there's a missile and we're going to shoot you straight up in the air and let it come back down into within 25 miles or so because everybody gets killed.

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So what's happened is we've built these awesome military striking capacity, but it's of no practical consequence in a place like Cuba, or it's no practical consequence in a little country like Panama places like that. Therefore, I don't believe in putting all our eggs in this one missile basket.

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Even though I'm proud of what we've done with missiles. We need a well balanced A military forces so that we can meet in case of a the revolution of some kind. In case we eventually have to go in and retake Cuba. For the Cubans themselves that people who believe in democracy, we've got to have conventional forces to do it.

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Many people are wondering what President Johnson's policy is going to be in regard to Cuba. I'd like to have your private thoughts on that matter. If we if we may. Well, I would say this, that I think that Johnson is going to be somewhat more affirmative with respect to dealing with Cuba, then was President Kennedy means Turner.

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I don't mean to denigrate sterner. I don't mean to denigrate President Kennedy in any way he made. He faced up to the Great Missile crisis of 1961 October and did a magnificent job with it. But I believe that we're going to see that that recognition that much of our trouble in Central and South America comes out of Cuba.

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It's the fountainhead of all of our difficulty, and I've been saying this for years and nobody's paying any particular attention to it. But it's the fact. So long as we have Castro in Cuba, so long as he's propagandizing as he is, so long as he's teaching these revolutionaries as he does and sends them back into schools all over Central and South America, we're going to have trouble.

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And so we've got some how to figure out a way to get rid, get rid of Castro and communism in Cuba, and I think President Johnson thoroughly understands this. I'd like to bring in this Panama situation because, as you have said many times on this report, a lot of that agitation came from Cuba in the first place, As you have indicated in other countries.

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Now it seems that we're getting a sort of a snow job and that there's a lot of articles coming out saying, Well, the Panama Canal is obsolete. Well, it costs too much to run it. Let's let's build a new one. Let's drop it the head, that Dickens with it.

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What do you say about that? What I say is this. The Panama Canal is growing obsolete. It's scouting so that it cannot take some of the bigger ships or some 24 big oil tankers that can't get through it. Now we've got certain of our military fleet, which cannot get through it.

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Black we Until we get another sea level canal, we've got to have this particular canal. Secondly, I don't believe that it's going to help us in Panama or anywhere else in Central and South America. If we appear as though we have backed off under the threat of what you might say, a Panamanian muzzle or a rifle, and I think if we back off in this particular instance in a small country, not that that makes any great difference, but a country that doesn't have as many people as, for example, Dade County has in Florida.

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We've got more people there than they have in Panama. Now the whole United States has backed out of the treaty in a position which we have long held because of the threats of a few people like that. Then we're going to find the same kind of threat being made against us all over Central and South America.

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And we might as well give up Central and South America. We do it so I think we have to stand firm and we will later negotiate when they stopped their threats. Thank you very much. Senator George Smathers. I return you to your station announcer.