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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 that Senator Smathers I'd like your comment on the recent remarks made by the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Mr Fulbright.

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Now you're a member of that committee yourself. How do you feel about this Cuban attitude he's taking? Well, I, of course, have great respect for Senator Fulbright. I have great affection for me. As a matter of fact, he and I related, but I admire his intellectual capacity greatly, But I disagree with him totally with respect to what he had to say about our policy on Cuba.

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I think that it's wrong and very major respects on first respect. I think that just if you took the attitude that because Castro had been there five years and we had been unsuccessful and yet overthrown him, therefore we ought to give up. If you follow that policy to its logical conclusion or if we'd had that policy back in 1776 we would have never won our freedom from the British because we lost for three years in that particular fight.

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We would never accomplish a cure for disease because we fight disease and we fight bad things for years on end until we finally win. If we believe in what we do, that right in, the final analysis is going to prevail. And I think that we must continue this fight against Fidel Castro.

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I think the unfortunate part of Fulbright speech with respect to Cuba was that here are people throughout Central and South America who look to us as the principal leader. Uhh. In the fight against communist dictatorship, a dictatorship of any kind. They're fighting the Communists in their own country, and all of a sudden they see a statement of this character which indicates, well, we should sort of stop fighting and start doing business with him and recognize he's there, in fact, and it's terribly discouraging to them.

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So overall, I think that it's not a sound policy which he has enunciated. It's one which will create a good deal of discussion. It's one which some people will agree with. I don't happen to agree with it. I think that if we are the leader of the free world, if we are against communism, and we say we're against communism and we have said it over and over again.

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We have in our treaties with all the Latin American countries based on our fight against communism and dictatorship. I think we have a solemn obligation to keep fighting it wherever it is because it is evil and it is brutal. And it isn't amicable to the best interests of the United States and people who believe in freedom now.

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He also made a statement in reference to Panama, which was shocking to many, many people here in Washington. How did you react to that? Well, I I had somewhat the same reaction. I felt that what he had to say about the our position with respect to Panama, boil yourself down to the general thesis that if you are big somehow, you must not be right.

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I don't believe that is the case. We are big. But just because we're big in Panama Small doesn't mean that we should say Panama because you're small and because we're big. Therefore you must be right, and therefore we will agree to what your argument is now.

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I do believe we have to be fair at all times. But in this particular instance, with respect to our disagreement with Panama over what we ought to do with respect to the canal in the 19 oh three treaty, the president of the United States has stated we are willing to discuss all of the issues.

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But we're not going into any conference where there is an agreement in advance that we are going to reframe the 1903 Treaty. So I disagree with Senator Fulbright on that particular point. I think that if we believe we're right and feel that we're right, then we've got to stand on that assumption and believe that we're right.

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We're going to be fair, Yes, but we're we believe in justice and we believe in right. Just because we're big, we're not going to give away anything. Some of our very expert, so called political pundits are trying to sending up a trial balloon and saying, Well, perhaps this is the president speaking through the words of senator for the case at all.

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No, As a matter of fact, the administration has already issued a statement that they knew nothing about this this this speech, which Fulbright was going to make and that their position has been against Fidel Castro and Cuba. And insofar as Panama is concerned, they have refused to negotiate, as Panama has suggested, because they want a, uh, an agreement in advance.

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And I do not think that Fulbright anyway represented the administration viewpoint. Thank you very much, Senator Smathers. I return you now to your station announcer. I'd like to go back, senator and ask you what has been done as a result of your pointing out that a Cuban helicopter landed in Florida undetected and that possibly this could happen on a much grander scale.

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Has there been any reaction to that? Well, there's been a lot of reaction, I mean by the people of Florida and certainly the people of Key West. They're alarmed about it. World justifiably alarmed about it, just as I was, because it seems a little ridiculous that we have all these very sophisticated warning systems and we can know when a missile is shot at it 60 miles away.

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But here's a helicopter can come in from Cuba with a couple of student pilots and landed municipal airport, and people don't even know it's there and the manager goes out and says, Where you from? They, he, George, Geraldo, He can speak Spanish, of course. And then they explained.

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So then that man has to call the military and say Here you better come over here and look into this. But in any event, we have. Since that time I've talked with Secretary McNamara on the telephone and he wrote me a letter. And the following day he sent over a lieutenant general who represented the chief of staff and who's in charge of this type of defense work to explain just what happened.

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And we had the representatives that Congressman Ed Gurney from Orlando was in attendance, and the representatives of all the Senator Hollande's office and the other congressmen they were there. So we got this secret briefing as to just what did happen and just what the situation is with respect to their coverage and the radar operations.

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And I would be permitted only to say that apparently some reevaluation is going on and we'll go on. And I don't think that there's any immediate danger of this happening again any time in the near future. Well, we're still speaking of international affairs. What is your overall impression of the recent visit of President de Gaulle to the Western Hemisphere?

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Well, I think we must remember that France, of course, since Napoleonic times has been interested in in South America. As a matter of fact, I think we will recall that Napoleon, actually at one time made over two years to Mexico during his reign. And then, of course, they came into Haiti and established the French Republic there.

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Uhh For I was not personally as alarmed about the Eagles visit as some others seem to be. While I don't necessarily always agree with Charles de Gaulle, nevertheless, I think in giving him all. In all fairness, we've got to say that he's been a great leader of France and he was a great fighter for the free world.

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In World War two, he has stabilized conditions in France, and I think he's now stepping out and trying to reestablish. France is a great world power. That's all right. If they will agree to help the United States in our efforts to stabilize these countries of Latin America, I would not want to see and and he specifically stated he in Lopez Mateos, who's the president of Mexico, that they were not trying to undo any thing that the United States has done it then This effort on Charles de Gaulle's part was in no wise directed at the United States.

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But I felt like this was an opportunity for us to say to him. Now you've come over here and you've traveled throughout the Caribbean into your particular areas and you've seen the problem. Why don't you help us in some of these foreign aid programs technical assistance so that we can get these countries economically stable and so that we can establish free governments and and sound democratic governments in this area of the world and help us fight communism in this area?

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So it seemed to me it was a good opportunity and still is to call on him now for for helping us in our joint efforts to stop the encroachments and intrusions of communism into this area. I'd like to go into this in a later broadcast, but you've been appointed to attend the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, which will be meeting in Geneva.

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You'll be one of the two senators. What is your attitude going to be on opening up things for more or less free trade? Well, first, I'd like to say, by virtue of the Civil Rights Bill, I'm not going to be able to go. And in view of the fact that I do have rather decided views and we don't have any time left on this whole matter of trade will have to go into that at some other time.

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Thank you very much. Senator George Smathers. I return you now to your station announcer.