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How do you do? Ladies and gentlemen, this is my first report to you for the year 1965 of the activities which will occur in this the first session of the 89th Congress. I hope that these reports to you, which will occur on a weekly basis, will be informative and helpful to you.

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They will. I'll try to make them about matters that I think are not only interest to all of Florida but of interest to the nation. Now the format for this program will be, of course, always informal. But I will sometimes make a statement such as I'll do on this occasion.

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Other times we will have members of the Florida press to come in and ask us questions. And then from time to time, you have seemed in the past to find it interesting to have me bring the letters which people write to me, raising various problems and read you those problems and then try to give you, in effect, answers which I write back.

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This will be the type of program that will run. If you have any suggestions that you think we should follow why, Please don't hesitate to send them into us because we do want to make it your program. I would say right here now that I'm very grateful to the radio stations and the television stations that run this program, and I would appreciate when you have the opportunity.

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Thanking the owners and the news editors of these various stations, the Senate met the first time this year on January the fourth. The first matter of business was the election of the officers of the Senate. I was pleased and delighted with the fact that I was re elected as the secretary of the Democratic Conference, which so it stated, makes me the third ranking Democrat in the machinery of the Senate here by being a secretary of the Democratic Conference.

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I'm automatically thereafter on the Policy Committee of the Senate and on the steering Committee. And of course I was re elected to my regular committees, which are the Finance and Taxation Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee. I will make reports specifically to you from time to time about matters of our committee.

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We heard a magnificent message on that same day from the president of the United States outlining what he felt was the state of the Union. It was quite a specific message, quite lengthy message. I think it held out hope for everyone. It held out hope not only for us all domestically, economically, but it also held out hope for our affairs around the world.

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Now I think the big issues that we will face in the Senate and in the Congress this year, of course, divide themselves into economic lines and into foreign affairs matters. I think we can handle the economic matters. All right. As you people well understand, we are now enjoying a and an enormous prosperity.

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We're now in our 49th month of a continued plateau of prosperity without a recession or a depression. We have had income at the highest level that we've never before seen in all of our history, not only in so far as family income is concerned, but even business and corporation income.

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It's also reached an all time high. We find hourly wages are higher than they've ever been before. I think we can have a look forward to a tax cut again this year and the excise field. This, of course, should further stimulate the economy so our concern this year is not so much about how we get along domestically.

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I think we'll do very well. Our big concern is how can we control matters around the world, at least so that we can live in peace here in the United States? It would be anything other than candid not to state that we are in deep difficulty in South Vietnam.

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Conditions unfortunately continue to unravel out there. We are trying to determine whether or not we should pick up and move out or whether or not we should go forward with greater demonstrations of power or whether we should try to develop an indigenous force there and where we can at least bring about a stalemate and try to achieve a political and negotiated peace.

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These are the problems that I will go into great detail with you and later telecast and broadcast. I thank you for looking and listening in at this time. I invite you to be with us next week for further discussion about these many important matters. I am a woman's club in Miami, and during the course of that speech I outlined what I thought we should do about Cuba.

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As a matter of fact, I do believe that we're going to see the end of Fidel Castro in this the year 1965. I am confident that there is a growing infection in so far as he's concerned in his own military forces, which is going to result in some sergeant, possibly some major colonel rising up to overthrow Fidel himself.

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This is the custom of coups and revolutions in Latin America. They spring from within, and I'm satisfied that conditions are so chaotic all over the island of Cuba and particularly now beginning to impinge upon the well being and welfare of those in the military services to the point where someone who imagines himself as the new leader will rise up and get rid of Fidel in so far as the balance of Latin America is concerned, I think we're doing very well.

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I should add before I go to Latin America that I still strongly favor the creation of a Cuban government in exile. I believe that this will help hurry the day along when Fidel Castro is thrown, is overthrown. I'm satisfied that it would be helpful to have some government recognized because it would then let the Cubans you'll be able to see the Cubans within Cuba be able to see that the United States did not approve and has never approved of the government of Fidel Castro and that we will recognize another government.

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And it would at the same time, permit that Cuban government in exile to become a focal point through its supplies and help could be funneled in order to hurry the day along when the uprising does occur within Cuba. Now in so far as the other areas of Latin America concern, I think we're in somewhat better shape than we have been in many years.

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You will recall that Fidel Castro and the Communists tried to have an overthrow of the duly elected government in Venezuela recently. They did not succeed there. You will recall that we this time last year we had a very bad situation in Brazil, with the government of Johnny Goulart turning itself for all practical purposes over into the hands of the Communist.

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That government is now gone, and there is a new government there which is pro Western in its philosophy and ideology. They are doing a good job with respect to meeting the needs of the people and controlling inflation within the country. More recently, there was an election in Chile.

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The Communists were very anxious to control Uhh that country and they put lots of money and lots of effort into an attempt to win that election and get control of the country. And we're happy to remind you that the forces of freedom prevailed in Chile and the Communists were defeated.

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The same thing occurred in some measure in Argentina, But throughout Latin America today, the conditions are better in so far as the United States in the free world is concerned than they have been for some time in Western Europe. Where are standing is good. We're not, of course, going to get the multilateral force, which was recommended by President Kennedy as a means of heading off.

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And the Germans and other nations are developing atomic weapons. He wanted to stop the proliferation of atmospheric tests, and this was his suggestion. DeGaulle, of course, came out strongly against it, and since that time the eagle has been successful in getting Chancellor Erhard of the German government to join with him, and it's now thumbs down on the multilateral force.

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But in any event, with the exception of the government of France, we stand in great rapport and friendship with all the other governments of Western Europe. Yeah, I do believe that the people of France, of course, they're still appreciative of us. Why President de Gaulle of France continues to harass us.

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I'm not exactly certain. He's just recently tried to hurt our financial position by taking 150 million of dollars, which had accumulated in asking for a goal and more recently, now he suggested that we go off the gold exchange completely and that the dollar and the pound be ignored and we set up a new standard.

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All of which, of course, is calculated to downgrade the United States. Nevertheless, I think things are optimistic for us there. I see that my time is up. Ladies and gentlemen, I will go further into this subject in future broadcast. I thank you for listening in. I hope you're listening again at the same time next week.

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This is Senator George Smathers, inviting you to tune into my weekly program, meets Tuesday morning at 7 30 and again at 5 25 Tuesday afternoon on radio station W. M G. The voice of Kate Kennedy. Tuesday morning at 7 30