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so it wouldn't take 1 14 0 force matters we present at this time an informal discussion with Senator George Smathers from the nation's capital. Now here is the first question. So this matters. You've been very close to the people of Florida in the last several weeks.

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I'd like you to break down for us, the various aspects that deal with Social Security, that is, payments to the people medicine so forth. Medical care. First, you are the author of a bill that had to do without that didn't pass last year. I believe. What are you going to do this year?

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Now let's start to argue. That question took exactly one minute. No, played one. Take to Smithers. We present at this time an informal discussion with Senator George Smathers from the nation's capital. Now here is the first question senators matters. Will there be an increase in Social Security payments to the people this year?

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Yes, I think that there's no question what we're going to pass a bill. As a matter of fact, we had ready to be passed last year, but the Congress stopped before we finally passed it, which will result in a minimum increase at a minimum at least if $7 a month increase in Social Security payments.

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Now, will the increase include raising the amount of money from the standpoint of the penalty being put on you so that you can work? Yes, What we're gonna do is this we have the bill now provides that if you work and you make $1200 a year, then that makes you ineligible to receive your Social security benefits.

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Now. We changed it several years ago so that you could make the $1200 within a period of a month or two, and you would only exclude in your receiving pay those just two months in which you get $1200. However, it's becoming more evident that their larger numbers of people who need to have at least part time work in order to meet their responsibilities of themselves and their wives and their family, and they want to be able to work and still draw their Social security payments in order to live in some kind of decency and dignity.

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So I have an amendment end and others do, too, but it will be before my committee. I think it will pass where we're going to raise the amount of money which they can earn on outside work up to $2400 and at the same time still receive their Social Security benefits.

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Now what about aid to the ages? From a standpoint of the Social Security approach? Uhh. We're going to increase the general old age assistance that will be increased in the in the general Social Security bill. Of course, these are people aside and apart from the Social Security bill.

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What about the medical aspects of that? Well, we're going to have, of course, a medical care bill passed this year and the question. In fact, we've known that one was going to pass sooner or later, and it's obvious it's going to pass this The year 1965.

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President Johnson. There's very strong fort, and there are plenty of votes in both the House and the Senate to get it through. The question is, how would it be financed now? I'm convinced now that there is sufficient votes. As a matter of fact, I now expect to support it, which will finance this medical care program, not necessarily under Social Security, but it will be by payroll taxes and collected in the same manner that the Social Security funds are collected.

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I hope that those funds for the medical program will be segregated and kept apart from the Social Security fund so that it demands and the expense of the medical program will not in any way in danger the funds of the regular Social Security payments. And this is going to be appointed issue.

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But there's no question, but what? There will be a medical care bill passed, and it will be financed by a payroll tax. How far does that bill go? What does it provide from the standpoint of aid? Well, actually, the present bill and the bill, which this administration and President Kennedy we're talking about.

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It only provides for hospital care and then only after a patient has been in the hospital for some nine days paying $10 a day, which is not a particularly generous bill. Now, it seems to me, if we're going to go this round, we ought to at least try to make the build somewhat more generous.

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The bill does not, of course, cover now doctor's bills or drugs or anything of that character, although it does cover some nursing home care. But we still have the caramels bill on the books, and the caramels Bill is a very generous bill. It hasn't worked very well thus far because the states have not actually contributed the amount of money which was needed in order to make it work.

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But with the two bills with the Social Security type approach bill that will cover hospitals and the terminals Bill, I'm satisfied that at the by the end of the year, 1965 all people who are in need and the elderly people will have adequate more than adequate medical care.

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Thank you very much, Senator George Smathers, because I can say I've been fortunate enough to be, you know, on all the briefings and get most of the facts. I'm further concerning that my own son is gonna destroyer out there, and the seventh Fleet had been up in the Gulf of Tonkin and and his boats been fired upon.

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So I have some personal interest to, but difficulty, very frankly, the problem is that we're in a difficult situation, and there's no easy way to resolve it. I'm certain that if we had our preference, we would like to get out with dignity and with honor and still maintain the integrity of South Vietnam and keep the 17th parallel where the people all below that would be free, as which was the agreement in Geneva in 1954 and again in 1962.

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But this, the Communists are not letting us do. On the other hand, we don't want to. Well, while we can't very well just walk off and leave them because to do so would give away Southeast Asia and roughly a million and a half people because after that Laos would go, Cambodia would go, Thailand would go and Malaysia would go and so on.

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And as Winston Churchill once said, we don't increase our own security by throwing little nations to the world. On the other hand, there are those who think that we ought to go further and bomb and attack all the way in the north. Now there's no question in my mind that what we do have the capacity destroy to destroy even red China where we'd undertake that.

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But the question is, how far can we go. And should we go and moving this war into the point where the Soviet Union has to really decide? Are we going to live up to our commitments and go to the aid of red China and North Vietnam or not, and therefore, in order to keep them from having to face that pretty tough decision, and nobody really knows how they're finally going to decide it.

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We have one with them when a absolute confrontation in Cuba in 1962. But you never know how far you can go with these things. So President Johnson has been trying to demonstrate that if they keep attacking us, it's going to be a very They're going to be struck back and very hard.

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But it's going to be a measured and limited return, and it's going to be terribly expensive for them if they try to overrun and take below the 17th parallel in South Vietnam. Some of our writers are criticizing the president for not giving us a line by line foreign policy as to what he plans to do in South Vietnam.

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Not can he do that? Well, I Some of the writers, of course, would like for the president to let everything out, and and they I guess some of them actually would like to run the foreign policy themselves. I think they could. I'm not particularly too impressed with the fact that some of the writers who have all the freedom to write, but none of the responsibility of decision if they can sit with perfect abandon and write whatever they want.

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Fact the matter is that most of the responsible writers which I know totally agree with the position which has been taken by President Johnson in this matter, which everyone recognizes is as grave a crisis as we have faced in a long, long time. And it it must be given the greatest amount of thought.

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And we must go into it with courage and with a desire to protect not only the free world position but certainly our position in our word. This past week we saw discussions between this country and the French government. Now the gall is putting the needle to us, saying that no outsider can win that battle over there or a small war.

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Well, the goal, of course, is still embittered about the fact that the Indochinese threw the French out of their 1954. It costs the French 134 casualties in some 25/25 of their best soldiers lives. And so he really believes that. And he may be right. There's no question about it.

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We, unfortunately find ourselves in a position of having gone in their 1954 at the recommendation of John Foster Dulles in order to fill the vacuum and a void that was left there. And each year we have found ourselves getting further and further committed in the area to now.

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Here we are with some 25,000 of our own troops out there and wondering just how we can resolve it without going into a total and big war. Thank you, Senator Status. This interview originated in your nation's capital. I return you now to your station announcer