MR. McGEE. Mr. Spivak with a question for Vice President Nixon.
MR. SPIVAK. Mr. Vice President, according to news dispatches, Soviet Premier Khrushchev said today that Prime Minister Macmillan had assured him that there would be a summit conference next year after the Presidential elections.
Have you given any cause for such assurance, and do you consider it desirable or even possible that there would be a summit conference next year if Mr. Khrushchev persists in the conditions he's laid down?
MR. NIXON. No, of course, I haven't talked to Prime Minister Macmillan. It would not be appropriate for me to do so. The President is still going to be President for the next 4 months and he, of course, is the only one who could commit this country in this period.
As far as a summit conference is concerned, I want to make my position absolutely clear. I would be willing as President to meet with Mr. Khrushchev, or any other world leader if it would serve the cause of peace. I would not be able--be willing to meet with him, however, unless there were preparations for that conference which would give us some reasonable certainty, some reasonable certainty that you were going to have some success. We must not build up the hopes of the world and then dash them as was the case in Paris.
There, Mr. Khrushchev came to that conference determined to break it up. He was going to break it up because he knew that he wasn't going to get his way on Berlin and on the other key matters with which he was concerned at the Paris Conference.
Now, if we're going to have another summit conference, there must be negotiations at the diplomatic level - the ambassadors, the Secretaries of State, and others at that level - prior to that time, which will delineate the issues and which will prepare the way for the heads of state to meet and make some progress. Otherwise, if we find the heads of state meeting and not making progress, we will find that the cause of peace will have been hurt rather than helped. So under these circumstances, I, therefore, strongly urge and I will strongly hold, if I have the opportunity to urge or to hold - this position: that any summit conference would be gone into only after the most careful preparation and only after Mr. Khrushchev - after his disgraceful conduct at Paris, after his disgraceful conduct at the United Nations - gave some assurance that he really wanted to sit down and talk and to accomplish something and not just to make propaganda.
MR. McGEE. Senator Kennedy.
MR. KENNEDY. I have no disagreement with the Vice President's position on that. My view is the same as his.
Let me say there is only one point I would add: That, before we go into the summit, before we ever meet again, I think it's important that the United States build its strength, that it build its military strength, as well as its own economic strength.
If we negotiate from a position where the power balance or wave is moving away from us, it's extremely difficult to reach a successful decision on Berlin, as well as the other questions.
Now, the next President of the United States, in his first year, is going to be confronted with a very serious question on our defense of Berlin. Our commitment to Berlin. There's going to be a test of our nerve and will. There's going to be a test of our strength and because we're going to move in 61 and 62, partly because we have not maintained our strength with sufficient vigor in the last years, I believe that before we meet that crisis that the next President of the United States should send a message to Congress asking for revitalization of our military strength because come spring or late in the winter, we're going to be face to face with the most serious Berlin crisis since l949 or 50.
On the question of the summit, I agree with the position of Mr. Nixon. I would not meet Mr. Khrushchev unless there were some agreements at the secondary level, foreign ministers or ambassadors, which would indicate that the meeting would have some hope of success or a useful exchange of ideas.
MR. McGEE. Mr. Levy with a question for Senator Kennedy.
MR. LEVY. Senator, in your acceptance speech at Los Angeles, you said that your campaign would be based not on what you intend to offer the American people, but what you intend to ask of them.
Since that time you have spelled out many of the things that you intend to do; but you have made only vague reference to sacrifice and self-denial.
A year or so ago I believe you said that you would not hesitate to recommend a tax increase if you considered it necessary.
Is this what you have in mind?
MR. KENNEDY. Well, I don't think that in the winter of 61 under present economic conditions, it--a tax increase would be desirable. In fact, it would be deflationary; it would cause great unemployment; it would cause a real slow-down in our economy. If it ever becomes necessary and is wise economically and essential to our security, I would have no hesitancy in suggesting a tax increase, or any other policy which would defend the United States. I have talked in every speech about the fact that these are going to be very difficult times in the 1960's and that we're going to have to meet our responsibility as citizens. I'm talking about a national mood. I'm talking about our willingness to bear any burdens in order to maintain our own freedom and in order to meet our freedom around the globe. We don't know what the future is going to bring but I would not want anyone to elect me President of the United States or vote for me under the expectation that life would be easy if I were elected.
Now, many of the programs that I'm talking about--economic growth, care for the aged, development of our natural resources--build the strength of the United States. That's how the United States began to prepare for its great actions in World War II and in the postwar period. If we're moving ahead, if we're providing a viable economy, if our people have sufficient resources so that they can consume what we produce, then this country is on the move. Then we're stronger. Then we set a better example to the world. So we have the problem not only of building our own military strength and extending our policies abroad, we have to do a job here at home. So I believe that the policies that I recommend come under the general heading of strengthening the United States. We're using our steel capacity 55 percent today. We're not able to consume what we're able to produce at a time when the Soviet Union is making great economic gains. And all I say is, I don't know what the sixties will bring except, I think they will bring hard times in the international sphere; I hope we can move ahead here at home in the United States; I'm confident we can do a far better job of mobilizing our economy and resources in the United States. And I merely say that they--if they elect me President, I will do my best to carry the United States through a difficult period but I would not want people to elect me because I promise them the easy soft life. I think it's going to be difficult but I am confident that this country can meet its responsibilities.
MR. McGEE. Mr. Vice President.
MR. NIXON. Well I think we should be under no illusions whatever about what the responsibilities of the American people will be in the sixties. Our expenditures for defense, our expenditures for mutual security, our expenditures for economic assistance and technical assistance are not going to get less. In my opinion, they're going to be be greater. I think it may be necessary that we have more taxes. I hope not. I hope we can economize elsewhere so that we don't have to. But I would have no hesitation to ask the American people to pay the taxes even in l961, if necessary, to maintain a sound economy and also to maintain a sound dollar. Because when you do not tax and tax enough to pay for your outgo, you pay it many times over in higher prices in inflation and I simply will not do that.
I think I should also add that as far as Senator Kennedy's proposals are concerned, if he intends to carry out his platform, the one adopted in Los Angeles, it is just impossible for him to make good on those promises without raising taxes or without having a rise in prices, or both. The platform suggests that it can be done through economic growth. That it can be done in effect with mirrors. But it isn't going to be working that way. You can't add billions of dollars to our expenditures and not pay for it. After all it isn't paid for by my money, it isn't paid for by his but by the people's money.
MR. McGEE. Mr. Niven with a question for Vice President Nixon.
MR. NIVEN. Mr. Vice President, you said that while Mr. Khrushchev is here, Senator Kennedy should talk about what's right with this country as well as what's wrong with the country. In the 1952 campaign when you were a Republican candidate for Vice President, and we were at war with the Communists, did you feel a similar responsibility to about what was right with the country?
MR. NIXON. I did. And as I have pointed out in 1952 I made it very clear that as far as the Korean War was concerned, that I felt that the decision to go into the war in Korea was right, and necessary. What I criticized were the policies that made it necessary to go to Korea. Now incidentally, I should point out here that Senator Kennedy has attacked our foreign policy, he's said that it's been a policy that has led to defeat and retreat and I'd like to know where have we been defeated and where have we retreated?
In the Truman administration 600 million people went behind the Iron Curtain, including the satellite countries of Eastern Europe and Communist China. In this administration we've stopped them at Quemoy and Matsu; we've stopped them in Indochina, we've stopped them in Lebanon, we've stopped them in other parts of the world.
I would also like to point out that as far as Senator Kennedy's comments are concerned, I think he has a perfect right and a responsibility to criticize this administration whenever he thinks we're wrong; but he has a responsibility to be accurate and not to misstate the case.
I don't think he should say that our prestige is at an all-time low. I think this is very harmful at a time Mr. Khrushchev is here, harmful because it's wrong. I don't think it was helpful when he suggested--and I'm glad he's corrected this to an extent--that 17 million people go to bed hungry every night in the United States. Now this just wasn't true. Now, there are people who go to bed hungry in the United States. Far less, incidentally, than used to go to bed hungry when we came into power at the end of the Truman administration, but the thing that is right about the United States that should be emphasized is that less people go to bed hungry in the United States than in any major country in the world.
We're the best fed; we're the best clothed, with a better distribution of this world's goods to all of our people than any people in history.
Now, in pointing out the things that are wrong, I think we ought to emphasize America's strengths. It isn't necessary to run America down in order to build it up.
Now, just so that we get it absolutely clear, Senator Kennedy must as a candidate, as I, as a candidate in 52, criticize us when we're wrong, and he's doing a very effective job of that, in his way.
But on the other hand, he has a responsibility to be accurate. And I have a responsibility to correct him every time he misstates the case.And I intend to continue to do so.
MR. McGEE. Senator Kennedy.
MR. KENNEDY. Well, Mr. Nixon, I'll just give you the testimony of Mr. George Aiken, Senator George Aiken, the ranking minority member--Republican member, and former chairman of the Senate Agricultural Committee, testifying in 1959 said there were 26 million Americans who did not have the income to afford a decent diet. Mr. Benson, testifying on the food stamp plan in 1957, said there were 25 million Americans who could not afford a elementary low-cost diet, and he defined that as someone who uses beans in place of meat.
Now, I've seen a good many hundreds of thousands of people who are not adequately fed. You can't tell me that a surplus food distribution of five cents per person, and that nearly 6 million Americans receiving that, is adequate. You can't tell me that any one who uses beans instead of meat in the United States, and there are 25 million of them according to Mr. Benson, is well fed or adequately fed. I believe that we should not compare what our figures may be to India or some other country that has serious problems, but to remember that we are the most prosperous country in the world and that these people are not getting adequate food, and they're not getting in many cases adequate shelter, and we ought to try to meet the problem.
Secondly, Mr. Nixon has continued to state, and he stated it last week, these fantastic figures of what the Democratic budget--platform would cost. They're wholly inaccurate. I said last week I believed in a balanced budget. AndUnless there was a severe recession and after all the worst unbalanced budget in history was in 1958, $12 billion dollars larger than in any administration in the history of the United States. So that I believe that on this subject we can balance the budget unless we have a national emergency or unless we have a severe recession.