Well, President Kennedy and I served together in both the House and the
Senate. We had been personal friends. My wife and his wife were warm
friends. In fact, Mrs. Gore and I were two of a small party one night
when young Congressman Kennedy was the odd young man and Jacqueline
Bouvier was the odd young woman, and they hadn't met before. There was
some evidence of interest even that night.
[Laughter]
So we were friends, and I had to a considerable extent forged the
economic issue on the floor of the Senate on which Kennedy ran for the
presidential nomination and for the election.
Page 36 I was
active in his campaign. And after his election I discovered that he was
going to appoint Douglas Dillon as Secretary of the Treasury. He was
right out of Wall Street then. I strongly disagreed with that. Now, on
the specific question about which you inquired, Kennedy had wanted to
stimulate the national economy, and obviously stimulation was in order.
And one of the ways to stimulate the national economy was through fiscal
affairs; another was monetary. But he appointed the wrong man to use
democratic monetary policy, so it was principally fiscal policy:
governmental expenditures to stimulate the national economy. Now there
are two ways to provide for governmental expenditures: one is tax cuts,
which means you take it away from the treasury and leave it in the hands
of those who otherwise would pay taxes. Or you proceed to continue with
the existing taxation, but appropriate those funds and perhaps others,
or some of those funds, for expenditure. I went out to see Kennedy. We
had a very long discussion. He asked me to come out to his home in
Georgetown—this was before he was inaugurated—to
pass the evening so no one would interrupt us. So we had at it for about
two hours, this whole question of economics for national administration:
fiscal policy, monetary policy.
Then later on when this particular issue of tax reduction was under
consideration I remember going to Mrs. Roosevelt's funeral at Hyde Park.
President Kennedy had flown on Air Force One and another delegation had
flown on, I believe, maybe two other planes. We all landed at, I
believe, West Point, the nearest airport to Hyde Park where large planes
could land. At the home, before the ceremonies, President Kennedy and I
met; he sort of plucked me aside and said, "What do you think I ought to
do about tax reduction?" I said, "Forget it." Well, he wasn't ready to
forget it,
Page 37 and this led to an extended
conversation. I saw a larger and larger line forming to shake hands with
the President, and I became a little nervous. But he wanted to talk.
Anyway, I finally just said, "Mr. President, so many people are waiting
to see you; maybe we can get together later." So I just excused myself.
It was a little embarrassing to break myself away from the President,
but after all
[Laughter] it's like being
at a telephone booth when you've got twelve people waiting to use it and
you have a good long chatty conversation with someone. Anyway, after the
funeral, we were out at the airport, everybody on the plane, and our
plane was held up. And we were waiting and waiting and waiting; no one
knew why. Of course we couldn't take off until Air Force One took off.
Then I noticed a car coming across the field. It came up to our plane,
and the door opened. Apparently someone came in at the front of the
plane and said, "Is Senator Gore a passenger on this plane?" I said,
"Yes, I am he." He says, "President Kennedy would like you to ride back
with him on Air Force One." I turned and bowed deeply to my colleagues
on the plane, and they gave me the horse laugh.
[Laughter] I went and boarded President Kennedy's plane, and
he and I discussed the merits and demerits as we saw them between
governmental stimulation by way of appropriated funds or by way of tax
reductions. I'll not review that whole issue for you, but I have a
chapter in my book
Let The Glory Out which deals with
that subject, where I outlined with considerable detail my views of the
much greater merit of expenditure by way of appropriating funds through
the specific areas of need rather than by tax reduction, which usually
gives relief where it is least needed.