Two of the four nationwide TV debates between
my opponent and me have been held. They reveal cleavages which are crucial
for our future at home and in the world.
We should point up these differences right
now. I will discuss them further as the campaign moves along.
My opponent has endorsed certain domestic
programs, and has subscribed to foreign policy ideas that I am convinced
would be harmful to our people, would weaken America, and would endanger
peace and freedom in the world.
In foreign affairs, there is an appalling
list:
My opponent continues to tell the American
people - and all the listening world - of his doleful contention that the
United States is disrespected and disliked throughout the community of
nations.
He continues to assert that the President
of the United States could have expressed regrets or apologized to Mr.
Khrushchev at Paris for the measures he had taken to defend the United
States against surprise attack.
He wants America to tell our Chinese Nationalist
allies in effect to surrender Quemoy and Matsu - islands which symbolize
Free China's resistance to the spread of Asian communism - to Red China.
He raises doubt regarding our Armed Forces
- the most powerful on earth, and the anchor of liberty everywhere.
My opponent contends that the Voice of America
is weak, ignoring both its growth under President Eisenhower and the fact
that Congresses controlled by Senator Kennedy and his followers have cut
the funds requested by the President.
Senator Kennedy pledges to give energetic
new leadership in world councils. He should explain to the American people,
first, his negligence to hold meetings this year of his Senate Subcommittee
on Africa, of which he is chairman; and second, his failure to attend even
one meeting of the Senate Disarmament Subcommittee since his appointment
to it in 1958.
He now calls for standing up to Caribbean
and South American dictators, but he fails to mention the fact that 11
dictators were in power in this area in 1953 when our administration took
over, and now only 3 are left.
He insists that the world looks to the Soviets
for active leadership instead of to America, even though on every major
issue in the United Nations in the past 7½ years where the United
States has been on one side and the Soviet Union on the other, the United
States position has prevailed.
All this leads me to the conclusion that my
opponent is inventing issues where, in fact, they do not exist, indicating
weaknesses where, in reality, there is strength.
At home, our differences are likewise crucial
to the Nation's future.
He promises Federal spending of billions of
dollars in excess of revenues, and therefore pledges, in effect, to return
to runaway inflation or to increased Federal taxation of the American people.
He hints at intervention that would jeopardize
the independence of the Federal Reserve System which is required to keep
our money sound.
He promises a farm program that would force
drastic cutbacks in production and marketing, force 2 million people out
of work, trigger off inflation, sharply raise food prices, create food
scarcity, and regiment all agriculture by setting up all sorts of new regulations
and creating new battalions of Government overseers to watch over and tell
every farmer what he could or could not do.
He promises to impose a mandatory medical
care plan for the aged on every one of the millions of citizens covered
by social security, no matter what their personal desires, and leave 3
million Americans with no medical care program at all. My plan would not
be compulsory and would provide medical care programs for all those who
needed and wanted them.
My opponent promises to begin using Federal
funds for the payment of teachers' salaries, opening a door that would
surely lead to Federal control of what is taught in our schools.
Hardly a significant area in American life
can remain untouched if his philosophy of federalism as reflected in these
programs were to be adopted.
Freedom weakened at home, our economic strength
undercut by lavish spending that leads to more inflation or more taxes
our leadership in the world blunted by muddled thinking about the stern
demands of the fateful struggle confronting us - there is the prospect
for America revealed in the programs and statements of my opponent.
As a matter of duty to the American people,
I must make that prospect clear in the future debates with my opponent
and as I campaign throughout the country.