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Statement by the Vice President of the United States, on Recession, New York, NY

November 02, 1960

Senator Kennedy hopes by sheer repetition to convince Americans that they are in trouble - trouble in almost every department - world position, military strength, economic progress, scientific and educational advances.

He, of course, represents himself as the modern Pied Piper who will pipe the troubles out of the land.

We have listened to his piping in this campaign and it is clear what would happen.

If he pursued the programs he has advocated domestically - programs which could only produce cruel inflation and Government interference with every aspect of our economic life, he could only pipe us to recession or worse.

If he pursued the policies abroad which he has suggested, apology to Khrushchev, retreat in the Pacific, open interference in Cuba, he could only pipe us into grave international crisis or worse.

Take a specific field: Senator Kennedy's campaign to talk us into a recession has now reached phase 2.

If elected, he says, he will counsel with President Eisenhower about how to deal with it.

It is quite a political gimmick. First he conjures up a recession - which we're not having - then he says if elected he will be glad to meet with President Eisenhower to see how to deal with it.

The solution for Senator Kennedy's recession will come from the voters on November 8. If they do what I am fully confident they will do, he won't need to worry about holding such a conference because he will not be the new President and there will be no recession.

The American people have an instinct that is seldom wrong. They know that the way to avoid a recession is to defeat Senator Kennedy and his grandiose schemes for tampering with an economic system that has given America in the past 8 years the greatest prosperity in history.

The people know what works and what won't work and the people know that the strong probability is that the Senator's election to the Presidency would produce the very recession he constantly talks about. That's why they are not going to elect him.

That's why his self-serving proposal for a conference with President Eisenhower is just plain silly.

Senator Kennedy's latest proposal is like the story of the neighborhood boy who offered to talk with the fire chief about how to put out the fire he just started.

Richard Nixon, Statement by the Vice President of the United States, on Recession, New York, NY Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/273673