Remarks to a Fund-raising Dinner for the Eisenhower Medical Center.

I'M GLAD to have this opportunity to express my best wishes to all of those who are attending the dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria for the Eisenhower Medical Center. And I just regret that the fact that we're giving a state dinner for Prime Minister Wilson in the White House makes it impossible for Mrs. Nixon and me to be with you tonight.

We are there in spirit. We're there in spirit for a number of reasons, but particularly because Bob Hope has given so much of his time through the years for other causes, and this is the first dinner he's ever asked his friends to come to for a cause in which he himself deeply is personally interested.

I'm glad that so many of you are there. And I hope that 'those who are there will continue to support the Eisenhower Medical Center, because when I think of president Eisenhower and the many monuments to his memory across this Nation, I don't believe there's one to which he would be more dedicated than the Eisenhower Medical Center.

He liked Palm Springs. He liked going there. He liked the people there. But beyond that, he was a man who was deeply interested in health. He was a man who triumphed over some very severe physical problems when he was President of the United States. And he was always interested in any kind of research which would enable the people of the United States to enjoy a better health and a better life.

And the fact that so many of his friends are gathered tonight in New York for the purpose of making his dream come true, of a medical center in Palm Springs which he loved so much--the fact that you are gathered there, I think, is something for which he would be deeply grateful.

Again, thank you very much for the opportunity to talk to you this way through a film. And I hope that before too long we can meet again in person.