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Show INTERVIEW: Cuellar Page 15 contract funded. But I believe if I'm not mistaken, Judge Hernandez and Dr. Hector P. Gar~ia. GC Is he the founder of the GI Forum· that we referred to? RC The founder of the American GI Forum from Corpus Christi. At that time, of course, very influential with Lyndon Johnson, the President, and they had to make a couple of trips to Washington for that purpose; but as the story goes, Judge Hernandez and Dr. Garcia happened to be in Johnson's office for a reception-.· They decided to use that opportunity to find out what had h~~~ened to their proposal that was submitted week before. The story goes that Lyndon Johnson turned around to one of his aides and said, ''lvhat the hell happened to that proposal?" And at that point he said, '1 want everything released," so that's how it happened. And then it was in June of 1966 that SER finally became, was signed for an office in Albuquerque, a regional office. In 19, by 1967 some offices had been opened in Texas. Some local programs. GC Do you know how many? Or how big? RC Yes. The one in Corpus Christi, one in Houston, one in El Paso, and one in San Antonio. Very, very modest again. In the beginning, SER was funded out of what we call experimental and demonstrational funds out of "MDTA, which means SER was funded with the intention of keeping it for a total of approximately three years, no more. That's the maximum for an experimental and demonstrationai |
