Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 014-138
Date: Tuesday, November 16, 1971 at 3:00 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); White House operator; Nixon, F. Donald
Recording device: White House Telephone
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/014-138

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:00] Hello.
[0:02] Your brother, Mr. President.
[0:03] Thank you.
[0:06] The President.
[2:21] on this filtering system for separation of water and oil, taking oil out of the water, you know, for the bilge water and also for just a breakthrough that is, this man, I happen to be the guy, one of them that found this fellow.
[2:38] A couple of friends, one fellow's a big supporter of Ray Murphy, a wealthy fellow, always supported him heavily.
[2:46] And we found this guy who has no education, but he's an Oklahoma boy.
[2:52] That is genius.
[2:54] And Fort Belvoir have been testing his unit out of 126 companies.
[3:00] His filtering system is the only one that came up to anything near what they wanted in a way of, you know, to do the job.
[3:12] You can separate that damn water out of the oil and it's pure enough that you can drink it.
[3:19] It's unbelievable.
[3:20] The Navy people have told him that he's accomplished what they hoped to accomplish by 1985.
[3:27] And he's the only one of the 126 companies that had the program.
[3:33] The guy that heads up Fort Belvoir told me directly, told Ed Dez, that without this man's system, that they wouldn't have a program for this cleanup of the oceans, you know, with those cars going to take care of.
[3:46] Here's what the man needs.
[3:48] He needs some encouragement.
[3:49] There's a fellow, a very good friend of Eddie's, that needs to push the services here to get these damn things through all the red tape, if you know what I mean.
[4:00] This man is a former captain of the Navy, Meyer Minchin.
[4:07] You want to talk to Ed about him.
[4:08] This fellow, he's for 10 months now, he's a wealthy man from Texas.
[4:14] He's had oil out there, and he is working for Chief of Naval Operations on a special project, trying to help him accomplish, you know, to push things through, for no pay at all.
[4:27] And he says he doesn't want any part of this, but he wants to see this program go.
[4:31] And here's a fellow that I think it would be, Ed should get involved in it, because he knows him, he's known him for years in the Navy, and he would like to get involved in...
[4:43] being able to, in other words, expedite some of these programs that you are trying to get through and aren't getting through.
[4:49] And by God, he's the damnedest expediter I've ever heard of.
[4:52] I mean, I was with him just two different meetings that I just sat there just to listen, you know, and I'm very much impressed with him.
[4:59] I think that it'd be worth your time to meet him sometime and just hear what he has to say.
[5:19] A fellow that knows about it is John Whitaker on our, maybe he could talk, he's a geologist.
[5:24] Ed talked to John Whitaker and told him about him.
[5:28] And John Whitaker, Ed said, now if John Whitaker does something about it, fine.
[5:32] If he doesn't, he can't do anything more than that.
[5:33] Now that's what Ed did.
[5:35] I'm telling you about it directly because, Dick, I'll tell you, if this thing can be pushed and gotten through within this next year, it'll be one of the
[5:44] A real plus for the political campaign.
[5:47] Because if you could see what this filter will accomplish, he can upgrade jet fuels from JP-4 up to JP-7 for a few pennies.
[5:57] As an example, JP-7 costs about $0.36 a gallon.
[6:01] JP-4 is only about $0.10 or $0.11 a gallon.
[6:04] And he can bring those together.
[6:06] When did he talk to Whitaker about it?
[6:07] Just last week.
[6:09] Time to talk to Whitaker again.
[6:12] I have to rely on him, you see, because he's the expert.
[6:15] He knows how.
[6:16] Could I do this?
[6:17] Could I call Whitaker and ask that he might call Minchin and let Minchin tell him what he thinks of this?
[6:22] Minchin is somewhat of a geologist, and he's in the Navy.
[6:25] He knows how important this is to the services.
[6:28] Sure, you could just... Every Navy ship, you know, is going to have to, and all these tankers have to be cleaned up.
[6:32] Sure, that's fine.
[6:33] Is that all right?
[6:34] Absolutely, sure.
[6:35] No problem at all.