Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 020-045
Date: Thursday, February 3, 1972 at 12:49 PM
Participants: Eisenhower, Julie Nixon; Nixon, Richard M. (President)
Recording device: White House Telephone
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/020-045

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.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] Daddy?
[0:03] Yeah, hi, Julie, how are you?
[0:04] Terrible rush?
[0:05] No, I'm not in a rush, no.
[0:06] I wanted to ask you a question.
[0:08] You know, when I went to Pittsburgh and everywhere I've gone, they ask me about busing.
[0:12] Busing?
[0:13] Yeah, and they always pick up things, and I just want to make sure I'm saying the right thing.
[0:17] Yeah.
[0:17] I said that the disadvantages outweigh any advantages.
[0:22] You're exactly right.
[0:23] I feel that it creates social chaos, and they use that a lot, and I just want to make sure that...
[0:29] Right.
[0:29] I would say this, that basically I'd add this one thing.
[0:32] That's fine what you've said.
[0:34] The second thing is to say that...
[0:38] that our goal really is to see that every child in America gets a fine education.
[0:46] Now, the Brown versus the Board of Education, the famous 1954 Supreme Court case, said that legally segregated education was inferior education.
[0:58] And we believe that.
[0:59] That's why we have removed the last vestiges of that.
[1:03] In other words, we've entered the dual school system in the South.
[1:07] On the other hand, I think it could also say that where younger children particularly are concerned...
[1:16] Where there is excessive busing, that also is inferior education.
[1:21] And therefore, our goal should be, how do we get superior education?
[1:26] And so we begin with two problems.
[1:28] One, there must be no legal segregation.
[1:32] Two, there must be the freedom of every child to go anywhere he wants to school.
[1:37] But third, there should not be no artificial force
[1:44] busing beyond normal limits, beyond the neighborhood schools, because that makes education inferior.
[1:51] See?
[1:51] Right.
[1:52] Sort of along those lines.
[1:53] Yeah, that's a big help.
[1:55] Okay.
[1:56] It really is.
[2:33] Thank you.